#i think this is the most tags I've ever written

[perfectlypreservedpie]

MacCready Fanfiction Recs (Fallout 4)

hey everybody, nobody asked for this but in the midst of writing fallout fanfic I was feeling a special kind of love for my favorite fo4 fanfics and wanted to recommend them in case you hadn't read 'em. Because they are VERY GOOD and writing fanfic is hard, so you gotta give props to those who sweat for your comfort fics.

I'm gonna recommend my top three finished fanfics, and then two more bonus fics that are being updated rn. As a clarifier, these are all Maccready fallout 4 fics. so. keep that in mind.

im tagging the authors and also anybody who wants to join and share their favorites too!

3. THE FATHER(S) AND THE SON(S) on ao3 by @sirmanmister

I'm going to preface this rec by saying this: there is Fanon MacCready. There is canon MacCready. And then there is ascended!whatBethesdawishesitWAS MacCready, which exists solely in this fanfiction. The characterization of Mac is so well written. He is snarky, he is vulnerable. He desperately wants to grow up but doesn't know how. He has the most sick character arc in this story!!!

It's not a romance but instead a coming of age story where the sole survivor becomes a de-facto parent to Mac. The heart of the story is about how to raise a child while you're still trying to grow up yourself. The apocalypse setting lends itself well because the Wasteland is a place where NOTHING is beautiful, but the way that M!Sosu and MacCready care for their sons is beautiful. Which makes it special and worth fighting for.

As a fun fact, I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy for class a week after finishing this fic and I was thinking about this fic the whole time because the themes of fatherhood during an apocalypse hit a lot of the same beats. Maybe my professor would kick me in the teeth by comparing fic to McCarthy, but @sirmanmister YOU ARE MY CORMAC MCCARTHY <3

2. WORKING CLASS HERO on ao3 by @bluegrasskitty

This is the kind of fic you take with you to toilet, to work, in-between classes. It will suck you in. AND THERE'S A SEQUEL TOO YOU GUYS‼️

The sole survivor in this story is the model for the Nuka Cola girl. You know the hot lady in the spacesuit? SHE HAS A BACKSTORY. AND YALL IT MADE ME WEEP. During some point of the story, I sort of stopped rooting for MacCready to be the narrator and just wanted Nora Cabot to take the reins. When I tell you I think of this oc every two to three business weeks. She's an incredible leading lady. I can't look at Nuka Girl posters in the game without thinking of Nora Cabot, my beloved.

the sequel IS SO FIRE. It's the best reimagining of 'what happened after the institute blew up' that I've ever read. im gnawing at the bars of my enclosure actually.

A VERY GOOD PLOT TWIST I CANNOT MENTION TO NEW READERS BUT IF YOU'VE READ IT YOU'LL UNDERSTAND. AND IF YOU UNDERSTAND DM ME I HAVE TO TALK TO SOMEBODY ABOUT IT. HHh.

The amount of world building that @bluegrasskitty puts into this story is insane. They ARE Beth Esda.

As a fun fact, I didn't know that radchickens were canon in fallout. I thought it was a plot device made up by this author to excuse the ability to make cake in this book, but radchickens ARE real. When I was playing Far Harbor last year, I found radchickens and thought that @bluegrasskitty manifested them into existence because they had that kind of power.

that being said, I still think this author has that kind of power.

1. Atom Bomb Baby on ao3 by @starlightwrites

I think you dropped something....my jaw.

fellas. fellas. this is my comfort fic. You ever had a comfort fic? Something you come back to at least once a year to reread to feel something? the fiction equivalent of chicken noodle soup? this is what Atom Bomb Baby is to me. this is peak literature actually. if I ever figure out book binding, im doing this one first.

Plot wise, it's a retelling of Fallout 4's main story through the perspective of MacCready. But (and im wheezing as I say this) it's also so much more THAN THAT.

this fic author understands that MacCready is not a womanizer but is in fact a touch starved loser. and they are CORRECT.

MacCready spends the entire fic like 'uuuhhhh I dunno about this one, boss!'

ITS BEST FRIENDS TO LOVERS RAHHHHHH

it also has a nostalgia feel to me too, because reading it gives me the same feeling as what it was like to play the game for the first time, years ago. maybe it's because I've read it so many times over the years, but reading it feels so satisfying.

The author spends 10 chapters at the end solely dedicated to an epilogue. I wish more stories did this. They go through the wringer in this story, and it's so deeply satisfying to see how cleanly everything gets wrapped up. MacCready and the Lola work really well together as a couple, so it's awesome to see how they work together after the battle is done.

6 out of 5 stars.

BONUS FICS !! aka fics that are still updating! I squeal with joy when I get an ao3 email about these: 1. Best Laid Plans on ao3 by @druidgroves - Georgia Tate is an incredible character and sole survivor! She was a teacher prewar, so it's really fun to get her perspective on the world. She cares a lot about education and libraries and I find her really relatable and endearing. It's a cool thing for a character in an apocalypse to care about! It also makes for fun tension with Mac, who's written as a pragmatic survivor. A great take on familiar characters and their dynamics. - And It's a great slow burn! I'm really enjoying reading it. 2. Long Time Running on ao3 by @twosides--samecoin - If you've ever thought that Med-Tek was too convenient an option for Duncan's cure, this fic was written with you in mind. - RJ goes to Canada and im obsessed with it. - If you're interested in fallout lore, specifically the bit where the U.S annexed Canada and wished that there was more info about that, I would highly recommend this fic. Twosides--samecoin put in THE WORK. The world building they do to explain Canada's side of the Great War is so fun!!! its genuinely such a thrill to read!

I'm tagging the authors who I mentioned, if you all have favorite fics (fallout or otherwise, I'd love to hear em!) Thank you for making good art!

[izupie]

It really bothers me to see fanfiction writers discussing how to/how not to write certain characters. because I'm like, my dudes. we are on tumblr dot com. we are writing stories about our favourite characters like they're dolls in the dollhouses of our mind.

you can't be sitting there on some kind of fanfiction high horse preaching out that everyone "can't" write this certain character in the way you've decided that you, personally, don't like.

i don't care how many hits your fics have got - like that makes you valid?

filter out the tags you don't enjoy on ao3 by all means, but you can't turn around and say that the way you dislike them being written is 'wrong' - that's your opinion and that's great but it doesn't affect how someone else writes them.

who are you that your opinion matters more? who are you to be the judge and jury on what is in or out of character when you didn't even create them in the first place? sound confident and condescending all you want, doesn't make your opinion any more or less valid than any other fan in the fandom.

Write characters any way you want to. fanfiction is supposed to be fun. if another fan tries to police you about the way you've portrayed a certain character tell them that you hope their toast always burns. and that they need a new hobby.

[joyfuladorable]

< Prev Doodles | First Set of Doodles

Surprise, @redstringraven!! Guess who watched a playthrough of Horizon Forbidden West AND the DLC Burning Shores and Then proceeded to reread Pretend that I Never Left and draw Four More DOODLE PAGES!!!! To all the 2k3 Mikey fans out there, this is the fic for you!

[front-facing-pokemon]

there is an affect to the way you talk in tags that is incredibly charming and endearing. i feel like i would love to sit and listen to you talk about literally whatever for hours?

this is. one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. thank you! i make an effort to talk in a very specific way. i like to think i've curated the way i speak very well over the course of my life to represent a version of me that i want to be. it came with the territory of making an effort to be nicer after having been mean for so long

[neversetyoufree]

What are your thoughts about Vanijeanne and Dominoé? A lot of people think that they’re forced and have no chemistry whatsoever, especially with Vanijeanne. As a Vanoé shipper, I don’t really mind Vanijeanne but I see a lot of people who are annoyed at that ship. Could you give your perspective on this discourse?

Y'know anon, generally speaking my opinion on anything that can be labeled "shipping discourse" is "I am an adult woman with a job and thus physically incapable of caring about this." It takes a lot for me to find other people's shipping habits actively annoying, as I mostly just. ignore and/or block anything that I'm personally not into.

My personal thoughts on shipping are also colored by the fact that I have a somewhat uncommon relationship to the concept. My engagement with fandom has become extremely focused on analysis rather than transformation in the past few years. I am much more hung up on focusing on canon and canon only than I think a lot of other people are. My opinion on Vnc ships is mostly defined by "do I think they're attracted to each other in canon?" which I realize is not how everyone else picks their favorite romances.

I suppose my take on DomiNoé is that I don't ship them, but mostly that's just not really the context in which I think about their relationship. My read on canon is that Domi's crush on Noé is unrequited. I don't think he's shown evidence of being attracted to her, and I also think it would really undermine the amusement park arc's thematic beats if it turned out Domi's jealousy of Jeanne was "justified." I wrote way more about this previously.

I love Domi and Noé's relationship. I find it tragic and fascinating, and there's a lot of love between them. Given the physical/blood aspect of their whole thing, they're like, super close friends with benefits in which one of the friends is madly in love with the other. And also the one that's in love is deeply traumatized and mentally ill and obsessed with not being a burden to the other guy. And the one that's not in love is compulsively unable to recognize both the crush and the trauma. I could write about their weird-ass bullshit forever. How could you say they don't have chemistry?

However, I'm aware that "I think Noé's feelings are platonic and I love digging into their tragic dysfunction" isn't generally what a person means when they say they "ship" DomiNoé. So like, I dunno man. My relationship to their whole thing is kinda separate from the concept of shipping. I'm just here to watch the toxic drama.

And on the VaniJeanne end it's like. Their relationship is a whole complicated can of worms that I cannot begin to get into properly in this post. They're toxic they're in love they're doomed to fail they're each other's parallels. Whether I "ship" them depends heavily on your definition of ship.

Do I want the series to end declaring Vanitas and Jeanne as true love and Vnc's one true couple? No. Do I seek out fanworks about their relationship? Generally no. Do I think their canon relationship is healthy or all unambiguous romance? No. But do I find their whole thing really fascinating? Absolutely.

VaniJeanne is a relationship that starts with an extremely non-consensual kiss. That instance of assault is then followed by multiple scenes of Vanitas goading Jeanne into yet more physical intimacy/sexual contact that she very much claims on the surface not to want. And that, kids, is what we might call sexual harassment and coercion. That is not a foundation that you can build a healthy relationship on.

Furthermore, I will admit that I find it really unsettling when a certain small subset of VaniJeanne fans cannot admit that the non-consensual scenes between them are what they are. Back when the anime was first airing, I saw a lot of people new to the series start talking about how much they shipped them after episode three, when their only romantic interaction was the forced kiss. And I suppose that's my most discourse-y opinion about this whole thing, because I do not like people who cannot tell when something is meant to be a depiction of assault.

I realize that Mochijun abruptly changes tones to comedy during/right after the kiss, but still. I do think uncritically romanticizing that moment speaks to a pretty striking lack of media comprehension. The entire point of that scene (the hostage plan, the kiss, the dhams' commentary, etc) is the reveal that Vanitas is a freaky little asshole (affectionate).

However! Their relationship doesn't stay purely in this realm of exclusively non-consent. They evolve during the date and Gévaudan, and as of my writing this (hello post-57 hiatus), their whole thing has gotten more complex. I think Jeanne is getting a lot out of having Vanitas there for her at this point, and Vanitas is starting to treat her more like a person rather than a prop to bounce his trauma responses off of. I can't say much more about it because I frankly just haven't unpacked everything from more recent VaniJeanne yet. I haven't worked out what to make of it besides that it's compelling and bizarre.

Anyway, if you want my more specific thoughts on VaniJeanne stuff, you can read more about why I think Vanitas kissed her in the first place and why I think the violation of consent motif kinda works for Jeanne and her story. The lack of consent itself is absolutely serving a purpose in both their stories.

VaniJeanne are two deeply damaged people using one another to cope with their respective traumas and illnesses, and it's wild and fascinating and very often (though not always) unhealthy as hell. I don't think "forced" is at all the right word to describe their whole thing. But at the same time, I do find uncritical romanticization of their more questionable moments eyebrow-raising at best.

At the end of the day, like I said, I just don't know if "do you ship them?" is the best lens to ask this question through. I probably don't, by most people's definition, since I'm cheering for endgame Vanoé, but that doesn't mean their relationship isn't interesting as hell. And even I have to admit that I find some of VaniJeanne's later and fluffier moments genuinely sweet and fun.

VaniJeanne and DomiNoé aren't my preferred picks for endgame romances, and I don't personally tend to seek them out in fanworks. And at least in DomiNoé's case, I don't think canon supports a mutual romance. But that doesn't mean I find their relationships annoying or have anything inherently against people who have them as their preferred ships. I think talking about VaniJeanne responsibly takes a bit of care and nuance, given how much their relationship deals with the violation of autonomy and consent, but that doesn't mean I'm, like, against people shipping them.

They're the closest VnC currently has to an official couple, and I am, as established, obsessed with canon. By definition I cannot disregard them.

Also, like I said at the beginning, I tend to just block anyone that I see with a particularly bad take and then move on with my life. Aside from being a bit startled when I occasionally come across, like, some real weird pro-vanijeanne-assault youtube comments or whatever, I devote very little mental space to "shipping discourse"

[freakwiththeknifecollection]

Yeah, you should only create for yourself, but if I'm putting it out there I would like to know that I'm not just endlessly shouting into the void

[tyrannuspitch]

👻

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

oh god. okay. so. last year i learnt the term ergi, which for the uninitiated is defined as follows: unmanly dishonour in an old norse (*inspired) context, especially being penetrated during sex (but also other things like cowardice, servility, and practicing women's magic.)

and i started trying to Extrapolate a whole hypothetical culture from this.

like, it's easy to say that that's straightforwardly "it's okay if you're on top". but if the predominate attitude is that it's always acceptable to be the top and never acceptable to be the bottom, AND honourable = masc = strong while dishonourable = fem = weak, AND m/m sex is frequently framed in terms of domination, conquest, or even punishment... then you're probably going to end up with a society with an absolutely awful attitude towards consent. a society with basically no distinction, in the common understanding, between gay sex and rape.

so. i take this framing. i take mcu thor, who embodies a lot of his society's worst ideas but always in the most noble, well-intentioned way... and we end up with a guy who thinks gay sex is wrong because it's always homophobic rape.

like. the ambient cultural attitude is. topping a guy is an act of violence, but it's fine, because if you "let" it happen you, you must deserve it.

while thor's personal attitude is. topping a guy is an act of violence, so no-one can possibly genuinely want it to happen to him, so it's always just about taking advantage of someone weaker than you, so it's always wrong.

and, vitally, the category of weakness in thor's mind includes queerness. (and he doesn't think of tops as queer!) so if anyone says some queer guys DO want it, he dismisses that as a mocking / victim-blaming myth. and if a queer guy looks him in the eye and says no i promise you i really do want it, his brain short circuits and then he goes. oh no this man is full of self-loathing or perhaps insanity :( and it would still be terribly wrong of anyone to exploit that :(

(what does he think queer guys do want? idfk. non-penetrative sex, probably, but also, being queer is a tragic misfortune and not necessarily functional, so maybe they are just all self-destructive and crazy. also don't ask his opinion on grey areas of penetrative-ness because he just has not thought that hard about it.)

(also, thor's definition of queerness-as-identity being less tied to penetration means it's more tied to generalised femininity. which also means he is not allowed to desire men, because he's not fem, so obviously he wouldn't be The Victim, so that would be evil of him. (does he like men? idfk. but if he did he'd be having a truly awful time with it!))

basically: thor is deranged <3

to be clear, i don't think thor's attitude necessarily stays here. i think this is his attitude as quite a young adult (up to ~18-20?) but eventually one way or another he is confronted with the real world and it has to crumble. but. god it's fun in its bizarre way. what's wrong with that man <3

also. not a historian. no idea if this is how anyone in the real world has ever actually thought. but i'm dealing with a hypothetical society here so their attitudes can be literally anything i find interesting.

fanfic writer ask game 💕

[godsfavoritescientist]

Tbh? I still feel so out of my depth whenever I try to write Bill. For whatever reason it doesn't come naturally to me like writing Ford does. Every time one of y'all has thoughts on Bill's characterization or writes something Bill-centric I'm mentally taking so many notes

[nilesmoon]

I know his ass cried his eyes out when µ's decided to disband‼️‼️

[ranger-kellyn]

told myself to take a break from getaway car so i don't burn myself out like i did last year, and of course my brain wanted to go think about my scarlet/violet fic, sooo have some rambling below the read more

like. one of my ideas has always been that i want juliana specifically to have quaxly not just bc he's my favorite starter in that region, but because it turns into quaquaval, a pokemon that is supposed to be known for its dancing abilities. i like to think they're a pokemon that only needs to see a dance once or twice before they've got it memorized.

i love the idea that a huge part of juliana's overall character arc is admitting to herself how much she wants to learn how to dance in some way because of course she happened to pick the pokemon that loves to dance. so she's basically learning alongside her pokemon throughout his evolution stages, mutually gaining more confidence until he's a fully grown quaquaval.

and!! not just him, but probably the three friends as well! it may not be something any of them are really interested in to begin with, but juliana and quaquaval make it a ton of fun. she probably even takes the time to learn an individual dance of some kind with each of them, and is the first to drag anyone to any festivals happening in the cities and towns.

(bc i am who i am) nemona's the first friend juliana ends up dancing with. while juliana quickly realizes how much quaxly likes music, nemona is the one who tells her about how he's going to turn into a pokemon that loves to dance. she mostly just enjoys having fun with them and learning whatever juliana is into. something that really helps juliana come out of her shell, which leads her to opening up to arven and penny around the same time

not 100% sure of styles apart yet but i mean...penny's has to be some nerd dance lol. i also kinda love the idea of arven learning a very formal spanish style dance with them.

idk i just want the core pillars of this story to be something along the lines of, music, song, food, and dance are all forms of love and connection and can be healing and--- AH i just want them to have time to really develop as a friend group throughout the treasure hunt.

[livvyofthelake]

utterly cannot stand the type of post thats like "what are the female characters you like" and i KNOW it's not the fault of the people who make those posts i know they only do it because 95% of this site's blorbos are men. but i hate it anyway. like really the only way you can get fandom people to talk about women is to explicitly tell them to talk about women. and it always comes off so disingenuous because i KNOW most people reblogging those posts would never say those characters on a generic "what are your favorite characters" post. like it's all just so bleak :/

[nostalgia-tblr]

I know it's almost certainly a good thing that there's no "Reader x Alligator Loki" fic out there but at the same time it feels like surely by now someone should have crossed that bridge of horrors into the land of OH GOD NO that fandom frequents despite our collective better judgement?

[maggot-monger]

the difference between writing for my own highest standards of quality and writing because i need the ideas to exist somewhere...unsure how to qualify this difference but it is a decision to make every time i start writing

[doctorslove]

i could be literally getting married to someone and i'd still call alec hardy my soulmate and love of my life

[noxtivagus]

AAAA I WNA WRITE AGAIN

[louisdotmp3]

receiving messages and being so so so normal about them. not angry at all