#i wrote a 40k+ fic about them in just a month

[anxiescape]

When you're messing around with character development and dynamics and you accidentally make a new ship 😔

[theyoungeragrippina]

✨ 15 gentlebeard fic recs ✨

i have spent the last month trawling the pages of ao3 for you, dear reader, to find the best ofmd fics. all the works on this list:

are longer-form (generally 40k+)

have no steddyhands (simply not my thing)

are generally, all around brilliant (well-written, had me kicking my feet and giggling, laughing, or crying)

are complete!

part 2 and part 3

A Heart Unsated by roughwinds

48k, explicit

"Stede Bonnet has just moved into Orange Crescent. There’s a house on the corner, opposite Stede’s own, with a garden full of flowers and a gleaming motorbike on the driveway. He’s forgotten to buy sugar.

Edward Teach has his morning disturbed by his new neighbour. Enamoured at first sight, he invites Stede round for a chat, and then another, and then another.

This is the story of them."

man i normally avoid fics with lots of alma and louis in them because its just not for me, but literally every second of the family bonding in this was so wholesome i was forced to change my entire mind.

all you left me was a pearl by @sightofsea

88k, mature

"1717. The Golden Age of Piracy. Stede Bonnet sets about wooing the love of his life through any means necessary.

Things do not go as planned."

every day i wish for a precise memory erasing potion to be invented so i can read this again for the first time. i would devour like 2000k more words of this if it was offered to me. brilliant.

forgive & forget by @fool-for-luv

44k, mature

"It hits him then, like a wave breaking on sand, loud as thunder when it crashes, then trickling away into little rivulets flowing back home, murmuring one word over and over and over. Ed.

The problem is, Stede doesn’t recall ever having met anyone named Ed."

so sweet and wonderful, and i wish there was more.

#gentlebeard is trending! by regional_catastrophe

41k, teen

"In which Stede accidentally convinces the pirating world that Gentlebeard (or Blackbonnet or Stedward; there's a poll) is canon, reunites his crew, and gets his boyfriend back."

hilarious & silly & great, but also the most compelling notes of any fic i've ever read. a proper learning experience.

if music be the food of love (then darling, you're a feast) by @fool-for-luv

107k, unrated

"“Hey, so, those two, right, they get together in the end?” Ed asks.

“I would protest spoiling it, but I think it's rather obvious, isn't it?” Stede says. His nose wrinkles as he smiles. “The tension is certainly there from the beginning. It just takes them a while to get there.”

“Good. Would have been a shit story otherwise.""

i love sassy stede and i love ed who is a grump and i love that they share one single braincell at any given time.

If You Were Mine to Keep by @mysterybees

162k, explicit

"Caught between the gallows and the end of an English sword, Ed accepts the Act of Grace: marry into the aristocracy, leave the English ships alone, and live to sail another day. But who in their right mind would ever agree to marry the mad devil pirate Blackbeard?"

Worth every second of tiredness I felt after pulling an all nighter to finish reading.

It's Only Right by hexuponye

53k, explicit

"A modern AU based on Imagine Me & You, in which Edward is a florist who does the flowers for Stede's wedding."

mary gets to be a little silly sometimes too as a treat.

pliocene by unfortunatelyobsessed

75k, mature

""man, it's just ocean for miles.” Ed motions out to the waves, where there is no sign of any sort of ship, their small dinghy pulled far up on the sand. “I told you when the clouds look like seagulls you take fuckin' cover. Goddamn ocean mutinied me.”"

william golding wishes he did something this brilliant and significant when he wrote Lord of the Flies. the best deserted island story.

quite a career shift by @stedesparasol

157k, explicit

"Stede's been posting book reviews on Youtube for two months now. It's taken him that long to finally get a comment, and the person it comes from is rather unexpected."

rip stede you would've LOVED booktube. furious i can never really watch his content.

Semaphore by komodobits

124k, explicit

"Talking things through as a crew is easier said than done, and honest communication has never really been Stede’s strong suit. When it comes to Ed, he is willing to try."

so good that i was properly and truly laughing and gasping and 'oh no-ing' out loud while i read it.

Such Joie de Vivre by @louciferish

94k, explicit

"Professional thief Edward Teach is tired of hole in the wall apartments, shitty pub food, and skipping town every few months to keep the cops off their tail. He’s well past the age he meant to flee the country and retire, and all he needs is One Last Job to set him up for life. When he hears that some rich bastard outside of town has just the sort of treasure he’d trade his good knee for, Ed sets out in disguise to get the lay of the land."

i (so so foolishly) avoided reading this for a while because i simply didn't think i was one for nanny aus. i was so, terribly wrong. don't make the same mistakes i did. showstopping. incredible stuff.

The Chains of Flowers are Fragile Things by @grandmastattoo

62k, explicit

"Stede can't see the shop he's inherited from his late father as anything other than a burden, another insult added to a life that's going nowhere fast. Then he meets the charismatic man who owns the tattoo studio next door, and Stede finds himself forced to consider the idea of home."

maybe i love tattoo shop owner ed fics, sue me. i love this stede and i love his embarrassing mistake tattoo.

The Love Experiment by karawrites

65k, mature

a married at first sight (aus) au. i didn't know i needed it until i read it.

Water/line by @the-gentleman-mermaid

60k, teen

"During a raid on a smuggler ship, Ed finds a merman named Stede locked in the hold."

So good that I would actually pay the author real person money to do a similar story but where Ed is the mermaid.

Where the Daylight Begins by @xoxoemynn

116k words, explicit

"Modern day AU slow burn featuring a pining Ed, a clueless Stede, found family, roughly a million animals, and a very magical house."

This one sort of gave me House on the Cerulean Sea vibes; it was so much fun and genuinely necessitates a proper use of the word whimsical.

[theminecraftbee]

fic masterpost

last updated: august 2024

note that this masterpost does not include tumblr-exclusive fics, because i write those as effectively "sketches"; they're practice and meant to be easy for me, so i deliberately don't 'take them seriously' enough to list them here. (also, there are probably over a hundred at this point.) you can find the tumblr exclusive fics in the tag 'a bee fic' if you're looking for them.

additionally: for ANY of my fics, you can always DM me to ask me to give you spoilers if the tags and summary do not give you enough information to decide if you want to read the fic or if the fic might contain one of your triggers. just let me know in a way i can respond privately, and i will give you that information!

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multichapter fics

this is about a stuffed bird, hermitcraft, T (warning: a bordeline M), 78k. in which an apocalypse happens that turns much of humanity into horrible monsters, mumbo gets a distressing call from grian and decides to travel across the country to meet him. still my most popular hermitcraft fic and my second-most popular fic overall. heavy on body horror, themes of what makes someone a person, and also evil x is here. i still love the mumbo voice in this, and it even has a complete podfic by quackingfish if you prefer audiobooks.

the continued adventures of the boatem road trip, hermitcraft, T, 28k. a series of events that take place as boatem is trapped in the void together for three months after big moon. originally written as a series of vaguely-connected oneshots on tumblr, gathered here into one place. the ending is a little abrupt, but if you're looking for something with the highest concentration of some of my favorite jokes i've made sitting right next to some good old cosmic horror, this is the fic for you.

the last days of the free angel of carrows, hermitcraft, T, 79k. the angel joe hills and the zombie cleo, owners of the atsign agency, investigate a strange mystery brought to them by pearl, and must save their city as they go. a noir-inspired urban fantasy i originally wrote for a big bang, and still my longest fic! it's got some of my favorite worldbuilding i've done, a great joe-and-cleo plot, a pearl i'm still obsessed with, and so much angel symbolism. if you like aus or urban fantasies, this is the one of my fics you should read.

solving counting sheep, evo, T, 78k. blade-three, living weapon of the watchers, is stolen by martyn after martyn finds its command words and taken home to jimmy to try to rehabilitate. what neither the property police or three itself know is that three is the ultimate fate of grian, their friend who they presumed dead. a fic that is very VERY much about identity and learning who you are, and also plays into many of my favorite living weapon and watcher!grian tropes--as well as subverts them in some heavy ways. probably one of the most personal fics i've ever written, as well. my understanding is that both people who like watcher!grian and people who hate it like this fic, which i take as praise.

the carriers, life series, M, 40k. PET mail (the group made up of Pearl, Etho, and Tango) are mail carriers after the zombie apocalypse, as well as asymptomatic carriers of the zombie virus. when cleo, a person from pearl's past, asks them to bring her a package, they go on a journey that barrels through all three of their pasts. this one is rated M for two specific reasons (both violence) but if you're chill with violence this one turned out pretty well! it is a very me take on a zombie apocalypse, what with the fact that the remnants of heavy industry are almost as much of a threat as the zombies, and a fic that leans pretty heavily on the double life soulmate pairs.

san luis, dream smp, T, 23k, perpetually unfinished. after the other three members of sbi die, philza tries to put back together the pieces. it would be easier if he wasn't hearing their ghosts. this is a fic i'm unfortunately unlikely to finish because it just makes me too sad to write after irl events, but it has some of my best handling of grief, and i know it brings some people comfort. if you don't mind me at my most unrelentingly sad, or are looking for that, i might still recommend it.

in deference to saint george, original superhero work, T, 42k. superhero superball, aka jack harlan, starts dating a customer he meets at the coffee shop he works at, while at the same time dealing with the attacks of the villain dragon and natural disasters. a hero/villain fic with a very ME kind of ending, i am still SUPER PROUD of this. i think the worldbuilding and characters work and it's my proof to myself i can write ow! also, if you've always wanted to read a superhero au from me, good news: this may not be an au, but it's very much exactly that.

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long oneshots

consequentialism, hermitcraft, M, 5k. as the members of boatem start falling in the boatem hole, their own dead bodies start showing up. peak "WOULD THAT BE FUCKED UP OR WHAT" horror from me, and also the first hermitcraft fic i ever wrote! if you like my horror writing and aren't too squeamish, good news: this exists.

to convey a certain brilliance, hermitcraft, T, 21k. joe hills and zombiecleo slowly, and through many death loops, drag their way out of their collapsed base to try to survive after a lunar apocalypse. this is the second hermitcraft fic i ever wrote and i wrote it before we knew how moon's big would end, inspired by super hostile; people still tell me it has some of their favorite joe characterization.

cura te ipsum, hermitcraft, T, 15k. tango, in a world where the hermatrix is canon, wakes up on-board the hermethius after dying to the moon and has to try to figure out how to cope. still one of my favorite oneshots i've written, full-stop, and the culmination of all my big moon emotions. it can be considered fully canon-compliant, and it's mostly about all the big emotions something like big moon would cause.

jevin's egg disaster, hermitcraft, G, 7k. the eggs from the season nine egg hunt turn into real children. chaos ensues. this is technically sorted into chapters, and written as a series of very short ficlets on tumblr originally. it doesn't really "conclude" as a result. however this is me on pure crackfic and contains my favorite joke i've ever made (it's in chapter 7 if you're wondering) so PLEASE read it if all the rest of my 'everyone talks about their big feelings' is causing you to need a laugh because it WILL make you laugh.

attempt thirty-three, hermitcraft, T, 14k. joe hills experiences the thirty-third loop of the time loop he's been stuck in, trying to save the world from the rift. a fic exploring the idea of "what happens in that middle part of the time loop when you've been there a while, but don't have things solved yet?" if you like joe hills and you also like hurt/comfort, this is very much a fic with both of those things, and some of my best with both of those things.

a thing that is thicker than starlight, hermitcraft, T, 13k. after reuniting on an adventure through space, long-lost siblings cleo and gem return home and try to figure out where they're supposed to fit into each other's lives. written for recursive exchange and based on "out to the galaxy steady she goes" by thedepressedcanary, although this fic stands on its own. it's a vaguely treasure planet-like au, but it's also MOSTLY about the trauma your parents leave you and the feeling of knowing you're supposed to care about someone (but don't know how to yet). this is my sibling feelings fic, read it for sibling feelings.

the inner mechanism of a black box, dream smp, T, 14k. techno is trapped, isolated, in a horrible version of the prison with only his voices for company. still my most popular fic, and also the fic of mine that is most describable as 'whump'. i still really love the techno writing in this one; it may be the first complete thing i posted to the account but it's still good. written before we knew anything about the prison, and so the situation is entirely speculative; also written before 'techno in prison' really became a genre. you can tell both of these things, for both good and ill.

revenant, dream smp, M, 11k. jack manifold descends back into hell in order to drag tommy back up and out with him. written in a fugue state during the like, three days tommy was still dead. jack manifold is way cooler than he deserves in this fic (he is also EXACTLY as cool as he deserves). to be honest i don't remember why i rated this one M, but not stuffed bird? if you can read stuffed bird you can almost certainly read this. has some of my cooler weird formatting decisions in it and a WAY COOLER VERSION OF HELL THAN THE DSMP GAVE US I'LL STAND BY THAT.

bad beat, dream smp, T, 10k. techno goes to play a high-stakes game of poker against quackity, hoping to win insurance for his friends' lives. do you like card games? i like card games. most of this fic is a thriller in which they are playing poker. both people who like and dislike poker like this fic, though, because the thriller elements still work. also, my one take on casino quackity, so if you like quackity, give it a shot.

a kind of playing heartstrings, empires smp, G, 6k. jimmy invites scott to a cod empire gathering. an older fic of mine that's a cute take on empires flower husbands with a LOT of music culture worldbuilding for the codlands! this is just a fic that makes me feel cozy and happy. it is uncomplicated fluff.

survivorship bias, empires smp, G, 9k. an amnesiac jimmy is fished out of the water and into a surviving village that exists a few decades after the rapture, but still a great deal of time before empires season two will happen. a combination of worldbuilding of that transition period and emotions about jimmy, who doesn't remember why he's sad but certainly feels it. i enjoyed meshing different empires cultures together for this a lot!

the perils of updating your vault hunters server before even the public release (seriously who qa checks this), vault hunters smp, G, 9k. in which a bug on the vault hunters server turns all of iskall's friends into cute small children and he has to get them out of a vault again. this one is just an excuse for me to write endless Cute Baby Shenanigans, and if Cute Baby Shenanigans sound like they're your kind of thing, give it a read!

it's a long way down if you want to get up again, yugioh dm, T, 12k. mokuba tries to puzzle out why his brother is acting so strangely; as it turns out, this is because kaiba has recently time traveled. a fic shoving DSoD kaiba into the earliest parts of yugioh. he is very bad as a time traveler, and he's not necessarily making things better, but they aren't necessarily worse. also, a fic with a lot of my feelings about mokuba and seto's relationship, as well as their relationship with gozaburo. the kaibas will always make me feel things.

on burdens, yugioh dm, T, 11k. kaiba realizes that jounouchi is both more complicated than he gave him credit for and probably being abused, which changes his perspective on him. violetshipping, but mostly pre-violetshipping. another fic where i write people playing a card game! it is also as much about kaiba having the world's worst emotional intelligence as it is about kaiba and jounouchi both having shitty dads.

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selected short oneshots

a question for the dead, life series, G, 1.2k. a script-format fic interviewing the dead players of last life. one of my favorite experiments with formatting of all time, line after line of character study with no wasted words. read it.

different sort of soulmates, life series, G, 926. an aromantic mumbo jumbo hears about double life after the fact, and talks through with grian his fears that he wouldn't have been capable of having a soulmate. cute grumbo friendship and also some feelings about feeling disconnected from the people around you. a personal favorite ficlet of mine.

the long odds, life series, G, 1.8k. martyn is invited to the table with the other writers to play a game. a very meta fic in which martyn plays blackjack with watchers and listeners. this fic is like 80% metafiction and allegory by weight, and i like it very much.

a murder, life series, G, 483. before limited life, jimmy and joel realize it's coming via a flock of birds on empires. a fic both with jimmy and joel's unique friendship and a meta twist on the whole canary thing.

task: answer the following question: do you believe in curses?, life series, G, 1.2k. the surviving members of secret life explain their thoughts on curses. a spiritual successor to 'a question for the dead' and another one of my absolute favorite experiments with formatting. another one with no wasted words that hinges on the character voice of it all.

home, life series, G, 887. cleo and etho have a conversation about their new relationship after secret life, given that cleo's aromantic. man, i love cletho so much, and i also really like the idea of aromantic cleo, so this is my ficlet with both of those things.

do you even lift, bro?, hermitcraft, G, 2.4k. boatem fluff about who can bench press the most members of boatem. this fic is still really cute tbh, not much else to say.

like father, hermitcraft, T, 2k. grumbot prime decides he has to protect grian the same way grian protected grumbot in another world. the horror of being trapped by something you can't escape in a box designed to stop you from hurting yourself; also, the horror of your mistakes coming to haunt you.

forgetful, hermitcraft, T, 977. an interaction between evil x and xisuma near the end of season eight. a ficlet exploring some of my feelings about how season eight evil x can very easily be read as abusive and not even xisuma ever seems to acknowledge that. also, the horror of admin powers in minecraft.

to spite your face, hermitcraft, T, 980. a ficlet where joe gets to be mad about how he was treated by hermitopia during the crossover. i just think i still have so many crossover feelings about joe hills on empires, that's all.

as what you make becomes you, hermitcraft, T, 3.2k. decked out consumes tango, as seen from three perspectives. technically three separate oneshots collected into one fic as one story, the idea of decked out 2 'eating' tango is one of my favorite horror concepts from season 9. this is my execution of it.

missed the shovel talk so this is the next best thing, hermitcraft, T, 941. the rest of the NHO throws a party for doc and then interrogates him about when he even got married to ren in the first place. a goofy, funny fic about the hermits hanging out and being friends. this one is mostly jokes, but i think they're very funny jokes.

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i also have a number of other 'shorter' oneshots that aren't included here for the sake of the length of the post. to find all of my fics, including those left out of this masterpost, check my ao3! and, as suggested above, browse the 'a bee fic' tag on tumblr to find a collection of everything i've written, including things i either haven't yet transferred to ao3 or will not transfer there.

i hope you enjoy my writing!

[allwaswell16]

A fic rec of One Direction songfics where a character hears a song written by another character as requested in this ask. If you enjoy the fics, please leave the writers kudos and comments! You can find my other fic recs here. Happy reading!

— Louis/Harry —

🎼 You Drive Me Round The Bend by TheCellarDoor / @donotdialnine

(M, 77k, hate to love) In which Louis is a spoilt rich kid who’s always on the phone while he drives and Harry is a struggling musician making his way down the mountain. It’s just a matter of time before they crash and burn.

🎼 These Sparks We Light by QuickedWeen / @becomeawendybird

(M, 62k, Johnnyswim au) When Louis' eyes catch on a beautiful man across a crowded room at The Script concert, he becomes instantly infatuated and announces he wants to marry a guy like that.

🎼 Far Away. by dimpled_halo / @comebackassholes

(M, 56k, exes) Harry returns to London after five years. Stuck in the past with "what ifs" and "what might have beens", he sees that his friends and ex (and possible love of his life) Louis have all moved on with their lives while he finds himself questioning his own life choices, past and present.

🎼 Home To You by Crowsonthewire / @crows-onthewire

(E, 54k, childhood friends) At fifteen, Harry wrote his first song for an oblivious seventeen year old Louis Tomlinson. Ten years later he’s a singer/songwriter who cant find any words for his second album and Louis is a closeted actor tired of LA.

🎼 It Happened like a Firefly's Light by LHStylinson / @lhstylinson9193

(G, 47k, famous/not famous) Harry Styles. It was a name everyone knew, a person the public loved. But he had one impossible task. Write and record his third album in a month. This is where Louis Tomlinson comes in.

🎼 Looking Through You by @allwaswell16

(E, 41k, friends to lovers) As Harry tries to make sense of his feelings for Louis, he begins writing his next album to express them as it may be the only way to break through the walls that Louis has built between them.

🎼 all that remains by whimperinglou / @acciohl

(E, 40k, canon) Harry has always written too many songs about him.

🎼 Without you it's a season I ain't needing by @perfectdagger

(M, 38k, break up) A long distance relationship au in which Harry is away for a year and Louis is left to pick up the pieces.

🎼 Bitter Ends Turn Sweet by @allwaswell16

(E, 30k, kidfic) It had been four years since Harry first heard the song his ex wrote about him and far longer since they broke up. He forgave Louis long ago, and now his life was focused on his career, his family, and especially his son, Max. 

🎼 Ever since New York by selfwrittenstars

(E, 30k, canon) The one where Harry writes a song about Louis and he finds out.

🎼 Fall At My Door by @kingsofeverything

(E, 29k, famous/famous) A-list actor Harry Styles and award-winning musician Louis Tomlinson have an acquaintances-with-benefits relationship, so whenever their busy professional lives happen to land them in the same city, they meet up. 

🎼 Better Walk That (Pap) Walk, Baby by @fallinglikethis , @lululawrence

(NR, 25k, exes) the one where, after years filled with the anger and pain that accompany a bad breakup, Harry and Louis have to try to put it all behind them, at least for the cameras.

🎼 Baby, You Were the Love of My Life by therogueskimo / @bravetemptation

(NR, 24k, canon) Harry needs a place to record one more song for the album, and London has him too in his head. He asks Liam if he can use his country house and set up a studio in his front room, and Liam agrees.

🎼 With These Arms Folded by @taggiecb

(NR, 21k, famous Louis) Harry Styles is living a peaceful existence in California as a very successful song writer. He has his lake house, and his cat, and his small town existence.

🎼 My English Love Affair by @isthatyoularry

(E, 19k, famous/not famous) The one where Harry writes a song about his English love affair and Louis sleeps with someone in White Eskimo and all he gets is a stupid song written about him.

🎼 Naked & Proud by kiwikero / @icanhazzalou

(E, 18k, famous/not famous) In which Harry runs an organic store, not a nudist colony, and Louis doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

🎼 Don't You Remember? by @reminiscingintherain

(M, 12k, breakup) Harry slammed the door behind him and immediately pressed his face into his hands, before dropping them back to his sides and staring blankly at the wall. Louis had gone.

🎼 To Make Your Heart Remember Me by @casuallyhl

(NR, 5k, canon) Harry and Louis play the songs they wrote for one another.

🎼 spill your emotions into my hands by theweightofmywords / @lil0

(NR, 2k, exes) Harry thinks about the words he’s splayed on pages, how all of the hurt in Louis’ eyes have been spelled out and set to music.

— Rare Pairs —

🎼 Could We Live With Just A Taste? by @lululawrence

(NR, 17k, Louis/Harry/Nick Grimshaw) the one where Louis, Harry, and Nick all take awhile to figure things out, but they get there eventually

🎼 When You Know by lazy_daze

(T, 1k, Louis/Liam) Accidental songwriting boyfriends with accidental songwriting confessions 

[bettyfrommars]

hi loves

a wee announcement/bit of reflection below the cut

nothing heavy, just some thoughts & updates

First of all, I want to say I love this fandom so much. Truly I do. It has carried me though possibly the hardest, loneliest year of my life (and this ol' girl has been though some dark times). I've made friendships here that I hope to cherish for the rest of my life.

I came into fanfiction in October of last year, after not writing anything substantial for almost a decade. My dear friend at the time said she was looking for a specific Eddie Munson story, so I wrote it for her. I wrote it in first person because I didn't even understand how "reader perspective" was a thing, that's how wet behind the ears I was to this world. My friend, on the other hand, is a well-versed fic reader, and I distinctly remember messaging her like, "okay, what the hell is a Y/N??"

I spent that entire dark, cold winter writing and passing it to her in parts like notes in a classroom. The rush of getting back to something I loved so deeply after so much time away turned me into a monster. I lived and breathed that story. We sent endless messages back and forth every day about what each character would do next, imagining ourselves in that world, with Eddie. We made playlists, we cried. We screamed and giggled and kicked our feet when they finally kissed. We mourned the loss when it ended and moped around a bit before going back to read it all over again. Some 40k words and four months later I realized, holy shit, I think I write fanfiction now?

In a way, fanfiction saved my life. It brought me back to a part of myself I had buried, a part of me that worried it might never see the light of day again. It came crawling out of the ground, gasping for air like, "you better stretch your fingers bitch because I have a lot to say."

In April, I started posting here when the fandom was notably beginning to wane, but I was happy to see there were so many still going hard for our man. I kinda creeped in, like a little scuttling crab, and was grateful to find that a handful of you embraced me.

Long story short, I am NOT leaving, not at all. I know the tone is there, but that is not what this is, lmao. I will hopefully keep this blog for as long as you will have me. I plan to finish writing I'm on Fire and Death Becomes Us, as well as maybe another bit for gargoyle!Eddie, and nightmare!Eddie, but the other series I've started (or planned to start) will stay on hiatus for a while, possibly forever. I will continue to post blurbs and hc's and whatnot, but I won't be committing to any new series or long fics.

My masterlists will remain intact for the time being for those who want to enjoy what is there. That being said, The Nightmare Factory and Stop the World and Melt with You, might be taken down in the future only because I plan to re-work them into original stories. I have a second non-fandom blog in the works that is dedicated to monsters, nightmares, and magic realism, and I will let those who are interested know about it when the time comes.

Mostly, I wanted to let you know that, even if you notice some changes, I will continue to persist with "My 2 Joe's" delulu era, possibly until the earth swallows me up. I am no longer taking requests, but my asks will always be open for thots, blurbs, obsessions, etc. You know how much I love hearing from you.

That's all really. Perhaps this is simply one of those "end of year" thought dumps, but I also wanted to say a heartfelt Thank You to those who continue to support me, enjoy my work, and share it. My Ride or Die monsterfuckers and biker Eddie enthusiasts. My nightmare Eddie dreamers, my Twilight Zone Eddie pineapple heads. My gargoyle Eddie romantics who cheer on our Stone Boy, and my Hybrid Steve lovers who leave their windows open at night. My True Blood friends who appreciate a vampire Eddie who is nothing like Bill Compton. My darlings, my fellow rebel rousers and misfits, my friends.

This is a very symbiotic relationship, and I could not/would not do this without you ❤️

[bisexual-horror-fan]

Do-Over-December 1st. "Pretty Little Present." Freddy Kruger X FEM! AFAB! Reader.

So back in 2020, I did this lovely little event called Kinky December, basically I wrote over 40k of fics for the month of December following along with a writing event another user in the slasher fandom posted. It was a super fun thing honestly and I was thinking, it's been three fucking years since that event. Why not, revist these fics I wrote and revamp and beef em up?! I know I've been very absent and thought this would be a fantastic way to try and get back into the groove. My intention is to update and improve upon these fics, length, more detail, change shit up a bit and have fun. My gift to you this holiday season is this, the constant commitment to better my craft and show how far I've come. Now let's get into it!

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Rating. Explicit. Length. 2.4K. (Old Length 1.7K) Warnings: Lingerie. Teasing. Dirty Talk. Knifeplay. Bloodplay. Glove Porn. Manhandling. Choking. Thigh Riding. Pet Names. Implied Established Hookups. Possessiveness. Domineering Attitude. Light Degradation. Freddy Just Being A Bastard As Always.

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You hadn’t discussed it previously, but to be perfectly fair, you never discussed much of anything while you were together. Freddy always had other plans in mind for your pretty little mouth other than talking, many a night he preferred to treat his ears to the sound of your muffled and wet gagging with his hand on the back of your head as opposed to petty conversation. 

When the idea first hit you initially brushed it off, no way, too ridiculous and yet the thought refused to leave, the musing wore you down until you find yourself in the mall full of shoppers eager to get their holiday splurging over with. You were in the mall picking up gifts for other people and when you walked by that particular store the idea hit once more, and you considered it. The idea didn’t leave you all afternoon and midway through you decided that yes, you would. You left it for last because you still felt almost silly for really choosing to commit to this. 

You’d shopped in here before but never for something like this, your previous purchases were for more every day use, out of necessity and this was much more frivolous. Fingers linger as you search through racks and open drawers, trying to find just the right combination to, no pun intended, set him on fire. When you did find it, you were fucking giddy about it. 

Dear God, it was positively perfect. He would love it, Hell, you loved it too, you knew down to your bones that you would feel confident and sexy in it and as you were checking out you wondered why you never thought of doing this sooner.

You knew he was going to see you tonight. He never talked to you directly and told you when, but he had a little pattern, you had figured out with decent accuracy the nights he would pay you a visit. It had been a few days, there was no doubt in your mind that he would be anything but hungry and would seek you out.

It did look good. You looked good. You were looking at yourself in the mirror, and you wanted to laugh at the effect he’d had on you, turning and admiring your own ass with a thought of, “Like a dream come true.” His cheesy puns and terrible jokes have rubbed off on you more than you liked to admit out loud.

Silky and sheer stockings creeping up your legs, thigh high of course, the tops of them lacy, intricate patterns you traced absentmindedly with your fingertips as your eyes continued to rove over yourself. The garter belt holding said stockings up was cinched at your waist, the panties were so barely there you seriously wondered if they even qualified as such. The bustier corset style top was to die for, what it did to your tits alone made the price seem worth it. And of course it all matched perfectly, red and lacy fit the season and his tastes perfectly, I mean you’d be a fool not to get the whole set, really. It left very little to the imagination, and you were certain he’d enjoy it.

Was the robe entirely unnecessary? Yes. Did it hang off of your frame beautifully and elevate the whole look? Naturally. Besides, it was a gift, and you normally never brought yourself this kinda thing, it was the holidays, and you’d been very fucking generous to all the people you care about, why not be a bit generous to yourself too? You deserved to feel this good about yourself. 

You climbed into bed that night wrapped in soft and smooth clingy fabrics that accentuated your assets, a pretty little present, all for him. 

Falling asleep was a challenge, simply due to the excitement you felt to see his reaction to your present for him. When you did fall asleep it took awhile for you to notice, which wasn’t unusual, becoming aware of the shift was hard, it was almost always muddy, until you heard him, that made you come to your senses real quick.

“There you are, kitten, took you a minute to get here, tonig-oh.”

You couldn’t hide your smile, you wanted to turn to face him, but there was no need, he was already on you.

His presence could be felt over your shoulder, your back nearly on his chest, you could feel the heat that radiated off of him. You felt his non-gloved hand on your shoulder, it started there and dragged up slowly, the back of his knuckles coming over the side of your throat and up over your cheek. His fingers hook, and he pulls some of your hair aside, exposing more of your throat to him, he leaned in closer and whispered in your ear, “What’s all this, hmm?”

What happened to all of that confidence of yours? It always seemed to dry up relatively quickly around him. Suppressing a shiver, you instead ground yourself but lacing your fingers together in front of yourself, responding simply with, “A gift.” 

You felt his lips brush the shell of your ear as his head pitched forward slightly, he let out this terrible low laugh that made your skin prickle in a way that made you want to squirm. Next you felt the tips of the blades on his glove brush your hip, even through the sheer material of your robe the steel felt terribly cold, then again the robe was there for how it looked, not for any warmth it could provide.

“For me?” 

His question was met with a simple nod in response from you. 

That glove of his moved higher, the clink of metal on metal had started to condition you, hearing it would make you want to press your thighs together and would begin the slow drip of arousal. He pulled some of the material as he went, the soft fabric felt so good sliding against your skin, that small twinge of fear when his glove was on you was present was also welcome, it isn’t a hindrance, instead it adds to the feeling and experience. 

“You shouldn’t have.” He hums.

Fucking Christ, that voice of his affected you on the best of days, but when it was right in your ear? It made the current problem of your ever increasingly wet underwear infinitely worse for you. It was far too early for you to be having this much trouble, but he was just on you aggressively, you had no time to adjust like you usually did, he left you no personal space. The second he saw you tonight, his hands were on you. Yet you made yourself press onward, made yourself speak, and tried to hide how turned on you were already becoming.

“I wanted to.”

That pulled another laugh from him, and to be fair it was funny. The very idea of you spending hard-earned money on a gift for him, money that you could have spent on friends or family, or on yourself in a better way, you spent instead on fancy lingerie to wear for your murderous dream demon fuck buddy. 

The fact that you meant it? That you had wanted to get him something? Hilarious.

The fact that you were actually hoping to impress him, please him? That was downright hysterical.

He sounded pleased as punch as he responded, thoroughly amused and still groping at your body. “My, my what a remarkable little slut you are. And here I didn’t get you anything.”

Him speaking pulled you from your thoughts, non-gloved hand on your throat from behind, glove on your waist, and he manhandled you, turning you around, looking you up and down. It was far too quiet right now, you wanted to squirm from how intensely he was looking at you, wanting to shift your weight from one foot to the other. 

You broke the silence first, desperate to fill the space, to distract yourself from how he looked at you, “I didn’t tell you I was doing this, it’s fine, you didn’t get me something.”

Eyes flicked up, and his gaze met yours, a lecherous grin breaking out on his face, leaning closer as he teases, “All the more reason. I didn’t have to ask, and you did all this.”

He clearly appreciated your effort, that was made all the more obvious as his hands pushed open your robe. More exposed flesh on display he took the opportunity and one of the blades of his glove dragged over that strip of exposed skin between the lace edge of the bottom of your bustier and the top of your garter belt. You weren’t sure whether to lean in or pull away, the touch was featherlight, and it didn’t break the skin, but fuck, you wanted him to.

You wanted him to do what he did best, overwhelm you in every single way possible, pleasure and pain, doesn’t matter, you wanted it all. 

You let him touch you. In whatever way he wished to, and you enjoyed it as always. Fingertips dragging over any exposed skin, pulling on straps and feeling the lace roughly, dipping in occasionally, teasing you with the threat of more. 

What was his goal, agony or ecstasy? Always hard to tell with him, it could be either, or more usually, both, and you wouldn’t have minded whatever he provided. Your eyes had fallen closed, and you were simply enjoying feeling, and then you felt the drag of that blade over your thigh, and it drew a shuddering breath from you, the first cut of the night always was special, this one hurt, burned in a particularly delicious way.

It took a moment for you to realize, you felt the warmth and wetness soaking into your stocking, your eyes flying back open, gaze falling down and there it was. A hole in the red sheer material, matching the one in your skin. He cut you again as you watched, harsh inhale through your teeth, blood blooming, darker red staining the more candy apple colour of your lingerie and fuck you loved that sight almost as much as he did, something that changed in you definitely because of him.

He didn’t stop there. “You look like you want to say something.”

A singular blade dragged up and hooked into one of the straps of your garter belt, a pause, he looked up into your eyes, and you looked back. He moved again without breaking eye contact, he cut and severed the thin red strap that helped hold your stocking up in two. From that small motion you let out a quiet sound of protest and looked down, hand finding the split strap and feeling it, examining it with a small frown, he didn’t stop. Dragging the blades back up, thin lines cut again, splitting apart the delicate sheer material and lace as he went.

You did want to say something. You spent good money on this, and he was ruining it, you hadn’t even had it for a full day, and it was decently expensive, yet here was he was shredding it without a single fucking care, but you knew better than to talk back to him most nights.

The next motion was quick, a sharp upward jerk of his hand and he made another cut, bigger, much bigger, nearly splitting the top in two, nicking you in the process. When one of those blades hooked into one of the straps on your shoulder you finally spoke up, unable to be silent any longer, what you said next might have been meaner than necessary. “What the fuck do you think you are doing, Freddy!?”

And then you were pushed into the nearby wall, back hitting the concrete so hard the wind is knocked out of you, his non-gloved hand on your throat, holding you in place firmly. His leg slots in between yours, and he leans in, closer than he has been all night. 

"This is my present, isn't it?"

You struggled and when you did it put more pressure on your still clothed pussy, you were so wet you were sure you’d leave a stain on his pants, yet he pressed harder. He always made it so hard to think, and you choked out pathetically, "Ah, wha-what?"

He made you grind on him, his hand tightened on your throat, and he made sure you repeated the motion, dragging your almost exposed slit over him once more, and it made you moan. Fuck, you hadn't realized how excited you had gotten, just being around him had gotten to you terribly, you should have known better to be honest. Those blades had an awful habit of making you drip as soon as they touched you. He spoke again, so harshly as if you were an idiot, "You…”

The look he gave you was pointed, your brows furrow, your clit throbs and your hole leaks. He repeats himself before continuing his thought, slowly, “You are MY gift, aren't you?”

Fuck, that got to you too, the extra hard grind he forced you to do on the last word made it worse still. When he talked about owning you, flexing that more possessive side of himself, it made you weak. You nodded once, swallowing, he was holding you so tightly, breathing was a challenge, and you grit out the only reasonable, logical and true answer, "Ye-yes I am."

That damn smirk, he loosened his grip slightly, his thumb stroked over your skin, and he said oh so mockingly, "Then why are you-” He points to you with his sharp gloved pointer finger, close enough you are almost worried he’d run you through between your ribs,“-giving me-” he pointed back to himself before saying, “-shit about how I'm choosing to unwrap MY present?”

And he sliced through that strap on your shoulder, nicking you in the process again, deeper than before, you groaned. 

His glove came up, and he licked the spilled blood from the blade, staring you down. You knew you couldn't fight him. This was his gift and he could do with it as he pleased, do with you as he pleased.

You conceded.

"I'm sorry. You're right Freddy." That got a laugh out of him as he hooked another blade in the remaining strap on your other shoulder and made you grind on his thigh once more, drawing another broken moan from you.

"Naturally." He was always right, wasn't he?

[esoteric-joke]

Interview with BoosBabycakes

(#Interview2)

Welcome to the next interview of The Dear Writer Project. This time I had the pleasure to interview the wonderful Morgane/BoosBabycakes.

Morgane about planning out her works, working with deadlines and more:

What does your writing process usually look like?

Well, usually it’s always kind of the same process for me, whether I found a prompt on fest’s list or if I have an idea of my own popping in my head.

When I’m drawn towards a prompt, I then have to write down ideas for the story as they come to my mind. Like I will write them randomly in my notes and then, when it’s time for me to start writing, I have to lay out a plan. I can’t go in blind, that’s not how I work. I need to lay my plan, the number of chapters, what will happen in each chapter (not very detailed, but ideas for example).

I also can’t write two stories at once, so I have to fully focus on one before I can start a new one. I usually write when I have the time obviously, when I’m not working and so it can take more or less time for me to write one chapter.

When I’m done with a chapter, I reread it and then I send it to my betas. I have two that read the chapters when they’re done. They mostly help me with the grammar and syntax. I have one or two other betas (depending on their availability) who also read the chapters right away, but their mission is to help me with the story itself, if there are plot holes, inconstancies and such.

Then when the story is done, I have proof-readers that read the entire story and correct things that might have been left out.

After that stage, when they’re both done, I reread the entire story myself one more time and then put them out.

How much time do you invest in writing?

I definitely can’t write everyday and I can’t really sit down and write knowing I’ll only have an hour. I need to know I have time.

I like to write scenes entirely if I can, and not cut them in the middle. But sometimes I don’t have a choice. So it’s mostly on the weekends when I have a full day I can dedicate to writing.

On which of your stories did you write the longest?

I don’t really remember but I think You’ve Got A Higher Power, You’re Once In Any Lifetime did. It usually takes me a few months to write a longer fic, and when it’s for a fest and you have a deadline there is a bit more pressure so you have to kind of push yourself to write sometimes.

You’ve Got A Higher Power, You’re Once In Any Lifetime is also Morgane’s longest fic to date.

Does the aspect of having a deadline make it easier for you to write?

I don’t think it does.

Sure it gives a goal and it can help with the motivation, but sometimes it can also be stressful because you know you have to put out a fic in a certain amount of time, and that adds pressure.

It’s nice to also have no strings attached and be free to write and go at your own pace when you’re not writing for a fest.

Do you have an idea which of your works came together the fastest?

I honestly don’t know.

I want to say Invisible String, because I wrote it outside of a fest and the story just came to me so fast in my head.

What work of yours was the hardest to write?

I have to say They Say That Time’s A Healer for obvious reasons.

I don’t think any of my other works were hard to write, but this one is very personal and some chapters were very difficult to write and not cry at the same time.

If you’ve an idea in your head, how do you decide if it’s going to be a oneshot or a longer story?

I mean some prompts speak for themselves and I know if it’s going to be long but for others, I’m convinced it’ll be a one shot… and I end up with over 40k… Just like the one I’ve written for the blff.

I’m really awful at planning the number of words, because I always end up writing more than what I originally thought I would. As I write I often get inspired and add things or I write a scene and it is way longer than what I had in mind but I go with it.

What inspires you most while working on a story?

Sometimes it’s music. For some fics, they are inspired by a song. One that I heard in my car and had the idea popping into my head. That’s the case for Love In Slow Motion and my next fic which will be for the angst fest next year.

Apart from that, I get inspired by movies/tv shows or just my own head.

Morgane also often gets inspired by things she sees in real life and sometimes even searches for places while she travels that she could potentially write about.

For Clear Blue Water she chose an actual painting that exists in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It’s called La Trahison des Images (The Treachery of Images) also known as This is not a pipe.

The rooftop cinema is also a real place in West Hollywood, California and it’s called the Melrose Rooftop Theatre.

Also, the Cité de l’Espace (City of Space) in Satellite is a real museum in Toulouse, France.

Did you ever experience writers block?

I’ve never experienced it really.

I’ve had moments where it has been harder to get in front of the computer because in my personal life it was kind of hard as well at that moment, but it was never a moment where I couldn’t write at all. I’ve never had that.

Are there things you find frustrating, annoying or just really difficult to write?

Oh for me it’s the smut part. For reasons that I will keep to myself, I find it very difficult to write smut in a way that I always think it’s not good enough. I feel very insecure about those scenes.

Also the scene where there are a lot of characters at the same time, like OT5 scenes for example, are fun to read but man they are hard to write.

Finding the pace, the banter, it’s very hard.

Is there anything you can tell me about any future projects of yours?

Oh well, I have a fic coming soon for the blff, and I registered for the angst fest for next January.

I also have a couple of ideas for potential sequels… I won’t say more about this hehehe.

I also have two ideas that I don’t know if they’ll ever see the light of day, because I easily get caught up in fests.

In the next part of the interview, Morgane answered my questions that were more specifically about her works.

Morgane about processing grief through writing, experimenting with different tropes and weirdly named ice cream flavours:

What work of yours is your personal favourite?

I love all of them and I have a few personal favorites I’m not gonna lie.

Though if I had to choose one, I think I’d say Invisible String. This one was such a “love at first sight with the prompt” kind of thing. For the little story, I had registered to the blff in 2021 and saw the prompt that will later become Invisible String, but at that time, I wasn’t ready to get into such a story and I also fell for another prompt. So the next year, I registered again, and the Invisible String prompt was still there… But I fell in love with the prompt for Satellite and took that one.

However I couldn’t get the other prompt out of my head, it was stuck in there. So I waited for the registration to be over and asked the fest if I could write the story outside of the fest.

They accepted and while I was writing Satellite, the entire story for Invisible String came to me. I threw it down in my notes. Ideas, moments, plot lines, and when I was done with Satellite, I threw myself into it. It was just so much fun and complicated to plot and plan at the same time. I don’t know I just have a soft spot for this story.

What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who isn’t familiar with any of your works at all and why?

Oh god that’s tough as well, um…

I wouldn’t recommend an A/B/O because not everyone likes that dynamic, but if they did I would recommend either Invisible String or War of Hearts. Invisible String for the story in itself and War Of Hearts because it deals with an important theme in my opinion.

A/B/O aside, I think I’d recommend Satellite. It’s a very fluffy one and I think it represents my writing quite well.

But I really think this question should be asked to the readers really, I think they’d know better which one to recommend than I do.

Is there a work of yours that was planned to go completely different than it came out in the end?

No, I don’t think so.

How did you come up with the idea for Clear Blue Water, Came And Brought You In and the unusual characteristics for their species?

This was a prompt for the rom com fic fest. It was specified that Louis should be a vampire and Harry a mermaid and that they had to hide their identity to the other.

After that, it’s kind of hard to explain because usually it just comes to me.

I had the prompt and the ideas came and I knew I had to have them in a place where there is water of course and where it doesn’t rain that much, but then I had to come up with ways for Louis to be in the sun, and so it just follows after that.

I inspired myself with characteristics from the vampires in Twilight, The Vampire Diaries and my own mind.

As for Harry, I searched on the internet the characteristics of mermaids and I kind of made up my own traits for him and his species in this story. I thought: Well, it’s my story and it’s a fantasy so I can do whatever I want with the characters.

I didn’t want Louis to be the bloodthirsty vampire stereotype, I wanted him to be different and so I was a bit scared of the reaction of the readers because I usually see people asking for lust and vampire Louis biting Harry and all that and for me it wasn’t even an option in this fic.

Then I came up with this kind of legend about the two species and the rest is history.

Morgane also told me in a conversation outside of the interview that she wanted to show that Louis didn’t have a choice and that he had to struggle a lot with his new identity after he was turned. She didn’t want it to look like being turned into a vampire was a blessing in this story.

Clear Blue Water, Came And Brought You In is your only fantasy-themed fic (if we let the a/b/o ones aside). Is anything fantasy-themed like that planned for the future or if it’s not planned, would you just like to write another one?

No other fantasy fic is planned for now, but I’m not opposed to writing another one if a prompt in a fest or an idea appeals to me.

They Say Time’s A Healer, How Long Is This Burn Supposed To Last? is based around your own horse’s story. Why did you decide to but your pain and your experiences with grieving a pet in a story?

I think at the time I hadn’t really dealt with what had happened and it felt like it would be therapeutic in a way for me to put it down in writing. It was a way to externalize those feelings.

Not a lot of people feel the same or understand what it means to lose a pet so I also wanted to show the relationship between a horse and their rider, so people could understand a bit better, maybe.

[🚨big spoiler alert for people that haven’t read the story🚨]

How much of that story (besides Kartoon being sick and passing away) actually happened?

Harry’s fall and injury happened to me exactly like it did in the story. Except that for me it was only about two years after I got Kartoon. I also couldn’t ride for three weeks after that.

The moment where in a flashback, Harry takes care of Kartoon’s abscess happened as well. He really had one and it was hell to treat.

The time where he got stuck in his stall happened as well. He had scratches on his hips and all, my poor baby.

Also, the part where Harry learns about Kartoon’s condition after the party and everything that happened after that to the final moment of Kartoon, happened exactly that way to me.

I described it exactly as I remembered. The call, the chase on the road, the moment he came down and out of the truck, inside the warehouse and being by his side, saying goodbye and finally the waiting room and the final decision. I didn’t have a partner, but my Dad was with me, so that part is different obviously.

The box in which Harry keeps the plaques and the hair of the tail is real as well, I have the box on my nightstand. I never really open it but it’s there.

When Harry cries in Chapter 9 after getting the bill for the operation was a real moment as well.

The river spot is a real location and of course Kartoon did some competitions, but never at a national level like in the story, so I changed that too for the purpose of the plot.

The aftermath and when Harry tries to ride another horse, it was what happened to me as well, the name of the horse was the same and I couldn’t go through with it. The end of the story, regarding Harry’s feelings and his journey through grief and towards riding again is what I’m feeling.

Morgane never felt ready again to ride another horse and so, even if people told her that they would’ve loved it if Harry took that step of riding another horse in the end of the story, she decided to not do that. She wanted the story to represent her feelings and her grieving even if her readers would’ve preferred it differently.

The story does have a bittersweet ending.

After the interview, Morgane told me that Ice Tea and Dusty the cats are also very much real and sent me a few very cute pictures of them.

How did you come up with all the ice cream names in Summer Sun, Something’s Begun?

I searched for weird ice cream flavors first, then I searched for puns around the flavors.

As you know I’m French and English isn’t my first language so finding puns can be a bit tricky.

Morgane’s favourite ice cream flavour is a classic creamy strawberry. Bonus points if it has chunks of strawberry in it.

In Invisible String Louis writes his own book at the end to tell their story. He mentions it’s going to be a trilogy. Is that supposed to be a little spoiler for two more parts that are maybe coming in the future?

I’m going to disappoint a lot of people but no it’s not…

But never say never I want to say…

In my mind, Louis was writing his journey without Harry in the first book, the second book was Harry’s story without him and the third one, my fic, is their journey to coming back to each other.

So yeah maybe one day I’ll be brave enough and will do it, if people are interested to read that…

Morgane told me that if she’s ever going to write another part, it wouldn’t be about the villain of Invisible String coming back.

You don’t stay in one trope or genre but rather experiment quite freely with them. Why is that?

I just like to challenge myself and experiment.

I want to write different things, different tropes, so there is a bit of everything for anyone who wants to give my stories a try.

I also think, it’s more interesting to change things up and not stay in one particular trope, but that’s completely personal as some other writers might feel more comfortable with sticking to something they mastered.

What was your favourite trope you wrote to this day?

I don’t know…

I love a/b/o for sure but otherwise I don’t think I have a favorite one.

Is anything completely new planned genre or trope wise?

I’d say that the angst fic I’m planning is something different because it will deal with heavy bullying and homophobia.

Also I’ve always wanted to write a fic where Harry is a ballet dancer and this one will be it.

Satellite is your most popular work. Why do you think it got so popular?

I have absolutely no idea.

I was genuinely, and still am, surprised by the love and enthusiasm this fic generated. I honestly didn’t think it would have this success.

It’s a moderate success compared to other writers and popular fics of course, but for me it was pretty big when the story hit 1000 kudos. It was my first and my only fic with that amount of kudos.

Maybe it is the link between Louis and his son, or the growth of Harry and also the growth of his relationship with Adam that appealed to people. I don’t know.

Is there a work of yours that you’d like to get more attention than it has right now?

My new fic is just getting out there so I will give it some time.

But otherwise, obviously They Say That Time’s A Healer is one that I’d like people to discover but I have to say that I’d really like for Clear Blue Water to be a bit more noticed.

Is there a work of yours that you would have rather not published in hindsight or have you already deleted one of your works because you didn’t like it anymore?

I’ve never deleted any of my fics and I don’t think there are any that I regret.

I mean of course I’m a bit embarrassed or rather insecure of my first ones because I was a baby writer back then and I’d like to think that I’ve improved since then, but I’d never delete them because they are part of my journey.

Now we’re at the part of the interview where I asked Morgane a few personal questions about her becoming a part of the fandom and her preferences when it comes to fics she likes to read.

Since when are you in the fandom and what made you become a fan?

Okay this is a long story…

So obviously I knew about 1D when I was younger but I never really listened to them because I thought I was too old… I know it’s ridiculous but yeah.

One day I was on YouTube looking at videos and I stumbled upon a video that was about Harry and Louis and Larry Stylinson. I got really intrigued with it all, these two boys and the band itself and I started to listen to 1D a bit, and I realized I kind of liked their music.

After that, I got very curious about Harry and Louis and typed Larry Stylinson on YouTube and that was the start of the downfall, you could say.

I found Freddieismyqueen and well, I never came up the rabbit hole after that.

I also got curious about their solo music and tried Harry’s, then Louis’, then Niall’s and here I am.

I officially came into the fandom in 2018, so rather late compared to some OG fans.

Did you ever got a weird/funny comment under one of your works or other social media about your works and if yes, what did it say?

I don’t think I’ve ever got a really funny one but the majority of the comments I get are so sweet and loving really.

I got a harsh one one day, which wasn’t really a comment but a note someone put on their bookmarks… But I can see them…

It was about They Say That Time’s A Healer and let’s just say that it made me cry and definitely not in a cool way…

Did you ever get a good/sweet comment that stood out and that you still have in mind sometimes?

The comments that say that I’ve somehow helped them or made them feel better just for a little while always stick with you.

Harry or Louis?

I often get the question, even with my friends. They usually ask me, but I genuinely can’t choose between them.

I know some people will say that there must be one you love more than the other, but I really don’t. I love them both so much, for who they are, and I can’t imagine choosing one over the other. I’ve loved Harry first, but then I discovered Louis and they just have a place in my heart.

Your favourite Harry era and your favourite Louis era?

My favorite Harry era is long hair Harry and for Louis the Made In The A.M. era I would say.

Morgane also told me that if she could, she would absolutely write all of her fics with LHH.

Your favourite movie with H?

My Policeman of course.

Who’s your favourite writer in the fandom?

I would say seducedbycurls because my favorite fic is from them.

Morgane’s favourite fic is Cold Little Heart.

Is there a fic that is not necessarily your favourite or from your favourite writer but is still kind of stuck in your head?

Take Me To Church by wickedarcher_08

What makes you want to stop reading something?

Oh I don’t read sad endings in fics, in books (like outside of the fandom) I don’t really mind but for Harry and Louis I can’t.

I also can’t read a fic where Harry and Louis cheat on each other or are abusive towards each other, it’s a no for me.

Your favourite Song and your favourite artist at the moment?

I’m a swiftie (sorry everyone) and the last few months I Can Do It With A Broken Heart is kind of the soundtrack to my life and in general I’ve been listening to Taylor a lot and Louis’ live album.

You do mention the series Friends and the movie Love Actually a lot throughout your fics. Are those your favourite movie and series?

Yes! Sorry about that, haha.

Friends is my comfort tv show and it’s the same for Love Actually. I watch it every year at Christmas and I rewatch Friends every year, too.

The most unusual thing that inspired you?

Huh… I don’t know if this can be considered as unusual, but I often get inspired by real life things. If I experience something or I’m just doing something random and then, bam! Something pops up and I’m like “wait a second, this could work”.

For example not long ago I was on a plane back from Louis’ festival and right there in the plane I had an idea for the fic I was writing. Nothing happened particularly, just the context inspired me.

Morgane also told me that she often gets inspired by little videos she sees on TikTok or Twitter/X.

I’ll Reach Out My Hand To You, I’ll Have Faith In All You Do, the second part of her Ballet Recital Series was inspired by video she saw on Twitter/X where a dad went onstage to help their child with their performance.

Her little canon series It’s A Larry Life was inspired by a few TikToks that her best friend sent her.

Who would you most like to read an interview from?

Oh, maybe stylinsoncity. They said they were leaving the fandom but still, their fics are simply iconic.

I also asked Morgane to give every fic of hers a colour and a season. Here is the outcome of that:

Welcome to Scotland: I picture it blue and in Winter

You Are My Dancing Queen: It’s black and white for me obviously and Winter as well

I’ll Reach Out a Hand For You (the entire series): I picture it powder pink and Winter

With My Body And Soul I Want You More Than You’ll Ever Know: I picture it Yellow and Spring

Summer Sun Something’s Begun: I picture it turquoise and Summer of course

You’ve Got A Higher Power, You’re Once In Any Lifetime: For me it’s yellow and purple, I don’t know why and Winter, too

They Say That Time’s A Healer, How Long Is This Burn Supposed To Last: For me it’s brown and black (Kartoon colors) and Summer

Love In Slow Motion: It’s Gold and Autumn

Satellite: It’s purple and Winter (the fic goes over more than six months but yeah)

Under The Paris Sky: Light pink and Summer

Invisible String: Gold and brown and autumn/winter

My Arm Might Be Broken, But I Won’t Be Broken Down (the It’s a Larry life series): Royal blue and autumn

War Of Hearts: Red and autumn

Love Me If You Dare: Mint green and Winter (the fic happens over several years but winter is an important part of their lives)

Clear Blue Water, High Tide Came And Brought You In: Pink and blue and Spring

You’ve Taken My Heart By Storm: Orange/gold/silver and Summer

A huge thank you (again) to Morgane, who was just the sweetest person ever.

I really appreciate that you wanted to participate and therefore support this project so much.

Thanks for being so patient and curious throughout the whole process.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

i have a confession

recently i had some trouble and had to delete an email

problem is, i used the google docs there to write my fics. and i thought i downloaded them all, but only one of my major ones did, and i lost everything else

literally all of it

i am anonymous because i lost my tumblr acc but on ao3 i am veetheree, and i had this longer dilemma regarding my potterlock fic (pretty disillusioned with rowling and all.that, unsure whether to continue) but even so i saw that a lot of people subscribed to it and i wanted to at least see where the story leads, i had over 300k words apart from the 40k i published

and i domt hve it anymore :') i didnt check the process because it seemed okay and i had other uni and work stuff to take care of, and now i check it and :') it's gone :')) im not doing well, and i am going to delete the fic i think

i dont have the energy to maintain it and i dont want it to be left in the dust either - i have lost all hope for it, and this is just a punch in the gut. and i was proud of the plot and how i intertwined the 2 worlds too

this is mostly just a rant because i dont really have anybody else who can relate to the pain of fic writing and the challenges that come with it

also, as to why i had to delete the email - it's complicated, hacking situation and such, but it happened over 2 months ago so im not able to retrieve it and neither do i really feel like looking into it, im done with that fic for good 😭

that's all, thank you for being a safe space for me to go to, and i apologise to anyone who was waiting for that fic to be updated :(

Hey Lovely *HUGS*

OH GOODNESS, I'm SO sorry you had a garbage time with your email, and even more so, accidentally deleted fics from your Google Drive without saving all of them. I'm TERRIFIED of losing my own fics from my G-Drive all the time (I do actually write and have about 15 "snippets" of fics on there) and back them up religiously.

That said, I can understand how life can overtake literally everything and just make being online Too Much™ – happens to me all the time 💜🖤. And I know how disheartening it can be to just... not have the motivation anymore to continue on with something, heaven knows I've done that plenty in my 40 years, LOL. And Lovely, we have to remember to do what's best for us in the long run.

When I was a teen, I wrote a fairly popular Sonic fanfic series that I never completed, literally left it on a cliffhanger. This was back before even FFNet, and fics were distributed in the Sonic fandom on our Geocities pages via Webring, LOL. After life took over, it still remains unfinished over 20 years later. I recently found the original word docs of all 9 of the stories (with the 10th one half-finished) and while I cringe at my bad writing from back then, I still love immersing myself in that world. One of these days, maybe I'll finish it, because I do think it was a great concept and intriguing storyline that dealt a lot with humanity and sentience, just obviously written by a teenager, hahaha.

The point of that anecdote? We can still love the things we wrote, and still want to engulf ourselves in that world from time to time and not feel bad about it. And if you decide to come back to it a decade from now, that's okay too. You're only human.

And never EVER hesitate to come here for a friendly eyeball to vent to. I try my best to make y'all feel not so alone. Glad to see you are okay, Vee, truly. That's what's most important.

*SNUGGLE BUGGLE HUGGLE* I hope you have a beautiful, prosperous day. And I'm sure your fic-fans understand <3

[medusapelagia]

My 2023 in Fanfics

Thank you so much to @cxwzkeys for the tag! I'll definitely check your fics!

Here are my favorite fics I wrote for every month in 2023. Apart from one, they are from Stranger Things and most of them are rated E and have dark themes!

January: no fic in English

February; no fic in English

March: Guilty - Steddie- one shot - 10k- my first fic in English ever

April - Never Again - Steddie - Completed - 54k - I was obsessed with this fic, I never wrote so fast and I had some really cute comments about the fact that I probably should have slowed down, but I was obsessed so... 😅!

May - The guitar, from Steddie Week - one shot- 2k - my first event ever but I didn't have a Tumblr blog at the time 😂

June: Geraskier - Would you love me more (If I killed someone for you?) - one shot - 5k

July: An Imaginary friend - Steddie - one shot - 3k - A little drabble from Wayne's POV that became a fic.

August: I wrote 2 fics a day for 15 days, do no recommend, but I loved AU-gust! My favorite is 08 AU-gust Robots and Androids - Steddie - complete - 23k

September: I don't have a favorite for this month. I completed a fic I'm not really proud of.

October: many, many, many events, but the two fics I am more proud of are: my super crazy Metal Sandwich fic (this is a no judgment zone, right?) Adventure Movie: Jurassic Park + Kinktober Day 4 [NSFW] - one shot - 1k , and my Steddie The Crow AU - It can't rain all the time - Completed - 24k

November: Steddie Omegaverse - I'm so good at telling lies (That came from my mother's side) - Completed - 40k

December: Harringrove - my super self indulgent mermai AU - The restless sea calls back to you - one shot - 15k

This year: I hope to finally start to keep track of how many words I write and maybe even meet my goal of writing 1.000.000 words! Last year I stopped around 900k so I think I could actually make it! And I hope to have the opportunity to do other collaborations with artists because the ones I had were and are so much fun! 🤩

My no pressure tags (because I'm a curios little gremlin!!!) are: @rindecision, @cranberrymoons, @just-my-latest-hyperfixation, @lorifragolina, @pearynice, @kallisto-k, @whataboutthefish and everyone who wants to join!

[jancy-central]

Welcome, everyone, to another Spotlight Saturday!

This week we are spotlighting writer @throttlegainwell so read their answers to our ‘Get To Know Your Fic Writer’ questions below the cut. And here is the ao3 link to check out all of their amazing fics:

Reminder: This month’s prompt is ‘soulmates’…

…so please see our pinned post for more info. We have posted a lot of soulmate prompts for those needing some inspiration so check those out as well.

And as always, feel free to message us with any questions, whether you are a fic reader or a fic writer. Both of us write fanfic so we are open to helping however we can. Need a beta? Message us and we’ll either help you or put out a call for beta help! Hit writer’s block? Maybe we can help? Or maybe you just want to recommend a fic? SEND US AN ASK OR A DM!

Happy Saturday! ✍🏼 📖

Spotlight Saturday Questions:

@throttlegainwell’s answers:

1. I guess I prefer one-shots generally, but it's much more satisfying to me to write (and finish!) multi-chaptered fics.

2. A mix of both? There's usually at least some degree of planning for each chapter, but sometimes I just see where it goes.

3. ... It depends on the story. Usually, I'm rushing to slap a bunch of ideas into a document as quickly as I can type (or writing notes on my phone). Lines of dialogue, character ideas, themes I want to address, bits of description or narrative or details to include, plot arcs, whole scenes sometimes... I get those into one doc (which I clean up as I go, if I'm copying them over from my phone), then I create a corresponding doc titled LINEAR that I typically view side-by-side with the fragments/notes doc. I move bits into the LINEAR doc as I work, once I know where they're going or have a place for them (like when I've built the connective tissue), until the first doc is empty; I finish writing in the LINEAR doc. There's usually a brief summary of the story, by that point, in the Synopsis window on the right (I work in Scrivener) so I don’t get too off-track, and I'll probably have some notes in the Notes window, as well as any warnings that will be necessary if I post it (so I don't forget later). But sometimes I just sit down and write, like, an entire story, without thinking about it, or I'll try something stream-of-consciousness or experimental. And sometimes I actually do outline (though sometimes that outline is just a bunch of things that I know need to happen, and I drag those around until the order of them feels like a satisfying arc--I wrote an entire 40k+ story that way).

4. Oh, everywhere, I guess. From the source material, definitely. From books I read, concepts I've studied, themes that just interest me so they tend to crop up in my work or maybe I want to try a different spin on them. Sometimes a story I've written/am writing sparks an idea, or I want to try a variation on it to see where it goes, so I branch off from that. Sometimes I just want something, out of the blue. Occasionally, I browse prompts.

5. Nah. I did the whole concrit thing back in my early fandom days. I'm here to have fun and I assume so is everyone else.

6. Nope! I used to do beta reading, a long time ago, and I've casually edited for fandom friends, but I've never used a beta reader. I don't really see myself starting now.

7. Whichever one is the most interesting for the story or whichever one best serves the story's goals, usually. Sometimes because I haven't tried a particular POV before and I just really want to give it a shot, or because I'm writing it with one voice and the voice of a different POV character just *feels* right or sounds really interesting. But I've been branching out a little! I'm usually very committed to 3rd person limited, but this past year, I've been trying switching POVs a bit, I'm writing one story simultaneously from two different POVs (beginning to end, for each) just because it's such a different story for each character, and I'm writing one from omniscient POV because it was really the only one that would do what I needed.

9. I usually try to! (Not always. But usually.) I don't read a lot of fanfic, due to what I imagine is the very common combination of lack of free time and quite severe concentration issues (though I've always been a big reader and I love it a lot, so this is, needless to say, a massive bummer). It's worse with fiction than non-fiction, so if I actually manage to read a fic, it's a safe bet that I probably took notes during and the author will hear *at length* about all the ways I enjoyed it and what I found really interesting or memorable.

10. I have many WIPs, but blinks only came up in a few. One is too explicit to share here, but here's one: He can’t tamp down a shiver at the thought; he blinks extra hard, resisting the urge to grasp the back of his neck protectively.

11. Ooh. Like I said, I don't read a lot of fic (and I haven't read that many for the ST fandom), but I very much love what maddie_grove is doing with Tonight, Tonight, The Highway's Bright. I wildly enjoyed where the hours bend, by fakelight. And this world is gonna pull through, by scoutshonour, hit just right.

12. I don't tend to expect much feedback. I post because otherwise I'll go back and tinker with fics, and I don't really have the time for that, plus at a certain point it's not fun anymore, but I'm still messing with it. So when it's done enough that I've accomplished what I set out to, I post to free up my brainpower to move on to other things. It doesn't necessarily discourage me to not receive it (usually), but it really does encourage and motivate me when I *do* receive it. If someone enjoys a story and wants to talk about it, I'm likely to write more works in that vein or explore those ideas/characters/fandom more. I’m more likely to go back to a WIP if people are excited about it with me. I've received some truly lovely, thoughtful, analytical, humbling, and memorable feedback, and I hugely appreciate and enjoy all of it.

13. Don’t delete/erase anything. Save it all.

14. I tend to get into a certain headspace to write, but I wouldn't say that I usually feel what the characters are feel. Sometimes, I probably do. (I'm one of those people who moves their lips when they read an emotional scene, so I guess I do get a bit into it while I'm writing! Embodied cognition, what a trip.) I do sometimes draw from personal experience, but typically only in very broad strokes.

15. Happily. :) I've written a LOT of sex scenes over the years, for a lot of different thematic, narrative, and character purposes (and sometimes just for rule of horny, rule of funny, or to explore a particular kink). I approach each one differently, based on the tone I'm trying to set, whether I want it to be particularly erotic or emotional or something else, the level of narrative distance I want the reader to feel, what the characters are like, what the overall genre is. Sometimes I get visual or detailed, depending on what I'm trying to do (and whether I feel those characters would do so or whether it would be a help or a distraction in that moment), but I tend to depict the internal processes more than the physical details. The sensory aspects. The observations, interpretations, and reactions. Connections between characters, if there's more than one. I personally tend toward realism in my sex scenes, but I'm not going to pretend that I don't skirt the edges sometimes or just say fuck it and throw realism out the window for a particular story. But I don't think realism is necessary in smut (or any fiction, when it comes down to it). It's a matter of preference.

16. Omg how many fic ideas am I NOT nurturing right now. Way, way too many. Here's a Jancy one that hasn't quite made it to the WIP stage (still in the synopsis-in-dedicated-doc stage): Jonathan and Nancy break up over the college thing. (It’s not really the college thing.) Years later, as they're both settled into their careers (Jonathan as a photographer, Nancy as a journalist, both constantly traveling for work and hard to reach), they end up sharing a room when they visit for Lucas and Max's wedding. Lots of angst, lots of pining, lots of denial, and ultimately an exes-getting-back together story. Sometimes you just want the cliche done your way.

17. I just don't write, tbh. I try to address whatever issue is preventing me from writing (if possible) or (if it's beyond my control) I just accept that it's not a writing period of my life. I'm happier when I'm writing regularly, and I do think it's good for me overall, but I'm not going to let hobby writing cause me genuine stress. (I've got non-hobby writing for that, ha.) I take it as a sign that something is wrong or that I'm just tired of writing and need to recharge (by engaging some other interest or hobby for a while).

18. Depends. Sometimes the title comes first, sometimes during, sometimes after. Sometimes I really do just fall in love with a title, though. I rarely struggle to title fics after the fact, but when I do, I'll just slap a quick and vague title on there and call it a day. Often it's a pun or something relevant, sometimes an important line from the story, sometimes lyrics. I have a series of art-related titles for some Will stories I want to do and some science ones I have saved for some Dustin stories. Some photography terms for Jonathan. Stuff like that.

19. Turns out it's hurt/comfort! This should surprise no one.

20. Oh, have I ever. Yeah, I've had people read enough of my work to point out themes that I tend to tackle a lot (I'm big on autonomy, resilience, and kindness--you'll see them repeated a LOT in my work, from different angles--and, yeah, I write about trauma a lot), and I definitely have some words/expressions that pop up a lot (and with each passing year, I try a little less to cull them). Also, you'd be hard-pressed to find a story of mine where someone isn't making, drinking, or talking/thinking about coffee. No reason. It just... seems to happen.

21. I had a shared 'verse with a friend, a long time ago. It was a huge amount of fun. We really gelled and produced just tons of material for it that had us in tears laughing and, you know, was also incredibly horny. That was a shared 'verse, rather than a collaboration for an entire story, but, yeah, I'd say that I'd be willing to collaborate. I don't consider myself terribly reliable or consistent, though, so I worry that a potential writing partner would find this frustrating.

22. I used to think so, but, honestly, I've been proved wrong many times, so I'd say no, not really. There's not a lot that I absolutely won't write. There are a few things that remain pretty serious squicks for me, but I'm sometimes able to write about things that I would find difficult to read. Some things also don't necessarily interest me or I would find it technically difficult to write them.

23. Don't worry about making it beautiful. Just get it all down. (You can’t sculpt what’s not there, you know?) And in that vein: write EVERYTHING down. Even if you’re not sure it works. Don’t assume you’ll remember or won’t need it. Just write everything.

24. Anything that's involved regimentation. That just doesn't work for me in every case. It's important to be flexible, both to discover what *does* work for you or to be able to move between different strategies for different stories or at different times in your life. Close second, though: that you should mine your pain to write because that's where true art comes from. That advice is shit. Sometimes art is aliens fucking in a time warp and also there's a ghost with daddy issues. Write whatever the hell you want. It does not have to be profound literature to be a good story.

25. For my ST fics? I think I've gotten a pretty decent response for most of what I've posted, considering it's all very niche and this is a massive fandom (and one to which I came extremely late and very recently). I guess a little more response for already wise, already worn might have been nice, just because it's a weird little experimental story that I think actually came out really neat, but it's *very* niche so I never expected much response. Or possibly Two Steps Forward, just because I think it's an interesting little ghost story that's different from everything else I have posted, and I really do have a soft spot for gen works.

26. For my ST fics, our future foe scenarios is a pretty odd one. We've got Nancy really feeling her big sister duties while also kind of worrying about Jonathan, making out with him, then convincing the Party to let her earnestly and VERY awkwardly talk to them about the importance of consent (and kind of roping Jonathan into helping her, which he's not happy about but dutifully does). It’s kind of clumsy, but she means well.

27. I love when the ideas slot into place, when I know where things are going, I see how it's moving, and I get all the pieces lined up so it's a straight shot to the end. Extremely satisfying. I dislike working out the kinds of technical details that I'd prefer to gloss over but that are sometimes story-significant, like ages and timelines. I'm increasingly just ignoring that shit.

28. Apparently I'm getting several thousand words done a day, on average, with as many as 6-7k some days. But I'm happy if I just do a couple hundred, or a line or two. This has just been an unusually productive year for me.

29. Ideally: I ignore it for a couple of weeks until I've forgotten the shape of it, then I read it over with fresh eyes. Increasingly: when it's written, I go over it for typos, overall continuity, basic coherence, and (if it covers sensitive themes) to make sure that I'm not inadvertently presenting something wildly hurtful or counter to my goals. And then I just call it done.

30. I'd say that I never really polish all that much to begin with, these days. I mostly post 1st drafts, even though there's typically stuff that I would pretty easily catch and adjust if I gave it a real once-over. I've just decided that I'm okay with not fussing with it very much. But I share WIPs these days, some of which are pretty rough. (I did not used to do this that much.)

[folklauerate]

20 questions for fic writers

thanks for the tag @bad-surprise and @ladykettlechips

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

71 under my name and a few on anon!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

796,982 which is kind of insane to think about. I started writing creatively for the first time in years in January of 2022. To have published this much is kind of crazy to think about. I'm likely going to hit 800k this year which is... Just wild. Lol.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The vast majority of my fic Bridgerton! I've written a two for The Rings of Power (Haladriel), one for Shadow and Bone (Darklina), and one for The Hunger Games (Everlark). I have plans for a few more Haladriel and Darklina :)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

(NOTE: I actually have never looked at my fics by kudos, I only know the set up is the most kudos'd one because well it's over 1k and none of my other fics are. So going through this was interesting!)

The Set Up — My Kathony royals au where Anthony is the King of England and Kate is a world famous actress. This is my most popular fic by far, I'm not sure how it ended up that way! It's a mind boggling amount of kudos (1,769 as of right now) and I know a lot of folks have much larger kudos counts, and it's hardly the most kudos'd in the fandom lol, but it's pretty big for me and I'm not sure if I'll write something else that'll get more lol. I do love this fic a lot, it feels like they're my own characters and that's likely because I've taken plenty of liberties and whatnot. Anyway. I could do talk about it for ages so I'll move on!

Hold Onto You -- A oneshot of Anthony holding babies--his own and his siblings. It was one of the first things I ever wrote for the fandom! Looking back it's a bit of foreshadowing for how I started to write lol--it was a pretty long oneshot written in less than a day which I've done multiple times since then. I haven't revisited this one in a while and don't even know if I can--writing regency is not my strong suit and my earlier writing is still hard for me to read these days lol.

leave the light on — A twoshot where Kate and Anthony are roommates and fall in love. It's set in NYC and is very rom-com-y! It has some of my favorite things to write; domesticity, people growing with one another and around one another, descriptions of the sky, descriptions of the subway, descriptions of NYC, a big wedding, a love confession. I recently finished it lol! I'm actually surprised this is up there!

Office Hours — I wrote this in September of last year in an attempt to get better at writing smut! I actually posted this on anon first because it felt too revealing to post this lol. I was actually really uncomfortable writing smut back then and I think I've improved a lot since then. The response was wild, I really was just so in the weeds with this fic that I couldn't even tell if it was hot or not lol.

lost in your current like a priceless wine— this is my prof au! And an age gap au :) writing this was wild and special. It was a lot of texting Kara and being so very thoroughly enveloped and possessed with this idea that was taking shape. I wrote this over countries and continents and on planes. I wrote all 40k of it in far less than a month and just! I dunno! It was so immersive. It's one of my favorite things I've written. It's crazy it was just this year.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! Lol that being said--I have quite a backlog right now. Responding to comments takes a lot of energy and time from me and I usually figure that people want me to write fic as opposed to responding to comments. I do want to say that I honestly sincerely appreciate every comment. I think all fic writers do. We love hearing what you loved and love hearing your thoughts! I'm sure my not responding to them is likely not encouraging so I'm sorry. Know that I want to respond to them and I am quite literally in the process of doing so right now lol. If you commented on Bridgerton, Actually (my Love, Actually AU from last year) then I've been responding to you lol!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

This fic isn't finished but my daddy warned me about men like you lol!

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'm a sucker for a happy ending! I'm not sure what my happiest ending is, but the vast majority of fics have a happy ending :) Feel free to lmk what you think the happiest ending is.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yes. I've gotten some really inane hate comments that are just... dumb and easy to brush off. I've also gotten really intense hate comments that are so long they've required multiple comments, with people reposting exactly what they wrote after I deleted it. It's been really tough to deal with and I think I have some mild anxiety around comments in general as a result. Anyway, it's tough! I think hate comments tend to stick around the most in my brain and so I do appreciate all the nice comments because the gut clench from negative ones never really goes away :,)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do indeed write smut! I'm not really sure if I can describe what "kind" or how you can tell what your kind of smut is? I write plenty of dirty talk and smut with and without feelings. In general, I think that smut does need to do something for the story if it's in a fic with plot--if it's a fic that's just smut then it doesn't really matter. If it's a fic with plot, I like to make sure the smut actually helps the plot along and works to carry the reader through what the characters are feeling and their journeys.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven't but I will enjoy adding celebs or pop culture things in fics!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yeah.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope but if anyone ever wants to, lmk! Translation is an art form and tricky and time consuming and I'm happy to work with anyone who wants to :)

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

I have and I have LOVED doing it!!!!! I was so thrilled to write the West Wing AU with Rama, whose Tumblr @ I simply cannot find, and @grantairesbottle and I wrote in our perfect park together! Both AUs will be getting follow-up fics :) I truly adore both of their work and getting to write with two dear friends and incredible writers was just so lovely. Even more fun than that was just getting to freak out over this shared idea together! It was just such a lovely joint venture.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I could not pick one! I love James/Lily from Harry Potter, Katniss/Peeta from The Hunger Games, and Kate/Anthony from Bridgerton. I'd honestly say they're my OTPs! I love them so, so much. I've read so many Everlark and Jily fics growing up, too, those I've had for so long. It's kind of hilarious how those three have so much in common, like it's not like I went around looking for ships like that but it just happens. You like what you like, I suppose :)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I honestly do want to finish all of them but I don't think I'll finish my Gilmore Girls AU, simply because the characterization is so far off from what I think or how I understand those characters now.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Creating really immersive worlds through specific details. Doing research to make worlds lived in. I write a LOT of modern AUs for a book/show that takes place in regency England so I think world-building is one of my biggest strengths. Being able to transport characters into new worlds and understanding how they'd respond to that specific world and situation of the fic is another strength. I think my banter is pretty good? I also like to think I have a pretty good pulse on what my audience will like and what seems to be the thing du jour in the fandom. I usually don't end up writing to it lol but this is a strength as a reader, I'd say, not as a writer.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

PATIENCE lol! If I spent more time perfecting, editing, and letting things percolate, I think my works would all be better for it. Instead, I largely write and write and write and then hit publish the moment I'm done. With a few fics (specifically the royals au) I will have someone beta for me and then I at least have another level of editing and another pair of eyes for a vibe/gut check before I publish. I do think, however, that if I was brave enough to actually face my work and sit and edit, it would all be better in general. I'd also then be able to finish a fic before posting, which I've simply never done.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I do plenty of this for Bridgerton fic because I usually try and include Marathi or Hindi for Kate and her family. Idk if i'd count it as another language but it is another language in the sense that it's not English!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter lol! I wish I still had my old HPFF fics :,,) that website sadly went down and I don't know how to use the wayback machine to find that. But yeah!

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Oh, I couldn't pick just one! The Set Up is def one. I've done a lot of work with world building and research for that one. Sweet Like Honey is another favorite fic. I wouldn't even say that it's really a great example of those characters because I did a lot of work to bend things to make stuff work for this particular situation. I maintain that it's true to the characters for this specific situation which is a p bonkers one. I mean, I wanted a step-father fic so I wrote one! It turned into something a bit more involved. lost in your current like a priceless wine is another fav. This one is just... it's special to me. It was really different from the other fics being written at the time and I hadn't seen or read an age gap like that for these two or a fic where they don't have that initial bickering/fighting vibes, which was a result ofc of Anthony being a bit older and the characterization I gave him for the AU, so it felt really scary putting it up for people to read. The response was really overwhelming and wonderful and so kind. That fic also marks a sort of turning point in my own writing, for me at least. I think I got braver after that one.

Thanks for the tag! I hope this is fun or interesting to read :) tagging @grantairesbottle @amalinwrites @somethingclearandtrue @tinacentury and Rama whose @ is not coming up !! Also tagging anyone who would like to do this :)

[anneapocalypse]

Writing Wrap-up and 2024 Goals

It's a weird year to be doing a wrap-up, because I did not post a whole lot this year and I'm not sure I even set any goals last January thanks to having covid and being sick and exhausted for weeks, which still kind of feels like it threw off my whole year even though that sounds dramatic. Whatever. I've moped enough about it being a bad year for writing; now, I want to look forward.

2023 Wrap-Up

In case you'd like to read the one fic I did post this year, it's "Before You Go", a Loghain/Maric fic for Dragon Age (3022 words, rated E), which I am still quite happy with! And though it's not writing, I also made a podfic of RosellaWrites' gorgeous fic "let them not make me a stone (and let them not spill me)" (and if you're not interested in podfic you should still go read Rosella's fic, seriously, it's great).

While November 2022 was the last time I made substantial progress on A Hero Sleeps in Gwaren (my Briala/F!Tabris longfic for Dragon Age), I did make a few attempts to chip away at the draft this year. I didn't keep any records of what progress I made, but lucky for me Scrivener has a writing history feature that can at least give me a ballpark, and... it says I added 17,326 words to the draft this year (all in the first half of the year), which, not gonna lie, seems unreal to me. The first half of this year is mud in my head, so the fact that I did in fact get some writing done is really encouraging.

Over the summer, FFXIV started to really consume me as I had finished ARR by that point and my investment in the story was growing, and I also started taking a more active leadership role in my tiny free company, and so for the back half of the year I've mostly been writing little snippets about my Warrior of Light Ariane and her adventures and relationships, some of which may become part of actual fics later. This totals out to about 19,500 words at the moment.

So I only posted about 3000 words, but in total I wrote almost 40K this year. Is that a fantastic year, no... but honestly, it's a lot better than what my brain has been telling me I've accomplished this year, which is nothing. :P So I'm glad that I sat down to actually find the numbers!

Onward and upward.

So what's next?

2024 Goals

Fandom:

Finish one longfic.

Write and post a one-shot.

Do one exchange.

Original:

Outline an original novel.

Write a poem.

Send out one piece.

Tentatively my immediate plans are to get started outlining and then writing my Ariane/Haurchefant fic. I'm on the fence about February. On the one hand, it would be great to come back to my Briala/F!Tabris longfic for Femslash February, but on the other hand there's a high probability I'm going to be playing Endwalker by that point and I have no hope of keeping my head in Dragon Age during that time, so it's probably best not to commit to it. Dragon Age fic might be best saved for after I've caught up on MSQ when there are (hopefully) a few months still left to wait for Dawntrail and I can take a little break to let it marinate while I work on something else. My enthusiasm for the Briala/Tabris fic has not waned despite the long hiatus, and just yesterday I was reading bits of the draft and getting excited again, so I do hope to finish that this year and get to share it with you.

The alternate candidate for February is either keep working on the Haurchefant fic or in the case of a miracle in which I actually finish it this month (hah!), move forward with the next one I have planned, an Urianger/Moenbryda. That's unlikely but we'll see. I know I still have things to learn about Urianger in Endwalker, which I'm very excited for.

As for what exchange(s) I might do this year, I'm not sure yet! I haven't seen any announcements yet that Chocolate Box is running this year. Black Emporium and FemslashEx are both strong candidates for me. We'll see where I am when those roll around, or maybe something else will catch my eye!

Edited to add: Oh, yeah, also at some point we're supposed to get that final season of Red vs. Blue. I have a few outstanding projects in RvB but the main one that really matters to me is Radio Silence, my Carolina lost years fic. I'd love to use the series' send-off as a kick in the pants to finally finish that one, whenever that happens. We'll see!

Finally, I am making a conscious effort to reclaim my writing time, which traditionally has been the morning between 9 and noon because that's when my mind is the sharpest, but over the past I basically let that slip entirely and be taken over by either housework or gaming, just writing on the fly when something came to me. I'm not morning gaming anymore unless it's for a good reason (timed event I need to catch, etc, which is rare, and finishing yesterday's roulettes is not a good enough reason because the queues are slower in the morning and it just ends up eating more time than it needs to, they happen every day, it's fine).

On to 2024. Looking forward to it.

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

I’ve edited my timeline a bit (a lot...) and the old version of this drawing just wasn’t really useful for me anymore because of certain changes etc. so i finally expanded it a LOT so i have a better idea of what flash’s hair should look like.

(while peter stays mostly the same XD he’s just not interested in experimenting with his hair i guess)

putting some individual bits (well, groups of 3-4) below the cut:

Flash in his late teens; his only form of hairstyling in high school was buzzcuts from his mom so i just wrote “high school” instead of an age lol... once he goes off to college he starts growing his hair out and by the time he loses his legs that’s about what it looks like (18ish), and then the one with the hello kitty shirt is about a year later, how he looks by the time he’s 19 and a half... then a few months later he buzzes it all off after some stuff happens that upsets him, that i won’t go into here but will be uploaded to the AO3 series as a fic later. short version is “he has a revelation about himself and gender that he’s really, really not ready to deal with and locks himself back in the closet” (not that he was really out of the closet but he was rolling around in 2006 wearing a hello kitty shirt and nail polish lol) so yeah he ends up depressed again, and drinking more (still not legally old enough to drink but he has his fake id and other ways of getting it, of course) and trying to be Outwardly Masculine like he was before :(

oh i’ll also note—since it’s not visible in these busts lol—flash has of course been using a wheelchair since he was 18 and a half, which is obviously because of the events in “these are not the clothes [...]” where doc ock crushes his legs... so aside from the teenage stuff, he’s in a rigid wheelchair throughout this entire au—i decided against him ever getting prosthetic legs because initially he is young enough that growth is still a partial factor, on top of prosthetic legs already being even more expensive than wheelchairs and already requiring multiple fittings in the early stages even for adults who are totally done growing, and then later they’re just like... poor... plus not being on his dad’s insurance after a certain age (esp. after being kicked out but i don’t think he was disowned)... even by the time he and peter get married and flash is on peter’s health insurance i doubt they’d be able to afford a pair of otk prosthetic legs on the salary of one full time teacher and one part time assistant gym teacher lol—that shit’s like tens of thousands PER leg... even with insurance i doubt they’d be able to throw together something like 20k-40k (or more) for prosthetic legs on top of being due to replace flash’s wheelchair... granted they do have rich friends (and my headcanon in 616 is that harry and/or liz are probably the ones who helped pay for flash’s mobility aids in the first place) but imo neither are the type to want to go asking for money, regardless of harry or liz’s willingness to give it to them... and being like, “hey can i have $40,000?” is a BIG ask lmao

ANYWAY Flash is still kind of in a rough place in his early 20s, but starts to get better and feel okay with the things that made him feel happy before, so his hair starts growing out again and he busts out the spidey choker but not the nail polish. am considering having andi be a character around this time (though obvs she’d be like... 10) but not sure about how i want to do that... or if i’ll ever write it XD def still having drinking problems as he gets actually legally old enough to drink but less depression = less drinking for him, to some extent... his beachy curls are just the cutest though

not pictured: flash converts to judaism in 2010 (along w/ his mother and sister)

(2011 necklace just a regular fine silver chain necklace peter got him for his birthday)

mid 20s flash is a lot happier and starts wearing nail polish again, as well as getting his associate’s degree and also starting the *other* AA (alcoholics anonymous) or a similar program happening kind of concurrently with some other stuff (Harry’s also been going through it which partially leads to flash realizing he wants to change some things in his life) and also just because he’s so busy with school and other stuff that it’s really just become a lot more impractical for him to drink as much, and with the support of aunt may and peter and his friends he’s getting a lot better about his drinking and also a lot more comfortable with himself and his sexuality and gender presentation now that he’s had time to think about it more and not be so afraid. turns out 7 years away from your abusive father helps a lot... also harrison specifically has had kind of poor health and while idk if flash is even in contact with him anymore, if he is then, that might contribute to flash being like, fuck i don’t want to be like that...

anyway he gets job as an assistant gym teacher at midtown around the same time peter gets a job there (though peter’s been teaching already for a few years while getting his masters, but he was teaching at a school near chelsea instead of in queens)... Flash puts his hair up at work but at home it’s like, :> girly time.

and peter proposes when they’re 26, cause he’s been thinking about how that stuff has been legal in nyc for a couple years (since 2011) and just. he’s peter. he wants to get married. he’s a wife guy. i doubt flash says yes IMMEDIATELY because he has some hang-ups related to his home life growing up and peter and him haven’t always had the smoothest relationship, so understandably he isn’t ready to say yes immediately .... but like... they’ve been exclusive for a few years on top of some off-and-on stuff in their early 20s, and peter has seen him in some of his worst, most rock-bottom moments in life as well as helping him realize who he is inside, and still loves him, so he says yes.

also around this time, along with the convo about if marriage is the right fit, they have a convo about flash’s ... “identity issues” and talk about that and make good strides there. peter helps flash embrace that aspect of himself, especially now that peter’s mature enough to be capable of supporting flash without being pushy or aggressive or expecting him to just magically be grateful LOL—my, how they grow up XD so this is when they first start experimenting with feminine terms of endearment (at least on purpose) and stuff like... well, they’re engaged so i guess it’s just fiance LOL so not girlfriend. “wife-to-be.” and other more uh. nsfw things 😂

(the blue pendant necklace is a wedding gift from felicia)

they get married, still 26 because their wedding is in the spring and flash’s birthday isn’t until june and peter’s is in october, but like, ALMOST 27, the long hair is definitely what flash has at 27 following the wedding, and then the even longer hair is around the time the man-spider fic is taking place and has grown out a lot.

i’m still using he/him pronouns for flash in the man-spider fic as of my most recent edits, but i actually am not 100% sure what the deal is with that. i think there are lot of feminine terms of endearment in the privacy of their home, and i’ve had felicia call flash a pretty girl, and even tossed in a “wife” in a recent edit of ch 1, but flash isn’t really publicly out... “boy mode at work” as the doodle says lol. there’s always a chance i go back and edit pronouns. we’ll see how that shakes out. i think when flash is somewhere around mid-40s that might shift over to like, more feminine everything... a more comprehensive social transition i guess

then the late 40s one is mostly an estimate of like, this might be what flash looks like in 20 years... but idk for sure. wife city. a couple of white hairs but she’s not going gray as much as peter is lol

also—re the wedding stuff: originally there was no yarmulke for flash’s wedding outfit but i recently committed to flash asking his mother about their heritage (in “last week [...]”) with the idea that maybe his mom’s side is jewish or used to be jewish (but that there’s been a lot of intermarriage) and now have decided flash converts in 2010, so not an interfaith ceremony, just a jewish one.

here are their wedding rings. peter proposed without a ring but after they talked through if marriage was the right step for them and flash agreed to it, flash also eventually asked if he could get an engagement ring... because gender. so they buy a really small, simple one that doesn’t attract too much attention but still has a little tiny diamond... peter offers to wear one too but it’s not very practical for his line of work (spidey lol) so they end up just getting the one for flash. and then their wedding bands match but flash’s is skinnier just cause he doesn’t want to draw too much attention to the set. like it’s a small, happy thing for him, but that doesn’t mean he wants randos staring at his rings (and also they’re not exactly wealthy on a single full time teacher’s salary + a part time assistant gym teacher’s salary to support them and pitch in for aunt may...)

i can see peter getting an anniversary ring for flash eventually too... maybe 10 year...

also as a sidenote, i just wanted to say i def agree that peter doesn’t need to be married to be an adult or be mature, and that it’s weird when people boil it down to “peter has to be married to be an adult.”  the problem with comics right now isn’t that he isn’t married, but rather the circumstances for why it was decided that they had to end that relationship, and the way he is watered down into a nothing character with no personality and no flaws who isn’t allowed to swear or drink in the name of Mascot-ification while his dark hair and features are made lighter and more generic (arguably more aryan) (latter also a problem with flash and why i only draw flash with curly or wavy red or strawberry hair now instead of the straight yellow blonde he’s been given over the past 20 years)

ANYWAY

what i’m saying is that while marriage shouldn’t be the only way for a romance to continue, etc. and emulating traditional gender roles and marriage roles is not the only way to be in love etc. i do think peter is a wife guy (and how many times has his first solution to literally any problem with a woman has been “oh no i have to propose”?) so i think in this case it’s warranted, and peter being like, well, gay marriage is legal... and we both have jobs at the same school now... and we’re probably gonna move soon... maybe we should get married.... makes sense to me 😂 especially considering things like healthcare and the fact that flash is no longer young enough to stay on his dad’s insurance... and peter is very much a protective (overprotective) person who wants to take care of the people he cares about... makes sense that he’d be like, i love you, i want to be with you for as long as possible, let me take care of you better

but also: me smushing fictional characters together like barbies: teehee wedding

me giving flash longer and longer hair and more feminine presentation could also be talked about as like, trans people don’t need to emulate traditional gender roles—but i like when flash has long hair and i think it looks pretty and cute. but also frankly part of the reason i gave flash long hair is less to do with gender presentation and more to do with the fact that i grew up in a family where 4/5 of my uncles grew their hair out long as adults specifically because they’d all had buzzcuts their whole childhood and adolescence so growing their hair out was a way for them to assert their personhood lol

and i think that applies to flash here too, in addition to the genders and long hair as a form of feminine androgyny

as for peter:

i drew a lot less for him XD his hair is mostly the same 2-3 styles cause he doesn’t care that much about fashion whereas flash has the whole Queerness and Gender thing going on. (otherwise i wouldn’t have given him like 10 hairstyles LOL)

late teens and early 20s, peter starts to loosen up a little bit with his hair as he gets older and more adult... he also loosens up his clothing for all of five seconds because with the symbiote when he’s 17-18 (mostly 18) he doesn’t need to hide a suit under his clothes, it just exists, so 18 is his “slutty button-downs” era XD  but then a few months before he turns 19 he loses the symbiote so it’s back to buttoned-up collars and turtlenecks and stuff... but sexy instead of nerdy. also he shaves his awful teenage boy barely-a-mustache.

that era of looser hair and more tightly done casual clothes is also around when flash goes back to trying to be masc and he and peter are separated (both in terms of peter living away from aunt may’s house and also in terms of not dating) for a little while.

but, early 20s is also when peter and flash get back together after a couple years and enter a steady relationship—when they’re around 21, 22 years old? and that happens kind of concurrently with flash figuring himself out with less fear, and peter helps with that a little bit. so as peter starts getting shaggier and less uptight, flash also starts to relax and grow his hair out. so they get shaggy hair together 😌 (though flash’s is def longer, peter just needs to go get his hair cut more often XD)

mid-20s, you can see Pete has gotten shaggy as he loosens up! but then some shit happens over a span of ~3 months that’s not great that i won’t get into here (see this post ) and he ends up hospitalized etc... after that, he gets his hair cut once he’s doing better, and keeps it pretty short and tidy from here on out as a way to, i guess... have some control over his life. it makes him feel better to be clean-shaven, neatly coiffed, etc. so from his mid-20s onward he’s permanently said goodbye to the baby mullets.

and then like i said he doesn’t go through as many hairstyles so i didn’t bother drawing out 10 different variations of his mid-20s haircuts... cause they’re all roughly the same but with varying levels of bang length depending on when the last time he got a haircut was XD

so skipping to 26/27 for the wedding stuff, and then 28 for man-spider... he’s matured now.... (damn wish i was that put-together at 28, my life’s a mess😂) so in man-spider they’ve been married for a little over a year (rough strain on the second year of marriage 😅) and then after it, he looks mostly the same but is a little bit fuzzier (even more?!) and has slightly pointier teeth.

and then in his 40s aka DILF with bad facial hair era, his hair will start going PRETTY gray pretty quickly... with that white streak... his hair is gonna be more silvery than flash’s as they age, partly cause of the stress of being spider-man and partly cause silver fox suits him lol

(not that flash hasn’t had stressful stuff happening too but it’s a little different)

and yes i gave him stupid facial hair, as is his right. any middle aged peter needs some kind of dorky goatee or mustache, that’s just the rules okay. i almost gave him a beard but i didn’t like the way it looked XD (also a beard under the mask seems unpleasant)

he dies at 49.

i drew this anyway:

I mostly just wanted to doodle that cause I thought it was cute but like... Peter gets gunned down before he even hits his 50th birthday. like literally a few weeks before he turns 50. It’s tragic but not surprising in the end and probably something they were a little prepared for considering everything that happens in their life together. at least flash will be a hot milf widow. (except she dies of a broken heart on his birthday instead) (aka a heart attack + a fall in the middle of the night)

i’ve just been thinking about that scene in asm500 where future peter gets taken out by a literal swarm of cops and a sniper... though that universe obviously has its own stuff going on and implies peter kinda goes bad, and i’m not really looking to do that to him or flash (as much as i like a Killer Spidey, i don’t think it’s the right fit here) we’ll see... i just know i want to re-emphasize that peter will treat flash with love, gentleness, and tenderness up until his last breath... wifeguy til the end. i think maybe fisk is involved or something...

anyway misc doodles from the past two years:

tfw you turn from a circle to a dorky teenager into being chiseled

i’ll also note that peter has a lot of issues ... like a lot... and he was already a temperamental teen but he has some serious anger and other issues as a teenager due to sexual trauma as a 12 year old :( poor kid. you can see mentions of that in the stuff i have posted; peter’s mostly coping as an adult but sometimes it creeps back out... :/ contributed to his antisocial behavior in high school for sure. also he hit puberty so hard XD his voice dropped like three octaves between age 12 and age 18 lmfao

added flash onto this older drawing so i could have a comparison of the way they grew... they both had major growth spurts but flash’s happened when he was around 13 and peter’s didn’t hit until 16-ish (well no he had a smaller growth spurt around 12-13)... a couple of angry children XD... also edited this to make ben shorter cause i realized i made him like. very tall on accident. but closer to 5′11″ here instead of like 6′2″ XD

and peter’s spidey suits over the years... first costume is dorkier and also a little more silver age styled, then black suit as an 18 year old and then he makes a new suit since he’s bigger after losing the black suit, and needs something better and more durable... has also filled out a LOT by 19/20 lol now he’s got that booty... and i think his suit probably tends to be some variation on that suit throughout his adulthood...

i’ll note that originally i planned for the black suit to be a little earlier but some stuff changed, so peter probably shouldn’t be QUITE that gangly and thin in the black suit. but otherwise it’s mostly right.

i also have this variant (with bonus six arms style) which i like a lot too though for all of these i don’t actually love the spider logo’s look ... this was a scrapped idea for a different AU so just ignore the six arms and spider face stuff XD not relevant here, just looking at the suit style

it’s really just the default spider-suit i draw tbh XD (this pic and the next obvs from that 8 page comic i did, not from this au)

i like this logo style better.

also bonus: a general idea of what the rest of the gang looks like..

[two-reflections]

⭐?

This ask is in response to this fanfic writer's Director's Cut meme!

Let's talk about the first Warhammer 40k fanfic I wrote when returning to the fandom last year, Under the Aurora. Before that, I wrote a small mountain of fic for a Dark Heresy game that ended in 2017, but I hadn't written any other 40k fic.

Under the Aurora is my speculation on how the Emperor and Malcador met. In it, Malcador, who is on a campaign of revenge against the warlords who have destroyed the remnants of human history, chases a figure he calls the Golden Warlord though the polar night, meaning to assassinate him. The Golden Warlord is, of course, the Emperor. They speak and Emps gives Malcador a genuine chance to kill him with a piece of fulgurite. Malcador ends up tossing it away and embracing a path that would eventually lead to greater ruin than that which he sought to avenge. A tragic irony, imo.

I'm really not a Horus Heresy fan, but I find Malcador to be a very fun character. Ancient beside the primarchs, young beside the Emperor and most other perpetuals. Ridiculously powerful and logistically-minded, but still a man. He's just so neat.

I find the concept of perpetuals interesting and like that 40k doesn't seem to use them as the solution to everything even though they could absolutely disbalance the setting. I feel like some of the backlash to them lies in them seeming a bit, well, "superhero-ish" in a Universe that otherwise has a very different vibe. I can understand that criticism, but I also think they provide a very interesting theoretical rabbit hole to go down when considering perpetuals in contrast to psykers and blanks. Pretty much everything in 40k can be explained as warp chicanery, but what sort of warp chicanery leads to perpetuals? It was thinking about that that led me to the ideas the Emperor expresses to Malcador in my story.

However, I wrote this story last October, only a month before The End and The Death: Part 2 came out. I knew when I wrote my story that there was a chance it would quickly become obsolete. It didn't quite, but it absolutely could have. Some details are probably a bit off, though - I now think it's more likely that the Emperor met Malcador slightly before his pilgrimage to Molech, with Malcador's resources helping him to get there.

However, I don't think TEATD actually says this is the case, so I'm happy to leave my story as it is, with them meeting shortly after the Emperor has returned from Molech.

Aside from these quibbles, one thing I'm not sure I fully made clear in the story (partially because it's from Malcador's perspective) is that the Emperor's goal was never to take the Svalbard Seed Vault. It was to bait Malcador into trying to kill him so he could finally have his fated best bud/boyfriend by his side again.

Thanks for the ask! If this isn't the story you wanted to hear about or you'd like to hear about another, please feel free to request again!

[walkawaytall]

For the fic ask game you just re-blogged?

7. Your favourite ao3 tag. I have a guess about this one.

8. How slow is a slow burn?

36. How do you come up with fic titles? What's the one you're most proud of?

7. Your favourite ao3 tag

Okay, so...favorite tag because I find the tag itself amusing? Technically, my favorite is a freeform tag I made up: "Hoth Turns The Rogues Into Feral Space Raccoons" and I have dreams that it will someday be a common tag (which I think requires 3 separate users to use it and tag wranglers to think it worthy of such a thing, so, you know, I'll keep dreaming), but as far as more common tags go...I mean, for hilarity's sake, I like all the variations of "no beta we die like __________"; I used to use "no beta we die like Palpatine didn't", which, considering at the time I had never used a beta, all that tag meant was "I probably should have let this sit a night and edited it one more time before posting, but I didn't".

Favorite tag that I actually search to find content? I think some combination of "Hurt/Comfort" and "Pre-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back"

8. How slow is a slow burn?

Okay, I don't have a set number of words or whatever that define slow burn for me, and, frankly, I think some things that are called "slow burn" are actually just "will they or won't they?" but because they go on for like 100K words, people slap a "slow burn" label on there and call it a day. And I do think of these as two different genres. Like, a slow burn can have "will they or won't they?" elements, I guess, but I don't think that's all there is to it; I think of a slow burn and a gradual build to the relationship that just...takes awhile from the reader's perspective. If the characters both like each other romantically by like...5K in and then a bunch of stuff happens to keep them apart for 40K words...I don't know that I'd consider that a slow burn? It's possible my definitions aren't quite on-point; I don't know.

I feel like I just went on my slow burn rant instead of answering the question, but I don't have a set length. I think of a slow burn as a multi-part story and I think the ones I've read have all been over 100K words, but I think it's really less about word count and more about how long the relationship takes to come to fruition within the story and how the relationship comes to fruition as well -- whether it's done gradually or not, etc.

36. How do you come up with fic titles? What's the one you're most proud of?

All of my fic and chapter titles except for two (Speak Louder and The Short Stick) have come directly from the text of the fics in some way (technically I guess Reconstitution contains the word "reconstituted", but close enough). I usually know as soon as I write whatever the phrase is that it's going to be the title -- my brain just goes, "Hey, that's good and describes the story well enough" and whatever it is becomes the title. Though with chapter titles, it isn't uncommon for me to be skimming the text of the chapter to find a suitable title after I've already pasted everything into AO3 (but before actually submitting it); I'm not generally as worried about those (this 100% happened with this most recent chapter of Purpose of Heritage, "Open Communication". I had no strong feelings about what the title should be and just picked something from the text that seemed thematically on-point). And, with Collateral, I had the title before I actually wrote the scene where the word was used, but I had the dialogue in my head from the beginning.

The title I'm most proud of...probably Reconstitution because that one has layers, but I also really like chapter two of Collateral, which is titled "They Like Me Tragic" and is taken from something a very drunk and very despondent Leia says a few months post-Yavin. Also, I just like Confirmed by Sources Close to the Subject. It's kinda long but it's fun and it works on a couple of levels in that story and I like it.

Thank you for asking!

Yet another writing ask

[cassiaratheslytherpuff]

20 questions for fic writers!

Thank you so much for tagging me @orange-peony, these things are always so fun to do!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 40 works right now.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

624,677, which is more than I thought I had (probably due to the fact 1/6th of them were posted during the past 5 months or so)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I only really write for Harry Potter, though I do like to play in next-gen, marauder and golden-trio era so there's a little variation there.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Blue Roses and Other Impossible Things Drarry, 40k, E To Be Out of Your Own (and consumed by another)  Drarry, 18k, E Though My Mind Could Think (I still was a mad man) Drarry, 87k, E Things Unknown but Longed for Still Drarry, 30k, E Use My Last Breath (to say I love you), Harry/Charlie, 6k, E

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do. I love talking about fics in general, but especially the ones I write. I love reading theories or thoughts people had while reading, and responding to those. And also, comments make me so happy and I want to show that to the person who commented because I know it can take a lot of energy and mental work to comment at all.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I actually think I have to list more than one, because I have three that all end kind of terribly.

A Long Line of Fine Rarry 2k There is a First Time for Dying Scorbus, 1.5K Give Me a Memory Drarry, 2.5k

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably all the rest of them.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yeah, sometimes.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yeah, I think like 35 of the 40 fics are rated E for smut. I like to write all kinds tbh. Like, super angsty, kinky, romantic, longing etc. I think it's the feelings and emotions that makes it fun for me, but they don't really have to be all positive.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I tried once years and years ago to write a supernatural and Hunger Games crossover, but I never finished it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I had one reposted on Instagram once, but nothing else that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, a couple.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I don't think I'd be any good at it tbh, I can never stick to an outline.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

I think maybe Drarry, but that might be because there are SO many great fics written for it. But I also adore rarry and prongsfoot, and I think I love them just as much – I just read them less because there are fewer fics.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

There are a lot tbh, but the one I'm always angry about not being able to finish is a fic I started a loong about Muggles finding out about magic and inventing technology to supress it, and Draco and Harry working to get Teddy out of England.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think (or at least hope) it's putting words to feelings and emotions. I tend to struggle to name or describe my own feelings so I usually explore that a fair bit in fics.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm pretty sure I'm ace so I struggle a lot with writing my characters as feeling physical attraction. I think I can do the emotions and physical bits, but yeah, the whole attraction thing is difficult. And also describing actions. I'll have a character stand up to do something and then completely forget I did it, so they'll be sitting down in the next line. Or they'll just be talking with zero description of what they're doing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm not sure I have any. I never have myself, but I'm not really opposed as much as I've never had a need.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter. I think it was a hinny fic sometime between the fifth and sixth book came out. At the time I had no idea what fanfiction or shipping was at all, and it never left the notebook I wrote it in.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

I think my favourites changes every time I try to pick one, but right now it's these:

Like a Dream I Can Reach (but not quite hold) queerplatonic darry, 19.5k

Though My Mind Could Think (I still was a mad man) Drarry, 87k

Four Gallons of Oblivious Rarry, 18k

I'll tag @stargazing-enby, @drarryruinedme7, @acnelli @maesterchill @pineau-noir and @shealwaysreads if you want to do it (and haven't already). And anyone else who'd like to do this!