#it is not a shipfic

[ravenrambles6229]

to whom it may concern, im on a short break from wax and wane. i've been working on another fic with a friend. it's a much smaller fic, a chatfic, for red vs. blue. once i've got a good bit of that done, i'll be going back to wax and wane. just needed a break after the monster that was last chapter. hoping to get a chapter out by the end of the year. dunno if that is going to happen

[mamawasatesttube]

Hi!

Would you happen to have any fic rec that respect Kon (and Tim) as a character and don't write a totally other character with just the same name?

(I really do not have any criteria, i don't care if there is a romantic ship or not I really just want to read a fic with the least amount of mischaracterization as possible-)

I really like your blog so I thought that I would ask!!

hiya!! this is gonna be a short and noncomprehensive list because unfortunately i have a migraine today and braining is hard, but def check out my general #fic rec tag too!

chrysalis by @loisinherlane. its a superfam fic about kon and the concept of growing up and it makes me so 🥺 the kon & ma and the kon & kara bits in particular. oaugh

fill in the blanks by @mindshelter is just so cute. its temporary amnesiac tim looking at kon and immediately going heart eyes. great look at kon from an "outsider" perspective AND fun insight into how tim's ridiculous mind works!

practical applications of a memorized heartbeat by @comphetkoncass tim gets fucked up and kon gets to put his ttk skills to the test (i.e. life-saving medical ttk applications). i dearly love when kon is Competent!!!!!

i want your complications too by @loisinherlane is more about clois than kon, but he features here as a 7 year old clone that superman rescued from cadmus early and i die every time bc hes so Fuckigningngng cute. babby.

hand on my stupid heart by @misspickman gets me in the "kon you have fucking issues please get help buddy" (he will not) department. the smallville parts (lori!!!! my beloved!!!!) are particularly chefs kiss!!

within the rubble and the harvest by @radioactive-earthshine for. well! speaking of kon and smallville!!!! ahhghgh!!! KON and SMALLVILLE!!! im so fascinated by his adjustment period and his love for ma and pa and. ough. all the tiny details are so good too. i love u kon and smallville.

AND finally not to toot my own horn but in case you haven't already seen MY kon fics, a quick self-plug here:

the courage of stars by... ME!!!! a kon post-resurrection character study dealing with the overlap of internalized homophobia and all that suicidal ideation he's been carrying around from day one. what's a guy supposed to do when he's pretty sure he came back wrong, 'cuz he's pretty sure he was never supposed to come back at all, but no one else can see it?

[thedenofravenpuff]

My contribution to latest Draft Horses episode on youtube, the crackshipping for Valentines theme!

Using a Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder card deck, I was assigned shipping Broken Wing Rainbow Dash with the FlimFlam brothers in a setting of weathering out a storm.

This was my result.

Enjoy!

The Roan RPG Project ScreeCon Server on Discord Leave a Tip on Ko-Fi

[redwinterroses]

(part one)

Oakville was, according to Tango, not the closest sign of civilization—which was fantastic, because by Jimmy’s reckoning it would have taken them weeks to cover what the train had in a few hours. Such was the wonder of modern technology.

“We’re only a few hours—maybe five? Maybe five hours out from Eureka.” Tango said, pulling a compass out of his pocket and checking their heading. “Not much of a place, but they’ve got a communicator station and horses. And whiskey.” He sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a drink right now.”

A drink. Jimmy was suddenly aware of the cottony dryness of his mouth—and they’d barely been walking an hour. The sun was down, the night air was cool, but he was already thirsty.

“We, ah—” he half-tripped over a rock. “It’s really dark. Are we going to stop for the night?”

Tango waggled the compass at him, the silver rim catching the starlight. “Moonrise in less than an hour, it’ll be plenty light.” He slipped the compass back into his vest pocket and shrugged. “Anyway, it won’t stop the Greysides boys. They’ll bring lanterns though, we’ll see ‘em coming.”

Somehow, that wasn’t comforting. In the distance, a wolf howled, and Jimmy shivered.

“Normally,” he said, trying to shape his voice in a conversational tone. “Normally, this would be the point where I’d build a dirt hut and wait out the night.”

Tango flashed him a grin that Jimmy could hardly see. “What, you afraid of a little mob action?”

“Considering I’m being tracked, can’t risk my gun, and don’t have so much as an iron sword?” Jimmy grimaced, thinking wistfully of the two shulkers of gear in his carpetbag. Abandoned on the traincar, loot for pillagers. “Yeah, I’d say I’m not exactly looking forward to running into anything.”

Tango gave a little chuff of a laugh, and there was a rustling sound as he dug into the side pocket of his satchel. Because of course he had his satchel.

“There ya go, greenhorn,” he said, and held out a faintly-glowing diamond sword, hilt-first for Jimmy to take.

“What?” Reflexively, Jimmy reached for the weapon, his fingers closing around the hilt before he could consider it. Tango let go of the blade and shrugged, slinging his satchel back to rest on his hip. 

“Can’t have my traveling buddy unarmed,” he said. “Bad look, for an experienced trail boss like myself.”

There was something in the way he said “experienced,” some note of sarcastic self-mockery, that Jimmy did not care for.

“When you say experienced,” he said, holding the gifted sword low to the ground and letting the gleam of enchantment dimly light his way. “Exactly how many—”

“Hey, will you look at that?” Tango interrupted him. He pointed into the distance, and Jimmy squinted.

“Lights?” he ventured, though if that was torchlight it looked almost indistinguishable from yellow-tinted stars.

“That’ll be Eureka,” Tango said. “We’ll get there well before dawn, if we don’t run into too much trouble on the way.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to go back to the question about Tango’s trail experience, but stopped himself. No reason to push for the fellow’s backstory—it wasn’t as if he was eager to share his own.

“Right,” he said. “Right, then. What trouble is out here? Creepers? Zombies?”

“Not too many undead,” Tango said. He rested his hand on the hilt of his own sword as they walked. “Husks, mainly, with this heat, unless you go underground, which I don’t advise. But yeah—creepers are a big nuisance in these parts. Them and the endermen—frontier mob griefing is the worst. I keep tellin’ folks we need to lobby to get an anti-griefing patch out here, but—” he shrugged. “You know how frontier people are. Obsessed with keeping things vanilla. You want luxury mods, go back to spawn.”

Jimmy made a noncommittal sound. 

“I’m not talkin’ like, full-on spawn blacklists or anything,” Tango continued, tromping along. “People want that, they can do things the hard way. I’m just sayin’—”

“Look out!” Jimmy saw the creeper just before it rose up out of the scrub, its eyes flashing a warning.

Tango swore and leaped nearly a block in the air, dodging away from the creature. 

It settled back, glaring at them balefully from its nest of brush and grass, and Jimmy eyed it with wary caution.

“It’s smaller than the ones back home,” he said doubtfully.

“Ehhh—” Tango’s voice was tight with concern, and Jimmy looked away from the creeper to find the man staring over his shoulder. “That’s… that’s cuz that one’s a baby.”

Jimmy froze.

“The… there’s a big one behind me, isn’t there.” He swallowed, and a hint of burning gunpowder drifted past his nose.

Tango nodded. 

Something hissed lowly behind him. A warning—the only one he was likely to get. 

He bolted. Behind him, he heard Tango’s startled yelp, and then following feet. 

“Is it chasing us?” Jimmy shouted.

“Keep running!”

Jimmy chanced a look over his shoulder.

It was a bull creeper—easily twice as big as the feral creatures he was used to back spawnward, its pelt dun-colored and mottled with green to camouflage it in the scrubby grasses. It charged after them, its eyes flickering with anger, hissing as it ran.

“Holy—” Jimmy tripped, caught himself, and kept running, eyes back on the ground in front of him.

“Get to that rock pillar!” 

In front of them, one of the strange, spiky landforms jutted up out of the dark landscape. They were at the base of it in a moment, ducking around the back, momentarily out of the creeper’s line of sight.

“Climb!” Tango ordered. 

Scrabbling up the steep side of the rock, they managed to drag themselves onto the top just as the creeper reached the base. It hissed furiously, but they were out of its reach—and blast radius—and it could do nothing but pace below them, its stubby legs not made for climbing. Thank void.

Jimmy flopped on his back on the narrow ledge, feeling his gun digging into his hip and not caring enough to move. His chest heaved as he panted for air, and cold sweat trickled down his ribs.

He closed his eyes against the stars, hating everything in that moment. Hating the stupid night sky, hating the ridiculously huge creeper below—seriously, since when did they get that big?—and most of all: hating that once again he’d managed to pull someone else into his mess.

“Alright,” he managed, swallowing hard. “Alright—look. You gotta get out of here.”

Tango, crouched on the edge of the rock, making faces at the creeper as he caught his breath, waved a dismissive hand. “It’ll lose interest and wander off eventually,” he said.

Jimmy pushed himself up with one arm. “No, seriously,” he said. “I mean it. I’ll keep its attention—you sneak off the back and head for Eureka. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not leaving you on a rock in the middle of the wasteland, pal,” Tango said, with a baffled laugh. “Like—I mean, no offense. But you’re greener than beans, and I’m at least half the reason you’re not on a train right now anyway.”

The creeper was snuffling around the base of the tower, and Jimmy had the sudden horrible notion that it might figure out how to climb. Or Tango would fall off the edge. Or Jimmy would trip and knock him right into the creeper’s paws.

He glanced down at the sword. “Sharpness?” he asked, squinting at the runes carved into the blade.

“Obviously.” Tango turned away from the creeper and gave him an evaluating look that was far too sharp for Jimmy’s liking. “It’s just a creeper, James, it’s not like it’s gonna—” his foot slipped on a pebble and he flailed his arms for balance.

In an instant, Jimmy shot forward and snatched at Tango’s arm, yanking him down toward the middle of the stone platform. Tango fell to one knee, yelping in surprise and pain. 

“Hey!” he exclaimed, yanking his arm out of Jimmy’s grasp. “What was that—”

Before Jimmy could second-guess himself, or even stop for half a heartbeat to consider why he actually cared—why he still cared, after all this time—he rolled off the rock toward the creeper.

He landed with a thud on its sloping back, and the thing gave a startled HISS that buzzed in his bones, the smell of sulfur flooding the air. With a shout, Jimmy gripped the sword in both hands and drove the blade into the back of the creeper’s head, exactly where the spine met the skull. The point of the sword—enchanted as it was—met little resistance, driving straight into the creature’s brain.

The hiss turned to a crackling gurgle, and the monster went limp underneath him.

Jimmy staggered away, catching himself against the base of the stone pillar, letting the sword fall to the ground with a flat clang. 

He heard scrabbling above him, and looked up to see Tango half-climbing, half-falling down the cliff. 

“What kind of damn heroics are you trying to pull?” the other man demanded, his derby knocked askew and a look of baffled fury on his face. “That thing would have detonated in your face! You’re lucky you—”

“Not lucky,” Jimmy cut him off, exhausted. 

“—didn’t hit… what?”

The adrenaline jitter in Jimmy’s arms—what, the third rush of the night? I’m going to sleep for a week—felt like it was going to shake his skin right off his bones. 

“Not lucky,” he repeated, spitting out the word.

He stared past Tango at the dead creeper. Already, it was starting to curl in on itself, desiccating in the wasteland heat. By tomorrow night, it would be nothing but a pile of super-flammable ash. 

Tango paused. “Not… not lucky?” He tilted back his derby and peered down at Jimmy's face, rant kicked off its rails. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jimmy cursed every unlucky star he’d been born under, and double that for Sausage. For a long moment, he considered not answering. Nothing, nevermind, he could say. Let's just get to town.

In for a penny...

“I can’t die,” he said, meeting Tango’s eye. “And I don’t expect you to believe that, but the fact is: people around me die. Constantly. Never me, though.” 

A bitter laugh crept out of his throat. “If I hadn’t got that creeper…” He shook his head. “I dunno. It would have got you somehow. Or you’d have fallen and broken your neck. Or the pillagers would have appeared before we got down. Any number of things. You’re not safe until you’re away from me.”

Tango took this in. Jimmy could see him weighing the words—and probably dismissing them—but all he said was:

“Why?”

With a shrug, Jimmy pushed himself up, and retrieved the sword from the dirt. He wiped the point on a knob of scrub brush. “You saved my bacon on that train, I think,” he said. “That’s enough to tie us.”

He held out the sword to Tango. “Look—you go ahead. I’ll just… I dunno. Camp here for the night, I guess. You get far enough away, for long enough, the curse seems to… disengage. You’ll be fine.”

Tango didn’t take the sword. He looked at it, then looked at Jimmy.

“You know I don’t believe a word of this, right?” he said.

Jimmy’s heart sank, but he wasn’t surprised. “Yeah,” he said. “I figured.”

“Great.” Tango glanced over his shoulder toward where the lights of Eureka flickered in the distance. “Let’s… let’s just get you to town,” he said. “Get some water in you.”

Get a horse, Jimmy added internally. Hit the road. Put a thousand blocks between me and here.

“Right,” was all he said aloud. “Water.”

Tango kicked the creeper’s shriveling carcass and started toward Eureka, and Jimmy followed behind, still holding the enchanted sword. 

I should have just chanced the train.

[jubilantmedusa]

Untitled Zukka Hurt/Comfort Ficlet #1 (because practicing drawing means I need to write little mini fics I guess...)

“You’re sick.” Sokka’s voice was as calm as the surface of water on a still night. Not a hint of accusation or contempt. No softness, no sting. Only observation. Reflection.

Zuko took a breath, deep to sooth his limbs that were threatening to shake. “I’m fine.”

Sokka frowned, and Zuko felt a knot form instantly in his stomach. His shivered, vision swimming as he saw the flash of another frown, superimposed. A different frown. Harsh. Sharp.

Sokka’s movements were calm. Fluid. Gentle as he raised his hand to Zuko’s forehead and pressed with just the right amount of pressure. “You have a fever.” Zuko felt his heartbeat pick up as Sokka’s lip began to curl, but as his expression settled Zuko realized that Sokka wasn’t angry, just concerned.

Zuko breathed deeply, pinning his arms to his sides before the other boy could notice that he was shaking now. Only, he must not have been fast enough because Sokka dropped his hand from Zuko’s forehead to grab Zuko’s trembling fingers. 

“Your hands are freezing.” Sokka hand tightened around Zuko’s as he pulled it upwards, pressing it against his mouth. Zuko couldn’t stop his hands from shaking even harder as Sokka’s breath warmed his skin.

—

“I can do that.” Zuko reached to grab his sleeping bag. “I’m fine.” Sokka lifted it over his head like they were kids playing keep away. Zuko huffed, crossing his arms, but let Sokka keep it.

“You’re not fine.” Sokka spread of the blanket. “How long have you been feeling sick?”

“Ugg.” Sokka paused. He looked up, holding  Zuko’s gaze until Zuko finally drawled, two days? maybe three.”

“Three days?!” Zuko felt his pulse quickening again, his shoulders bracing. “Why didn’t you say anything!” Even though Sokka’s voice voice was high he didn’t sound angry. In fact… Sokka’s eyebrows were scrunched, lips pressed thin. “You were training Aang this morning. Zuko, you shouldn’t be bending like that if you’re sick “ Sokka was worried.

“I’m fine.” How many times had Zuko said that now? “It’s just a fever. It’ll go away.”

“I mean, sure it will, if you rest. Can you, uh…” He gestured towards the sleeping bag, laid out and waiting.

“Oh.” It felt awkward to lower himself down when his legs felt so much like jelly, Zuko was sure it wasn’t graceful. But Sokka didn’t say anything, just stood there, eyebrow raised. Waiting. Zuko realized, then, that he was supposed to lay all the way down. So he did, somehow feeling boneless now that he wasn’t holding himself up. 

He blinked as Sokka settled a blanket over to his shoulders. It took Zuko and absurd number of seconds to realize that it was a blue blanket, one of Sokka’s own. Woven. Thick. Soft.

“Comfortable?” Sokka asked. When Zuko met his eyes he smiled.

It was nice, seeing Sokka smile. Zuko wanted to smile back, but he… there was a quivering in his stomach. Not sickness, just… waiting. “I’m fine,” Zukp said. When Sokka raised an eyebrow, he added, “I… feel fine.”

“I doubt that,” Sokka said.

“I do,” Zuko insisted. Yes, his body felt suddenly heavy. And his skin buzzed strange sensitivity that made event he gentlest touch feel like a scratch. But he was lying on his side, on something soft, and he was warm. “I… thank you.”

Sokka shrugged. “I didn’t do much,” he said. “Do you need anything else?”

Zuko thought for a moment. “Water?” He croaked.

“Coming right up, bud.”

Zuko let his eyes close for a moment, just listening to the sound of Sokka’s footsteps as he went back to the packs, the rustling of fabric as he was digging through something. Then there was a feeling, something hard brushing his fingers. Zuko opened his eyes to see a small, green glass. “A Ba Sing Se souvenir cup?”

“It was on sale,” Sokka said, chuckling. “Drink it. It’s medicine.”

“For what?” Zuko asked.

“The fever?” Sokka reminded him. “Do they… umm… not treat fevers in the Fire Nation or something?”

“Of course they do.” Zuko propped himself up just enough to tip the bitter liquid into his mouth before settling down again.

More sounds of shuffling as Sokka lowered himself, and then Zuko felt weight on his back as Sokka pressed into him, a hand settling itself onto his arm. Sokka’s touch was firm, but quiet. Soft. Sweet. “But not yours?” Sokka sounded sad.

Zuko swallowed. He remembered that feeling, tossing and turning as his skin crawled and his stomach churned. Waking up with a sweat drenched face but father still expected Zuko to do his katas. Run through his katas, go to school, sit up straight. There was punishment for slouching, even if he only slouched because he was shivering so hard he couldn’t mind his posture. “We were being trained to rule, Azula and I. Countries don’t stop because you have a cold.”

Sokka didn’t say anything, just started rubbing his arm. 

“You can rest now,” Sokka said after a while. “I can take care of you.”

Take care of him? Zuko tried to remember the last time someone had taken care of him. His Uncle had tried, of course, but Zuko had always pushed him away. He couldn’t let himself be seen that way - weak, sick. So he ignored the quiver in his Uncle’s voice when Iroh spoke to him from the other side of a metal door. And before that… before that his mother would, when father would let her. When Zuko was so sick that she’d block his bed with her body to keep father away, even if it cost her. Then sit with him and fuss his hair back with slender fingers.

“I’ll take good care of you,” Sokka said.

Zuko took a deep breath in. Not a sigh, just a breath, one to fill him up. He could feel his heart starting to race again, but... nicer this time, with Sokka so warm and solid against his back. He let the breath out. Slow. Controlled. Eyes still closed, he whispered, “Okay.”

[timsplosion]

NEW DRAFT HORSES EPISODE!

We're shipping again - this time with the help of classic brony card game, "Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder"! Featuring me, @therealakineko, @thedenofravenpuff, @thebirdgang and BobTheDalek (aka Kettle_Master)! Come watch as these horses find love everywhere from the beach to the bunker!

Hit Watch Later to remind yourself to come back once the video's live, or hit Notify Me to get pinged when the live premiere is about to start at 6pm EST today (7th Feb)!

[andypantsx3]

seeing a lot of discourse about 30 year old women in fandom today, and lemme just say:

all your favorite fics were written by 30+ year olds

[burningdownthehousecomic]

ACT 2, CHAPTER 3: Third Planet (part 2)

[NEW PAGES | START READING]

early morning valentine's day update! return of the qu33n.

[rivercule]

Mrs Morales???

[bluesilkwing]

so the longest fic i've managed to find in the assassinsphere is The Death of Innocence and Hope, which is. Lee Harvey Oswald x John Wilkes Booth

and yknow what I bucked up and I read that shit

this is my review

There was implied Booth x Balladeer, which is. no. no. dislike. we all know the balladeer HATES john wilkes booth with a fiery passion

balladeer would inhabit the assassins' minds as their conscience as they lived, and I actually liked that

the way the balladeer dies is very odd, he dies because booth pretended he wanted to be good but then when it turned out he was lying balladeer was sad? I was very confused.

I actually kind of like the prose in the later chapters, I think it was raw and pretty

I understand why Lee cares about Booth but I don't understand at all why Booth cares about Lee

there was. a grand gesture. i wasn't expecting a grand gesture.

the guy who killed oswald was the proprietor in a different form. i like that.

all in all it was horrible. 10/0.

[sodasa-was-taken]

I'd like to address some misconceptions I've seen floating around recently.

If a ship is canon people write less fanfics about it

Let's start with the idea that a ship's status as canon has any effect on how much fanfiction it gets. First of all, while the top 100 ships of all time contain a lot of non-canon ships those ships have in more recent years either plummeted down the yearly ship stats list or left it all together as seen in the AO3 ship stats 2023:

Meanwhile newer ships have taken their place several of which are canon. People don't abstain from writing canon pairings because they're canon but for other reasons like not being too interested in their dynamite. There's often next to no canon-complacent fics about the characters in question getting together because that story already exists in the source material. That doesn't mean there's no au's of them getting together as many fic writers find it to be a great exercise as they need to figure out how to keep the elements that attract the characters to each other in differing circumstances. Furthermore, characters getting together are far from the only stories fic writers want to tell.

Secondly, the amount of fics that's tagged with a ship is not the same as the amount that focuses on that ship. A great example of this would be a ship like Lumity where a good amount of the fics they're tagged in don't focus on their relationship. These fics often take place after they get together and make references to them being a couple so people use their ship tag. This means that unlike back when the show had first started airing the fics that doesn't revolve around their relationship still adds to the fics their relationship are tagged in.

Lumity is also a funny case of becoming more popular after it became canon as the fandom for The Owl House itself increased a great amount during the second season. Because of how often their relationship was a secondary element in several fics the amount of fics their relationship was tagged in increased along with the amount of all Owl House fics not just the ones that focused on them.

M/M is often the most used relationship tag in general

This is just nonsense. Every fandom whose source material heavily features the development of a romantic relationship is as good as guaranteed that whatever relationship tag the main couple are tagged is the most prominent. They also often make up around sixty percent of fics within their fandom. In the case of f/f specifically here's a shot list of fandoms on AO3 where f/f is the relationship tag that's used most frequently: Supergirl, The Owl House, She-ra and the princesses of power, Avatar: Legend of Korra, Arcane: League of Legends, RWBY, Wednesday, Amphibia, Steven Universe, and of course Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury.

The amount of fics on AO3 are indicative of the size of a fandom

The actual thing that has an effect on how many fic a ship has on AO3 are a combination of how many people within a fandom writes fanfics about them on AO3, how many fics each writer has written and how long they've been people posting fic about them on AO3. The amount of fics writing within a year is all that's shown on the yearly stats which doesn't say anything about how many people are writing fics or how long they are. When the total amount is all someone has to go by there's nothing that explicitly confirms that all the fics weren't written by a hundred people who each wrote a thousand dabbles.

A way to calculate the total amount of fics for a ship and easily see increases and decreases in amount of fics per year throughout the years would be with a script that would look something like this:

This is for Sulemio as there isn't a lot of data I'd have to find and add since people have only been writing fanfics for them for about two years. Since AO3 either doesn't allow someone to search for fics published within a given timeframe or I just don't know how to do that the numbers are fics updated from August 2022-August 2023 and from August 2023-now. This does mean that there are two fics that got counted twice. Oh, well.

If g-witch is so popular shouldn't it have more fics on AO3?

While the number of fics doesn't say anything about the minimum amount of fanfic authors it does say something about the maximum amount. Even if there was one fic per author that would still be a maximum of about a thousand authors. So what gives?

Well, there appears to be two main reasons for this. One is that the Gundam fandom in general is more a discussion and art orientated fandom. We just don't have that many people whose main thing is writing fics.

Another thing to note is that most of the fics on AO3 are in English and the English speaking part of AO3 skews towards a North American and European demographic.

Unlike some other fandoms the Gundam fandom is anything but centralized in the west so it's only maybe a third of the fandom that would even use AO3. The Chinese part of the fandom sure doesn't as the website has been blocked since before g-witch started airing.

You can get a good idea of how popular Sulemio is by only looking at the fan works that are in English

This is a big one. Like I pointed out before only about a third of the fandom makes fan works in English. We're also in a situation where we have two versions of the same ship name. One is writing in the latin alphabet, the other スレミオ is writing in katakana and is also the more commonly used.

Thousands of Sulemio fan art on twitter is tagged exclusively with the one writing in katakana and therefore wouldn't show up if someone used the one writing in the latin alphabet. Likewise, on the Chinese website Bilibili there are videos about Sulemio that have views in the thousands and ten thousands and let's just say that site is a bit of a challenge to navigate if you know little to no Chinese. Even using a translator will sometimes give you such gems as "Too many barrages" and only leave you more confused.

In conclusion the Gundam fandom is huge and the number of fics on AO3 is an unfair way to determine its size.

Also a quick aside to that one person who tried to be dismissive of the amount of fics Supernatural has on AO3 by saying a lot of it was Omega verse. G-witch has 44 fics tagged as Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics and Supernatural has 8105. That might seem like a big difference but percentage wise it's about the same amount. Let's make sure we don't live in a glass house before we start throwing stones, please.

[bulbagarden]

we're running a shipping one-shot fanfiction contest over on our forums! signups end on march 31, and we have quite a few categories for entrants to be winners in -- both romantic and platonic ships are accepted! winners get free reviews and possibly other prizes, and go in our writers' workshop hall of fame!! i (lisia) am helping run the event, and blanc and i are going to try and participate, so come join us if you'd like...! hope to see you there o7

[yardsards]

the fandom during balance: can this player character PLEASE adopt this child

griffin during steeplechase: i'm going to have my player character adopt this random child

[theminecraftbee]

↻ that joe/oli fic except this time martyn falls onto mumbo with a message from the listeners about, oh, um, there’s probably an apocalypse soon, you should do something about that

OH THAT'S A GOOD PREMISE. to keep it to the whole "sleeping beauty" theme, this also means martyn falls on mumbo and IMMEDIATELY goes unconscious until he gets a kiss, as happened in the joe/oli one. i think mumbo would panic a lot more but, ironically, pick up the Impending Apocalypse Signs a lot less? additionally, i probably wouldn't make this a rift thing, since martyn isn't an empires guy, and instead make it somehow connected to the traffic games/maybe the watchers? so instead of "horrible increasing snowstorm ala empires end of the world" it's probably like... i like the idea of it starting as a heat wave, the kind that makes you increasingly just a little bit mad. i think mumbo would panic a LOT FASTER THAN JOE, but also, by contrast, go to get help a lot less fast specifically because he's panicking? also i think martyn would be better at the whole warning thing than oli because like it's martyn he's less likely to spend most of his time dramatically wailing about impending doom and more likely to remember said impending doom. overall i think this could be a very fun fic! there DO need to be more ahahusbands fics in the world. (is that the right ship name? i admit i don't remember what we called it. it was that or redwood, i think?)

[petrichorium]

I could NEVER read shipfic ewwww it’s so cringe and gross. “He does x” no he fucking wouldn’t lmfao it’s so homophobic the relationships are always being viewed from a heterocentric lens. Grow up and just insert yourself into the story directly instead of disregarding the canon and writing one character completely ooc so u can project onto them 🙄 I’m SO GLAD I’m not alone in this like who even wants to read that anyway???

[minecraftrelatedrandomness]

Aqua's Pirates SMP Fanfic Recommendations (c. Aug 2024)

As a Pirates fic writer myself, am I sad about how few Pirates fics there are in our AO3 tag? Absolutely, and I'm working to change that, one fic at a time. In the meantime, here are some of my fic recs that I particularly enjoyed while in this fandom so far and would like to share with the class.

Note: This post does not include fics that I myself have written or works that were created by content creators directly involved with series canon production (to my knowledge).

(Mostly) Canon Compliant

Aftermath of a Falling Star by KomodoKalia

Is slightly canon non-compliant as of the finale but to a mostly negligible degree

Takes place after Dec 8th streams but before Scott's stream epilogue

In which p!Scott is not coping well after the events of that lore finale; heed the content warnings

One-shot; completed (3.2K words)

CW: Bittersweet ending (but heavy on bitter for most of the fic), blood, canon character death (described semi-graphically), grief, mental health issues, suicide ideation, survivor guilt, trauma; heavy angst, I cried reading this at least once

Be More Careful by Abyss101

Takes place before Oct 10th streams

In which p!Ros tends to p!Sausage's wounds and they are friends

One-shot; completed (1.0K words)

CW: Blood and injury

binary hosts by twice_past

Takes place over the course of the SMP

In which p!Martyn tries and fails to not get attached to those he doesn't think are real, and there are 1.5 hugs

Ft. p!Sausage, p!Scott, p!Owen, p!Bek, and p!Oli

One-shot; completed (4.2K words)

CW: V-Tuber lore-typical unreality

Bubble Bath by funkily

Estimated to take place early in the series

In which p!Martyn gets a bubble bath and there is tender domesticity, ft. p!Sausage

One-shot; completed (1.7K words)

CW: Exactly two (2) double entendres (made in canon), non-sexual nudity, mild V-Tuber lore-typical unreality

climb ye higher by sesquidpedalian

Takes place at an ambiguous point in the series; I'd estimate between Chapters 1 and 2

In which p!Scott and p!Owen talk about family and legacy; character study

One-shot; completed (2.0K words)

CW: Bad parenting, mental health issues

The Curse Of The Golden Raiders by Panalian

Takes place during the Sept 29th streams

p!Martyn-centric; livestream retelling of p!Martyn and p!Sausage's Golden Beard quest curse messages

One-shot; completed (4.3K words)

CW: Hallucinations, mental health issues

drown your sorrows by jaz_it_up [Archive-locked]

Takes place early in the series

Crossover with Hermitcraft (and to a lesser extent, the Life series)

In which p!Scar is the same man as the silly tycoon from Hermitcraft Season 8, the "great sea-beast" that "sunk the Flying Jellie" was Moon Big, and being the sole survivor of a world-ending disaster is not good for a person's mental health

One-shot; completed (1.2K words)

CW: Alcohol, death, grief, mental health issues, suicide ideation, trauma

i have seen deer split open on the road by sesquidpedalian

Takes place after Sept 3rd streams

p!Owen-centric; p!Owen and p!Scott relationship study

One-shot; completed (3.5K words)

CW: Alcohol, grief, queerphobia (canon-compliant, discussed)

Ink Isn't Just For Maps by Panalian

Takes place early in the series

In which the pirates had their faction's bird wings tattooed across their backs

Follows p!Martyn, p!Owen and p!Scott, and p!Acho

One-shot; completed (1.8K words)

CW: Alcohol, Aurelia and Hudson Denholm's A+ parenting (/sarc, briefly mentioned), blood, dead bodies (intrusive thoughts), injury, needles

It's tough to be a God (Tread where mortals have not trod) by Panalian

Takes place at the end of and after Oct 26th streams

"Why rely on a God when you can just become one?" In which p!Martyn steals the Sunset Stone and learns that his actions have consequences

One-shot; completed (2.4K words)

CW: Non-consensual body modification, panic attacks

message in a bottle by oRIrelish

Chapter 1 takes place pre-canon; Chapter 2 takes place post-finale

Letters from p!Scott to p!Acho while the latter is presumed/confirmed dead

Two-shot; completed (982 words)

CW: Abandonment, canon character death, grief, mental health issues

Severe Weather Warning by Abyss101

Presumably takes place sometime during Chapter 3

p!Owen-centric; in which a thunderstorm hits while many of the cast are out at sea

One-shot; completed (2.8K words)

CW: Drowning, near-death experiences, thalassophobia

This Ship Will Carry Our Bodies Safe To Shore by Disorganised_Bagel

Takes place during the Aug 27th streams

p!Ros-centric; livestream retelling of p!Ros and p!Michela sailing to the Corrupted Island (and getting lost along the way)

One-shot; completed (1.0K words)

Wide Open Skies Ahead (Here's Where I Lay Myself Down) and All My Aching Bones Are Trembling (And I May Yet Fall Apart) by Disorganised_Bagel

First fic takes place early in the series, second fic takes place during/shortly after the Dec 8th streams

p!Ros character study at the start and end of the SMP

Both are one-shots; completed (644 words, 1.4K words)

CW (second fic only): Implied/referenced canon character death, dissociation, fire, mental health issues, unhappy ending

Your Hat is in Fragments by solarvampire

Takes place early in the series

Contains references to Hermitcraft, the Life series, and Rats SMP

In which p!Martyn and p!Scar both have secrets to keep, but one remembers more than the other

One-shot; completed (1.4K words)

CW: 2nd person POV, open-ish ending, past character death, trauma

Alternate Universe

But I am Bone and Blood by BananaTheIntellectual

Technically canon-divergent AU

Takes place sometime before mid-August in the canon timeline

p!Scott and Heron faction-centric; in which the Denholm parents want to know if our generation of Herons are up to their standards, which goes about as well as you'd expect

Multi-chapter; completed (14.9K words)

CW: Aurelia and Hudson Denholm's A+ parenting (/sarc); alcohol, bittersweet ending, blood and injury, death in childbirth (discussed briefly), mental health issues, slut-shaming (briefly), trauma; heavy angst

Ships: Background Sausage/Scott (has a few paragraphs but is a minor part of the fic as a whole), other background ships

Enemy Faces Look The Safest by TheJinxedGhost

Childhood Friends AU

Would take place at an ambiguous point in canon, but I'd estimate early on due to the characters involved

In which p!Tubbo's ship sinks in a storm, and p!Scar helps

One-shot; completed (2.3K words)

CW: Bittersweet ending, grief, minor character death, near-death experience

I feel I am sinking and sailing to swim (over and over) by fruitylynn

Time loop AU

In which p!Martyn is trapped in the game loop and has to go through the SMP all over again

One-shot; completed (949 words)

CW: Glitch text, mental health issues, unhappy ending, V-Tuber lore-typical unreality, whump

Interdimensional by AstronautBeans

AU in which p!Martyn is actually somewhat honest to at least one person about who he really is

Would take place at an ambiguous point in canon

p!Martyn-centric; in which p!Martyn is the Datastream Defender, p!Sausage is a world-hopper, and there is hurt/comfort

CW: Mental health issues, V-Tuber lore-typical unreality

looked a little lost at sea by horsegirlceret [Archive-locked]

AU in which everyone has a dæmon like in His Dark Materials (i.e. an animal representing a person's soul)

Estimated to take place between Sept 22nd and Sept 26th in the canon timeline

Kite faction-centric; in which the Faction Isles have an annual boat race and someone has gotta go win it

Multi-chapter; in progress as of time of posting (4K+ words)

CW: Alcohol mention

Mission Brief by savannah_owl

Star Trek AU; crossover with the Life series

p!Martyn and Kestrel-centric; in which the Kestrels make secret plans to go to war against a rogue p!Tubbo

One-shot; completed (2.4K words)

Of Low Tides, Luck And Loaded Guns by savannah_owl

Non-canon compliant backstory AU

Estimated to take place about a decade pre-canon

In which a pirate captain speaks of his past, and p!Sausage rights some past wrongs

One-shot; completed (2.8K words)

CW: Alcohol, domestic abuse (past), gun violence, misogyny and objectification of women (by an unsympathetic character), sexual harassment (briefly by an unsympathetic character), violence

when this song is over by captainschaos

Came Back Wrong / Church of Iris AU

Estimated to take place between Dec 2nd and the finale in the canon timeline

p!Bek-centric; in which p!Bek is working for Iris and is sent to kidnap others on the Isles (tagged as Ambiguous/Open Ending but I consider it bittersweet)

Multi-chapter; completed (10.8K words)

CW: Kidnapping, memory alteration

Shipping

Dream Of The Devil And He Shall Appear by StormChaosfox

Ships: Martyn/Scott, other background ships

Crossover with the Life series

In which p!Scott has dreams and flashes of Limited Life, and p!Martyn might know a thing or two about that

Technical one-shot (sequels are on Tumblr); completed (3.1K words)

CW: Alcohol, discussions of hypothetical and past character death

I'd Follow You To The Great Unknown (Off To A World We Call Our Own) by Millyate20lemonshelp

Ships: Aimsey/Guqqie

Canon compliant; takes place shortly after the July 30th streams (AKA shortly after SMP Launch Day)

p!Aimsey-centric; in which p!Aimsey and p!Guqqie reunite in the afterlife

One-shot; completed (452 words)

CW: Bittersweet ending, canon character death

Pirates!Epilogue AU by SilentSilverBee

Ships: Caer/Will (note: this ship would have been canon if the worldbuilding had added up), background Graecie/Madeleine

Technically canon-compliant AU

Takes place several years post-canon

In which there is major character undeath to be had, and maybe p!Will gets a delayed bittersweet ending instead of being doomed by the narrative three times over

Series; ongoing as of time of posting (2.5K+ words)

CW: Alcohol, canon character death, Gavin Renais' A+ parenting (/sarc)

Note: If you have no idea who half of these characters are, I strongly recommend going over the Luscinia subplot (spanning the p!Will and p!Shep POVs)

royal ghosts and realisations by codesandstuff

Ships: Bek/El (ambiguous), other background ships (background Sausage/Scott is explicitly named)

Canon universe; would take place at an ambiguous point in canon, but I'd guess sometime before October in the canon timeline

p!Bek-centric; in which there are p!Bek and p!El relationship discussions

One-shot; completed (1.9K words)

CW: Potential discussions of amatonormativity

schroedinger's boyfriend, observed by GoodTimesWithScar

Ships: Martyn/Oli

Modern AU; crossover with Rats and Empires Season 2

In which c!Oli is a plural system consisting of e2!Oli, p!Oli, and r!Oli, and c!Martyn cracks that

One-shot; completed (2.5K words)

CW: Dissociation, identity issues

sing it again, but softer by codesandstuff

Ships: El/Water, other background ships

Spy/Secret Agent AU

Has references to the WitchCraft SMP and the QSMP but prior knowledge of those SMPs is not required to understand this fic

p!El gets promoted and navigates life from there

One-shot; completed (3.7K words)

you touched my hand with a grin by GoodTimesWithScar

Ships: El/Water, Jeffery/Water (past)

Canon universe; takes place a few months post-canon

p!Water-centric; in which p!El and p!Water go on a picnic date after everything goes down

One-shot; completed (1.9K words)

CW: Grief

Annotations

I filtered out the E-rated fics in the tag and avoided most M-rated fics in general while compiling this list; if you're into reading those, feel free to browse the tags yourself

Crossover fics are actually pretty common in this fandom, but I mostly left them out because many of them don't actually focus on the Pirates side of things, which honestly defeats the whole point of this rec list