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majicmarker · 4 years

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so i’ve had a lot on my mind lately — the good, the bad, the ugly, you know the drill. i’m used to the bad and the ugly, but i think (and ofc by my therapist’s rec) i need to give a little credit to the good, too. not to mention the good is largely comprised of people, and those people deserve a sports stadium wave, yk? idk shit abt sports, whatever, but i know what the wave is and it’s like the grandest gesture i can think of, SO

listen, y’all. to get real here, i hate fandom. my time spent therein has been hit-or-miss, but the misses got me hard and contributed to some major self-loathing, etc etc. we’re not gonna get into the specifics, i don’t owe that to anyone, but suffice it to say things got Rough.

but so much of it can be so, so good. and rn i want to keep on my rose-colored glasses, and the rosiest parts for me have always been @kitten1618x and @mygutsforgarters

(quite a few others, too, but i no longer have everyone’s info. and some ppl are newer friends, or relationships that have moved more slowly. i have mad love for u guys too, obvs, but ik melissa and gus irl so we know each other More and they’re who this post is rly about atm. pls know i don’t want to harsh on anyone’s feelings)

the tl;dr version of events is i met them both via fanfic. i happened upon theirs like “bitch!!!! **i** wanna do this, they’re bomb as hell” and then i made them be friends w me. they’ll tell you they wanted to be friends w me first, but that’s not important bc **i** am the one making this post, so they can both like,, suck it.

ANYWAY.

@ melissa : so bitch listen. here’s the thing abt melissa…… i found her while browsing jonsa fic back when i cared abt GOT, and she brought me back to what i loved so much abt romance when i first started, way back in junior high, what’s up. i bad a fascination w historial romantic epics for a loooooong time — those formative yrs, amirite ladies??? — but girl i could never write it so well as melissa. immediately she struck this balance between the drama you expect from historicals and the levity of a good romance, and i was just like, “hand to god this woman must be published already, surely???”

(she’s not, but that’s ridiculous so we’re gonna skip that)

(also she’s busy?? we’ve been friends for like six years and i will never know how many kids she actually has, but the point is she’s a goddamn superhero and i’m obsessed w her, MOVING ON)

i just Had to be her friend for two reasons: 1) she’s too talented, and b) i have said that abt 2 ppl my entire life and she was the first, so i was like, “AH YES MY HOLY GRAIL”

so ofc i slid into her DMs just as effectively as that one guy i had a crush on when i was sixteen and he’s still shooting me texts every valentine’s day bc of the societal pressures i guess (it is Far Less Effective these days, he’s my age and therefore too young for me, gross, but i digress), except me and melissa go way stronger.

she reminded me of why, half a lifetime ago, i started writing romance — bc it’s fun, bc i want to. bc i can do absolutely anything i want, bc who else is gonna read it but me and whoever i share it with? it was all up to me what i wanted to do with it, and i could do anything. nothing really mattered but what i wanted, and i hadn’t felt that way abt anything in such a long time — let alone abt something i used to love so much.

melissa’s writing is so beautiful, it’s everything i wanted to achieve when i was fifteen and never got around to perfecting. and i’m totally okay w that now, bc what do i need to do myself that she’s not already doing/wants to do in the future? when i found melissa’s writing i found a missing part of me — a part i’d maybe lost, maybe i gave it up, idk, but it was totally gone until i found her fics and they fucking clicked. i had to reach out bc there was a part of me that was a part of her, and she helped me find that again w/o even knowing it.

so i found melissa via GOT, and from the start she’d been trying to get me to write some bethyl. years and years, she dropped not-so-subtle hints — and by “hints,” i mean legit directives that i watch just enough TWD to write her some beth/daryl fic. real crafty, she is.

eventually the stars aligned: i was bored w the same dynamics i’d been writing for years, i wanted smthn new, i was restless, i was line editing a bethyl fic she’d written, and — again — this shit clicked. her fic made me want to explore this dynamic i’d never done before, so i watched the prerequisite episodes (no more than that tho, i super hate the show and i’m begging y’all to not @ me abt it anymore). i found smthn that i’d been missing, smthn that challenged and excited me and brought me back around to why i love romance and, more importantly, why i want to write it myself.

so as i was starting to write bethyl, i was poking around the ao3 tag to get a feel for what had been done, what hadn’t, anything i might be missing. and goddamn BAM —

@ gus : this is where u enter dramatically thru a red velvet curtain that i don’t wanna touch (Metaphorically bc you do romance better than me and i’m cool w that bc your talent simply Cannot be touched, and Literally bc i hate velvet) — i was like, “please for the love of god let her want to write contemporary romance, i need some good fckin food”

i happened upon “doo wah diddy diddy” first. ofc the summary hooked me, forget my usual hard no against pregnancy fics (i have issues w pregnancy and that’s all anybody Needs to know, back off), but This Bitch !!!!!!! has a way with words and i wanted to be friends w her straightaway. lmao too bad for her, now she’s stuck w me

gus’s fics gave me what i wanted without having to write it myself. her style is so distinctive, she hits the notes between porn and Actual Affection that is missing from uhhhh, every romance i’ve tried?? (why is everyone so intent on the sex part?? fckin chill. at best it’s unrelatable and at worst u sound like u’d rather wear someone than fuck them, check urself)

she writes w such care, she wants you to know what she’s doing here, and what she’s doing here is combining the physical and emotional needs of both characters w/o infringing on anyone’s comfortability. you root for these characters bc they simply want to be together, no strings (and if there are strings, damn, they talk abt it).

gus makes you believe in love in the modern age. like, not to sound like one of those ppl who post fckin “no one in this generation knows how to love!!!1!!11!!” memes on facebook, those are dumb, but gus’s writing made me think “yeah man, love ain’t dead, it’s just abt how we approach it.”

(if y’all haven’t guessed yet, i have some hang-ups abt relationships. i’ve goddamn earned those. but melissa and gus both brought me back to where i needed to be — in this place where, yeah, we’ve got some shit to deal with, but we all still deserve the things we want, and those things are achievable. i could not have gotten here without them, so jot that down.)

gus is Real, she’s funny, she’s unapologetic in the way she writes. ofc she has her personal hurdles, but who doesn’t?? and tbh nobody writes a sex scene like gus does. physical, realistic, but balanced w the emotional depth that makes you root for these characters bc you can Feel how much they want each other — not just sexually, but in the less-erotic aftermath of that passion. it continues to blow my mind, bc i’ve never seen anyone do what she does. i can’t even pinpoint the specifics, bc she just… Does It. and you’re reading it like “yeah bitch that’s it,” and That’s It.

it’s fckin wild.

these two — my best friends, the lights of my life, both of whom always make me crave chicken tenders at THE most inconvenient hours bc somehow we always talk abt chicken or ice cream or ultimately DQ, but they're both so hot idec — have something special.

i really, really want them both to know that: it’s not just in how they’ve treated me as a friend, but who they are as people, in their creative pursuits. i’ve never known support the way they’ve shown me; i’ve never known this much enthusiasm or investment or belief that i can do what i want with my talent. i want them to know that i feel the same way abt them and their works.

sometimes, when i look back at their writing that completely kicked my ass, i still can’t believe that they’ve become two of my best friends. it’s totally bonkers. they’re This Talented, and they wanna be friends w my spastic ass? GIRL. i’m out.

i’m not always the best at being present, at giving people what they need when they need it. but with everything that melissa and gus have given me in the past few years, i need them to know this — honey!!! i need all y’all to know this, bc i know fandom shit is hard, but you should know some of these friendships are so, so worth all that bullshit, so —

they have so much to give, so much to say, so much to offer. i could not have kept going without them. i couldn’t believe in myself without the faith they’ve given to me. i hope that i can always give that same faith right back.

and that, babes, is what real soulmates are all about.

#i just love them whoops my hand slipped #the majnificent adventures #gus tag #@ melissa wtf is our tag we had like five #how do i not remember five things #anyway i got into my feelings tnt don’t @ me

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senlinyu · 5 years

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Thank you so much for sharing all that you have about the writing process! How important is promotion of your work across different platforms? Is it important at all?

Sorry. I’ve been sitting on this ask for a while... but we were just having a discussion on the Dramione Fanfiction Server about promotion and I realised I should get to writing all this out.

This is sort of a follow up on my post about doing weekly updates and writing my fics in full prior to publishing them. Find it here.

Caveat, these are my personal observations only. I’ve been involved in the fandom for a little over 2 years, and at least tried most of the fandom platforms to some extent and followed a lot of discussions among writers and readers.

This is basically a rundown of things that I wish someone had told me about promotion when I started. It’s also an info dump, I’m sorry. You don’t need to do all these things, or any of these things. But if you’re trying to figure stuff out, this is what I’ve noticed. A lot of this is based on my experiences and the experiences I’ve heard from other writers.

Publishing

• The first step you’ll take in promotion is publishing your fic: The most active platforms for fic are archiveofourown.org (Ao3) and fanfiction.net (FFN). There’s also wattpad, but my experience there is limited, so I won’t comment on it. Older fandoms are still hanging out on FFN, but a lot of people are finally migrating to Ao3.

I cross-post most of my fic, with the exception of very sexually explicit content. FFN hasn’t enforced their content restrictions in years, but they have cracked down in the past and deleted fic without warning, and if you’re reported and they decide you violate their terms it’s extremely difficult to dispute based on everything I’ve heard from fandom olds.

Title: It’s ideal to find a title that doesn’t already have seventy fics attached to it for your fandom/ship. But there are a finite number of titles, this may not always work. However, if there’s a super popular fic already with that title, it may be advisable to choose something else because people will get confused about which fic it is and the other fic will tend to show up first in a google search.

If you choose a long title (more than five words), or a title with multiple words in a foreign language, people will have a harder time remembering it. One of my favorite fics has a long Latin quote for its title that isn’t a super common phrase. I cannot ever remember except that it starts with an ”a.” I have to refind it every time I want to rec it by googling one of the author’s other fics and then sorting through her listed works. Avoid this if possible.

Summary: Don’t say things like “story’s better. I suck at summaries.” If you can’t figure out what to put in the summary, put in an excerpt that you feel captures the tone and spirit of the story.

Smut sells. On ao3, a not overly-explicit excerpt of a scene will often garner more hits than anything else. Although I wouldn't promote a fic in that manner if there’s actually minimal smut in the story.

Rating: On FFN it’s unfortunately better to be safe than sorry. People will sometimes complain if T rated fics even allude to the existence of sex. But M ratings will create the expection of some level of smut. If you’re writing a M rated fic without sexual content, it can be a good idea to have an author’s note at the very beginning explaining what the rating is and isn’t for. (Many people never ever read author’s notes, but at least then it’s not on you anymore.)

Tagging: On Ao3, good tagging can make or break a fic. The balance is between under-tagging and over-tagging. Dramione is relatively chill about tags because a lot of readers are from FFN where there are no tags. However, newer readers, especially those coming over from other fandoms, can be very particular about tagging and complain in the comments if your tagging it insufficient or misleading.

Fandom etiquette dictates: use the archive warnings and always tag triggers. Even if it’s a plot twist. People who really care about not having plot elements spoiled can hide additional tags from their browsing. The main archive warnings are: graphic violence, character death, rape, underage. If you include any of those things without an archive warning or tags, people will not be inclined to trust you.

I know that’s not how published books are, but it’s a question of which hills you want to die on. I strongly discourage dying on this hill when you’re first starting out.

Additional tags. There’s a very tricky balance between over-tagging and under-tagging. People don’t like tag walls, but they do want some information. Tag the story’s main tropes: enemies to lovers, mutual pining, miscommunication, coworkers, Veela, etc. Tag the triggers. (A word of advice, if you’re writing a fic with rape/non-con that occurs but isn’t committed between the main pairing, specify that in your tags, e.g. ‘attempted sexual assault, not by Draco’ ) Tag kinks, especially if they’re not garden variety. Very, very few readers are going to be pleased to have a kink sprung on them, one person’s kink can be another person’s squick. People who want your fic may not find it if you haven’t tagged it, and people who don’t want that kink will not be pleased about tripping on it.

Don’t over-tag. If “explicit sexual content” is tagged, most people will assume the general explicit sex spectrum. Unless there’s a particularly heavy focus there’s no need to list every single basic aspect of sex in your tags: “vaginal sex, vaginal penetration, fingering, humping, groping, oral sex, breast worship, etc etc”. Nor should you tag every single character or subpairing who happens to appear unless they’re a significant element of the plot.

Promotion on other platforms:

Dramione and HP is an older fandom. The Hermione-centric parts of fandom are primarily here on Tumblr and on Facebook in the form of private groups, some that are ship specific and others that are slightly more general. Reddit is fairly inactive for dramione, and the HP subreddit is not particularly fond of dramione.

Dramione is beginning to establish itself on discord, but it's still a gradual process.

Some writers join the FB groups with their IRL accounts, but its a growing trend to create fandom pseuds for FB groups, which is what I do. Some Facebook groups require that new members privately provide the admins with a form of ID for age/identity verification. Whether or not you're comfortable/willing to out your pseud in that way is a matter of personal discretion.

Most groups do not require this... but it’s something to be aware of.

Tumblr: Posting about story updates on Tumblr is one the the best things to do for promotion beyond the basics of posting your fic. Since it’s a public platform unlike FB, it’s one of the most visible ways to boost your story and let people know about updates.

Cover art/aesthetics for your fic are a great way to catch attention. If you’re like me and very bad at making aesthetics and covers the @dark-arts-society-fbhp is a group specializing in covers and manips. If you’re not a member on FB, the admins say that writers can submit requests via the tumblr asks and they will be shared to the group. Send them:

Title:

Penname:

Characters/ships:

Tone:

Fancasts:

Other info:

Tumblr

Post a fic update on tumblr with cover art, links, and an excerpt of the chapter. Personally the fics that catch my attention have excerpts that are at least a couple paragraphs long.

You want to include enough content to pique reader curiosity and demonstrate your writing style. It makes you less an unknown to readers looking for something new. Every update is an opportunity to catch the attention of new readers and each new excerpt can do that.

A couple don’ts:

Don’t just keep reblogging the same post, adding a link to the latest chapter. Reblogs don’t show up in the tumblr tags. Make a new post for each chapter update and use the fandom tags every time. The first five tags you use are what can show up in tags, everything after the first five should just be for your tumblr’s personal organization.

Do not include triggering content in your excerpt. It’s rude and a way to get unfollowed or blocked.

Don’t use too many links on your update posts. If there are too many links, tumblr won’t have the post to show up in the tags. I’m not sure what the cut-off is because tumblr is an illogical beast. 2-3 links seems to be fine. Link to FFN and AO3 and nothing else.

Don’t use your tumblr solely as a personal house organ. If no one is interacting with your posts, tumblr is less likely to decide you’re a real blog and let your posts show up in the tags. Connect to other fandom blogs by reblogging and liking their content. I generally don't follow tumblrs that blog solely about their own content, because I'd just subscribe to the story or the writer. Reblog art, reblog aesthetics, reblog fandom memes, reblog drabbles, reblog updates from fics you’re following, etc.

However, even if you do all that, tumblr’s algorithm is a mysterious and illogical creature. Sometimes posts need to have a certain number of likes and reblogs to show up in the “Dramione” tag, although the algorithm is inconsistent there are many exceptions, but as a general rule this seems to be the case.

In my most recent Dramione update post, the post in question never showed up in the recent ”Dramione” tags, despite fairly high engagement. I have no idea why. That’s all the more reason to create a new post for every update, because tumblr will just randomly screw you over at times. 😑

If you write dramione, one of the best forms of exposure is by getting your fic updates reblogged by @dramioneasks, they have a very large following on Tumblr, and regularly go through recent posts under the dramione tag and reblog the story updates that show up there. A lot of writers have noticed a dramatic difference in engagement if their updates get reblogged by DramioneAsks.

Another way to promote your writing more generally is by accepting prompts and/or posting ficlets solely on Tumblr. Those will usually get more reblogs and likes than a story update will. In my observation, ficlets tend to do best when they’re between .5k to 2k words (longer than that and people will complain about huge walls of text in their feed.) DramioneAsks will also reblog those.

Facebook

The other main platform for the Dramione fandom is FB. It’s the place that a lot of the fests and comps are hosted and where a lot of writers will begin forming some fandom relationships. People will post recs for stories they like, and ask for recs with certain tropes, etc. You can also post story updates there.

However, it’s also a lot of individual ponds because the groups are all closed, and there’s only partial overlap between them in terms of membership. Different groups have different cultures and fic preferences and you only tend to start figuring them out after being there for a while.

They also all have different rules and policies about things, such as requiring members to provide identifying information to mods, file-sharing, fic update promotion etc. So you have to make sure you check the rules and keep track of which group requires what.

But it’s very active and the place where you’ll encounter more discussions of fics, start getting to know people more, and have more one on one interactions. It’s best to start in just one or two and then slowly branch out from there if you choose. I’d recommend starting in groups specific to your ship, or if you write rare-pairs, to join rare-pair oriented groups.

I’m currently a member of more than 25 groups, but I’m active in less than five of them.

Conclusion

Again, this is not intended to be a to-do list. You don’t need to do all of this, or any of it. It’s more a rundown of different elements and factors that can make a difference in my experience and observations.

The thing with fic promotion is that fics sometimes have a tipping point. My fic Manacled crept along with limited engagement for a long time (like more than 30 chapters) and then hit a point where I got a bunch of people who started it leaving comments saying “I’ve seen the updates for this so many times, I finally decide to click,” or “I started this but didn’t think it was for me, but then I saw some of the excerpts for later chapters and they made me curious so I jumped back in again.”

There are some readers who will check out everything regardless of stats, but particularly in Dramione where you have a lot of fics and authors, people are less likely to click every fic they see. You can build recognition through engagement with fandom and visibility.

My very first work-in-progress multichap got a lot more attention after I posted a one-shot that allowed readers to check out my writing in a “lower commitment” context. It wasn’t even a very popular one-shot, but it gave people a chance to read a completed work of mine without requiring the investment that a 90k word WIP did. Once they decided they liked my writing style and characterizations they decided to check out my other works.

Anyway. This ended up incredibly long. 🤦🏻‍♀️

If you read this and have a different opinion or feel like I’ve left anything out, feel free to chime in. Or if you disagree. I am happy to reblog additional and differing perspectives as long as the tone stays civil. 😊

#on writing #fic promo #fandom #dramione #senlinyuspeaks #asks

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lavalampelfchild · 4 years

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Lava’s Art Masterpost

Hey, all! Welcome to my art masterpost! I have no idea if this is a thing that is done typically for art, but oh well, I like organizing things, so here we are! What you’ll find here is mostly Dragon Age, with a few non-DA pieces in there, and there’s a range of styles I like to use, depending on my mood. But a lot of what you’ll see will most likely combine lineart with some other form of coloring/shading.

Feel free to browse at your leisure, and I hope anyone who stumbles upon this enjoys what they find! :D And thank you to anyone who sees this and likes, or reblogs, or even just stops by to peruse a bit!

All that said, away we go!

Digital Portraits:

1. Portrait of Nameless Woman, 2020 - This one is just an experiment with a watercolor brush that I did. It’s not anatomically perfect, but I enjoyed playing around with shading.

2. Sketch of Aja Amell, 2020 - This one is basically sketch practice with my Amell~ Not really the most expressive pictures, but it’s a start toward drawing her more expressively. Full disclosure: Aja is one of those OCs of mine that I have had trouble with deciding on a definitive appearance for several pictures, and I really want to work on upping my level of consistency when drawing her.

3. Long-Haired Fenris, 2020 - Exactly what it sounds like; this was for practice drawing Fenris’s features (I love how distinct they are), but with long hair because I am weak for it. This one was a fun piece to shade, and mixing the stylized lineart that I normally use with a greyscale shading spectrum was really enjoyable.

4. Portrait of Ilorin Lavellan, 2016 - This is an oldie. Basically practicing expressions, and it is technically a WIP, but I’m still very happy with how the shading turned out, especially because this is actually (aside from the unfinished hair) one of the more minimal pieces I’ve done in terms of lineart It’s still there, and it still shapes the flow of the picture in some ways, but it also ends up flowing with the shading instead of standing out next to it, which I like. (Both styles are good, though, and I love seeing other artists try both too.)

5. Old Portrait of Aja Amell, 2016 - Much older picture I did of Aja; she... honestly looks very little like the newer one, I think, and that consistency is something I’m still working on, but this one was the first picture of Aja with that particular hairstyle I drew. What I like about this picture is how young she looks; it fits with her image as a fresh and sheltered Circle mage who’s only about 20 years old at the time of DAO.

6. Old Portrait of Trilyn, 2016 - They very first piece of art I posted to tumblr~ It’s not exactly how I envision Trilyn anymore, but it was still very fun to draw, and helped me get a feel for drawing him in the future.

Dynamic Movement Pictures/”Moment’s in Time”:

1. Tabris in Arl’s Estate, 2020 - TW: blood. I am super proud of this one. My ultimate goal is to draw all of my Warden DAO OCs, and I could not believe I’ve never drawn my Tabris, and so here she is. This was, in large part, practicing expressions because I absolutely love art that depicts characters in motion, or capturing some kind of expression.

2. Velyn in the Rain, 2017 - This one was actually based on some art that I saw in a Teen Wolf fic! It was an experiment with a more expressive style (and one of the first pieces I did without lineart left in the finished version) and it was a huge step out of my comfort zone. But overall, I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

3. Jem Nocking an Arrow, 2016 - And here is the lineart version. This was entirely an excuse to draw my DAI baby, Jem, and to do a cool archer pose because archers are my fav, and I love characters in motion.

4. Solas Teaching Trilyn Fade Magic, 2016 - This one was a painterly picture that was also (like the Velyn picture) something which I tried to keep lineart out of. Overall, I am proud of a lot of parts of the pic, but I think I would definitely go back over it and change a few things now if I had the patience.

5. Trilyn Closeup WIP, 2016 - TW: injury, blood, mention of abuse in the author’s note. A lot of early pictures I have are of my OC, Trilyn, and this is one of my absolute favorites. His entire upper body is technically in the picture, but I hadn’t finished rendering it yet, so this was what I posted. And it was an experiment with a cross-hatching style with the pencil tool for some texture, with air brush shading and a blurring tool. It’s a style I had fun playing around with!

6. Trilyn Blood Ritual, 2016 - TW: blood, injury (the slight cut used to supply the ritual with blood). This one was definitely a sort of “captured moment” from a backstory I gave Trilyn, and I think what I was really going for was an atmospheric piece that could fit with any potential fic I wanted to write for Trilyn. And then it ended up being practice for extreme lighting/shading techniques, and drawing the blood and the gross mass of demon ichor (or whatever the heck that is) turned out to be highlights of making the piece for me.

Art + Text:

1. Freedom and Control, 2020 - TW: scars, but very difficult to see. This one was ambitious for me! It started originally just as Solas and my Tal-Vashoth OC, Saara, facing each other, because I love the dynamic I’ve built for them in my head, but then it turned into an attempt at a tarot-esque background, and just sorta grew from there... Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out, especially with how Solas and Saara themselves turned out. The version you can actually see a larger view is here.

2. Marianna and Delia Codex and Art, Pt. 1, 2020 - I love writing my own codex entries, first off, and I love combining art with text to create a (hopefully) seamless work. This work was an attempt to flesh out these OCs of mine with both art (because unique facial structures are hard for me to get down, but so important regardless) and text (because writing~). I think it turned out well overall, but there are elements of the portraits that I might at some point touch up a bit.

3. Marianna and Delia Codex and Art, Pt. 2, 2020 - Part 2, with what I refer to as a “DAI Outfit Change” because I have always loved seeing fans show their own OCs as they look in DAO, DA2, and then finally DAI. So I absolutely wanted to jump on that bandwagon myself. The skin tones are a little off (and I’m sorry about that!) because I was playing with the watercolor brush at that point, and it dilutes the colors I use. Still working to figure that out, but I was very happy with the overall lineart and structures of the faces.

4. Alistair/Aja Amell Picture with a Blurb, 2017 - Ooooold, old, old, old, OLD! I still love the art, and I’m soooo happy with how the interaction between Alistair and Aja turned out (drawing kisses is extremely difficult for me; I always end up creating a distorted weird lip-creature, instead of realistically puckered lips...). I’m not as happy with the blurb that went with it? At that point, I was still very much figuring out my own DAO worldstate, and the characterization for everyone, so, eh. Take it with a grain of salt!

Unfinished Costume Designs:

1. Ancient Elvhen Armor with Dwarven Influence, 2018 - People who do costume design work are amazing and mystical beings, and I wish I could do what they do. This was an attempt at merging the Keeper robes from DAI with a more dwarven armor aesthetic, solely because I created an ancient elvhen character, Ceda, who was taken in by the Cad’halash dwarves mentioned in the Witch Hunt dlc, and I wanted this character to have a mix of the elven style of armor and the dwarven style. I’m overall decently happy with it, but there’s still that persistent level of self-criticism present.

2. Herald of Andraste Outfit WIP, 2016 - This was a very old picture, not one I showed around a lot, but the idea for this was entirely born of my intense interest in how fashion and outfit designs could be used to create a symbolic image for the Herald of Andraste. In general, I love the combination of ceremonial armor with long and flowing cloth, so that was what I went for here. I’m still actually very proud of how this came out, and headcanon something similar for my Herald in my canon DAI worldstate.

Pencil Sketches:

1. Quick Saara Sketch, 2019 - TW: saarebas mouth scars. Exactly what it says; very quick sketch of Saara I did in a small notebook I carry around with me. This was basically a test for myself to see if I could manage to draw Saara with the features and facial structure I envisioned for her without needing to use a lot of references.

2. Mass Effect Character Sketch; Jesse, 2018 - Similar reason for drawing this one as the above Saara sketch! With these characters, I love sometimes the way they can turn out with the specific character creator used for them, and when I draw them, I enjoy trying to create a definitive look for them using what I get from the CC, and my own knowledge of Hooman Faces.

3. Saara Sketch, 2017 - TW: saarebas mouth scars. A more detailed sketch of Saara than the one above, and one I definitely put more time into overall. It’s currently the profile picture I’m using for ao3, and is the definitive go-to reference picture I use whenever imagining Saara in a fic, or for other Saara pics I make. I am extremely proud of this picture, and feel like I should work in graphite more often. It’s such fun, and the texture is so nice to look at.

4. Sketch of Nameless Alamarri Woman, 2017 - This was a sketch I did of what I envisioned some Alamarri tribes to look like; I used artistic depictions of Gaul tribes and hairstyles for inspiration, and have used this as a go-to reference for my version of Alamarri tribes. Nothing super notable about this one, but I really liked the way the shape of her face turned out.

Events and Gifts:

1. Another Scar, 2020 - TW: blood, injuries, gore. The most recent piece of art on the list, and a gift for @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold; featuring sisterly love between Rica and fem!Brosca, which was her requested prompt. This was a tough piece for me because of the difficulty with the lighting I dealt with. For some reason, that one particular element of it gave me so much trouble. Overall, I’m very happy with how it turned out, though, especially the skin tones of the sisters; Brosca I always sort of like as having this greyish, more gaunt look to her, while Rica I like seeing with a darker, richer, and warmer tone to her.

2. A Very Cousland Christmas!, 2019 - This was for a holiday exchange for a server, and I drew a friend’s Cousland (Elissa, the girl on the left) with my Cousland (Gazza, the girl on the right). I love kid-fic, and I love kid-art, and so I decided... baby Cousland art! Drawing kid proportions was the toughest part, I recall, and I thiiiink it turned out well, and I’m still quite proud of it overall. Elissa’s design came entirely from my friend, but I added the holly~

3. Exchange Gift with Dis Brosca and Mabari, 2018 - This was an exchange gift for @fanfoolishness, using her lovely Dis Brosca, and was my first real attempt at backgrounds... I struggled with the coherence of the foreground and background a bit, but I’m still very proud of how it turned out, especially with the colors I had to work with. What I also really enjoyed working with was the lighting and the expression on Dis’s face. Backlit subjects are always fun to play around with!

4. Inktober Picture, “Deep”, 2017 - TW: scars, injury, mentions of abuse in the author’s note/attached dialogue snippets. This was for an Inktober prompt (the only one I’ve ever done, sadly... because I am bad with deadlines...), and again features Trilyn. Trilyn’s backstory has him a former slave in Tevinter, and a lot of the early works I do for him are sort of deep-dives into his life there. It’s all meant to be an exploration of the things he endures, and then those moments when he overcomes it all and takes back his own autonomy and self. This art is definitely provocative, and I can understand if not everyone likes it, but to me, I just wanted to show just what he faces (without glorifying it) before showing the moment of his own triumph.

5. Christmas Holiday Picture with my Brosca and a Friend’s Amell, 2017 - This was a piece of art drawn first by a friend of mine, @nanahuatli~ She drew the Amell, the background, the mistletoe, etc. All I did was add my Brosca to the mix to finish the image. It was a lot of fun to do, 1) because it was fun trying to match her style so that the picture looked cohesive, 2) because I love doing collabs with friends, and 3) because it was just such a fun thing to imagine my surly short Brosca, looking at this weird plant/fungus/thing dangling over some puckering human! It was an absolute joy to do this collab with her!

6. OC Kiss Week Pic of Jem and Saara, 2017 - TW: saarebas mouth scars. A spur-of-the-moment thing meant to demonstrate just what kind of dynamic my OC, Jem, has with my other OC, Saara (both of whom are members of Leliana’s network in DAI). This was a very quick picture (deadlines...) and was mostly just to have fun drawing these two characters interacting, and to see if I could make them look like themselves. I think I did a decent job with it overall, especially with Jem’s kissy-face! (Again... drawing kisses are the bane of my existence, although hands and feet take a close second.)

#lavalampelfchild's art #masterpost #dragon age #some not DA stuff

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cytarabi · 4 years

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Hey! I've become a huge fan of your fics on ao3. I wanted to know how do you push out so many beautiful chapters so quickly? What's your writing process like? I'm working on a big JB fic, which I'm trying to finish timely, but high quality. Always like to see how other writers do their thang! Thank you!

Hi! I remember your name!! <3 Thank YOU for the question and praise, that’s so sweet!!

I love seeing how other writers do their thang, too! And I’ve found it can be very, very different for each author.

TLDR I write a lot of my fic ahead of time. I outline the entire fic, chapter by chapter before I start writing. I use several tools to speed the process and/or to make it more artsy fartsy.

I’ve found that I’m a “plotter” and not a “pantser” (two main ways of writing, unless you hate being labeled lol.)

Plotter means that I prefer plotting out most of the story before I write the details. Here’s been my process for my multichapter fics:

1) I come up with an idea and let it brew! I think about key scenes or dialogue I love and I jot them down in my phone on Google notes. Write down your ideas, you’ll probably forget them.

2) During this brewing time, (for As Black As Thunder and my next fic) I take the time to read, read, read. I read works and jot more notes! I have an entire Google doc for Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier where I wrote down her tone usage, figurative language and summary of each chapter. I can’t tell you how much this has helped get me in the write TONE for the work. Tone is SO important. Readers reading a thriller will expect thriller beats! Deep Fried Drinks was a rom com, so the verbs, adjectives etc are very different from creepy Gothic. When I started As Black As Thunder (ABAT), wow, it was hard to nail the tone at first. But by the second half of the fic, I’m fully immersed in it and it’s much easier to create the tone naturally. Without using inspiration, I don’t think it would have turned out as well. For ABAT, I think I took two weeks of no writing, when I’m used to writing every day. It was hard not to write, but wow, was I ready when I started!

3) When I’m ready to outline, I do! I open a google doc for the fic and start throwing everything I can think of in there. My ABAT doc was only like three lines for 6 months... lol! I’ve only just started looking into story structure, so my older fics are all wonky. BUT for ABAT and Deep Fried Drinks, I tried to follow story structure for plots. First act, second act, third act, character arcs, etc. My longest fic, Time Stops, dropped a bunch of readers in the middle and I think it’s because my middle SAGGED majorly. I didn’t try to follow a structure, just sort of plotted it out how I wanted to, and it was probably very repetitive and boring. For ABAT, I plotted a mid point turn to spice things up, chose things to make the character more proactive, etc. I highly recommend Ellen Brock on Youtube for any plotting advice. She’s an editor, and I’ve learned so much!

4) Organize plot into chapters, write key notes for chapters and fill out background info. The first two are self explanatory, but the third is my favorite! One thing that speeds my writing (I have no idea if people do this or not) but I have lists. So many lists! For ABAT, I have lists of common outfits for characters (I usually hate writing about outfits but I’m glad I wrote more for this work). I also write the character arc for each main character. For ABAT, I have the following for Brienne:

Brienne

Symbols: white crocus flower (purity, youthfulness, sensitive to rain), White begonia, Small birch saplings struggling for light

Goal: serve public, be idealistic, honorable

Lie: (hidden for spoilers)

Truth: (hidden for spoilers)

Flaw: stubborn, idealistic, watched her father get fame and respect for his engineering, wants to do the same thing and do it perfectly, doesn’t understand systemic racism

Motivation: serve people, be accepted by the public, belonging, abandonment

Stakes: public rejection, Tarth name on the line, mockery, insanity, failure

So when I think about a curve ball for Brienne at any point of the story, this character section helps me stay true to character. I have a section for Brienne, Jaime, Cersei and Missandei. Cersei has a larger section because she’s a villain... ;)

In addition to this section, I also write down their personalities and strengths. You know, like if they went to an interview lol. For example, I have Missandei have the following strengths:

Missandei

Adaptability: able to adapt

Intellection: introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions

Consistency: all people should be treated the same

Futuristic: fascinated by future

Learner: loves to learn

I ALSO have an emotion worksheet and this is SO USEFUL. They say in writing: show that the character is angry, not tell the reader. WELL, IDK about you but I can’t keep track of all the little quirks characters do and yet, I want them to be consistent. If while writing a scene, I sometimes think, “Hmm what is Jaime doing if he’s in awe right now?” I search for “awe” at the top of my fic, and bam, I have options, more or less. For a lot of emotions, I brainstormed ideas based on character traits, arcs, Gothic tone etc. I fill all of this out before I write the first chapter.

Here’s an example of some emotions I have for ABAT:

Emotion List (remember to have introspection, unique perspective)

Awe:

B: wrinkle deepened between brows, parted lips, fixed gaze, stands still

J: arched brow, open mouth, stare, goes closer

C: lowering chin or raising chin, goes closer

M: adaptable, quick to react

Deceptive:

B: looking away, walking away

J: scratching ear

C: smiling, neatly placed hands

M: long blink

Thoughtfulness:

B: staring off, quiet, daydreaming

J: staring at object important to him, twisting pencil or object in his hand, squeezing his hand

C: squeezing hand, staring at object she wants to get rid of or improve

M: daydreaming, staring off at her own outfit—it’s foreign

5) Now the fun part: writing! I used to write with scene structure outline, but I think I’ve grown off the training wheels. But it really helped me in Deep Fried Drinks to plot out the chapter scenes ahead of time, and I used Ellen Brock’s proactive and reactive videos to help me out with that. I throw on some music to get me in the mood of the story and I write during my kid’s nap, about two hours every day. Sometimes I’ll write at night, but lately I’ve been too tired to do that. My tip for this part is to try and figure out what you want to improve. What are you good at, and what could you improve as a writer? My first fics had like zero figurative language. Awkward. This takes a level of awareness that’s hard to reach but watching or researching creative writing technique really helps me. For example, I used to NEED to write all five senses out for each chapter ahead of time. Now it comes naturally to me! I would say now my main issue is phrasing? Pacing? And I need to tone down the melodrama for my next work....... lol! I write, write, write--and usually, I write 60-90% of the fic before I start editing!

6) Editing. Fun fun fun. I don’t mind editing, I just don’t think I’m that GOOD at it. I try to read through my chapter twice and edit as I go. I look for things I want to take out or add, look for show vs tell, formatting, etc--do things make sense? Did I miss anything? In ABAT, I’ll write something in chap 20 that I need to start in chap 18, so I’ll go back and make a quick note to “add part about document somewhere in this chapter” so I don’t confuse readers. When I edit chap 18, I’ll add that line or paragraph in. It’s all an intricate web! I also have a list of vague words I try to eliminate or replace with stronger words (I have more words if you want them). I found that I have certain words or phrases that echo a lot, like “while”, “turned around”, “turned” or “did not”--now I search for these phrases/words and try to change them:

Get rid of vague words, fix by explaining more:

Some

While

Thing

Stuff

Very

Really

Big/small

Good/bad

Simple verbs: had, was, went

Got/get

Few

Several

What

Do/Did

Like with all writing “rules”, they can be broken, but it helps to know why they are rules. I steered away from adverbs, and I think it improves my writing. Other writers have different prose and adverbs work so well--it all depends on your style! If I find these vague words in dialogue, for example, I almost never change them because dialogue is usually freaking vague lol!

7) Beta reader(s)! I honestly think this work is better than my other stuff because I have a newer beta reader, theunpaidcritic!!! *I bow* She’s literally an expert so it’s SO helpful for me in every way--I can’t fangirl about her enough. If you’re struggling to get a beta reader, I recommend joining a JB discord (transformative werk is my favorite discord, and there is a beta read request thread) or post a request on reddit!

8) Post! Once you’ve edited and gone over beta reader notes, it’s time to post! Congrats!!!!!!!!!!

For time reference, I started this process around mid-May for ABAT, and I will be done by early September. Maybe I’m just a fast writer? Compared to angel-deux, ha, I look slow. Everyone is different! Please let me know if you have any other questions, I am ALL about helping out! :) <3 <3 <3

#cytarabi answers #jaime x brienne #writing #braime

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entity9silvergen · 4 years

Text

He Is Mild And He Is Meek (ATLA Fanfiction)

Summary:

He is mild and he is meek, he is Momo and he is what I seek.

Suki always wanted three things in life. One was to become a professional soccer player. The second was to live in a cute apartment filled with succulents. The third was to get a cat.

Momo probably wasn’t anyone’s first pick as a pet but Suki was determined to get this cat to love her as much as she loved him. If only he’d accept he had a home now.

Fandom: Avatar The Last Airbender

Characters: Suki, Momo, Sokka, Aang

Relationships: Suki & Momo, Suki & Sokka, Momo & Aang, Mentioned Aang/ Katara, Past Suki/ Toph

Other Tags: AroWriMo, Oneshot, Modern Setting, Modern AU, Transgender Character, Aromantic Character, Trans Suki, Aromantic Suki, Lesbian Suki, Aro Trans Lesbian Suki, Trans Aang, Bi Sokka, Queer Toph, Cat Momo, Dog Appa, Pet Adoption

Warnings: Brief Mentions of Sex, Minor Swearing

Word Count: 6.7K

Chapter Count: 1 (Oneshot)

Author’s Note: I was working on my third AroWriMo story and was about to take a break when this idea hit me. I know it’s kind of out there but I like trying different stuff so here we are.

This is very out of my comfort zone. It’s a Modern/ Real World AU story with a sapphic aromantic transfem Suki adopting a cat. I am an achillean aroace trans man with a dog. I also don’t play soccer or work in tech and I’m writing about that a lot here. I am writing about so many things I don’t know about so feel free to call me out if things aren’t quite accurate. The main focus is on Suki and Momo becoming friends so hopefully it won’t be an issue.

The title comes from the poem The Lamb by William Blake.

This fits with the prompt for Week 4, non-romantic relationships. Because pets count, guys. Originally I was going to write a fic about Lin figuring out she’s aro and coming out but I like this better.

Also read it here on Ao3.

======

As long as Suki could remember, she’d always had three goals in life.

Goal number one had always been to play professionally for a women’s soccer team.

Unfortunately, biology was not in her favor and she couldn’t even play on her college soccer team. For either sex. What kind of bull was that? If they were going to misgender her, they could at least do it by letting her play for the men’s team. Not that she would if she was offered. There were some things she wouldn’t compromise on.

It was upsetting but she tried not to let it get her down. She’d come this far and she wasn’t going to let this stop her. She ended up on her school’s girl’s ice hockey team for all four years. It was just because they were short on players and they needed six to compete. Apparently not a lot of girls were interested in ice hockey? Suki actually really enjoyed it, even if the other teams always called her a man when they lost.

Maybe it was for the better because once she’d graduated, one of her teammates introduced her to the Kyoshi Warriors. They weren’t professionals but they competed in organized tournaments. All women's organized tournaments. It wasn’t what Suki had dreamed of but soccer was still a part of her life. Maybe one day the sports industry would be more accepting but for now, this was enough.

Goal number two had always been to live in a cozy apartment with a crapton of succulents.

She was a cottagecore lesbian who couldn’t keep a plant alive for the life of her, okay? And succulents were cute. Don’t judge. This one was a much easier goal to accomplish. She and her buddy Sokka had scored a job in webdev for this big gaming company right after they graduated from college. They were stuck coding for a smaller, newer game but popularity had surged and she and Sokka were making decent coin now. Enough that they no longer had to crash at Toph’s place. Well, Suki didn’t have to. Sokka stuck around for a bit. Suki was pretty sure they tried dating and it didn’t work out. That was probably a good thing because Suki really didn’t want to tell Sokka she’d been hooking up with Toph when they’d moved it. How awkward would that conversation be? Like, hey Sokka. You know you’re dating my ex-fuck buddy? Well now you do. Bleh.

But the point was that Suki had it good now. She wasn’t rolling in dough or anything- she’d painted most of the artwork around the apartment and all her succulents she’d grown herself from cuttings because she still couldn’t really afford to do anything else- but she was doing well. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to stay here forever but she might.

The third and final goal was to get a cat.

Because who needed a girlfriend? Or boyfriend? Or enbyfriend? Wives, husbands, any kind of spouse wasn’t the life for her. No, she wanted to live with a cat in a house filled with plants, damn it. Would the cat try to eat her succulents? Probably. Would that stop her? No. No, it would not.

So that led to right now. With her ideal home secured and a place on a soccer team, Suki decided it was time to get a cat.

She’d spent awhile looking online. Like, years. Years of research. She didn’t have much experience with cats. She had a pair of cats as a kid, sisters actually, but they’d died when she was pretty young. Not because her family was filled with terrible pet owners or anything. No, the cats had just gotten old. Her parents just decided to get a lot of pets as “practice” or whatever before having kids. She’d found out later in life that it’d taken a long time for her mother to get pregnant with her big sister Ty Lee so maybe they’d thought they just weren’t going to have kids or something.

Ty Lee’s friend Mai had a cat growing up, a kitten, so most of Suki’s cat experiences came from that. The cat’s name was Azula and she was a mean thing. Suki had gotten countless scratches on her arms from her but they were worth it to have those brief moments of sheer, unfiltered acceptance only an animal could have before the little jerk unleashed hell on her hands. Azula somewhat grew out of it when she reached adulthood but she never stopped being a terror.

Mai moved away at some point when Suki was around nine or ten and she took Azula with her. Which made sense, Azula was a cat, but Suki still missed having her around. Since then, the only cat she’d interacted with was this tortoiseshell she’d seen on a walk in high school. She’d been having a pretty day- er, week- and she thought a walk to the elementary school down the block would clear her head. She’d spotted the cat across the street and hurriedly crossed in hope she could get a better look. It’d been a pleasant surprise that the cat seemed equally delighted to see her and approached her as well, demanding pets for a good half hour before Suki realized she had to be getting home. She came back the next week, hoping to see the cat again, but she never did. It was too bad, she’d never met a cat who did anything like that.

So the years of research were necessary. She was only experienced with, what, four cats? Wait actually, her extended family members had some cats but they didn’t count. They were assholes. But four to seven, give or take? Not a lot.

Constantly googling stuff about cat care made stuff about cat adoption show up on her brower a lot which was kind of annoying in college since she couldn’t have a cat in her dorm but she let herself indulge once in a while. She had to know what kind of cat she wanted, right? Well, she thought so. Turns out she was a bit off center. Cats weren’t really bred like dogs. With dogs, you had a ton of options. There were labs, german shepherds, huskies, dobermans, dalmatians, sheep dogs, collies, and countless other breeds. With cats, you had orange, white, black, brown and grey. You also had stripes, patches, and plain but that was pretty much it. It was more important where the cat came from than what kind.

It took Suki awhile to realize most of the advertisements she saw were from cat mills. Turns out there are a lot of weirdos out there who bred their cats to pump out kittens to sell. On one hand, gross and she knew she shouldn’t further support those kinds of businesses but on the other, they needed good homes. These people had no morals, who knew where those little kittens were going to go? Not the sellers, that’s for sure.

It was hard to tear herself away from those sites but she was glad she did.

There were a lot of family cats who’d gotten pregnant by accident and the owners needed someone to take the kittens off them. They sold cheap but the cats were usually well taken care of and the sellers made sure the new owners weren’t, like, animal abusers are anything. The bar was kind of low but it was a lot better than kitten mills.

Then there were shelters.

Suki’s family, as much as they loved animals, never got pets from shelters. They had too many issues, they said. It’s easier to train a younger animal, they said. You have no idea where they’re from, they said. Ty Lee always pointed out the animals needed homes. Suki always asked if the animals who were there for too long got euthanized. Neither sister could really remember what their parents’ responses were but neither of them ever tried to buy pets from shelters, even as adults.

Until now.

Looking on the shelters’ websites swayed Suki a bit. A lot of shelters didn’t euthanize but usually pets would go to different shelters if they were at one for too long and sometimes those new shelters did. There was a wide variety in the policies at the different shelters. Some of them really prioritized the animals’ wellbeing but some… really… didn’t.

She decided on visiting a small volunteer-run animal shelter. They were having a… a sale? What’s it called when places with animals just stuck a bunch of animals outside and let people wander around and look at them? A farmer’s market? No, wait, that was food. An open house? Gosh, she should know this. She didn’t though and she was going anyway.

It was a Sunday the day she decided to go. It was the only day on the shelter’s calendar that lined up with her schedule for the next month or so. After throwing on her lucky green blouse, applying some light makeup, and firing off a quick text to Sokka letting her know she wouldn’t be around today, she headed out.

“Hey there!” a bright boy in a blinding orange t-shirt greeted as she approached the shop the kennels were set up. “I love your necklace! Where’d you get it?”

Suki tried her best not to finger the necklace she had on but quickly relaxed when she noticed the dog tags around the boy’s neck. The pronoun dog tags. This guy was trans too. Or an ally at least. He probably recognized her programmer socks from a distance and her white ring up close. It was a massive relief. She hated getting questions about her name when she signed paperwork. And knowing her, there was a pretty good chance she’d be signing some adoption papers today.

“Oh, um, I made it,” Suki said, feeling a bit proud at the way the boy’s eyes bugged out of his head.

“Really? That’s so cool! I’ve looked for pronoun necklaces online but they’re just so chunky. That’s why I like my dog tags! My dog Appa has some too!” the boy rambled excitedly. “Anyway, anything I can help you with? You are here to look at animals, right? If you’re not, I’d totally apologize for just yelling at you out of nowhere but it’s kind of my job.”

Suki laughed and decided she liked the guy. “No, don’t worry. I’m here to look at cats, actually.”

“Oh that’s great! I love cats but I’m allergic,” the boy- Aang, according to his name tag- said. He jangled something in his pocket, presumably allergy pills, and began leading her to the tables where lighter animals’ kennels were placed on. “We’ve got some good ones here today! Who should we visit first? You looking for a boy cat or a girl cat?”

“Gender is a social construct,” Suki responded, amused by Aang’s delight at her response. “Surprise me.”

“Okay, um, let’s see. Oh here’s Haru! He’s a good boy,” Aang said, leading him over to a wire exercise pen with three cats inside. “See, Haru’s the brown one. Teo and Duke are the other brown ones.”

One of the cats meowed loudly at the sound of his name, startling the other two awake. One of them lifted his head with a dazed look in his eye and a long piece of lint stuck to his face. Suki couldn’t help but snort at the sight of it.

“Classic Haru,” Aang chuckled. Suki still wasn’t quite sure which cat he was talking about but he was already moving along. “Um, okay, so over here we’ve got three more. This is Lu Ten and- Jet! Stop trying to eat Kuei’s ear! Wait, no. I’m sorry. Don’t look at me like that! You brought this upon yourself!”

Suki’s attention drifted down the table as Aang bickered with the cats. They were funny but she was too distracted by the lone crate at the end of the table for her to notice. She lifted a finger, drawing Aang’s attention to it. “Is there anyone in there?”

Aang looked up, Jet in one hand and Kuei in the other. “Oh that? Oh yeah, that’s Momo.”

“Can I see him?”

Aang put Jet and Kuei down, looking kind of hesitant. “There’s a reason Momo’s all alone.”

“Is he aggressive?”

“What? No. No, he’s like the total opposite of aggressive. Really shy actually. He’s a rescue. My girlfriend found him on the streets a couple weeks after this hoarder got evicted. The guy had, like, sixty cats who all got sent to shelters around the state but some of them got loose. We think Momo was one of them. He gets kind of scared around other cats,” Aang said, scratching the back of his head with one hand. “I don’t think he’s scared of humans, exactly, but I don’t think he’s going to get adopted anytime soon. I’d take him but, you know, allergies. I thought it might do him some good to get used to being out here though. Took me forever to convince my boss.”

“Can I see him?”

“O-okay. I don’t see why not. Just try to stay quiet. I don’t want to scare him too much.”

Suki nodded and Aang led her down the table. The crate was facing away from the rest of the animals and Aang made sure to move slowly when he moved into sight. “Hey, buddy. It’s me. Aang. You remember me? Yeah, you do. I brought Suki! She’s just going to say hi, alright?”

Aang nodded to Suki and she shifted so she was within view of the wire mesh that was the crate’s door. She crouched down a bit, trying to get into view, and was immediately met with two wide, green eyes.

“Hey, Momo,” she cooed. “Is this alright?”

She slowly put her hand near the door. Momo stared at it for a few moments from his place curled up at the back of his crate before stretching his neck a bit to sniff. She glanced at Aang, trying to see if what she was doing was alright. He looked absolutely mystified. Taking that as a good sign, she put her hand against the door. To her surprise, Momo got up and nuzzled her hand through the wire.

“Wow, he never does that,” Aang commented. “Hopefully that means he’s getting better. Or that you have cat magic!”

“Can I adopt him?” Suki asked before she knew what she was saying.

“I don’t literally mean you have cat magic.”

“Wha- Yes. I know I don’t have cat magic, Aang,” Suki sighed and ducked her head a bit to look into Momo’s cage. He was a cute little guy. Maybe a year old. If he was from a hoarding house like Aang thought he was, he’d probably been born there. Poor boy probably didn’t know what it felt like to have a real home. “I think… I’d like to give him a shot. Give him a home. I know I’d probably have to put more work into it than I would for another cat but I’m willing to do that extra work for him. He deserves it.”

Aang smiled and it wasn’t one of the beaming ones like before. This one was a lot softer. “You have no idea how happy that makes me. You really sound like you’ll be a good pet-owner. We have to do background checks and stuff, obviously, and you can’t, like, take him home right now but if you think you’re ready, I’ll put your name down and we can start the adoption process.”

Suki shot Momo one last glance and nodded. “Nothing would make me happier.”

===========================

She ended up driving to get him at seven am the next Friday.

She’d been planning on getting him in three weeks but on Thursday Aang had called her to tell her Jet was stirring up trouble again and Momo had freaked out and he really wanted to get him out of there. They’d planned on Saturday but Momo freaking out was agitating the other cats and Aang thought it would be best if Suki came sooner so she got herself and Sokka out of work and now they were driving to the Southern Air Animal Shelter.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’re getting a cat,” Sokka whined as they pulled into the parking lot. “At least tell me he’s black. Then you’d be, like, a sexy lesbian witch with a sexy black cat... famialir… thing.”

“Momo’s white.”

“Aw. That’s too b- Oh wait, that actually fits your aesthetic way better. Blue eyes?”

“Green.”

“Even better! I like him already!”

Suki snorted and flicked him in the side of the head when they pulled into their parking spot and came to a stop. “Just wait here, alright?”

“Sure thing. Try not to take forever. Unlike some people, I need to get back to work this afternoon.”

Suki flipped him off and headed inside.

The woman at the desk was kind enough and Suki didn’t have to wait long before she was redirected to Aang. The man looked a bit frazzled but still looked bright as ever. “Hey Suki! Boy am I glad you’re here. I’m sorry we had to hurry things like this but I really think this is what’s best for Momo.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Suki assured him. “Is he alright?”

“I think so. I’m just glad he had a home lined up and all ready to go,” Aang admitted as he led her to the part of the building reserved for cats. “I mean, he’s well treated here and I’ll miss him but I think he needs his peace.”

The cat corner wasn’t nearly as loud as the dog department must be but there were a few more vocal cats meowing here and there. Suki kind of wanted to stop to play with them but she wasn’t here for them. She was here for Momo.

Once again, Momo was at the farthest end of the wing and as far away as the other cats as possible. She felt a stab of pity for him when she saw him. He was curled up at the back of his kennel, face buried in his tail. When he heard them approach, he looked up with the most terrified look in his eyes and mewed softly.

“I know, buddy,” Aang told him, looking sad, “but Suki’s here. Do you remember her? She’s going to take you to your forever home.”

Aang unlatched the door and Momo tipped his head, looking confused. With Aang’s approval, Suki reached in and pulled him out, holding Momo carefully. “There we go. It’s going to be alright now, Momo.”

“Let’s get him out of this wing,” Aang said. Suki nodded in agreement, feeling Momo quivering in her arms, and the two hurried away from the other cats. Back in the lobby, Momo already seemed a lot calmer. Still nervous but better.

“Normally, all the paperwork would be done by now but due to the circumstances, just sign here,” the woman at the desk said, sliding a form across the table. “We can mail you the rest of the paperwork or you can come by later.”

Suki nodded and jotted down her initials on the form with her free hand. She tried at least skimming the rest of the form like any responsible person should but she was too worried about the cat in her arms to really care. The receptionist glanced it over once before giving Suki the okay.

“Do you have someone to drive you home or do you have a crate in your car?” Aang asked when she was done.

“Both. I came here with my friend and I already bought everything,” Suki told him. She flashed him a smile. “Thanks for everything, Aang.”

“No problem. Just doing my job,” Aang answered, matching her smile. He passed her a slip of paper. “Here’s just some extra info about Momo I had jotted down. I have one for every cat. I dunno, it may help.”

Suki thanked him one more time before saying goodbye and returning to her car where Sokka was waiting. Honestly she’d kind of forgotten he was there, despite mentioning it to Aang, until she saw his face light up at the sight of the cat.

“Is that him? Oh, what a beautiful boy,” Sokka cooed when Suki took shotgun with Momo in her lap.

Momo glanced up at Suki before shooting Sokka a confused look. Suki scratched him behind the ears. “That’s right, Momo. Sokka’s weird.”

“Hey! I’m the weird one?”

“Yup,” Suki said, popping the p. Sokka made a face at her. She laughed. “Just drive, knucklehead.”

“As my queen commands,” Sokka responded extravagantly and hit the gas. Suki held onto Momo securely and soon, they were heading to Momo’s new forever home.

The drive was overall pretty good. It was a nice drive through some countryside. Suki and Sokka had been too tired that morning to really appreciate it but now that they were more awake and in less of a hurry, they could just soak it in. Suki lifted Momo up a bit so he could look outside, smiling at the way his green eyes widened in wonder at the endless stretches of grass around them.

Momo was fairly calm for most of it but he was a cat in an unfamiliar situation so he cried a bit once in a while. Sokka pulled over to let Momo use the bathroom about halfway through. Sokka told Suki that when his family got their puppy when he was a teenager, his dad had been holding the dog in the back seat and the dog peed on him within twenty minutes of getting in the car. Suki laughed but privately she was grateful Sokka remembered. She wasn’t wearing nice clothes or anything but she really didn’t want Momo peeing on her or in Sokka’s car.

They got back to Suki’s apartment within the hour. Sokka punched in the codes for the gate and elevator, Suki’s hands too full to do it herself, and they headed inside.

“We’re home now, Momo,” Suki told the cat softly, putting him down once the door was closed. She didn’t think he’d run but better safe than sorry. Momo was definitely going to be an indoor cat. “Go explore.”

Momo seemed frozen for a moment before disappearing in a flash, scurrying behind the couch to where most of the cat stuff was. Suki would’ve taken that as a good sign if he’d run to the cat tower but no, Momo had ducked under the little table beside the couch and was watching everything warily.

“At least he’s not hiding under the couch or under the bed,” Sokka pointed out when their efforts to coax him out failed.

“I guess,” Suki sighed, sitting down on the rug a few feet away from the cat. “You want to stay?”

“I need to get back to work,” Sokka told her regretfully. “I’ll text you if anything important happens. And I might be by later. Hopefully this little guy comes out by then.”

Suki nodded and bid him farewell before glancing at Momo. He’d stubbornly tucked in his paws and planted himself firmly under that little table. She shook her head. “What am I going to do with you?”

=====================

Suki didn’t have to go back to work that day but she did have a soccer match. She could skip if she wanted- they were just playing the Ba Sing Bears and honestly they weren’t that good- but she figured she’d give Momo the chance to explore his home alone. According to the note Aang had given her, Momo was fine being alone for good stretches of time.

(It also said he was litter trained, good on a leash, practically melted into neck scritches, didn’t like his ears being poked, loved polka music but hated any kind of rap except for French, and his favorite show was the Aquaman cartoon from the 60s but Suki didn’t really know what to think of that.)

The Kyoshi Warriors unsurprisingly won their game but the Ba Sing Bears had put up a good fight. The score came closer than it usually did and Suki got more of a workout than she had in awhile. She got home late, having stopped to grab a bite to eat with her teammates. When she opened the door, Momo looked up and froze mid step from where he was standing on the back of the couch.

They made eye contact for a moment and Suki wanted nothing more than to rush over and cheer that he finally ventured out of his hiding place but, not wanting to scare him, she withheld. Tearing her gaze away, she headed to the bathroom and turned on the shower. She needed it after that game.

She was sweaty and grimy and the hot water was relaxing but she tried to keep the shower quick. As nice as it was to close her eyes, let the heat wash over her, and lose herself in her thoughts, now wasn’t really the time for that. She washed and dried herself quickly before throwing on some lounge clothes and tying her wet hair up in a towel to dry.

When she left the bathroom, Momo was back under the table, eyeing her warily. Suki tried her best to give him his space for a little while, giving the apartment a once over to see if he’d tried to eat any of her beloved plants- he did not- before heading to the kitchen to prepare some cat food.

“I hope you’re hungry, Momo,” Suki said aloud as she plopped down on the rug, cat bowl in her lap. She shook it a bit before plucking a piece out and holding it up like an offering. “You want some?”

Momo just stared at her and didn’t move a muscle. Suki put the piece of kibble down halfway between them and waited. When Momo just looked at it, she went on her phone and tried not to look at him too much.

She was just about to send Sokka a funny meme she found when Momo stepped out, took the piece of kibble, and wandered up to her.

“Hey, buddy,” she cooed. She lifted her hand slowly, waiting for his reaction, before sinking her hand into his soft, white fur. “That’s right. Not so scary, huh? It’s just me. You want some food?”

Momo let out a pathetic mewl and clambered onto her knee to dip his muzzle into the bowl. He took a few neat bites at first before throwing himself into the meal and scarfing it down.

“You were hungry, huh?” Suki said, laughing a bit when Momo slipped and nearly fell in. “I probably should’ve fed you sooner. Don’t worry, tomorrow we’ll get on a schedule.”

Momo swallowed his last bite and mewed again, as if agreeing. Suki set aside the bowl and Momo wandered off but she felt like she’d made some progress. Momo would settle in well.

===================

“He’s not much of a hunter, huh?” Sokka stated as he bounced a feather on a string in front of Momo’s face. Momo just blinked at it and yawned.

It’d been about a week since Momo had moved in with Suki. She thought things were going pretty well. Momo didn’t hide under the table anymore. He seemed to like it down there but he never ran down there in fright and it didn’t take much coaxing to get him to come out. He seemed to prefer the cat tower anyway, though he never climbed very high.

Cats weren’t terribly exciting pets. Momo wasn’t a kitten, she didn’t need to teach him to use a litter box, and he wasn’t much of a scratcher. Still, as timid as he was, he’d proven himself to have some personality.

“He can be spunky when he wants to be,” Suki told him. “Try a ball, he likes batting those around.”

Sokka looked around for a ball and was just about to toss it to Momo when there was a knock at the door.

Momo’s tail shot up but he didn’t run. Suki considered that a good sign. “I can get it.”

Sokka didn’t respond and leaned down to roll Momo the ball. “Go get it. Fetch, boy.”

“He’s not a dog,” Suki called as she opened the door to reveal a familiar face. “Aang?”

“Hey Suki,” Aang greeted with a wild wave. “I just came by to drop off the rest of Momo’s paperwork.”

“I almost forgot about that,” Suki admitted. She accepted the stack of papers from him- ugh, she was really not looking forward to reading through all of those- and stepped aside from the doorway. “Come in. I’m sure Momo would like to see you. I’ve got a friend over but I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“I don’t!” Sokka yelled from the other side of the apartment.

“Sokka?” Aang called as he entered. “Sokka, is that you?”

“Aang?” Sokka looked up from Momo, face flashing with recognition at the sight of the bald figure by the door, and grinned. “Oh hey! I didn’t know you and Suki knew each other!”

“I didn’t know you two knew each other either!” Aang said, slapping hands with Sokka when he approached. “This is way cool!”

“Wait, how do you know each other? Exes?” Suki guessed, glancing between them.

Sokka made a face. “Ew, no. Aang’s Katara’s boyfriend. We all went to high school together.”

Aang laughed a bit and scratched the back of his head nervously. “So how do you two know each other? Exes?”

“Ew, no,” Suki said, mimicking Sokka’s reaction. He stuck his tongue out at her.

“We went to university together,” Sokka explained. “And we were roommates for a bit, during and after college. And we work together. Just best friends in general. Wow, I’m really surprised I haven’t introduced you two yet.”

“Too much trans power in one room,” Aang joked. He and Suki high fived.

“Too much power for any room,” Suki agreed. “Have you met Toph? The three of us would be unstoppable.”

“Oh my god,” Sokka said, rubbing his face with his hands. “Just go look at the damn cat, Aang.”

“Don’t talk about Momo that way,” Aang complained but was already hurrying over to the cat tower. “Momo! You miss me, buddy?”

Suki heard a mew from Momo and a sneeze from Aang and she figured everything was okay.

“You look over this and make sure I’m not signing away my soul or some shit,” Suki said, sliding the paperwork into Sokka’s hands, and joined Aang by the couch with Momo against Sokka’s protests.

“No swearing in front of the baby!” Aang piped up as Momo poked his head out of the cat tower and slunk down to the floor. Aang patted his lap and Momo slowly padded over to him. He didn’t climb into his lap like Aang seemed to want but he was nosing his knees curiously and that seemed to equally excite Aang. “What a good boy!”

With Sokka muttering behind her, Suki sat down and scooted over. Momo largely ignored her in a very catlike manner in favor of getting chin scritches from Aang. “I think he’s been settling in well. He doesn’t really hide anymore and he doesn’t really care when someone’s in the room with him.”

“That’s good,” Aang said, moving to scratch Momo’s ears. “Has he been eating?”

“Yeah. Kind of fast actually. He threw up once. It was pretty early on though so it might’ve been stress.”

Aang nodded thoughtfully. “Poop?”

“In the litterbox. Normal looking.” As far as she could tell at least.

“What about wandering the apartment? Does he go in the other rooms yet?”

“A bit. I’ve found him around once in a while but he seems to like it here the most. Is that something I should be worried about?”

Aang shook his head. “If he’s wandering around, that should be a sign he’s getting comfortable. I think it’s normal if he just hangs around in here most of the time though.”

Suki nodded, a bit relieved. It sounded like she was doing a good job. Suki, responsible cat owner. Then came Aang’s next question.

“Have you been playing Aquaman for him? I have some DVDs if you need them.”

======================

It was about a month and a half since Suki got Momo when she had the chance to get another day off from work.

She loved her job, she really did. Working at Avatar Gaming was truly a dream come true and the project she was working on, The Last Airbender, was actually a lot of fun to work on. Granted, she wasn’t really part of the design or story building parts of the team but it was still satisfying work and could be entertaining. She still got to play around with different characters and attacks regularly. Plus, the work environment was great. She loved going into work. That didn’t mean she didn’t like a day off once in awhile.

Though today, she’d really regret taking the day off.

Momo was a bit antisocial today so Suki was alone in her bed painting her nails. Not the best place to do it, she knew, but she was careful. She missed a phone call, not wanting to pick up her phone with the polish still wet, but it was just Sokka so she didn’t think much of it. He could wait.

It was a good hour later before Suki remembered to call him back. And once she did, she really wished she’d called him sooner. Or not at all.

“Hey,” Sokka said quietly as Suki turned up the volume. His voice cracked, worrying Suki.

“Is everything okay?” Suki asked hurriedly. “Did something happen at work?”

“You could say that.” Sokka laughed but it sounded hollow. “We’re getting laid off.”

“What?” The world seemed to stop around her.

“We’re getting laid off, Suki. The whole team.”

“I heard you,” she croaked in disbelief sitting up a bit straighter. “I- What happened? Why?”

“The Last Airbender is getting popular,” Sokka told her. “They want to- They want another team to work on it. They said they wanted to make it cleaner. More up to standard with their other big games. Make it fancier or whatever. There’s a chance they might hire some of us back but…”

“That’s bullshit,” Suki said almost automatically but it felt like someone else was speaking through her mouth. “No way in hell am I working for them again if they think they can just lay me off.”

Sokka chuckled again. This time there was a bit more life in it but it still sounded as empty as Suki felt. “That’s what I said.”

“Do we have any details yet? How long do we keep working? Are we getting severance pay? Do you have money saved? Are we going to have to-”

“I don’t know yet,” Sokka admitted. “They just announced it, nothing more. They said they’d write everything up soon. I’m… I’m on a walk right now. Just soaking everything in. Trying not to kick over any trash cans. Can I call you back? I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

“I- Yeah. Yeah, Sokka. Take however much time you need.”

“Bye.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he softly added, “Love you, no romo.”

That got a chuckle out of Suki, despite the water beginning to well up in her eyes. “Love you too, Sokka. No romo.”

Suki’s phone beeped as Sokka hung up and the dam broke.

Suki didn’t know why she was crying. Geez, she was a grown woman. Getting laid off wasn’t really a big deal, people got laid off all the time, but it was a big deal for her. She’d been working on that game practically since it’s making. Right out of college. It was the longest job she’d ever held down and she’d grown really attached to it. It was hard to think that she wouldn’t be working on it anymore. That her employers just saw her and her team as… worthless.

And there was the whole financial aspect. She needed that job. She needed income. She needed to pay for her apartment and for food and water and medical expenses and for Momo’s everything and insurance and everything. It was all so much. She was fine now but what if the money she had saved ran out before she found another job? Or if she couldn’t find a good job and she got stuck in some minimum wage shithole?

She wasn’t in college anymore, there were no counselors to help out or career fairs to go to. She’d need to, like, job hunt. With a lay off on her resume. Did layoffs affect things? She knew it wasn’t as bad as getting fired but still. Like a dishonorable discharge. Wait, no, that was probably really disrespectful to say. But it couldn’t look good. Gosh, working for Avatar really was a dream job. She doubted any other big gaming companies were hiring. Any gaming company would be amazing but it was unlikely she’d get another opportunity. Unless they were producing more new games. But then she could just get laid off again when it started getting popular…

She was spiraling. Fuck, where was her phone? If it got tangled in the bed sheets, she’d never find it. She needed to hold something. Something to ground her, something to distract her.

She heard a mew and saw Momo poke his little head through the door.

“Go away, Momo,” she choked out, burying her face in her hands. “It smells like nail polish in here. You’ll hate it. You have such a cute nose and it will hate it.”

Momo ignored her and the smell. He hesitantly padded in before trotting up to the bed and neatly leaping up to where Suki was. Suki momentarily drew her hands away from her face to look at him. He mewled again and butted her knee with his head.

And then Suki couldn’t hold back the waterworks anymore.

Until now, her tears had been silent but now they were gushing out and she couldn’t hold back the sobs. She pulled Momo into her lap and held him close, too caught up in her own whirlwind of emotions to be surprised that he wasn’t struggling. She ran her long fingers through his short, white fur and let herself cry unabashedly.

Momo didn’t judge her. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t make her feel any worse. Momo didn’t even look at her. He just sat with her, lending any comfort he could with his presence until the tears and sobs began dying down.

“Thanks, Momo,” Suki sniffed, playing with Momo’s ears absently. “You’re a good friend, you know that buddy?”

Momo didn’t give any sign he’d heard her and just snuggled down further into her lap and purred softly. And Suki smiled. She didn’t think she could but she did. She didn’t know what was going to happen and she was terrified for her future but at least she had her cat. With Momo here with her, things would be alright.

============

Other AroWriMo stories my me

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olliya · 5 years

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Readers‘ engagement on AO3

This time it will be less scientific, and more like me writing down my stream of consciousness. But the methodology was really straight-forward, so I think I can spare us the details, and I wanted to show you a detour I made trying to untangle the reasons behind certain fandom reactions. Join me for a trip?

AO3 is rather infamous for its lack of readers engagement (see all the initiatives supporting the commenting: @ao3commentoftheday, @longlivefeedback), at least among the fics and writers I am in contact with (and I do pay attention to the stats, you can believe me 😉 ). Nevertheless, some people feel very comfortable on this platform and for quite some time already I wondered what leads to such diametrically different writers’ experiences.

I started with analyzing Comments for Sakura’s ships. Since I did the same analysis for four Sakura’s ships: SasuSaku, NaruSaku, KakaSaku and MadaSaku on ff.net, we can have a direct comparison, especially as the time scope of existence Pairing Option and AO3 as a platform are very similar, and fic numbers are also comparable.

Very briefly: I sorted the fics into the following bins: >500 Comments, 201-500 Comments, 101-200 Comments, 51-100 Comments, 21-50 Comments, 11-20 Comments, 6-10 Comments, 2-5 Comments, 1 Comment, 0 Comments. All data are presented in percentage to allow for comparisons between the ships.

So let’s dive in:

On the first glance the graphs look peculiar: there is always sort of a double maximum for “0 Comments” and “2-5 Comments” divided by a minimum for “1 Comment”. But once we remember that the Comments on AO3 include also author’s responses the situation becomes clear: the majority of fics have 2 comments: namely 1 real Comment from a reader and one answer from the author.

To put this hypothesis into a test I checked how many fics have 2 Comments, and it is 316 out of 839 of SasuSaku fics in “2-5 Comments” bin, 84 out of 204 fics for NaruSaku and 104 out of 315 fic for KakaSaku – which gives always ca. one third of comments in the “2-5 Comments” bin.

At that point I deliberated for a while whether I should modify my bins to include “2 Comments” as a separate category, but I opted out of it for the sake of (future) comparisons with ff.net (and because I think by bins are very good, thank you).

As a side note: on the first 4 graphs we can also see that MadaSaku has a different distribution than all the other ships, but it is worth mentioning that it was also an outlier on ff.net. We will come to this later.

Peculiarity of distribution aside – the feedback on 3 main Sakura’s ships is consistently miserable. But, I reasoned, AO3 is famously M/M oriented so maybe the F/M audience is simply not there. Therefore, I set off to check all the Naruto ships in the order of their popularity, which btw is the following:

So, working down the list we get this:

And, WTF Naruto fandom? Most of the fics for hugely popular, established ships have no comments??!! Or one comment and an answer from the writer??!!

That was a really disappointing exercise…

Until I found that:

MadaTobi was the first ship that displayed a different pattern of readers interactions! It has a maximum in “21-50 Comments” per fic which is perfectly decent and corresponds well with the values for the ships I examined before on ff.net.

Encouraged by this discovery I dug further: (And tbh for a moment I thought I have here a “Madara-effect”, since both MadaTobi and MadaSaku displayed encouraging results 😉 )

But Madara-effect was not the case (HashiMada displays the same distribution as all the other ships) and further data were even more disappointing. (Let me repeat myself: WTF, Naruto fandom?!)

Until I found another instance of good readers’ participation:

KakaGai! So, at that point we had three ships that were behaving differently than the norm: MadaTobi, KakaGai and MadaSaku.

I looked further to see if I can find more examples of fandom positivity, but, spoiler alert – No. For the sake of appearances lets look at the data though. GaaLee is sort of a borderline case, so let’s flag it as “tentative” for now.

So, what could be the reason for such a drastically different behavior of distinctive pockets of the fandom? Over the course of last year, I was observing how MadaTobi was rapidly gaining popularity, so that hinted me to follow this line of reasoning.

For each ship, I broke down the fics numbers into years when they were published. I ignored all the fics published in 2020 (because the year has only started and including those data would skew the image). To be able to compare the ships (which vary widely in term of fic numbers) I calculated the percentages of fics published in each year. I.e if a ship had 100 fics published until December 2019 and 30 of them were published in 2019, then 2019 had 30% of all published fics. It was at that point irrelevant how many fics were published in 2020, they weren’t counted either the way. I included only data from 2011 on, because earlier ones are very fuzzy due to back-dating customs that were in fashion at that time (for explanations see here).

Let’s look at the data. Tadaaa!!!

Isn’t it absolutely beautiful?! (yes, I know!) Does it look like a tangle of knitting yarn? (yes, I know that as well!)

So, let me break it down for you:

See that, that general trend? This is the growth curve that most of the ships follow – pretty linear, with maybe a bit of acceleration in 2019.

Now let’s focus on outliers: (3 most popular ships: SasuNaru, KakaIru and SasuSaku are included for reference – they illustrate the general trend pretty well).

The ships that grew more than 30% in 2019 are: SasuHina, MadaTobi, GaaLee, KakaObi, HashiMada, KakaGai, MadaSaku and InoSaku. So, among those eight, 4 (3 obvious, and 1 tentative) are the ones which showed outstanding readers’ engagement!

So, are newer, more energetic parts of fandom also the ones with best readers’ engagement? That would be a very optimistic message… But what about four ships that grew tremendously, but still show very poor readers behavior?

SasuHina is an easy case. If there exist a ship that has a captain, then it is this one. And the captain is @365daysofsasuhina who contributed staggering 438 fics (out of total of 966) to SasuHina! (Seriously, a round of standing ovation, because this is amount of dedication, work and talent that we can all only dream about. Talking about being a change you want to see!). And 90% of that contribution was done exactly in 2019, which explains the growth spurt of the ship. Sadly though, the audience response didn't keep up with the supply of new fics, therefore great many of them remain with very few comments.

So what about the remaining ones: KakaObi, HashiMadara and InoSaku?

Scrolling through the fic lists I noticed that great many of KakaObi fics are written in Chinese, so I decided to look into it deeper.

I analyzed the percentages of Chinese fics for all the examined ships (and percentages of English ones, just in case there was a ship with overrepresentation of some other language):

And we can see that both KakaObi and HashiMada have a very strong presence of the Chinese fics!

At that point I thought I have it, and proceeded to look at the distribution of Comments for Chinese KakaObi and HashiMada fics. And indeed, the reader’s engagement is sadly, almost nonexistent (165 out of 182 HashiMada fics and 478 out of 630 KakaObi fics have no comments at all). The reasons for that may be multiple; one that come to my mind is that the Chinese readers are still to follow their writers to AO3, or that the fics published recently are in reality not new (which for sure they are not, given the sheer amount of them) and received already their share of feedback on other platforms.

But, even if one subtracts the Chinese fics from the overall fics, the distribution remains the same! ☹ KakaObi and HashiMada still display the standard Comment distribution, despite having grown 45% and 41% in the last year!

It looks a bit better, but still follows standard, not very flattering trend of most of other ships.

So, then I thought that maybe if I subtract the Chinese fics the sudden growth in 2019 will disappear?

The answer is unfortunately, no. The growth spurt is still there, language independent.

So, at this point I don’t know... I am convinced that there is some effect coming from the influx of Chinese fics, but I cannot put my finger on it. (It is also a beautiful example of how correlation does not equal causation.) I also have no explanation for InoSaku behavior…

Nevertheless, I think it is possible to draw some conclusions, and those conclusions are of vital importance for the health of fandom as it is currently on the move from ff.net to AO3. And I would hate to see the good habits that are in place among ff.net readers getting lost during this move!

It seems that the readers response is better in the pockets of fandom that experience rapid growth, which in itself is very positive news. But one would think that the entirety of Naruto fandom is experiencing such growth (as the fandom is moving to AO3, remember…?). Unfortunately, it isn’t the case.

There can be yet another factor in play: namely the question if the ship is well represented on ff.net, and most of the ships are. Let’s take a final look at our three outliers: MadaTobi, KakaGai and MadaSaku.

Quick look into ff.net (by quick look I mean: sum of two main Ship Names plus Pairing Option minus fics that were double-tagged) shows that there are 174 KakaGai fics, 132 MadaTobi fics and 230 MadaSaku fics (my carefully calculated MadaSaku fic number was 232 in December 2019, so now I believe this number will be slightly higher).

MadaTobi and KakaGai are definitely underrepresented on ff.net (though MadaSaku is not). Therefore, new fics are not being published on ff.net in parallel to AO3, but rather on AO3 exclusively. It is a speculation only, but maybe if readers are given a choice between commenting on ff.net and on AO3, they are choosing the older platform. That would imply that the authors who make a complete move can still count on feedback, as with absence of ff.net-uploaded fics the readers would have only one place to comment on. At least that’s my hope…

And finally, dear Naruto fandom – step it up. Those numbers are a shame, and I know that people can do better than this.

#fandom stats #naruto stats #ff.net vs ao3 #sasusaku #sasunaru #kakairu #madatobi #kakagai #kakaobi #madahashi #sasuhina #madasaku #shipping stats

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lovelylogans · 5 years

Text

my eyes are wide to all your lies (’cause you’re not that discreet)

ao3 | read my other fics | coffee?

warnings: food mentions, mentions of getting rid/lessening anxiety, human experimentation (not as dark as it sounds, but still figured a warning would be good), fusion, deceit

pairings: royality

words: 6,269

notes: april fools, i got you! and now i present the idea that warranted my first block in four years of internet friendship and had me cackling in unholy, childish glee the whole time i was plotting and writing it: it’s a phineas and ferb au! yeah, you read that right. title from “busted” from phineas and ferb.

There was one hundred and four days of summer vacation before school came along just to end it.

So the annual problem that the Sanders-Prince brothers had was finding a new way to spend it. They’d built rockets, fought mummies, climbed up the Eiffel tower, discovered things that didn’t exist, given monkeys showers. They’d surfed tidal wives, created nanobots, located Frankenstein’s brain. They’d found a dodo bird, painted a continent, and driven their brother insane.

The question that was posed every day over toast-with-heaps-of-jam then had to be posed:

“Logan, what are we gonna do today?”

Logan Sanders nudged his glasses up his nose with a thoughtful expression. Logan had the expression of the teacher’s pet, the nerd that never got in trouble beyond perhaps reading during class, or correcting a teacher, but behind that calm, know-it-all expression and dorky glasses laid a mad scientist who had not yet graduated high school.

“We could recreate Tesla’s death ray again,” he suggested mildly.

“Logan, we did that three weeks ago.” Roman groaned. “No doing things again! It has to be bigger, better, bolder, newer.”

Roman Prince, on the other hand, had the exact look of a troublemaker that tended to have teachers hollering “Put that away!” and “Prince, principal’s office!” and got him parked in the front row of the room before he could scoot off to the back (usually next to his stepbrother, which compounded the problems, not that Logan would ever let himself get caught.) He gladly lived up to the reputation and strove for each spectacle to be bigger and grander than the last.

“Mom!” Virgil exclaimed, eyes huge, made to seem even wider by the dark eyeshadow smeared beneath them.

Their older brother (or stepbrother, to Roman) Virgil Sanders, had the exact face of a punk-rock emo kid, the sort of boy who skipped school and missed curfew and never cared. In actuality, he was kind of a tattletale, or perhaps more like the boy in back who muttered “I don’t know about this guys” while the other kids were doing things like experimenting with fireworks that they’d stolen from their older brother’s stash. Virgil’s ongoing pursuit of the summer was to catch Roman and Logan in the middle of one of their dangerous plots, which would surely end in their serious injuries and or deaths I know I look like the bad guy but you two have to be safe okay you could get seriously hurt or seriously DEAD do you understand me Roman and Logan D-E-A-D dead!

“That’s nice, dear,” Caroline Sanders-Prince said absently from where she was at the stove. Virgil groaned and put his head down on the table, floppy bangs narrowly missing the butter dish.

“Why do I even bother,” Virgil grumbled.

Roman batted his eyelashes at his stepbrother. “Because you love us?”

“Gross,” Logan muttered, from behind a thick tome entitled Understanding Chinese Engineering Doctoral Students in U.S. Institutions: A Personal Epistemology Perspective that he’d pulled from nowhere, because he was a boy genius who read books with very long titles like that. “Emotions.”

“Gross,” Virgil snapped. “Mom, Roman has the platypus on the table!”

“That’s nice, dear.”

“Aw, Deceit wouldn’t do anything, would he?” Roman crooned to their pet platypus, inexplicably named Deceit, who knickered at Virgil dutifully. Virgil pulled a face at him, because he did not trust that platypus.

“He just wants some bacon!” Roman exclaimed.

“Can platypuses have bacon?”

“Platypi,” the book corrected from where Logan’s face had been. “They’re technically carnivorous, so—yes. He’d probably prefer larvae or freshwater shrimp, though.”

“Gross,” Roman said, as he ensured Deceit had all the bacon he wanted and lowered him back onto the floor. “And so not the point! Logan! We have to figure out what to do today!”

The brothers continued to bicker, not noticing as Deceit the platypus crept outside, looked around, and pulled on his hat before entering into the secret chute that would catapult him to his day job: an animal agent for the OWCA, protecting the tri-state area from one inator-enamored mad scientist at a time.

“More Tesla?”

“Logan. We spent all of that week. On Tesla. We have to do something fresh! Something bold! Something we invent!”

“I still can’t believe you invented a death ray and you thought that was a good idea,” Virgil said, ready to work himself up into an anxiety-induced tizzy. “It’s a DEATH ray, death is right there in the name!”

Logan frowned at him over the pages of his book, which he was somehow halfway through already. “We wouldn’t have killed people,” he said. “Flies, probably. Or mosquitoes. Most likely.”

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better,” Virgil said. “Thanks, a death ray for flies or mosquitoes, most likely! What could have possibly gone wrong?!”

“How is it possible for you to worry so much?” Roman said, from where he was constructing an elaborate toast-tower with the remaining slices they hadn’t eaten, yet. He was currently sealing together the walls with jam and carefully carving out the windows for the tiny toast-people to survey their kitchen table kingdom. “I never worry so much.”

“Yeah, I worry enough for you, and Logan, and your little scout friend,” Virgil grumbled. “I have all the anxiety of this neighborhood combined into one person.”

Roman perked up, nearly sending a tiny toast-family sprawling. “Hang on, what did you just say?”

“Oh,” Virgil said, because he knew his stepbrother well enough to see his “new idea! new idea!” face, and he also knew him well enough to fear it. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes,” Roman said gleefully. “Logan! I know what we’re gonna do today!”

“Run me through it again.”

Roman sighed loudly from where he was stationed in a treetop, twisting a screw carefully into place. Half of Logan’s body was underneath their latest monstrous machine.

“Okay. So. The basic plan is, we’re going to see if we can put you in this machine to ease out some of your worries, your fears—enough so that it doesn’t overwhelm you constantly, not too much to change who you are as a person,” Roman began. “And if you hate it, we can reverse it, no problem.”

“When you say basic plan,” Virgil said apprehensively, and Logan rolled partially out from under the machine, lifting the welding mask off his face so that he could squint at Virgil, looking strange without his glasses.

“Without the scientific explanations that would inevitably confuse those of lesser intelligence.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“You know what he means,” Roman said, and then, “Oh, God, here he comes, quick, I—“

Roman made a half-aborted gesture as if to climb down the tree, and then hastily redirected his energy toward straightening his shirt, patting his hair into place, and setting up the most swaggeringly handsome pose he could manage in a tree. Virgil, looking down the street, tried his best to hide his smirk.

Patton Hart had lived down the street since they’d moved in after their parents got married, and his crush on Roman had ignited not long after the first box was taken off the truck. Patton Hart had the exact face that had teachers picking him for messenger duty, to guide a new kid around the school, or to provide a good face for the school—if he hadn’t volunteered for it already. He had quite the sprawl of extracurriculars under his belt, including, amongst others, Knitting Club, Baking Club, Pun Appreciation Club, and, most notably, leader of the Fireside Scouts—as noted by his constant orange sash that clashed horribly with his usual blue polo and gray hoodie.

The mutual crushes were a subject of constant private heckling between Logan and Virgil at Roman, and it would have been proven to further public mocking if Patton wasn’t so deeply, genuinely nice.

Patton bounced into the yard, beaming. “Hi, Virgil!”

“Hey, Patton,” Virgil said gruffly. (Patton had even charmed Virgil, a feat which back in the feuding-stepsibling days had stunned Roman to no end.)

“Hi, Roman,” he said, grinning up the tree at Roman, batting his eyelashes. “Whatcha dooo-in’?”

“Hey, Patton,” Roman said. “We’re trying to see if we can make Virgil less scared all the time without erasing who he is as a person.”

Patton flopped out on the sun-soaked grass that was trying valiantly to live in the drought of summer. “Sounds hard, but if anyone can do it, it’s you two. Hi, Logan,” he added to Logan’s knees.

Logan grunted and extended a hand out from under the machine. “Round-nose pliers.”

Patton cheerfully plucked the necessary tool from the expansive kit (tool-fetcher for the Sanders-Prince brothers was an unofficial but important extracurricular of his, one that he’d considered making a badge for) but held it in his hands, not yet handing it over. “What’s the magic word?”

“There’s no such thing as magic.”

“Logan.”

Logan let out a long-suffering sigh that he was probably extending, to compensate for the lack of eye contact, which meant no eyeroll. “Please pass the round-nose pliers.”

“Sure thing!” Patton said, carefully placing them in his hand, only to watch his arm disappear back under the machine.

Roman had managed to get down from the tree, and hastily straightened out his shirt before he leaned against the machine in a way that could not, in any universe, pass as casual. Virgil rolled his eyes and instead resorted to picking at the latest rip in his jeans rather than focus on any of the big and admittedly very scary-looking machine that would somehow help his anxiety.

Shouldn’t it be, like, painted with sunshine and daisies or something, not just some kind of metallic alloy? If it was about taking away fear?

“I’m telling Mom,” Virgil said, mostly out of routine at this point.

“Aren’t you involved today?” Roman said. “And therefore, you’d get in trouble too, so—”

“It’s not about trouble,” Virgil said irritably. “It’s about—it’s about danger. You can’t just keep ramping up experiments without safety measures and without making detailed plans or prototypes or something that you run through any potential side effects or faults that would happen, you could get hurt badly, you could hurt someone else, you could—”

Logan had wheeled himself out from under the machine, removing the mask, and his stare was so knowing that Virgil clamped his mouth shut, looking at a patch of brown grass that wasn’t quite in the reach of the sprinkler.

“We aren’t Dad, Virgil.”

Logan’s voice was pitched low, almost kind, and Virgil screwed his eyes shut.

“Hey,” Roman said, blessedly oblivious as always, “where’s Deceit?”

Deceit was currently parachuting his way onto the balcony of his nemesis’ secret evil lair/tower. As a platypus without opposable thumbs, this was more difficult than most would think.

Especially when a platypus without opposable thumbs was dodging a series of dodgy traps, only to stumble into a table where his nemesis had set up tea.

“Oh. Deceit the platypus, there you are,” Dr. Doofenshmirtz said. “You’re late, and as such, I have revoked your access to cucumber sandwiches!”

Deceit stared at him blankly.

“Oh, I just can’t resist that face,” Dr. Doofenshmirtz said. “Fine, catch!”

Dr. Doofenshmirtz hurled a cucumber sandwich directly at Deceit’s beak like the world’s tiniest, most confusing projectile, which hit his beak, and then expanded outward into a series of wires and cables, snaring Deceit against the wall.

“And now that you are trapped, I shall explain my evil plan!” He said gleefully.

Deceit let out the platypus equivalent of a sigh, tipping his head back to the ceiling.

“Okay, that should be the last of it,” Roman said, stepping back and wiping his brow free of sweat. Virgil, who had long since retreated to the shade of underneath a tree, grimaced at the machine, and began picking at his freshly-painted black fingernails with a renewed sense of fervor. There were already tiny chips of black littered around him in the dirt.

Patton proffered a little tray of lemonade, and Roman perked up.

“Oh, hey, thanks, Patton!” He said happily, picking up the ice-cold glass and pressing it against his forehead for a moment, before taking a healthy gulp from the red-and-white striped straw.

“Logan, Virgil?” Patton offered, lifting the tray. “I have cookies too.”

There was a brief break as everything went snack-crazed for a bit, the boys bumping into each other and elbowing each other aside as they took their cookies of preference.

“So,” Patton said, taking his own sip of his lemonade (blue-and-white striped straw) “Virgil goes in there, you press that switch, and he’ll just... he’ll be less worried about things?”

“Well—” Logan began, but Roman broke in, smiling winningly at Patton.

“Essentially, yep!”

“Well,” Logan repeated, “Actually, Patton, I was surveying the mechanics, and it could potentially be aided if someone who produced... less worry and had a... how should we say, sunnier outlook on life stepped into the machine, too.”

Patton blinked at him, and Virgil was already surging toward the machine, spreading his arms, as if to bar anyone from approaching it.

“No. No way,” Virgil declared immediately. “It’s bad enough that you looped me into this plan, but there’s no way that you’re bringing Patton into it too!”

“Patton joins our plans daily,” Roman pointed out. “Honestly, it’s really more of a shock that you joined in, Fret-a-lot-saw.”

Virgil squinted at him. “Are you calling me a tool?”

“Shucks, kiddo, if it’ll help, I’m helping,” Patton said, setting aside his lemonade.

Virgil was already shaking his head again, eyes wild, like a spooked horse.

“Why did I even let you get this far?” He asked himself. “Forget it! I’m going to tell Mom, and she’ll—”

“—say that’s nice dear without looking up from whatever else is taking her attention?” Logan asked archly.

“Fine,” Virgil said, undeterred. “Roman’s Dad, then.”

“It’s baseball season, no chance,” Roman said with a shrug.

“The police, then! The FBI! Anything!” Virgil said. “You two need a wake-up call, okay?! And apparently I’m the only one who’s gonna give it to you!”

“This is why you need the machine,” Roman said, and spread his hands. “Look around! You are literally the only one who is so freaked out about this.”

“Because no one else has common sense!”

“Because everyone else knows we can do it and doesn’t treat us like we can’t!” Roman snapped, and immediately shut his mouth, going bright red. “Um, I mean—I mean, obviously, more like haha, of course we can do it! Because we’re so smart and handsome and—”

Virgil hesitated, and lowered his arms to cross them over his chest. “I didn’t say you couldn’t do it,” he admitted grudgingly.

“Yeah, well, you act like anything we make will inevitably blow up a lot more than someone who thinks we can,” Roman grumbled, scuffing a sneaker over the grass.

“Because that happens, Roman! Even to really, really experienced inventors. Besides, aren’t you a little young to be making crazy inventions in the backyard every day?”

“Yes,” Roman said, jutting his chin up proudly. “Yes I am.”

Logan sighed. “We’ve run tests, we’ve made prototypes, will you please just step into the machine? This whole—” Logan gestured broadly with his hand, nose wrinkling, “emotional outburst thing is part of the whole reason we made it.”

Virgil hesitated even more.

“It can’t hurt to just try, can it?” Patton said, and proffered his hand. “Look, I’ll step in with you. It looks kinda scary.”

Virgil hesitated, licked his lips, and said, “You’re sure about this?”

“Positive,” Logan said, shoving Patton toward him, and hissing in his ear, “Quick, before he changes his mind.”

Patton shot him a fondly exasperated look, before taking Virgil’s hand. Roman glowered at their joined hands for a moment.

Virgil let out a slow breath, and his knuckles went white from how tightly he was squeezing Patton’s hand. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

“On it,” Patton said, and ducked through first, Virgil shooting a last look that seemed to say help to Logan, before following.

“All right!” Roman whooped, racing over to the machine. “Okay, power on, levels stable... you two ready?”

“I guess,” Virgil grumbled, as Patton chirped, “Yep!”

“Less worry, here we come!” Roman trilled, and flipped the switch.

A veritable lightshow ensued and the machine flared, and smoked, and sparked, as Roman and Logan hastily stepped back.

Roman leaned into his ear, shouting to be heard over the machine. “We are sure about this, right?”

“About 85% sure, yes. Perhaps 80%. 65% sure, at lowest. Probably.”

“Good enough for me,” Roman said, and returned his gaze to the machine just in time for the light and noise to die down.

“All right, Virgil, how are we feeling?” Roman called out. “Less inclined to bust us all the time? Maybe relaxed enough to, like, let us keep experimenting with death rays?”

There was no response.

Roman and Logan both frowned.

“Patton?” Roman called, a little more desperate. “Hey, sweet-Hart, you okay in there?”

“Um,” a voice floated out from the machine that neither of them had ever heard before, and yet was inherently familiar, “you guys?”

Deceit tuned back in, perfectly timed to excise the Tragic Backstory but to get the full effect of the eventual evil plan of the day.

It had taken years of practice.

“—to make everyone as fearful as I was that day in the checkout line!”

Deceit stared at the massive device cloaked by a sheet.

“Yes, that’s right, Deceit the platypus,” he said gleefully, and whipped off the sheet. “Behold! The Frighteninator!”

Deceit began to work against the bonds, wondering idly if he would break his record of forty-one seconds—very impressive, for a platypus without opposable thumbs, if you asked him.

“Yes, soon the whole tri-state area shall tremble in fear, and therefore, I will be able to easily subjugate them and become emperor of the tri-state area!”

Roman was still waving the smoke out of his face when a silhouette stepped free from the machine, seeming close to stumbling before holding out its arms to keep its balance.

Well. That wasn’t right.

“What,” the voice asked, in that same foreign-familiar tone, “just happened?”

“Oh, excellent,” Logan said, peering closer at the silhouette.

“No, not excellent!” The silhouette wailed and at last the smoke cleared, revealing—

Well, at first Roman wasn’t really sure.

It looked sort of like a person, if not for the extra set of arms protruding at the waist. Their eyes had a huge pair of round glasses set in front of it, but the bags underneath them were pronounced and darker than Roman had ever seen on an actual person. Their polo was stitched in an odd amalgamation of blue, gray, purple, and black, mixing plaid with solid color, and there was an odd sash that—

Oh.

Oh, wow.

“I dunno,” the stranger said cheerfully, “I think it’s kinda neat! Imagine all the cool stuff we can do with four arms!”

“Virgil?” Logan said, at the same time Roman said, “Patton?”

“Yes,” the voice answered—and that was why it sounded so strange, so familiar—

It was both of their voices at once.

“You,” the creature glowered. “are gonna get so—!”

“—famous, from all that nifty inventing you guys do!” the creature finished.

No, not a creature. It was Virgil and Patton. Patton and Virgil? Patton-and-Virgil, Virgil-and-Patton? God, his stepbrother had fused with his crush, he was so used to weird days (most of them he was responsible for) but this was so weird.

“You’ve fused!” Logan said gleefully.

“This was not in your plan!” Virgil—or at least, the part of him that was Virgil—cried out.

“Well, we thought it might be a side effect,” Roman admitted. “But hey! Take a few steps, swing your arms around, tell us how you feel, this was definitely on the to-do list, and now I don’t have to deal with any of Logan’s nerdiness infecting me.”

Logan threw a wrench at him half-heartedly and Roman ducked—a well-practiced maneuver.

“Why’ve I got four arms?” the creature said, taking a hobbling step forward, flexing its two right hands. “I mean, all the more stuff I could do with it, probably—Virgil, you’re left-handed, aren’t you?”

The two left arms stretched, almost sulkily. Roman hadn’t known that an arm could stretch sulkily, but leave it to Virgil.

“Fascinating,” Logan breathed, digging hastily and coming up with a legal pad and a pen. “How do you feel? Do you still feel essentially separate, or do you find yourself more as a cohesive, singular unit?”

“I,” the creature said, and then it frowned. “I dunno, I guess? I’m—we’re?—feeling a bit more like one unit the longer we stick together, I think. We think?”

“Singular pronouns, I think,” Logan said, taking notes hastily. “Male ones. As to the four arms question—”

“Forget that,” Roman said. “What do we even call you?”

“Hm,” The creature said, one of its right hands coming up to frame under its chin. “I dunno. Pattil? Virgin?”

Roman snorted a laugh, and the creature slanted a look at him that was distinctly Patton.

“Why’s that funny?”

“It—uh—it isn’t,” Roman admitted sheepishly. “Sorry. Um... how about Moxie? Like, you got moxie, kid, Moxie.”

“Moxie,” they—he—said. “Okay! Sure, sounds cool.”

“How’s it going, though?” Roman said. “Less worried? More worried? Still freaking out about having double the amount of arms as usual?”

Moxie frowned for a second, and then his eyes went far away.

“Oh,” he said, tone equally far away, splitting into two—distinctly Virgil and Patton speaking in unison. “Oh. I can feel what you’re feeling.”

“Is that... good?” Roman asked, but then Moxie wrapped all four arms around himself, as if giving himself a hug.

“Do I want a cookie?” Moxie mumbled to himself, and snorted as if he had made a joke.

“Perhaps that would be good, I’d imagine transfusing into a new form would burn calories,” Logan said. “Plus, I’d like to see your finer motor control.”

Roman picked up the tray, offering it, and Moxie took a few shambling steps closer, eyes squinted in focus, a set of arms spread to keep his balance.

“Hmm,” Moxie said, and then the right hand lunged forward, nearly knocking the tray over, before squeaking, “Sorry!”

“That’s okay,” Roman said. “New body. Also, can I tell you how weird it is that my friend and my stepbrother are combined into one person now?”

“It’s feeling less and less weird,” Moxie mused, before more carefully reaching and taking a cookie. “Thanks.”

Roman smiled at Moxie. Inexplicably, Moxie blushed, and then Moxie scowled, and then Moxie shoved the cookie into his mouth whole.

“Was that on purpose?” Logan asked mildly, who had not stopped scribbling.

“Mmmhmmm,” he said, trying his hardest not to spew crumbs. “Hungfwy.”

Logan nodded, marking something specifically. “Patton, what did you eat for breakfast? I’m curious as to how many calories this burns.”

“He didn’t,” Moxie blurted out, and then a right hand clapped over his mouth.

“Patton-cakes!” Roman scolded. “For all the times you talk to me about balanced eating!”

“That would explain it,” Logan said. “Take another cookie. Left hand, this time.”

Moxie reached forward with his left hand, taking another cookie, not even knocking over the tray this time.

“Oh, yeah,” Moxie added, “I feel less worried, but I... feel. A lot. So.”

He took another big bite of a cookie.

“So,” Roman said. “Um. Now that we have a fusion machine... what now?”

Roman and Logan exchanged a grin, and Moxie looked nervous for a second, before he grinned, too.

“—what?! Deceit the platypus?!?! How could you have possibly freed yourself from that cucumber sandwich?!”

Deceit held up his OWCA-issue pocketknife in answer.

“Curse you, Deceit the platypus!”

Deceit leapt, and smacked Dr. Doofenshmirtz across the face with his beaver tail.

Virgil had gone inside with the excuse of fixing Patton a plate of some leftover breakfast, but also mostly to avoid the light-and-smokeshow of the machine as Roman and Patton sequestered themselves in the machine.

It hadn’t quite died down by the time Virgil came out, awkwardly holding a plate.

“So,” Logan said, making a table on the notepad, “how long into the fusion do you think it’ll be before one of them gives themself away?”

Virgil snorted. “Five seconds.”

Logan sighed in relief. “I’ve been very tired of hearing about how Patton’s hair shines in the sun. Or about how his eyes sparkle when he laughs. Or—”

Virgil laughed. “That bad?”

“You don’t share a room with him,” Logan said darkly.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t get randomly hit with butterflies because Roman smiled at you while you were fused with Patton. Let me tell you, that felt very gross.”

Logan tilted his head. “Point,” he said, and stole a triangle of toast already spread with jelly.

“Aftereffects of the fusion?” He said, before jamming the toast triangle into his mouth whole and readying his pen.

Virgil paused, analyzing that, and said, “...weirdly calm.”

Logan nodded, writing this down, and at last the machine died down.

“Okay, Roman, Patton, how are you doing?” Virgil called out. “I’ve got breakfast for you here, if you want it.”

There’s a pause, and then, “I think we want to be Paman?”

“Paman,” Virgil amended, and the fusion stumbled out. He looked almost normal, really—blue and white and red seemed like a much more fitting combination, though the orange sash really was quite hideous, still—except for the four pairs of eyes, the bottom, normally-placed set wearing glasses, the top set clearly Roman’s.

“Ooh, jelly,” Paman said happily, and lumbered toward Virgil, taking the plate with a sunny smile that was obviously Patton. “Thanks!”

He flopped out on the grass, and tucked tidily into his breakfast, eating neatly and swiftly. Virgil and Logan sat, both staring at Paman—Paman seemed to stare back, even as he kept one set of eyes on the breakfast he was eating.

“I love jelly,” Paman said, and then,

“I know,” Paman said, “You always—“

A pause. Paman’s cheeks went a bright shade of red, and they put down the toast. Virgil offered a fist, and Logan reached out and tapped it with his own (a gesture that had taken some explanation for Logan to do on command, now.)

“You really...?”

“Is... are you...?”

Paman trailed off, smiled to himself, and went back to his breakfast, still blushing.

Crack! Pow! Bam!

“Not the nose, not the nose!” Dr. Doofenshmirtz wailed.

Paman was absently holding hands with himself when Logan finished his questionnaire, and nodded, flipping through the legal pad, which he’d mostly filled.

“I suppose the next question is, does a fusion more or less maintain its stability when another person is introduced to the fusion?”

Paman blinked. “You can add more than two people to a fusion?” He asked, and he answered himself in his next breath: “A fusion’s made up of all its parts—it can be anyone, as long as they’re comfortable with each other.” Paman then nodded, as if this made sense to him, and looked at Logan.

“Aren’t you curious?” He said, in his more unified voice, and Logan’s eyes gleamed for a moment, before—

“I suppose,” he said, attempting at casual.

“You sure about this?” Virgil asked.

Paman and Logan spoke as one: “Positive.”

Virgil sighed, but got to his feet. “Guess I’ll flip the switch, then.”

Slam! Pow! Ka-CLANK!

“NOT THE FRIGHTENINATOR!”

“Weird, right?” Virgil said, leaning against the machine, as the unnamed fusion (two sets of arms, two sets of eyes) staggered from the machine.

“Fascinating,” he said. “It seems that adding a person aggregates the unusual physical additions—Virgil, hand me my notepad!”

Virgil rolled his eyes, but fetched it for him, handing it to the left set of arms, which immediately uncapped the pen and began to scrawl.

“Will you two keep your emotions away from me,” the fusion complained, and in the next breath he snickered, “Sorry!”

The fusion scrawled away at length, before he offered a professional nod, and one of his hands.

“All four of us,” he said, and Virgil hesitated.

“It’ll be fine,” he promised, and Virgil sighed, before accepting the hand, and walking back into the machine.

With one last well-placed kick, Dr. Doofenshmirtz went down and stayed down. Deceit, after waiting a few moments, rushed over to the Frighteninator, intent on shutting it down, tiny platypus paws roaming the machine, before—

Deceit let out a knicker that would have had his platypus mother scrubbing out his bill with platypus soap.

He walked out, spreading his arms—one set. And one set of eyes.

“We must look like a normal person,” he said.

He wasn’t sure where the thought originated, and if he focused, he could sense the divide—Logan’s intense curiosity, Roman’s inherent passion, Patton’s ambitions of kindness, Virgil’s worry—but he was...

He was...

He reached in his pocket and dug out a phone, turning it to the front-facing camera to squint at himself.

The outfit had actually normalized into something a normal person would wear—a red shirt, a tan jacket, jeans. His face was...

He squinted at himself. He looked so much like—

my eyes—

—my nose—

—my ears—

—my cheekbones—

—and yet so utterly, completely himself. He was... he was....

The name came from somewhere deep inside of him.

“Thomas.”

He lowered the phone, and took a shaky, wobbling step forward, almost like a baby deer, arms pinwheeling to keep his balance. Then another, and another. They got easier all the time.

It’s like we’re a whole new person, one of them, or maybe all of them, marveled, it’s like we’re a real, actual person.

But he was missing something. He was missing...

Oh, but he was so here now, all together now, even if it was imperfect it was wonderful. The laugh that bubbled up from inside him was truly, wholly felt, until—

What’s that, a thought, sharp, that could only be Virgil, and he looked up in time to see the arc of green light split and head for him and for the machine.

“Uh-oh.”

There was no time for this newly-formed body to hurl itself aside, and so the green light caught him full in the chest, and he doubled over, hitting his knees.

What’s happening, what’s happening—

—green light, could have been gamma-based—

—it’s hurting him, it’s hurting usme, we have to—

—knew something bad would happen knew it knew it knew it knew it—

Distantly, an explosion could be heard—but he was on his hands and knees, vision narrowing in, and he tried to suck in a breath. He can hardly breathe. There’s something pounding in him, deep and strong, overwhelming all his other senses, and his vision doubles, and—

whatshappeningwhatshappeningwhatshappening

—their vision goes black around the edges, and the green-brown grass looms large in his vision, and what’s that noise, what’s that noise—

—heart rate increase, sweat increase, this is epinepherine, this is fear, as if you don’t know anything about it shut up shut up shut up they’ll hear they’ll—

There’s the scent of burning, but it’s so far away that he can’t focus on that right now, and their body feels like it’s splitting, like it’s—

—hurts why does it hurt I don’t want to hurt I want my friends I want to go don’t hurt my friends don’t hurt my friends don’t hurt my—

—but he feels molten, like lava, like he’s about to melt and spill everywhere, and he can’t hold, but he needs to hold, he needs—

—no, no, don’t do this to them, they’re just kids, I can take it, let me take it, I have to take it, I have to be the one who takes it, don’t do this to them, dontdontDON’T—

He tears down the middle, and there’s a pain for a moment, so sharp and unbearable that none of them can breathe, and—

Patton blinked up at the sky. For a moment, silence—streaky white clouds on the edges of the horizon not daring to intrude on the clear blue of the sky; a bird soared directly overhead as if to flout the clouds’ cowardice.

The silence broke with a horrible, rasping breath, and Patton pushed himself up onto his side to see Virgil, rolling onto his side, coated in a green glow. Patton hastened toward him, heart in his throat.

“Virgil—”

“Don’t touch him,” Logan said, already at his other side. “We don’t know if the gamma ray will spread back to us if we touch him—”

Patton’s eyes stung, and he swiped at them in irritation—he hated that he cried when he got frustrated, or angry, or scared. “Can’t we do something?!”

“M’fine,” Virgil choked out, eyes screwed shut. “M’fine, it’s getting better already—”

“Virgil, don’t you dare lie,” Roman said, pale and ashen and—and how is Patton almost fluttery at a time like this, can’t his emotions settle instead of seesawing wildly inappropriately from one end of the spectrum from another?!

Virgil took in a purposefully deep breath, let it out, and offered a weak, crooked smile to them. “I’m fine, see? I’m fine.”

The green glow had lessened, at least. He now just looked like he was bathed in the light of a green spotlight, instead of encased in some green, glowing Jell-O. He pushed himself up onto the elbows, and drew a hand over his eyes, before he squinted.

“Okay, how the fu—I mean heck—do you guys do that everyday?”

“Do what?” Roman said cluelessly, and Patton’s eyes are drawn toward the fusion machine. Or, where the fusion machine was. Now there was just black soot.

Roman shrugged. “Deus ex machina?”

Logan let out a regretful sigh. “Well, at least I have my notes,” he said thoughtfully. “And the blueprints.”

“Boys, I’m home!”

“Hi, Mom,” Roman, Virgil, and Logan called without looking up, Virgil getting a bit more color in his face by the second, green fading and fading until it was just about gone.

“Patton, I’m really okay,” he said, and Patton let out a shaky breath, remembering Moxie, remembering all the fear and worry he felt, but all the care, too—the soft side that he kept almost hidden.

“You better be, mister,” he said. “Or I’ll—I’ll steal all your cookies!”

Virgil’s lips twitched. He looked like a normal person now. “All of them, huh?”

“All of them,” Patton said, nodding judiciously. “For the rest of your life.”

“Sounds serious,” he said, well, seriously.

Logan nudged his glasses up his nose, clearing his throat. “Any lingering effects?”

Virgil held up a shaking hand in answer.

“Let’s get you inside,” Logan said. “And horizontal.”

“Probably a good idea,” Virgil said, and all three of them hastened to help him up—Logan and Virgil grabbing his hands, Roman pushing his back—and Virgil slung an arm around Logan’s shoulders.

“Help me in, would you?” He said loudly, and proceeded to “accidentally” kick Roman in the shin.

“Hey!” Roman said, but his response died when Virgil jerked his head.

And Patton and Roman were left alone in the backyard.

Patton scuffed his shoe over the yard. “That was pretty crazy, today,” he offered timidly.

Roman smiled at him and shoved a hand through his hair—Patton felt his cheeks going red, reminded at this, the most inopportune moment, that Roman knew how attractive he found that, now.

“Good crazy?”

Patton felt his face split into a grin. “You kidding?” He declared. “That was awesome! Well, until the random gamma ray of despair, I guess. But other than that!”

Roman laughed, too, and he said, “He’ll be okay. Gamma rays like that tend to be really temporary.”

Patton sucked in a breath, looked into the living room window, where he could see Logan already pestering Virgil, waving around his notepad before beginning to scrawl with a single-minded fervor. He smiled again.

“I trust you,” he said.

“Yeah, I know,” Roman said, soft, and Patton inched closer.

“So,” Roman said. “Seeing jelly all over your face was what really sold you on me, huh?”

Patton smiled wider. “I think it was a cute look. But I think all of your looks are cute, so, you know.”

Roman smiled, and he offered, “So, um. Do you wanna... do you wanna get ice cream sometime?”

“I’d love that,” Patton said. His cheeks hurt from smiling so big.

“Because you don’t have to you if you don’t want to,” Roman added hastily. “I mean, I get it if you don’t—”

Patton put a finger on Roman’s lip, remembering too much of Paman’s self-criticism, his loneliness, his doubt.

“Roman,” he said. “Dearest. I’d. Love. That.”

Roman’s face broke out into his own relieved smile. Patton hoped he was remembering Paman, too—the butterflies in his stomach, the way he’d felt when Roman had smiled at Moxie, when their hands had first brushed together.

“Pick you up at seven tomorrow?” Patton offered.

“Yeah,” Roman said breathlessly, and he cleared his throat. “Um, yeah. Okay.”

Patton beamed, and leaned forward to press a kiss against Roman’s cheek, watching in delight as Roman’s face went red, too. Patton took his hand.

“C’mon,” he said. “We gotta go make sure Virgil feels better by giving him lots of hugs and sugar.”

“Okay,” Roman repeated, and Patton tugged him inside, where Virgil and Logan were already bickering, and curled up in a corner was—

“Oh! There you are, Deceit!”

#my post #text #my fic #april fools i got you so good!#it's a phineas and ferb au!#logan #patton #virgil #thomas #roman #deceit

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hopevalley · 5 years

Note

I just want to thank you for keeping this public. I have promoted you on Twitter and will continue to do so. I want to help in any way I can.

I debated all morning on how to reply to this. I know this is reference to Melinda making her blog private for Tumblr users only, and I think it’s important for me to express my opinion on that situation.

But first: thank you for the Twitter promotion! I have a Twitter account, but I admit I rarely use it (because I find it confusing to use lol). It’s @july_skies !

Regarding Melinda’s decision to privatize her blog: I support it. She works hard on her content and deserves to feel that people who like it will be capable of supporting it in a direct way (reblogs specifically). Nothing sucks more than making stuff and seeing that nobody’s looking at it or enjoying it, and whether or not that’s what it seems like to (general) you, that’s how it comes across when people don’t reblog her stuff. It’s depressing. It’s like she’s throwing her hard work right into the void.

While I’m on the subject, I’d like to talk about content creation a little more, to help give you guys a better idea of fandom and your place as a consumer of fanworks; I know a lot of you might be new to the concept, and you can’t know if nobody thinks to tell you.

For my “credentials,” let’s just say I’ve been a content creator for more than half my life and there’s something we lifers call fandom participation or fandom engagement. They are more or less the same thing, and the terminology boils down to us answering this question: “How is the fandom at large engaging with our content?”

In the last handful of years, participation is down across the board. When I first got into writing fanfiction I’d get at least 40 comments on anything I wrote. Many of my works ended up with 60+ comments on them!

Now I’m lucky if anyone comments at all, especially in this fandom. Again, it’s a problem everywhere, but I still get comments on fanfic I posted five years ago in other fandoms; meanwhile, this one remains relatively silent.

I post on AO3 for two big reasons. 1) ACCESSIBILITY. AO3′s site layout is easy to read! It’s easy to format! It’s friendly to people with issues seeing small print! And then we have 2) I do it to give people the option of commenting anonymously (in case they’re shy or nervous).

Having an account there isn’t required at all. People just choose not to engage with me when I post fanfiction.

It feels bad to spend hours of your time on something only to see 0 notes/comments/likes/reblogs/whatever on it later. Four ‘likes’ doesn’t feel that good either. Did people actually like it? Are they pity-likes? Do they even care? People mindlessly ‘like’ a lot of things; maybe they did that with your content, too. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy seeing ‘likes’ but a ‘like’ is more or less an acknowledgement that they’ve seen the content, not that they enjoyed it or want more of it.

Also, likes/kudos don’t draw in more readers: comments do. When a reader’s scrolling down the front page of their favorite AO3 fandom, they click on the ‘fics that look like they might be ‘good’ and even though it’s not always TRUE that the ‘best’ stories have the most comments, a lot of readers filter by the number of comments!

Comments tell other readers: this is worth checking out!

Let’s look at a quick example of one of my ‘fics:

This is from my AO3 account, a random WCtH fanfic. It’s not a long one, but it’s not short either. It’s a reasonable read in terms of time spent to read it, and as you can see 185 people clicked on it, 14 people ‘liked’ it (kudos are “likes”), and I have two comments: one of those comments is @trash-god and the other is me replying to her comment.

Her comment isn’t ‘less than’ because she’s a close friend, but she and I spoke at length about this story on Discord and her comment was just a nice little ‘addition’ to that conversation. Sure, the story’s about characters not many people care about, but look at that: 185 hits on the story. 14 likes. And only one person who read it took five seconds to leave a comment? Really? What about the 13 other people who ‘liked’ it?

What this says to me as a creator is that the ONLY person who is going to comment is the one person who might feel obligated to, and if that’s the case, why don’t I just save my stories to show her privately? Why bother posting them out into the void to hear nothing but silence from everyone else?

This is the direction that @whencallstheheart is coming from. What’s the point of spending hours creating these things when nobody interacts with you? Posting to silence feels bad. And look, to put it into perspective, editing gifs to post, writing fanfic, doing write-ups, maintenance of a blog, site, or social media presence: it’s super time-consuming.

Melinda and I both work full-time jobs as it is. My job hit full busy season and I’m even getting overtime now. I’m in training to take over the department next year and I’m tired at the end of the day. When I get home I have eight cats, a house to take care of, and a spouse, not to mention my in-laws live right next door and need help sometimes. We also have a property we just planted 1500 trees on by hand that we have to monitor, and my husband owns a house we rent to someone that needs work done on it, too. Sometimes, life is busy.

And don’t get me wrong! I enjoy creating, just like I’m sure Melinda does. I feel awful if I can’t “create.”

But if my choices are:

work for five hours on a fanfic or episode write-up only to get 4 likes on it, OR

play a video game or watch a movie or read a book or sit on the deck watchin’ the sun go down while I work on a crocheting project…

The latter definitely appeals to me more knowing I have to get up in the morning to go back to work again. My time is worth something. Neither Melinda nor I are getting paid to create this content. We put it together for free, in what spare time we have, in the midst of our own chaotic lives. My website costs me a chunk of money every year to keep up and running ad-free, and I could get all 1500 trees weeded in the amount of time it takes me to put together an episode write-up or decent fanfic.

All content creators ask for in exchange for their free labor is a sense of community, and that can be anything from:

comments on fanfics you enjoyed, even if they are just to say, “I read this and enjoyed it.”

messages that say, “I really like how [this edit you did] turned out.”

reblogs on Tumblr, retweets on Twitter, emails to website owners

you can even create your own blog and use it to begin conversations with those creators!

You guys have been pretty good about engaging with the show itself through us, but don’t forget to engage with the content you enjoy seeing that comes about because of the show.

Fandom content keeps the show alive even when it’s not currently airing, and supporting content creators keeps them creating. Everyone wins, then!

To talk specifically about written content...

Readers are the ones who ensure more material is created. Hands down.

And again: I love writing!! I DO. I’ve been writing seriously for more years of my life than I haven’t been writing seriously! But it’s disheartening to post a fanfic and get my one obligation comment.

Now, it’s fine if you don’t read fanfiction or even enjoy it. It’s also fine if the things I’ve posted aren’t to your specific tastes. Trust me, I get it; nobody is obligated to comment on my fanfiction, and I don’t want anyone to feel that they should be.

But please know this: if you do enjoy something, whether it’s fanfic or edits or something else, you NEED to engage with it, or it WILL disappear. People don’t like talking to walls. It’s frustrating and it isn’t a good use of their time.

(This is one of the reasons I haven’t bothered doing a novelization of the series. It could be fun, but for 0 comments it’s not worth spending the time on.)

Again, you guys have been great when it comes to engaging with the show material, particularly while the show is airing. It’s been fun speculating with you and hearing all of your different thoughts. I know sometimes Tumblr doesn’t make it easy to communicate, either, and you’ve all done a great job of getting around that.

But in between seasons things get slow on this blog and it’s hard for me (or anyone running a blog) to feel motivated to provide content of any sort if you’re not going to take the time to engage in it.

I’ll never mark this blog as private, but if I get to the point where I can’t get any engagement from the fans, I’ll shut it down. The point of having a “fandom blog” is to interact with other fans.

I enjoy providing content to you guys, but if participation drops off to nothing, I’ll be taking that as my signal that the audience is gone and my time would be better spent elsewhere.

So if you’re here and you’re enjoying things, don’t forget to take a little time out of your day to let your content creators know! Not just me and Melinda, of course, but your favorite people on Instagram, Twitter, and other sites as well. ♥ You might be surprised how happy they’ll be to receive interaction from other fans.

And another plug for fanfiction, because 1) they always get the short end of things considering how hard it is to amass the creative energy necessary to tell a good story, and 2) I noticed it’s the #2 page on my website getting visited: if you’ve enjoyed anything you’ve read for When Calls the Heart, tell the author! Here’s the section for WCtH on AO3! Is English not your native language/you’re not confident in your ability to write English? No worries! I’ve gotten many thoughtful comments in other languages and from people who spoke limited English, and trust me: I treasured every one. If you’re just not sure how to comment on fanfic, send me a message and I’ll give you some tips!

I don’t intend this as a slight against my anonymous friend up there AT ALL; I think it can be hard to be in fandom, especially if you’re newer to the scene. There’s a lot of history that’s long gone by now and missing out on it means it’s harder to step into fandom without also accidentally stepping on toes.

Sometimes we take for granted that we have an almost unlimited supply of fanfiction, gifs, memes, blogs, and so on at our disposal. But none of that comes from thin air and it never did. It’s the cumulative hard work of millions of people throwing their hearts and souls into something they’re passionate about in an effort to engage with other fans.

I hope this helped put things into perspective a bit!! Sending love at all of you that stuck around this far; I know it was quite a bit of a ramble LOL!

#when calls the heart #anonymously asked #answered mail #thank you for the kind comment but here's my perspective #in the hopes that you'll understand melinda's a little more #the lack of engagement gets me down too tbh #if i felt people would comment on and want to talk to me about #a novelization i'd start writing it tomorrow

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daenyara · 6 years

Text

500+ Followers

Sooo, I realized I passed the 500 followers and I couldn't be happier about it. I wanted to do something cool, but I really don't have time these days so must go with something much more effortless…

I won't propose a face reveal or something like that because no one cares, but I wanna say something.

As I probably said before, I'm relatively new to the 'fanfiction world'. And I'm even newer when it comes to writing it. I started exactly on April 7th, 2018. *narrator voice* It was a warm spring night and I was desperately trying to find some decent Fred Weasley stories. But there weren't any *the crowd gasps*. (jk, there were a lot of cool fics, but I had already finished most of them and the rest was Fremione so :/). It was then when I wrote the first chapter of The Proud Witch of Dover. At first it was just for fun, I didn't even published it until a month later. Now I blame myself for not having started writing before, because I find such a relief in it, and most of all, it's something quite rewarding. And that is because of you, all of you who follow me, read my works, leave likes and comments that make my heart explode cause you're honestly so precious and kind and sweet, UGH I can't even express my love for y'all. Now I'm ranting, please forgive this post.

That said, there are some of you who made me smile in one or more occasions, so I though I might personally thank you. I'm really sorry to spam you, though!

First of all, a huge thanks to @puffolapigmeasworld . She helped me entering the world of AO3 without being swallowed by the darkness. She supported me, she never once complained when I ranted for hours about my OC and she was patient enough to explain to me all the terms of fanficion. She's my go-to beta. And finally, she's one of my best friend and I love her so much. #hiclér

To @thejemersoninferno (shoot I can't tag you😢) : you gave me the first feedback on this site (I know you probably won't remember it, but I do) and it really encouraged me to keep writing! Thank you from the bottom of my heart

To @moonfaery : you were one of the first to comment something I had written. You made me feel like a star and you keep supporting me (and making my dashboard look good with all the TH/Loki contents). You're amazing!

To @m-a-t-91 , @hadesgirl1015 , @yafriendlyfangirl , @frost-11 , @eloeloeheheh , @shynara51 , @bittersweetbeliever , @sweetpeasprincess , @talinalani , @weshipandstuff : I notice how you keep reblogging and commenting the new chapters and I always smile when you're names pop up in the notes. Thank you, you're the greatest!

To @kaliforniacoastalteens , @meyrapp , @thanosismybitxh , @starfisharchives , @scooby-galleta , @empirialwolf , @santheweird , @wintermuteway , for the best comments: you said some of the sweetest stuff to me, I even screenshotted some of those for when I'm feeling down (pretty pathetic, I know, but still)… One way or another you make my days, I love you 😘

Also, honorable mention: @buckyisthepuresthuman I feel like we could actually be friends, if it wasn't for my lack of social skills 😂. Anyhow, you're comments are my favourites and I'm glad we're mutuals 'cause you fill my dashboard with great content!

To whoever nominated me for startrekkingaroundasgard's "You're a Valkyrie" award: I didn't deserve it but it made me SO happyyyy

To my sweet anon, who wrote me in more than one occasion: I hope you read this and that you're okay. Love you so much, cutie!!

This post couldn't get more lame so I'll wrap it up: to anyone who wastes time reading my stories, to anyone who interacts with me, to those in my tag list, I'm grateful to you and you're important to me. ❤️

Love, Rossana

#500 followers #gingerbreadhouseswritings #sorry for the rant #love you people #rossana celebrates

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esselley · 6 years

Note

Do you have any tips for getting more followers??

Hmmm… there’s a lot of different answers to this question, I’d say.

It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with your blog/platform/etc, mostly. Are you a content creator? I’m thinking probably yes, if you’re asking me! I picked up most of my knowledge about how to reach a wider audience as I went along through paying attention to posting patterns and audience engagement, so if you’re serious about it, definitely examine these things for yourself. Most of this is basic “here’s how to increase your reach” stuff, but that’s how you expand your follower count!

Post regularly. This is a big one. When I first started out, I was posting a new chapter or new fic pretty much every weekend – sometimes multiple fics in one week. I have more lulls/longer stretches between posting now than I used to, but I still post pretty often. And you are probably not gonna see huge jumps in follower count/lots of people engaging with your stuff right away. That doesn’t mean you should just throw up your hands in defeat. I posted my first fics in March, and I didn’t really start to see a large increase in follower count until October – when I started doing Kinktober. That’s not a coincidence.

Tag properly. Tumblr in particular only tracks your post with the first five tags you enter. Double check your spelling. Make sure you are putting the most important, relevant tags first! This way your posts might still show up even for people who don’t follow you, and new people will find you. On AO3, try to keep your tags short and to the point. Don’t write all your thoughts in the tags – that’s what the notes section is for. I tend to skip fics that take up half a page with tags alone, because it’s uninformative and quite annoying!

Link to your platform. This is something I think is especially important on AO3 because otherwise it’s sort of a vacuum in terms of social media engagement – put your blog/twitter/etc in the notes. Bonus points for hyperlinking it (google basic HTML). On other social media sites, include links to other places people can find you, whether it’s in the notes, your description, your About Me, especially if it’s not your main hub. I link to my AO3 on all my social media.

Clear, concise, attractive posts. You don’t want your post to be too long and rambling, but you also don’t want it to be so short that people skip right over it. Link, title, summary, and maybe a brief excerpt are always good to include. Tags, sometimes, or warnings. AO3 will create a post for you with the “Share” function after you post. Keep it fairly short. If you’re posting a whole fic on Tumblr, use a Read More after a couple of paragraphs. This is like the overly long tags thing – I just skip past most fics if I have to scroll a lot, because it feels inconsiderate to me when people don’t use a cut. Also, it’s likely that less people will reblog your shit if it’s too long, because nobody wants a giant wall of text on their blog. Also likely that people might be reluctant to follow you if you have a lot of endless text posts.

Post at peak times. It’s surprising to me how often people overlook this, or just don’t care. I see a lot of newer creators say stuff like “I finished this fic/art, get it out of my sight” and post at like 3 AM EST when most people are asleep. Then people don’t see it while it’s new, and it gets pushed further and further down on the timeline or feed or whatever, and most people aren’t gonna scroll forever to catch up on what they missed. And then you are sad that this thing you worked so hard on didn’t get seen by anyone. AO3/Tumblr skews to a heavily U.S. userbase, so keep that in mind when considering times when the most people are going to be online. If you’re getting seen by more people, you’re likelier to get more views/shares, and more people interested in your work.

Last thought… I often see people wanting fandom to do a lot for them – they want to get attention or be recognized – without being willing to put in much effort in return. Because this is a hobby, because it’s for fun, because it’s for free, etc.

While fandom definitely is all of those things, you’re also not going to get very far if you don’t bust your ass, unless you are very very lucky/get in at exactly the right time. I count myself really lucky to have the readership I do, but it’s not something I expected when I started out. It didn’t happen overnight, or because I did any specific things.

There’s no handful of tips that will get you more followers or attract an audience. You just have to be out there, stay positive, and put forth your best effort.

Good luck!

#anonymous #esselle replies #writing advice #writing advice: audience #writing advice: social media #(im not sure it quite falls under that umbrella but maybe)#long post #me: dont post giant walls of text #also me: writes this post

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marypsue · 6 years

Note

fanfic: First 5 prime numbers!

why would you force me, a writer and known dumbass, to try to remember math stuff

2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?

I was going to be extremely witty and paste in screenshots of the list of fandoms on my AO3, but tumblr is having a breakdown and won’t let me, so I’ll just go with the short answer: lots.

There are different things I like about all of the different canons - and fandoms - that I’ve written for. I love cheesy jokes no matter where I go, but I also like the rich mine of angst and garish darkness that the Lost Boys have to offer. I love the fairy-tale structure and the heady romance of Labyrinth, I like how I can basically just write original fiction when it comes to the X-Men and it’s probably canon to something somewhere, and I appreciate the challenge of trying to nail the tone of RAM while still keeping the depth of character and the core of sincerity and emotion that I’m gonna end up bringing to anything I write about. (And also, projecting. Did I mention projecting?)

ROTG in particular stands out for the sheer creative freedom the fandom encouraged - we made up an AU where several different versions of the main villain (English movie, Finnish dub, book, concept art) lived together and attended the same university (along with multiple versions of the other characters) and it was sheer unadulterated crack. We wrote mythos. We wrote an expanded steampunk Treasure Planet universe full of high tragedy and classic-children’s-lit drama. We wrote poetry. We wrote ambitious crossovers and extraordinarily complex backstories for characters who ended up being Not That Deep. We wrote ridiculous comedy nonsense. We wrote so much fluff. My partner @gretchensinister created an entirely original fantasy alternate world and wrote a high fantasy novel inspired by the characters, which she’s planning to turn into an original series (speaking of, I will always shamelessly plug A Draught Of Light. If you liked A:TLA, you owe it to yourself to read it, and you don’t need to know anything about ROTG to enjoy it. In fact, you might enjoy it more not knowing anything about ROTG, though a few inside jokes might go over your head).

With that said, though, I think I have enjoyed writing for Gravity Falls the most. Partly it’s because of the skills I developed working in the other fandoms, so that now I feel confident enough in my work that I can stop worrying so much about making it good and just have fun with it. Partly it’s because the tone, the mood and the theme, of the series align with my interests and my values so well. It’s the kind of story that I would like to write, it’s the kind of story that I wish I’d written, and I love all of the characters so much but also can relate to so many of them, that getting to expand on it and play in its universe is just a treat and a joy. I may have found my forever fandom.

(The rest of this is going behind a cut for length because it turns out all of my answers are like this.)

3) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.

I…don’t get reader inserts. Especially the ones that include the little (y/n). (Partly because it jolts me right out of a story, partly because for the first while after the trend started, I was reading them as ‘yes/no’ and was extremely confused.) I understand that the intent is to create a story where the reader can easily imagine themselves as the protagonist, but…you have to give that protagonist some traits, and have them make choices, and in order to do that you have to give them some sort of a personality, and then 1) not every person who reads it will be able to go ‘oh yeah, that’s me’ and 2) you’ve got an original character anyway!

I saw a post recently where someone had drawn a picture with the caption “this is what (y/n), the reader of my story x, looks like” and listed a set of personality traits/likes and dislikes, like, at that point…just give them a name! They’re an OC!

With that said, though, like self-inserts, reader inserts are fun (for people who like that sort of thing) and harmless, and I really hope nobody’s being a dick about them. Fandom should be fun, and even if I don’t get that thing you’re doing for fun, that doesn’t mean you’re Doing It Wrong.

Also, I fucking love making up OCs, and if allowed, I would do nothing but that all day.

5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?

Oh, this is cruel. I should not have done this.

So, there are a lot of them. Apparently some people don’t spend all their free time coming up with bullshit ideas that spiral wildly out of their control into full, developed narratives that require tens of thousands of words to fully express? I bet those people have cleaner bedrooms than I do. Also probably more money.

Again, I’ve gotten better at this with lots of time and practice, so a lot of my earlier stuff is less well-executed than I’d want it to be. There are still ideas that I like, and stuff I’m proud of finishing, but I wouldn’t say they’re favourites, because the execution is less skillful and less polished than some newer things. With that said, though, I still have a big ol’ soft spot for Northern Lights, which was my indoctrination into the genre of ‘wildly self-indulgent crossovers and rampant canon revisionism’. Same with It Was A Dark And Stormy Night, the first multi-chaptered thing I ever finished. You can see the seeds of some classic Mary tropes in it, including ‘what if we just took all the female characters who were mentioned once and develop them into fully-realised people with important roles in this story’, as well as some tropes that have since fallen by the wayside (I do not do nearly as much with fairy tales as I did when I was a teenager).

Dreamland deserves a shot at the title, as do Reincarnation Blues and Raising Stakes. But purely for scale, ambition, and how closely the execution matches the ideal version that exists only in my head, my absolute favourite multi-chaptered fic has to be Hive. I’ve been trying to write decent horror for eleven long years and Hive makes me feel like I’ve finally nailed it.

7) When is your preferred time to write?

Preferred time to write is from midnight to 2am.

Best time to write is literally any other time than that, probably.

(I’ve read all the science and the thinkpieces. I am aware that the only reason 2am seems like such a good time for creative work is because you’re tired enough that your internal self-regulation is low and your inner critic is silenced, and also because it’s often the only time when we sit down and let ourselves focus on the work with no distractions - because there aren’t any. I’m working on introducing this environment into the rest of my day so that I am not in a permanent state of sleep deprivation. Funnily enough, writing in a dimly-lit room and working on a dimmed computer screen really seems to help.)

11) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

Not that I can remember.

To be fair, I have received very few criticisms after posting that were about writing issues rather than matters of personal taste (and most of those have been along the lines of ‘so uh, I know you knew mentally what was going on in this scene, but the critical piece of information never actually made it to the page’). But…I also…take long enough to work on things and have so many damn things on the go that once something is posted, it’s posted, and I have to make a promise to myself to never touch it again, otherwise I would spend all my time nitpicking and never finish anything. If somebody’s noticed a legitimate issue or possible improvement, it is incredibly likely that I will go ‘oh dang why didn’t I notice that’ and then mentally file it for use in future stuff. I’ve only ever taken one fic down, and most of the edits I do after the fact are for tagging or author’s notes.

I did amend the ending of Any Misery You Choose, but that was less because I got criticism (people were actually incredibly nice about it!) and more because I was extremely dissatisfied with how the original ending turned out, because I hadn’t adhered to the plan I myself had made, because I was rushing to finish the damn thing. (Protip: don’t do that.)

(please, please, please let these actually be the first five prime numbers)

#chatter

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allisonilluminated · 7 years

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The Seven Sins of Fanfiction

Hey all,

This blog is primarily focused on helping newer writers (and maybe some older ones) improve their fanfiction and increase their views. Since that’s the case, it’s important to understand exactly what not to do when you’re writing.

These are the worst things you can do while you’re writing. I can guarantee everyone reading this post has done at least three of them, and probably all in some shape of form. This is the sort of thing that makes you want to click away immediately, that you cringe at when it’s in the first paragraph or laugh at how bad it is. These things that make you stop reading other stories, just think about it for a moment. What if fewer people are reading your own work because you’re making the same mistakes?

Yeah. If you want to improve, you gotta know what you’re doing wrong. Number Seven is the least worst, then the list descends to Number One, the worst thing you can do in fanfiction.

Note: This is a subjective list. There are people who disagree with some of these points (especially the non-grammar ones), so it’s important to remember that these are the things I find most degrading to the quality of the story being written. As a writer, you have the creative liberty to write whatever you want.

#7 – Bad Romance

“Wo-o-o-o-o, o-o-o-o, o-o-ah, caught in a bad romance fanfiction but it’s the only 100k fic for my OTP so I’m like contractually obligated to read it.” - Lady Gaga, mostly

We’ve all been here. You know that moment when two characters meet, then suddenly decide to kiss, and the next thing you know they’re screwing on the patio with some kinky ass BDSM shit. What about those cringe fics where suddenly Harry is spouting some creepy possessive stuff like “my only” or “softest light of my life” to twelve year old Ginny. You know what I’m talking about.

Good romance is an art. It’s about flawed characters (later) coming together in a beautifully intimate way (later) to make something even more beautiful. There is so much bad romance on FFN and AO3 that it just blows my mind.

Giving tips would take an entire post, so here’s a good article on the absolute basics you need to write a good romance: https://www.nownovel.com/blog/romance-writing-mistakes/

#6 – Bad Dialogue Tags

“No!” he howled.

“Yes,” she growled angrily.

She retorted snarkily, “Well, screw you.”

“Fuck you too,” he scowled sadly, before gratingly mumbling “I still love you though.”

Alternatively:

“No!” “Yes.” “Well, screw you.” “Fuck you too. I still love you though.”

There’s a glorious word in this social construct we call English, and it’s “said.” Use it.

You don’t need a fancy word for every tag. You don’t need a fancy word for almost all tags. Eighty percent of your tags should be said, exclaimed, and asked, and more of said than the others. Maybe a whispered or a yelled for some flavor.

Adverbs are your enemies. I struggle with this, but you should use them extremely sparingly.

On the flipside, if your reader doesn’t know who’s talking, your dialogue is meaningless to them. Also, use line breaks every time there is a new speaker.

The trick is finding some happy medium between the two examples. A handful of fancy tags, a lot of said, and if there are two people talking back and forth you don’t even need to tag every sentence.

#5 – Bad Messaging

I don’t want to put down an example for this one, because I think writers feel liberated to write some really awful shit in fanfiction because it’s “not a serious medium” or “it’s the internet, I have free speech.” Let me say this right now:

Stories that make rape a positive thing are not okay. Stories that portray suicide in a glorified light are not okay. Stories that show slavery, or torture, or all of the other horrendous things human beings do to each other in a romanticized or glorified manner are not okay.

I don’t care if it’s your fetish. I don’t care, it’s just not okay to write about these things in a positive light. The only reason this is so high on this list is because these stories aren’t as common as the rest, and are mostly marked M/Explicit so you can avoid them.

#4 – Overdescription

Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). [[I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I’m in the seventh year (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow – My Immortal

Oh boy.

Writers, let me introduce you to this wonderful thing called your profile. Assuming you aren’t drowning in copypastas, this is the perfect place for your character descriptions. Alternatively, have you heard of Tumblr? Literally, stick them anywhere except the middle of your story, and I can guarantee you the readers that actually care will find them if you mention them in your A/N.

Show, don’t tell is one of the fundamental principles of writing. When you’re describing a character, you probably don’t need more than three adjectives and a one sentence description of their outfit. Yes, that applies even if your character has a special non canon outfit. If we must know, work the details into the story. Info-dumping description is telling, and is one of the worst world building and characterization mistakes you can make. Period.

#3 – Epithets

The blond girl walked to the door, and started as a burly man opened it. “May I help you?”

“Yes, I’m here to get a consultation,” the graying businessman said as he ran a hand through his oily hair.

The youthful therapist nodded as she shut the door behind him. Rummaging on her desk, she asked, “Why are you here?”

“Well,” said the jaded economist to the buxom woman. “This author thinks they’re being clever by not giving out names, but they’re ruining this story.”

The best way to get someone to leave your story is epithets.

Epithets do not create mystery. Epithets are not a good substitute for proper nouns. Epithets will not make a clever opening, or add variety to your dialogue.

Epithets will ruin your story, and should not be used.

They come in varying degrees of horror.

The noun. You might be able to get away with saying just “the woman” or “the child” under certain circumstances. This is almost an excusable offence.

The noun with one adjective. This is already unacceptable. If you though you were going to solve Sin #4 by doing this, you’re digging yourself an even deeper hole.

The noun with one modified adjective. Because they can’t just be sexy, they have to be shockingly sexy.

The noun with multiple adjectives. This is automatically overdescription on top of being a horrible thing to subject another person to.

The noun followed by a relative clause. Because there’s always a way to make it worse. “The girl who was now holding his hand” is absolutely disgusting, and so is “The girl that was sitting across from her” or especially “the girl she knew had a chocolate bar somewhere in her pocket.

The noun followed by a relative clause with adjectives. Put it together and what have you got?

Compound Epithets. Oh. My. God. This deserves its own sin. Even if your character has blue hair, you should never ever ever call them a bluenette. Ever. Ever ever ever. AAAAAAAAH!

The author has made her point.

#2 – Bad Grammar

I find bad grammar extremely agitating, mostly because there are a lot of great tools and easy fixes to solve the problems. Most word processors have a built in spell checker, and a lot of them check for grammar as well. If you need an alternative, grammarly.com has a good free version that’ll catch a lot of mistakes. Of course, proofreading your work before posting is always a great idea. Here’s a quick list of some of the most common grammar issues you should be on the lookout for:

A new paragraph for a new idea.

A new paragraph for a new speaker.

Dialogue formatting

Periods

Commas

Run on sentences

Using line breaks

Spelling

Capitalizing starts of sentences

Capitalizing proper nouns

Choosing CONSISTENT capitalization for canon terms (Pokemon vs pokemon, for example)

Repeated words.

Sentence fragments

Tense

#1 – Bad Characterization

“What?” you’re probably asking yourself right now. “How is bad characterization possibly worse than poor grammar? Than epithets?”

Allow me to explain.

When an author writes a story, a good story, they are creating characters who act like people. They have wants, needs, hates, motives, and a concept of who they are, even if they’re only fictional. The author gives them life, spirit, a spark that keeps you reading and wanting to learn more about them.

That sense of identity is what makes them real to us. Why you binge a show on Netflix, or read a novel in one night. Reading is a connection with these characters on a deeper level than you might realize, and this connection brings them to life.

Take that away, and your story is dead.

Your gray OOC Gary Stu overpowered Ravenclaw Harry who grew up with Snape and has a goblin half brother AU is not a story about Harry Potter. It’s a story about an OC named Harry Potter, and Harry loses any integrity he had as a character in Rowling’s books.

That’s why there are fics with horrible grammar and massive following, alongside fics with incredible grammar and sentence construction but no followings. Unless you maintain a basic level of your character’s identity, the essence of what makes them empathetic, you’re not writing about that character. This is the worst sin, because even with all of the others in play, if there is good characterization you can still create an incredible story.

Just by fixing these seven problems, your fic can instantly jump from bad/meh to incredible in the way people perceive it. Hopefully this list can help you determine things to either go back and revise or work on for future chapters. When have you committed one of the seven sins? What other sins do people make all the time in their writings?

Thank you to all of the amazing people who have followed, Allie

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