writingpteropod

[writingpteropod]

A FMA AU for the McHanzo Reverse Bang @mcbigbang! I worked with @dryadalis who took my half-baked FMA sketch and turned it into an amazing fic.

Title: Lines in a Circle

Rating: T

Tags: Train Heist, Full Metal Alchemist AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Homunculi, people please get off of the roof of the train it isn’t safe

Warnings: none

Side characters and pairings: Genji Shimada, Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe

Word count: 12340

Summary:

History repeats itself, but the cycle can be broken if one recognizes the signs.What is supposed to be a simple retrieval mission ends up being a race against time when the Deadlock Gang attempts to steal the same package Hanzo, Genji, and Jesse are after. But there is more at play than they first realize, and plans are in motion that they do not fully understand. Even if they succeed in their goal, it might not make a difference in the face of what is to come...

Story: On AO3 here!

[writingpteropod]

@plainjayne5 @writingpteropod

Title: Every Last Desert Weed

Pteropoda https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentP/pseuds/Pteropoda

Title: Every last desert weed

Rating: Mature

Tags: Alternate Universe - Historical, Wild West, Ahistoric technology, Steampunk-esque, Amnesia, Memory Loss, Angst, Solo Travel, Background Characters, Injury Recovery

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Side characters and pairings: Mei-Ling Zhou, some mentions of Genji Shimada.

Word count: ~25,000

Summary:

When he awakes in Chicago, he has little to claim as his own, not even a name; the only clue Hanzo has is a journal with his name on it and the photograph within, and the note scrawled in a messy hand on the back; ‘H. Shimada and J. McCree, on the purchase of 240 acres of land outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, July 18th, 1866.’

[writingpteropod]

I've occasionally left multiple kudos, because of the glitch, or accidentally reading logged out, or because I've switched my main pseud. It happens! I don't think anyone would get mad at it, necessarily.

From the author side of things, I'm used to assuming that 1 kudos=1 reader (who hopefully loved the fic). A lot of people do the same thing, if you've seen the posts about imagining your number of kudos as a crowd of that side. It's easy to assume that with logged in kudos because there are names attached, but with guest kudos, I just don't know. Do I have a dedicated audience of five readers who keep coming back, or an audience of twenty who stopped by once each time? if I get a sudden spike in guest kudos, did a bunch of people get to the fic at the same time, or was it one person over and over? Does my fic have broad popular appeal, or is it more of a cult classic? With guest kudos, I just don't know. Some people won't mind the ambiguity, but I know I end up wondering about it.

Personally I don't mind if people use guest kudos as an additional 'read this again, still love it!' feature, if they're going back to the fic every now and then. Honestly that feels kind of sweet to me, especially if you're doing it to older fic that might not get attention otherwise. I don't expect it though, and I don't think I'd want readers to feel that it's necessary, or standard practice. It's nice when it's occasional and unexpected.

I think I'd also feel a little uncomfortable in CotD's position. If the guest kudos start greatly outnumbering the logged in kudos, bookmarks, comments, etc on a fic, I might start wondering what it is about that fic that people don't want to interact with while named. Knowing that it was someone flooding the work with kudos might relieve that a little, but depending how significant it is, I'd still feel uncomfortable-- like I've been entered into some popularity contest I didn't mean to sign up for.

Hey, what do you and the others think when someone leaves multiple kudos? Not the 'traditional' way by tricking the system, but like I leave kudos with my account, then as a guest and later or the next day when the author shared their link on multiple social media plattforms I go there and like again as a guest (it really works). I thought it might be nice since the author think multiple different guests liked it, but now I'm kinda unsure if it's... cheating? Or lying? What do you think?

There will definitely be people who reply to this saying something along the lines of, “if you’re going to leave multiple kudos, you should just comment instead” but let’s leave that aside. Kudos and comments are left for different reasons by different people and this question is about kudos. 

People have left multiple guest kudos on my work before, and I remember feeling uncertain about it at the time. The only time I know for sure that it happened it was the first fic I had get over 200 kudos (which, in my fandom, was a huge deal). I didn’t really understand why it was so popular, and I felt a lot of pressure from the fact that it was so popular and I was actually trying to convince myself it was less popular than it was. Finding out about multiple kudos from the same person actually took some of that pressure off and made me feel kind of relieved. It also sort of made me feel like I was cheating the system - even if it wasn’t me doing the cheating. 

It’s a complicated thing and I think different authors will have different feelings about it - perhaps even different feelings for different fics. 

I think right now I come down on the side of: if that’s how you can best show your appreciation, then you do you. 

But what do the rest of you think?

[writingpteropod]

People keep requesting to add my fic to collections and I don’t know if they know this, and I don’t know if people who allow their own stories know this, but once you add your story to a collection, the owner of the collection can perform fuckery with your story.

Like, I’m REALLY glad that collections exist, and I’ve put my work into some collections when I made those things specifically for those collectuons. Collections are a useful tool for things like bangs, where the stories need to be hidden until the reveal….. but that also means that the person in charge has the ability to hide your works from the public. Like, without you agreeing, because you already “agreed” to that by submitting to the collection. Which means works you previously had available suddenly disappear from where people can find them.

What I’m saying is please stop random requests to random people to be in your random collections. I know you probably don’t have ill intentions, but there’s no way to tell. And if you’re getting requests to be part of random collections, please be aware that if you approve them, you won’t be the only one in control of some elements of your posted stories, including whether or not they “exist” to the average reader. If they mark the collection as “unrevealed,” you story stops being accessible to the public. And they have the option to mark the collection “anonymous” which I’m pretty sure turns the author from being You to being Anonymous.

And I say all of this because I have seen this happen to people. I have had friends whose stories “disappeared” because they approved a random collection invite and the collection owner turned everything “unrevealed” (likely without even knowing or understanding that it would hide it for EVERYONE not just hide the collection so no one would see they had it, it’s not like a private bookmark). And while I haven’t seen anyone do this maliciously (at least none I can prove) I can see where it could be USED maliciously. So please, just be careful out there.

I wish AO3 had a way to auto decline collection invites- they gave us a way to auto-accept, so I don’t understand why the opposite isn’t true. If I wanted my story to be part of a collection, I’d submit it myself.

[writingpteropod]

So I just recently learned that people are required to write fanfiction in order to apply for localization jobs at Square Enix and I’m pretty much not gonna get over that ever.

[writingpteropod]

Chapters: 3/4 Fandom: 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Relationships: Luò Bīnghé/Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Mix of European and Chinese Fantasy Elements, fae, minor political intrigue Summary: Written for @mxtxbigbang!

In the wake of losing Luo Binghe, Shen Qingqiu’s life must go on.

[writingpteropod]

starscream being canonically shorter than his trinemates but like 10 tons heavier is so funny like what could you possibly be hiding in that shitty little body that makes you so heavy

[writingpteropod]

the decepticons are at it again i guess [x]

[writingpteropod]

Chapters: 2/4 Fandom: 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Relationships: Luò Bīnghé/Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Mix of European and Chinese Fantasy Elements, fae, minor political intrigue Summary: Written for @mxtxbigbang!

As Luo Binghe attends his tasks on the Hunt, Shen Qingqiu must face his own challenges.

[writingpteropod]

Chapters: 1/4 Fandom: 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Luò Bīnghé/Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū Characters: Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū, Luò Bīnghé, Yuè Qīngyuán, Liǔ Qīnggē, Mù Qīngfāng, Qí Qīngqī, Mòběi-jūn, Lǎo Gōngzhǔ | Old Palace Master, Original Shěn Qīngqiū Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Mix of European and Chinese Fantasy Elements, fae, minor political intrigue Summary:

Shen Qingqiu, Lord of the Spring and high official of the Seelie Court, has a secret: he is not the true Shen Qingqiu. Compelled by a fae bargain to stand in the place of that Lord, Shen Yuan must hold his place among the Seelie Court, despite facing enemies on all sides, an uncertain truce with the Unseelie Court, and a student with a mysterious past...

-

The first chapter of my @mxtxbigbang fic! A huge thanks to @kdramasandbox for coming up with the original AU, and making so much amazing art for the story!

[writingpteropod]

New Rule

Stop saying “I suck.” 

Seriously, stop it. 

Is that what you want people to think about you? No. You want them to think you’re great! And you are! 

Stop telling people about how crappy your art is or how bad your writing is or how you’re stupid at math. Stop apologizing for not being perfect. No one is. You don’t have to apologize for being human. 

The next time you type, “Sorry this sucks, but-” or “I know it’s not any good, but-” or “You don’t have to look at my stuff because it’s awful but-” delete that part of your sentence and leave whatever’s left. Give people the chance to enjoy what you made or be proud of what you accomplished before you tell them they should be disappointed.

[writingpteropod]

in this house its ALWAYS wheeljack wednesday

[writingpteropod]

[writingpteropod]

MXTXRBB: the Wild Hunt

A preview for my @mxtxbigbang fic! This fae court AU will be accompanied by some amazing art from @kdramasandbox.

-

“Luo Binghe,” he says, and swallows the smile as Luo Binghe’s eyes twitch up toward him, then back down again. There was a time when having his shizun even glance in his direction might have had Luo Binghe tensing, but no more. “How long have you been in this teacher’s court?” 

“Twelve seasons, shizun.” 

Shen Qingqiu nods. “And in that time, you have shown tremendous growth.” 

It’s not quite true, and they both know it. It is only in the past three seasons that Luo Binghe has managed to gain any recognition among the spring court, and therefore make progress among the ranks. It is not a coincidence that Shen Yuan has been in the role of Lord of Spring for only four seasons. Of course, Luo Binghe doesn’t know this, but Shen Qingqiu does. 

Luo Binghe ducks his head, but it isn’t enough to hide the pleased flush spreading across his cheeks. “If I have, it’s only due to shizun’s patient tutelage,” he says. It’s a proper, demure answer, and Shen Qingqiu nods thoughtfully, as though the answer has brought him to a conclusion. Really, he’s already made his decision, but it’s best not to give his prize pupil the impression that there isn’t still room for improvement. 

“Then it is only appropriate that you represent this court in the upcoming Wild Hunt.”

[writingpteropod]

I’m the kind of readers who's this anon’s target audience, because I love longfic. I don’t think a large word count has ever turned me off a story. I love just tearing through a 100k fic over the course of a few days. That said, I’ve also given up on fics where the chapters felt too long/convoluted/slow, regardless of the actual wordcount.

One of the fandoms I briefly jumped into had a fic that I found really frustrating, because the chapters averaged 30k but the plot felt buried and hard to understand, despite the work the author had clearly put into it. One chapter in particular bothered me because it involved the characters trying to solve a mystery, but I couldn’t actually follow along with what the mystery was, what the stakes were, or the steps the characters were taking to solve it. It all got lost amidst the story’s admittedly very beautiful prose, scenic descriptions, and introspection.

I’ve also ended up giving up on longfics where the characters don’t seem to develop. By the third time I’m reading what feels like the same argument happening in a different setting, it can be hard to invest much time when the story only seems to be going in circles.

I don’t think there’s such thing as a simple fix for either of these problems, and some of these things are also going to be a matter of taste. But outlining can definitely help. So can just asking yourself, “what happens in this chapter?” The more thought you put into that, the more you’ll help your readers ignore that word count and stay up until 4am because they just want to see what happens next.

I've been writing fanfiction for about a decade now, and I've noticed as time goes on my chapters seem to get longer and longer (used to be around 1k, now around 8k+). My most recent works have been falling around 15k-20k per chapter. Do you think there should be a word limit for chapters, or that a word count like that will turn readers off?

Some readers love a big word count per chapter. Others (like me) just don’t have the attention span for it. I’ve had similar questions like this one on the blog before, and anecdotally speaking the largest group of people prefer chapters in the 3-5K range. There are lots of us who prefer chapters shorter than that and there are plenty who like chapters that are longer, that’s just the statistical mode.

So yes, long chapters will turn some readers off. But short chapters turn readers off too. Too many tags turn some people off. Not enough tags turn other people off. Some people love a song lyrics title others see a song lyrics title and decide not to click. 

Write the story that you want to write in the way that makes sense to you. Your audience will find it. 

[writingpteropod]

Check out the original post at lofrequency.net →

[writingpteropod]

My friend’s Rodimus swapped his colors a bit, and maybe it’s a bit more pink than what she intended, but I love pank!!