#ao3 stats are more complicated than I thought

[thecouchsofa]

2023 ao3 wrapped / fic review / whatever else I'm putting here

@oflights, the human, the myth, the legend, has made me go look at my stats and now you have to look at them too. Tagging @jtimu @elskanellis @sillywives @sleepstxtic @maesterchill @peachydreamxx @hoko-onchi-writes @starquestingfordrarry @rainstormradish @apricitydays-lazynights @annanother-thing @uncannycerulean @drarrymyheart @mallstars so they can also feel this sweet, sweet pain (if they want).

First up, some stats!

Fics posted: 7 public, 1 currently hidden, 1 awaiting submission date + 3 tumblr microfics

Fics started (and maybe finished): 18 + 3 tumblr microfics

Word count of fics posted: 414,013

Total word count written: 513,953

Sorry, but what the actual fuck do you mean I've written over 500k words since April? Put me in restraints, truly.

My favourite fic I wrote this year: The Brightest Constellations of Our Souls

My most kudos'd fic of this year: Driving me crazy (but I'm into it)

I've also read, like, a fucking horrendous amount of fics this year. More than I think I read back when I was deep in the One Direction trenches as a teen. Getting back into writing has given me a fresh appreciation for everyone's work; it's so fucking hard to write well and everyone who puts themselves out there and does that gets an online hug from me.

After Erised reveals I'll be posting a ridiculously long list of my favourite fics that were posted in 2023. It is ... exhaustive. I should probably be embarrassed by how long it is.

But without further ado, a recap of my fics from this year.

May

Driving me crazy (but I'm into it) (8k, E) (Draco/Harry)

Draco’s fucked a lot of people. He’s fucked models, Quidditch players, members of the Wizengamot, even a Muggle actor, but none of them come quite as prettily as Harry Potter.

September

A Walk in the Woods (48k, E) (Draco/Harry)

After ending up in the Spell Damage Ward at St Mungo’s, Harry is put on mandatory holiday leave.

The catch: he has to spend it with Malfoy at his cottage deep in the woods. Harry has no idea why Malfoy agreed to host him, considering he avoided ever being alone in a room with Harry before he left for his sabbatical a year ago.

To complicate things, Harry’s enormous longstanding crush hasn’t waned at all in Malfoy’s absence.

For: HP Cottagecore Fest

The Brightest Constellations of Our Souls (256k, E) (Draco/Harry)

Harry doesn’t know how to cope after the War. The only things that make him feel even remotely normal again are taking risks while flying and fighting with Malfoy. It’s not likely to end well.

Or,

Draco becomes obsessed with ‘Wonderwall’, reads Muggle books, and drives a campervan, while Harry slowly falls in love with Draco. A story about travelling around the British Isles in the late 90s while healing deep scars.

October

Capillaries (3.6k, M) (Draco/Harry)

Draco’s Sectumsempra scars have never fully healed. He says that it’s not Harry’s fault, that he doesn’t blame him for it. Harry hears him, but he’s not sure that he believes it.

Evergreen (23k, T) (Harry/George)

“You’d better hurry up, mate, or all the good ones will have gone.” Fred leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, clearly thinking that he’d now exceeded his allowance of brotherly wisdom for the day.

“Who are you going with then?” Harry asked suddenly. He looked between Fred and George, a thoughtful expression on his face.

Harry asks George to the Yule Ball because it’ll be a laugh and he’s in dire need of one of those. If George can continue to keep his crush under wraps it should all go swimmingly.

For: HP Rarepair Fest IV

Celestial (paint me like one of your starscapes) (30k, E) (Draco/Harry)

Draco needs a partner for an art project. The only catch is, they have to be magically compatible with him for the paints to work properly. He’s fairly certain that he knows who his partner will need to be, he’s just not sure that he wants to admit it.

For: H/D Sudsfest Lite 2023

November

November Flush (5k, E) (Draco/Harry)

Draco Malfoy might be an absolute raging arsehole, but he gives Harry exactly what he needs.

Microfics (all Draco/Harry)

From one to another, for the prompt 'follow': tumblr link

Til resentment do us part, for the prompt 'keep': tumblr link

Satiate, for the prompt 'indulge': tumblr link

Thoughts / feeling / goals for next year

Pride, slight embarrassment, love, appreciation.

For the coming year I'm excited to get stuck into writing even more. I've got so many ideas that I'm excited to work through and a fantastic community to do that with. I will need to be bullied into not signing up for more fests in the new year, so please give me a nudge if my blogging starts to look stressed. Also never be nervous to send me a message about random shit if you're on the fence!

If you have read this far, have read even a single sentence I've written this year, or have thought my Squirtle pic looks cool, I love you, I appreciate you, and I support you.

The motto for 2024? Bedcurtains. One word, not two.

Thanks for being here! ❤️

#my stuff #fandom #drarry fics #thecouchsofa #year in review #fic year in review #ao3 wrapped #tee rambles

[zenkindoflove]

How did you get people interested/willing to read your fics when you first started? I enjoy writing for myself but I get discouraged when no one interacts with my stuff in any way.

Aww anon I really want to hug you. 🫂 I'm sorry you're getting discouraged.

I want to answer your question with care as I think that this is a very complicated question and emotionally hard for a lot of writers. First, you are not alone in wishing for engagement and not getting it back. This happens a lot. I would argue that in fandoms as saturated as ACOTAR, which I think you must be in if you're sending anons to me, it's actually quite hard to get noticed. At least in terms of my own 20 years of experience in fandoms, the ACOTAR one is huge. My early experience writing in fandoms were for much smaller, niche fandoms. Small fandoms are a lot easier to get people interested in your stuff because there is demand but not a lot of supply. So a lot of people are just grateful for having anyone write something.

I would say that is not the case in ACOTAR as has not been the case in other large fandoms I've written in. This fandom in particular has so many factions throughout the community of what sort of flavor of fan someone is. I imagine if you find a very specific niche, then it can feel like a smaller fandom but ultimately there is just so much content being made. It's hard for people to keep up and they will find a few writers they like and stick to reading their stuff and only their stuff. Basically if you have a preference someone probably writes for that.

So, how do you get people to interact? I think the real way is to make friends. Which is harder to do than to say. But when I first started writing 20 years ago, I quickly made friends with some other fanfic writers whose stories I liked. We commented on each other's fics and through our friendship we became invested in each other's writing. And when you have friends who will hype up your work and share it, that also can help others give your stories a chance.

I do want to emphasize something though. You should keep writing for your own happiness. I know, comments and likes/kudos are like drugs. It feels so so good to have people see your work and comment. But do not think if people aren't reading or commenting it means you're doing something wrong. There are a lot of reasons people won't comment. People read stuff all the time that they genuinely enjoy and then...just move right along. It takes effort to leave a thoughtful comment and sometimes people get lazy. At the end of the day, if you get enjoyment out of writing, you should do it. It's easy to compare yourself to others. You should keep in mind if you are just starting out, some of the people you are comparing yourself too have been writing for years, maybe even decades. They have a lot of experience under their belt when it comes not only to story crafting but also what their voice is. And once you know your voice, and you feel comfortable writing from that place, I think it can bring others to see your vision too and want to read more. So never stop writing. Even if you don't share everything, write if it calls to you. The more you write, the better you get at it just like any skill.

I do understand the discouragement though. I feel it too as I am not immune to the siren call of following my AO3 stats and checking my Tumblr notes. It's natural to want acknowledgement and praise for something you put a lot of creativity and effort into.

I think one thing to keep in mind, to sort of inoculate your brain a bit from the discouraging voice, is to remember that fandom and creating fanworks is first and foremost, a community exercise. In some ways, fandom never changes, but I have noticed some differences in it since I started back in 2006. Social media and chasing views and engagement has become very engrained in our online culture in a way that didn't exist back then. And I think some of that thinking has leeched into how we see ourselves as creators. We now have this idea of a "content creator" which is sort of this demonic, capitalistic creature in our psyche that uses relatability and parasocial connection to pull us into buying things. I can see some of this creeping into fandom spaces, which I hope we can mostly resist as fandom - to me - has always been an anti-capitalist force to take back storytelling and art from the powers that be and make it something that belongs to the people.

So, that is a very long, probably too political way of saying that when you make the goal of participating in fandom to be about making friends and connections and sharing things with each other that you make because you love it rather than seeking validation and entering the mindset there is competition, it helps with the very natural instinct we have to be liked and told we are doing good. But of course we want our butt pats. I know I certainly do. But when they don't come, I do have quite a bit of time and experience that tells me that even if I'm the only person who enjoyed what I wrote, that meant it was worth writing. The sting still happens but it's easier to bounce back from it and keep going.

So anon, I don't know who you are but you are doing good! You are doing something most people never try which is writing fiction. You are channeling your creativity and it's bringing you joy. That's the most important thing!

#anon asks #writing

[blueorangeredpurplegreen]

Are You Gonna Blame Me If I Just Give Up?

Based off of this song and this concept/au! Cannon and I are going through quite a bitter divorce and I have won custody of Future Raph and Donnie.

AO3 link in reblogs

TW - Blood, Descriptions of wounds, Implied Death and Implied Death of family.

Donnie is not the team medic.

Even this far into the apocalypse, when even Raph can set a wound and assist Leo in the less complicated surgeries, Donnie's medicinal skills are more-

First aid, per se.

More towards getting a splint, or bandaging a wound and waiting for help from someone with more skill. It's not that he doesn't want to help more, but his skills lie more in the after care of amputations and broken bones.

And it's been drilled into him enough times that he should never try to move someone seriously injured. The last time he did that, Leo lost his arm.

Didn't even let him make a custom prosthetic, the dum dum. Using Raph's old one- what a joke.

Still, when he follows April's weakening life signal across the battle field, Raph in tow close behind, he isn't fully ready for what he sees.

April lies on the ground, a line of rusty rebar sticking out of her shoulder.

He knows the rules of first aid. He's been drilled in what to do in a situation like this since-

Since Barry. Since Cass. Since Dad.

Rule One - Don't remove the object.

He can do that. April groans, giving him and Raph a bloodied smile.

Rule Two - Don't help if it is dangerous to do so.

That's the actual rule one, in second thoughts. How could he get them missed up? Don't help if its dangerous is the only rules that applies to all first aid senarios.

Okay, start again.

Rule One - Don't help if it is dangerous to do so.

They live in the apocalypse, but Leo, Mikey and Casey have them covered, fighting like bats straight out of hell.

Rule Two - Don't remove the object.

He won't, even as April shudders with cold. He knows how dangerous removing the rebar would be, April would be gone within seconds.

Rule Three - Cut any clothing from around the wound.

"Sorry, 'Pril" Donnie mumbles, a knife extracting itself from his battle shell. April pales slightly, but if its from the sight of the knife approaching or the massive blood loss, Donnie doesn't want to know.

The jacket sleave falls off easily, and the shift follows quickly in suit.

Rule Four - If the wound is bleeding, apply clean gauze around the wound and apply pressure to control the bleeding.

More arms leave his battle shell, preparing to do the task. Distantly, he can hear Raph fight off the kraang hounds. He's not that far away, but damn it sounds like he's miles away.

Leo's the only reason the bandages are sterile. He always insists on it, that they must boil the bandages for hours on end. Donnie never quiet cared for it, by ten minutes they looked clean enough, but Leo insisted.

As he watches the off white bandages soak up red, he finally gets it.

"Donnie, April's stats!" Raph yells, far closer than Donnie expected him to be.

"On the mend, but Leo needs to hurry up because neither of us are good enough at surgery to do this here!"

"Don-" April's voice is quiet, shuddering. "Behind you."

"DONNIE!" Raph screams, running towards him.

Raph hasn't screamed like that for years, not since Cass handed him Casey and her mask, running towards certain death.

Oh.

Oh.

It's his time, isn't it? Going out, trying to save April. She might even manage to survive this, if he shields her from the lazer just right. He can live with that being his death.

And isn't that an ironic statement, that he could live with his death?

Then Raph tackles him and April out of the way, and April's scream cuts through the air.

Then silence hangs between the three of them. Raph and Donnie quickly scan each other for any injuries out of the ordinary, and Raph glares at him for a split second, before turning his focus onto April.

Donnie might have escaped this particular lecture. Maybe.

"Hey, April. How are you holding out?" Raph asks.

"Oh yeah, living the dream, right boys?" April laughs bitterly under her breath. "Look, you have to know-"

"We're not doing this, April." Donnie snaps. "You're not dying."

"I've lost a lot of blood." April's lips are turning blue.

"You're going into shock. Raph, what do we do?" Donnie isn't desperate. April will be fine, she's come back from-

Well, not from worse, but she's come back from similar.

Surely that's enough?

"We take her back to the base." Raph says, his eyes watering. "Leo, Mikey and Casey will catch up. Usagi is just as good at patching people up, and I'm sure April will be just fine."

Ah, so they're all delusional. That's good to know. Maybe he will ask Leo to check them all over for head injuries when he gets back to base.

Donnie quickly falls in step behind Raph, his tech bo ready in his hands.

Donnie pulls his goggles over his eyes, determined to monitor his family's health signatures until they're all safely within reach. He'll even let Raph and Mikey pull him into a turtle pile.

Mikey, Leo and Casey's icons blink, slowly getting further and further away from them.

Then Mikey's blinks once, and doesn't come back on.

Then Casey follows suit.

Then Leo.

Raph pulls Donnie into the base. People swirl around them, loudly talking and shouting. He needs them to shut up. Usagi and Raph take April into the med bay, and Sunita and Hueso start to order people away from him. He needs them to shut up. The room quickly disperces, but the screaming doesn't cease. Who is screaming? They have no right to scream, not when Leo and Mikey and Casey are gone. They're gone, gone gone gone gone gone gone and not coming back and this asshole just keeps screaming and they need to SHUT THE FUCK UP-

And Raph bursts into the room, pulling Donnie into his chest and the screaming stops and-

Oh.

It was Donnie screaming.

#rottmnt #rottmnt angst #rottmnt fic #rottmnt future donatello #rottmnt future au #rottmnt future april #rottmnt future raph #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt raph #rottmnt movie #angst #cross posted on ao3 #ask to tag #are you gonna blame me if i just give up #aygbme

[sofonn]

Hello! I wanted to thank you for being such a big lhs fan, hehe. For a long time, it did not seem like he got too much attention (lonely first writer of kdj/lhs on ao3 (but now the tag is a bit bigger!)) so seeing your art has been very enjoyable. I also find your sense of composition and imagery very beautiful! Thanks for making the lhs tag more exciting!

This. All of those nice things you written here... truly the best words a fan can receive from anybody, for real. (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠) ❤️

I began to read orv not a while ago, only last autumn, but LHS caught my attention almost immediately: I just love this type of characters who are strong, big, kind, loyal (sometimes dog-coded hehe), but besides of this character features I adore his own story and arc. It may seem simple but I never thought simple=bad or worse than complicated stories since simple stories can be more heartcatching (⁠◡⁠ ⁠ω⁠ ⁠◡⁠)

And his story... Well, his story is quite catching and somehow relatable to me. Every single moment we saw his development in text he didn't just "evolved" like game-char with bigger stats but sometimes more of that. He was been becoming more... human, during all those arcs and with every other character, making the power of the orv's narrative only stronger.

LHS's change from reluctant soldier to a willing protector was a long way, but I saw it was inevitable (good for him). All moments he chose not to throw himself away for others but become stronger despite all pain... Well, this made me cry.

I recall the moment from Oz arc and dialog between LHS and his sponsor which made my cry for like half an hour:

Every single moment from this arc is precious. Idk if I have enough time to write a long ass post about how and for what i do love LHS, but the best I can do is drawing, even tho now it's hard thing to do. Drawing him helps me cope with war trauma i experiencing now (and maybe this was one of the thing why I love military character lol).

And I deeply appreciate your compliments. They gave me a smile and this tiny warm feeling in a heart that I surely will remember.

Can I please ask you to share your ao3 account? I've read every KDJ/LHS fic there (and even wrote some by myself, the only pity it's on ukrainian), but I'm not sure what are yours. Wanted to thank you for your work too!

P.S. I also have few spotify LHS-related playlists, adding it here

This are "classic" and 999th LHS playlist and somehow second happened to be better than first but still

Next ones are related to his dynamics with other characters. It may seem little romantic in some song choices but romance isn't main motive there

Once again thank you so much!!! Happy to know my art brighten your day (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+

#reply #orv #lee hyunsung #lhs #text post #song headcanons #:3 #orv lhs

[bananakarenina]

For the deep writer asks: 3, 6, 20

first show weekend in the books! i promptly fell asleep on the couch but i have some time before bed to finally answer this ask lol

3. what fic are you emotionally attached to?

so i answered this (and #20) for ash here but let's see what other thoughts i have

emotionally attached to crescent moon because that was the first fic where a song came spilling out of me

emotionally attached to complications i could do without because i was seriously just having *fun* writing and riffing on my own story

emotionally attached to bones of a supernova because flynn and julie's friendship is the best and i love them

emotionally attached to these last perfect days because rose molina we love you

i just can't pick one of my fics!!! i can't believe any of them exist in the first place, so i can't choose one!

6. what's the hardest part of the writing process for you?

i think the hardest part is that i am not inspired At All Times, you know? like inspiration comes at inconvenient times (at work, when i don't have access to my documents, driving, or more often than not, literally about to fall asleep) or doesn't come at all, especially when i have time to write, and i'm just staring at my WIP document like "maybe if i look long enough the words will appear"

and i definitely get frustrated that my writing moves at a slow pace. obviously part of that is me, i have to be like totally sure of things before i post, but part of that is just the lack of time, honestly. my kingdom for an extended vacation/the end of capitalism as we know it lol

20. What’s the greatest gift you’ve gotten from your writing?

beyond meeting a lovely little community here on the internets (yourself included ;;_;;) i think one of the best thing i've gotten from my writing is literally rediscovering that i *can* write again. i have a literal degree in creative writing but before i wrote want your midnights it had been eight years since i had written anything major. it felt like something in me had dried up--i had really only written a few completed poems in eight years. i was wondering if i could consider myself a writer anymore, honestly.

so to have written 142,000 words in 2 years (thank you ao3 for your stats page lol) feels like i got something back. (even if it comes more slowly than i want some days haha)

#thank you for the ask love #myfic #writing #ask games

[zipzin]

2023 Year In Review

Stats

The numbers in case anyone is curious :)

AO3 Total: 214,086

AO3 This Year: 78,253

I can’t believe I wrote 100,000 more words this year than last year! I tracked all my writing again, so this is all spread across outlining, drafting, and editing, and these words definitely don’t translate to words that will be published. But it gets the vibe and I’m super proud that every month I contributed something.

November was a huge surprise because I was in a little bit of a slump and my only goal for Nano was to draft at least a sentence a day (which I completed except for Thanksgiving which I’m giving myself a pass on). I surprised myself by almost getting to 50,000! Which I haven’t done since I first started Nano as a freshman in High School.

The Same Recurring Questions

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year or less than what you’d predicted?

I thought I wrote a lot last year, but I almost doubled that this year. I started to give myself a lot more permission to write what I’m interested in and ride the waves of creativity, but I want to continue to get better at that. I’m not a very forgiving person, especially of myself, and sometimes I get too hyper focused on banging my head against an arbitrary deadline on a story I just am not feeling. I want to work on those stories through some of that pain, but not so much it grinds my writing to a halt.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you never would have predicted in January 2023?

While I haven’t posted any fics yet, Critical Role. I can’t really believe I started watching (which only happened because my own DnD group was taking a break for a couple weeks) and then I totally got sucked into Campaign 3. For actually posted fic, it’s Willow, just because I barely knew it existed (and now it’s not even officially posted anywhere anymore).

What’s your favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest.

I can’t pick between Morning Mist and The Law of Entropy. I’m really proud of Morning Mist, it's more literary (I guess? More serious might be better wording?) piece and I do want to explore mother daughter relationships more in my writing because I firmly believe that every mother daughter relationship is complicated and most of my favorite characters have a complicated relationship with their mother… We don’t need to read into that.

The Law of Entropy was a story I worked on and off for 6 years! That’s what I mean when I say I’m a very slow writer. To finally get it completed, well it makes me really happy and gives me hope for a lot of my other WIPs that I write a little bit here and there.

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year 2023?

Last year I wanted to post at least 12 stories and I finished the year with nine (technically I posted 13 on Ao3 but some of those had already been posted to tumblr so I’m not counting them), so I still want to get to 12. The other main goal is that I want to fully outline Act 2 of Boomerang. I vaguely know where it’s going, but I haven’t sat down and planned it as thoroughly as I’d like and I feel like it’s totally slowing me down from getting that completed. It haunts me, and I won’t ever abandon it, so it would be great to get a lot closer to finishing it.

#my writing #mine #year in review

[gleefuldarrencrissfan]

Read on AO3 [Chapter 9] from the beginning [read on AO3]

Chapter 9By starpunchsoup

Wednesday, April 11

Kurt saw Blaine leaving the choir room at the end of the school day just in time to loop his arm around Blaine’s elbow. “Hey, you.”

“Hm?” Blaine acknowledged, snapping back into reality. “Oh, hey, Kurt.”

“‘Oh, hey, Kurt?’ Really?” Kurt teased but then stopped when he noticed the expression on his pretend boyfriend’s face. “What’s wrong? You seem totally out of it.”

“What? No. I’m fine.” Blaine tried to paste on a smile, but Kurt glared right through him. “Ugh, why do I bother trying to hide anything from you?” Blaine whined, half-pathetically and half-adorably. “It’s just family stuff.”

Kurt softened at that. He knew when Blaine needed some teasing to lighten the mood and when he genuinely needed a shoulder to lean on. Kurt decided right then and there to snuff out any snark in his system and be there for his best friend. “Oh? But I thought you and Cooper worked everything out before he flew back to L.A.?”

Blaine shrugged as both boys made their way out of the school building. “We did, and I’m very thankful for it. I dunno. It’s just…despite knowing why he did it, it’s not like three days of being on good terms with Coop is going to erase roughly 14 years of feeling like I’m not good at anything. It’s just kind of complicated, I guess, and I’m really confused, and everything just feels weird.”

Kurt wrapped his arm around Blaine’s shoulders. “I’m really sorry everything feels so messy right now. I hope you feel better soon.” Blaine turned in Kurt’s grasp for a proper hug, wrapping his arms tightly around Kurt’s midsection. “I know it doesn’t make the old hurt go away, but I really do think you’re incredibly talented. You’re a star, Blaine. You light up every room you’re in.” Kurt was no stranger to complimenting Blaine, but he tried to be more sincere than usual. Fake relationship or not, Blaine was clearly having a hard week, and nothing was going to stop Kurt from trying to make him smile again.

“Thank you, Kurt.” Blaine gave Kurt a tight squeeze before letting go. “I should probably head home. I’ll call you later?”

Kurt nodded, and both boys walked across the parking lot to get to their separate cars, but Kurt made sure to send out a single text to Mercedes before starting his engine.

Kurt: Call the house phone whenever you get home. I could use your help!

—*—

Kurt flopped onto his bed, the house phone pressed tightly to his ear. “Mercedes, I need ideas. Stat.”

Mercedes’ joyful laugh came through the speaker. “Damn, Kurt, you’ve got it bad! Okay. So, what is the idea here? Are you actually trying to cheer the boy up, or are you trying to put the moves on him?”

Kurt rubbed at his cheek in uncertainty. “Both? I don’t know! I definitely want to make him feel better, but I have no idea how to breach any of our feelings with him.”

Mercedes paused. “Wait, wait, wait. ‘Our’? Do you think he has feelings for you, too?”

Kurt shifted uncomfortably in place. “I don’t know. I thought we were going to kiss, like for real, just for us, at that party… But then you showed up, and neither of us have brought it up since. Not that I blame you! I just… I really don’t know where we stand.”

“Kurt! You are so oblivious. Oh, my god. Put the moves on him already! I see the way you guys look at each other; there’s no way you could fake it. He clearly loves you, too.”

 Kurt could feel Mercedes’s excitement through the phone, and it was almost enough to make him smile. Almost.

“But what then? Say we admit we have feelings for each other. Then what? Things with Sebastian were really bad. Still sort of are, hence why I’m using the house phone instead of my cell. Did I tell you that little creep copied my phone? Blaine already has enough on his plate. I’m not sure if he’d even be ready for a real relationship. Hell, when I initially asked him about this fake boyfriend thing, he looked like he was going to be sick. He’s been handling everything okay for now, but what if admitting my feelings makes him feel even worse?” Kurt had had all of these anxieties circling around his head for weeks now, and it felt so good to finally talk to somebody about it all.

“Hold on. Sebastian copied your phone?” Mercedes said, disgust clear in her tone.

“Yeah. I think he broke into my locker and stole the SIM card. I’m pretty sure he’s been monitoring my texts to see if me and Blaine are faking. I don’t know if that extends to phone calls, too, so I figured this would be safest.” Kurt shrugged, but he still felt so heavy with worry. “God, Mercedes, I have no clue what I’m doing.”

“Okay. First off? Screw Sebastian. If he wants to be obsessed with you guys, that’s his issue. Let’s work on yours for right now, okay? Blaine is feeling insecure, right? What do you think would make him feel appreciated in this moment?” Mercedes prompted, getting the gears turning in Kurt’s head.

“Um…he always likes when I bring him food! He always does that cute little bashful head bow whenever I give him something I made.” Kurt thought out loud, gently tapping his chin.

Mercedes waited a moment before she spoke again. “Kurt. I have the best idea ever.”

—*—

Giddily hanging up with Mercedes, Kurt brought out his cell phone to text Blaine.

Kurt: Hey! Are you doing anything tonight?

Kurt patiently awaited a response, not wanting to get everything prepared for tonight if Blaine couldn’t even make it.

Kurt paced his room for a moment before he decided that he should pull together an outfit while he waited. He made sure that his phone ringer was on before he walked over to his closet to rummage through his wardrobe. He had just decided on a pair of dark green jeans when he heard his phone go off.

Blaine: I don’t think so. My dad isn’t in town, so I don’t even think there’s a real plan for dinner tonight. You got something in mind?

Kurt smiled wide.

Kurt: Come over at 7:30. I have a surprise for you. :)

Kurt quickly went to work after that. He settled on his dark green jeans, a dark brown button-down, a navy vest with a matching jacket, and a long, forest green tie with metallic gold swirls; he set the clothes aside on his bed so he could cook without getting food splatters on his date outfit. Kurt didn’t have lots of time to get ready, but he was able to pull together a simple thyme and sage risotto with roasted vegetables on the side, homemade garlic bread, and a small dark chocolate and raspberry cheesecake. Kurt tried not to indulge like this too much, especially since he’d started looking after his father’s health as well, but Kurt knew that there were very few problems that dairy and carbs couldn’t fix.

“Hey, kiddo. Smells good in here,” Burt said halfway through the vegetables roasting. “I thought we were ordering pizza for dinner tonight, though; what’s all this for?”

Kurt couldn’t help his smile. “Oh, I’m throwing an impromptu date for me and Blaine tonight. His brother just went back home after a visit, and while things are good between them now, Blaine is still feeling a little upset because things with his brother weren’t always this…stable. I’m just trying to cheer him up.” Kurt kept stirring his risotto, checking that the rice was absorbing the chicken stock the way he wanted it to.

“That’s really thoughtful of you, Kurt,” his dad said, clapping a hand on his shoulder affectionately. “Have I ever told you how glad I am that you guys finally got together? You two are good for each other.”

Kurt resisted the urge to wince, considering he and Blaine weren’t actually together. Instead, he just smiled wider. “He makes me really happy,” Kurt admitted quietly.

Burt gently patted the back of Kurt’s head, making sure not to mess up his hair, and left him to his cooking.

—*—

Blaine knocked at the Hudson-Hummel house at exactly 7:30, and Kurt was fully dressed in his pre-planned outfit when he answered the door.

Blaine looked taken aback for a moment. “Wow. Hello, handsome.”

Kurt felt the blush creep high on his cheeks. “You think so? I wanted to make this special.”

Blaine smiled softly for the first time Kurt had seen that day. “Yes, I do. And you wanted to make what special?”

Kurt stepped outside, closing the front door behind him. “Come with me, and I’ll show you.”

Kurt took Blaine’s hand and walked around the back of the house, where the scene was set up for the two of them. Kurt had a picnic blanket spread out in the middle of the backyard, complete with a picnic basket, that was surrounded by battery-operated tealight candles so Kurt couldn’t accidentally burn his own house down. It wasn’t much, but Kurt could still see the excitement in Blaine’s eyes.

“Kurt? What’s all this?” Blaine asked incredulously.

“It’s an ‘I-Hate-Seeing-My-Fake-Boyfriend-Be-Actually-Sad’ picnic!” Kurt explained as he walked over to the blanket to kick his shoes off.

Blaine followed suit, a small, disbelieving smile still painted his face. “Kurt. You didn’t have to do all of this.”

Kurt opened up the basket, bringing items out to finish setting the scene. A half-full pitcher of lemonade from his fridge, serving spoons, glassware, the whole nine yards. Kurt was going to be up until one a.m. doing the dishes, but seeing Blaine’s smile made it all worth it to him. “Of course, I did.” Kurt held out a plastic champagne flute for Blaine. “You said yourself you didn’t have any dinner plans.”

Blaine grabbed the glass from Kurt but kept it tilted towards him so they could clink their glasses together. “You are absolutely incredible.”

Kurt shrugged, ignoring the way he could literally feel his face heat up. “You were having a bad day. You should be appreciated more, so…here I am, appreciating you.”

Kurt swore he could see a blush appear on Blaine’s face, too. “Well, thank you. This all smells delicious, by the way.”

The two boys ate in comfortable silence for most of the meal, not feeling the need to add anything on to the moment. Once most of the food was consumed, they packed everything back in the basket and laid down on the blanket to look at the stars. It was a fairly clear night, and the best part about living in a small area of Ohio was that there were no big airports or traffic to cause light pollution.

“I don’t know the last time I just sat and looked at the stars,” Blaine stated quietly. “My grandpa used to take me out with this big old telescope to point out constellations, but that was years ago.”

“Do you remember any of them?” Kurt asked while he turned his head to glance at Blaine. His muscled arms were relaxed above his head, his hands supported the back of his skull, and there was a look of tranquility on his face that Kurt hadn’t seen in a while.

Blaine moved his head a little bit to free his right arm so he could point. “Well, that’s Orion’s belt. I’m pretty sure they’re connected to the rest of Orion, but I don’t remember the shape of it,” Blaine said with a self-conscious laugh. “Um…next to him is Gemini, your star sign, but that one kind of gets lost on me, too. Like, I can see their hands holding, but not much else.”

“Still, you know more than I do. And why aren’t I surprised that you know my zodiac?” Kurt teased, nudging Blaine’s shoulder with his own.

“It’s just a thing I do! I know the whole Glee Club’s zodiacs just because I have their birthdays written down. It’s not like I have anybody’s whole birth charts memorized,” Blaine defends, but he smiled when he talked, so Kurt hoped he wasn’t actually upset at being called an astrology bitch.

“Uh-huh. Sure.” Kurt teased further, earning another shoulder check from Blaine. Kurt shoved him back, and Blaine decided to play dirty by leaning over to ruffle Kurt’s hair.

Kurt almost said something snarky, but his words got caught in his throat when he looked into Blaine’s eyes. Blaine, strong and kind and handsome Blaine, half leaning over Kurt and half laying down next to him. Blaine, the only thing Kurt could see in that moment.

“I think my dad is watching. You should kiss me,” Kurt lied, barely above a whisper.

Blaine didn’t even look at the house behind him before he leaned in. Blaine’s lips were soft against Kurt’s, and there was very little pressure behind it. Tentative almost. Kurt took in a deep breath through his nose and leaned up a little bit to get closer. Grabbing the back of Blaine’s head with one arm and lifting himself up with the other, Kurt almost couldn’t believe it. He knew he’d set up this big romantic picnic for Blaine to make him feel cherished and special, but still. He didn’t think the night was going to end with him kissing Blaine, tenderly and sweetly. Cherished.

Blaine pulled away slowly after a few moments, lightly biting his bottom lip. “It’s, um… It’s getting late. I should probably go before my mom starts to worry. But all of this…” Blaine gestured vaguely around him, his eyes quickly looking over Kurt one more time. “All of this was amazing. Thank you.”

Kurt still felt a little breathless, but he managed a smile before he found his voice again (Did he always sound so airy when talking to Blaine?). “Anytime.”

Kurt helped Blaine up from the blanket so the boys could make their way towards Blaine’s car. Blaine gave Kurt a hug goodbye, but alas, not a second kiss. Kurt wasn’t surprised or even hurt by the gesture, but he would’ve been lying if he said he wasn’t hopeful for another one.

Waving goodbye to Blaine, Kurt decided right then and there that speaking his feelings was out of the question. Kurt felt like he’d made as big of a move as he could, and unless Blaine was going to initiate the conversation, Kurt wasn’t going to cross any more lines. Blaine’s comfort and presence in Kurt’s life was what mattered most, and Kurt didn’t want to do anything else that might jeopardize that.

Blaine Anderson, the ball is in your court. Please don’t leave me waiting much longer.

Noted from GleefulDarrenCrissFan: I intended to post this earlier today, but I have not been feeling well. To make up for it, I', posting a chapter today and tomorrow. The next chapter is by Esperanto. After this, only 6 more chapters. Also, I have a new story coming out on Saturday called Perfectly Imperfect. Don't forget to comment. We love hearing from you all.

#The Prom-us #klaine fanfiction #the prom-us #klaine fanfic

[belfrygargoyles]

*whispers* I would like to hear what you have to say on reader inserts in the SW fandom because I too have a problem with them and I feel like not enough people are calling it out 👉👈

I’ve made a few posts about it in the past but I think it’s high time I actually Do This and really get into it.

Before I start: 1) This will be in specific reference to fanfiction written for the Star Wars fandom, particularly tcw and the mandalorian eras, 2) A lot of the issues come down to racist fetishization of men of color by white women; I am white, so there is much that is simply not my place to make statements on. What I can speak most on is my take from the gender side of things.

I’d honestly recommend reading this post by @nibeul with addition by @clonehub first, as they discuss the core issue with reader inserts in the Star Wars fandom.

And 3) some of this will involve discussion of sexual acts (as they relate to fanfiction) and sexual fantasies. These discussions will be non-explicit, and no pornographic text or content will be displayed.

Also. I’m GNC and nonbinary. I’m also a very feminine looking person that falls under the generalization of “small and petite.” I don’t have dysphoria, I like my body and the traits I have, and treating them like inherently female sends me into a blind fury. This is, unfortunately, important.

For the sake of making sure I come across as clearly as possible, I will be writing as though the reader of this post has never read or is broadly unfamiliar with reader-insert fanfiction.

Without further ado.

Hey, Star Wars reader insert fic writers? Please get your shit together.

INTRODUCTION

I’ve been reading reader-insert fanfiction since I was a grade schooler waking up early to check Quizilla. I love it! It got me into fandom, kept me engaged, helped me make and develop some of my oldest OCs, and it’s just fun to read and write- it’s like a self-indulgent little gift you can give to a bunch of people all at once. Because who doesn’t like the idea of starring in their own little adventure, usually alongside some of their favorite characters? It can be fun, immersive, get you attached in ways other ways of fandom interaction may not, make you feel just a little bit special, or be a way to express some feelings you might have about canon and the way the story went.

Like any form of fiction, it ends up saying more about the author’s feelings than anything else, whether the author realizes it or not. For many, many authors of reader-insert fanfiction, the primary enjoyment comes from writing “themselves” into the story- before the readers, the author most often makes the “reader character” someone they, themselves, can relate to and substitute for themselves. They write to live out a self-indulgent fantasy they have, and their readers can come along for the ride.

Some writers do actually try to write as diverse or as vague of a reader character as possible- as few details about the body, identity, etc. as possible so anyone could superimpose their image without the narrative directly contradicting it. This is not the kind of reader insert author I will be discussing.

The kind of author I will be discussing is the one most common in the Star Wars tag on Ao3: White, AFAB, cisgender, gender-conforming, able-bodied women who assume all of their readers are also White, AFAB, cisgender, gender-conforming, able-bodied women. Yes, you can tell.

ISSUE: fetishization of men of color

Again, this post puts it in the best words, but there is a rampant problem with Star Wars reader-inserts, particularly those involving the clones, Boba Fett, and Din Djarin, fetishizing characters played by men of color as either “physically aggressive and threatening, hypersexual and dominant, big strong men who are scary because they do violence and fuck constantly when they’re not” or “completely inexperienced baby who doesn’t know anything about things and needs a gentle nurturing guiding touch to introduce him to the mere idea of a vagina.” The former is common across all of them, the latter most common among clone trooper fics or Din/Reader.

I went into the Boba Fett/Reader tag on Ao3, because I like him and hoped to find something alright. Here are some stats I tallied up (give or take some) based solely on tags, summaries, and warnings:

There are 284 works in the Boba Fett/Reader category as of the time of this post.

198/284 are rated E for explicit sexual content. 69.7% of all Boba Fett/Reader works are sexually explicit.

259/284 are in the F/M category. 91.2% of all Boba Fett/Reader works involve an explicitly female or AFAB reader.

24/284 are tagged with or mention “Age difference,” “Older man/Younger woman,” “Innocence kink” or “Virginity kink.” 8.4% of all Boba Fett/Reader works are written explicitly with an age gap, with Boba Fett as the older party

26/198 E rated fics are tagged with or make reference to “Daddy kink” or involve the reader being called some variation of “little girl” by Boba. 13% of all E-rated works under Boba Fett/Reader are daddy kink fics, or allude to Boba Fett being a daddy dom/sugar daddy.

102/198 E rated fics are tagged as, make reference to, or suggest in the summary that Boba Fett takes a dominant sexual role with a submissive reader involving rough or painful play, or make reference to Boba Fett being frightening, physically intimidating, having a power dynamic over the reader, or being possessive or violent. 51.51% of all E-rated works under Boba Fett/Reader portray Boba Fett as sexually dominant and/or enacting use of physical force or pain play.

Just using this as an example, because it’s the easiest stats I can gather and also what made me realize there was a pattern.

The problem isn’t even necessarily that people write explicit fic about Boba- it’s that 1) over half of all fics in the category are explicitly pornographic, and 2) the way those pornographic fics are written. The two things compound on each other. They’re dominance fantasies projected onto a character of color in which he becomes extremely sexual, physically rough with the reader, possessive, and demeaning towards a reader character who is always written as White, AFAB, and petite.

This brings me to the next issue.

ISSUE: The way sexual relationships are portrayed.

Let me clarify so there is no chance of me being misunderstood: sex is good. Liking and wanting and enjoying sex isn’t bad. It is not bad if you are AFAB and have submissive fantasies. It is not bad to be sexually attracted to a man of color. You can write about sex even if you haven’t had it. Writing about sex can be a good way to express some more complicated feelings you could have about certain things. It doesn’t even have to be realistic. It has its time and it has its place.

This being said.

Sexual relationships as they are portrayed in the vast majority of E-rated Star Wars reader inserts are… not great.

The reader is always AFAB. I can think of maybe one fic off the top of my head where an AFAB reader was written with they/them pronouns and not just she/her.

The reader is almost always submissive, the dominant character is almost always portrayed as cis male. Even when the characters are supposed to just be having spontaneous casual sex, D/S or BDSM aspects will be introduced with no prior discussion or talks about it afterwards. Sometimes characters will start using dirty talk and it just does not fit at all, but it’s what the author thought was hot.

Sometimes, it just reads like a quick smutty oneshot. More often than that, it reads like the author doesn’t realize that sex… isn’t always a dom/sub thing. Or that someone can take the lead in sex and that doesn’t automatically make them a dom.

It’s not bad to be inexperienced. It’s not bad to have preferences or kinks or specific turn-ons.

But it gets… tiring to read, over and over and over and over, because that’s all there is.

That and… I dunno, it just has me a little worried? It doesn’t make me feel good knowing so many people can only portray a sexual relationship if it’s dom/sub. I don’t know why it makes me so uneasy.

Vanilla sex isn’t a bad thing I promise. It's this feeling of insistence that something "spicy" absolutely has to happen for it to be worth writing that gives... some weird vibes.

I’m going to move on to the next Big-

ISSUE: Every “reader” character is exactly the same

By which I mean the following:

Always cis AFAB female

If a character is written with gender neutral pronouns they will always be AFAB and written like Girl Lite

I have never seen an explicitly stated nonbinary/gnc reader character unless it was a request specifically for a nonbinary reader

I have never seen a gender neutral reader insert fic where the reader was AMAB

I have seen a grand total of 1 cis male reader fic and 1 trans male reader fic. The trans male reader fic was about dysphoria.

The reader is allowed to have one of the following backstories: slave/runaway, mechanic, medic, ex-Rebel, secret Jedi, bounty hunter.

The reader is allowed to have one of the following personality traits: throws knives, babysitter, completely civilian, WOMAN, says curse words.

The reader is never written with any narrative agency- things only ever happen to the reader character or around the reader character, they are never written to take charge and actually affect things on their own. Essentially the sexy lamp trope.

Remember when I said the majority of people writing Star Wars reader-insert fanfic on Ao3 were White, cisgender AFAB women who are gender-conforming and able-bodied? This is how you can tell.

It’s at this point where you can tell they’re really not meant to be reader-inserts, but author-inserts with the names removed- they were only meant for a very narrow selection of readers.

I’m nonbinary, I’m gnc, and I’m a very feminine looking person, generally speaking. I’m used to people looking at me and assuming oh, girl. I’m at peace with that.

I can barely stand reading some of these fics just because of how much the author emphasizes that the reader is FEMALE shes a WOMAN with BOOBS and a VAGINA and FEMININE WILES. There’s barely ever even a chance to give myself room to mentally vault over all the “she”s and “her”s because then I’m getting hit with Din or someone calling the reader “girl” or “the woman.” It’s unbearable, and I even fall into the general description every fucking fic author uses for their generic protagonist!

Even with the “gender-neutral reader” fics, it is just. Painfully clear that they just wrote a female character and changed the pronouns- no, there is no such thing as “male behavior” or “female behavior,” and I quite heartily rebel against the concept of gender essentialism. And honestly, I can barely even begin piecing together how I know it and what it feels like, because it’s just one of those vague conglomerates of cues and writing patterns I can’t consciously pick up on but I know it’s there- it’s frustrating, it’s demeaning, and it feels like you’d have to threaten these authors at gunpoint to get them to write a reader character who was any major deviation from the same three cutouts they use every time.

It seems like they can’t possibly force themselves to write a reader character who isn’t meek and submissive or has the sole personality traits of “mean and can hit things”- you can actually strike a balance between “absolutely no personality” and “fleshed out oc” you know? And you don’t actually have to tell the reader what their hair looks like or how full their figure is

It’s like 2:20 AM and I started this at like 8something PM but.

I’m someone who loves reader-inserts. I enjoy them. I still check for new ones regularly. I’ve been reading them for well over half my life now.

So many of these authors are just locked in on exactly one way to write things and it fucking shows. It’s like a self-feeding loop, they just keep writing the same things and the same dynamics because they see each other doing it and they never think about taking a step back.

It’s… exhausting. I’m exhausted. If you’re a reader-insert fic writer and you want to improve your reader character inclusivity and have also read this far, you can DM me or shoot me an ask.

#star wars #x reader #star wars x reader #star wars reader insert #maintagging because for once i actually want ppl to see this #i hope my points are made clearly enough #if something needs clarification you can shoot me a DM or an ask

[bouncingkadachi]

Blessed Rain

Summary: A Hunter’s weapon of choice says a lot about them. OR: Kyle upgrades his weaponry and gets caught red-handed in the act. Luckily (?) for him, only Tsukino seems to know exactly why he's having an emotional crisis over this.

Word count: 3,260

Note(s): set post-game

Also available on AO3!

Kyle’s had his new bow for a good couple of weeks before the feel of the limbs and the weight of the draw became comfortable enough for him to consider upgrading it. If he’s going to be injured, he reasons, he’d rather it be purely by way of monster and not because he pulls a muscle wrestling with a bow that hasn’t been properly broken in. His wallet despairs as he forks over the zenny, but this’ll hopefully let him take on some of the bigger hunts like the ones that Reverto goes on. It’ll all be worth the investment up front once he has his completely finished bow and restocked his coatings and finally drops the last of his coin on a couple new talismans.

He refuses to think about the implications of his reasoning with a literal coin, rolling it around and around his fingers as he pushes through the market throngs towards the smithy’s. Perhaps he ought to have a change of scenery—the fog-shrouded summits of Terga were said to be particularly beautiful at this time of year, and the heat in Lamure was becoming just shy of unbearable.

The final product that the blacksmith puts into his hands when he finally makes it to collect is nothing short of gorgeous. Blessed Rain is sleek where his old Rex bow was bulky, far lighter and certainly not as clunky. The upgrades on the riser gives the entire weapon a pleasant solidness in his hand, yet the delicately reinforced plating on the limbs doesn’t retract at all from its flexibility. The decorative grip protector gleams. Just looking at it makes Kyle excited to shoot.

“Bring her back if you’re finding that you need anything adjusted,” the smith tells him after Kyle’s diligently inspected every inch of the bow. “Kept the poundage the same for you, but added another inch to the draw length like you asked.”

“Thanks,” Kyle says. Eventually, he’d like to work up to the point where he can up the poundage again. Even just another five pounds would be good. He can do most of the hunts in his skill range alone now, but extra firepower would make him just that much more efficient, or that much of a better support for team hunts. 

The smith laughs when Kyle sheepishly admits this. “Well, I always like to help a Hunter improve, and you know where to find me,” he says cheerily, clapping Kyle enthusiastically on the shoulder. “Come by again anytime if you need a tune up or want to test out something new.” 

And with that, he waves Kyle away so that another Hunter can step up, holding a tired-looking sword and shield and looking equally exhausted. “Aye, rookie Hunter?” Kyle hears as he wanders off to find a more relaxed corner of the market in which to admire his new bow some more. “If you’ve got the materials I can repair and upgrade that for you.” The conversation peters out and melts into the general din of the marketplace as Kyle slips into the crowd, taking care to step out of the way of a Felyne carrying an absolutely massive basket groaning with produce. He watches the precarious load totter away, trying and failing to locate Tsukino in the brief respite the parted crowd affords him. They’d split earlier that morning and he hasn’t seen her since.

He still hasn’t managed to find even a whisker of Tsukino’s whereabouts by the time he settles into a decently quiet nook next to a stall selling all manner of spices. Pity, because the dappled light spilling through the colorful drapes of the marketplace catches so beautifully on the milky-white sheen of the bow, and he’d been looking forward to showing it to her. As a Hunter, Kyle will always care more about weapon practicality than aesthetics, but as a normal human being he certainly won’t turn down the opportunity to have both an aesthetically pleasing and perfectly functional weapon. He’s still grinning a little when he goes to strap the bow to his back, and it’s in the process of looking up that his gaze catches onto wide eyes staring plainly at him from across the street. 

He freezes, arm suspended awkwardly halfway to sheathing. His beautiful bow glints damningly in the bright Lamure sunlight as his unexpected friend wades through the throngs of people towards him, gesturing for him to stay put with a wave of her hand that really can’t be mistaken for anything other than a greeting.

“Hey,” he says cautiously and lamely when she finally reaches him. Belatedly, he remembers to lower his arm. He is momentarily thankful that she doesn’t try to reach up for his face in the Mahanan greeting, although his goodwill evaporates when she leans in to inspect his bow, body thrumming with unexplainable anticipation.

“Oh, that’s pretty,” she says finally. Kyle can’t help himself from preening just a little, shifting his grip so that she can get a better look. After all, what was the point of spending all that money and materials if there was no one to excitedly show the end product off to? Besides, it’s been a while since they last saw each other. Last he heard, she had been traveling, keen to finally see the world on her own terms and at her own pace.

“It’s fresh off an upgrade,” he answers smugly. “Easier to handle than the Rex.”

“Slightly less intimidating though,” she chimes in, and Kyle bristles, not liking where this conversation is going. And true to form, she goes in for the kill: “Mizutsune? I recognize the plating.”

Kyle can feel the flush crawling up to his ears. Logically, he knows that there’s nothing for him to be embarrassed about. It’s a mark of good smithing that one can tell at a glance which monster a weapon was inspired by, and a Mizutsune was both powerful and extremely iconic. This bow in particular had good stats and the ability to fire rapidly, which admittedly took him some time to get used to after focusing mostly on piercing shots. The paralysis coating that works so well on this bow has also already saved his skin on more than one occasion. There is little more a career Hunter can ask for out of his weapon. It’s not like he’d been heading out to Pomore Garden at any given opportunity and holding onto an increasing multitude of Mizutsune materials just because he wanted some physical reminder of what was probably the most pivotal moment of his life, something that never failed to put a very complicated and jumbled mess of emotions deep within his chest whenever he thought back to it.

He’s starting to feel very, very hot under his collar. The sun is terrible. He resolves that his next big hunt really needs to be somewhere outside of Lamure.

His friend, however, just looks more and more baffled as he launches into an unprompted defense of his newest purchase. Every time she opens her mouth, Kyle talks a little faster. Eventually, she doesn’t even bother trying to interject, which is arguably worse, because instead she just looks progressively more and more thoughtful. Kyle wished desperately for Tsukino to peel away from whatever hidey hole she was tucked in. Then, his train of thought screeches into a rude and abrupt halt.

“What,” he croaks. “What are you doing.”

One of her brows quirks up. “I sure hope your eyes are still working because that’d be a detriment to your job,” she says plainly. “What does it look like I’m doing? I promise it’s not a trick question.”

What she’s doing is holding Kyle’s hand—the one not clutching his new bow—the one that had apparently been waving about with increasing agitation as he jabbered on and on. What Kyle doesn’t understand is why. It’s not like he just did some impressive shot to give them the edge in a battle or anything else that was cool and hand-holding worthy. He’d just been yammering about bow mechanics, and maybe embarrassingly dipping into his talisman hopes and dreams. He stares a little helplessly at his trapped hand. Her kinship stone winks up at him.

“Look,” she says patiently, when it becomes very clear that Kyle is going to need a moment before he can get his brain back online. “There’s nothing wrong with a bow made from Mizutsune parts and I am the last person who will ever turn down pretty things. What I was going to say was that this is an interesting departure from your whole—” She pauses, as though looking for a specific word. “Well, your whole image as a very grown-up and serious and intimidating Hunter or whatever it was you were trying to convey with that scowl you used to like so much. And you weren’t letting me get a single word in.”

“You’re getting plenty of words in now,” Kyle scowls, just to be contrary. “And I’ve grown since then.”

“Someone’s in a mood today.” She smiles, crinkle-eyed, up at him. Kyle very seriously debates wrenching his hand out of her hold like he did the last time this happened and then pointedly doesn’t act on the impulse.

“Why’re you in Lulucion?” he asks instead with a truly remarkable level of self-restraint. “Thought you’d never want to come back again after what happened.”

She shrugs, the greatsword on her back heaving with the movement. “Guess I’ve grown too,” she says loftily, though she sobers quickly. “I was actually visiting my grandfather. He used to go back to Mahana around this time of year… he can’t do it anymore of course but I’ve got Ratha now, so I figured I could do it instead. And then I figured I’d stop by Rutoh before going home, to see Ena and Alwin and wheedle a few more stories out of them.”

She lets go of Kyle’s hand. He tries not to miss it. “Even Ratha can’t make the trip in one go, and Lulucion was closest, so we’re stopping to rest. I dropped by the Scrivener’s Lodge earlier because I was hoping Reverto could give me a few weapon pointers as I’ve saved up just about enough for an upgrade, but they told me that he was out on an urgent mission and wouldn’t be back for a while.”

“Oh,” Kyle says, a little stung that she hadn’t come specifically to see him first, out of all the Hunters in the city. He’s slightly mollified when she grins at him, though.

“And then I met Tsukino by the cannons. She said I could find you here, so here I am.”

“I don’t know anything about greatswords,” Kyle blurts out, and immediately wants to kick himself. She blinks at him, and then bursts into laughter.

“I was just going to ask the smith,” she wheezes when she’s got herself somewhat back under control. “Can’t I see a friend just to say hi to him anymore?” Kyle stares very intently down at some of the finer detailing on his bow.

“Where is my Palico anyway?” he finally settles on, falling into a tried and true grumble. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

She waves her hand vaguely in the air. “Navirou said something about getting donuts. I wasn’t really listening.”

But there was a donut stand right here in the marketplace, Kyle wanted to cry out. He should have seen Tsukino by now if they’d really been going to buy snacks! And how was it possible that he had missed Navirou in his entirety, between the Felyne’s penchant for wearing ridiculous little outfits and his inability to shut up?

“Why? You have a hunt you need to run off to?” 

“Yes,” Kyle says hotly. It’s a lie. He’d accepted a subquest that wouldn’t depart until later that evening for the sole purpose of testing out his new weapon in a relatively stress-free environment. Before that, he’d just planned on hitting up the shooting range in the training arena to break in the new string. His schedule was very, very free. Tsukino was perfectly aware of that.

His eyes widened. Tsukino had been with him on every excursion into the Gardens. She went where he did (usually), and it’s not like Kyle would ever begrudge her a visit home. But she’d been with him every step of every single Mizutsune job he’d ever taken—had watched him craft traps when he needed to capture and had kept watch for opportunists hoping to sneak up as he’d carved. She’d been the one who’d recommended the spinner for all the excess purplefur he was ending up with. At first, he’d simply thought that she’d wanted the thread to mend some of her own items, or to send back home to her brethren, but instead she’d tucked each skein of vibrant, silk-soft thread into the bottom of his pouch with gentle paws, cryptically talking about how strong a material it was, and how nice it looked when woven. Kyle has never touched a loom in his life, but now he’s looking at someone who he definitely knows has.

His stomach drops. Hadn’t Tsukino looked particularly smug ever since he’d lingered on the blueprints for Blessed Rain after getting a look at its stats and required materials?

“She got me,” he groans. His friend just looks at him bemusedly, though perhaps with a touch of wariness at his ferocious frown. Hastily, he tacks on: “It’s nothing. I, uh—I just remembered that I needed to tell Tsukino something. Important. Later, when I find her again.”

“Alright,” she says, though she doesn’t quite look like she believes him. “A quest’s a quest, though, so I won’t keep you here. The bow really is pretty though. I know I just said it doesn’t match your image and all but I really don’t think you can go wrong with something you like. You’ve got the skills for it, anyway.”

“Thanks,” he croaks, feeling a little overwhelmed. He manages two whole steps out of the nook before he pauses, worrying at his lower lip. “Actually,” he says sharply, spinning around on his heel and nearly causing his friend to startle right into a spice display. “How long are you staying for?”

“However long it’ll take to upgrade my sword, I guess,” she says after she collects herself, the words lilting into a question. “Three days or so, I guess?” She skirts nervously away from the glaring vendor, careful not to overbalance on her greatsword.

“Cool,” Kyle says with a nod, steeling himself. “Great, even. Look, how about this. Your last visit to Lulucion was terrible—” an understatement, “—so when I get back from my hunt I’ll show you some of the better sights Lulucion has to offer. There’s a hole in the wall that I think you’ll like. Dad used to take me after hunts—they grill really nice queen shrimp. And the parapets—you can climb them, and they’ve got all these little carvings in the stone that you can search for like a scavenger hunt.” He’s keenly aware that he’s rambling again, but she looks interested, so he barrels on. “I’ll come pick you up tomorrow just as soon as I can get a nap in. We can stay in the city or take Ratha out to the Barrens, down by the water. Just make a day of it.” He’s pretty certain that he looks at her with something akin to hope as she considers. It feels like a lifetime before she finally comes to a decision. 

“I want to take Ratha out in the evening,” she says finally. “I don’t want him to be cooped up too long here ever again.”

“Yeah,” Kyle breathes out, the word rushing out of him in a flood of relief. “Yeah, I can work around that.” She beams at him.

“I’ll look forward to it,” she says, sincere and looking more than a little surprised despite herself at the prospect of looking forward to doing anything in Lulucion. “I’m staying at the inn closest to the stables. Pretty sure I’m the only Rider there currently so they’ll know who I am.” Kyle nods, and lets himself get his hand squeezed again, though not without her hands first hovering in an instinctual bid for his cheeks before she remembers herself.

“Good luck on your hunt. If I see Tsukino I’ll let her know you’re looking for her.”

“She’ll show up in due time,” he mutters darkly. “I’ll let you know if Reverto gets back early or if he’s just been loafing around this entire time. For your next upgrade or whatever.” She laughs, bright, and then slips off into the crowd to wrestle her way into the smithy’s queue. Kyle is left staring in her wake before his gaze is drawn back down to his bow.

“This is all your fault,” he tells it. Predictably, it doesn’t answer. Also predictably, Tsukino takes that exact moment to drop down from seemingly nowhere. 

“I didn’t know we had another job lined up,” the Felyne says delicately, carefully brushing crumbs off of her coat. Kyle groans, sheathing his weapon.

“Don’t tease me,” he huffs. “I’m going to the shooting range. Are you coming?”

“Hmm,” says Tsukino. “I suppose I can spare the time.”

“Of course you can spare the time!” Kyle hisses, indignant. “You just spent the day eating donuts and eavesdropping!” He pointedly doesn’t look towards the smithy, where his friend was patiently browsing the display while another Hunter was getting their hammer looked at.

“One must always be prepared with the latest intel,” Tsukino says mildly. “I’m glad the upgrade went well.” 

“It’s got good stats,” Kyle protests weakly in what is quickly becoming a tired argument. “The rapid shots have been going very well. And I had a surplus of Mizutsune parts.”

 “Yes,” his hunting partner agrees readily enough. “Have you thought of what you’re going to do with the thread?”

“This conversation is finished,” Kyle says abruptly, making a very determined push towards the market’s exit. “Either come or don’t, so long as we meet at the gate for tonight’s hunt.”

Tsukino looks at him with exasperated fondness, which is frankly a little insulting, but readily falls into step next to him. Kyle wonders how many rounds he’s going to have to shoot in order to clear his head again and rid it of thoughts of Hazepetal Garden or Mizutsune or high-grade thread that he’ll never use himself. He’ll examine them again someday—because he’s not a coward—but that day is most certainly not today.

He does his rounds in the training arena and marvels at the way the string slides off his fingers with a satisfying twang, even though it’ll still be a good few days before it’s fully broken in to his liking. Tsukino’s saved him a donut, the cakey sweet sticky with honey and practically melting in his mouth. He’s got some free time even after stocking up for the evening hunt, so he takes a few minutes to browse the quest board, taking careful note of the jobs that were situated near the Harzgai Rocky Hill, or the ones from further afield in Alcala that’ll take him closer to Rutoh. And when he leaves the city, he pointedly doesn’t look up at the familiar shape circling in the dusky sky, even as he knows that they’ll surely see the last rays of the setting sun winking off of the plates of his bow like a beacon.

#was anyone going to tell me that HR Kyle gets a MIZU BOW #You were just going to withhold this vital piece of information from me? #anyway here's 3k words about the significance of Mizutsune to one (1) boy that I love #I wrote this specifically with my idiot in mind #but asides from the gender and a few other lines I guess you can generalize to any other Rider #monster hunter kyle #monster hunter stories 2 #Annie writes

[facewithoutheart]

AO3 Stats Meme!

Thanks for tagging me @captain-aralias; I do love stats and I finally have the brain power to dive into some of mine.

For some backstory, I started reading fics in the summer of 2020 and wrote my first fanfic in November 2020.

Total works: 64 Average word count: 6,968 Average hits count: 950 Average Kudos count: 96 Average no. of comment threads:  15 Average no. of Bookmarks: 19

Some musings on works closest to the average 👇

Closest to Average word count (6,979)

We Used To Be Friends (AKA Mean-O-Ween) - love that this fic gets a spot on the board. I loved writing this; it's sweet, it's sexy, it has Baz in a leotard, what more can you want? It's also my first Halloween fic, which isn't something I ever expected to write AND I get to showcase my love for The Dandy Warhols. I feel like in so many ways this fic shows what I love most about my writing: lyrics as inspiration, characters who are complicated but try their best, some sexual tension, a dash of feels, lots of comedic relief, and, of course, a happy ending. Maybe it was the timing on this fic's publication, but I never really felt like it gained traction in the fandom. But I'm still oh-so-proud of it <3

Closest to Average hits count (953)

Tale As Old As Time - oh boy, my first fanfic LOL. Love that it still gets traction, even though I'm terrified of re-reading it; I know it's a bit of a mess (I forgot all about one of the plot lines and gave this just... like... the crackiest ending). Still, I worked a lot with side characters on this fic and I'm glad that's something I still do with my stories. In some ways, I think this may be my funniest fic because I literally did not give a damn about plot. But it's all from memory: Agatha as Simon's horse, Simon's inability to shutthefuckup around Baz, Dev as a clock, Malcolm as a footstool... just. All around Christina-curse-brain-fic.

Closest to Average Kudos count (96)

2 fast 2 vroom: the vroomening - I'm going to point to this fic as the first smut I wrote where I really fucking tried. The first time I re-read the smut and thought, ok yes this still sounds sexy to me. It also introduces one of my favorite personal tropes: Simon as a little shit. And, most importantly, my best unintentional pun because it is a FIC ABOUT RIMMING set in my vroom-vroom-verse and I did that COMPLETELY by accident. To me, this is what I strive for in most of my smut: sex that doesn't take itself too seriously between two people who are down for anything so long as its consensual.

Closest to Average no. of comment threads (15)

Tale As Old As Time clocks in at 15, but I've already covered that so I'm going to talk about my runners-up:

vroom vroom 2: Watford Drift (14) - love highlighting this fic I wrote for @martsonmars because she implanted the idea of Cars role-play and I couldn't get it out of my head. It's also the fic that I think cemented our friendship and that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. However, it suffers from the sophomore slump in terms of reader interaction (falling behind vroom vroom the origin story and 2 fast 2 vroom), which makes me a little sad because I find it infinitely more funny than the first vroom vroom. God... the convoy quote alone! And @mostlymaudlin's inspired "Grr," he grrs line. I feel like this fic pushed the limits of how cracky a story of mine could be while still holding a plot.

Green Is The Color (14) - so it kind of tracks that this fic would come next! This fic was my first venture into writing kink, and I was so, so, so nervous about it (it's possible I'd stumbled into kink in other fics, but this time I tried). The reception for this fic really surprised me, because, while I liked it, I wasn't sure if the weird elements would play together. Also I wrote half of the smut while on the way to a Halloween bonfire which always makes me laugh.

Closest to Average no. of Bookmarks (19)

2 fast 2 vroom: the vroomening clocks in with 19 bookmarks but, again, it's already place on this

Fucking Ruthless (22) - OOPs I literally wrote a whole thing about the WRONG fic! HAHAHA ok well. I actually forget about this fic, clearly. But it's a fun little romp that I also have complicated feelings about because it starts one way and completely flips. I do love the idea of Simon as a tease and how different their needs in sex are, but how they match in so many ways. Oh boy. So embarrassed I wrote the WRONG fic explanation. Sigh...

Tagging @sillyunicorn (maybe you could do this with your songs somehow??) @martsonmars @palimpsessed @mostlymaudlin @tea-brigade & anyone else who wants to look at this I just only tagged people who I know for certain have backlogs of content like me (although like, half of my fics are from the last two months I think)

#ao3 stats #fanfic #behind the writing

[lordjohngreyreadingnook]

Lord John AU Event Master List

A very special thank you to all of the writers, artists, and readers who helped make the Lord John AU Event a success! All good things must come to an end, and the body of Lord John fanworks has grown immensely during this event.

Because Pan is still a geek, here’s an infographic with some of our stats. 

Below the cut, you’ll find a masterlist of all of the art and fics submitted for the event. Most of the fics can be found in the AO3 Collection, and all titles in the master list below are links to the original work posting (AO3 or Tumblr).

Here’s how we did!

Master List Below!

Art Links

“E-girl Claire and her boyfriend John” by @deanwinchesterangelfucker

“Gender-swapped, established relationship John and Jamie” by @deanwinchesterangelfucker

Fic Links

Title: extra credit Author: @iihappydaysii Rating: E Ship: Brian/John AU Category: High School Word Count: 2,532 Summary:  Brian Randall (Jamie Fraser's gay son, of course) needs to get his grade up in his trig class taught by who other than his father's friend, John Grey.

Title: Die for this Kingdom Author: @mistresspandorawritesthings Rating: M Ship: Jamie/John AU Category: Mob Word Count: 45,255 Summary:  All Jamie “Fortnight” Fraser wants is to provide a good, safe life for his family in Chicago. But with tragedies keeping him tangled in his uncle’s deadly schemes and one tenacious—and handsome—police officer determined to bring him in, Fortnight Fraser has a choice to make. Bend to Dougal’s will… or burn it all to the ground.

Title: Remember Hawaii Author: @mistresspandorawritesthings Rating: E Ship: Hector/John AU Category: Semi-Modern Word Count: 5,119 Summary:  The chances of John Grey unexpectedly seeing Hector Dalrymple in a group of Marines was always small but never zero. In the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii is tiny. What are the odds they'd both be there at the same time?

Title: Tasting Sunshine Author: @andhopethatsoon Rating: E Ship: John/Stephan AU Category: Supernatural/Fantasy Word Count: 6,421 Summary:  Every fae and their godmother knows that you DON'T eat the oranges from THOSE trees or you will summon the Summer King who will demand your heart’s desire in return.

Title: At Operator’s Discretion Author: @mistresspandorawritesthings Rating: E Ship: Jamie/John AU Category: Assassins Word Count: 6,210 Summary:  John Grey is an operator specializing in surveillance and termination--that is, spying and murder. He keeps all this a secret from his husband, Alex Malcolm, for Alex's protection. But when a contract comes in for one James Fraser, Grey's life gets all kinds of complicated.

Title: Theatre Masks Author: @faeriesfanficblog Rating: G Ship: Jamie/John AU Category: Modern Word Count: 1,238 Summary:  A modern AU. Jamie Fraser is an autistic playwriter attending a theatre premiere with his husband Lord John Grey.

Title: The Wild Hunt Author: @mistresspandorawritesthings Rating: E Ship: Jamie/John/Tom AU Category: Supernatural/Fantasy Word Count: 8,033 Summary:  The Sorcerer is rumored to be the only being able to influence the Wild Hunt, the same Wild Hunt hell-bent on destroying the world to get to John Grey. But the Sorcerer's aid comes with stipulations.

Title: The Right Tool for the Job Author: @iihappydaysii & @mistresspandorawritesthings Rating: E Ship: Jamie/John AU Category: Modern Word Count: 5,825 Summary:  Jamie makes an embarrassing emergency call after a sexual mishap, and John Grey is the paramedic who shows up to help.

Title: gotta listen when the devil’s calling Author: @narastories Rating: E Ship: BJR/Jamie/John AU Category: Modern Word Count: 6,105 Summary:  John wasn't looking forward to his birthday. Aberdeen was cold and bloody far away. This year they also got a surprise travel companion last minute and John is convinced, it couldn't get any worse. But perhaps, it's not so bad after all.

Title: Off the Only Path I Knew (WIP) Author: @jesuisprest747 Rating: M Ship: Jamie/John AU Category: College/University Word Count: 8,920 Summary: Nothing about University is going as Jamie Fraser planned. He misses his family and friends back home, and the friends he's made at University don't feel quite right. Under pressure from his father, he is studying business instead of his true passion - Classics and Literature. To top it all off, his roommate barely speaks to him. A story about friendship, love, and following your heart.

Title: And Say We’ll Never Part Author: @mistresspandorawritesthings Rating: E Ship: Hector/John AU Category: Semi-Modern Word Count: 6,872 Summary: The war has been over for months, and the Allied forces are slowly demobilizing. With the help of his friend and battle buddy Harry Quarry, newly-discharged John Grey ensures that Hector has a home waiting for him.

Title: Lemon Drop Author: @mistresspandorawritesthings Rating: E Ship: Hal/John/Percy AU Category: Modern Word Count: 6,335 Summary:  Weeks into their mother's engagement, John and Hal still haven't been formally introduced to their soon-to-be step-brother. So Hal suggests they take matters into their own hands. And if it turns out Percy is up for a little fun... all the better.

Title: A Pocketful of Posies Author: @levisqueaks Rating: M Ship: Brian/John (end game); Jamie/John  AU Category: Modern Word Count: 3,483 Summary:  Jamie breaks up with John a mere week before his wedding to a girl John knew nothing about. 20 years later, John finally gets a little bit of closure.

Title: London Calling - Come out of the Cupboard Author: @angstosaur  Rating: E Ship: Claire/Jamie/John AU Category: Semi-modern Word Count: 24,337 Summary:  Setting – Bloomsbury, London, early 1980’s John is a newly qualified solicitor and is working in Holborn. When he was studying law in London his mother insisted he stay in her apartment in Bloomsbury. He agreed as long as he could share with his old school friend, Claire Beauchamp. Claire has just finished at medical school and has a post as a junior doctor at a large London Hospital. They’re just good friends. That’s all. Really. After all, John is gay. Then, Jamie Fraser enters their lives and suddenly all that was taken for granted is called into question.

Title: John Grey’s Anatomy (WIP) Author: @jesuisprest747​ Rating: E Ship: Claire/Jamie/John AU Category: Modern medical Word Count: 25,452 Summary:  When John Grey decided to move to America in early 2020 to escape his past and make a new start at Boston Memorial Hospital, he only wished to work hard at his anesthesiology fellowship and heal his broken heart. Little did he know that he would soon meet two people who would change his life forever, against the background of the world's first global pandemic in over a hundred years.

Title: Blood Bound (WIP) Author: @mistresspandorawritesthings​ Rating: E Ship: Jamie/John; Jenny/Minnie AU Category: Supernatural/fantasy Word Count: 2,862 Summary:  Jamie Fraser grew up with the knowledge of the unholy evil that walks the earth. For more generations than his father could count, Fraser women have been the lone soldiers charged with keeping the evil things at bay. But when one wrong move on a haunted bog in Ireland transforms Jamie into the very thing he was taught to help his sister eradicate, he's forced to reevaluate everything he thought he knew about monsters.

Title: Love is a three-edged sword (WIP) Author: @angstosaur  Rating: M Ship: Claire/Jamie/John AU Category: Authurian Word Count: 74,668 Summary: An Arthurian themed AU featuring characters from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series of books and the Lord John Grey stories. The enduring love triangle of Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot retold with a different twist. Expect canon to be used and abused, mythology to be woven in as desired and for there to be scenes of an explicit nature.T his is neither Outlander nor Arthurian legend as you may know it, or accept it, but it’s a story that called to me many months ago and I shall endeavour to write it. The characters are fictional and I’ve put them in an indeterminate time, so there will be less historical accuracy than my previous long story.

#Lord John AU Bingo Event #Lord John Grey #Lord John #Rec List

[businesstiramisu]

Yes please, I'd like to see the charts (re: shounen fanfic shipping gender dynamics)

Hahah yes a fellow charts nerd! And so politely asked too <3

(re: this post)

Some explanation: these are the category tags denoting what types of relationships appear in a work (more info here). I’ve highlighted the most popular category for each fandom for ease of reading. Authors can select multiple such tags or none, so the percentages won't add up to 100%. I am looking specifically at Archive of Our Own (henceforth AO3), which has distinct trends and biases from other anime fandom spaces (even other fanfiction spaces). I tried to double check for typos but between my own errors and AO3 database weirdness, take these numbers with a grain of salt. Also, I chose fandoms that I knew to be popular and/or that I personally know pretty well, but I can't be sure that they are representative of shounen anime fandoms as a whole.

Also disclaimer: I'm not endorsing or even sharing personal opinions on any of the specific ships mentioned in this post, just observing their existence and popularity on AO3. Please don't start shipping discourse on my post!

More charts and more thoughts below the cut--

Now, the original thesis was that shounen genre constraints give much more emotional weight to relationships between male characters (especially young male characters) so that's what the fandom focuses on interpreting romantically. Quite a common take around here, and indeed the numbers bear it out. There is some complication on shipping the young characters vs. their mentors which is hidden by the chart -- for example I was surprised that the Mob Psycho 100 tag is majority M/M, because that series felt very non-romantic to me (okay that is a personal opinion). However, a lot fic ships Reigen, not Mob and age mates (still plenty of romance written about the boys, but if you filter out Reigen/* tags then what's left is plurality Gen rather than M/M). I was also surprised that Naruto isn't quite majority M/M, given what I've seen of that fandom, but I don't know it well enough to have any theories.

The big outlier (of the ones I initially thought to check) is Fullmetal Alchemist, especially mangahood. I think this is because despite being a very popular shounen adventure, FMA doesn’t follow the formula in the original post -- Ed & Al (though fanfic & really the original story itself focus more on Ed) aren't trying to become The Best At Alchemy, they already are the best, and because of that, they spend way more time around adults than kids their age. (Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised that the most popular gay ship in this fandom is Ed/Roy.) They do have a few friends their age – Winry, Ling, and Mei all feature in the top ten ships on AO3. However, by far the most popular ship is Riza/Roy – perhaps because the story focuses more on the adults? That's probably true compared to BNHA and Haikyuu, and maybe Jujutsu Kaisen, but I'm not convinced on the others. (For the record, MP100 and Haikyuu are the other two on here where the most popular ship isn’t doesn’t include the protagonist, but the difference between the number of fics featuring their top ship and the top main character ship isn’t as big.) Maybe Royai are just that much more interesting? Or maybe I’m reading too much into small amounts of cherry picked data :P

Another more tentative hypothesis, but also I think fan writers respond to developed relationships more than well-written(/fan-favorite) female characters. I checked Jujutsu Kaisen because that story gets a lot of praise for its female characters, but this isn’t reflected in it’s AO3 stats at all. From watching the anime, I thought the female characters (at least the students) got roughly the same amount of screen time and development as their male counterparts, but clearly the AO3 portion of the fandom focuses their shipping energies on the latter (and Gojo). JJK is much shorter than the rest of these (so far) and hasn't had as much time develop relationships between it's main cast, so I wonder (if it chooses to add any romance) whether this will be reflected in the AO3 fandom going forward. This isn't a request for manga spoilers (and the manga tag on ao3 is equally gay) but if you've got a manga-based theories or tidbits to share I don't mind hearing them!

(Also I'd argue that the "better written canon relationships" explains the difference distributions in the FMAB and FMA 2003 tags, but that's definitely getting into subjective opinions and probably no one reading this blog cares that much.)

Speaking of JJK, I called that fandom “very horny” in my earlier tags, and here’s what I meant:

(I’m repurposing this one from an older discussion, so the numbers are a bit out of date. Also the way Jujutsu Kaisen is split into manga and anime with no combined tag was an extra complication but I think I combined them properly, and the following discussion is still focused on the anime tag.)

So, a full quarter of the works in the Jujutsu Kaisen (anime) tag are marked explicit. That’s higher than any of the fandoms I checked last year when I was investigating whether AO3 is mostly porn, including Bandom (that is, musician-focused RPF). My sister pointed out that Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure has almost as high %explicit (though it has slightly more gen & teen rated fics), but honestly that one doesn't surprise me. JJK however seemed more sedate when I watched it. (But also not, like, unusually chaste – I’d say typical shounen levels of horniness, which is why the fandom confuses me.) I don’t have any good theories here tbh – if you guys have theories to share I’d be curious, but keep it respectful, I’m not here to bash ANY fic writers.

Finally, I want to be clear that FMA isn't unique, but it might be unusual:

Here's the dozen-ish "Top Anime" (a measure that combines raw popularity and high ratings) from MyAnimeList.com, excluding a few with less than a hundred works on AO3. Some of them skew even more F/M than FMA! However, these ones don’t follow the shounen formula (well maybe Steins;Gate, I’m much less familiar with that one) and are much less popular on AO3 than FMA. The ones that are as popular or more (Attack on Titan, Hunter x Hunter, arguably Gintama) do follow the typical shounen formula, with the expected AO3 stats. I didn’t make a chart (yet), but shoujo (Fruits Basket, Sailor Moon), or adventure shounen with female protagonists (Soul Eater, Promised Neverland) can also get a lot of F/M fics. Some of these are also pretty popular, but none (that I’ve found) are quite as big as FMA. People have also been suggesting adventure/sports shounen well-written F-M or F-F relationships in the notes to the OP (*waves at Gale*) but they all have nonexistent to tiny fandoms on AO3.

Basically, I think FMA is at something like a Pareto Maximum of “makes people care about canon het relationships” and “makes people want to post fic about it on AO3”. It might not be the only one, but it is somewhat unusual, and also my favorite, so it’s the one I wanted to talk about :P

tl;dr -- Minerva is right (not that anyone doubted that I think!), FMA fandom is unusual, JJK fandom is horny.

This post took a while to write because I kept thinking of more fandoms to check and more questions to investigate, so I might make more charts and more posts. Let me know what you think, what I oversimplified, and if you have any suggestions for further investigation!

#STATS. NUMBER CRUNCHING. YUM. #ao3 #fandom meta #fma #mp100 #jujutsu kaisen #anime #fandom #charts #bnha #naruto #haikyuu #jjba #PMMM #steins;gate #snk #fruits basket #gintama

[vesuvian-american-fics]

better with time. Ch 18

i'm home.

You ride with Reiner to Conny's village, exactly where the titans are coming from. (AO3)

Words: 1,841

Hours earlier within Wall Rose .

Panic shoots through you like ice. Goosebumps raising on your neck and a steady tremble overtakes you. Cold sweat dampens your forehead, your eyes dart between your friends. You can call Sasha and Conny that now, friends. Conversation with Bertholdt and Reiner was a bit strained and forced but interesting nevertheless. Historia and Ymir were damn near strangers to you but that didn’t stop you from turning to them and gauging their reaction to the bad news. They looked stressed of course. You breathe in deeply through your nose and slowly out your mouth.

Calm down. Just breathe.

You can handle this, you had nightmares of this day coming. Of course, they always ended in your painful death, but you’re not alone now like you are in your dreams. These are trained professionals. That also happen to be children much younger than you, even despite being a hundred years their senior. Stuck in your own haze of anxiety and panic you’ve missed everything Nanaba said, all the instructions she just gave.

“Y/N! Stick with me!” Reiner shouts, already headed out the door with the others. You almost trip over your own two feet in your haste to catch up to him. He is as reliable as he claims. You don’t know his history with Bertholdt, but you trust him. Bertholdt is intelligent and his quiet nature is welcome in the sea of young boisterous teens. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, so you’re happy to stick with these two. Even if Bertholdt would rather keep you at arm's length. A twinge of relief calms your jitters, that is until, Conny being distracted bumps into you. You snap your head to him, waiting for an apology before that look of horror much like yours moments ago is mirrored onto his once cheery face.

“My family is to the south... And the titans are... Coming from the South...” He says, large owlish eyes unblinking, mouth slack, unshed tears budding on his lashes. Your heart sinks. You have no words to offer him, you can imagine what he’s thinking and there's no way you can comfort him the way you’d like when you all are headed to board your fleet or horses and head South towards said titans.

You just gave him a sad look, a look he seemed to recognize through his fog by the way his bottom lip trembled in the way they do when you know someone's about to let loose and cry. You were about to speak before you were cut off by Nanaba’s voice cutting over the crowd.

“Get those horses ready, stat!” She barks, before using her gear to shoot up to where Miche is on a rooftop overhead. They looking towards the south. Can they see them from there?! Awkwardly you twiddle your fingers and bounce from one foot to the other, watching helplessly as Reiner saddles up his stallion. He’s quick with his work, he gets on the horse and pulls you up behind him without waiting for you to be ready. With that he snaps the reins and the horse pulls away from the base you all are abandoning.

You wrap your arms tight around his middle, turning your head to get one last glimpse of the safe haven that was just shattered. What will the day bring? Will you survive it with what little skill you possess? You feel like a burden, you miss the you that was locked away in the dungeons for only a moment before steeling your resolve. You can't waste your new life feeling useless. You don't want to be worthless to Hange... To Levi.

I’m not dying before I see them again.

...

Hours later within Wall Sina.

Only minutes after Levi was alerted of the situation in Wall Rose.

“Damn those things. Nothing for weeks and weeks on end and the second-–” Levi cuts himself off with a grunt as he forces open the door to Hange’s makeshift lab here.

“There's titans in Wall Rose. They came this morning and only now are we finally hearing about it, get ready to go...” He says, a cold bite to his tone but it doesn’t faze Hange. It stressed them a bit of course, the rush, and complications of it all. They’re worrying most about you, but at the same time in their gut they know your safe. Or so they hope at least. As a friend, they’d hate to lose you. Fuck the scientific advancements that could come from studying you, now in their heart, Hange just wants to see you safe by sunrise.

“Any word on where Y/N is?” Hange asks, their large brown eye still staring down into a microscope eyeing a piece of the wall at a molecular level. They hear Levi click his tongue in annoyance, probably upset that Hange can read him like a book. He’s worried about you.

“Everyone headed south and after that, if any of them are still alive they’re doing a perimeter of the wall to find the hole.” He informs, grimacing at the prospects of your survival and the rest of the scouts.

“They’ll be okay, those are some of our best out there and Miche is with them of course.” Hange muses, changing out the slide in the microscope with one that holds some of that odd crystal Annie is encased in.

“They haven’t seen Miche since this morning... He was holding off the titans.” Levi mentions, voice flat, an octave deeper than usual. Hange’s lips form into a flat line, and their brows furrow in concern, but they don’t speak. They silence between to two is understood. They hope he’s okay, only time will tell.

“Anyway,” Levi clears his throat to change the grim subject. “I’m going to get the priest ready to come along with us.” Levi says, pulling his coat closer over his shoulders.

“The priest?” Hange asks, confusion lacing their words.

“I want to show him what his silence can bring...” Levi said, and without another word he was stalking down the hallway.

“Be ready in half an hour or we’re leaving without you.” He calls, not bothering himself to wait for an answer, Hange knows well enough that time is ticking.

...

Back in Wall Rose.

The early afternoon sun was torturous on the back of your neck that was exposed to its rays. You could see the beginnings of a sunburn on Reiner’s neck, his cheeks were flushed from the heat, his shirt was starting to feel damp against you. Gross. Miche spoke in hushed tones to Nanaba and the others at the head of the formation. Nanaba looked stressed but she quickly regained her composure and gave Miche a curt nod before he pulled away from her and towards the crowd of titans running now in a full sprint towards you.

The thought of sacrifice made your mouth grow dry. Miche was heading towards the titans to buy everyone some time. You had heard previously, from Hange of course, that he was second only to Levi himself. Being clueless as you are to how things work here; you don’t know if that’s a good enough or not. You just hope that he’ll survive this. He seems strong, and Levi seems even stronger. Something about the way he carries himself make you feel like he could protect you. Protect the scouts, rather... you’re more of a burden to him right now, you think. He wouldn’t waste whatever skills he has to help you, someone who's hardly any help to him, right? You pouted at the idea of being abandoned, it was a recurring though you had recently. Just cooking and cleaning horse stables wasn’t enough to secure your life here. You needed to be more useful to them all, especially now, seeing as Reiner was so kind as to carry your extra weight around and keep you safe. You want to repay he scouts, Erwin, Hange... and repay Levi. You want him to see you as useful. You wanted him to need you around-––

You were taken from your thoughts as Nanaba gave orders to split up. Since you were on the back of Reiner’s horse you had no choice but to go where he wanted, and he wanted to follow Conny to his home town. Conny was grateful, and so was Sasha as she would break away to go back to her home deep in the woods. You prayed she’d make it back to you safe by the end of the day. Somehow, seeing her brown hair grow blurry the farther and farther she rode away gave you anxiety. You didn’t want this to be the last time you saw her.

You too were moving in another direction, pulling around the titans’ flank and heading straight to Conny’s village. You watched as he stumbled over his words, describing how to get to his home, his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed loudly.

“Please! Can I check on my family first?” He pleaded, of course he was allowed to go find his home first. Any sane person would want to run straight to their house with news like this and see if his family was alright. It would be cruel to deny him that right, seeing the way he is now. A shadow of him former, childish self.

You were studying his features as you noticed his large eyes widen just a fraction more. He snapped the reins to rush his horse forward, Reiner and Bertholdt did the same. The village was eerily quiet, the homes were destroyed and your heart dropped so hard it felt as if it had fallen onto the beaten path beneath your feet.

Conny rush to the center of the town while Reiner and Bertholdt follow the sound of Conny’s voice. He’s calling for anyone to come out, his family, a neighbor, hell even a stranger to show themselves. You watch as he pulls his horse quickly around a corner and out of sight.  Reiner nearly crashed into Conny’s horse, not expecting him to just be frozen here, staring up in horror at what you could only assume was his old home.

His childhood home that now was a blonde-haired titan flattening it.

And it might be crazy, but this titan’s eyes, they’re so round and golden they look so much like Conny’s...

“Conny! Get back!” Reiner barks, pulling on Conny’s arm. But he’s ignored, Conny just continues to mumble incoherently.

“Conny...” You say, quieter now, you rub his back to coax him out of whatever haze his mind is in right now.

“It’s... My house. This is my house...” He finally whispers, his eyes glossed over as unshed tears begin to build up in his eyes. His voice is trembling as he fights to hold his composure. Your heart sinks, you swallow thickly as you try to gather your thoughts. You share anxious eye contact with Reiner, sweat is beading at his brow.

“It’s... my house....”

#better with time. #levi ackerman #levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #aot #snk #attack on titan #levi

[thelaithlyworm]

Fic writer review, thank you to @animanightmate  for the tag ♥

how many works do you have on AO3?

TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-THREE!!! (I shall have to do something special for the 300-versary.)

what’s your total AO3 word count?

595,085   Okay. So that’s, uh, a alot.

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Uh, a little over 80? (Those fic exchanges and podfic prompts can really expand a lady’s list, yeah?) I was really big in The Musketeers for a while. The next biggest are Star Trek: Picard, and Nirvana In Fire, both of which a smaller fandoms, packed full of nice people. And I have a fair few of podfics in Good Omens.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

“Sleep of the Just”

“Flying Monkeys”

“Things Darcy Lewis Learned About S.H.I.E.L.D”

“Yellow Ducky Pyjamas”

“Paperwork Ninja”

all of which were written after the first Avengers movie and I was... enthused. MCU fandom is large enough that it drowns out all other stats.

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Generally, yes. I like the feeling of community, it’s polite, (and I don’t nearly get so many that I have to make choices about ‘writing time’ vs. ‘responding to comments’ time).

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Now, technically that would be J’attendrai, which is original fic, written for an exchange, set in WWII France and, uh, I swear the giftee said they liked The Angst.

On the other hand, the end of The Lion and the Serpent, while more bittersweet than straight angst, spends 140,000 words dragging characters we care about through certain unavoidable moments of pain and some of those issues aren’t ever going to go away or be healed or brought to justice, so...

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Sometimes. None of them are crazy, they are all perfectly reasonable given the context, and so I cannot answer the second part of this question.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not that I recall.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Sometimes.

*scratches head*

I tend not to go into detail unless there’s some element of plot or character being worked through. Which means... if the characters involved have an uncomplicatedly happy time then it’s likely to be a Fade to Black. If I write the whole thing out, there’s generally a note of sadness or anxiety mixed in with the fun times.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowedge.

have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep. Every now and then a very courteous Russian asks for permission to translate a shorter work. (It’s very flattering.)

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not a fic, though I have co-written other things.

what’s your all time favorite ship?

I don’t really do OTPs.

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I decline to answer on the grounds I might incriminate myself.

what are your writing strengths?

Short, vivid scenes that convey a lot of sene]se of place and emotional nuance with a few sentences. Also, I think I’m pretty funny.

what are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes! ARGH!! Plotting long forms.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Clarity is important. Something like, “Bonjour!” is likely to be understood by the average audience I write for, but long complicated sentences in other languages aren’t. So... how can I indicate what was just said in the surrounding text? Does it need to be in <other language> or can I paraphrase or use a translation convention? Subtitle? Foot notes? (Foot notes are clunky, and best avoided.)

Conversely, the odds of at least one native speaker (given the eclecticness of fandom) reading it are quite high - and nobody enjoys reading something clunky or ludicrous in their native tongue, which means more work for me trying to get it grammatically accurate.

In other words, I’m not going to use other languages verbatim unless they’re important to the work. I do sometimes try to write English sentences to mirror the grammar and phrasing, though, to get the feel.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

The Hobbit, with a side of lore from The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. I wrote about Belladonna Took before she was a popular self-insert character!

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I Love All My Children Equally.

Thank you for the tag! ❤ I’m tagging @procrastinatorproject, @regionalpancake, @spinifex, @jazzfic and @evilasiangenius though do feel free to ignore this if you don’t want to do it, or answer it anyway, even if I haven’t tagged

#ask meme

[aclosetfan]

21

(ask game) thank you so much for playing the game!! you’re the best (per usual)!!

Helllll yeahhhhh 21 is the DUMBEST STUPIDEST fic I’ve ever made and I lovvveee it 💚💙❤️ it’s the “Vampire Zombie” one i mentioned in the original ask game post 😂😂

So glad someone picked the number!! Background to keep in mind: do yall remember when there was just a shit ton of Vampire fics on FFN?? Idk about ao3, but for newer fandom members this was TOTALLY a trend in the early 2000s on ffn, and I was like why the fuck are all of these here??? And like, why is it constantly a predator-prey relationship between the rrb and ppg??? So I was like wait…okay, but this could be funny and decided to write a story making fun of these super cringey stereotypes.

The story would be a multi fic and I have zero idea how to explain it concisely, so basically below the cut is just me laying it all out for you srsly I’m just bearing my soul to you:

For the girls’ birthday, the Professor tricks out the simulation room they train in to be a VR game room b/c the girls had talked about VR once (and only once), but the Professor thought it was cool and ran with it. The Girls can create a world of their choosing and explore. They admit the idea is pretty cool and eventually start arguing where they should “go” first. Blossom suggests a historical era like the Victorian era/Bubbles suggests something romantic, where she hints at vampires/Buttercup doesn't like any of those ideas, but the vampires reminded her of all of her zombie videogames she plays and she ends up suggesting something like that instead/ To prevent arguing the Professors says he’ll combine all three ideas into one!

[[how does this machine work??? IDK in the spirit of early 2000 fanfics, anything complicated and confusing is only vaguely explained—which has in story effects that drive Blossom INSANE! Idk how it would work technically, but my choices as the writer on what is/is not describe and purposeful grammar mistakes has story implications] [ill explain this more later]]

The Professor loads up the “game,” but something malfunctions. He tells the girls (Buttercup) not to touch anything. She doesn't listen and ends up plugging something into an entirely different device against Blossom & Bubbles protest. The device is that old “time machine” thing the Professor made in one of the OG cartoon (the one where the girls meet the Young Professor). It turns out that whatever she does (again still don't ask me how) fuses the basic concept of the two machines together and creates a device that transports them to a parallel universe that matches the specifications of the “game” they wanted to create.

[[Throughout the story, i want to include little video game gags, like bottomless bags for storage, or random bullets laying around, little things like that. (they've lost their powers/ but BC keeps finding all these random guns/knifes so they're good) I also give the girls the “ability” to read the dialogue I write. So, when I mess up a comma (i.e. Let’s eat Grandma! vs Let’s eat, Grandma!), Blossom will look at the “character” they’re talking to and be like, “WELL, which is IT!?”] [I know it’s stupid, but I think its so fun!]]

So, because of the video game “glitch,” the girls think for the longest time they’re actually IN a video game, but when they “go to sleep” thinking that’ll save the game and they can quit, per Professor’s instruction, they find out they can’t. Cue freak out. After the calm down, Buttercup’s like okay, listen we probably just have to beat the game! Too bad they don’t know what the game’s objective is exactly. They just know they’re dressed in Victorian Era clothes and their “Professor” is the town’s doctor? Their mother died (tragically). It’s all a bit dramatic. They start searching for clues. Eventually, they find out that the Town has a zombie problem (THANKS BUTTERCUP!), and Blossom figures if they can cure that, they beat the game. Unbeknownst to them, they are actually stuck in a stupid vampire love plot there just happens to be zombies. [Like, you can’t have one supernatural creature without another and I wasn’t going to write about werewolves.] No one in town seems to care about the undead problem. Buttercup keeps “leveling up,” Blossom’s on the verge of a breakdown, and then, finally, Bubbles meets Boomer.

Boomer swears up and down Bubbles is his fated mate. Bubbles—who is definitely interested—is like ooo so you’re a vampire, cutie? He’s broody about it. She’s like so do you sparkle in the sun?? (I absolutely love sparkles, she says). He’s like, wut?? She’s like, do you sparkle???? He’s like, uh no, the sun kind of burns my energy tho. She’s like, oh. Okay. I see. You don’t sparkle. Sooo, well, haha, okay you seem like a really really sweet guy with the whole eternal devotion thing, but I don’t think this is really going to work out between us. He’s again like WUT. Boomer gets broken up with because he doesn’t sparkle.

Vampire Butch is flat out scared of Buttercup. Like he fully admits he’s sucked infants dry of their blood; he’s why people should fear the night; he’s not a “good guy”; but BC is a force to be reckoned with. In the Victorian era, I’m guessing they had little to no experience with the modern day “bro” and BC is full on bro. This doesn’t mesh well with Butch’s broody, dark, vampire thing he’s got going on. She’s too vulgar for a Victorian lady, she wears things called “Chacos,” and she has a gun??? Multiple guns. And He. Has. No. Fucking. Idea. What. She. Is. Saying!! No! He will not “dab her up!” No, he “doesn’t lift.” This wasn’t his mysterious, tough (but still a damsel, mind you) mate he met one fateful evening, this was some heathen creature (and this is coming from a vampire), so please, please, please, can he kill her?????  

Blossom’s like I don’t like to be touched and I’m a lesbian, and Brick’s like one) I think I respect you more than the old Blossom; two) the zombies just appeared, stop asking; three) you need to now help us find our mates before their eighteenth birthday or we’re all screwed.

Ready to kick ass and fight sexist stereotypes with their new “bros,” the girls set out with their new objective, hoping beyond hope that once they find the missing girls they’ll be able to go home. The girls find out that their parallel alternatives went disappearing a few days ago, so their “return” had been a relief to the whole town. [[Blossom’s like why did no one question our clothing?!?! Why are there zombies?!?!]] ugh and then, I don’t know what happens :( really. I never really ended it. They girls just constantly shit on the boys being broody vampires and kick zombie ass, like idk what else a gal could want out of a story. I feel like they end up finding the other girls. And I think that I was going to bring HIM into the mix, but it’s still just regular HIM. It turns out that HIM likes jumping dimensions to make the Girls life hell in every lifetime and has cursed the three girls living in the vampire dimension. (“I’ve got a life outside of just you, ya know.” HIM huffed, “What are you three doing here?”) It also turns out that out of all the dimensions, our Girls as Superheroes are the best at beating HIM and saving the day, so he’s extra pissy that they’re ruining his carefully crafted “historical romance vampire soap opera.” Blossom loses her shit because the historical inaccuracies are too high to now ignore, Bubbles is pissed because HIM didn’t make good enough vampires, and Buttercup’s like honestly, not a bad game, ngl. Everyone ignores her.

[[They beat HIM, free the other girls, return home, and BC obsesses over their stats sheets. Back in Vampire land, the boys are like wait a second the relationships we are now stuck in suck.] [The zombies are still not explained]]

#21 #is such a good number #my outlines #my writing #outline ask game #ppg fic outline #this is so stupid but come on I miss early 2000 fanfics #also like i said I don't know how i would even write the gaming glitches #but it would be really fun to figure out #maybe i WILL write this one someday just for the fun of it!! #lemme kno what you think #this is my last one tonight but plz keep on asking lol

[eternalglitch]

Like Father Like Son: Chapter 3

Prologue Arc 1: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

Mikey let out a small sound in the back of his throat, bending down to pick up the odachi by its hilt, hands shaking slightly. His reflection stared back at him, eyes wide and face a paler shade of green than was normal, pale enough that he could actually see his yellow freckles that oh so rarely showed up. “Guys?” he whispered. “Has Leo ever gone out without his weapon?”

Read it HERE on ao3.

Chapter Specific Warnings: no specific ones (please see the general ones listed in the prologue)

Chapter Three: All Green and Blue

“He’s not picking up. Why isn’t he picking up?!” Mikey demanded, looking up from his phone. The youngest couldn’t help but shift from foot to foot, a sort of buzzing energy from his anxiety making him want to move. Why couldn’t his brothers walk faster?

“Yeah, it is odd he wouldn’t answer either of us…” Donnie agreed, squinting at his wrist tech. “I can’t locate his phone’s location, either. It’s either out of battery or broken.”

Finally, Mikey thought with relief, Raph’s pace noticeably quickened, his brothers right on his heels. “Okay… okay. First, we’re gonna backtrack the possible routes to the pizza place, and then we’re going to check any place he could have ended up. Donnie?” The leader of the group glanced at the purple turtle, gaze expectant.

“On it, I’ll hack any nearby cameras and run a scanner through social media looking for buzzwords,” the technological prodigy replied, typing quickly. “I’ll compile a list of people that might’ve gone after him as well.”

“People that went after him?” Mikey asked, now even more nervous, his voice rising a pitch or two until it cracked completely. “You think the foot clan or Big Mama is behind this? What if they’ve hurt him?” Mikey reached out and clung to Donnie’s elbow, staring over at Donnie’s screen as stats whizzed by. The other turtle tolerated it, but didn’t stop typing to pat his shell or head. That was a sign things really were serious. “What if he’s all alone and scared or… or I don’t know! I can’t even begin to picture him being scared!”

“Again, Michael, I’m sure it’s really nothing, we’re just being thorough—“ Donnie finally started to reassure him, but his eyes never moved from the screen until a loud clatter rang out. Donnie froze, Mikey almost stumbling as he was also pulled to a sudden stop. They looked down.

Leo’s sword was lying, innocently forgotten, all alone on the sewer floor.

Mikey let out a small sound in the back of his throat, bending down to pick up the Odachi by its hilt, hands shaking slightly. His reflection stared back at him, eyes wide and face a paler shade of green than was normal, pale enough that he could actually see his yellow freckles that oh so rarely showed up. “Guys?” he whispered. “Has Leo ever gone out without his weapon?”

“I’m sure there’s a reason… or… or an explanation,” Donnie grasped at, but after he glanced at Raph, who shot him a panicked look, Donnie bowed his head, his eyes flicking back and forth as he thought.  

It was Raph who spoke next, his voice low and urgent. “If something did go down– someone must’ve been inside of the sewers– I’m not sure Leo even made it outside for the pizzas in the first place.” The eldest scratched his head, his expression slowly darkening.

“So they came here purposefully looking for us and somehow we didn't even notice them brothernap Leo from right here?” Mikey looked around at the ground, eyes flicking up and down the sewer walls like the name of the culprit would be left behind with a clean, neat note. He needed someone to tell him flat out that it was going to be okay, he realized weakly, hugging the sword close. Someone to crack a bad joke about the situation, or know what to say. He needed… he needed his brother.

“I’ll call April,” Raph said, phone already out. He already had her number pulled up as well, finger hovering over the green button to call. “We’ll need eyes in every possible place, including checking to see if this was on Leo’s way to or from the pizza place.”

“I now have generated the list of most likely suspects,” Donnie added, pulling up a screen that had a numbered list of the names of their many yokai nemeses. At the top of the list were the various yokai that constantly fought with them on the regular, and the list continued down until it ended with a Warren Stone, although Donnie must have added him just to be safe; in reality, Mikey barely remembered the guy. “It looks like the first name my algorithm came up with is those mutant crabmen we came across recently- apparently they sometimes linger in this area.”

Raph nodded, pulling his phone away from his tympanum and giving them a thumbs up. “April’s in,” he confirmed. The way he said it was heavy; the air shifted, and the panic is forced down until Mikey only has to concentrate on being efficient and focused. “Now, Mad Dogs; let’s move.”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The floor framed between Leo’s hands was swimming; sweat dripped down and splattered onto the negative space that the floor was made up of, and he was dimly aware that his arms shook under the pressure of holding himself up. Get up, he told himself. Get up, you have to do something. Anything. Just get up, Leonardo.

“Get up,” Draxum echoed his sentiment, voice expectant.

The repeat was like a slap to the face; Leo could only lift his chin to stare at him, a bitter laugh being swallowed before it escaped his lips. Sure, he knew he needed to do that, but it seemed a bit ridiculous for the guy with the metaphorical big red button to ask him to as well. He had a concussion and had just been fried; what did Draxum expect him to do-

The collar let out a shrill buzzer sound, and Leo only had a split second to think what? before the collar lit up for a third time. His arms gave out and he hit the ground hard, and even though he knew what would happen if he screamed, he couldn’t help but do so anyways. The result was exactly as expected. His mouth felt dry.

“Don’t you think the shock’s intensity is too high, Boss?” one of the gargoyles asked from above him. Leo couldn’t see which one; stars danced in front of his hazy vision. “He looks kinda dead after just four zaps.”

“Yeah. And it’s probably going to take a lot of these shocks for it to sink in,” the other agreed. “He keeps making it worse.”

Draxum scoffed, and Leo flinched slightly at the sound, hands weakly rising to shield his head from any more attacks. “Well. I just set it to what he should be strong enough to take. It’s his own fault for being weak. He’s lucky; I don’t have the advanced setting on yet.”

Leo felt Draxum’s nails dig into his bicep as the yokai reached down and hauled him up to his feet, Leo swaying as he tried to lean away from the yokai. “Stay still,” Draxum ordered, and Leo bit down hard enough on his inner cheek he tasted copper, barely accomplishing the feat.

Draxum circled him, hands clasped behind his back. Leo’s head felt foggy, and he didn’t even bother watching Draxum; his head kept drooping forwards, like when he was watching Donnie’s favorite Jupiter Jim movie without Raph around to liven things up. Everything hurt so badly. His hands wrapped around himself and Leo shrunk a bit under Draxum’s assessment.

“You’re slower to catch on than I would have thought,” Draxum said after a moment. “But let me spell it out now, just for the sake of ‘fairness,’” he added with his fingers punctuating the last word with air quotes. “The collar has three things that you will be shocked for. Any vocalizations, or any failure to follow my exact orders as well as… well. I could always just order it to go off.” Leo flinched, his fists tightening. Was Draxum enjoying this? April had taught them the meaning of the word sadistic at one point, after their first prank day on her where no one had told her it was coming. And that was the only word Leo could think of at the moment when he glanced up and into Draxum’s eyes.

This was sadistic.

“It was quite the impressive invention, really,” he continued. “Somehow a simple shock collar had a complicated A.I. that understood the situation at hand enough to correct situational humor. Not to mention it didn’t even need to feel the vocal chords vibrating; it could be programmed to listen for a certain individual’s voice and go off regardless of if it was being worn or not. A bit overkill, if you ask me, but who am I to judge?” A smug smile crossed his lips. “Your brother must have felt quite strongly about this to have put so much work into fixing your flaws.”

He didn’t know anything, Leo told himself. Donnie was just like that, he had made his dorky and kind of insensitive gifts for everyone, he hadn’t been trying to single Leo out or anything. Of course not. Even if Mikey and Raph’s inventions hadn’t caused them any harm at all when they used them, just tried to prematurely stop them from doing it. Even if Leo and Donnie were the main two that squabbled, he never would have… Leo shook his head, one hand slowly rising to press against his forehead.

He couldn’t think like this, he needed to bounce his ideas off of someone for it to be useful. Had Dad ever taught him what to do in a situation like this? A quick scan through memories of Splinter handing him his first pair of swords, of noodle fights and throwing stars, and the only thing Leo could come up with was the advice “stay with your brothers. You will protect all of them, and they in turn will all protect you. And if you get separated, stay in one spot until we can find you.”

Yeah, great, but that advice had been from when Leo was seven. When Splinter had first let them wander a bit farther into the sewers to explore with just the four of them. This wasn’t getting lost in the sewers, this was- this was something more. He was starting to have to face the knowledge that this was something serious, even.

“Pay attention when I am speaking!” Draxum suddenly snapped, and Leo went rigid when the collar let out a low, almost inaudible chirp, his eyes darting down to where he could see the blue rim of the machine before back up to Draxum. The collar didn’t otherwise react, though, but Leo kept still, wondering when the proverbial shoe would drop. “How will I teach you anything if you keep zoning out?”

“It miiiiiight be the concussion,” Muninn offered, one hand on his chin. “We’ve seen a few guys get hit before, Boss, and they also had that spacey look to them.”

Draxum threw up his hands. “Well, he should learn to deal with that. Injuries are something to be powered through.” The yokai took a deep breath, and the two gargoyles dipped as his shoulders slowly became less tense. “But. Very well. Before I forget, a few rules,” he said, voice suddenly back to the flavor of ‘calm with an undertone of smugness.’ AKA the most punchable tone of voice Leo had ever heard. “No trying to escape from me.” The collar let out a soft beep and Leo winced. “No trying to take the collar off.” Another wince. “And, other than attacking, absolutely no contact with any other turtles.” What? That wasn’t- he couldn’t just do that. Leo opened his mouth, keen to argue, but Draxum just raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms and waiting.

On second thought, Leo had nothing to say. His hands curled into tight fists.

“Excellent. And now that I have…” Draxum trailed off, pausing. He fixed Leonardo with a puzzled gaze. He leaned closer to Muninn, holding up one hand to loudly whisper to the gargoyle. “What was this one called, again?”

Muninn blinked, turning and glancing at Huginn, who shrugged back at him. “Uh… ha, wow, Boss, wait, you don’t know?” The gargoyle asked, chuckling nervously. “Didn’t you hand pick him, though?”

Draxum’s eyes widened, slightly flustered. “No! Well, yes. But…” All three villains turned and stared at Leo, who crossed his arms as he stared back at them, lifting his chin slightly in a challenge. This guy had been after them long enough to at least know their nicknames, he thought, somehow still finding it within him to be annoyed.

“Wasn’t it… Larry or… Lawrence?” Huginn weakly offered up, but Draxum rested his chin in one hand, thinking.

“No, it wasn’t that. What was it again…” Draxum trailed off, frowning.

Muninn suddenly perked up. “Hey, wait, why don't we ask him? Hey, turtle! What’s your name?” he yelled, and Leo felt one of his eyes twitch. He glanced down at his shock collar, and both gargoyles made little ‘oooooh’ sounds of understanding.

“That’s right, it was Green!” Draxum suddenly said, hitting his fist into the palm of his other hand. He smiled, brushing some of his hair over his shoulder. “I remember now, how silly of me to have forgotten.”

“What? But- but he’s the one wearing blue.” Huginn darted around Leo, pulling at the bandana tails behind his head. It was a light touch, but even just that made Leo sway, his arms having to slightly go forwards as he forced himself to stay standing. He didn’t know if he would be shocked again if he fell, but from the way black dots swam in Leo’s vision, he couldn’t afford to risk it. “I don’t know, Boss, I think his name would be Blue if he’s named after a color.”

“Nonsense, I’m sure of it,” Draxum declared as Leo weakly shooed the gargoyle away from him with one hand. “It was definitely Green. Besides, that’s but a small detail. I could call him whatever I wanted, really. More importantly, we need to decide how to go about making him my ideal warrior before any of the others show up.”

Leo flinched, one hand absently reaching up to rub at the collar. The skin underneath it already felt raw and uncomfortable; he wondered if it was going to leave scars.

He then wondered if he’d ever be able to even see if it had.

“Ooh, why don’t we inject him with some more ooze?” Muninn suggested, clasping both hands together excitedly, wings fluttering as he hopped slightly into the air. “That seems to make everything better! Think of the possibilities: spikes, a tail, and our personal favorite—”

“Fire-breathing!” The two gargoyles sung at the exact same moment.

“A tempting idea, but no,” Draxum said, shaking his head. “Physically speaking, his body is as good as I had hoped for, it’s the rest of it that’s the issue. Respect and obedience should come naturally with the aid of that collar, but as for training techniques…” Draxum circled Leo yet again; was he trying to make him dizzy enough to fall over? “With the level of sheer incompetence that I’ve witnessed, it would take far too long for me to train him myself from scratch. And I don't trust you two to be in charge of it, either…”

“Ouch, Boss,” Muninn said, one hand over his heart. “That really hurts.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Huginn flapped harder, shooting over to Draxum. “We actually know exactly how to do this! I mean, not to flex or anything, but Muninn and I did do our fair share of training in school.”

“Uh,” Muninn stammered, looking lost, but a quick elbow from Huginn and he blinked and also smiled at Draxum. “Yeah, absolutely. So…” he trailed off, shooting his friend a nervous glance.

“What faster way to train someone than to just give them a bunch of experience! You know, the good ole ‘learn as you do’ method!”  Huginn finished with a flourish.

“Hmm, you do have a point,” Draxum considered. He stopped walking. “Surprisingly.”

“Why thank you,” Huginn trilled, bowing.

Draxum’s gaze went back onto Leo, who couldn’t help but shrink away, hands nervously reaching up to hold onto the top of his plastron. “And that gives me the perfect idea…”

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“Draxum!” Raph bellowed, kicking open the door, Mikey and Donnie flanking him on either side. The turtle huffed, glancing around the lab as he searched for his target.

The third name on Donnie’s list had to be it, right? Surely. It had taken them far too long to hunt down the Sando Brothers and force them to tell them anything, and the next yokai they had tried had had similar results. April hadn’t found anything, either, but the pizzas had been paid for so… so…

Ugh! Raph couldn’t put these pieces together right now. He just needed to find his younger brother and save him from whatever mess he had found himself in this time.

There was the sound of slow clapping, and the sheep yokai appeared from around the column of ooze, one gargoyle perched on his right shoulder. “Well, well,” he greeted them, a smile on his face. “It’s quite rare for you turtles to come and seek me out. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Cut the cr—“ Donnie started to say, but Mikey beat him to it, bounding in front of his brothers. Raph almost reached out to pull him back, but he stopped himself; he understood Mikey’s point of view enough that he had also barged in, weapons ready to go.

“Where’s our brother, you creep?” Mikey demanded, his weapon already spinning in his hands.

“Ah,” the yokai replied, blinking at them. The gargoyle snickered softly, and Draxum glanced at it, some message passing between the two of them. “I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The way he said it- it was casual. Too casual. That was suspicious, right? Raph couldn’t possibly be the only one to think so. “You’re lying,” he snarled. “What did you do with Leo?”

The gargoyle perked up, about to say something, but Draxum covered it with one of his hands. “Really,” he said, sounding exasperated. “Whatever you silly children are accusing me of, I don’t have any involvement. Search my lab, if you must, but I’m in the middle of some very important experiments. I’d really rather not fight today; but I will, if you insist. That is,” and the yokai sneered at them, eyes flashing. “If you have that kind of time to waste. Whatever you’re up to, it sounds very... urgent.”

(Chapter Four –>) 

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