FanFiction

Drew #fanart of a schrödinger's PMD fancomic The Stars Shrine Bright~

#fanfiction

I usually find the main character to be the least interesting. This isn't always, but it's often.

Part of it is the sense that sometimes protagonists rest too much on BEING protagonists to be interesting. Everyone sort of falls all over them and they're special just because and... It feels flat to me.

So most of the fic I write/read centers on secondary protagonist or side characters to varying degrees.

What about you all?

That vibe when your non-popular character focused fic (that you barely expected anyone to read) gets a comment! XD #fanfiction #fe3H

I might expand on a short Fire Emblem fic I wrote in a rush last weekend. I'm in the mood for some deep friendship fic and I have some inspiration.

What about all of you?

Posting what we write on websites dedicated to writing seems obvious, but do you post your fic on websites that are not dedicated to writing, like social medias? Or do you keep the full fic on its fic site but still post about it elsewhere?

I personally have trouble posting about my writing, it always feels like it's not the right place for that. Like all the people interested in reading fanfic are already checking fanfic sites and it would just be annoying to most users of other sites to see posts about it. And while I'm sure part of it is just personal history with social medias, I'm unsure how much of it has basis in reality, because it's true that I almost never see fanfic-related posts where I lurk.

What's your opinion on that?

It is November? Are we writing? Drawing? Reading?

For me, NaNo has started, but I'm also busy with a lot of other things which means I'm not doing as much writing until the latter half of the month. So this weekend will have a little writing, but unfortunately not a lot of other fandom things.

What about everyone else?

Do you have a beta read your fics before you publish them? Or do you prefer to do your own checking & hope that's good enough?

Personally, I'm not keen on the idea of having a beta reader (no shade to any who do). I re-read (& sometimes re-write) my chapters A LOT.
And when I'm happy with them, I give it a few days & re-read them again for SPAG issues or inconsistencies.
And then when I've posted them, I re-read them again because my brain won't let me in case they magically changed between pasting & posting. (I do the same with emails & the like. 🤷‍♀️)
After all that, having someone else re-read it yet again seems kind of redundant.

What's up with this weekend, folks? I'm doing the usual. I have a bit of a buffer, but I want to pad it even further if I can in preparation for some upcoming busy times.

Writing is where it is at for me this weekend. Whenever I have spoons and a spare moment, that is. How about all of you?

Thinking that I wouldn't mind writing a trashy Christmas romance this year but acknowledging that I won't have time for it, only to find that I wrote 80% of one last year that I have a cute little idea for the ending of now. 🥳

#fanfiction

Every fanfic writer I know has one.

I have a sequel to a fic from forever ago that I just...haven't gotten to writing. I've started and stopped at least three times! I don't know why it's been such a struggle.

What about you?

For stories with an antagonist, what do you like to see? What antagonists, canon or fanfic, do you enjoy?

For example, I tend to like the fanon interpretations of Ganondorf more than how he is in canon. Considering how canon doesn't tend to dive into his character too much beyond "power". Whether fans write Ganondorf as an antagonist in reform or still straight up "evil", they still add in nuance about what it is like to be one of the rare male Gerudo or some awareness of the eternal cycle of the Triforce.

On the other end of the spectrum is Alex, from the original Golden Sun duology. Something about not knowing him very well stuck out to me. Despite his motivations being very simple, how he interacted with the protagonists of the game was interesting. You never faced him directly. He was an instigator for many things and probably wanted to be the most important person in the story. But he wasn't.

Does anyone read fics that are centred around OCs at the expense of canon characters? Like a story about an OCxOC pairing where the canon characters are only on the side or background to the core pairing?

I'm trying to figure out if it's worth posting a story I have an idea for (that won't get out of my head & demands that I write it next).

What is something you have researched lately for your fic(s)? Or something you learnt a long time ago for one which you still find fascinating?

Recently I've been learning a lot more about the Japanese school system. Some of which I learnt once, but had forgotten, and others which I never knew.

One fact I forgot was how you cannot be held back a grade. The social stigmatization from it is considered more damaging than the fact someone's grades might show they don't understand anything going on in class.

One I learnt which I did not know at all was how the punishment of standing out in the hallway with buckets of water was phased out in the 80s, along with other physical punishments to students. This explains why you might see it happen in older anime, but not in any newer ones.

I enjoy all of the things I learn through my desire to write. How about you?

I'd been on various other kicks for a while, but this week Fire Emblem: Three Houses pulled me right back down the fan-fiction rabbit hole. I'm not even sure what kicked it off.

There are a few series that I find myself coming back to. What are yours?

Woo! A productive weekend that means I have multiple chapters lined up to post while I'm traveling over the coming weeks. 🥳 For once, not being able to write in the regular order may have worked out for me as I just had to sort out one link in the chain in order to expand my buffer.
It has also made me realise that I probably only have half a dozen chapters left to write for this story before I'm done. So double-woo!, I guess! Or not, if my inspiration abandons me after that.

#fanfiction

I do not mean SPAG issues or things you consider bad writing/storytelling. What is something which is not actually a problem that you just don't enjoy to the point where you would drop a fic you were enjoying?

I was considering this, because if a premise interested me in the first place, the biggest reasons I could think to ever drop it would be too many grammar issues or characters suddenly feeling OOC (in my opinion).

Outside of those or untagged triggers though... I considered how I might actually stop reading a story that goes by too fast and doesn't let the reader explore characters' reactions to things. Even if the characters still act like you would expect them too afterward. I like diving into characters' feelings and motivations too much.

Or are you like me and (for the most part) don't?

I have one community which is on Discord I take part in on occasion. It's nice with the occasional fandom event, like my upcoming rarepair week. Yet I don't have a lot of places where I can talk about my preferences for my fandoms outside of the comments on my fics.

One of my favorite tricks when I have been staring at a passage I'm not happy with for too long is to open a separate word document and then trying to capture the idea without limiting myself to just the small string of words I initially set down.

(Once the words are in front of me I find myself trying to rearrange them as I don't have a much broader vocabulary to choose from.)

Another is to have a scratchpad where I can set aside entire paragraphs or chunks I'm not sure of, but not ready to part with just yet. Some of them become different stories or can be used for later.

Welcome one and all to another corner of the internet devoted to fanfiction, /m/fanfiction!

Whether you are a reader, a writer, or both, you are welcome here. This is a place to talk about what you are reading, working on, the fandoms you like, and the craft of writing.

The rules:

1. Be nice. Disagreements are fine, being mean is not. The usual Golden Rule.
2. Only link to your own work if someone asks you directly or, in a post requesting for certain types of work, the OP specifies self-promo is okay.
3. You can complain about things you don't like to find in your work and others, but no posting links to direct people toward something you don't like. We are not a mob.
4. As this is fanfiction, don't bring up getting paid for the hobby.
5. Posts to share passages or a review exchange are great! Specify these in the title of the thread, as well as whether concrit is or is not allowed.
6. Make sure to check the NSFW box for any adult topics. They are allowed here, but this magazine is for all ages!
7. When discussing specific fandom terms, try to be as inclusive as possible! This includes explaining or linking to an explanation of tropes some people might not be as familiar with the name of, or writing out the full name of your fandom before you use any abbreviations.

Update July 15th 2023: These rules are to be applied to the Threads section of this magazine. The Microblog section automatically pulls inposts with #fanfiction. Only rules one and three will be enforced there. So look and click on anything there at your own risk!

I'll admit I don't know what I'm doing yet, but I'll try my best. Please introduce yourself here however you best see fit!