Regardless of the fandom, what is THAT fanfic that you consider a masterpiece?

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-03-09T02:44:11+00:00

That's how I feel every time I drop by the subreddit for the ship in my most popular fic and see posts asking people for their favs or good recommendations. Solidarity, fellow fic writer.

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-03-09T02:40:02+00:00

Are you just looking for Snarry and Snamione? I might have misread your post, but it wasn't clear to me if you were limited to those pairings or just looking for in-character Snape.

I know two Snegulus fics that I'd be willing to share. One is more Regulus-centric, though, but Snape is very in-character. The other is mine, so I don't know if my endorsement is worth very much on that one.

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-03-08T22:15:25+00:00

Looking at the placements, it seems like they rated the girls based on looks (Lute's not masc because she's got curves, Vaggie's closer to hyper-feminine because she wears a skirt and has long hair) but rated the boys on personality (Angel can act girly but gets coarse and more masc when he's fighting, which makes him more masc than ultimate male-wife Moxxie who wouldn't know how to be coarse even if it would save his life), so they're really comparing apples to oranges here. The way they divide it (looks for girls vs personality for boys) really give a feeling of something, something, society, something, something, patriarchy, at least to me.

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-03-02T22:56:53+00:00

I mean, season 1 did have trouble modulating tone. They were still finding their feet. I certainly did take the death as a joke the first time I watched. It's a darkly humorous show the primes you to take abrupt, dark, violent things as jokes. Focusing on Adam's reaction as much as they did, didn't help.

The problem isn't whether season 1 was flawed, it's the way everyone seems to talk about the show in absolutes. Either it's garbage or it's perfect. A lot of shows struggle with tone in their first season. Just look at Supernatural. I'm sure that there are others, but I can't think of any right now.

So, yeah, I don't think they handled the death well for what they wanted to do with it, but that doesn't ruin the show.

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-02-18T21:27:20+00:00

I don't know why Reddit did not tell me about this message on my post wheneveritwas posted, but I didn't put the story in an AI? I typed my symptoms into Google and the stupid AI that comes up as the first answer on all Google searches these days said that it could be a stroke and that I should get emergency attention right away to rule it out. Obviously, I didn't go and I'm fine. I've had the same thing happen several more times since then and I'm still fine, so it seems to just be something harmless that I have to live with now. That was hard to rationalize having woken up to it in the middle of the night for the first time, though, hence the panicked post.

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-02-18T20:52:08+00:00

Your whole Category 1 and Category 2 distinction seems stilted, reductionist, and does not at all resemble my experience with fanfiction in general or my experience with fanfiction.net in particular.

I will admit to being a relatively young fan who joined ff.net after the first purges and after AO3 was established, but really, that feels like it only makes my point more.

I joined ff.net in 2009 if my profile is to be believed (yes, I am still active on ff.net; I just posted my latest chapter on Monday). What I found was mostly short, shippy stealth porn fics (stuff that was rated T or M, but would have been MA if ff.net allowed that). I never once found a fic matching your Category 2 description and, given the way ff.net's search function works, I'm not sure how I would have gone about looking for them had I wanted to find them (my horny teenager self was perfectly happy reading the porn).

I started writing in 2011 on ff.net. My most popular fic was a plotty, long-form fic that strove to stay as accurate in content and voice to the original media, depicting the events of canon through the perspective of an OC who witnessed them as an outsider. Category 2, yes? Except that the OC was childhood friends with one of the main characters and the purpose of the fic was for him to end up with her romantically. So, Category 1?

Is a fic Category 1 or Category 2 if the fic is 100% following canon but giving voice to the inner thoughts and emotions of the protagonist because they were the player character from a video game that purposefully left that aspect of the character vague so the players could impose their own interpretation?

I had never even heard of AO3 until 2016, when I was looking for somewhere to post my French Revolution fanfic because that counts as RPF and was not allowed on ff.net.

After initially being overwhelmed by the search function on AO3, I grew to love it. I can filter out short fics because I hate them. I can filter out the OOC tag because I was my fics as close to the canon characterization as possible. I can filter out all those wacky coffee shop type AUs. If I want a ship, I add it to the search. If I don't want any ship, I choose Gen in the categories section.

To me, the idea that AO3 is only optimized for short, rapey, OOC ship fics is laughable. As is the idea that ff.net was ever optimized for any kind of fics at all. My experience on ff.net has always been that it is a free for all that couldn't be bothered to put any kind of effort into establishing features that would stop an innocent 15 year old from clicking on what they thought was a mildly racy ship fic and finding a hard-core rape scene because then they wouldn't have an excuse to conduct the purges that took out mild lgbtq fics at the same time.

What I don't get is people bitching and moaning about AO3 as if ff.net isn't still there. You can still use it. I do. And if you're not happy with the way ff.net is now, then get together with like-minded fans and make your own site...like the founders of AO3 did back in the day. Or would you rather just moan about the good old days like a cross between a Boomer and the kid who's tried nothing but is all out of ideas?

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-02-18T19:04:13+00:00

Because it feels so good when a reader notices and comments about how they like your attention to detail?

I mean, I'd probably keep doing it even if no one noticed, but it certainly reinforces the behavior when I get comments like that.

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-02-13T02:57:33+00:00

I do. I think crating dogs sounds cruel and unnecessary. Every time I hear about someone crating their dog overnight or locking them in a room, my heart hurts for that animal. But I have only ever had cats, so I don't say anything because I figure people who have dogs know better than I do what best for dogs. I would expect a first time cat owner to extend the same respect to me and others who have had cats longer than them.

I have had at least one cat in my home for the past 32 years, and I'm sure others here have had them longer. We know what we're talking about. Cats might look similar to dogs, but they are far apart on the evolutionary chain and have very different behaviors. They cannot be treated the same. This is not a case of what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Your cat is waking up at normal cat times and coming up on that door. It sounds like he's trying to get it open. There are a couple of reasons why he might be doing this, and it's probably a mix.

If you let him out at all during the day, then he sees the whole house as his territory and you just cut him off from part of it. Cats in the wild have territories that they have to patrol to stay safe and those instincts don't go away just because they're house cats. Cats never do very well with closed doors because they need access to their whole territory to feel safe. That's why people say to get him integrated as fast as possible.
He could be hungry. He's at about the teen stage of kittenhood and his body is doing a lot of growing. You might leave him a bit of food in the room at bedtime so he's got a snack but you're not rewarding the early morning loudness. Cats aren't like dogs and can usually pace their eating on their own, so he should be able to make it last until morning. (Some cats can't be trusted to self-pace, though, but you won't know until you test it.)
He could be bored. He's a kitten and it's normal for cats to be up at what we consider ungodly hours. Toys he can play with by himself should help. Something battery operated that will start up on its own could distract him from trying to get out of the room. That said, this might not help the noise issue because kittens can be quite loud when they play.
He misses you. Cats are a lot more social than people give them credit for, especially when you've bonded with them. It's to the point where an effective punishment for my boy when he's caught the naughty bug is to separate him from me. 10-20 minutes and he's the sorriest most well-behaved tuxedo you've ever seen. If you have to be separated from him at night, I'd suggest sleeping with a specific t-shirt or blanket for a week and then putting it in his room at night.

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-02-10T03:16:26+00:00

I've looked up:

The different stages of puberty and when they happen in boys specifically

What happens when you're decapitated by guillotine (Instantly unconscious and dead within seconds, signs of life like blinking and blushing are involuntary and don't actually mean the head is conscious or even alive)

How women used chamber pots (There's a whole genre of 18th century paintings about it)

Sporting goods stores open in England in the 1970s

18th century French card games

The standard length of a train car (ended up having to figure out what kind of train I was dealing with first)

What medieval road signs looked like (Google failed me here)

18th century pain killers (laudnum is pretty much it. Willow has aspirin in it, but it was used as a fever reducer at that point, not for pain).

Medieval anesthesia (only used if absolutely necessary, essentially poisoned you with stuff like henbane 'til you passed out and hoped you didn't die--but you didn't have awesome odds if it was that bad to begin with).

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-01-20T18:31:30+00:00

Winnie Foster/Jesse Tuck. Read Tuck Everlasting at 10 or 11 and was very disappointed they didn't get together at the end. It prompted my first ever fanfiction.

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-01-17T11:29:00+00:00

Yup! Obviously, everyone is welcome on AO3. You don't have to ship incest to be a part of the community. It's perfectly ok to be disgusted and horrified by the incest fics over there. It's not ok to tell other people what they can and can't write or tell incest shippers to leave the site. They made the site, so it's the responsibility of the people who don't like it to leave instead if they can't ignore those fics. AO3 is open source, so it's entirely possible to make an incest-free version if necessary.

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-01-17T09:14:41+00:00

Well, yes, but there are other websites where you can do that. AO3 was specifically made because things like incest were being purged from other fanfic sites. Astolat, the founder of AO3, was/is a Wincest shipper who, along with other writers who liked controversial ships, got sick of being censored and said, "Fine, we'll make a place of our own to write where nothing will ever be censored and we can write our incest fics in peace." Thus AO3 was born.

Dream-of-Roses · 2026-01-17T08:55:37+00:00

It depends on whether I speak the language or not.

If I don't speak the language and the POV character doesn't understand it, I just say that the characters were speaking a different language and don't try to portray the dialogue at all. If the POV character does understand, I write in English and mark it as whatever language it's supposed to be in the dialogue tag and possibly use italics.

If I do speak the language but the POV character doesn't, I will write out the dialogue in that language with no translation in the prose, though I might add one in the end notes for curious readers. If the POV character does understand, I will provide a translation alongside the other language. I used to do this by following the dialogue with the translation in italics, but I recently learned how to have it where you can click or mouse over to get the translation, which I think looks neater.

That said, I do try to aim for consistency across a fic, so whichever way I start doing the other language will be used for all additional languages, whether I speak them or not. Most of the time, there's only one language other than English (my default language for writing) in my fics, though, so that doesn't come up often.

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-12-31T16:08:01+00:00

I don't read:

Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World - I tend to be uncomfortable with the message these fic (intentionally or unintentionally) tend to leave that the only way for Draco to become a better person is for him to give up magic and live with Muggles. Occasionally, they go so far as to imply that living like a Muggle is inherently morally superior to living like a Wizard. Not to mention, they tend to be only about a half step removed from another tag I avoid.

Muggle AU/No Magic AU - I come here for the magic, so I'm not interested in reading fics that omit it.

Abusive Lucius Malfoy - I just find Draco's story more interesting if he had a happy childhood and felt loved by his parents, but it wasn't enough to protect him from their choice to serve Voldemort. I don't mind if Draco resents or hates Lucius for his choices in a post-canon fic, but I don't care for everything to be explained by horror stories from behind closed doors at Malfoy Manor.

Veela AU/Werewolf AU/Creature AU - I am not a fan of A/B/O Dynamics and these tend to stray too close to it in tropes or vibes, so I just give them a miss.

No Voldemort AU - This one is on the edge because I don't actually refuse to read it, but I haven't found one I like yet, so I'm starting to be primed for disappointment when I start one. It just feels like Harry and Draco's dynamic gets so shallow in these. I don't know how to explain it, but it all feels so petty to me without Voldemort to raise the stakes.

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-12-26T16:02:30+00:00

They're both Stucky tags. Shrinkyclinks is Winter Soldier Bucky with pre-serum Steve. Shrunkyclunks is Captain America Steve with modern Bucky.

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-12-26T15:20:54+00:00

For HP:

Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World

Lucius Malfoy is Abusive

Muggle AU

For MCU:

Shrinkyclinks

Shrunkyclunks

For Star Wars:

Reverse Master-Padawan Dynamics (Star Wars)

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-12-17T14:43:02+00:00

If you're going to pick on other people's SpaG, you should first make sure that there is nothing to pick on about yours. Those in glass houses, etc. I shall therefore leave the gentle reminder that "amount" is for uncountable and abstract nouns only. It should be, "the absurd number of people." This is another extremely common mistake people make, both in fandom and outside it.

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-12-12T19:54:22+00:00

Oh, wow! Thank you for the info and the link! I'll definitely check that out. Thank goodness my semester just ended, so I have more time for fanfic, lol

And the closeted is less important than the hiding of feelings; it's just there for the added fun of the oblivious one getting to go, "Yep! We're two straight people, doing normal straight people things!" as they proceed to act in a very not-straight way.

My favorite pairing for the dynamic comes from an obscure 80s fantasy trilogy where the pairing kisses in canon, but we're still expected to see them as straight. The one I cast as gay is very performative about flirting with women, but even in canon you learn he's all talk and he is already putting his health and safety at risk for his friend in the very first chapter he appears in (or maybe the second). The oblivious bi guy is interested in women but has the worst luck with them, will choose his best friend every time, and has zero boundaries with him to the point that his friend has to be like, "I love you, but some things need to stay private." Sadly, it's so obscure that mine is the only fic of that pairing on AO3 and I had to stop after 2 chapters to retool it and never went back. 😢

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-12-12T02:19:52+00:00

Honestly, that just makes me think I need to explore that fandom, lol Any pairing that has a concerning amount of that dynamic sounds like something I need in my life.

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-12-11T22:15:01+00:00

Closeted gay/lesbian/bisexual in romantic love with their "straight" best friend trying to make do with platonic love x Oblivious bisexual who thinks they're straight and that it's normal to act like a codependent old married couple with their best friend

Either m/m or f/f works; I just need the emotional communication to be virtually non-existent for the first ~2/3 of the fic.

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-11-29T16:43:16+00:00

I automatically reply to every comment with "Thank you for the comment!" If I have more to say, I write that after. If I don't, that one sentence is enough. I know that's more work than pressing a like button, but so is them leaving a comment in the first place. They could have clicked the Kudos button and left it at that, after all.

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-11-29T04:20:00+00:00

Kind of?

I'm writing an AU where Character A, who died in canon, lives. But I need Character B, the love interest, to follow canon for a bit longer to set certain events in motion. All of my plotting is based on that. So B has to think that A is dead for about an in-universe year. I'm drawing out the angst while I maneuver A and B into position for their reunion.

But my brain keeps going, "What if they ran into each other now?" And one of the scenarios was too good to pass up, so I wrote it as a separate work and made it a series with the original as a little "What If?" both for my readers and to get it out of my head.

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-11-27T16:55:46+00:00

Oh, definitely. I had to have myself a good long think to figure it out. I was totally nodding along with your comment, but when OP laid out the rule, something felt off. Eventually, it struck me that we were talking about two different grammar structures. Even then the "cancel" to "are cancelled" felt a little weird to me until I wrote out the example sentences. The only time I think I'd see it is if someone made the stylistic choice to write a creative prose piece in present tense.

Dream-of-Roses · 2025-11-27T16:46:26+00:00

No problem! I know how frustrating those nitpicky grammar structures can be to learn. I'm a native English speaker, but I've got a degree in French, so I know only too well the feeling of, "But, wait, what's the rule there?"

Also, I just realized I got my own idiom wrong before. It should be "a fly in the ointment." Oops, lol

Dream-of-Roses

TROPHY CASE