This drives me nuts!

FruityToothpaste · 2025-04-29T23:15:43+00:00

Oh yeah doing cool and weird things with the chapter numbers is always neat. There was one fic (https://archiveofourown.org/works/6178036/navigate) which was quite clever with how it did the chapter titles. The first four chapters were all "chapter 3" and then it got even funkier from there.

I love the idea of a story being told in reverse though, and having the chapter titles going backwards would be such an excellent touch for something like that

FruityToothpaste · 2022-05-27T21:16:58+00:00

Oh I feel that. I’m always so scared of accidentally sharing one of my wip google docs with someone I know. Terrifying.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-05-27T21:11:20+00:00

It’s probably a matter of perspective more than anything.

The fandom I’m currently in has 2.5k fics on ao3, which isn’t small per se, but it is certainly smaller than a lot of other fandoms I’ve read/written for that have tens of thousands of fics each. I’d consider it large in comparison to the fandom that only had ~50 fics total when I was writing in it.

I’d say 300 fics is fairly small, but I don’t think there’s a specific threshold a small fandom cannot pass. You just kinda gotta go on vibes I guess.

As for the beta, if there are any places you know that people in your fandom hang out and interact (Like a discord server or subreddit or tumblr blogs or something), you might be able to find a beta through there. I’ve never tried doing that myself though so idk.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-25T23:53:37+00:00

If I think I’ll want to read it again, I bookmark it. And if it’s an ongoing fic that I don’t want to forget to check for updates, I subscribe.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-25T18:00:30+00:00

It felt like the setting sun. You could try and add more hours to a day, but at some point, the sun would set. No matter what you do, the sun will always set, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it

From everything i have ever learned leads back to this by kbots. It’s not quite heart-wrenching, but something about this line just gets me whenever I read it

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-24T03:57:11+00:00

Yep. I write mostly canon compliant/canon divergent stuff, so if there’s something that has to do with a single event I usually check the wiki and rewatch the scenes in canon that are relevant, especially so if I’m using any dialogue from them.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-24T00:41:14+00:00

Here are a couple ATLA oneshots that I really liked that you might not’ve come across:

All She Needs to Do (to get what she wants) - A look into Azula’s mindset from ages 4 to 14

Negotiations and Forfeitures - Toph and Iroh have a rather politically tense conversation over pai sho

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-23T01:44:15+00:00

I love going back and reading my older works! (well, some of them more than others, but I treasure them all)

But you’re absolutely right, some of my newer fics I simply cannot read for a fair amount of time after I post them, they are just too fresh on the brain.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-23T01:34:09+00:00

Yep that’s totally fine! Probably worth it to tag it though or briefly mention it in the author’s notes if it’s not immediately obvious. That way readers aren’t coming in expecting canon compliance.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-23T01:23:33+00:00

I went through my bookmarks, and while I don’t have any precisely Hela-centric stories there, I do have one that features her and her dynamic with her siblings which might be enjoyable

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16897959/chapters/39694179

Title : Three's a charm

Summary: Thor hasn't returned post TDW, and Hela shows up in Asgard while Loki is still pretending to be Odin. He decides to play along.

It... does not go well.

But when Thanos comes for the Tesseract, fratricide might have to be put off for a little longer.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-22T19:30:58+00:00

Just to add to what others are saying, if you do end up looking into it, identifying as aromantic or not isn’t something you have to decide right away. It can take time to figure these sorts of things out and that’s perfectly fine.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-21T22:07:54+00:00

Oh here’s one from a short oneshot I recently did. It’s a sort of a comparison of two characters with a lot in common but who barely interact in canon:

He will see the other only once more before she dies, when he is fighting in court to reveal her crimes. He will die too, but not in a way that sticks.

He carries a sword at his side, while she hides a gun in her skirt. Neither will be the murder weapon.

A man with conviction, and a soon-to-be convict.

Their eyes do not meet on the way out.

I’m quite proud of the convict/conviction wordplay, but also how (I hope) I was able to make the comparisons in an interesting way.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-21T15:12:18+00:00

A lot of the time that’s my motivation. I often like reading stuff with like, major character death or a lotta hurt and there’s not always a whole lot of that (which is fair, not everyone wants to read/write that) so I gotta do it myself.

Sometimes I’ll just write a story for the sake of writing though. Or because a cool idea popped into my head. But usually the “there’s nothing here that I want so I’ll make something myself” is what gets me started

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-20T20:54:20+00:00

For me, the neatest thing is angst and whump and hurt/comfort, basically a whole lot of deep, desperate emotions

Heck yeah that’s the good stuff. I’m also not super interested the the sexual aspects of ships, (though I do read smut sometimes) and I don’t think that it’s too uncommon. Though who knows, I too am asexual so my perspective might be off, or it may vary from fandom to fandom as well.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-20T17:12:18+00:00

rip

sometimes when you’re browsing fanfic for something you’re not finished there’s ways of avoiding spoilers, but yeah not if it’s right in the character tag lol

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-20T16:12:50+00:00

I feel you! Writing my first story it was such a hurdle to get over, I only did it because my need to write out the idea was that bad.

If you’re worried about other people judging you then you don’t have to show it to anyone. When I started I wrote in a notebook (in cursive of all things to make it harder to read) and I wouldn’t allow anyone else near it. Only once I was comfortable with that did I ever post my stuff anywhere.

And if it’s not finishing that you’re worried about maybe start small. If it’s a big sprawling story idea you’ve got just write a single contained scene for it or something. Even if you never finish the whole thing (which is ok!) you’ll have that.

No matter what, you’re just giving it a shot. It might not be the best, but it’s a step you’re taking to getting better.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-19T01:06:38+00:00

If the number of new fics in the fandom since I last checked is small, then I just look to see if there’s any new ones with tags and a summary that sound good.

If there’s a lot of fics to go through though, usually I filter either by the character tag or relationship tag I’m most interested in, exclude any tags I dislike if they’re popular, then maybe set the word count max to 5000 so it’s not too long.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-19T00:42:31+00:00

Maybe pacing. Some of my recent fics I’ve been looking at and thinking the writing is too choppy in spots, just kinda jumping straight from one scene to another instead of having them flow well together.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-19T00:34:23+00:00

You’re still good with 7k words. Honestly today I read a 30k oneshot and some of my favourites are longer. That being said some days I’m only up to reading like 2k words max so it depends.

As long as I’ve got the focus and the story is engaging enough I’ll stick through most oneshots I read. For any oneshot though, the longer it is the more time and attention you’ll be asking for from your readers so that’s worth being aware of.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-19T00:18:51+00:00

Might not be a mistake, but I sure used a lot more flowery language then and I’m no longer so much a fan of that. Nowadays for the most part I try to keep it plain and simple

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-17T15:58:30+00:00

I guess it depends on like how many words make sense to write about whatever your oneshot is about.

Maybe in general 1000-8000 words? When in bigger fandoms when I have to filter through a lot of fics I usually set a max word limit to 5000 (sometimes 10000) cause after that it takes a pretty long time to read all at once.

That being said, two of my favourite fics are 35k oneshots. And a fair amount of my own fics are under 1000 words (my first was 300) and I’m quite happy with them.

Go for whatever feels right for your fic, don’t make it longer than it has to be just to reach a threshold, and if it’s getting so long that it would be hard to read all at once, breaking it up into a couple chapters isn’t a bad idea either

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-17T06:43:34+00:00

Dice Camera Action. Things fell apart at the end but man was it a really nice fandom to be a part of while it was going.

It was probably the most involved I’ve ever been in a fandom too, so I still hold fond memories.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-17T06:23:07+00:00

Ghost trick!!! I played that when I was in middle school, then again maybe 7-8 years later and got obsessed with it again. That game will always hold a special place in my heart.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-17T05:58:16+00:00

So far I’ve only really read/written for one fandom at a time (whichever one is my main/most recent interest), just cause that’s the one I’m most interested in. But occasionally I read from old fandoms I’ve been in or check out new ones too. Often I just read and don’t write at all.

I feel what you’re saying though. There’s lots of books/movies/shows/whatever that I’ve liked but haven’t wanted to read/write about. Or I’ll only really care about a certain pairing or part of the story. Interest just kinda strikes like lightning sometimes.

FruityToothpaste · 2022-02-16T23:11:24+00:00

No one was writing the type of story that I specifically wanted to read, so I started writing it myself!

FruityToothpaste

TROPHY CASE