Yuri on ice + @ao3tagoftheday (part two)
Tag: fanfic
when ur readin fanfic and u read something thats not ur headcanon and ur just like “yea we’re ignorin that”
modern horror story: a single 200 chapter fic on ao3 summarized as a “collection of drabbles.” it is tagged for 200 different fandoms and every single character who so much as breathes in any of the chapters. it takes you an hour to scroll past. it is always at the top of your search results because it updates three times a week.
mysticdabber
okay so I’ve literally conquered every other route on this damn game but
yuuri keeps flat out rejecting me?? I’ve hit like 7 different Friend routes 50
times?? What does he want?? How high are his standards?? I’VE DONE EVERYTHING
FOR YOU YUURI ALL I WANT IS YOUR HEART
7knives
lol secret routejjsbriefs
SECRET ROUTEmysticdabber
what’s secret routemyyuuuuri
ARE YOU FOR FUCKIGN SERIOUS AUBREY IT TOOK ME 500 YEARS TO UNLOCK SECRET
ROUTE AND YOU GOT IT IN 5 SECONDSmysticdabber
WHAT’S SECRET ROUTE????offcialvictuuris
Lmao okay here’s a non-spoilery guide if you’re going the full 10
miles.If you’re too curious to wait then here’s the most
popular FAQ about Yuuri’s Route. Let me tell you this. Route. Is. WILD.But long story short Yuuri’s route is the most infamous (even
before Chris’s suggestive route, and Victor’s for being a dudepals route
(lololol)) because you have to needle your choices VERY CAREFULLY. It’s Guide
Dang It incarnate. One missed choice can lead to a Bad route and his Friends
route is so common it’s practically his official route. His Lovers route is
extremely hard to get without a guide, and he’s the only character besides JJ
who has a hidden route (hence why everyone is impressed with you lmao).(See FAQ under the cut)
was fanfic any different in the Olden Days
OH BOY AND HOW. So I am not So Much Of An Old that I was around when print zines were the thing. I got into fanfic-type fandom through the internet. But here are some changes from the late 90s to today:
– In slash fandom, there were a lot fewer main characters written as expressly queer. There was a lot of (in retrospect) very teeth grindingly annoying “We’re not gay we just love each other” type romances.
– Fic was mostly distributed via mailing lists (email), not by web archives, although some mailing lists also would web archive their stuff. People tended to be more monofannish because you would just participate in the list — people are more multifannish now because we follow specific people through their blogs and get introduced to their other interests, but this didn’t happen as much back in the day. People were definitely still multifannish, though. I’ve always fandom hopped.
– The aesthetic was very different. A lot of older fanfic reads in ways that were more influenced by profic romance novels, whereas modern fanfic has sort of its own, more realist style. (TBH there are also a lot more realistic/pomo style romance novels these days as well.) The stuff from the early 2000s, in comparison to 90s and earlier fic, and in comparison to modern fic, tended to be more experimental stylistically. Overall, fic tended to be longer, but also more uniformly long. There weren’t really many of those 200k monsters either.
– Not a lot of postmodern type fic conceits (i.e. stuff like the one where steve and bucky watch all the movies made about captain america while steve was in the ice, or SGA fic told through excerpts from academic papers, etc.) Early 2000s fandom went through this weird magical realism phase, also.
– In our headers, we used to measure story length in file-size, not in word length. I think this change came about in the early 2000s.
– Real Person Fic was like, not even discussed. It had its own mailing list where we kept basically all of it, and you didn’t mention it in polite company. Then suddenly in 2000-2001 all these legitimate people got into NSync fic. But before that, it was pretty taboo in a lot of fannish circles.
re: point one, there was also an enormous amount of time spent on characters agonizing over being attracted to other men. like, i was reading something a while back that was actually written in 2003 but by someone who’d been in fandom for a long time and obviously hadn’t changed their aesthetic much, and the first time the pairing started making out, one of the guys suddenly had to stop—and i thought it was gonna be like, traumatic memories, or just general intimacy issues, or whatever. but it was because it was ~all too new~ and he had to take a few more days to adjust to the whole gay thing.
oh and then along the same lines you had guys running out to try and have sex with women and fail, or have sex with women but find it so unsatisfying, before ultimately admitting that they wanted this particular dick. also, considering the prevalence of WNGWJLEO, it was oddly mandatory to point out at great length how much each character never really loved his previous female partners.
basically fandom now, at least the well-written part of it, is a million times less homophobic and biphobic and, believe it or not, misogynist. obviously there were always exceptions, especially with the really good writers, and especially as you move into the late nineties. but as a rule, so much improvement.
oh, and every love confession required a full name. Firstname Middlename Lastname, I love you. where does that even come from, seriously?
i will give them this—there was a lot less badfic that was technically bad, like, unreadable and full of errors. shit got edited back in the day. someone was gonna pay money to print five hundred copies of that and they did not want your terrible spelling to fuck it up.
oh, and not related to anything else, but: usenet! usenet was a super important venue for many fandoms. this actually continued well into the 2000s for certain fandom circles—not slash-focused media fandom in general, but there was a lot of overlap. i was reading alt.tv.angel during season two, and there were fic writers i recognized posting there. and of course earlier on, the alt.startrek.creative.* groups were central.
Random things I want to add based on my admittedly-hazy memory:
– elaborate ascii headers/footers/dividers on fic, which were mostly txt files (or bare-bones text-only pages to save archive space) I think?
– faking ages to get access to the adult stuff (which could get complicated depending on what country you were from and what country the admin(s) were from). This sometimes involved emailing an age statement to the owner of a mailing list and them deciding whether or not to trust you (or how much they actually gave a fuck) before giving you the password to an archive or authenticating your whatever to access the whosit, I wasn’t entirely sure how it worked. Because I was fifteen at the time. Of course.
– There were people who were very adamantly ‘gay stuff is okay in fanfic but immoral IRL.’ Don’t ask me how that worked out logically, but it was a thing.
– DO NOT FORGET THE BEFORE-TIMES when there was no google and there were scattered archives everywhere, from ‘archive of [specific mailing list]’ to authors’ personal archives to pairing- or fandom-specific archives and the way you found a lot of them was like hoping aol or yahoo search would turn up something new? But on the other hand you had a fair number of folks who were twitchy about having webcrawlies being able to find their porn because fanfic was already kind of side-eyed and porny stuff even moreso.
– there were archivists who actively trawled mailing lists and authors archives and such to compile their own interest-specific archives, sometimes asking the authors if they could host a fic… and sometimes NOT asking. Cue: wank.
– OR you navigated WEBRINGS (which are like tumblr ‘networks’ I think? I don’t grok tumblr networks but ya’ll have fun with them, I’ll be over here in my rocking chair mmk) where there was essentially a master list of websites catering to a specific interest, sometimes with details but sometimes it was just a name and a link so you had no idea what you were clicking on half the time, you just knew it fell under category [thing the webring was about].
(…tbh, this was probably how I found out about slash, because of some X-Files or Pretender or maybe early SG1 webring, I don’t even know. I just saw “[fandomname] slash archive” and was desperate for new fic in [fandom] and hey presto “boys?? kissing?? GIRLS? KISSING?!! YOU CAN DO THAT? Ship things that don’t match what canon would expect you to ship?? oops now I have an exponentially greater amount of ships than I did before”)(given that description, it was probably stargate because there was a LOT of pretty to go around okay)
– let me TELL you about the recurring firestorm of wank that would rush through every goddamned fandom for at least a 5- to 10-year period there where someone would be like “all same-gender shippy stuff needs an NC-17 warning because that stuff is not okay for kids” and other folks would be like “can we not equate handholding to explicit PIV intercourse solely based on the genders of the participants” and holy jesus it was the EXACT same ugly nausea-inducing merry-go-round in at least six of my fandoms, which is why I am zero percent impressed with ‘family’ networks caving to that bullpockey because My People already hashed that out, get with the times, thanks.
– fanfic archives without search functions, where everything was just listed by date posted and sorted by pairing IF YOU WERE LUCKY. One sentence summaries with no tags, no warnings, sometimes no ratings. Sometimes no lengths (see above regarding length measured by filesize). Because everything was coded in early html and some folks just didn’t want to (or knew how to) code all that. This is why I give money to ao3, people. I REMEMBER THE BEFORETIMES.
– oh, and finding That Reccer whose tastes ran similar to your own and posted like 10+ recs a week? Like Santa and Baby Jesus came down from on high and showered glitter all over you before kissing you gently on the forehead and then disappearing in a double rainbow. (You think recs help you filter wheat from chaff NOW, it was all the moreso when you had to do all this hunting just to find stuff TO sort though)
– yes this was also before lj and wordpress and basically any kind of rich text editor-enabled blogging platform. Hand-coded html pages hosted on geocities with terrible font color choices and pixellated blinky tiled gif backgrounds, aw yus.
>midlevel-bofq jazzhands<
Accessibility stuff like the broad, daily use of trigger-warnings or tags of ANY KIND is a relatively new fandom behavior. Like 5-6 years ago, people were still having wars about if trigger warnings were ruining free speech or not (hint: they weren’t).
DISCLAIMERS
Your super elaborate headers usually stated that you did not own anything having to do with your canon and that you made no money off your fan fiction etc etc.
(I still own about dozen Yahoo mailing lists, one of which is fourteen years old and still gets a dozen or so posts a year—a sharp drop from its heyday but the corpse is still twitching so I keep the lights on over there.)
Know your history.
Oh god, this brings back memories. Badly coded geocities memories, aka, ‘is this fic REALLY GOOD and worth reading even though it’s light blue text on a pink background with sparkly line breaks?’
Omg I remember WEBRINGS!!!
It was a dark time. Let the struggle not be forgot.
what are your fave narumitsu fics? top 5 pls i’m looking for stuff to read :D
!!! I’m not sure how new you are to p/e fic BUT I’ve already got a post of some of my all time faves + a general fic rec tag, though I can make another rec for newer fic rn?? especially since the ones in that first link are some of the most popular/well-known already in the fandom
SO OK more recent fic rec under the cut !!
Top five Wrightworth Fanfics?
Oh god, why would you ask someone that? ASK THEM TO EXPOSE THEIR CRAPPY TASTE IN FANFIC.
… WELL WHY NOT.
(some things to know about me and my SPECIFIC FANFIC TASTES UP FRONT: things I live for include, oneshots over multichapter, fluff (ESPECIALLY CUDDLING FLUFF), hurt/comfort, filling in “missing scenes” from canon, and GRATUITOUS MILES ANGST as long as it has a happy ending).
5. “Miles Edgeworth is a Complicated Man” by withpractice_ff on AO3.
Not the happiest of fics, but pretty much dealing more directly with Narumitsu and Miles’s issues between the end of Turnabout Goodbyes and the end of Farewell, My Turnabout and all the darkness and messiness that entails. Deals with death and themes of suicide.
4. “Kintsugi” by darkageofthelol on AO3, but better known as @chiefprostitutor on here (I WILL PROMOTE YOUR WORKS FOR YOU, ANDEE)
Or first-hand proof that I will endure the darkest of Edgeworth angst as long as it has a happy ending in the form of Narumitsu. This one deals DIRECTLY with an attempted suicide, so serious warning there. An incident in Edgeworth’s young life in the von Karma household is the real reason why he always wears that cravat, but at the end Phoenix offers him a different way to look at it.
3. “By Magic” by ergane on AO3
NO ANGST HERE, JUST PURE BEAUTIFUL FLUFF. The best possible outcome of the part in Turnabout for Tomorrow that proves Edgeworth went to see one of Trucy’s magic shows. JUST BEAUTIFUL TOOTH-ROTTING FLUFF AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE.
2. “Frozen” by anonymous on the Ace Attorney Kink Meme
Okay so if you have an issue with “terrible violent things happen to a character so that hurt/comfort and OTP times ensue” then this might not be the fic for you. But if you live for hurt/comfort then DO I HAVE A FUCKING FIC FOR YOU. I am usually NOT a fan of multichapters/long fics because often I feel they meander from their original purpose, or get boring and padded, but I NEVER lost interest in this one. Phoenix gets caught up in a PARTICULARLY dangerous case, and after suffering severe physical trauma, Miles takes it upon himself to track down the culprits and provide TOTALLY PLATONIC support as he heals (featuring my all-time favorite version of Miles realizing his “UNNECESSARY FEELINGS” and the most accurate reaction he has to that).
1. “Sleepless” by anonymous on the Ace Attorney Kink Meme
Okay, I’ll be real, this is not really the “best-written” fic on this list. A few sentences make me raise my eyebrow, and some of the typos still bug me. HOWEVER, this is number one for being the fic I’ve read THE MOST (AN EMBARRASSING AMOUNT), and being basically aimed directly at Azuresquirrel’s Exact Interests. IT IS ASTOUNDINGLY SIMPLE IN ITS AIMS: Phoenix and Miles end up in the same hotel room. Earthquake happens. BED-SHARING AND CUDDLING ENSUES. This fic hits me direct in my lizard brain desires for Narumitsu. I mean I know, it’s like the most cliche Ace Attorney fic premise ever, but this is the best-executed version of it I’ve seen in providing EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT FROM THIS SCENARIO while keeping pretty darn close to in-character. MY ULTIMATE “COMFORT FOOD” FIC.
Anyway, you are all free to judge my fanfic tastes forever based on this post.
reblog if you’ve ever written a fanfic just to spite the existence of another fanfic somebody else wrote
Water and Metal
Fandom: Steven Universe
Title: Water and Metal
Characters: Lapis and Peridot
Time: Set in-between Alone at Sea and Beta
Words: 530
Summary: Peridot sees her new rommate struggle everyday, and she might not know the answer. But she will try to help in any way she can.
Warning: trauma and allusions to abuse
Touch- a short Anthy x Utena fic
To be honest I was disappointed with the fic I did for Anthy x Utena before- it was fluff, but by trying to have it make sense, it relied too much on contrived coincidence. So I did this one, which is much shorter and a little less happy-go-lucky. Warning, it does mention the past in-canon sexual assault both Utena and Anthy have experienced- not in detail, nor does it describe it, it just alludes to it and explores the possibility of them being triggered (in a vague sort of way). Mentions injuries and scarring. Also mentions sex more directly than my fics usually do (since I’m a hopless asexual virgin and all) but it doesn’t go into detail. I like this one much better than the other one right now.
Touch was a funny thing for both of them.
One time, Anthy grabbed Utena from behind, looping her arms around her and hugging her tightly. She let go quickly when she felt Utena flinch, shudder under her hands. Utena turned around and gave her a pained smile and say “Sorry. Really, it’s all right.” But it wasn’t all right. Anthy never approached her from behind again. The weight of the memory was too much.
Anthy wondered if Utena would ever feel comfortable turning her back on her.
And…
azuresquirrelblog 