Fanfiction Fridays: Words To Me by SolarMorrigan

It being the month of Halloween, with the actual day right around the corner, I decided I would go looking for something from a spooky fandom to rec for this particular Fanfiction Fridays. Of course, I realized shortly thereafter that I’m not in any particularly spooky fandoms, being a certified scaredy-cat and all. So instead I turned to a fandom that, while not too spooky in practice, is, in fairness, flush with ghosts and monsters in canon. Yes, I’m talking about Scooby-Doo.

I’d never ventured into the smallish Scooby-Doo section on AO3 before, but I was pleased to find a wide variety of fics there, especially fic supporting the Velma/Daphne pairing. Words To Me is one of those, and imagines a world where the Mystery, Inc. gang regularly hunt for-realsies monsters rather than capitalists in masks. Nothing particularly scary happens in this short, sweet fic, unless you consider that the real monster was facing your feelings all along.

(via thescooby.wikia)

Fanfiction Fridays: Misconceptions and Truths About Vampires by glassteacup

“I believe what Yuuri is trying to convey is ‘Excuse me, Viktor. Did you say you’re a vampire?’” Phichit translates with grim cheer.

Yuuri’s squawk of distress confirms Phichit’s interpretation.

Viktor wrinkles his forehead, mystified. “Well, yes,” he says slowly.

Phichit hops up from the armchair to perch on the sofa’s arm, pulling Yuuri in protectively to his side. Yuuri tucks himself in and turns to gape at Viktor again.

It’s Viktor’s turn to boggle. “Wait. You mean you didn’t know, Yuuri?”

“No,” Yuuri snaps, eyes glittering and chin stuck out in the air.

Viktor’s jaw drops. Even the youngest newborn should be able to recognize their own kind. Has the state of turned vampires gotten to be so dreadful? Well, no. That can’t be it either. Phichit sensed him from at least three blocks away when they were stopped at the red light. “When were you turned?” he inquires. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he adds hastily for avoidance of risking any additional misunderstandings on this point.

Phichit points to himself. “1950s,” he says and then ruffles Yuuri’s hair, “And this one was around the 1900s.”

“Amazing,” Viktor murmurs. “How are you still alive?”

Now that October is properly upon us, my spooky loving heart is constantly begging for every vampire, ghost, magic, and every seasonal etcetera that I can get my eye globes on. I’d almost lost hope at finding a suitable fic for my Fanfiction Fridays post this month, but thankfully the Yuri!!! On Ice fandom was there for me, and among its multitudes of AUs I knew I could find the good vampire content I crave. glassteacup’s Misconceptions and Truths About Vampires wasn’t exactly what I was expecting–in only good ways–but what glassteacup is missing in perhaps more aesthetically vampiric characterization, they more than make up for with modern vampires just trying to get by and intriguing snippets of much deeper lore.

Fanfiction Fridays: Guidance by Alara J Rogers

Trigger warning for depression, mental illness, and suicidal ideation up ahead.

(via Memory Alpha)

Lately I’ve been watching Star Trek, which I feel I should have gotten into years ago, but for whatever reason did not. On top of that, I finally started medication for my depression, but as I’m still on the long road to recovery, I’ve been reading a lot of fics about characters struggling with problems similar to my own. A lot of those fics can be upsetting—they feature panic attacks and suicide attempts—and while they do show the recovery process, I wanted to find a fic that was nowhere near as triggering. Enter Guidance by Alara J Rogers, a Star Trek: The Next Generation fic about Q and Picard.

Fanfiction Fridays: those immortal dead by notbecauseofvictories

there is a story among the Naboo, about a girl who went down to the shore and saw a man drowning, there in the deep water. She was a great swimmer (children of Naboo are) and so she shed her clothing and came out to him with strong, sure strokes. Yet he was desperate and flailing and would not heed her, and in his panic he dragged her down with him, into the dark water.

Her lungs were not so deep as his. She drowned.

this is a lesson, the mothers of Naboo tell their children. sometimes, to be strong and good-hearted is not enough to save yourself.

No one on Naboo seems to remember the name of the girl who went down to the shore. Girls in tales don’t need names.

(this story is different among the gungans. They say: there was a girl, and as she sank down into the darkness and the mud, she opened her eyes and breathed in, and she became a gungan, for nothing is made and nothing is destroyed, and all water that was once snow comes around again in rain.

Death is a rare thing, the gungans say. The rest is just a change of states.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the next Star Wars movie lately, and about the astronomical (ha) hopes I have pinned on it to be even better than the last. I went looking for fics to preemptively fill the hole in my heart, but in the end I discovered one that, while excellent, doesn’t really speculate about the future of the sequel trilogy at all. (The AO3 gods are just like that sometimes.) While those immortal dead doesn’t offer any great ideas about what might happen next, it does offer a bittersweet perspective into what has already happened: namely, the passing of Padmé Amidala and its effect on the people in whose lives she would have otherwise been.

Fanfiction Fridays: Coming Home, Finding Home by luoup

Things haven’t been easy in the RWBYverse, and with the way things are going they won’t be for a while. With the big bad getting her cards in place for her final hand, Season 5 is sure to be filled with even more pain and pressure for the cast. I’m not here for speculation today, though. I’m here… for comfort fic!

(via the RWBY Wiki)

Season 3 left everyone, but especially the students of Beacon Academy, reeling and looking for whatever safety they could manage to find. And since the CRWBY arguably completely botched Yang’s recovery arc (and gave no signs of going into anyone else’s recovery), I’m no longer trusting them to take care of anyone else. These kids suffered through their school falling to evil forces and their friends getting hurt and even dying—there’s no way everyone is as well-adjusted as they seem! Especially not the remains of Team JNPR! Today’s fic explores the long, hard path JNPR started on during the timeskip between the third and fourth seasons; the path that led them from being lost to being closer than ever and prepared to set out once again as Hunters.

Fanfiction Fridays: learn me right by KiaraSayre

Yo, but same though. (via Primo GIF)

Shit has been going down in the Critical Role fandom lately, leaving my poor heart battered, confused, and hopeful all at the same time. With the sudden torrential downpour of feelings, I knew immediately after watching the most recent episode that I had to go looking for fic. For fear of spoilers, I can’t reveal much in this beginning paragraph. What I can say, however, is that if you’re looking for a complex dive into the weaving and grieving of different aspects of families, both found and otherwise, look no further than this fic.

Massive spoilers for Critical Role beneath the cut.

Fanfiction Fridays: The Chilling Crimes of Chinchilla Chick by Traincat

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
WHO EATS NUTS KICKS BUTTS AND JUST KISSED THE RADDEST ROOMMATE EVER idk but i bet she’s super cool and finished all her homework

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
LIKE A CHAMP #eatsnutskicksbutts #andassignments

Nancy W @sewwiththeflo
So glad Mew approves of my new relationship. That would’ve been awkward. #neithersinglenorreadytomingle

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
@sewwiththeflo Hahaha but it would’ve worked out anyway right Nancy

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
@sewwiththeflo Nancy?

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
@sewwiththeflo NANCY

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
@starkmantony aw you ol’ softie you! thanks for the edible arrangement!

Tony Stark @starkmantony
@unbeatablesg Don’t mention it. Really.

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
@starkmantony could’ve used more nuts, though

Tony Stark @starkmantony
@unbeatablesg What did I just say?

The first time Nancy kissed Doreen she tasted like acorn buttercream and New York City grit. Nancy had never thought of that as a winning combination, but somehow Doreen made it work. She also dipped Nancy, because Doreen kissed like she did everything else: with 300% enthusiasm and like she’d learned it off a pack of trading cards written by a maniac in a full-face mask.

The Chilling Crimes of Chinchilla Chick may not be an actual canonical Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comic, but it’s pretty much the next best thing. Actually, it’s got femslash, so it’s inherently better. Let’s do this.

(via projectfandom)

Fanfiction Fridays: Home by Griddlebone

As I was going through some CDs I’d made back in my high school days, I was forced to face something: I’d really liked Inuyasha. Like, a lot. So much that I had two CDs filled with the title and ending tracks (yes, I still know the words to Fukai Mori by heart) and several versions of Inuyasha’s Lullaby. So I was feeling a little nostalgic for the series, and seeking out Inuyasha fic this week really wasn’t any surprise to me. What was a surprise, however, was how few F/F fics there were for the series. I’m pretty sure that the Kagome/Thorin Oakenshield ship had more fics than any F/F ship, canon characters or not. Upon giving up my original search—sorry, Femslash February!—I did manage to find a really wonderful ficlet that further explored my favorite female character, Sango, after the events of the series.

(via the Inuyasha Wiki)

Throughout the first fifty-some volumes of Inuyasha, the demon huntress Sango was always portrayed as a strong woman who had lost much, but didn’t allow her losses to consume her. However, the ending of the manga always rubbed me the wrong way. Though Sango was driven by wanting to put an end to the creature who had destroyed her village and family, and she did help achieve this, I never got the impression that just because she had achieved her goal, she would put down her metaphorical torch indefinitely. Yet the series’ end had her settling down with her love interest, Miroku, and popping out babies like it was no one’s business. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but it seemed like too much of a shift in character and agency and too much of a rushed out “and they lived happily ever after” epilogue. I didn’t trudge through so many volumes for this! While today’s fic doesn’t change the outcome, what it does offer is a closer look at Sango’s mindset and character development as she enters this new part of her life—something the series should have done in the first place.

Fanfiction Fridays: The Waves Carry My Woes by thelinksthatconnectus

Nintendo fans got lots of exciting news this month: a new system that has a lot of good third party support, new Fire Emblem games, a new Mario game, and, perhaps most anticipated, more news on the newest Legend of Zelda game, Breath of the Wild. While I still have many reservations about the game, especially concerning Zelda’s role and the stupidity of her not being a playable main character, watching the new trailer actually made me want to play a Zelda game for the first time in a long while. Thinking back, the last time I was actively interested in a Zelda game was back when The Phantom Hourglass came out in 2007. Though unrelated in narrative, the 3DS game borrowed heavily from the 2002 Gamecube game, Wind Waker, which remains one of my favorite iterations of the Zelda story and is by far my favorite art style of the whole series.

(via Rebloggy)

My Zelda flames stoked once more, I set out in search of fic of my favorite Wind Waker-verse character, Tetra. While the headstrong pirate girl got seriously shafted in the second half of Wind Waker due to her “true calling” as a reincarnation of Princess Zelda, I found her character intriguing. How did this pre-teen-looking girl become the captain of a pirate crew? How did she end up forming this found family with a bunch of strange dudes? Furthermore, how would she adapt to her duties as princess while still holding onto to her pirate life? While the fic I found doesn’t answer anything about her past, it does make a pretty good guess about her future—while throwing in a ship that I didn’t know I wanted, but am glad that I know of now.

Fandom Is Good for You: The Educational Implications of Fan Engagement

Now that this semester of grad school has ended, I finally have time to write a post! It just so happens to be our last post before our holiday break, too, which tells you a bit about the craziness of my schedule…. You see, I’m a PhD student studying Learning Sciences, which is all about researching how people learn and how we can use those findings to reform the educational system. Trying to balance my online fandom life with my grad school life has been an ongoing struggle, but surprisingly, one of the things I’ve learned in my program is that many researchers in and around this field study the educational implications of fandom. Well, now I’m here to cross over between my offline and online life by sharing some of that work with you, as well as some findings from my own research!

It may come as no surprise to you that fans learn a great deal from engaging in fandom, whether they’re writing fanfics, composing meta, creating fanart, making cosplays, or heck, even writing essays from a critical lens like on this blog! But fandom still tends to be viewed dismissively by mainstream culture, and even we fans sometimes devalue our engagement as a mere “hobby”. Modern learning theorists now acknowledge the importance of learning outside of school, and are calling for in-school learning to be more like the interest- and peer-driven realm of outside-of-school learning, including hobbies like fandom. There are so many ways that fan engagement is related to the kinds of subjects people learn in school and to skills that are generally useful in life. And better yet, it’s in a context that people really care about, rather than the decontextualized content conventionally presented in schools, which can seem random and unconnected to students’ lives.

So, this fandom thing you’re doing right now? It’s totally legitimate, important, and socially responsible. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

Let Syng-sensei educate you!