i understand the appeal of publishing “fic with the serial numbers filed off” as original work but i also feel like. what makes something a good fic is at odds with what makes something a good original story.
a good fic is in conversation with a source text, it may give a character an interesting role, it may reinterpret or subvert the rules established in the canon universe, whatever. but like. its transformative by nature. whereas original stories - good ones, anyway - have their own internal, non-referrential sense of logic and rules. it can be in conversation with the genre writ large but it has to have internal substance that can stand alone. which fic inherently cant do.
This! I write my fics because that is the ONLY way those stories can work. They aren’t the same story if I just take the core plot and put my own characters into it.
lmao it’s such a silly idea, but it’s based off the Wife Carrying competitions in Finland and other parts of the world, where competitors carry wives (or anyone wife-adjacent, gender neutral). In Kirkwall, they go the North American route where winners win the ‘wife’s’ weight in beer and gold.
Carver hears of such a competition from his templar drinking buddies, but doesn’t care for it until he learns that Garrett is training to win by carrying Anders. And Carver gets that ✨ sibling rivalry ✨ feeling and is like “but who could I ask” and ultimately Merrill accepts being his partner in the race.
people saying “don’t use your full government name for your ao3”, “create different emails for work and personal use” but personally I think it’s both sad and dystopian how capitalism/companies/even schools think they have the rights to cross your personal boundaries and insert themselves into your personal life. like, I get it, safety wise, why checking digital footprints can be important sometimes. but a gay fanfiction is not a fucking threat that could ever cause anybody harm. it’s funny (not really, it’s still sad and dystopian) how they now think they can control your personal life and prevent you from having hobbies
I keep thinking about the “Amell face.” You know, this one:
And how conventionally attractive it is.
Chiseled yet delicate. High cheekbones, thin straight noses, big, expressive eyes, perfectly shaped jawlines, and pouty mouths with sculpted cupid’s bows. All of this.
Sure, maybe some of these features aren’t currently in fashion in the Marches, but you can’t deny that they’re all beautiful people, and this fact, I think, is sadly underrepresented in fanfiction.
Young men turning after Leandra on the streets.
Married women giving wistful looks to Gamlen, despite his nasty character and complete lack of money.
All the neighborhood girls fawning over Carver and then still falling head over heels for Garrett because he has chest hair, a wicked mouth, and metric tons of charisma.
This kind of stuff.
Oh, Amells…
No, but it’s so important to me that Garrett isn’t as conventionally attractive as the rest of his family. That he doesn’t even really look like a Marcher.
Brown eyes instead of blue. Harsher, more striking facial features. Was his nose broken when he was a kid, or does he just have Tevinter blood?
People melting when Carver enters the room because of how pretty he is, and those same people getting all jittery and intrigued when encountering Garrett because he’s the opposite of pretty, but there’s something very magnetic about it.
on the one hand, i both understand and somewhat agree with the criticism that the lords of fortune were defanged of the more problematic elements that accompany treasure hunting and piracy, but on the other hand the idea that isabela reformed her raiders into a group that checks how important a plundered item is culturally before doing anything with it specifically because the last time isabela did NOT do this it resulted in An Actual Violent Coup That Almost Destroyed Kirkwall And Got The Viscount Literally Murdered is so fucking funny that i’m just like “yeah, fair enough”
