Everything is Canon (i v vi iii iv i iv v).

Yet another innocent child adopted by Mavuika...

odette, the fatui operative and prima ballerina from snezhnograd's korolevskiy troupe, hasn't yet been released - BUT nonetheless here are my bets on the best ships for her. i'm a professional you can trust me

ship category: birds of a feather

these ships take advantage of genshin's elemental resonance buffs to give odette a partner who plays to her strengths (murder, and dancing).

eula: ice cold murder lady. dancer. also enjoys dancing alone on the snowy plains. would love introducing odette to polar plunges on dragonspine

shenhe: ice cold murder lady. not a dancer but appreciates the arts. crane symbolism x swan symbolism. also fights alongside her shadow-self

rosaria: ice cold murder lady. like odette, "belongs not to herself" because of the debt she feels to mondstadt. no overtime gf x works two jobs gf

ayaka: ice cold but not a murder lady. dancer. would appreciate odette's work ethic and understand her need to push herself. heron symbolism x swan symbolism

ship category: in the spotlight

these ships lean into the classic genshin idea of performance as it relates to questions of identity. who are you when all eyes are on you?

lynette: stoic fatui women who perform for an audience but would really rather be alone. their ideal date is sitting in silence. their ship name could be ettette

barbara: toxic idol yuri. barbara who climbs viciously for the attention of one person x odette who relies on the shadows around the limelight to keep her safe

furina: famed director caught canoodling with star dancer outside opera epiclese, strenuously denies all wrongdoing while going red in the face

nilou: gf who uses her dancing as a tool of the resistance x gf who uses her dancing as a tool of the state. what is the role of art in the pursuit of power?

ship category: elemental reactions

these ships foil off odette's unique traits to see if opposites really attract... and if they do, will they Melt, Freeze, or Bloom? (or Electrocharge, but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.)

xinyan: rock n' roll gf x classical music gf. sits through one performance enraptured and then tries to charge backstage to pump odette's hand enthusiastically

amber: there's literally no one in this game you can't ship with amber. as the best and only outrider of the KoF, amber is very skilled in warm welcomes... and melting frozen hearts!

yoimiya: okay, imagine this: you're onstage, taking a bow, and suddenly fireworks light off behind you! oohs and ahhs from the crowd! a rapturous ovation? ...no?

fischl: one must own oneself quite moved by her performance, illuminating as it did the ever-fraying rift twixt self and other, twixt man and beast. surely, when the immernachtreich doth descend, the night will fall lightly upon one who is so intimately acquainted with the velvet folds of the fabric of darkness. ("what mein fraulein means to say is that she very much enjoyed the ballet.")

ship category: clown car

enough character and relationship analysis. these ships are here because i thought they would be immensely funny.

childe: fatui x fatui but also big city girl x small fishing village boy. this is a hallmark channel movie with significantly more blood. his family can't figure out what to make of her but whatever makes him happy

yae miko: fox symbolism x swan symbolism. soon after miko's trip to snezhnaya the yae publishing house begins putting out a light novel called The Ballerina I Was Dating Is Actually an Assassin??

jahoda: sent on an intelligence gathering mission by her boss, jahoda runs into another intelligence operative and spends the next 100k words crashing out about her "unrequited" crush

I’ll tell you what I look for in a fic rec list and then we’ll see what everyone else thinks is good :)

all one fandom, and if it’s shippy then all the same ship

titles of the fic link over to AO3

include the rating of the fics and a brief description (or the reason why you like it)

tag the authors so they know they’ve been rec’d

I’ve definitely seen fic rec lists with a specific theme to them as well, for example “[ship] hurt/comfort recs” but I’m personally good with just the description and picking from there. 

All one fandom is good, but it doesn’t need to be all one ship. I don’t have anything against multifandom rec lists, but the odds of me being familiar with multiple fandoms on them are slim. The important thing is to be clear about the rec list’s theme before you actually list the recs themselves (e.g. random works I liked, coffee shop AUs in small fandoms, m/m slash in Specific Fandom, etc).

The reason you like it, or the reason you think other people should read it, is absolutely 100% necessary, and ideally it consists of at least a couple sentences (unless it’s a 100-word drabble you’re reccing). Without this, and especially if I don’t know anything about your taste in fic, it’s not any different than skimming a work listing.

If there’s something that you had to overlook while reading the fic, or something that made you hesitate to rec it, mention it! If I know the reccer would usually consider a lack of empty space between paragraphs a dealbreaker, I might be willing to give the fic a go despite the fact bad paragraph spacing is usually also a dealbreaker for me. But if I just click on a link and find a wall of text, I’ll probably back button from not just the work, but possibly the rec list as well.

Since I love Gen recs, it’s usually about a single character, instead of a ship, or about a bunch of fic with a similar tone. (Agree it should all be one fandom, unless you’re dealing with fandoms that have a huge overlap of fans.) Lists with similar tones are actually my favourites. “Ten fic with haunting prose”, “my favourite dramatic fic about siblings from 2025”, “dark-ish fic with hopeful endings”, etc.

I like a brief summary/teaser (usually a sentence or less) and then some of the reasons the reccer enjoyed it. The goal is to interest the reader just enough that they click through and read the actual fic’s summary and tags, not tell them everything they need to know.

I often include warnings in my own recs, but rarely ratings, since I find that information about tone and major warnings will usually provide more information. It doesn’t have to be the usual AO3 warnings either - I used to target my recs at aroace fans, so I’d include the amount of icky kissing in the warnings section.

If you’re going to include a wide range of ratings, people often start with the lighter ones and end with the higher ratings. They also often separate Gen and shippy stuff if they’re including both.

But the absolutely best thing you can include is bias! The more I learn about what you like and dislike, the more valuable your recs become. Praise fic for being canon compliant, or having great worldbuilding, or for the writing style, or how steamy the sex is - things that show me how you’re judging what’s on the list. I’ve followed several people because they cared about elements of fic I also cared about, to the point that I could trust their recs without even having to read the blurb.

I put together a relatively short survey (about two dozen questions, mostly multiple choice, all optional) to get some data on what fic lengths and completion statuses readers on AO3 prefer or avoid. If I get enough answers to have a good sample size, it should give us some insight into how people search and read on the archive.

If you find this interesting, feel free to share it with AO3 users elsewhere or post it to other platforms. I'd like to get a good crossection of readers that isn't biased by platform, if at all possible.

The survey is just for fun/curiosity, and isn't associated with any university, company, or other entity. It's just me asking you this stuff here :)

do They know