#fic reader asks

For the fic questions - if three are too many, pick the one you want to answer:

5

I think I know 6 but not sure about 7, so... 7 please

12 🤭

Hi! Thank you for the ask! Since it’s a 2025 wrap-up, I’ve stuck to fics I’ve read this year (unless otherwise stated!).

5 a fanfic "marked for later" you really want to read but haven't done it yet

Have you asked this question knowing that I have 560 fics in my Marked For Later list?? 

I’m going to say The Waves Lost Their Way by @malinowaj. I keep getting the updates and I’m really excited to start it! Especially with mine and J’s recent characterisation high-fives 😂

6 favorite one-shot fanfic

I need to know what you think my answer to this is! Because I don’t know! (Someone else has asked me this one though, so I'm going to answer them and we can compare 🤭)

7 favorite chaptered fanfic

I’ve read a lot less fic this year than I have in previous years. But I’m still going to cheat and choose two. I’m going to say The Long Way Home by @iwouldnevergetintofanfic and Two Drowning Coals by @unfortunate17.

12 kid fic recommandation

The answer to this will probably always be Met You At The Right Time by @iwouldnevergetintofanfic. I really struggle to read kid fics (as you well know) because… reasons. But this one was just like a breath of fresh air. 

12. Retail Therapy - idk man it's like going back and listening to a favorite song

13. my roommate knows you as 'that one really good ronance author who wrote the tlou au' so there's that

-eska <3

Brooooo 😭

I will forever cherish you for being such a cheerleader for Into Dust. I love that story so much and nobody ever reads it because it's not ronance (except that it IS ronance just like you know 30 odd years removed). It just makes me happy that you liked it, because I trust your opinion more than mine, so I can point and say "eska said this was good" and i feel like nobody including myself can argue with that.

Retail Therapy has like twice the kudos of anything else I have written lately! People were really feeling fluff that week I guess. That was honestly just, like, a writing exercise. Just like a dialogue exercise to get through some writers block. I felt very 🤷 about it at the time but you never know whats gonna hit and i will always take a surprise success 😎

hi hello! thank you for the ask; i may have gone a tad overboard for answer #23 but bear with me anyway 😌 also, may i know what fic kept you up all night? 👀

19. What's a fic that you stayed up all night to finish?

i remember reading The Pieces That Fall to Earth all in one go, and i'm pretty sure there were a few late nights because of it 😌 but also, more recently, i practically inhaled all 153k of Love Ballads for the Nonbelievers

23. What are your favorite themes to read about in fic?

ooh what a nice question! the themes i like fic to explore depend on the canon in question. for bbc sherlock, i love it when fics explore long-term impacts of trauma, whether it's john's ptsd + other mental health issues that were caused by the war and then later sherlock's suicide and then the realisation that it was fake, or sherlock's mental health post The Fall and his time Away + all the s4 bs.

regardless of what canon events are being touched upon/ignored completely, i think just as characters, john and sherlock provide us with interesting ways to explore mental health and also sexuality/self-expression/identity, all that kind of stuff. as a neurodivergent and almost-definitely queer character, sherlock is, from episode one, "different" and loudly so. i love seeing authors explore these facets—and others—of sherlock and imagining different ways of how who he is informs how he interacts with the world and the people around him. john is equally, if not more so (to me), interesting. he, too, is "different" but in a different sort of way to sherlock. where sherlock parades his difference around as a badge of honour, john covers it up with non-descript politeness and equally non-descript jumpers. the contrast is fascinating. two very different men, two very different ways of expression of self; what happens when they interact? how much of the outward appearance of these men is constructed by coping mechanisms they created to deal with their respective traumas? how much is it just them?

clearly, i'm very invested in these characters 😂 i love it when authors give them the depth that canon often misses out on.

10. What destroys you the fastest when reading?

In Good Girls fic, it's pretty much anything that touches on Beth and Annie's childhood. I love the way people can use it to really hone in on the women Beth and Annie have respectively become, and how it not only contextualises their various flaws, but the strength of their bond as sisters too. It hurts in the best possible way, and I love it a lot.

12. If you could add one feature to Ao3, what would it be?

This is a bit of an odd one maybe, haha, but I'd love it if you had to add tropes that appeared in your fics. The tagging system is great, but a lot of people don't really use it (I'll admit to not being the best at this myself) or they use it like you would tumblr tags, and sometimes I'm just hungry for some fake dating and bed sharing, and it can be harder to find than I want. Although I guess that's where rec lists come in handy, haha.

27. REC A FIC

Good Girls-wise, I re-read @lemoncupcake's AITA for wanting to stop paying my wife’s “business partner” and yelling at her? fic recently, and I really love it a lot. It just makes me smile so much! Luz totally captures not only Dean and Annie's voices, but that AITA reddit specific voice, and the result is something really special.

7. Is there a trope you cannot understand why anyone would like?

yanderes. w h o would ever want a stalker, an ABUSIVE stalker holding you against your will? thats not enticing that makes me wanna call the police

14. What fandom or pairing do you WISH there was more content for?

.......not my blog title no definitely not my blog title

also norrayemma 🥺🥺 (and lowkey terushima x reader but like not angst where he cheats or he’s someone getting in between you and the character youre dating, or just the smuttiest smut out there can we please get some fluff pLEASE)

27. REC A FIC

Falling by ashxtodd on AO3, a VERY VERY VERY cute semishira fic

desc:

   What he didn't expect was an ash blond with frosted tips to rush into the gym panting, smiling in their direction. "Hey, I'm Sem-" He tried to say, only to be cut off by him tripping on his own shoelaces causing him to get knocked off balance and inevitably falling. "-mi." He finished. Idiot , Shirabu thought, only for him to add, but an overly attractive and hot one , a second later, causing his brain to short circuit for a moment.

5 times Shirabu thought Semi wasn't as bad as he thought. The one time he did something about the tension between them (kinda).

OR: Shirabu realizing what love is through the course of three years.

(Ft. best friend in the world Kawanishi)

Oh goodness, Anon, you really know how to ask the hard questions, don’t you?

I will try to answer your insanely impossible question as best I can though...

B4) Who is your current favorite author? What is their best story?

I don’t even know quite where to start! @whimsicallyenchantedrose is always going to be one of my favorite fic writers, past and currently and probably anything she writes in the future too. I will never not enjoy revisiting her By Land or Sea series, and I am LOVING her CSSNS WIPS, both from last summer and this one. 

@searchingwardrobes never fails to make me laugh, cry, relate, and feel in every single one of her stories I start.

  @hollyethecurious has me loving her Sleepy Hollow AU that she has going right now for the @cssns20, not to mention her band au. 

I have become a HUGE fan of @thisonesatellite and her writing in the last year or so. I don’t really know if I can pick a favorite for sure, but “break me” is the one that found me and hooked me into her writing for keeps, and “drift” also should not be missed.

However, the person I am really enjoying currently, and who has me flailing like crazy over - not just one, but TWO - new stories is @donteattheappleshook  My favorite story of hers (So, in my opinion, I guess it’s the “best”) is “A Little Death”, followed closely by “The Gardener”.  But I am not at all sure that both her @captainswanmoviemarathon entries might not become new favorites as well... ;)

That’s probably more than you wanted/needed, but that’s the best narrowing down I can give you...

B4. Who is your current favourite author? What is their best story?

This is a dangerous question, anon. There’s a healthy handful of writers who I love and always read and I hope they know who they are. Instead of choosing a favourite I’ll mention two writers who are newer to the writing side of the fandom and who I’m really excited about. 

The first is of course @captain-emmajones and her fic Love, Emma, which I recced here. The second is @therealstartraveller776 and pretty much everything she’s written but with a special mention to Next To You and The Nightwalker Chronicles--which is barely started but is going to be amazing. Both really talented writers you (and everyone!) should check out, if they haven’t already!  

-

😁 You should see my grin right now, Marta! I am happy to answer them all for you! Sorry it took me so long to answer. It’s been a long week.

A1: When did you start reading fanfiction?

I started reading fan fiction in the spring of 2016. After the hiatus, I think, though it may have very well been during the hiatus between 5A and B, when I was finally caught up with the entire series (I had only binged it the summer before) and just couldn’t stand being without my favorite fictional couple of all time. I found the Captain Swan Forever Facebook page where every day she featured a fic of the day with the ao3 link. That led me happily down the Captain Swan fanfiction rabbit hole, starting with my ao3 account in June of that year and my Tumblr in August, that I’ve been blissfully playing in ever since!

B6: What is your favourite story trope? Why?

Answered here.

B10: What is the best plot twist you’ve ever seen?

To this day, I’ve never seen a plot twist like Ruby being the wolf, the Evil Queen and the Wicked Witch of the West being sisters, and Peter Pan being Rumplestiltskin’s father.

C3: Is there anything that makes you nope out of a story? What is it?

As I said in an answer from the above referenced post, it is easier to tell you what I won’t read than what I will. There is very little that I won’t read. First would be an unhappy ending. Life is full of unhappiness as it is, I don’t want to read it in my escape. Now, that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy me some angst, just as long as there’s a commiserate happy ending, I’m happy. I also won’t read a fic that includes abortion or the death of a child in the main narrative. Last thing I can think of that I won’t read is a smutty trio+ fic. The exceptions to that are Emma with several versions of Killian and @totheendoftheworldortime’s Swan-Jones trio.

D9: Who do you discuss fandom-related things with most often? 

The folks I talk the most to are @hollyethecurious and @winterbaby89. We’ve spoken through text nearly every single day for over 3yrs now. Our convos cover fandom, fics, real life and everything in between. I love them very much and never want to be without them in my life. Other than these two ladies, I speak most often with the ladies of the CSSNS and CSMM discords. Those convos also run the gamut. From hysterical fic prompts and general silliness to encouragement to real life. And folks that aren’t on the discord very often, if at all, that I talk to most often are @kymbersmith-90, @jrob64, @resident-of-storybrooke, @artistic-writer, @shireness-says and @therealstartraveller776.

D10: What is one story idea you really want to read but no one has written yet?

I honestly can’t think of a thing. But you can be sure that I’ll really want to read anything that any of my favorite writers deign to bless us with!