#fix-it fics

Hello hello, fic writers who write in the world of Arda 👋🏻 Have you written "fix-it fics"? I'd love to hear about your experiences for a paper/presentation (for the Southwest American/Popular Culture Conference this summer). Yes, you!!

Here's the Google forms survey!!

Thank you for considering 🫶🏻

I mean there are tons of "character goes back in time" stories (hell, three of the main OC's on this blog are time-travellers, I'm very familiar with the genre) but none of them handle the downtime, at least not well. It's always skipped over, or filled with plans or neurotic "I don't like lying to them." Or "I have to be careful not to change to much."

It's why I'm personally a bigger fan of groundhog day stories or save scum abilities. Less of the worry about changing things and more simple "okay, how am I handling this run-through?" It's also why, in my Naruto story, I have Naruto and Tamotsu both travel back and bouncing off of eachother. You stay sane longer if you have someone you can share the insanity with.

But back to why I mention isekai's. The time-travel stories are great but there's just something about going "I know this world, I've mastered this game, oh my god now it's my turn."

Like I've spoken before about how I know just erasing the evil or the struggle or the character arc makes for a terrible story. But my counterpoint? I would play the hell out of a persona game where the evil shadows was the side content. Where it's just like "yeah we live in a world where some people have to do this to thin the numbers every time a leader gets full of himself. You drew the short straw." And the rest of the game is just the social links, school, clubs, training, and the goal is to just get those stats higher and higher while the monster slaying is just what you do for cash that doesn't mean much. Except maybe also raising your reputation.

I know this is weird since I'm a complete and total introvert who hates socialising (I can barely bring myself to talk to people online) but if I had a little number go up every time i did something?.... Well the negative numbers would probably still keep me depressed but if going somewhere and doing something was as easy as pushing a button and going on autopilot? I would minmax the hell out of that to make sure everything hit the top as quickly as possible.

But again, back to how this would affect a story. Videogames are so easy for this type of thing because, 9 times out of 10, your playing a mostly silent protagonist and, if you're as obsessed about things as I am, you KNOW what the characters are saying so you can just tune out, say your characters line and nod, while going through all the things you are about to face and plotting key changes. Or if you are in a JRPG surrounded by beautiful waifus then just go wild.

I can't bring myself to watch the new season of the last of us, but since I have already played the game. I know the terror that the game/show brings.

I'm thinking of writing of fix-it fics for the terror that the second episode is, so i'm hoping to pop out a few things that will calm the raging tears that tiktok edits have caused to shed.

A story that includes a scene of two characters talking about fix it fics and why people write them. (The characters can also be oppisites / rivals)

Then, later in the series, they get stuck together in some possible life ending situations (such as a collapsed building or cave being flooded with no way out that they can see) and one of the character speaks up.

"I think I understand why people write fix-it fics now.."

"Well, what is it?"

"I think it's because they cared for them so much that even if they were fictional, they felt like they deserved to be happy and decided to make a story where they get their happy ending"

"Huh.."

...

"Do you think there's people who would do that for us?"

The first character leans their head on the second ones shoulder

"I hope so.."

Fics that I love!

Stand beside the

great authors,