I Adore The "Merlin Doesn't Realize Arthur's Counting Him Because He Doesn't Understand Nobles" Fics

It's an open notes test and some dense motherfuckers still can't figure out the answers.

i was thinking this morning about how i categorize fanfic authors that i enjoy like AKC breeds and decided to share my rubric with you:

the specialist: this author has a favorite kink or trope and has written 80% of the content in that tag. you know exactly what you’re getting. they have A Brand™️. no matter what other traits they display, dedicated rare pair authors belong here.

the chocolate box: essentially the exact opposite. this author will try anything once. they have 80+ works in the fandom with no discernible pattern. the shortest one is 268 words and the longest is well over 100k. this breed of author may or may not be related to:

the renaissance fan: they’ve written three things in your fandom: your favorite fic, your notp, and a bizarre crossover with a show you’ve never heard of. you hit “expand fandoms list” on their author page and have to scroll down twice to reach the bottom. whenever you curse the fact that you can’t legally commission fic writers, this is the author you’re thinking about.

the horn dog: they’re here for one thing and one thing only. if someone’s dick is not in another character’s mouth within 500 words, they apologize for it in the author’s notes. they have one (1) g-rated fic.

the rookie: this writer is usually young, new to fandom, or just got a beta-reader for the first time. their fics are a little all over the place, quality-wise, but you’re excited whenever their name pops up because their unique voice gets stronger every time. you feel a personal investment in their development, like you’re an old man reading the local high school sports page and saying “this kid’s the one to watch.”

the live streamer: the most prolific author in the fandom. their works are all over the front page when you sort by kudos. you have no idea how they generate this much work, and have seriously wondered if they have access to an extra-dimensional time portal. their stories are usually un-beta’d and the characterization varies wildly, but their best works are inspired and you’ve read them 30 times.

the cryptid: this one comes out of nowhere every two years, drops the best fanfic you’ve ever read, and disappears. fifteen months after you left a three paragraph comment about how they changed your life, you get a message in your inbox that just says “thanks.”

the novelist: we talk about “filing off the serial numbers” when someone reworks their most popular story to pitch it as an original novel; this author somehow does the reverse. their fics are excellent, usually long-reaching multi-chapter AUs that have almost nothing to do with the on-screen characters except their names. i’d like to extend my personal thanks to this breed of author because it’s the closest i get to reading an actual book.

the reunion tour: this author wrote some of the most popular works in the fandom, but either moved on to k-pop or burned out when canon took a turn for the worse. they put out one new thing a year, often an old draft that’s been haunting them from under the floorboards. their last six author’s notes all say they never thought they’d write this pairing again and “this will probably be the last time.”

who did i miss?

btw it is sexy and cool to uplift and admire people who have skills you wish you had without using their ability as a stick to beat yourself with. even and especially if you are jealous of them.

What's up jayvik nation

I'm too much of a sucker for the tragedy of Wicked's ending to take any of this seriously, but the funniest possible fix-it concept is that Glinda just. Does not know. How the fuck. To send this 12yo back to Kansas. Like why the hell would she know how to do that?? Who thought it was a good idea to leave her in charge of this???

And from Dorothy's POV, this is such a funny concept: imagine for a minute that you (a child) wake up in a Fairy-Land, become best friends with a (possibly mentally unstable?) talking scarecrow, and are told by the god-kind that you must go murder his political rival before he'll send go home. Fine. This might as well happen.

And when you return from said murder - which is somehow successful - it turns out the god-king is a fraud and cannot help you. Whoops. Well, how about the OTHER seemingly most powerful person in the country? Ah, no....it turn out she had pretty limited powers in the magic department. And they're mostly bubble-related.

So she takes you (by bubble) to a tiny seaside town on the edge of the map to seek the help of her most powerful friends….the woman you just murdered and your scarecrow best friend who was an accomplice to that murder. And apparently, they’ve all three been dating since undergrad.

I mean, what do you even do with that.

Art by Julia Zhuravleva

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my grandparents have to lock their car doors when they go to sunday mass because people have been breaking in to unlocked cars and leaving entire piles of zucchini