I've been reading fanfic since the mid-nineties. I love recommending fanfics simply to share the joy.
From Nov 2024 this will purely be a recs blog.
Recs will be mostly m/m or gen, and a variety of ages and fandoms. Try something new today!
You know what was probably hilarious? The 180 that Bruce Wayne does when he adopts Dick - at least through the eyes of socialites and gala attendees. They are probably so used to Bruce Wayne being a drunken mess or doing something reckless and scandalous or being a flirt but then he appears after a hiatus after adopting a kid, who as attended as his plus one rather than some model or actress and...
Waiter #1: Did... Did Bruce Wayne seriously just ask whether that orange juice was organic?
Waiter #2: I mean, yeah, it's a genuine question
Waiter #1: But Bruce Wayne? The guy asked you last year whether ‘gluten’ was a type of new drug?
Waiter #2: Yup.
Politician: Is Bruce Wayne seriously cutting up that child's steak for him?
Socialite: I honestly didn't think he knew how to use cutlery. Remember last year when he stuffed that mini quiche into his mouth in one go? Those Prada models had to give him the Heimlich?
Dick: Bruce why is everyone staring? Did I do something wrong?
Bruce: No buddy, I just ordered a Coke and they're a little surprised.
Dick: Oh, are you not allowed Coke? That's OK, my mom never let me have soda after dinner either. I won't tell Alfred, I promise.
Bruce: Thanks, chum.
Waiter: Um, sorry Mr Wayne but the bartender wanted me to make sure that-
Bruce: Just a regular Coke with ice, please.
Waiter:
Bruce: I will still take it with a little umbrella.
We're having a Trope Flip Fest here at the Prompt Foundry for November 2025!
We all have our favorite tropes in media and fanwork, and we all have tropes we merely tolerate or are bored of. Either way, there's lots of room to have fun exploring the possibilities of turning the usual tropes on their heads!
A big thank you to everyone who helped contribute to this list by sharing their favorite tropes! It's great to have the community chime in.
These prompts are particularly well suited to prose writers, especially fanfiction writers, since that's the realm we're drawing inspiration from this month, but all artists and forms of creative work are more than welcome to join the fun.
Feel free to combine different days’ prompts with each other, or combine them with other events, like OC-tober, Inktober, or last year's Nom Nom November! Use your OCs, your favorite characters from media, your own experiences, whatever tickles your fancy.
If you use this list, please tag me here @thepromptfoundry, I’d love to see your writing and art!
Respond to as many prompts as you want or as interest you, don’t worry about missing or skipping any, or posting your work after the day the prompt is assigned to. Remember, this is supposed to be fun!
If you have any questions or musings, check our FAQ, and if you don’t find your answer, shoot me an ask.
Plain text list below the cut:
1 Cursed to Lie
(Truth Serum)
2 Too Many Beds
(Only One Bed)
3 Forced Distance
(Forced Proximity)
4 Fake Divorce
(Fake Marriage/Fake Dating)
5 Misplaced My Person
(Accidental Child/Family Acquisition)
6 Suddenly Old
(De-aging)
7 Last Kiss
(First Kiss)
8 Life-Saving Celibacy
(Bang or Die)
9 Spontaneous Time Freeze
(Time Travel)
10 “It's Complicated” Punch
(True Love's Kiss)
11 Blorbo In The Real World
(Isekai/Transmigration)
12 Irredeemable Heroes
(Redeemable Villains)
13 Unrequited Apathy
(Mutual Pining)
14 Dropouts and GEDs
(High School and College AUs)
15 Enforced Secrecy
(Secret Reveal)
16 Oh, Please Kick Their Ass
(Touch Them You Die)
17 Actually Good Parenting
(Various Characters' “A+ Parenting”)
18 Characters All Over the Map
(Bottle Episode)
19 Open Book Acquaintance
(Mysterious Stranger)
20 It Doesn't Matter Who It Is
(Identity Porn*)
* Note that “Identity Porn” refers to shenanigans around the maintenance of secret identities, and need not be sexually pornographic.
21 Highly Specific Memories
(Amnesia)
22 Too Hot for Human Contact
(Cuddling for Warmth)
23 Fated Foes
(Soulmates)
24 Intense Platonic Devotion
(There's No Platonic Explanation for This)
25 Orchestrating a Breakup
(Playing Matchmaker)
26 How Worse Things Could Be
(Fix-it)
27 Hate Potion
(Love Potion)
28 The Faintest Family Resemblance
(Identical Cousins/Matched-set Siblings)
How to tell if you're in a historical Chinese drama:
(Inspired by this classic!)
Someone offends you unforgivably by calling you by your actual name.
You are preparing for a bloody battle in the rain. Your boots are made of exquisitely embroidered silk duchesse.
Everyone you know is god-tier beautiful. You ignore this.
Significant tea is being poured.
Your soulmate tells you in plain words that they love you. You comically misunderstand what they said, and will keep doing so, because the plot is not over yet.
The only thing more elaborate than the villain's cunning plan is the engineering of your man-bun.
Duels are scored like gymnastics routines. To beat your opponent, try a triple-twisting double tucked salto.
You have been married for thirty years. You have never seen your spouse's wrist.
Sometimes peasants and servants are killed horribly in front of you. It's a normal part of life. The other peasants will presumably take care of the practicalities, such as burial and being upset.
Any injury, including a broken nail, makes you vomit blood.
The year is 400 AD. French tips have been invented.
Rec: Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed; The Simplest Way Forward by harriet_vane
Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed
Pairings/Characters: Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian
Rating: Explicit
Length: 70,972 words
Creator Links: harriet_vane at AO3
Theme: Marriage of Convenience
Summary:
It’s a really unfortunate thing, developing a crush on your husband. Wei Ying had assumed this would be easy. Lan Zhan had been so icy and unpleasant to him, it had never occurred to him that he might end up spending the next however many years with this dumb, burning feeling in his chest whenever he looks at him.
“Okay,” says Wei Ying. “But tell me if I…if the pretending gets to be too hard, okay?”
“It will not,” says Lan Zhan, quietly certain.
Reccer’s Notes: Is it redundant to rec a fic that has 31,682 kudos (and counting)? Probably. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes. Yes, I am.
Because it is fabulous.
It’s kidfic with Yaun at his most adorable, it’s a modern AU, it’s beautifully written and even if you’ve read it before I’m sure now is a great time for a reread.
Lan Zhan is his impeccable, smitten, useless at communicating self and Wei Wuxian is, as always, just doing his best in the circumstances he finds himself in.
An absolute classic. BTW, If you haven’t dipped a toe in MDZS canon or fanon, you could read this anyway due to its AU nature, and then perhaps be hooked… 31,682 AO3 users can’t be wrong, right?
Rec: Die Hard Movies: Pre-Existing Condition by Helenish
Fandom: Die Hard 4.0
Pairings/Characters: Matt Farrell/John McClane
Rating: Not Rated (I would say Gen or Teen at most)
Length: 13,139 words
Creator Links: Helenish at AO3
Theme: Marriage of Convenience
Summary:
“Anyway, he’s staying with me for a while,” John says.
“My place got firebombed,” Matt says, reflexively.
Reccer’s Notes: This fic is absolutely note perfect. The characters feel absolutely on point and the marriage of convenience trope feels completely natural. An exploration of how to be normal after something absolutely crazy has happened to you.
It feels very warm and true and absolutely delightfully done in Helenish’s brilliant way of writing.
Look I don’t care how implausible it is, I don’t care how ridiculous it is. Dick is eight years old when he becomes Robin. It’s the funniest fuckin thing and I refuse to ever make him older than eight when he bullies a grown ass Bruce into letting him go out at night with him.
Does Bruce take him on kiddie runs until he’s a little older? Maybe. Does Batman stand menacingly behind a brightly colored little bird to threaten the goons while Robin can’t see him? You know he does.
But Robin is still actually terrifying when he first appears on the scene, because he’s a teeny tiny fluttery little thing that does cartwheels and handstands and makes puns then launches himself full force to kick a man in the nose and then cackles when he bleeds. His laughter makes goons shiver, they hear it bouncing around warehouses and half of them bolt, because they learn very quickly what happens when a feral Robin appears.
The Gotham rogues all immediately have beef with a literal third grader because he took the bats attention away and also because he’s roundhouse kicked them all in the shins at some point and that shit hurt like hell, and then he laughed in their faces while making a pun about their villain name.
Majority of the rogues everywhere hate Nightwing because they all know he used to be the feral child that they all thought Batman should have put on a leash, half of them have been straight up bitten by him before he lost all his baby teeth, and they’re all so bitter about the fact that they’ve been beaten by an actual elementary school student. And now he’s all grown up? He’s fucking terrifying.
"Every word I once wrote has come back to haunt me," posted a writer who says she was arrested for "obscene" work.
As someone who enjoys the wide variety of stories that these authors have given us, it’s disheartening to see how much censorship and targeting they face. I really hope the authors can stay safe and I’m heartbroken for them.
My only criticism with this article is the heavy focus on the ‘female desire’ aspect of Danmei, (even if that is part of it) especially considering a lot of these stories offer representation where other genres and authors don’t even try. Not to mention the incredibly complex plot lines and stories these authors create which it feels like is being overlooked here.
It’s very easy for readers to just dismiss these stories as a result when there’s a lot more to them.
However, this article is very important to read. And we should all be aware of what’s happening.
And as for the parts that talk about China pushing for ‘traditional family values’ it’s a stark reminder to all of us that homophobia, misogyny and transphobia are all linked and we need to look out for each other.