#goldcranes

[nonsequitur22]

Fanfic Authors to reread

Here's a list of my favorite fanfic authors that write such masterpieces I'm left in awe. I have reread many, many of their stories because the writing is so good.

Astolat - I've read all of her Witcher and Transformer works at least seven times each, lol. The Game of Thrones stories are mind-bogglingly creative, and the Harry Potter works are the best I've ever read in the entire fandom ever. I love how quickly each story progresses and how immersive each world is, and I find that her stories are the ones my mind most often turns to and thinks about while I'm daydreaming.

spqr - phenomenal, breathtaking, single-chapter oneshots that slice into a fandom with such precision that you don't even have to know what the fandom is but you'll love it and feel like you've been a part of it for years. Masterful, exquisite, heartfelt stories that are like a solid jab to the solar plexus when you step into them.

betts - oh my gosh does this author know how messy emotions and relationships and life can be. She flays apart characters, sees what makes them who they are--all the flaws, mistakes, grief, bad parts of them--and shows exactly what it means to be human. I've never felt seen like this before. betts has a gift and each story is an absolute treasure.

glimmerglanger - this makes me want to cry. I've bookmarked every single one of their stories. Read many of them over and over and over. Screamed in elation when a new update came through. but - they're gone. Nuked. Obliterated. My heart goes to the author. This is a reminder to treat these writers better, to not nag or insult or complain about the writing they do for free. I sobbed when I found out their entire archive had been deleted. Those stories were breathtaking. Staggeringly creative. All Codywan fics set in such masterful worlds: the Mermaid AU, Magic AU, Yellowstone, Baseball, Time Travel, Captured by Vader and tortured, heck, even the Animal Crossing crack!fic was a blast to read. The rarepairs were so much fun, Just Right with Obi-Wan/Alpha 17 was a personal favorite. I hope glimmerglanger is doing ok and knows that they have so much support from dedicated fans.

objectlesson - alright this is my guilty pleasure. Here's who to go to if you want interesting, hot, probably out of your comfort zone but gosh darnit if it doesn't awaken something in you, smut. Never thought I'd read Doc/Lightning McQueen fanfic but here we are. This author knows exactly what's she's doing and I'm all for it.

goldcranes - Masterclass of intense focus on little details. On exactly which lens setting you use to set the scene, what to focus on, how to best portray what's happening to wrench on your reader's heartstrings and make them feel. Phenomenal writing.

esama - my first fandom crush :). Whispers in Corners is my #1 favorite fanfic of all time. She's who I turned to when I first started reading fanfic a decade ago and I still lovingly go back and read what I consider her greatest hits.

[valkyrhys]

amber i have to ask... if you could read ANY submission to ofic, what would it be? what do you most want to see? (brought to you by my burning desire to submit but my soul-crushing inability to settle on an idea)

fantastic question!! personally, I would love to read an illicit romance of some kind... you know I love an age gap, especially a teacher/student dynamic. something with dynamite smut and passionate feelings and super engaging stakes.

I would also love to read more fantasy! it's really hard to nail fantasy in the short form because the genre generally requires so much worldbuilding, but I think it's possible.

at the end of the day I'm just such a sucker for a love story in any form tbh. and I know I'd be frothing at the mouth if you submitted anything <3

[valkyrhys]

oh i would LOVE the director’s cut on restoration if you haven’t been asked already! i’m so intrigued by how the idea came to you and how you mapped it out and got it written 😍

ahh yes!! this got long so the answer is under the cut :)

I had wanted to write something set in the Catskill mountains since I was 15 and stayed in a cabin in the mountains for a weekend. I drafted countless beginnings throughout high school and college, fics and original fiction alike, trying to get a sense of what type of world and circumstances I wanted to create. I could never quite merge my ideas together in a way that worked.

there was a brief time— literally no more than a few days— where I thought about trying to write it as a bellarke AU in the summer of 2019, but that idea never took off, and the idea remained dormant.

then I watched season 1 of the witcher a few months later.

I became absolutely obsessed with the potential of a ciri/geralt dynamic. after a bit of deliberation, I came to the realization that 1) I didn't know enough about the universe to feel comfortable writing a canon ciralt fic 2) I didn't feel like getting flayed alive by antis (that feeling has since passed) and 3) why should I attempt to translate that dense world into a modern AU when I can just write my own story?

historically, I had 0 success writing original work before. I could never finish anything, could barely start anything without losing steam super quick. but for some reason I just couldn't shake this idea. who were these new characters? they weren't ciri and geralt, but they were reminiscent in their dynamic and their bond to each other.

how did that bond come to be? what experiences forced them together? why do they stay together? what are the complications in their lives? how much sex do they have and when does it start?

those were some of the things i was thinking while the idea was taking shape in my mind. and then I came to the big question: how do you create a societally-appropriate age gap romance? how do you create a relationship between two people with wildly different life experiences where they're both on an even playing field?

answer: you take away the society. you create a new playing field.

once I came to that realization, it was like something in my brain chemistry changed. I was so excited to tell this story, so much so that constantly revising and updating my outline was not draining but invigorating. I could see it becoming better and more real with each pass.

I also came to understand the value of a shitty first draft. of stream of consciousness writing, putting every thought down and going back to make sense of it later.

this was mostly theoretical until march 2020, when the restaurant I was working at closed without warning and all of a sudden I had no job and lots of free time to dedicate to this. it was a huge outlet for me, something positive to focus on during such an awful time. in fact, the original plotline that I had devised for the bellarke AU had them hiding out in the mountains after a plague, but that was hitting too close to home so I changed it to zombies for this draft.

I was never an outliner. I barely used to revise anything. I had some teachers and professors that used to require us to submit a first draft, and for that I would usually make a copy of the essay I had already written and just add mistakes. I thought I was being efficient, and I guess I was, but at the cost of quality.

now, my process from outline to finished draft requires at least 6 revisions. I thought that revising and outlining would slow me down, but it's made me faster. I think I've written more in the last 18 months or so than I had in the years before because now I know how a story works. it's amazing!

the response to Restoration is something I never ever expected, and it's brought me to tears on more than a few occasions. everyone's support has been so wonderful and I'm just so happy that I was able to create something I'm proud of and that people seem to love it a much as I do.

[simplejoiephoto]

I love this Japanese tradition that brings good luck of folding 1000 cranes for a wedding! Julia + Micheal’s was one of the sweetest intimate San Francisco weddings we captured this year! I love their love story of how they kept finding themselves back in San Francisco so it made sense to celebrate their big day there from a beautiful ceremony at beautiful City Hall and the reception at the historic Fire house at Fort Mason! We also got to work with Laura again this year! @eclecticaffairs is so amazing and has such a great eye for details! #1000cranes #1000craneswedding #goldcranes #goodluckcranes #japanesetraditionalwedding #bayareaweddingphotographer #sanfranciscoweddingphotographer #sanfranciscoweddings #weddingart #fineartphotography #lightandairyphotography #pnwweddingphotographer #destinationweddingphotographer #loveissimple #bayareaphotographer #foldedcranes #goldwedding #bayareaweddingplanner (at Fort Mason Historic Firehouse) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6q9MwNjfOG/?igshid=6gigmnuonfu2