So, my bff from high school knows I write fic. I've talked to her about it several times.
A year or so ago, she asked what fandoms, and when I mentioned check please she was like oh I read that (she's a high school teacher so I'm not surprised), maybe I should read your fic! And I was like haha changing the topic now.
A couple days ago I talked to her on the phone and she was talking about how she's been going to a writing group and asked to read my fic again, this time offering her own writing in exchange (in her words, 30 pages of worldbuilding that goes nowhere with no plot lol).
So anyhow I finally caved and sent her a link to Pulled From Orbit, mentioning that it's kind of weird and lockdown happened while I was posting it so it didn't get as much attention as most of my check please fic. While thinking to myself, if I send her my weirdest non-smut fic it'll probably discourage her from asking for more but if she likes it maybe there's promise here.
And then the next day I get her reply:
"Wait. I'm confused. What does check please have to do with this story? Is there a connection?"
Friends. It had not. For one moment. Occurred to me. That she would not even know what an AU is. 😂
So I had to explain to her about putting your favorite characters (I DEFINITELY could not use the word blorbo) in situations.
I was fully this comic (please excuse the fact that I misspelled divergence):
I get so many comments on my fics that are basically "wow I'm so glad you didn't drag this misunderstanding/miscommunication out any longer than necessary!" And as nice as it is that they liked how I handled it, it's almost more gratifying to get confirmation that I am far from the only one who does not enjoy that trope.
Although they're both omegas, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have been drawn to each other since the day they met, but Wei Wuxian has found one excuse after another to tell himself it's not real.
Lan Wangji finally gets Wei Wuxian to admit his feelings and that they are, in fact, zhiji, at the Phoenix Mountain hunt—just before everything goes to hell.
Now that the possibility of marrying Wei Wuxian is within reach, he's not going to let it go easily. His determination to protect his zhiji—and his ability to smell how far gone Wei Wuxian is in the resentment, and pull him out with his own scent—mean that justice might be served after all.
It's a WIP, but it's the kind that's already written so you know I won't abandon it. Posting twice a week, Fridays and Mondays/Tuesdays (probably)
Featuring such banger tags as:
if xie lian can have a dressing room I can have a war crimes trial
Omega/omega Wangxian, rated E
73k, now fully posted!
Summary:
Although they're both omegas, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have been drawn to each other since the day they met, but Wei Wuxian has found one excuse after another to tell himself it's not real.
Lan Wangji finally gets Wei Wuxian to admit his feelings and that they are, in fact, zhiji, at the Phoenix Mountain hunt—just before everything goes to hell.
Wei Ying takes him by the shoulders. "Lan Zhan, please. That's not your place in this. If you love me, don't come with us. Go home and convince our sects that the Jin are in the wrong. I'll hide them, it's up to you to make sure we can come out of hiding safely."
As much as Lan Wangji knows he's right, he can't bring himself to agree immediately. He can't just leave Wei Ying now. Not after all of this.
Wei Ying moves his hands down to take Lan Wangji's and squeezes. Lan Wangji squeezes back, their skin slippery wet and clammy against each other. "This is how you court me, Lan Zhan—help me save these people by doing the part of this that I can't do, because no one will listen to me."
Featuring such banger tags as:
if xie lian can have a dressing room I can have a war crimes trial
You may have heard me talk about (or read the fics I wrote for) Battleship in the past - it's not running this year, but instead a very similar event called Taggle is running.
The way this event works is that ANYONE can leave prompts, and then the players write fics (or make art or podfics) for those prompts in order to strategically hit tags on a gameboard. Every fanwork has to be a gift in response to a prompt.
Unfortunately, because it's not official Battleship-branded Battleship, Taggle has way fewer participants and has gotten way fewer prompts, which means that right now there are ZERO PROMPTS (other than those I've left) in many of my fandoms! Which will make it hard for me to write anything!
In particular, Supernatural, Check Please, Baby-Sitter's Club, and For All Mankind currently have no prompts from anyone but me (I haven't even gotten around to writing prompts for some of them yet) - last year I wrote fics for all of these, but I can't without prompts!
But even if you and I don't share any fandoms, I encourage you to create prompts for the fandoms you are in, so that people can create things in those fandoms.
How do I leave prompts?
Go to the Taggle 2026 prompt collection and click "Sign Up" - don't worry, you're not actually signing up to play. Signups are closed, so you can ignore anything in the instructions about signing up. You're just here to leave prompts.
A few things to note:
Do NOT click that you want the prompt to be semi-anonymous. If you don't want your AO3 name listed on the prompt, you'll have to make a sockpuppet account.
Do NOT put any tags other than the ones in the collection's tagset in any of the fields!
DO make sure your account can receive gifts! (Preferences -> Collections, Challenges, and Gifts -> make sure "allow anyone to gift me works" is checked)
DO write something in the Optional Details section, even if it's just "I don't have any DNWs" (are you sure you don't have any DNWs?)
If the fandom and/or relationship you want isn't in the tagset yet, you have to nominate them first - read the nomination rules first, they'll be rejected if you don't follow them. You'll probably have to wait a few hours for a mod to approve them before you can prompt with them.
For each prompt you'll need to specify:
A fandom that is in the tagset (gifter will have to work within this fandom)
1-20 characters or pairings that are in the tagset (gifter will have to include at least one of these)
1-3 mediums (fic, art, podfic) that you're willing to receive (these are listed as characters, ignore that)
1 or more Freeform tags from the tagset (gifter will have to include at least one - see notes under cut for more details on these)
A list of things you Do Not Want (if you've never made a DNW list, see details under the cut) (your gifter is NOT allowed to include any of these)
A list of things you do want, whether specific prompts or just vibes (you're not required to provide this but it's recommended; your gifter is not required to include these, but most will try their best)
Let me know if you have any questions! If I don't know the answer, I'll ask around for you.
A few other notes to keep in mind under the cut:
There are 400+ Freeform tags to choose from (the first 20 can go in Additional Tags, the rest in Optional Tags, these fields are treated as the same). You have to choose at least one, but can put as many as you want. Much like warnings, even if you don’t list a tag, you might get it unless you DNW it, so it’s a good idea to go through the list and compile a "Tags I DNW" list.
Luckily there is a spreadsheet here to make all this easier - just check off tags and it will create a magic list for you to copy and paste, whether into the tag fields or for a DNW list!
Your gifter will be required to use at least one relationship and one freeform that you’ve selected - but be aware that they can choose ANY relationship + ANY freeform, so if there are, for example, some kinks you like with ship A but not ship B, you’ll want to make separate prompts so you can choose different freeforms for the two ships.
All DNWs (whether freeform tags, or just other things you Do Not Want) must be listed in the Optional Details box for every prompt. Many times your gifter will not even see your other prompts, so don’t expect them to read what’s on another prompt. Just copy and paste that shit. Be as specific as possible - just saying “no kinks” will leave potential gifters wondering what you think is kinky. Don’t worry about your list being too long, as long as you don’t DNW anything that you chose in your tags (like a brother/sister pairing + DNW incest).
Do NOT explain why you don’t want your DNWs - that’s your business, and sometimes it can sound judgmental even if you don’t mean to be (hopefully I don’t have to tell you not to intentionally write anything judgmental, but: don’t). Just list what you don’t want, and gifters will avoid it without questioning why you don’t want it, whether it’s scat/watersports or Modern AUs or a specific character.
Note that if you choose an individual character, gifters are allowed to put that character in a pairing, so DNW any pairings you don’t want them in (or you can just say “DNW Mr X in any romantic/sexual pairing”)
You can (and should) also put things you like, either generally or for that fandom/ship, as well as specific prompts, in the Optional Details box, but these are optional, both for you and the gifter. The gifter only has to hit one relationship and one freeform (though most will do their best to make a gift you’ll like).
You can submit up to 25 prompts per AO3 account.
Prompting will stay open throughout the event (which started today and will probably go for about 2 weeks), so don’t feel like you have to submit all your prompts at once!
If you do get a gift, be sure to leave a nice comment! ♥️
I can fiiiiiinnallllyyyyy talk about this! I spent so much time on this, oh my god, it consumed my brain for weeks at a time, and I've had to sit there quietly until author reveals for Fic In A Box!
Do you like:
✅ Reality show AUs
✅ Musician/singer AUs
✅ Fics where someone researched a very specific topic they love to hell and back
✅ A fic with links to all the C-Pop songs involved so you can have a fully immersive 3D experience
✅ Bitey Lan Zhan
✅ Imaginary Redditors
✅ Workskins that took me weeks to get right
✅ Author's Notes as long as the chapter (only on the first chapter, most other Author's Notes are very reasonable)
✅ I feel like I am selling this hard to a very narrow audience and chasing everyone else away but I promise it's also just a very fun fic and you can ignore a lot of the extraneous information if you want
Their Song
59K, Rated E, Wangxian (with bonus SongXiao)
Summary:
Wei Wuxian's music career started at the age of 16, when he debuted with the K-pop band Junior League. Now, at 35, he's a well-established artist, mostly releasing upbeat dance tunes. Seven years ago, he went on the first season of the variety show Our Song as a junior to be mentored; now in season 8 he's back to do the mentoring.
Lan Wangji is an opera singer who happened to have one pop hit. His brother convinced him to do this show to broaden his horizons and explore possible career paths. His preferred musical styles would appear to be nothing like Wei Wuxian's, but he finds himself assigned the pop star as his mentor.
Artistically, everyone (including them) expects it to be a trainwreck. But as they learn more about each other and find common ground, they find themselves unexpectedly connecting onstage—and off.
...And Reddit notices!
****
And don't miss the thrilling sequel, /r/OurSong SCREAMING SOBBING THROWING UP WANGXIAN CONFIRMED - featuring character growth for the last person you'd expect.
I started tracking my writing wordcount in 2015. In 2020, when many people were having trouble writing, I wrote over 200k. In 2021, I wrote nearly 300k.
Most of that was fic, but also a good bit of nonfiction and original fiction. I sold two magazine articles in late 2021/early 2022, and I was preparing to start querying agents with some picture book manuscripts.
Then in July 2022 I got covid for the first time, and it took my ability to write. I have a weak immune system and lung damage, both due to lymphoma 20 years ago, and covid hits me HARD. Every time, I can't get out of bed for two weeks, and then am too fatigued to do much of anything for another 2-4 weeks. And on top of that, I couldn't write, for long after the actual illness.
Not being able to find the right words for things is a well-documented aspect of covid brain fog, and for me it just took all of it.
The first half of 2022 I wrote 121k, the second half only 50k. And it was all finishing things I'd already started. I stopped having plot bunnies entirely. I posted nothing to AO3 from May 2022 to March 2023.
Since I was still having no ideas, in 2023 I started a WIP cleanout and got several things old things finished and posted. My total wordcount for 2023 was still only 50k. 2024 was 60k.
I've done Get Your Words Out for years now and had never had trouble meeting the goals I set for myself. I got my yearly goal down to 150k, and still could not get close to it. Worse, I was still not starting anything new, I had zero ideas. And work on anything other than fanfic had just stopped entirely.
2025 has been an absolute shit year in general for many reasons, which I won't bore you with because we all share them. BUT! I can write again!
Doing some exchanges got me kickstarted, although I did some last year too and only barely managed enough to participate in them then, so it's not just because of exchanges. But this year I wrote nearly 40k in July, almost all of it for Battleship. And throughout the fall I was writing for Fic in a Box, including my 60k Wangxian Our Song AU. (Please read it, it's so much fun and I did so much research on both music and workskins.)
Some of my writing accomplishments in 2025:
Updated a Destiel fic that hadn't been updated in over a decade
Started and finished a new Destiel fic for the first time nearly a decade
Wrote 40k in 9 days (on the Our Song AU)
Generally, writing that entire AU is an accomplishment. I'd had the initial idea years ago, but that hadn't gone anywhere. I can't believe I started and finished a 60k story in the past 3-4 months. Please read it, I love it so much.
Posted my first original work on ao3 (well technically I have 4 but the other 3 are art)
Actually that might be literally the first time I've actually finished an original story, ever, other than picture books.
Wrote the first omegaverse fic in For All Mankind fandom, and actually I'm really proud of it.
Hit my yearly goal of 150K by the end of November!!
Might just hit 200k? Not super likely but I'm at 191k right now
And the most recent 5k I've been writing is a new wangxian fic that I just had the idea for a few months ago, which is not for any exchange I just literally had an idea for a story and am writing it and will finish it! That has been so rare for me the past three years!!
I'm worried that the next time I get covid it will kill my writing again. I'm worried I won't be able to keep going without the manic energy of these exchanges that I write too much for. I'm really REALLY hoping I can get back to my original stuff but I'm scared I won't be able to.
But I feel like something finally unstuck in my brain after 2.5 years of just having zero ideas and being barely able to drag out the words for my pre-existing WIPs. 🎉
It does help that, after a strange fatigue-only virus (I tested, it wasn't covid) knocking me out for two weeks in June, the past 6 months has been the first six month streak in years when I have not had some kind of health problem that significantly impacted my ability to function for at least a week or two. No covid, no shingles, no vitamin deficiencies, no weird heart problems from faulty meds. Being healthy for several months straight is great, everyone should try it lol
I hope in 2026 I can keep it up, finish some of my longer WIPs, and get some of the original stuff out of my head and onto paper. And I hope everyone reading this writes whatever and as much as you want in 2026!
