Meanwhile, I Just Title My Blog Posts With Whatever First Comes To Mind.
Titles are something I've always struggled with when writing fanfiction. I thought I'd take a look back at the fics I've posted this year and note down exactly why I chose the titles I did
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Analyzing them is pretty fun! Here are the ones I’ve posted on AO3:
2013 Matchmaking Alphabet Meme A challenge I took up in 2023, where you had to pair up your lj icon characters together in alphabetical order and write a mini ficlet about it - except the fics I wrote got too long, and I never finished the challenge. I regret not coming up with something more creative, but at least it’s functional.
That Old Black Magic The title was inspired by Harold Arlen's song, and by caffeine_buzz’s lj icon, which prompted me to write this fic for the aforementioned challenge (in this case, Ada from Pandora Hearts was paired with Ahiru from Princess Tutu). It’s about Ada meeting a duck from the sorcery book she found, using black magic to turn the duck human, and getting a crush - so the literal and metaphorical meanings of ‘That Old Black Magic’ both apply here.
From Prisoner to Prisoner Same challenge, this time for Allen Walker from D.Gray-man and Alice from Pandora Hearts. Alice briefly breaks out of the Abyss and into the Ark, where she meets Allen, and they bond over the fact that they are both trapped in literal and abstract ways. The title refers to ‘a talk between two prisoners’, but also someone choosing to walk back into their prison rather than taking an opportunity to escape and face the unknown.
Bird of Ill Omen Last one I wrote for the lj challenge, pairing ‘Kaiser’ (Ken Ichijouji) from Digimon 2 with Gilbert from Pandora Hearts. The title describes Gilbert’s Chain Raven, whom Kaiser sees before he sees Gilbert, which leaves a strong impression. The two characters misunderstand a lot of things about each other and their situations, and Kaiser tries to pretend he is in control even though he is freaking out the whole time and can’t shake off the feeling of foreboding that the Raven inspires - it doesn’t help that Kaiser is a convenient scapegoat for the Nightrays during the Headhunter case, and they want Gilbert to be his executioner. In short, the ‘bird of ill omen’ is a harbinger of doom and horrifying truths that Kaiser doesn’t want to face.
Ambidextrous Originally a one-shot about Gilbert’s breakdown post Retrace 74 and the way he feels torn between his (mostly artificial) devotion to his ‘master’ and his love for Oz. His being ambidextrous is literal, but mostly meant as a metaphor for the way Gilbert tries to compromise between his conflicting loyalties while struggling against his brainwashing (which is symbolized by the way his left arm bounds him to servitude through his pact with Raven, and doesn’t fully obey him). Or that was the idea behind the title, but it’s pretty far-fetched.
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All Cats And Wolves Are Grey In The Dark Those are drabbles I wrote for DeathPuss Week 2023, a series of prompts centered on Puss and Death (who looks like a wolf in the movie). The proverb implies that appearance (and whether the fic is an AU or not) doesn’t change much to the tension between them. (But let’s be real: I used it because Puss is a cat. I can’t resist the siren call of terrible puns.)
Words Unspoken I got the idea from a song lyric in a Puss in Boots 2 AMV. Puss and Death lose all their magical powers, including the ability to speak, but still manage to communicate their intent to fight the one who stole the magic.
Pestilential Tide A rewrite of the Pied Piper fairytale. There are so many rats it looks like a tidal wave.
Flowers From Your Ashes Death catches the Hanahaki disease, and has to reap his flowers along with Puss’ lives every time the cat dies. Ashes are a fertile soil for flowers, and the fic focuses on the time Puss burnt to death. I had so much fun with the imagery that I illustrated it!
I Don't Want Your Shadow Puss is tempted to create an AI version of himself to keep his legend immortal - but he can’t escape Death, who won’t come for a ‘lifeless sham’ (in other words, a shadow).
Homespun Vessel It’s about Puss helping Death to upgrade his boat. Y’know, for crossing to the other side. It’s a weird mix of fluffy and macabre, so I wanted ‘home’ somewhere in the title. (And I may or may not have implied a pun for the figurative meaning of ‘vessel’, because I am incorrigible.)
And So We Fall The prompt was ‘Angels and Demons,' but I focused on the concept of fallen angels. Except this is a crack fic, and the reason Puss fell is - weird. (In my defense, it’s considered normal in the Shrek universe. Couldn’t resist making the joke.) The title sounds more serious than the fic itself, but the ‘We’ hints at the fact that Death is not immune to the weirdness. Plus, the fic is dialogue-only, which works well with a title in plural first person.
One Step From Your Grave Inspired by His Dark Materials, where each person has an individual Death by their side, they just never notice unless they wish for it. Here, Puss refuses to acknowledge his Death, until he runs out of lives to spare and nearly dies a final time from alcohol poisoning. In other words, when he has "one foot in the grave" - except I wanted to give more weight to the choice to step back from the threat. A little ominous, but it implies that ‘you’ still have agency. Also, I came to enjoy the mildly threatening tone of fic titles that address an ambiguous ‘you.’
It’s Not In The Stars A partial deconstruction of soulmates and fate: if you want to be together, does it matter whether you are ‘meant’ to be or not? The title is also an allusion to the Wishing Star from the movie, which deconstructed wishes in a similar way. (Also partly inspired by similar book and song titles such as John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and Pasek and Paul's ‘Rewrite the Stars’.)
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Don't Let The Bed Bugs Bite It’s an allusion to Monokuma’s daily prerecorded ‘goodnight’ speech from the first game, but in the context of the fic, it foreshadows what Komaeda and his ladybug daemon attempt in order to start the killing game. It was extremely fun to witness my readers’ horrified reactions (including yours!) when they realized what the title hinted at. Pretty proud of this one!
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I'm impressed by this! I so often completely fail to contemplate titles until I end up on the posting page, going '...wait, I'm going to have to think of a title, aren't I?'
Your titles are great, so your habit of going 'let's give this concept a title' early on is evidently working for you! I think my favourite is All Cats and Wolves Are Grey in the Dark, although I also love Flowers From Your Ashes and One Step From Your Grave. And the revelation of the full meaning of Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite was a horrifying, incredible moment.
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Looking back, my series of drabbles was probably an exception because one half of the ship I was writing about is an allegory as much as a character: Death as a concept is evocative enough on its own for a short story to have an impact, so it was easier to keep those stories short. But when I try to write short stories for fandoms with more complex characters, I inevitably go 'Nooo I need more time to dissect these characters under a microscope!!!' and my chapters keep growing and multiplying. Which also gives me ample time to think titles over; that might give me a bit of an advantage in that regard?
Come to think of it, I enjoy titles so much that I always name my chapters as well! Sometimes there is a general theme for the chapters of a specific story: for example, the chapter titles of Ambidextrous are all related to Gilbert's identity crisis and conflicting loyalties ('Baskerville' for the clan he was chosen for, 'Nightray' for his adoptive family, 'Vessalius' for his found family, 'Raven' for his destined Chain and alias, and 'B-Rabbit' for the Chain he ultimately chooses - which becomes another alias for him). Meanwhile, all the chapter titles for The Golden Hourglass are quotes from fairytales, nursery rhymes and fables, because it takes place in the Shrek universe and the fic includes many fairytale references. The themes behind the chapter titles of my Dangan Ronpa fics are less rigid, though. (Except my Izuru/Kaede plot bunny titled Quiet Keys. I have barely written anything for the story proper and probably won't ever finish it, but all the planned chapter titles have something to do with music: 'Improvisation,' 'Behind Curtains,' 'Duo,' 'Backstage Performance,' 'Sous Le Feu Des Projecteurs' (French for 'In the Spotlight'; although a more literal translation would be 'burning under the spotlight') and 'Encore.'
Thinking up those chapter titles helps me think of a story structure in advance - although, more often than not, I end up cutting a chapter in two, and I have to come up with another title on the spot. (As was the case for The Broken Cup: 'Old Wounds' was the original chapter title, and I had to come up with 'Ticking Bombs' for the second half.)
Anyhow, I think it's cool that you found all those titles on the fly! Including your post titles, which are very fun to read in how spontaneous they feel. As for your fic titles this year, my favorite might be 'Across the Threshold': it's very evocative of two worlds meeting, and crossing a line. It's all the more interesting because in the story itself, the point of view character doesn't get to see the results personally: all he gets is Helly's very unreliable account of what happened.
And I sympathize with your frustration over using 'Across the X' too many times: another reason The Broken Cup frustrates me as a title is because it is the third title I came up with that has 'The Adjective-That-Ends-With-An-'en' Object' format. (The other two are The Golden Hourglass and The Frozen River, a TWEWY fic project I never posted.)
I also really like 'Cold Comfort' for the pun, and both 'Above It All' and 'Always Believe' for the delicious irony! (Especially the latter, because the story itself has some powerful dramatic irony - poor Phoenix has no idea what he got himself into.)
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