UPDATE 05/08/2017: Hey guys, since Fanfiction.net is continuing to have problems with notifications, I thought I'd update this here for people wondering about what is going on because they're not getting notification e-mails anymore!

So first off, I did skip a week. Apparently I picked the wrong week, because the very next week the site stopped sending out e-mail notifications. We're crossing over a week of this flaw and nobody is successfully receiving e-mails about updated stories. This is obviously not great for us since I assume MOST people don't come to FF.net every single day! I did notice a spike at the usual update time even before I sent out the manual PMs to my followers, so I can at least assume most of you know to come by every other Friday. That will not be changing!

So I will of course continue updating stories on FFN for the forseeable future. My only concern is that, if the site starts to become abandoned, I will have a harder time reaching the long time readers, so here's the game plan if that happens. I already post every chapter to DeviantArt, Archive of Our Own, and Wattpad as well as this site, so if for some reason Fanfiction goes down, don't panic! Just go to one of those sites and look for "Rebochan" and you will still be able to read the chapters and yes I do actually update on all four of these sites at the same time! DeviantArt and Wattpad also have proper dashboards for mass notifying followers, so I try to post updates on those sites when something major happens. I will also try and keep my Tumblr at least updated with news when it happens - and that is ALSO a "rebochan" username (you'll know it's mine because Kaito is plastered all over it XD)

Hopefully FFN gets on top of those problems, but even if they don't, the stories are not going to come to an end because of them. I will keep writing for Kaito, like always =D

This account pretty much just exists for me to churn out Vocaloid fics. I haven't written anything on my main Rebochan account though, so you're still in the right place!

If the username isn't a dead give away, I'm pretty much devoted to Kaito. Love, love, love this guy, enough that I don't really care that I'm a woman in my early thirties writing about the mascot of a piece of software. I tend to see fanfiction as a fun way to meet like-minded fans, and also as a way to practice my writing without as much pressure as I'd need if I were writing original fiction. I also tend to trend towards stories with a strong female lead and a male lead with some sort of supernatural orientation or affliction. "The Vocaloids go shopping" is a story I just can't write because it has a lot less magic duels and helicopter explosions than I can handle! Maybe if a helicopter crashed and like... werewolves ran out out of the helicopter... while the Vocaloids were just trying to go shopping?

(Note to self: Must write "Helicopter Werewolf Shopping Date!")

I didn't start out in this fandom as a "shipper" and I still don't really see myself as one. While so far I primarily write stories with Miku x Kaito, I like to read a variety of stories and I'm open to other pairings - even unconventional ones! Just because I don't, say, write a KaiMei tale, doesn't mean I won't be interested in reading yours. Part of the fun for me in this fandom is the characters are gigantic blank slates and I love seeing what other song writers, artists, and writers interpret the same people to be.

I also like to write characters that contrast off of each other, each providing some personality trait that plays off the other members in the cast. I suspect I often read the Vocaloids with very different personalities than others, but I like to come up with the story first and then slot characters into roles second. Then I move them around the metrics I already personally read into their personalities.

Vocaloid couples I particularly enjoy:

You might have noticed a lack of Rin x Len. So, I literally cannot write these two as a couple and while I've read a few stories of them AS a couple that I liked, I still cannot get invested in them. I have actually tried to plot out a story where they are explicitly a couple, and it fell apart until I switched them back to siblings and just wrote about their familial love. Maybe some day I'll change my mind, but I already wrote one Beauty and the Beast story, it's not going to happen again ;)

So I've been asked off and on for writing advice, and I thought I'd throw out a few general observations based on my reads through Vocaloid fanfiction:

1. Nothing, but NOTHING, will turn me off your story faster than seeing things like "Miku POV" and "Luka POV" to show a transition. Guys... you don't have to do this. Your readers are pretty smart - as long as you write a solid transition from one person's perspective to another, you don't need to declare it in such a jarring manner. They'll know. Personally, I get around it with a line graph and a clear sentence or two at the start of the transition paragraph to show who's perspective I'm in, though I did once use song lyrics to show Miku and Kaito each having different thoughts in the same scene.
   Here's an example:

   Miku ate a spring onion. It was yummy. Spring onions were her favorite food!

   ---

   Kaito watched Miku eat the spring onion and thought about how they look so much like leeks.

   See? Not too rough. It's very clear who's perspective you're viewing, and you didn't have to yank the reader out of the story to tell them. Though I wouldn't recommend doing it in the middle of a sentence :)

2. The Vocaloids are in high school! Okay, I do still occasionally read these... but... there's so many of these stories. I literally moved Miku and her friends to college age in a story just to be able to write a modern-era fanfic where they weren't in high school. I recognize that a lot of you budding writers are still in high school and you're writing what you know - that's cool! But a lot of "Vocaloids in High School!" stories are very samey.
3. Grammar and spelling. Vocaloid fans are all over the world - and that's great! I've met so many interesting people who don't speak English as a first language, and that's made me so happy that I'm able to reach out to other people around the world like that! But that makes it all the more important to make sure your story written in your language of choice is as clear and clean as possible. If you're writing in English and you know your English isn't great (yet), see if you can find someone who has better English and work with them. Telling a story that's easy and smooth to read can make all the difference in the world! And frankly, if any of you guys reading this speak more than one language, I'm already jealous of you because I only speak English.
4. Paragraphs. Please, paragraphs. I know, FF.net has kind of a crappy parser, but if the entire story is one paragraph, I will not be able to read it. Paragraphs are all about separating different thoughts. I'm terrible about making too many, don't do what I do ;) I'm really trying to get better about sticking to a hard rule of "Paragraphs must be AT LEAST three sentences unless you have a good reason not to!"
5. Regular updates! I learned from good experience that if you tell people you're going to put up new chapters consistently on a certain day, they will love you forever. Fanfiction is notorious for being the work of people that had a cool idea, then dropped it. If you can confidently keep delivering content, everyone will love you. I will love you too because I too always lament that awesome story with that great hook that ended at Chapter 7 with an epic cliffhanger three years ago! This might mean planning your story out well in advance - and if you're willing to be hardcore like me, writing out several chapters in advance before you start posting the story! But it's totally worth it for building up a nice following (and regular readers! People who show up regularly are the best =D)

Okay, here's the real meat and potatoes: What the hell else am I working on? Well, these are subject to change, especially if they haven't started updating yet.

MY STORIES:

Vocaloid Tales: The Summer and Winter Garden: 10 parts. In a small village, Miku Hatsune grew up scared of "Demon Prince" tales. But the Demon Prince is real – Prince Kaito, a man cursed with a monster's form for breaking the fairy Luka's heart. When fate leads to Miku spending all winter at his castle, he and his ghostly knight Gakupo think they might have a chance to end the curse for good! But can shallow Miku come to love a beast? If it's not obvious from the description, it's a story of Beauty and the Beast with Miku and Kaito playing the main roles. My first Vocaloid story, it will always be close to my heart.

Broken Wings

Ever since the day a blue-haired boy with wings saved Hatsune Miku’s life, she’s never stopped believing in the existence of more people like him – no matter how much people told her they didn’t exist.

Now in college with her dearest friends and “Vocaloids” bandmates, Megurine Luka and Kagamine Rin and Len, she’s never given up hope on finding out what happened to the boy. When a blue-haired man turns up with strange gashes along his back, Miku immediately suspects the mysterious “Kaito” is connected to her mystery boy. Learning he has nowhere to go and nobody he can trust, Miku opens her home to the odd man, hoping that somehow he’ll lead her to answers. But right now, all Kaito is leading Miku and her friends to is trouble as strange beings with wings are attacking Tsubasa City with dark magic known as "Noise". A strange winged swordsman named Gakupo quickly joins their number, himself corrupted by the power of Noise, as Miku, Kaito, and her friends find themselves drawn into remnants of an ancient war that threaten to destroy the world.

Miku x Kaito, eventually Gakupo x Luka. No twincest.

Ran for 21 full chapters (the ending was too long!). I really need to get the elevator pitch on it down too, but its finally complete after spending 8 months on it.

Vocaloid Tales: The Nutcracker

It’s Christmas morning, 1816, and 16-year-old Hatsune Miku is eager to see what sort of presents her godfather Gakupo the clockwork toymaker and inventor has brought her. But when she finds a strange blue-haired nutcracker and receives it as a gift, she learns her new toy has a secret of his own…