The problem with shipping a niche ship: you read all the fanfiction in one afternoon and if you want some more you have to write it yourself.
The problem with shipping a popular ship: 16,835 results on AO3. You start playing with tags and sorting through it, full of determination, confident that with so many fanfics you’re bound to find something you’ll like. Two hours, 30 instances of awful writing, 8 squick-outs,13 wtf AUs and 157 just plain uninteresting later you have to rush back to the canon to even remember why you liked the ship in the first place.
The problem with a popular ship: there are 6,285 fics similar to yours and you can’t help but compare your writing with others
The problem with writing a niche ship: you write only for yourself + your best friend who’s either your enabler or just feels sorry for you
Or, no, a dog trainer AU, because Max clearly trained Dog in The Road Warrior to an impressive degree despite their conditions. Maybe he’s an ex-K9 unit cop who got fucked up and now volunteers at a shelter. Maybe Furiosa trains rescues into service dogs and she spots him working there: looking like a homeless dude and shying away from humans, but so very gentle and patient with the animals, teaching them manners and tricks, calming them down – and then looking baffled when they follow him around adoringly.
And Furiosa sees his limp, the way he avoids people and talking but has enormous potential – and thinks maybe she can take in one more stray today.
*drains beer* Fuck it I don’t have work tomorrow LET’S FANG IT
****
Furiosa walks into the shelter and nods a greeting to Val at the front desk. “You got something for me?” she asks, leaning on the counter.
Val grins. “Out in the yard. You’ll see which one I mean.”
It’s a game they like to play: Furiosa needs dogs with the right personality to train as combination service-and-guard dogs for abused women, and Val has the best eye for evaluating animals in town, thanks to a lifetime of shelter work. But Val’s also an old friend, and competitive as hell, so she always makes Furiosa guess which dog Val called her in to see.
