#i just saw a tag called homestuck smut while looking for tags | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shivasdarknight · 3 months

Text

Fic Writer Interview

I was tagged by @sheepwithspecs for this! Looks fun, let's go! 🙌 I'm only tagging @starswornoaths and @fiercynnhere because I really lost track of who still writes and who doesn't 😅 So blanket "do this if you see this" statement here - also this goes for any AO3 alternatives people have bailed for given the state of that place right now.

How many works do you have on AO3?

20, though two are exquisite corpses so 18 are all me

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

259,190, though that's bound to jump up because a chapter I've been working on is ~22k rn, and that's just one draft

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos

I gave you dirt, I gave you water, you gave me uncontrollable horniness (108) - this is the second exquisite corpse that I did, and it's a rosemary fic that was more coordinated so I'm not surprised tbh? I wrote two sections for it, but it's so old. title is a reference to Little Shop of Horrors

The Shape of Water (2017) (53) - the first exquisite corpse, both were the same group and this was nonsensical. I wrote after the coordinator, and it devolved fast it was fun to work on. More Homestuck - but this was dirkjake - but it's also old and doesn't reflect my current writing. Take a guess why it's named that.

spare a moment, would you? (47) - oh hey this one's all mine. Yeah is it any surprise that the top 3 are all smut? wolysayle stuff, still like this one, though being a long fic writer and seeing the 4k word one do well is. Something alright.

how long you would wait for me? how long I've been away? (28) - wolestinien for wolestinien week, and this was a higher rated fic because yeah vague smut. I still like it, don't misunderstand, but I've got a different favorite lmao

don't test the tank (25) - the noncanon one because g'raha is no longer in the polycule lmfao. I'm pretty sure that's entirely why it got attention, since all of my non-exquisite corpse fics that have high kudos feature male characters in them and that's just not my focus rn. So it's really unsurprising that my favs have like. 12 and 2 kudos compared to all of the ones above, given they center Ysayle.

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I respond to all comments! At least most if I can lmao I like getting them? I also like giving them when I read fics, because idk. Acknowledgement that you saw something, discussing something dear to someone. That kind of thing.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I think probably somehow, silence hurts the most? There's not really any good resolution besides Surkukteni recovering. Ysayle's dead (as far as she knows, shh), she tried to kill someone who used to be close to her and couldn't go through with it, and she's being shuffled off to another conflict while she's still not healed from the last one - even if it's where she had wanted to be, she's still stuck with the wounds from the war she didn't want to get involved in.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Oh, easy: i had a dream about you. It's a fucking rollercoaster of a fic, it's one of my favorites, and I managed to make someone cry :D It's definitely the one that has the happiest ending, because I wouldn't call one-shots really...that? They're set in their tone unless it's a longer fic. Multi-chapter is really the only way I actually like getting a happy ending from something because you had to work to get there.

7. Do you write crossovers?

Well, I used to. FanFiction Dot Net was just...better for crossovers than AO3 tbh? Even though AO3 is better set up for it, most people on there hate crossovers unless it's an AU of something (y'know, like the old -stuck fics). I've still got some of those mentalities from that site in that I've used adjacent crossovers to fill out the cast of things, but most notably would be Inkspill. It's a Bleachstuck fic, but there aren't any Bleach characters whatsoever. It's just the setting and Rose is the main lead. It also epitomizes the fact that I don't like crossovers/AUs where people stick to the OG plot beat-for-beat? Like if you're coming to it as a fan, why do you want to see it exactly but with new faces. Bending the plot to the characters is a lot more fun and you get more stuff out of it (see: a ffx/homestuck AU i was plotting at one point that saw Jake replacing Yuna and Dirk replacing Tidus). But Homestuck was one of those weird fandoms where this kind of thing was encouraged and thrived. Being in XIV, I'm kind of loath to step outside of it because the setting itself has so much going for it that I don't really need to supplement it with anything else - which is hilarious, since this is the game full of crossover events! With those, it's like...I'll supplement other FF titles in the same vein as the game does already (eg: you can tell what era of Allag's rule tech is from based on if it's Pulse or Cocoon tech from FFXIII; Garlemald uses FFVI and FFVII stuff, while older stuff they've appropriated is things like Tactics and FFXII; the FFIV stuff, etc), but all the non-XIV stuff (sans tactics ogre, because POTD is Staying), that just gets a passing reference and not a main focus. The most notable instance of this is how Nier is handled, because while the storyline is canon, it's more of a joke. Everyone talks about it, everyone is confused by it, but I'm never going to actually write them dealing with the crossover because they don't really add much? It's just more funny having a bunch of medieval fantasy heroes trying to grapple with Yoko Taro-ness and breaking their brains over it.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

...hm. I mean, the worst I've gotten on a fic was on Inkspill, where someone decided to get snippy with me because the second chapter is ~10k words. I'd love to find them to show them the word counts of my current drafts lmfao. But actual worse stuff was role play, which involved people tearing apart my writing in private and using it as an excuse to try and get me kicked. But considering I lost the receipts from the person who leaked it, I can't say shit despite one of them being a large ffxiv account who runs an anti-bullying schtick here and on twt so. Yeah.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I definitely write smut, but good god is it difficult to work on. Like, I don't have issues visualizing it, it's just the language. And actually writing the scene out. Makes me so gd awkward, even if it's arguably vanilla shit. Which is admittedly really frustrating, because part of why I do write smut is to try and reclaim that facet of writing from some pretty nasty stuff from a past relationship (no details; very few people actually know the details). So much of it comes from trying to be able to write stuff for myself, but that hesitation is still there. As for what, it's predominantly female focused. As in, you're not really going to see a lot of shameless smut focusing on men (be it m/m or m/f). If men are involved, it's predominantly service stuff for a female partner. Cunnilingus tends to be my go-to, obviously fingering and w/e, but I'm trying to also expand what that means because Surkukteni frankly has had a fair number of flings with trans women and fems. So muffing is on the list of stuff to write (the surkie/cylva fic, stuff with heustienne and venat...), but in general just trying to get away from this pervasive idea that trans fems always have to be tops and have to penetrate their partner. If you're looking for this kind of stuff, I recommend Fucking Trans Women. But either way, most of what I write tends to be a response to stuff I've had to go through + wanting to see other depictions in fanfiction since it's. So often so samey.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not really, but I did have this weird encounter on an AU server where they said that people could just set up channels to discuss their AUs and whatever, but I wanted to distance myself from that group and they really did not want me to delete my stuff. Like, they got aggressive and snapped at me for not wanting people to to use an AU that was fairly personal to me. ...Like, they said it was just a place to talk about AUs, I was never told that their intention was that if you post it, it stays, and free reign for everyone else to do stuff in it. This and the role play server have just really made me never want to engage with Kingdom Hearts ever again.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope, but I'm open to the idea.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Well yeah, I'm part of two exquisite corpses that I linked above lmao Those are seriously fun, y'all should try it sometime. But aside from that, I tried to with my ex gf but that was. Less actually co-written, and more me doing all the work.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

If we're talking about normal definition of ships, probably Edelgard/F!Byleth. Like, don't get me wrong there's a lot of stuff in XIV that I care about npc/npc wise, but something like Ryne/Gaia is like how I feel about NamiXi in that...I adore them, but I wish they'd been around when I was that age? They're cute, but I was introduced to them as an adult and there's still that disconnect. Love queer teen stuff for the queer teens, but I'm nearly 30 lmfao Obvs I'm extremely deep into stuff like Ysayle/Venat, Ysayle/Heustienne, etc. but that's like. So minor that there's not a lot of community around them like there is with edeleth. But that's what happens when you're a f/f shipper 💀💀💀 But in all honesty, the actual answer is wolysayle. I'm blanket including other peoples' dynamics because I just really like seeing people actually use Ysayle and give her further purpose, but also I'm super deep into Surkukteni/Ysayle and all the nonsense that surrounds it - especially how partners like Venat are involved. I care them, I'm very emotional over them.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

As much as I would like to return to Inkspill, I'm never going to. It's an old fic and if it wasn't clear already, I'm not super interested in writing exclusively about teenagers. I'm also working on a fic that has been shown in snippets and whatever, but I'm hesitant about it because it's. This frustrating fkn thing of the fact that it's Perfectly Goddamned Normal, but people are so weird about it online - both the people who are way too into it, and the detractors. I just want to write about what Surkie goes through from post-shadowbringers to endwalker (which, iykyk what that entails), especially since this Scenario actually allows her to slow down and focus on other aspects of her relationship with her now-fiances, but people get so genuinely nasty about this topic. So even if I enjoy writing it and how it has her navigate her relationships - romantic, familial, and platonic - I'm not sure I'll ever finish it because of gestures.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told I'm very good at writing dialogue, and I can't really argue that because I really do enjoy writing conversations between people. I know people are sick of the Marvel irony that shows up in dialogue and so it makes everyone leery of sarcastic exchanges, but sarcasm and banter are genuinely my favorite things to write. I like obnoxious assholes who know what the other's boundaries are, so they can just be as blunt or snide as they like without a wrong word causing things to get contentious. It's a stark contrast between Surkie and Estinien dialogue and Melisande and Ysayle, because the former is two people who deeply understand the other and know when to stop, vs the current stuff which is Melisande picking at every way she can upset Ysayle because she just does not like her. I try to keep speech habits in mind when writing, I also keep track of how frequently someone curses and what expletives they use, and it's just...really fun trying to make it so distinct that you don't need tags to tell who's speaking? Means I've done something right. And - at least, according to my mother (because she does know about my writing) - I'm apparently good at descriptive prose, because it's "very evocative" and "paints a good mental image".

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing smut, tbh? Like, I know it's similar to action, but I just can't get it for the most part. I'm also not very good at writing stuff that skims over things to cover a long span of time because I like idling in moments and having things go slow. Jumping from place to place and scene transitions are the bane of my existence.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think it's important to at least try. I've run into this issue because my WoL is a polyglot but also has the Echo. Like was mentioned in the tag's post, I use Writing with Color a lot to inform me about how to better handle accents from other languages so I don't wind up with how people like Lovecraft write (because that's embarrassing), but I also try to use what I know to inform sentence structure because people kind of just...ignore that? I'll be more specific: I incorporate various English accents and dialects into what I write to get a better idea of what their voice sounds like, but nowhere in there is that used as a signal to view them as unintelligent the way that XIV (and frankly most English-speaking media) does. Kitase has a thick accent, but it's more Lominsan so it's reflected in his speech. However, both he and Surkukteni speak Hingan (japanese), Doman (ig japanese as well because fkn stormblood), and Rural Doman (chinese). I don't know if anyone's picked this up, but Surkie and Kitase both tend to drop the subject of who they're talking about after a while, and very rarely use self pronouns if talking at length. "You" is also fairly absent compared to a native Common (english) speaker, more so in Kitase than Surkukteni due to exposure. These habits come from Japanese sentence structure and how a lot of context is dropped if it can be clearly inferred. Obviously, it's a habit in English, but not to the same degree. Sign language is in here and a version of it used with the dragoons is prominent to Surkie. That led to a long research stint into trying to figure out how to portray that - and there's no good one answer? So I settled on using [Stuff like this] to show that it's talking, it's formatted as talking, and doesn't have the same flourishes as other speech. This is mostly because of how I format dragonspeak, internal brain buddies, and other things. It's treated exactly like normal dialogue, it just has different tags and punctuation. Otherwise, it is exactly the same to not make it seem like it's lesser to spoken languages.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Kingdom Hearts, but we don't talk about that.

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Fire Emblem Three Houses, but HEAR ME OUT. HEAR ME OUT. Yes, I would love to contribute to the femslash edeleth, but my main motivation for an FE3H fic is a New Game+ meta fic. I got the idea from starting a new route and finding that supports and skills could transfer over, so it got me thinking about a looping story involving Byleth - an ever changing person, in presentation, name, and relationships - having to relieve the story of FE3H and trying to figure out how to break out of it. They're more cognizant with each loop, more manic, until it finally splits into the femleth and guyleth. Femleth remembers the fact that this isn't right, Guyleth stands in opposition to her. Femleth ends up with Edelgard and the Black Eagles, Guyleth ends up with Dimitri and the Azure Lions. And it's going to get messy. But I havent really had the energy to write it because it means finishing all the other routes, and doing Black Eagles first has made it very hard to go through Azure Lions. I'm sparing people my feelings on it, but omfg. I just want to go back to Crimson Flower.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

i had a dream about you and you want a better story. who wouldn't? Like, they were the most fun to write (the latter is my active draft), and I just care them. Very proud of these two uwu

#tagged #original #ofc it's my favs that are my lowest read fics 💀 typical

3 notes · View notes