#see: things I care about so much that I wrote 50k words of fanfiction about it lmao

[cookinguptales]

*spins the meta wheel* yeah okay, let's talk about Nandor.

One of the things that's always fascinated me most about his character is the way he desperately wants change but also seems to be more terrified of it than all the other characters put together. He talks about wanting things to be different a lot, but he always sabotages anything that might really materially change his life.

Like -- this quest for love. He talks about how much he wants a partner, he wants his life to change, but what do we actually see? In s3 and the beginning of s4, he's just consistently going after women who don't really want him instead of spending time developing the relationships he already has. He dips into shallow relationship after shallow relationship because the real relationships, the ones that might actually change his life, terrify him. The best/worst of these is probably the cult dedicated to literally living in a fantasy version of the past, which like. Not really helping him beat those afraid-of-change allegations.

(You can learn all the 80s and 90s songs you want, Nandor, we both know only Guillermo is exposing you to modern pop culture! And yeah, there's more than one metaphor there...)

And then in s4, he decides he wants a wife, so he chooses one in the most haphazard way possible and makes both of their lives miserable. He is constantly changing her to make her easier for him to deal with without actually changing his life, and then he gets rid of her when he's fed up with the monster that he's created.

His whole thing with the Djinn is that he's constantly asking him to change things -- and then change them back. He wastes so many wishes on things like Marwa. I want this. No, that. No, that. No, put it all back to the way it was originally.

He does this over and over and over, and nothing seems to perturb him more than finding out that things have changed when he wasn't looking. (See: his difficulty accepting that Laszlo is creating relationships with other people, his spiraling over the big bang, etc.)

So... how does this pertain to Guillermo?

Guillermo's frustrated with Nandor at the end of s4 because Nandor likes the status quo. Things are different, are constantly changing, but Nandor refuses to acknowledge any of that. (He even mentions off-hand that he forgets Guillermo is a slayer sometimes.) Guillermo has always worked for them all under the promise of change, so you could see why this would freak him out a little. He's realizing that things will never change with Nandor because Nandor won't let them. He's so scared of change that he just straight-up ignores it and hopes it will go away -- when he's not actively trying to stop it.

Nandor, who has been making and breaking plans with an almost manic frenzy for the entire season, is finally calm at the end of s4. Why? Because he thinks that everything has gone back to normal. Marwa is gone. Freddie is gone. Guillermo is no longer talking about leaving. Those are the important ones for him, but then Colin Robinson also returns and the house is set to rights, too, so like... why should he worry?

He has no idea what he's already lost. That's what's making me crazy. He doesn't know that he's already lost everything that matters to him. But I think he suspects.

The thing is, Nandor throws himself into his books and his self-help and everything else because I think he can tell, at least on a subconscious level, that things have changed. Indelibly. He knows that Guillermo has changed, and that's probably the one kind of change that scares him more than anything else.

But despite the fact that Nandor can tell that something is up, he still keeps insisting that it's no big deal. It must be some small perceived slight or something. It can't be a huge change that Guillermo is keeping from him. No, no, he already figured that out. He managed to reel Guillermo back in with the wedding scheme. He doesn't have to worry about Guillermo straying again.

:')

He's afraid of losing Guillermo to change, so he prevents change and ignores what he can't prevent. He doesn't realize that that's exactly what's driving Guillermo away. That it's already driven Guillermo away. Nandor's put the idea of Guillermo's transformation up on a shelf, nice to look at occasionally but not a thing he really has to interact with. The theoretical option for change is there, but he doesn't have to worry about it actually affecting his life.

As always, he's attracted to it, but it also scares him. He'll make a glitter portrait of a vampiric Guillermo at his side, but he can't seem to fully get his head (and heart) around the reality of giving Guillermo that kind of power and freedom.

He's afraid that giving Guillermo that kind of power/freedom will change their relationship further, when he's finally gotten it the way he (thinks he) likes it, and he's even more afraid that if Guillermo's leash is taken off, he'll run. He spent all of s4 trying to keep Guillermo from running, but he still seems to believe down deep that he'll do it.

And... he wasn't wrong. Guillermo did go elsewhere to get his bite. But Nandor is very much the one who drove him to do it. I think that's the tragic thing, isn't it? He was so afraid of his relationship with Guillermo changing that he forced Guillermo's hand, which caused the exact kind of change that he was most afraid of. Guillermo distancing himself, Guillermo leaving, Guillermo -- well, cuckolding him, really.

I think it's fixable, but Guillermo's not the only person who's going to need to eat dirt here. He may have been the one who "cheated", from the vampires' POV, but Nandor wasn't upholding his end of the deal, either. And he's going to have to acknowledge the way Guillermo has grown and changed throughout the course of the series, stop regressing to calling him his familiar, and apologize for his own inaction. It may not be the vampiric way, but it certainly would not be the first time Nandor has thrown away vampiric customs for Guillermo.

Nandor, friend, you gotta sit back and learn to embrace change. You gotta enter the 21st century. You gotta allow your relationship with Guillermo to grow organically.

Because Guillermo's gonna change one way or another, and it's really your decision whether or not he leaves you behind. :')

#see: things I care about so much that I wrote 50k words of fanfiction about it lmao #wwdits #wwdits meta #wwdits s5 #wwdits spoilers #long post #guillermo de la cruz #nandor the relentless

[merionettes]

part 1 of how rubicon got written is here. this is part 2, aka the essay about etc.

the thing about the storyboarding/drafting process that there is no way to describe is how totally obsessed i was for the duration. afterwards i tweeted something like, this is the closest i've ever experienced to demonic possession. i would get up, write all day—like, all day—and go to bed. turn off the lights. then i would just lie wide awake in the dark with lines and scenes and dialogue scrolling through my head until i gave in and opened my notes app. i could not turn it off even if i wanted to. and i didn't want to, i was riding that streak as far as it would take me. because i couldn't look down, right? i could sense what i was attempting to do and anything other than total tunnel vision full speed ahead eyes on the prize would mean i had to acknowledge it.

(context of what made this possible: i was unemployed at the time.)

for the first ~50k or so i was afraid that at any minute i could falter. when i got to the nationals meltdown, that was when i knew i could do it. like, no matter what happened after that, i had the willpower and the chops and i knew where i was going. even if the streak died.

but it didn't. i wrote 100k in a little under 4 weeks. i've never experienced anything like that in my creative life. 

—then obviously i had to get a new job and come back down to earth and it took 21 months to get from there to posting the epilogue. still. i will probably be chasing that high for the rest of my life. that was the part that like… made the rest of it possible. no matter how difficult or frustrating it was. that generated the roadmap. 

i've talked about this before in comments but i had insanely strong opinions about what was "right" and what wasn't. sylvain's narrative voice was a huge part of that. it's inextricable from the content; it shaped the story; it is the story. for the first couple months it also made me an unhinged stylistic tyrant. if there was one single unnecessary word that struck me as inorganic, as existing solely to make the sentence more digestible or to convey information beyond the fourth wall, it had to go. i could not rest until it did. 

once again: this is not generally the relationship i have with writing. lol. it's the demonic possession talking. this is why you have a ton of sentence fragments and stylistic tics and a refusal to let one single shred of information into the text that did not strike me as something sylvain would plausibly think or acknowledge he was thinking. and like, yeah. probably it didn't always make for the smoothest reading experience or the most satisfying narrative development. i'm dead certain there are people who picked this fic up and the bumps drove them out of their mind until they threw in the towel. i just didn't care. 

part of that was a reaction to my own old style—you know, the discomfort of shedding old skin. i'd look at those early scene attempts and see all the habits and crutches i'd been trying to move away from over the last two years and double down on The Voice. but part of it… i would get early feedback that wasn't at all wrong, like "what if [clarifying narration]," "what if [more interaction]," and i'd just think, but that's not true. in exactly those words! which is crazy.

(this is why it was fortunate this was fanfiction i was writing for free, i didn't have to compromise my bonkers experience any more than i wanted to.)

to be clear this feeling didn't last two years. i was eventually able to edit like a normal person. it did last probably longer than ideal. and the point when i was no longer running on unleaded creative adrenaline was when i started to really struggle with the middle of the story. i had to make choices as a writer, instead of relying on the purity of my divine vision or whatever, and i second-guessed myself a lot. it was much easier to feel that absolute bone-deep certainty of Right and Wrong, True and False. and the thought of fucking up when i'd gotten so far was unbearable—like, being so close to making the thing in my head reality and then dropping the ball and breaking the suspension of disbelief.

distance also made it possible to perceive what i was doing and be like, jesus mer what the fuck are you doing. why are you devoting so much of your time to a hobby, why are you investing so much of your life in something you will never be able to truly share, why are you living in a hole with no one else in it. why are you putting yourself through the wringer to get it down "right." why does it matter if it's as good as it can be. why do you care. why is this worth it.

i assume this was pretty obvious before this post, but if not it must be now. this story isn't really about figure skating. for me it's about writing; who knows what it's about for you. i didn't sit down and think, great, felix will be a metaphor. that's just how it happens. 

the experience of writing a novel for the first time: i'm saying this with my whole chest because at one point i wouldn't have, aloud. but what's the point in calling it anything else? i know exactly how much i invested in this. i'm the only one who can know. that's sort of the point. 

here's a giant collage of the inside of my head. i made it for myself and i take it very seriously. not exactly groundbreaking to say this is the ultimate exercise in solipsism. when you're doing that—what greater gift is there than to have someone else meet you in exactly the same place. any writer would kill for the kind of responses this story has gotten, and i don't mean praise. i mean the close reads, the free response essays, the total and complete validation that this thing inside your head that only you can see is real, actually. when i say thank you, it's not for liking it or praising it—it's for taking it seriously. i loved this thing. i still love this thing. thank you for taking it seriously.

#rubicon #writing

[hood-ex]

Can you give any pointers for fanfiction writing? It's something I've considered trying, but I've never done creative writing and it's a bit intimidating. I'm mostly interested in writing Nightwing, and maybe having other characters (Batfam and Titans) but still always having Dick as the center.

Welcome to Fanfiction 101! I’m here to keep you from making the same mistakes I’ve made in the past. 

Pre-Writing Process

There are some people who enjoy outlining the shit out of their story, and then there are people like me who just kinda make the story up as they go. Whatever you decide to do, try to at least have an ending planned out. That way while you’re writing, you can start to craft the pieces you need to get to the ending you have imagined. You can even work backward and plan your story out from end to beginning. 

For example, let’s say I want my ending to be Dick and Damian hugging in a hospital. Okay, what pieces do I need to get to that point? Well, if they’re in a hospital then one of them needs to be hurt. Who do I want to hurt? Let’s go with Dick because I want this story to show how much Damian cares about Dick.

Great. Now how does Damian find out that Dick is hurt/how does he save Dick? Let’s say Damian is in the cave when the batcomputer gets an alert from Nightwing’s suit. The alert shows that Dick’s vitals have gone haywire. Damian panics, tracks down Dick’s location, and then both him and Alfie take the flying batmobile to save Dick. They find Dick and take him to the hospital. 

Cool but how does Dick get hurt in the first place? Hmm, well, Dick usually always rides a motorcycle, right? So let’s say Dick gets into a motorcycle accident. How does he crash his bike? Maybe it’s because of the weather or because a baddie crashes into him. I don’t want to write a huge action scene so let’s say Dick accidentally drives over black ice, spins out, and crashes in a ditch. 

And there you have it. A whole story right there from end to beginning. You can plan things out in a more detailed way before you jump in and write if you want. A basic outline like that ^ is usually enough for me to go off of. The details just come to me while I’m in the process of writing. Try and see what works best for you. 

One-Shots vs. Multi-Chapter Stories 

If you haven’t done a lot of creative writing, I would suggest you start off by practicing with one-shots. Now, one-shots can be shorter content, but on the flip side, there’s also one-shots that are like 50k words. Totally depends on what the author is willing to put into it in terms of plot, description, character development, etc. 

I personally have a hard time finding the motivation to finish multi-chapter stories, which is why I usually stick to one-shots. Short one-shots can be easier because they don’t have to be super fleshed out. The action is quick, the dialogue is impactful, and the scene is memorable. 

You can also just jump into the action when it comes to one-shots. You don’t have to do as much build-up. For example, I could jump right into a scene of Dick having trouble breathing like this: 

Dick’s having a hard time making sense of things. Vaguely, he can hear Bruce shouting for Alfred. He can feel hands on him. His vision is going in and out. Then, suddenly, there’s silence. Dick wakes up, confused. Tim is sitting at his bedside, holding his hand. Bruce is close by, and when he realizes Dick is awake, he immediately goes over to him. Bruce explains that Dick had a bad reaction to a drug he was injected with. Bruce cards his hand through Dick’s hair to comfort him, and Dick reflects on when Bruce used to do the same thing when Dick was a kid. 

End scene. 

Okay, so, obviously a real story would have way more description than that, but you get what I’m saying, yeah? That whole scene could be the entire story and it would be enough. But if you have the motivation to do way more than that with a ton of character development and what not, you totally could prolong that one-shot into 50k words. Or just break everything up into a multi-chapter fic. 

The problem with writing one chapter at a time for a multi-chapter fic is that it’s hard to keep the motivation to keep writing each chapter. You write one chapter and then put the story to the side for a few days, and suddenly, you keep making excuses about why you don’t want to write the next chapter. To be fair, this can also happen with a basic one-shot, but yeah, tis the life of a writer. Don’t be discouraged if it happens to you. Trust me, it will at some point. 

Character POV

Listen, I love writing in first person. In other fandoms, I used to write a lot of my stories in first person POV. I’ve got some bad news for you, though. Generally, people don’t like to read fanfics that are in first person POV. They just don’t. Nowadays, even I tend to skip over stories that are written in first person POV. 

Third person POV is going to be your best friend. Get comfortable writing it. 

Admittedly, sometimes it’s easier for me to grasp a character’s voice if I first write the story in first person POV. I then go back and change all the “I’s” and “me’s” to he, his, her, hers, etc. That’s just a little trick I do sometimes if I’m having a hard time getting a story started. 

Characterization

If you’re not 100% sure how to write a specific character, try and figure out a few facts about them. Like if you want to write Dick then think about some key qualities of his. Sprinkle those traits throughout the story to make the character sound more authentic. 

For example, I know Dick doesn’t like cucumber sandwiches. Sometimes I’ll have him or other characters mention this in the story. I also know Dick can struggle with perfectionism. I can make that something he has to struggle with in the story. It doesn’t have to be what the whole story revolves around, but if I just throw in some things here and there about how Dick is mad at himself for failing about something then that makes him feel more in character. 

Character Interactions

At first, writing multiple characters interacting at once can be really difficult. It can fuck up the pacing of your story, it can be hard to insert each character enough to make sure they aren’t ignored, and it can be hard to make sure each character is getting a chance to speak. 

If you find yourself struggling with this, try and just stick to two characters at first. Once you’re comfortable writing a conversation between them, try adding in another character. And another. And another. 

The more you practice, the more you’ll be able to write multiple characters interacting in a scene in a way that feels more natural and realistic. 

Genres and Tropes

When it comes to figuring out what you want to write about, you need to know what kind of content your audience wants. For example, fantasy niches (fairies, vampires, etc.) can be harder to “sell” in this particular fandom. There are people like myself who enjoy those niches, but just know that they may not be the most popular niches within this specific fandom. 

What are some niches that the majority of fandoms do like? Hurt/comfort, sick fics, whump, fluff. Those kinds of fics are always in demand. People love it when their favs get hurt. People love it when other characters worry about their favs. People love it when their favs get hurt while protecting others. People love it when their favs are getting along and being affectionate with one another. 

Go on AO3 and sort the fics in this fandom by “most comments” or “most kudos.” Now look at the most popular fics that come up and look at the tags they use. See what kinds of things those authors are writing about. Read their summaries and try to get an idea of what the stories are about. 

Once you get an idea of which kind of genres and tropes are most popular, try and write a story that includes those genres/tropes. People will be more likely to read stories that have tropes they usually like to read about. 

Now, of course, you can also just write whatever the hell you want without trying to appeal to your audience. This is what I do a lot of the time. Turns out that the things I like to write about tend to fall more in line with the tropes that are already popular in this fandom. 

Spelling and Grammar

People really hate to read stories that have tons and tons of spelling and grammar mistakes. Make sure before you post anything, you put your story in Word or Grammarly (I use the free version) to check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. Trust me, your readers will thank you for it.

Practice, Practice, Practice

I’ve been writing creative stories since I was 11 years old. The stories I wrote back then are absolutely shit compared to the stories I write now. So please don’t get discouraged if you write a story and you don’t feel like it’s very good. 

Keep trying! Just like with anything else, the more you do it, the better you’ll be at it. There are so many things you’ll learn as you continue to write. Seriously, just recently, I realized I wasn’t always putting a comma in my compound sentences to break up the independent clauses. But hey, hey, now I know. 

Pacing, characterization, and plot are also things that will improve the more you write. Writing drabbles (stories with maybe just a few hundred words) will help with this. It will help you learn to choose the most important scene or dialogue and write it in an impactful, emotional, and compelling way. 

Okay, class is dismissed! If you have any other questions then feel free to send me another ask! 

#writing #writing advice #fanfics #batfam

[palmviolet]

Do you minds telling us for how many years you’ve been writing and maybe recommend some books? Thanks!

i LOVE this question omg (answer under the cut because it got very long)

so i’ve been writing for pretty much as long as i can remember. i was always inventing stupid little stories lol and sometimes they were original and sometimes they were basically fanfiction, before i knew what fanfic was. i distinctly remember writing some weird 101 dalmations fanfic in red felt tip when i was about six. i started writing original stuff that was actually decent about eight years ago, and around that time i was posting some truly terrible fanfic on fanfiction.net (i think it was mainly johnlock and downton abbey? yeah, i know.) then i stopped posting it and focused on my own original writing for a few years, got the germ of a novel of which i wrote about 50k words before stopping and deciding it was rubbish, actually, so there were a few years in which i barely wrote - though i was still writing fic but not posting it. (you do NOT wanna see what my google docs looks like. so many unfinished fics from fandoms i don’t care about anymore. SO. MANY.) 

then towards the end of 2018 i rewatched stranger things and it just kind of clicked for me. the first time i watched it my favourite character was steve but i couldn’t connect to it in the same way?? like i didn’t have any ideas for fic or anything, i just kind of watched it and moved on. the second time was very different lol. i rewatched it and i immediately focused on joyce and hopper, and then i wrote a fool to hold you just as a way of kind of exploring my ideas about these two. it was my first fic on ao3!! and it just kind of spiralled from there lol

every so often i get ideas for original fiction but they never really stick. i would definitely like to get back into writing it but not right now. i’m currently doing a degree in literature which takes a LOT of my creative energy, and what’s left i expend on writing fanfic just because it is easier, and there’s kind of instant gratification with comments and things, which i wouldn’t get with original fiction. but i will definitely go back to it - i miss it a lot, and writing so much fanfic has definitely taught me a lot which i can use. 

as for your second question- i LOVE recommending books. seriously, if you have a question about so-called ‘highbrow’ literature then come to me pls!! i have to use my degree for something!! it really depends what you’re after so i’m just gonna drop some of my recent favourites.

so the book i read most recently that stuck with me the most was infinite jest by david foster wallace. it’s a behemoth of a novel, over 500k words, but every single one of them is worth it. you read the first chapter and you’re like.... what? i don’t get it. curiosity forces you to continue, albeit begrudgingly, and then suddenly you’re on page 200 because it just.... clicks. you stop caring about how long and meandering the sentences are, how many diversions and digressions there are, how the timeline doesn’t make sense, how it wants you to flip to the appendices every other page. it’s just- it’s so immersive. i love it. it’s not the most progressive of books, i’ll grant you - it wins no awards for representation and there’s some less than flattering ideas about women in it - but tbh i’m not the kind of person who cares only about that. it was one of the first books in a long time that i didn’t want to get to the end of, because i was enjoying it so much. 

since i am basically jonathan byers in both music and literary taste, i would be remiss not to recommend some vonnegut. cat’s cradle is so surreal and compact and perfect (much shorter than infinite jest, if you find that intimidating). i also read his collection of short stories welcome to the monkey house, which is so witty and funny and easy to dip in and out of. there’s also his autobiographical collection of essays palm sunday, which is amazing. it says so much about literature and american life (and i actually reference it in my upcoming st fic ;) ).

if you’re looking for something older, arthur machen’s horror stories are great. they’re the precursor to pretty much all horror since the end of the victorian period - when you say something is lovecraftian, you should really be saying it’s machen-ian. (it’s just as well, because to my knowledge machen was nowhere near as awful as lovecraft was.) they’re all pretty short but they’re full of intrigue and creepy stuff. if this is something you’re interested in then it’s worth reading the turn of the screw by henry james, which is a classic victorian horror story. i recently wrote an essay comparing the two and the yellow wall-paper by charlotte perkins gilman, which is a very short but mind-bending feminist story.

i’m also a big fan of vladimir nabokov. lolita is of course a classic, with disconcertingly gorgeous prose. i also like invitation to a beheading, which is extremely weird but really gets you to engage with the act of reading itself. 

if you want humour (though there is humour in all of these books, save the horror stories), go for catch 22 by joseph heller. it’s so funny and so bitter and dark at the same time. lesser known is his novel something happened, in which basically nothing happens, which is the point. it’s also quite funny but very very bleak, and somewhat claustrophobic - so in the current quarantine climate perhaps not the best read, unless you’re a masochist lol. 

as you can probably tell from this list i am a massive fan of post-modernism. i absorb some element of everything i read, so you may well recognise influences of these books in my writing - or maybe not. who knows. lots of these novels can be found for free on archive.org, as they’re quite old now. 

anyway, that was very long. but thanks for the ask !! x

#asks #book recs

[themagiciansreccenter]

Author Spotlight: @thursdayeuclid

Every week we interview a writer from The Magicians fandom. If you would like to be interviewed or you want to nominate a writer, get in touch via our ask box.

First things first, tell us a little about yourself.

I'm a thirty-something disabled bipolar queer trans guy who publishes original m/m romance novels when I can tear myself away from fandom long enough to do so. I'm pretty blind without my glasses. I usually have blue hair, a nose ring, and a man bun. As Thursday Euclid, I write lots of happily ever afters, and as prettyclever, I do pretty much the same thing, except with other people's characters that I'm just borrowing from a surfeit of affection.

How long have you been writing for?

My first stories were written when I was a very young child, but I didn't try a novel until I was nine. It didn't quite work out--I couldn't sustain the work to complete a work of that length, and I was writing long-hand---but I tried again at twelve and managed to finish about 50k words. I had a tumultuous adolescence but eventually found myself in Harry Potter fandom in the early aughts, and then I took a long break trying to be a professional. Turns out, I couldn't stay away from tragic magical boys.

What inspired you to start writing for The Magicians?

I was irritated with how season four was playing out. I overly identify with Eliot Waugh--he's who I want to be when I grow up; I'm 37 so I'm running way behind schedule--and his relationship with Quentin was *so* important to me. When Quentin got back together with Alice, I was like, "This is it. I've gotta write fic."

That was the beginning. A few thousand words came of it. Ever since the season four finale, though, I've done nothing but write oodles of Queliot fic with my cowriter and best friend clancynacht/charlotteschaos in my every free moment. I was already reading Magicians fic, but there just wasn't enough novel-length Queliot to suit me, so me and Char are remedying that in our own weird way.

Who is/are your favourite character(s) to write? What it is about them that makes them your favourite?

Eliot, because he is me in so many ways, and in all the ways he is not me, he is pure fabulosity and sex appeal. Kady, because she is just the baddest bitch. She delights me to no end. Penny 40, because his sass is killer, as is his tsundere ish, and I just really miss him. Char always writes Quentin and Margo when we collaborate because she's fantastic at channeling them, so I stick to my own faves.

Do you have a preference for a particular season/point in time to write about?

I didn't really start writing fic until s4, but (extrapolated) S5 has been my favorite thing to write. I've also loved the Mosaic fic we're writing based on 3x5 and 4x5. Most of what I read is totally AU, though.

Are you working on anything right now? Care to give us an idea about it?

We've now posted like 225,000 words of Queliot fic, still working on Sound & Color, and we're also working on another novel-length fic for Magicians Hallmark Holiday Exchange as I type this. Since it's all anon, I can't tell you much about our story except that we've already written 65,000 words of it, and the mutual pining is real, y'all. It's very festive, and Quentin is an adorable sad boi and Eliot is very soft and spook and also protective.

How long is your “to do list”?

Char literally made a Basecamp list of everything I should be doing outside of fic, but when it comes to fandom, it's really just MHHE and Sound & Color. We write together really rapidly. For example, when we wrote It's Never Over, we were done with over 100k in a month.

What is your favourite fic that you’ve written for The Magicians? Why?

Definitely It's Never Over. It's crackalicious and full of book canon references, and it's the Magicians Season 5 Queliot fans deserve. I'm so proud of how that one turned out. I've never written a story in fandom that people were so passionate about, either. It was published immediately after that heartbreaking finale, and people really responded to how we resurrected Quentin. Also all the smut, because there's so much smut in that story. Sex magic left and right.

Many writers have a fic that they are passionate about that doesn’t get the reception from the fandom that they hoped for. Do you have a fic you would like more people to read and appreciate?

I hoped Sound & Color would get more attention than it did. It's a long, weird (not quite complete yet) trip through 3x5 A Life in the Day. There's already a lot of Mosaic fic out there, and it's a crowded field, although I think Sound & Color stands apart for being so complete and slice-of-lifey. It's not just focused on the most dramatic moments, but on their entire lives together from beginning to end because I couldn't get enough of imagining it. It's a long, thorough exploration.

What is your writing process like? Do you have any traditions or superstitions that you like to stick to when you’re writing?

I like to listen to Radiohead when I write. It's inspiring and relaxing and keeps the words flowing. Also, Char often creates Spotify playlists for our stories, and I'll listen to those to set the mood as we write. Sometimes I listen to Kpop while writing too, because I only understand one word in fifty and it provides excellent background rhythm.

Because I collaborate with Char on just about everything, we used to write together in Google Docs before migrating our process over to OneDrive through Microsoft Word, which also lets us see each other's work in real time and edit each other's additions to the story. In a lot of ways, it's similar to roleplaying, which is why we can write 100k in a month without getting burned out. We've been working together like this for more than ten years now, so we've got it down.

Do you write while the seasons are airing or do you prefer to wait for hiatus? How does the ongoing development of the canon influence and inspire your writing process?

I prefer writing canon-compliant stories during hiatus and writing AUs while the seasons are airing. Historically, I tend to only read in a fandom until hiatus, and then I start writing. Coming from a book-based fandom (Harry Potter), Magicians feels very different dynamically and has different demands.

What has been the most challenging fic for you to write?

Definitely The Fake Dating One Where El's Parents Come to Visit, because it was different from what I'm used to writing. For one, it was short(ish) and two, Eliot's parents were drawn from my parents, who are also extremely religious, conservative, small town bigots. It cut closer to the bone in a lot of ways, but it was also different because Quentin ended up taking a more dominant, protective role, really exhibiting his innate bravery, and it was a little uncomfortable letting Eliot be rescued by Quentin just because I identify so much with El.

Are there any themes or tropes that you like particularly like to explore in your writing?

Idiots in love, mutual pining, fake dating, dicks & daddy issues, biphobia and bi erasure in queer culture, mental illness, family of choice, friends-to-lovers

Are there any writers that inspire your work? Fanfiction or otherwise?

Lev Grossman, JK Rowling, JRR Tolkien, George RR Martin, Stephen King, NK Jemisin, Owlet (her Infinite Coffee series is incredible if you like Stucky), and Olen Steinhauer.  

What are you currently reading? Fanfiction or otherwise?

I just finished reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which I admit I read just because Chris Evans recommended it, and wow am I glad I did. Changed the way I look at the world.

Now I'm working my way through the Inheritance Trilogy by NK Jemisin, the Raven Tower by Ann Leckie, the Fever King by Victoria Lee, and All the Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer.

What is the most valuable piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?

Practice makes perfect. If you don't give it your best every day and work on it even when you don't feel as inspired, you'll never develop the muscles it requires to perfect your craft.

Are there any words or phrases you worry about over using in your work?

My characters murmur way too much. Also honestly, just, like.

What was the first fanfic that you wrote? Do you still have access to it?

It was called "Isildur's Bane" and it was a really insanely nerdy LOTR fic about Isildur and the One Ring. It was gen, and it had none of the characters/pairings people actually wanted to read about, but I was damn proud of it. I have no idea what happened to it. It's been almost twenty years.

Rapidfire Round!

Self-edit or Beta?

For fic, Char and I edit each other as we go. I'd love to have an actual beta, but I do not have one.

Comments or Kudos/Reblogs or Likes?

Comments feed my soul. They used to give me anxiety, but now they are my everything.

Smut, Fluff or Angst?

angst with a happy ending

Quick & Dirty or Slow Burn?

slow burn, to read and to write

Favourite Season?

Season Three

Favourite Episode?

All That Hard, Glossy Armor

Favourite Book?

The Magician’s Land

Three favourite words?

herculean, susurrus, callipygian

Want to be interviewed for our author spotlight? Get in touch here.

#the magicians rec center #author spotlight #author spotlight: thursdayeuclid

[elumish]

On Fanfiction Commenting

I have been both a consumer and a producer of fanfiction since I was probably far too young to be doing either, so here are some of my tips on commenting on fics:

Comment. Please. Comments motivate authors to write.

Incoherently rambling is okay. One word comments are okay. Smiley faces are okay. I guarantee getting a notification that someone commented AAAAAAAH :D on a fic will make a writer smile.

Really long comments are awesome. You want to talk about your favorite scene? Go for it. You want to talk about how much you like a character? Please. Explain how well you think this writer fits within canon, or is better than canon, or gave you a new headanon.

Talk about how it made you feel.

If you read something a second time, or a third time, or a fifth time, tell them. Writers love to hear that. Tell them when you stay up all night to finish a fic. Tell them that you cried. Tell them that you laughed.

Be careful with critiques. Some authors are cool with them, some aren’t, but regardless, if you have a critique of the story, be gentle, be kind, compliment them too, remember that they wrote this and provided it to you for free, and consider not sending it directly to them.

If you think they got something particularly touchy (sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.) wrong, first check to see if they say they are that thing that you think they got wrong. If they are, don’t say anything. People are allowed to interpret themselves however they want. If they aren’t AND YOU ARE, you can consider gently letting them know, preferably with thanks for attempting representation and maybe a link to a resource that might help them (unless they’re being malicious or have a particularly egregious error, in which case don’t thank them for representing you).

If there is one typo or mistake, let them know. if there are five, don’t. Most writers don’t want to go searching through their story to fix every typo they made at 3 am, but one thing is wrong--particularly if they wrote the wrong name--it’s not that much work to fix. They might not fix it, but you’re not putting much of an extra burden on them by letting them know.

If you read 50k words of a fic and then comment a dissertation on all the reasons you hated it, maybe consider just...stopping reading it, instead. You didn’t pay for it. You are gaining nothing from the cost of time of reading it. Go away. Also I will tell my friends about how ridiculous you are, and we will laugh about you.

Don’t share your life story. 9 times out of 10, we don’t care they you are uncomfortable with the idea of polyamory because your SO cheated on you and you think polyamory is like cheating and you don’t judge anyone else for participating in polyamory but you wouldn’t do it personally, so please, don’t tell us. (Fun fact, that’s a true story.)

“I would love to read more (of this story/of this world/of your works)” is fine (unless they explicitly say they won’t write more). “Have you thought about writing more” is also fine. “Hey, it’s been a while, I love your story and hope you post more” is pretty okay. “You need to write more” is a little iffy. “UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE” is kind of aggressive. “Why haven’t you updated, you terrible person” is way out of line.

Don’t be mean.

#fanfiction #commenting #critiques

[danisnotofire]

Do you have any advice for writing? I used to do it all the time but then I just didnt have time for it anymore. And now I want to get back into it and I keep trying to write, but Im hit with this overwhelming doubt/anxiety that it sucks. And I dont plan on posting my writing anywhere so I dont understand why Im so nervous about writing to the point where I want to cry and cant do it. And I really want to work through it but its just so difficult. Any advice? -🌳

i’m not sure how good i’ll be at giving advice on this, because i often feel the same way!!! 

but ig that leads me to my first point, anon, and that is, you have to understand that that anxious feeling never really goes away. sometimes you feel better about it, sure, and sometimes you’ll write something and know you were meant to write it, but 98.7% of the time you will be screaming and crying into ur document and thinking you’ve been a failure and faking any ability to write this whole time. you have to understand that that’s all part of it. but you have to understand: it doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. i really think you have to internalize that if u ever wanna write anything. 

the best thing to get over feeling awkward and robotic is to separate yourself from what you’re writing. when i got back into writing fic (it’d been like, legit 4 years lmaooo) it was hard to put myself aside and stop feeling weird about writing it. i felt that same stiffness/awkwardness when i started journaling too. the best thing you can do for it is just understand that nobody is going to read it unless you want them to. it’s not going anywhere. the only person who’s gonna judge it is you. 

once you get over that, write as much as fucking possible. it doesn’t need to be a lot. it can be a sentence. it can be a few hundred words. it can be a fuckin novel. just write something. the only reason i’m VAGUELY good is because i’ve been doing it for a longass time. 

i’ve been writing creatively on and off since like,,, third grade. i’m now a sophomore in college. you just gotta churn out as much content as possible. i promise you, eventually it will be good. 

if you can, i think writing classes are actually super helpful for this. i used to kind of shun them and look down on them because i thought somebody teaching me how to write would take away my own style. it actually helped me refine it, mostly because it got me into writing again after going so long without it. i was forced to write every week for a whole semester, and it kind of became a habit that i continued all through the summer.

fun fact: i don’t think no such mirrors would exist in the form it does now if i hadn’t taken that class!!

BUT: I get that classes aren’t always available to you. there are definitely ways u can get urself in that habit!!! you can do nanowrimo (which i did my freshman and sophomore years of high school, where you write 50k in 30 days just to pretty much see if you can. i CANNOT recommend nanowrimo enough. up until no such mirrors, that was my proudest artistic accomplishment)

FIND TIME TO WRITE WHENEVER, WHEREVER YOU CAN. you are going to have to sacrifice certain things to find time to write, but that’s all part of it. i struggled in doing this when i started school this semester because i went from having mostly my entire week free to having like, zero time to write, which is why it took a month for no such mirrors to update. it also sucked because writing makes me feel better about myself, because it helps me be a more productive member of society or something, and so, although it was hard, it became super important to me to find a time to fit that back into my schedule (i ended up carving out a few hours after my last class of the day on MWF, which happened to be my english class with a prof whomst i ADORE, so i always left feeling super inspired. and now i usually go to the silent floor of the library for a few hours and pound out a few thousand words. it’s not ideal, and ofc i’d rather be taking a nap or decompressing from class, but at least it’s something!) 

i know this is harder to do, but i really do think posting your work helps!! i love writing fic because you get INSTANTANEOUS feedback on your skills, and it helps you develop them in a (largely) positive and supportive atmosphere. the people who are reading fic are the people who WANT to like it, who are just desperate for any content they can get. it’s such a good space to learn and grow as a writer (i started writing and posting fic when i was like, 12 years old. my percy jackson days. pre-tumblr. lmao #neverforget) 

i know this is SUPER FUCKING CHEESY, but another thing that helps you become a better writer is to read as much as possible. read anything. read fanfiction from authors you admire. read YA novels. read children’s books. read the classics. 

and then, (and this is something i will shamelessly do lol), pick your favorites, and try and mimic their style as an exercise!!! i recently read james joyce’s “a portrait of the artist as a young man” for class. it’s now one of my favorite books. and so what i did was go to google docs and pound out a few hundred words just trying to mimic the style. it ended up being a weird 1500-word-wip. most of it is garbage, but i wrote lines i’m really fucking proud of. 

obviously don’t like, plagiarize. but what i’ve come to understand is that you can learn something from everything you read. whether it’s a certain type of metaphor, or a kind of characterization, or the art of simplicity, or a way of writing dialogue, or a stylistic thing. and by mimicking that style as a writing exercise or using their style as inspiration for your own work, you help refine what you like, and what your style is. 

i will never be james joyce. that’s pretty obvious. but my version of james joyce is its own style of writing altogether, and it’s not necessarily bad! it’s its own style that i can then learn bits and pieces from later on. to me, writing is this weird ungodly mix of natural ability/learned style and compiling what you like about other authors into your own work. it’s a messy process, but eventually you will churn out something you like. and that’s what matters: producing content that you enjoy. everything else will come in time. (did i think anybody would read engagement sequence? uh, no. i hoped they would, and honestly i do wish that fic was recognized more than it was (bc any author who says they don’t care about feedback is LYING) but mostly i was writing it because i had SO MUCH FUN writing that fic. i’m probably most proud of that piece of writing out of everything i’ve ever written. it came from me combining poetry and prose into this weird pseudo mix of both) 

another thing that’s easier said than done: DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHER AUTHORS. this is something i CONSTANTLY struggle with (to the point where i get SUPER down on myself if i’m not getting the same amount of anons asking about my work or comments or kudos or fuckin’ whatever). it’s something i CONSTANTLY have to work on, but it’s so so important, and the sooner you start working away from this habit the better off you’ll be. 

if anything, USE these authors as people to learn from!! ask them questions about their process!! read their works and take note of what worked really well and how they executed it, so maybe you can incorporate that into things that you write later on. 

IMPORTANT: COMMENT ON WORKS. COMMENTING ON WORKS DOESN’T ONLY BENEFIT THE AUTHOR, BUT IT ALSO BENEFITS YOU AS A WRITER. commenting helps you specify and work out EXACTLY what you liked about a certain piece. even if you don’t think it does anything, it actually puts words to specific things that you like, which then helps you incorporate it into your own writing. also?? long, thoughtful comments make an author’s fuckin DAY. someone once left like an 8 paragraph review on my fic, and i could. not. stop. rereading. it. for the better part of a week. TRULY. 

take yourself less seriously. honestly. as much as it kind of sucks, writing is supposed to be fun and ultimately, it’s supposed to be rewarding. let yourself experiment with style and dialogue and characterization. who fucking cares? i wrote 300 words about spaghetti steam as a metaphor for jeremy’s parents’ divorce the other day. it doesn’t matter! nobody will read it!! that’s what editing is for.  

it also might help to talk about your writing process!! i know i love doing this, and i see loads of other authors do it too. it’s so, so, so fun to complain about writing, because writing is really fucking hard. even the pieces that come easiest to me are still a pain in the ass to write. 99.99% of the time i write, i would rather be doing something, anything else. who wants to sit and cry into a computer screen? nobody in their right mind. ya do it because you love it, and you love the final product and you love seeing what you’re able to do, what you’re capable of creating. 

if you’re having trouble starting, pick literally the first thing that comes to mind and write as much or as little as you fuckin’ want. remember, you’re in control! you can do as much or as little as you want. when i started writing no such mirrors, i had NO IDEA it was gonna become what it was. i started the fic with jeremy throwing a baseball up in the air and some random dialogue. i didn’t know what role everybody else was gonna play. i didn’t know it was gonna turn into an actual fucking novel. i had no idea! i just had the idea of jeremy laying on his back and tossing a baseball into the air repeatedly. why? i legitimately could not tell you! but it worked. it felt right and natural and easy, and here we are 72k later. 

that being said, IT’S NOT ALWAYS GOING TO FEEL RIGHT AND NATURAL AND EASY! you’re just gonna have to write through that! it’s gonna fucking suck a lot of the time, especially with longer works! i fucking hate certain chunks of no such mirrors, to the point where i can’t even bear to look at them. 

this leads into another point, which is….

you’re going to feel like you’re faking it. that’s okay. keep writing. i doubt in my abilities every. goddamn. day. i reread my fics probably daily and can’t understand why anybody would like them, half the time. i feel like the characters’ interactions are forced and awkward and unnatural, i think the dialogue is boring, i think their feelings don’t feel real and i don’t feel like their motivations have depth. i feel like the plot is hanging on with masking tape and thread. every author will feel this way at some point or another. i know that sounds fake, because i’ll read posts like that from my favorite authors and can’t believe they would write anything except perfection. so you have to remember, it’s in your head most of the time. 

however, that’s not to say you’re perfect. you aren’t. there’s no such thing as a perfect writer. sometimes it’s healthy to listen to that voice in your head to try and improve. you just can’t let it become the loudest part of your writing process. 

so yeah! those are my writing tips!! that was a lot and im really sorry if it was all cliche and cheesy bullshit, but i promise they work, or at least help a little bit!! 

i hope you can get out of ur slump, because i love writing so much and hope i never stop doing it (even if i say i hate it l o l) and i really hope you can get to the point where you feel comfortable saying the same

#writing advice #writing tips #writing #Anonymous #I'M SO SORRY TO MOBILE USERS #long post //

[barduil]

So… I have to get this out of my chest, and I’m going to be honest about it. Sorry, it got pretty long. 

I’ve worked on Forgotten Roads for over two years. It’s a fic that means a lot to me, that has been building in my mind for a long time. A bit more than a year ago, I finally started publishing it.

For a while, I got at least 10 comments per chapter. Which, let’s say it, is a pretty darn amazing average number, and I couldn’t be happier and thankful that my dear story got so much attention!

But then came the 5th chapter. It didn’t go very well at all compared to before, so I panicked a bit. Okay, a lot. Because it got 2 comments. Two when I was used to get at least ten. Ten days later, still nothing. I made a post on Tumblr saying that wow, what went wrong, I’m heartbroken, and no comments meant I wasn’t willing to continue because obviously pretty much no one cared anymore. Surprise, I got a bunch of comments in the next few hours (some from the same person I believe but anyway.) Of course I kept going, because I loved the story too much, and hey, maybe it was just the low chapter fics usually go through.

The next one, I got 9 comments, which is below what I was used to, but so I didn’t worry about it at all, because 9 comments is amazing and after the previous one it was really a lot, so I thought things were going up again!

But then, again, came the next chapter. The next chapter was a bit special. It was the chapter I’d been most looking forward to write, playing the scenes in my head over and over again over the past year, so I was extremely excited to share it. Naively, I thought that leaving my usual “please leave a comment if you liked this chapter, it means a lot to me” or the like wasn’t necessary because people would react to what happened in the chapter, right? They remembered how upset I was when no one commented, right? Well no they didn’t. The hits kept rising and rising, I even got a few new Kudos, but I was stuck at ONE comment for two days. You have to know that usually, you get most comments in the first three or four days because for some reason after that many readers think commenting is not worth it anymore (which isn’t true, it’s never too late to comment) or I don’t know. So before three days went by I edited my end notes and begged the next readers to comment. Surprise surprise, I got comments over the next days.

Next chapter, I was two months late because of my Big Bang. So, expecting everyone to be gone, I anticipated and once again I begged for people to comment, because it had been a while and I needed to know they were still there to carry on. And, thankfully, people commented! So I was relieved, they were still there, I could keep on giving this fic my time and my love and my sweat.

Which brings us to the latest chapter. And I’m sorry for the spoiler for those who maybe meant to read it, but this needs context. In fics, there’s usually a little (or big) peak of comments when the characters kiss for the first time, particularly if it’s a slow burn. Because hey, that’s what readers have been waiting for, right? So, thinking my begging in the previous chapter fresh in people’s mind, and knowing people usually comment on such chapters, I went back to my usual end notes. 

What. A. Mistake. 

Because despite all of the troubles with the previous chapters, despite some readers who commented on every chapter not reading anymore, I still got at least ten comments on those in the end, I guess mostly thanks to my begging.

But for the latest one, I got 5. It’s been almost three weeks now, so yeah. Five. I’m going to tell it straight away: I’m heartbroken. I’m upset and bitter and heartbroken. This chapter meant a lot to me. On top of their first kiss, which I worked hard to make worth the wait (over a year and almost 50k words! hell, I made a post about how I was writing it once, and got a bunch of notes on it which like, never happens on posts about my writing progress!) there was also a scene that I cared deeply about. So, seeing only half the number of comments that I usually get, on a chapter that was so important to me and that was supposed to get a bit more than usual because of its content, well, it did break my heart and it still hurts today.

It’s been three weeks, so I don’t expect any new comments until the next chapter. But will there be a next chapter? You know, I was so convinced this chapter would do well, I was so excited to share it, that it gave me the push to write the next one in just a few days. I thought “yay, I can update in two weeks! They won’t have to wait a month or more like usual!” But people weren’t there. I fell from very high. So now that chapter is just there taking the dust in a folder, because I don’t have the heart to reread it, correct it, and send it to editing. I’m two chapters from the end and I just don’t have the will to write them. I’m tired of the general mentality surrounding fanfiction. I’m tired to see writers kudosing my work but not leaving a comment when, as writers themselves, they should know better. I’m tired of people reading my end notes and/or my many reblogs about comments but not commenting anyway (this does not concern people with social anxiety or the like, I know it can be hard.) Same goes for artists, really. I’m tired because thanks to all this, I learned that it seems it takes BEGGING to get comments. Doesn’t that sound wrong to you? That writers have to beg to get some feedback on AO3?

Now, let’s be clear, in my case this isn’t about the number of comments. I know very well I get more than average. That I should be ‘thankful for what I get compared to others.’ The thing is, if I was used to get six comments on this fic and only got, let’s say, two or three, I would have made the same post. It’s like, I would never complain that my Emmett/John fic from The Raven got four comments, I never complained that my longest Russingon fic got 5 comments, because that’s to be expected. I know how to relativise depending on the fandom, the characters, etc, of the fic. But when it comes to Forgotten Roads, what was to be expected was ten comments because that’s what the chapters always got, even if twice, it was after I begged. So of course I’m going to be upset when a chapter gets much less than that, and such a chapter in particular.

Please, don’t give me the ‘you should write for yourself’ speech. If I wrote for myself I wouldn’t put it on the internet for everyone to see. I write for myself when I write my novel. When it comes to fanfiction, I write because I love the characters I write about, and because I want to share that love. You have to remember I’m not a native speaker. Writing is hard. It takes me days, often spread over weeks, if not months. Editing takes hours and I’m so thankful for the hard work my betas put into my stories. Writing is an awful lot of work. I need to feel like that awful lot of work that you guys get for free is worth it, and right now it doesn’t feel like it is. 

So, I’m going to put Forgotten Roads on the side. That chapter was the last straw. I can’t carry on like this because it hurts me too much and I care too much. You might say I shouldn’t put so much importance into fanfiction, but you need to know writing is all I have. Along with my friends, it’s one of the only things that make me happy. It’s the only thing that makes me feel like I’m not a failure. It’s the only thing I can get validation from. But now fanfiction is not helping me anymore, it’s hurting me. So I’m going to focus on my novel, like I did a bit more this past month. I know it’s not fair on the people who do comment and who do care, but I need a break. Just a break. I’m not giving up on fanfiction completely, but yeah. I just need a break. Maybe it’ll be two weeks, maybe two months. I don’t know. It’s not like I have many ideas right now anyway (nothing except Forgotten Roads for Barduil, just one for Gafou but given how my latest fic is doing I’m not sure I’ll ever give it a go, and birthday short fics (those I will do of course but I still have more than three months until then.)) 

I’m putting this in the tag, because this is important: the Barduil fandom is a dying fandom (and the Gafou fandom seems to be sadly already on its way there.) There’s no more art, and barely a few fics/updates per week. Most fics don’t require an AO3 account to comment. So, I beg of you. Comment on the fics you enjoyed. Simply say you liked that one shot very much, no matter how old it is. Simply tell the author you liked their update and can’t wait for the next one. Simply say you binge read that old long fic and loved it. We don’t need much. We don’t ask for much. Just a few words. Just ten seconds of your time. Just a voice. Please. What do we have to do to make you understand? 

#barduil #tbh all i have the will to write right now are fics that i know won't get much attention because they're for rarepairs or tiny fandoms #i'll immediately block anyone who'll send me anon hate or the like #you're allowed not to understand how i feel #and/or not to agree #but then i don't need to know #and you can just unfollow me instead of hurting me further #i'm so gonna regret posting this but i needed to say it #thank you to everyone who's been supportive though #you're angels #you're the reason i kept going #but right now i'm tired

[sixteenthbuny]

Fanfiction Questions

Fandom Questions

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in? warrior cats

2. What is your latest fandom? Doctor Who

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in? BBC Sherlock

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms? no??? but wc is tough to cope with tbh-

5. Which fandoms have your written fanfiction for? YGO, Assassin’s Creed, Warrior Cats, Naruto, Bleach, Noragami, D. Gray-Man, Supernatural, BBC Sherlock, Doctor Who, Avengers, Hobbit? etc.

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in. YamiYugi, Yullen, Destiel, Sam/Gabriel, Tony/Gabriel, Johnlock, Sheriarty, MinaKushi, NaruSasu, TenRose, human!Smaug/Bilbo (LMAO), KakaObi, KakaNaru, Desmond/Altair

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in. i’ve only felt the NoTP for Sherlolly tbh-

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom? BBC One

9. What are the best things about your current fandom? the amount of debates on tjlc and theories tbh, it get hilarious and ridiculous, and mofftiss is probably having as much fun as i am watching everyone

10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in? no, not really

Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

11. Who is your current OTP? Johnlock, Sheriarty

12. Who is your current OT3? don’t got one but i’d read a good threeway anyday

13. Any NoTPs? SHERLOLLY

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs? tbh, Sherstrade

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love? LMAO MYSTRADE-

16. Are their any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike? S H ERLOCLLY

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite? Johnlock, and i love them because their chemistry echoes from hell and back in all 200+ SH adaptations

18. What ship have you written the most about? ObiKaka

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them? i don’t think so

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking? Sheriarty, Mystrade, human!Smaug/Bilbo and Twelara

Author Questions

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote? oh god.. idk? warrior cats, definitely :) such old times, i miss those days

22. Is there anything you regret writing? um yuri licking a knife fic lmao

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it. i’ve got a few, and one of them is “sherlock in the vignette” because it fits my short attention span and it allowed me to cover a female-genderqueer!Sherlock falling in love with a male!John because i don’t see those often. it’s also tragic in some ways and it gave me stress-free flexibility to allow johnlock biological child happen without any scientific probability complications that fucks me over like it has been for the past four years lmao.

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit? Live in the Moment. a plotty naruto mess fic..

25. What’s your most popular fanfic? um. probably Disturbed w/ 44k reads, 120+ favs and 100+ follows, and Ephemeral with ~10k reads, 130+ favs and 190+ follows (both on ff.net)

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles? sometimes they embody the main plot point or the whole point of the story or a simple characteristic or they’re just punny and random

27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries? SU MMARIAES SKSJNXBFK

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of? um.. i’m not sure; either Disturbed, Ephemeral or The One Who Is Bound; they were liked and they would probably be something action-based, or a character?

29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not? no, i usually am the beta reader and i am my own beta reader

30. What inspires you to write? my muse and thoughts and fascination with the concept of fandom

31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing? “it’s brilliant, i love it, you do amazing with your plots and word choices,” kind of complements. they’re really nice and i feel really appreciated and loved when people say those things to me

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you? i always listen to music. it’s like an addiction tbh, and i listen to varying things from chilltrap to epic steampunk mixes. doesn’t inspire me for sHIT tho lmaoo

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics? all of them on a good muse :) but mostly huge epics because i do not have chapter tolerance

34. What’s the word count on your longest fic? um ??? 50k? or 80k. somewhere in between, but i’ve written up to 100k words before dividing it into two stories that never made it because the decision may or may not have been a bit premature asdjkijhahn

35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about? no, i usually try but they tend to fail

36. What’s your favourite genre to write? angst, hurt/comfort, family, romance, action, adventure, drama and suspense

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why? third person present or pst tense, depending on the story. i don’t do first pov unless i’m r e a l l y feeling it lol

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs? i don’t use ocs as often but they have come across my stories multiple times

39. What is you greatest strength as a writer? i’m not sure. my craftiness for a plot, i guess.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing? staying with it. so basically what everyone else suffers from LOL

Fanfiction Questions

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading: The Loss of Flesh and Soul on AO3 (Sherlock/Silence of the Lambs) http://archiveofourown.org/works/387339 and that is literally it :(

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing: @vitruvianwatson tammy hybrid (already tagged) @blackkatmagic @highfunctioninggaybaby i haven’t really got anyone else on my tumblr that i read.. not off the top of my head at least, but they're all so much fun to follow and read!

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you? Sherlock and Minato tbh, their minds, priorities and moralities are inspiring

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention? um mystrade lmao especially in canon

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic shit, i’m not sure. i’ve got a lot, but i really like reverse and backslide :) they were so original and golden for me, thanks to kat for blessing fanfiction.net with that lol

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why? probably Disturbed, The One Who is Bound, The One Who is Free and maybe Son of Pseudo Gods ??? only two of them are finished tho

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why? all three of them, everyone’s stories on here are fantastical whenever i run into them and i need some more on my timeline

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not? yes, sometimes. it depends on the amounts of reviews already received/types of criticism. and my energy to actually write one beyond saying (contextually) “I LOVE IT I NEED MORE AAAAA”

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not? DEFINITELY! i would recommend everyone at least give some feedback or love, especially to new authors. criticism is vv important :^)

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction? i started by writing my own at the age of 8 thinking “omggggg no one else has EVER DONE THIS! I WILL BE THE FIRST!” and then discovering many other authors..

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

SH I P AWARS A RE OVE R. L E TTHE M BE O VER

and the lack of recognition is kind of ridiculous. i’m talking like professional recognition because i have read fucking. fanficjtions that harare better than actual fucking bookks fjosbfknd

#assassins creed #bbc sherlock #avengers #yu hi oh #yullen #she #d gray man #fandom #fanfiction #fanfiction author #writing #naruto #many many other fandoms omfg i cant rEMEMBER- #CRITICISM IS IMPORTANT BABES #I MAY BE A GHOST #BUT THAT DOESNT MEAN I DONT LEAVE REVIEWS #BECAUSE I DO #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA