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rgrettes · 4 years

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heyy, I hope I'm not bothering but I've seen that you used to post about faberry and faberry fics like Shafd, and since I'm trying to find some faberry fanfics to read, could you please recommend me some of your favorites? Thank you :)

OKAY so this took me a whole lot longer than anticipated because I didn’t want to make it be like 500 fics long! But here, in no particular order, are my top 10 faberry fanfics! [excluding SHAfD of course bc whomever asked this definitely knows SHAfD!]I will be including trigger warnings/content warnings! Please be sure that you can handle the subjects before reading the content! Be safe and put your mental and physical wellbeing before a work of fiction!

10. Dirty Little Secret by patchesofink

Chapters: 77/77 [208k]

This fic would actually happen to be the first faberry fic that I ever read. I felt my little 15 year old self cry several times throughout this fic. It’s what first got me into writing fanfic, because I wanted to write as well as this author! There is a content warning so please be careful reading it if you are sensitive to topics mentioned!

Rachel has a secret and Quinn has figured it out - but will Quinn use this knowledge to exact revenge on Rachel for telling Finn that Puck was really the father or will she use her own experiences to help. WARNING - language and sexual content, r*pe.

9. I’ll Be by stix04

Chapters: 20/20 [330k]

God I was such a sucker for fake dating au’s as a young teenager and I’m most definitely a sucker for them now. This one I didn’t read right when it came out, I didn’t actually find it until it had finished but it still makes my top 20 because it’s just too good not to talk about!

Can Quinn pretend to be in love with Rachel just to get out of Lima? Can Rachel pretend to love Quinn so she's not so lonely in New York? And what happens when both girls realize they're no longer pretending?

8. Long Way to Happy by patchesofink

Chapters: 42/42 [104k]

This is the sequel to Dirty Little Secret and makes the list for being just as good as the original. This author is so talented and the story just resonates in my soul!

warnings for sexual content, language, violence and potential ptsd triggers!

Sequel to Dirty Little Secret. Rachel still has some healing to do as well with dealing with becoming a mom. Quinn has her own issues to deal with. Can their fledgling relationship deal with the ups and downs of life and cope with senior year? Quinn learns to open up and Rachel deals with motherhood and not letting her past define her. It's a Long Way to Happy.

7. Leather Jackets and Bad Coffee by antonius

Chapters: 11/?? [75k] [has not updated since 2018 :(]

Bikers, 50′s style diners, and good girl/bad girl pairing. Literally who could ask for anything more? I’m super sad this one hasn’t updated in a long time but it’s still such a fun read!!

warning for violence!

Ninety miles and nearly two hours from the heart of New York City, just off of PA-33 North, is the little town of Belfast, Pennsylvania: population 1,257. Right outside the city limits sits Moe's, a small 24-hour diner whose newest waitress, Rachel Berry, has taken her best friend Kurt's advice and started a calm summer temp job away from the hustle-and-bustle of busy city life in order to rest up before her final year at NYADA.During her very first midnight shift, she encounters a group of rowdy regulars led by a pink-haired woman with piercing hazel eyes. Quinn Fabray is the leader of the Skanks, a small but well-known local biker gang that doesn't take shit from anyone.So began the strangest summer of Rachel Berry's life.

6. Talk by saintdyke

Chapters: 17/? [43k] [last updated may 2019]

This is another one I’m sad hasn’t updated in a while! This honestly stole my heart to a point that in the time I found it in mid April 2019 and June of 2019 I have re-visited the fic 105 times, rereading it at least half as many as that. I’m really hoping the author comes back to the fic, because it was keeping me on the edge of my seat.

warning for violence, abuse mentions and depictions, homophobia and ptsd triggers!

(Previously titled Grease Stains, Starry Skies) Famous actress Rachel Berry’s car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. A pretty blonde with a blue truck rescues her from the side of the road, and just so happens to own an Auto Repair shop in town. Quinn is frustrating and mysterious, and Rachel is just as stubborn. Together, they start a revolution.

5. Just off the Key of Reason by iamapanda

Chapters: 30/30 [129k]

This one is another absolute classic in the Faberry fandom, and is another fic that has stuck with me throughout the years! It has a fantastic softer take on Quinn that I truly appreciated because everyone back in the early years of the fandom would make her so angry and bitter and she’s just so soft in some interpretations

Rachel Berry is a successful Broadway star with a new roommate, the very odd, naive Quinn Fabray. It starts with a note on the fridge and a childishly scrawled doodle of an elephant. Everybody has a little crazy in them.

4. Still off the Key of Reason by iamapanda

Chapters: 37/37 [185k]

The sequel to Just off the Key of Reason! Still as soft and as crazy! I can’t mention one without having the other in the list as well! I can’t explain how it feels to look at the ff.net pages after so long, my heart is transported back to 2011 and I’m sitting on my bed after I’m supposed to be in bed. I miss the days where I could just spend time reading these fics and not having adult responsibilities.

Quinn is thundering her way through vet school. Rachel is enlightening the west coast with her talent. The story continues with a wedding, dogs in tuxedos, and Pooh Bear vows. Crazy never fades.

3. A Million Miles of Fun by Jade8Devlin

Chapters: 12/12 [103k]

This one is a little different from the last ones! It isn’t my favorite because of its literary genius, but because of how fun and out there it is! It’s concept is fresh and dark and something I honestly didn’t expect to see but it quickly grew to be a favorite for me!

warning for violence, abuse, mentions of murder! the whole story revolves around The Unholy Trinity + Rachel murdering Quinn’s family so please take that into consideration!

And in Lima, Ohio, a man and woman were killed earlier today during what is believed to be a home invasion. Russell Fabray was last seen leaving Gas'N'Go at two o'clock; his wife, Judith, from a grocery story an hour earlier. Police are linking the double homicide to the area's recent surge in breaking and entering – though these appear to be the first fatalities. The victims are survived by their daughters; Quinn and Stacey."Jessalyn Briggs shuffles the papers on her desk, clearing her throat. The somber expression on her face seems to float off her as she turns towards camera 3."Otis-the-Otter finishes today's news headlines as the little critter that could. Abandoned by his mother and found foraging for scraps in the Nelson family's garbage cans, Otis has proven; if you can't teach an old dog new tricks, teach them to an otter! Otis placed second at this year's Ohio Dog Show after last year's well-documented struggle by the Nelson family to allow Otis to be included. Well done Otis, we here at Channel 43 salute you.

2. The Silence of Silence by your.kat

Chapters: 31/31 [135k]

This one... I can’t describe why I liked it, I just liked it.

warning for mental health, and trauma [possible others, please read with caution]

Quinn and Rachel meet at Haverbrook under unusual circumstances. Why is Rachel silent? And why does Quinn care? "You can hear," Quinn said simply, "but can you speak?"; "Yes," Rachel signed. "I can speak. But silence is a friend who will never betray."

1. Kissing Quinn Fabray by vondrunkaton

Chapters: 6/6 [45k]

This one just makes me super warm and fuzzy inside. I don’t think I can say it’s entirely changed my life but it’s just so soft and i love it

Quinn comforts Rachel after Finn says something oafish. Rachel is surprised by how sweet Quinn is. There's also some making out in delicious detail. Fluffy getting together fic.

I am super open to talking about more fics I love/like and other pairings! This was a ton of fun to talk about and sent me down memory lane! I went searching for two hours on a vague memory of a fic that I think has been deleted by now. But if anyone wants to help me track it down! Hit me up and I’ll give you the details!

#faberry #glee #rachel berry #quinn fabray #faberry fic #god please someone help me find this fic #Anonymous

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greenapricot · 4 years

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fanfic tag game

I was tagged by @thetimemoves. Thank you!

Ao3 name: greenapricot

Number of fics: 73 - 48 recent (the last 5 years). 25 from before 2009 (all originally posted on livejournal)

Fandoms: Lewis (40), Endeavour (7), Shetland (2), Inspector Morse (1), Victoria (1), Harry Potter (18), Supernatural (4), Firefly (2), Torchwood (1) The numbers don’t match up with the total number of fics because some of them are crossovers.

I’m only going to answer questions for the fics from the last 5 years because I don’t really remember a lot about writing the older ones.

1. Fic you spent the most time on: Phantoms in the Early Dark (Lewis, James/Robbie, teen, 35k). It’s a multi-chapter casefic and also my longest fic by far so it outpaces just about everything else. Second most time spent is probably the third part of my OT3 series, Overture (Lewis, James/Laura/Robbie, explicit, 5.9k) writing three people having sex at once is complicated as it turns out. Or Over the Edge (Lewis, James/Robbie, teen, 11.8k) which I resurrected from abandonment and then it grew multiple chapters.

2. Fic you spent the least time on: I assume one of the ficlet’s that’s less than 500 words is the one I’ve spent the least time on, but I also don’t have clear memories of the process there because they’re short. Both Why not? (Endeavour, Box/Fancy, teen, 800w) and Aftermath (Lewis, James/Robbie, teen, 1.4k) appeared almost fully formed in my head (one in the middle of the night one in the middle of a bath). I wrote them pretty much in one sitting on my phone and posted them only a couple days later which is very unusual for me (usually there is a lot of obsessive editing).

3. Longest Fic: Phantoms in the Early Dark 35k for the fic itself (38k including the epilogue fic). Second longest is Wolf at the Door (Lewis, werewolf au, James/Robbie, teen, 12k).

4. Shortest Fic: More than all the rest of the world (Lewis, James/Robbie, teen, 235w)

5. Most hits: Phantoms is the top of everything so I’m going to pick second most as well. Second most hits: All in All (Lewis, James/Robbie, explicit, 3.7k) part two of the All Told series.

6. Most kudos: Again, Phantoms. Second most kudos After All (Lewis, James/ Robbie, teen, 3.7k, 5x fic) part one of the All Told series.

7. Most comment threads: Phantoms. Second most comment threads: Over the Edge, and I’m going to also pick third since OtE was already an answer: It’s the heat, clearly (Lewis, James/Robbie, teen, 4.1k)

8. Fave Fic you wrote: Picking a favorite is very hard. I love them all. Phantoms is definitely the fic I’m most proud of and it may well be my fave, but since it ends up being the answer to so many questions I’m going to pic a favorite of the fics I haven’t already mentioned here (or in any other meme) and go with Misuse of Police Resources (Lewis, James/Robbie, explicit, 4.2k) because it was super fun to write and super fun to read the reactions to it in the comments.

This got really long so...

9. Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: I have plans for a third fic in my Shetland series No Holiday. I had also planned to write a follow up to Where Everything Slipped from when I first wrote it but I’ve never gotten back to it. I also have plans (and an outline and a fair amount written) for a casefic in my wingfic universe but in These Times I keep end up writing shorter less complicated things. I’m sure I’ll get back to all three of those at some point.

As far as rewriting, I can’t say that there’s anything that I’ve written in the last 5 years that I would change. I obsessively edit things before I put them out into the world, so if it’s been posted I’m happy with it. Probably some of that pre-2009 stuff could do with some rewrites though.

10. Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning: My current WIP (Robbie takes a life drawing course and James happens to be the model) is in the (hopefully) final stages of editing. I posted a snippet from the first chapter in a previous writing meme. This is from chapter 2:

Robbie is at his desk staring down the new protocol that’s been mandated for the upcoming performance assessments when Hathaway arrives with coffees and two small, brown paper sacks.

“‘Morning, sir.” Hathaway deposits a coffee and one of the sacks on Robbie’s desk. The sack has the tell-tale pleasing oily spots that mean it’s a croissant from that little bakery James passes on days he takes the longer route on his morning run.

“Nice run?”

“Mmm.” James’ mouth is already full of croissant as he shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over the back of his chair; a not dissimilar motion to shrugging off his robe last night. There are no outward signs that James saw Robbie in class, which means either he didn’t, or he did and has chosen to ignore the whole thing.

Robbie fishes his croissant out of the bag and takes a bite of flaky, buttery heaven to distract himself from the fact that he now knows exactly what the curve of James’ naked shoulders looks like under the fabric of his shirt. When he’s finished the croissant he’ll ask which course James has chosen, even though he already knows it’s Ancient Greek, and that will prompt James to ask him what he chose. He’ll admit it was the life drawing class, James will either turn red with embarrassment or make a sarky quip, or both, Robbie will offer to drop the course, and that will be that.

He’s not even halfway through his croissant when Innocent pops her head in to “borrow James” for a few hours. They don’t have an active case at the moment, so off James goes, leaving Robbie to face the performance assessments alone. As James disappears out the door, he has the sinking feeling that not bringing up the class first thing was a missed opportunity. Ah, but what does it matter? James will only be gone an hour or two.

But an hour or two turns into four hours, then the rest of the day.

_____

I tag @bryndeavour, @vita-s-west, @mcgstarroar, @daisyfornost, @ronniebox, @novemberhush and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it.

#itv lewis #bbc shetland #itv endeavour #james hathaway #robbie lewis #lewis fic #shetland fic #endeavour fic #fic meme #writing meme #my fic

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rigelmejo · 4 years

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random notes about drawbacks/positives of mia:

My biggest incompatibility with the massive immersion approach (and in general a lot of good modern study methods) is I hate flashcards. It’s not that I dislike them as a concept - I am just super bad at concentrating on them. I am NOT good at doing the following: focusing on small bits of information, studying for short periods but Regularly, Reviewing Regularly, and sometimes I just genuinely can’t retain small concentrated reading sentences to the point it takes me 10 MINUTES a flashcard in order to understand/study it. As you can imagine, that last part is NOT efficient, and ends up making flashcards even slower for me as a study method then they’re ever meant to be. I can’t control when I’m unable to figure out/concentrate on small bits of information, so some months flashcards work as intended for me (I can review 10-20 in 10 minutes), but other months suddenly 10 flashcards takes me an hour. So I am not good at sticking to flashcards consistently - once the hard months hit, I don’t keep up with reviews, because they suddenly take way more time then they ‘should.’ However, when I can focus I try to make up the difference - and do 20-100 cards a day while I have the ability to do flashcards at a regular pace. On the upside, I’m proof you can do the SRS flashcard reviews, in a very chaotic way, and still get benefits. How I’ve done flashcards: cram 300-1000 in a couple weeks to a month, including whatever reviews I need. 2nd month - review if I can still focus, and do a few new cards (like 5-15 a day at most). By the time I can’t focus, most words are relatively-known and I only would need to review them once a week or every few weeks - if I COULD focus on reviews. However, I only actually review once a month or less at this point - and I’ll only review 20ish cards usually in that rare instance, unless I have a good day. I will not usually review the majority of those cards until my next burst of can-focus-on-flashcards usually in 2-3 more months. I have done all my flashcards THIS INCONSISTENTLY, and I’ve still retained a lot of what I studied. What I think helps: immersing in other content when you can’t do flashcards, so that you’re often still being exposed to words you studied (so they’re easier to not forget even though you stopped doing flashcards). So yeah... inconsistent flashcards, and some immersion exposure, and I was able to keep some of the gains SRS flashcards generally provide people. I can’t do flashcards consistently, and I usually have to do them in big-chunks then abandon them, but they do help me boost up how much I know when I DO use them.

More regarding my incompatibility with mia. The big thing is: I’m just not a flashcard person, not a consistent person. I have to vary what I’m doing regularly, or I burn out/struggle to focus. When I was in school, I would do the following to study: take notes/focus intently when being taught, then read the textbook/materials if I needed more help. Before tests, or to ‘review’ I would reread my notes from beginning to end of what I needed to remember. This would refresh my memory. If I still forgot/did not understand anything, I’d pinpoint that info in the book/ask my teacher/go online etc and try to just focus most of my ‘harder’ studying on those parts I was struggling with. Usually just taking notes/focusing, then reviewing everything in bulk right before I needed it (so maybe once every few weeks), was enough. When I couldn’t take notes, I would instead skim through book chapter summaries, and rewatch lecture videos if there was a digital copy - focusing most on the videos when info I forgot/sounded like key information was mentioned. Basically - notes, summaries, short cheat sheets, were all my friends. For tests like math and physics, I would read my notes AND make mini-sheets of all key formulas and how to do them/what I needed for them (usually I already had a sheet I just kept adding to over time/rereading). I could not use flashcards back then - I couldn’t focus, not consistently, not the way they’re meant to be used. It took me too long to even make them to warrant them being useful to me (I take SO long to make flashcards, its also a focus issues - also why when I do SRS flashcards I usually just grab some premade deck cause it keeps me MOVING and actually STUDYING instead of getting frozen in a task).

This has always been my go-to study method. When I started chinese, this is how I learned 400 characters/basic words. I bought a reference book with mnemonics, and would make myself read through it (as if it were notes I took). Occasionally I’d flip through old pages again, just to see if I still recognized old stuff, but mostly I just kept moving forward. So like - flip back every couple weeks to skim old pages, but read forward every day. I got through half the book before I burned out (because... reference books with their short entries of information? a lot like flashcards in structure, except thankfully I don’t regularly review afterwards like I would with flashcards). It still took me 10-20 minutes for 10 entries in the book, but unlike flashcards it was a one-time task. When I got done, I had learned them pretty well - and I didn’t do anything to review them. They were just reviewed with immersion naturally, and eventually when I started studying common words these characters came up again (so if I forgot any, I relearned them easier then). This approach is roughly how I learned all words not in my premade-flashcard decks. I’ll read a chinese book - just start reading through it, looking up words I want to learn. I don’t review them, I don’t look them up again. Sometimes, maybe once a month, I’ll reread an old chapter to see what progress I’ve made - and then lookup unknown words then, as review since I didn’t remember them the first time. It sucks in a way... that SRS flashcard style study methods just.... do not work consistently for me. They are still beneficial, because in short month bursts I can quickly learn 500-1000 things with SRS (which is faster than some classes introduce words). But overall I have to rely on other study methods. Which for me feel inconsistent in progress since I can’t measure it as easy lol! Even with no SRS, doing ‘bursts’ of this read-intensively note-like materials, then very occasionally skim old material again, does seem to work out okay for me. Back when I learned to read french, I did no flashcards. I looked up a common words list (and used my class vocabulary lists). I read through them once. Before tests (if for class), or every few weeks, I re-read/skimmed the word lists. By 3-4 months I learned the first 500 words. Then, since french has a lot of ‘similar’ sort of words, I just sort of dived into reading and then picked up words mostly that way - just checking a word list every month or so to review known words and make sure I didn’t have some big gap of missing vocabulary.

So I guess: for me the biggest positive in mia is the suggestion to immerse often, frequently, and with a variety of materials. So that you practice different skills, learn a variety of things - and so you can move to something you like, if you get bored/unable to focus on one specific type of material. With mia you can read novels for a month, then get sick of reading and just watch shows/listen to podcasts when you walk, then if you’re burnt out from that you can just browse social media and check out fanfics/manhua/friends posts in the language for a few days or weeks before picking up longer materials again. The point is just to find ways to immerse, and do it. Simple advice. SUPER simple advice. But incredibly useful - every single time I add more immersion, I notice a boost in my comprehension. I notice actual improvement over time. I can’t pinpoint ‘why’ it happens, so unfortunately I’m not sure which complementary study methods or ways of immersing are helping me precisely with improvement in which skills. But I can tell that I am improving. I would 100% agree that immersing more is worth trying, at any language learning stage, as much as you want to. I immersed in the first months in both french and chinese, and I did much better than with japanese (where I did not immerse for 2 years and so my level stayed A1 beginner for like 2 years...). My French last time it was tested was around B1, which is fine since I just wanted to read and guess where my skills are closer to A2 and dragging it down? (Yes. Yes of course its speaking ability, of course). My chinese as far as I can pinpoint it is around HSK 4, as far as material I can easily read/listen to, as far as the practice tests I can take online. (Which, again, I’d self evaluate and say my comprehension is at HSK 4 or higher - I definitely can rely on good ability to guess meanings with hanzi and my comfort following grammar easily to boost comprehension a bit higher, but my speaking/writing is lower and I definitely only feel totally comfortable discussing topics that are manageable at HSK 3 - and my production grammar-wise is understandable but SO full of ‘this is the wrong way, use this instead’ which I’m working on...). So like... I got much farther in a year with each language I immersed in - even with the limited immersion I do actually do! So more immersion - better. While I’m on the topic of immersion: if you like reading, read often and early. I am better off for telling myself “its not hard to read” and just diving in the deep end. Was it hard? ahahaha yes. ;w; But, I realize if I’d put off reading until say HSK 4 or HSK 5 knowledge in chinese, reading would be EVEN HARDER because I’d be so much worse at quickly reading through grammar/gathering context clues. Reading is a mix of actual reading skill, and vocab. I built up a lot of the actual reading skill by starting to try to read super early. So now my main struggle is generally just lack of vocabulary - and since I understand all surrounding grammar very well, its easier for me to roughly-guess at unknown words function and still follow the gist of what’s going on. Reading early also means, for words and hanzi I DO already know, I learned to recognize the many contexts/phrases they show up in and the various words they combine into earlier. So again, when I’m looking at a new text the hardest words are new vocab made of ALL unknown hanzi - if I know one hanzi in the word, it’s something I can often approximately guess the meaning of especially when I understand the entire rest of the sentence. If a new word is spelled with all known hanzi, I can look it up once or twice and generally remember it very fast - since its connected to what I already know. If I had waited to read until I’d learned more vocab, I would have less of a reading skill foundation to rely on right now. And based on what I’ve read of at least some people’s experiences on chinese-forums.com, many readers will go through a STEEP uncomfortable period when starting to read chinese. Something vocab does not totally mitigate. I think it just takes many hours, of the reading skills getting less and less hard, and then eventually things get more comfortable. There is also the issue of ‘comprehensible’ reading material - depending on your tolerance for ambiguity, chinese can be painfully incomprehensible for a long time. Generally people feel comfortable once they comprehend 98% of a material. But in chinese, even once you learn thousands of vocab, depending on your reading skills and abilities to ‘guess from context clues’, you will not be at 98% yet. Even if you can guess from context clues, that isn’t solid comprehension its still ambiguously understood material. So to get used to reading chinese as a learner, you have to start getting used to how it feels to read stuff only 80% comprehensible. Only 90% comprehensible. And if you get good and learn a lot of vocab and grammar and understand it better when you see it - 95%. Which is still not the range of ‘comfort’ yet. The quicker you learn to not be stressed by the ambiguity, the less painful reading becomes. And the more tolerable it is, the more you can read, and the quicker you can learn more, and the quicker you’ll REACH 95% to 98% comprehensibility. But if its so painful you refuse to keep reading, to keep using reading to push comprehensibility up... it is going to be a long way until you hit 98%... Graded readers are great, and give you stepping stones to transition this experience. Graded readers are MADE to be 98% comprehensible at different learning levels, so they will FEEL comfortable. And if they do feel uncomfortable (because you don’t have high enough comprehension), then they will at least drag your comprehension up - and still be more tolerable than the alternative of even LESS comprehensible native speaker chinese language materials. Basically though... find a way to force yourself through the harder ‘intolerable’ early parts. It happens whether you know 500 words or 2000. So you’ll have to do it eventually. I get demotivated if I’ve ‘studied a lot and still understand nothing’ so my foolish self dived off the deep end at 500 words, then at 1000, then at 1500, then at 2000. Cause I kept trying to read, being frustrated at its difficulty and stopping after a few weeks, then trying again once I’d learned more! But wow did that early trying pay off. Now that I DO know more words, if nothing else the comparison of how NICE it feels to read now in comparison to in the past, motivates me a ton. If I just started reading recently, and all I knew was it felt ‘this hard’ then I might want to give up. But like... when I started, and knew 500 words, my graded readers were PAINFUL. Genuinely intimidating. Once I pushed through one? They felt easy as pie, and graded readers at that vocab-level felt so easy they got boring. Now I find graded HSK 4 material and usually read through it super fast or don’t even bother. So I can 1. read more comfortably. And 2. because I’ve BUILT up a higher tolerance to ‘ambiguity discomfort’ I can allow myself to read harder materials if I do want to - because I can still TELL it feels easier than it used to.

Finally, about MIA the study method as a concept. So... either because the site is long and people don’t like to finish reading, or maybe the writer is not good at summaries - but people often get confused about how to do it. Particular detail questions about how to do ‘this specific suggested activity’ make sense. But there’s a lot of people who ask “do I just turn on the language shows, and?? How do I learn?” Which, fair enough. So, as I understand it, here’s a summary: You want to learn a language. Find yourself a grammar guide - a free website, a book, whatever. Read the summary/guide, or skim it, whatever gives you a ‘preview’ of the language’s structure and what you’ll be getting used to over time. You will use this guide to reference later in the future, whenever grammar in stuff you see confuses you. You can use multiple guides later to reference. Right now, just zoom through a guide and get a general sense of the language you’re abut to learn. You can also wait to do this step until later, whenever you want. The sooner you do it, the sooner grammar will be less mysterious to you. Find yourself a pronunciation guide. Go through it, you don’t have to be a perfectionist about ANYTHING you do before or after this. Just go through, listen to it all, try to notice how its different from your own language. Notice if there’s any major differences like tones, sounds or patterns your own language doesn’t have. You don’t need to memorize, you’re just becoming aware that these aspects exists and are different. Again, this is to get you used to the language you’re about to dive into. This should probably be done early on. Look up some info about the writing system, if it is different from your own language’s. You will probably find some explanation introductory articles for beginners. If there’s any explanations about how it works, or why it’s like it is, read through it. This will help you understand the system better. You don’t need to memorize - although you may want to save a couple hundred common words, or a copy of all the letters, or a copy of a couple hundred common characters, or a copy of the radicals that combine to make characters. Read over this copied info a few times every once in a while, as you’ll see these things a TON once you start immersing. You find yourself a premade deck of SRS flashcards (use Memrise app, Anki program/website, some alternative) of common words in that language - ideally in sentences, but single-words work if that’s all you can find. Ideally with audio - but again, whatever you can find. You may also find an SRS deck of characters (like Heisig Remember the Kanji)/writing system specific info, if you want, to go through that deck early on to help you more with recognizing the writing system as you encounter it. Whatever decks you get, you will study those for 10-30 minutes a day. You can start doing this from day 1. (Or be like me and be inconsistent about it - just try to keep progressing forward and learning new material, even if you don’t always study. For me it was better always to move onto new stuff, instead of review, if I only had time to do one out of the two things.) Find yourself stuff to immerse with - shows, stories, audios, comics, social media, whatever. You will try to immerse every day, and try to immerse as much as you enjoy. Do this from day 1. When immersing: use either the language you are studying’s subtitles or else none at all. When watching/listening - look up words as desired, mainly though focus on context and trying to understand as much of the gist of what’s going on as you can. Over time you will pick things up. For reading - look up words as desired, and in the beginning you may look up a TON of words because you need to look up at least enough to follow the Bare Minimum Gist of What The Main Plot is. You NEED to understand at least basic context, with whatever your immersion material is, in order to learn new words from context. So: you might start with reading simple graded readers. You might use shows/books/audio of things you’ve already experienced in english, so the context is clearer to you. You might read summaries in english ahead of time. If you need more context in order to use immersion to learn any new things - then go ahead and give yourself more context. Immersion will feel difficult at first, the joy is watching you start to just ‘naturally’ pick up more. Audio immersion - for some of this, you do not need to attempt to ‘understand the gist of the plot’, you can just use it to attempt to pick out all the specific words in the language, the language’s rhythm, and get used to the language. If you’re only using an audio to learn the sounds of a language, you can probably use it as ‘background sound’ while doing other daily things, since it won’t require as constant focus as it would if you were trying to catch every single word you knew as you listened. There you go. You’re all set. Do this for a year and see where your progress is at. Quit doing this if you aren’t seeing some improvements, since if that’s the case a different study method may be better for you. Don’t do this method if you don’t like it - whatever gets you to study, is the right methods for you. No point doing something that doesn’t work for you. Eventually, as you make progress, you will decide on goals and notice mistakes/shortcomings in your skills. When that happens, add additional study materials/tasks as needed to focus specifically on those things as desired. For example - if you notice your pronunciation sucks, you may start using audio-focused flashcards, or go through a pronunciation guide again more carefully-thoroughly this time. Or - you realize your writing is bad, so you go through a grammar guide again and do the exercises, and get language partners and write to them regularly so that you get corrections. Eventually, you finish a common word flashcard deck - find a new deck, or make one, with new words you want to learn or need to based on your goals. The massive immersion approach is a basic plan of immerse-while-paying-attention+study new words/review words regularly, it doesn’t include every single thing you might do or want to do.

Anyway, mm. tldr: massive immersion approach suggests doing immersion of all kinds, from day 1. I couldn’t agree more, every time I add more immersion when studying a language it helps so significantly and over time. however, mia also has half of it’s study method based on SRS flashcards - if you are not a flashcard person like me, my alternative study ‘method’ above works. It’s not perfect, its probably not as effective. But it works if you can’t focus on SRS flashcards reliably. Finally, I summarize mia a little.

#rant #study method #mia #mass immersion approach

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seventhfracture · 4 years

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Fanfic Organisation Tips

I write a lot. Over the last few years I’ve developed a system with some simple rules that keep me writing prolifically almost every day and meant I never lost anything. This helped me write over 2000 pages and finish over 40 stories in the last 12 months. I felt like sharing it. Maybe there’s something you guys can use?

SET UP I have a scheduled hour of writing time every night. Its my comfy time. I’ve showered, I’ve had dinner, I’m ready to sit in front of a screen after work. And come hell or high water I try to put at least 1 word down on paper during that time. Something new, something in progress, there’s no shame either way. The important part is the routine. I find I personally work best without food but with headphones set high enough to drown out the TV my partner’s watching but not so loud I can’t hear myself think. Routines can help you write more. But you might want to consider what routine works best for you personally: -What time do you write best? (7am or 8pm?) -Where can you focus best? (Your bed? Lounge room?) -What helps you write? (Music? Water nearby? Temperature just right?) -How long can you write for? (Do you lose focus after an hour? Do you have work at 7.30am?)

Once I made these decisions I focused hard on carrying out my routine every day and making sure everything was ready for it. I felt calm cause I knew, even if I was having a rough day, at 8pm I would have some writing time. I had already scheduled it in.

ORGANISATION I find blank word documents intimidating. Starting on an empty page makes me choke up. So until I’m finished something it stays in a ‘garden’ document with everything else I’m currently working on. This is how I organise it: -All my stories for different fandoms are in different Word documents. All Fullmetal Alchemist stories are in “WIPS.doc” all Final Fantasy XV stories are in “Ficlets.doc”. That sort of thing. - I start a story and write as much as I can. If I get stuck I don’t ever delete it. I leave what I’ve got and start my next idea underneath it. - I can come back to any story at any time. -Once a word document reaches roughly 500 pages I start a new one. This means no single Word document gets too big to search or scroll or manage. -If I’ve started a new word document in the same fandom the Word document is titled the same but with a number (eg. all Fullmetal Alchemist stories are in WIPS.doc, WIPs 1.doc, and WIPS 2.doc) - To make finding stories easier when I’m scrolling I use this code: (~) = scene break within story ( … ) = breaks between different story ideas ( WORKING TITLE ) = every story gets a working title. I might change this later but they all get a short, simple, tag I can search in ctrl + f later. Working titles are better if they’re descriptive (eg. FAKE DATING AU, AMENSIA, BED SHARING). I do these in Capslock because that makes them easier to see when I’m scrolling.

IF YOU’RE REALLY EXTRA I’ve also started using a spreadsheet the last 6 months. It’s fairly simple but it means I can have multiple WIPS going on and see the bigger picture. It helps me quickly find that one idea I started writing a month ago I just got a wave of inspiration for and it helps me browse what idea to pick up when I’m not sure what I feel like writing. These are the columns I use in my spreadsheet:

-Fandom -Name of the Word document the story is sitting in (“Ficlets 1.doc” etc) -Working title of the idea (Ctrl + f so I can get to it quickly) -Brief summary of the general idea (to help me choose/refresh my memory) -Rating (how much I was enjoying writing it) -Word count (is this a big boy? Is it almost done? Is it just started?) -Have I posted this already? Y/N or 1/6 (chapters posted) +You could add a ‘pairing’ column if that’s more relevant to you Make sure you have filters on in Excel. To do this select all your columns, go to ‘sort and filter’ and select ‘filter’. This will allow you to sort things in alphabetical order, easily manage what you’ve got, and filter specific searches for yourself (eg. all ideas for X fandom, all high rated ideas, biggest word count ideas, stuff you’ve already posted…)

TO SAVE A FRIEND The biggest rules I implemented were for myself. I made two decisions simultaneously: 1 I will not start posting anything that I have not finished writing. No exceptions. 2 I will be okay with oneshots, vignettes and multichapter fics. They all have an audience and if a story tells me it’s done. It’s done.

This means I post maybe 2 fics out of every 10 ideas. But it means I never abandon a story halfway through. Maybe I’ll start an idea, write 28k words and leave it for six months before writing another 10k words and finishing it but no one ever sees that gap. I found this helped motivate me to finish things (because I’m a whore for reviews) and oneshots and vignettes opened up my horizons. Not everything has to be 12 chapters.

I found with these rules my readers also became keener to follow what I was posting because my updates were regular. They could anticipate and look forward to my new chapters and they trusted me to always give them a complete story. They knew if I started something, they would get to read all of it.

#fanfiction #fanfic #writing #organisation #tips #creative writing #ao3

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youknowmymethods · 5 years

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Content Creator Interview #5

Welcome back again folks! This week in our fifth interview @vermofftiss chats to @mizjoely about her love of lists, her fantasy season five finale, and reveals the truth about who really writes her stories...

Hi, @mizjoely here, chatting with @vermofftiss about my sherlolly writing and fandom experiences, and answering some questions submitted by a few other folks. I’ve been involved in fandom in one way or another since the early 1980s, which is also when I started writing fanfiction - for classic Doctor Who and Star Trek in its various incarnations.

@vermofftiss here, putting forward the aforementioned questions. I’ll also be trying to weasel some advice out of @mizjoely that I can use for my own writing, which has been a casual ongoing thing since I published my first sherlolly fic in 2014.

Vermofftiss: I think our first encounter was in the Sherlollychat in the fall of 2014, around the time I got onto AO3. Which means series 3 was five years ago. How does it feel knowing that series 4 was already two years ago? What’s changed in the time since it aired?

Mizjoely: Oh, I miss the sherlollychat, or at least I did until Channy came up with the discord version! It’s hard to fathom that so much time has passed since I joined the fandom! (I became active on tumblr in November 2013 after discovering Sherlolly earlier that same year, btw.) Series 3 was five years ago. Series 4 was two years ago. Crazy!

As for what’s changed since then, I’d have to say one positive thing is that the fandom wank has calmed way the hell down since S4…. Another change that I’ve seen is probably common to all fandoms over time - new writers and content creators have joined the fandom while (sadly) many others have moved on to other fandoms. Of course, that’s to be expected when your show is essentially over, but it’s still kind of sad to lose folks completely to other fandoms.

V: Which series was your favourite to play with as a writer? When did you really get into writing Sherlolly?

M: I would have to say Series 4 has definitely been a great series to write for - so much angst! The I love you! Mary Watson’s very sad death, Rosie Watson becoming a character, Mrs. Hudson showing us what a badass she is, and of course Eurus Holmes entering the picture. We might not have gotten as much Molly Hooper as we wanted, but the scenes we did get with her were tremendous and gave so much inspiration to me and many other writers.

I really got into Sherlolly as a ship after seeing TRF, as I’m sure is true with many folks - especially the “what do you need” scene. And it was so much fun to dive into the possibilities of life after Sherlock’s ‘death’ between Series 2 and 3, I consider that a real golden age of Sherlolly writing. My first published Sherlock/Sherlolly fic was “Conversations With A Dead Detective”, set Post Reichenbach, which according to fanfiction.net I published on 04/11/13 (so I’m nearly at my five year Sherlolly- versary, woo hoo!).

A quick look at my spreadsheet (don’t judge me, I love my lists) shows that I wrote or at least started 37 fics that year (one of which I’m still working on, yikes! - The World As We Know It, a vamp!lock fic). I’m currently sitting at almost 500 fics for Sherlolly, which still amazes me, that I could be that inspired by a pair of fictional characters! (For comparison, my second most prolific fandom is Doctor Who, for whom I wrote a total of 25 stories over a period of 20 years. And of those 25, only about a dozen were for my main ship, Five/Tegan).

V: A couple of questions from @ohaine -

1) Based on the sheer volume of your work, I have this theory that you’re actually some sort of artistic collective rather than just one person, please tell me I’m right!

M: You have discovered my secret: I'm actually four raccoons in a trenchcoat! Seriously though, until I was bitten by the Sherlolly bug, my output was much, much lower, even though I've been writing fanfics since the early 1980s. For example, I love the Zutara ship for Avatar: Last Airbender, but I only wrote three fics for that. I wrote about 25 fics for Doctor Who, and about the same amount for the various Star Treks (not including Khanolly). Nothing set my writing muse afire like Sherlolly, and I doubt anything ever will again.

and, 2) You write a lot of AUs, and I’m wondering what inspires them?

M: Considering that I started off as a strictly Canon Universe/Canon Compliant writer in all of my other fandoms, it still seems funny to me how much I enjoy writing and reading AUs now. I started reading them after finally running out of canon compliant fics to read and discovering how much fun it was to transplant the characters into a different universe. And that, of course, made me think about what sort of AUs I could fit Molly and Sherlock into.

In fact, the very first BBC Sherlock story I started to write (never finished or posted) was an AU because I was nervous about trying to write Sherlock and figured no one would complain too much about him being OOC if it was a fantasy setting. (I ended up taking the plunge on a canon universe post Reichenbach fic and posted that and a lot of other canon universe fics before returning to AUs.)

Wait, that doesn't answer the question! What inspires them? The same things that inspire all my writing: wanting to read a specific kind of fic and not being able to find it; fics that other authors have written that make me itch to put my own spin on the idea; dreams; books I've read or movies or TV shows I've watched...inspiration is everywhere when you really, really, really love a ship. (Gawd that's cheesy but it's true - no love, no writing fanfic, period end of paragraph.)

V: This past spring I finally got the nerve to start working on my first proper AU (not CC, CU, or UA) after sitting on the idea for about 3 years. Have you ever had to wait to be “ready” to start working on a concept? How much do you need to know about a project to get going on it?

M: I have absolutely had to wait to be ready to start working on a concept. My very first attempt at a Sherlolly fic (never finished or published) was going to be an AU because I was so intimidated by the idea of writing Sherlock Holmes in the canon universe set up by Moffat & Gatiss. I was terrified I wouldn’t get his voice right, that he would be too OOC for folks, that I wouldn’t be able to make him clever enough or that I’d mess things up a dozen different ways. So I started writing the AU instead, and in doing so (over a course of several months), I finally realized that no, I wanted to start off in the canon universe. Just trying to write him at all, in any setting, made me a little less intimidated by him. But I might never have written anything if I hadn’t started that abandoned AU. (And I look forward to seeing your AU when you’re ready to post it!)

V: Does reader feedback ever impact the plots of your stories or the building of your AUs?

M: It absolutely can, especially when someone leaves a comment that makes me think about my story in a different light. I won’t go so far as to say comments have caused me to redo anything on a larger scale (such as change the ending) but certainly I’ve thrown things into the fic or expanded on ideas expressed in a comment to make the story that much richer.

That’s one of the best things about being active in fandom - the interactions between readers and writers. Of course, the reverse can also be true - I remember needing a LOT of fan-friend coddling when some folks were unhappy with the ending of my story ‘Abandoned’ (i.e., my Molly let my Sherlock get off too easily). But you have to have thick skin to be a creator, and remember that not everyone likes the same things. And you also have to be able to say yes, I could have done this better, or if I had to do it over I’d do it differently. It’s all part of the creative process.

V: Are there any scenes or aspects that were cut from a story that you regretted leaving out at the end?

M: Not really. Most things that I cut have been vetted by my betas (shout-out to ALL betas for being willing to help you make your story better!) and jettisoning those things has always made my stories better. (Plus I keep a folder of scraps that got cut and periodically review those scraps to see if I might be able to salvage them.)

V: On top of being one of the better-known Sherlolly writers in the tag, you’re also the single person behind the Sherlollbrary. As much as I love to organize my life and everything else I can get my hands on, that’s not something I think I’d ever actually want to do. So what made you decide to start cataloguing Sherlolly fics?

M: My love of lists. Seriously, that’s it. I love making lists of things - like, how many stories did I write in 2013 for Sherlolly (37, as you now know!), how many one-shots have I written vs. multi-chapters, how many were prompts...and then I started seeing people doing lists of various tropes. The one that made me decided to start my Sherlollilists side blog was one put together for Sherlolly omegaverse stories. As more and more lists were created, edited, and added (I’m currently at 140 official lists, with more than a dozen unofficial lists), I decided it would nice to organize them all (not realizing quite what I was getting into!) as one spreadsheet, with other tropes and tags and keywords for folks to help narrow down their searches. It always give me a little thrill when I open the library and see folks are browsing, so I like to think it’s a useful tool (although I am looking forward to finishing it someday!)

@writingwife-83 asked: You work tirelessly to organize all the multitude of writing this ship produces, but how do you feel that affects you as a writer? Does it make you less interested in writing your own fics? Or does it tend to help get the wheels turning and inspire you?

M: I have to admit, sometimes curating the lists can completely put me off writing, simply due to feeling oversaturated. This is especially true when I am reading or skimming over fics that are, shall we say, not the best of the bunch. Or the times when I'm just pushing myself even if I'm not really enthusiastic about doing it. Those times, I've learned to just step back, which is why sometimes the lists don't get updated very quickly.

On the other hand, rereading a favorite or a forgotten gem can really get my creative juices flowing. At times like that, I fall back in love with the ship and the fandom all over again.

V: When you’re stuck with writer’s block or just a lack of motivation, does it help you more to reread an old fave or to go back through some of your own works? Have you noticed your style has changed much?

M: It does help, absolutely. It reminds me why I love this ship so much, and helps me reconnect with others in the fandom. People think of reading as passive and writing as solitary, but to me it’s an interactive process. Reading great fics, new can old, helps feed your creativity. And nowadays the internet helps so much as well - there are awesome resources and fandom spaces to talk to other folks about their works and your own, reminding you that you’re not creating in a vacuum. (And I REALLY love the cheerleading section of the Sherlolly Discord site. That can help unstick my creativity like nobody’s business!)

As for my style changing - yeah, it definitely has. I feel like my writing has become more streamlined and less clunky since I first started. I still do a lot of semicolon abuse but at this point I’ve decided that’s just my style and will likely never change.

Thanks for the excellent questions and for letting me ramble on!

V: I’m sure we can do a lot more rambling if left on the trail. How about one last one: In the currently hypothetical series 5, how would you continue the story from where it left off?

M: Oooh, good one! If I was in charge we would see that Sherlock and Molly are continuing their relationship, culminating with a wedding at the end of the third episode. But since I’m not in charge, I’m thinking that Mofftiss would give us some subtle hints, like John casually mentioning to Sherlock that he and Rosie can’t join ‘them’ for dinner that night for whatever reason. And maybe some small changes to 221B to show hints that someone else spends time there other than Sherlock and the Watsons - a cherry patterned pillow, perhaps? A Bart’s ID card with a woman’s picture to show that no, it isn’t one Sherlock nicked to get access to a place he otherwise couldn’t get to? A woman’s coat hanging next to Sherlock’s? Something like that. And some private smiles between Sherlock and Molly, little things like that. Enough to give us hope but not enough to give us proof! They do like to tease that way!

Non-shipwise, I think Eurus would make a return because come on, how do you leave a character like that catatonic? I also think they would return to ACD canon to revise a few more cases for the modern age, and maybe (maybe!) have John start dating again (especially if they’re so married to canon that they killed Mary off - since John seems to have been married at least twice, they would probably explore that option).

I know, that last part is a bit vague but honestly? I hope they surprise the hell out of us in a good way if we ever get that fifth series!

Next Week, Friday March 22nd, @ashockinglackofsatin talks to @sunken-standard

#content creator interviews #sherlolly #Sherlock #mizjoely #vermofftiss

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purrpurrpurrcat · 4 years

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i wish i could just

alakazam!

and boom. chapter’s written.

#me: has problems with committing to a project #also me: posts a chapter of a fanfic and abandons it 500 years

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formlesscopycat · 5 years

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1--50 because I always like learning more bout you guys :PPPPP for xxx, maybe your favorite fic? Or Distance of the Falling Sun :D

Thanks for making me answer all the asks, I really enjoyed doing this, a jog down the memory lane is always beautiful. Also, this gives me a chance to make up for misunderstanding RuRu’s prior request (so sorry, babe).

1) How old were you when youfirst started writing fanfiction?

I started writing headcanonsin my native language when I was 12; I posted my first fic when I was 15.

2) What fandoms do you writefor and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?

I’ve written for FinalFantasy VIII (Seinoa, Seifistis), Slam Dunk (SenRu), Lovely Complex (OtaRisa),Kimi no Todoke (Kazehaya/Kuronama) and Wallflower (SunaKyo). I’m currentlywriting for the love of AoKise (Kuroko no Basuke).

3) Do you prefer writing OC’sor reader inserts? Explain your answer.

I prefer OCs. I find readerinserts kinda weird.

4) What is your favouritegenre to write for?

Romantic comedies.

5) If you had to choose afavourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be andwhy?

Love is a Scheme (forWallflower fandom) is my fave multi-chapter that I’ve written. One is becauseI’ve managed to finish writing it and two, it has all my favorite elements:denial of feelings, enemies to lovers, love confessions, meddling friends. Ihad so much fun writing that story and readers have loved it, too.

6) If you had to delete oneof your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

Perhaps that lame attempt ata songfic I wrote for Final Fantasy VIII fandom, ugh. No particular plot andinfused with bad grammar. But no matter how much I cringed at my earlierstories, I can’t bring myself to delete them because I still come back to thesefics sometimes if just to see how much I’ve grown as a writer over the years.

7) When is your preferredtime to write?

Daytime.

8) Where do you take yourinspiration from?

Poetry, quotes, metaphors,old songs. Also, from personal experience, sometimes.

9) Inyour [Distance of the Falling Sun] fic, what’s your favourite scene that youwrote?

Two.

The two of them are idiots in love, this, Kise is sure. He lifts hishead and meets Aomine’s face with a smile. Happiness sweeps across Aomine’sfeatures too, as he thumbs softly on the skin under Kise’s eyes, wiping awayhis tears.

“If only you told me sooner,” Aomine tells him with a smirk, theirfaces only inches away from each other.

“Excuse me, but you should’ve said something too.” Kise shoots back.

“Are we bickering again?”

“We’re not.”

(My fave scene because itfeels authentic AoKise, dorkos snapping at each other right after confession>.

10) Inyour [DotFS] fic, why did you decide to end it like that? Did you have analternative ending in mind?

There’s supposed to be a“Zero”, because the prompt is actually, “write a story with a countdown from 10to 0″. I tried to push for it but my sentences refuse to work out so I ended itat one.

11) Have you ever amended astory due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

I haven’t.

12) Who is your favouritecharacter to write for? Why?

Currently, it’s Aomine.Ironically, I don’t like him at first but now, I’m totally captivated by thischild, my heart is his. I think he has the best character development in KnB,with that gripping heart-wrenching backstory. I find it easy to write his tendencies and basicways. He’s flawless but at the same time, flawed in so many ways. If I peeloff his layers, I always find wonderful gems. I like going through the heads of flawed characters.

13) Who is your leastfavourite character to write for? Why?

Um, none.

14) Howdid you come up with the title for the [Distance of the Falling Sun]? - You canask about multiple stories.

I wanted to play with metaphors,heh. ‘Distance’ because Kise is chasing after Aomine, always yearning forAomine’s affections and he thinks Aomine is beyond his reach. ‘Falling Sun’because this is really about Kise, ‘burning’ with unrequited feelings.

15) If you write OC’s, how doyou decide on their names?

I take the names of myfavorite characters from other fandoms. For example, in my fic, Where YouBelong, Kise’s father is named ‘Takenaga’, he’s actually from the anime,Wallflower. Aomine’s mom will be named ‘Sayuri’, from Memoirs of a Geisha. Ialso employ the help of Google, to see if the meanings behind the names Ichoose will actually fit my OC.

16) Howdid you come up with the idea for [DotFS]?

I chanced on the prompt onTumblr and immediately, the angst muse overwhelmed me. Also, this doujin. Ijumped on the ‘unrequited love’ theme because it’s something that I personallyexperienced. With this fic, it’s structure first before the plot instead ofvice-versa and that came as a big challenge, I never thought I’d write it down.I only have the shaky idea for ten, three and one but how to fill in the rest,I don’t even know. Months after, the muse have shown mercy.

17) Post a line from a WIPthat you’re working on.

Waiting–he’s done enough of it to endure through its pain, a furnacerefining his patience like silver into flame.

(From ‘Worth the Wait’, anattempt at RinHaru, Idek.)

18) Do you have any abandonedWIP’s? What made you abandon them?

I’ve two. One is an AoKise. Ijust felt like there’s something lacking with the plot and I tried to think ofways to patch things up but sadly, nothing ever seemed to work. It upsets metoo, that I suddenly lost the interest to finish it because I’ve already hit6,000+ words.

19) Are there any storiesthat you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?

I want to do a sequel for IHear You through these Walls, the Kise side of the story, what he thinks of hiscute neighbor next door and what really happened between him and Haizaki.

Worst Birthday Ever – theAomine and friends part as they plan for Kise’s birthday. While WBE has lightangst, The Making of the Best Birthday Ever will be full of bickering idiots.And a little Aominecchi guiltrip (because of the phone call) will be explored in the sequel.

Rest is for the Weak – Aominecaught the flu because of the kiss. He puts the blame on Kise and demands for Kise to care for him, too. It’smostly Aho having the time of his life, supremely enjoying Kise’sattention.

20) Are there any storiesthat you wished you’d ended differently?

In that first fic I’vewritten, the MCs used to be lovers. They had a shot at being together again butin the end, they chose differently and still went their separate ways. I wishthey’ve been together.

21) Tell me about anotherwriter(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

There are so many but I’ll gowith these writers whose stories I always come back to, again and again:

Ashbear (FFVIII, Squinoa) –Writes with superior plot and superior characterization. She’s my childhoodfanfic hero. A decade later, I still find myself re-reading her stories, and onsome occasions, I still leave a comment, a plea, hoping she’ll finish‘Somewhere in Between’.

Aki Midori (Slam Dunk, SenRu)– I always go back to her deathfics like a deranged masochist. Her storieseffin hurts like hell but so, so addictive.

For KnB, there are too manybut I’m all for these amazecakes authors:

Beautiful Thief (AoKise) – Iowe it to her fics which nurtured and nourished the AoKise monster in me duringits infancy.

DigimonDestined (AoKise) –she weaves beautiful imagery with her words, I’m weak for her rich descriptionsthat put me right into the heart of the situation and into the big mood.

dawnstruck (AoKise) – shewrites with short sentences but her writing style has this magical allure to itthat drives all the feels home.

Himi (KagaKise) – writes withlovely, complicated and realistic emotions that are eye-opening and gutwrenching.

22) Do you have a story thatyou look back on and cringe when you reread it?

The first two fics I’vewritten. It’s a wonder how readers have endured and managed to leave some nicewords.

23) Do you prefer listeningto music when you’re writing or do you need silence?

Hush, I need Silence.

24) How do you feel aboutwriting smutty scenes?

I haven’t tried, heh, andjust thinking about it makes me uncomfortable primarily because I can’t bringto words something that I have very little knowledge and experience of. I maytry to do some research but I don’t think it’ll come as authentic if my heart’snot really into it. I can insinuate love making but to go into the territories ofexplicit, I’ll have to pass ;D Even as a reader, I shy away from E-ratedstories. When I make rare exceptions, I skip the smut or I don’t dwell too longon these parts of the story. I’m pretty much contented with my ships being allkissy-kissy and touchy-feely when they get physical.

25) Have you ever criedwhilst writing a story?

Yes, because I can’t describea scene that’s just so vivid in my head. I see my words and shat, I want toshoot myself.

26) Which part of your [DotFS]fic was the hardest to write?

Eight, Seven, Four. At four,dammit, I’m almost done! Something has to be written, something has to work.Luckily, four walls of the empty room, heh.

27) Do you make a generaloutline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?

I make a general outline, Ineed to see the full picture before I get myself invested in a plot. I workwith tunnel vision, slowly from the ground up. There has to be a working title,too, before I get past 500 words.

28) What is something youwished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?

That consistency in verbtenses matter.

29) Do you have a story thatyou feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?

I would want all of mystories to get so much love heh, but setting aside my weaknesses as a writer, I’vealways been drawn to small, semi-active or defunct fandoms so my expectationsaren’t really that high…As long as I’m getting some, I’ve been happy with thelove I get.

30) In contrast to 29 isthere a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

I’ve breached lewd levels withMy Favorite Costume but then, I’m glad it got nice loving from readers.

31) Send me a ficrecommendation and I’ll post it for my followers to see! (The asker is to sendthe rec not the answerer)

I’ve never been happier, thatyou enjoyed DotFS. You want angst and Teiko!Aokise, I’m stoked when the ideahit me, I can finally gift you a fic that you might actually like.

32) Are any of yourcharacters based on real people?

Some scenes are loosely basedon first hand experiences.

33) What’s the biggestcompliment you’ve gotten?

“Your storytelling is impeccablysubtle; you show but don’t tell. As I was reading, I could see everything in mymind as if I was there with the characters and living through them. The littleshock at the end was bloody brilliant.”

This comment is quite memorable andimportant to me because it’s for the first-ever angsty-fangsty story I’vewritten way back when (for Final Fantasy VIII fandom (my first love)), withonly 600 words. I was young, had just started writing and simply doing it because I deeply love the characters. This comment made me so happy years ago,and had sparked a bigger desire in my young-once heart to put my ideas intowords and throw ‘em all out there for people to see.

34) What’s the harshestcriticism you’ve gotten?

The reader said that she was terriblydisappointed with the ending I had. She said she followed the story with highhopes but the ending just, meh.

Well, I was young, it’s formy first fanfic and I’ve written all chapters of it before I posted so I’m notreally that open to changes and suggestions. But looking back, yes, reader wasdefinitely right, the ending sucked.

35) Do you share your storyideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?

Close to my chest. I’m notreally that confident with the things in my head, I mostly feel I’m getting judged when I share my ideas.

36) Can you give us a spoilerfor one of your WIP’s?

In Where You Belong, therewill be a scene where they celebrate Kise’s birthday and everyone but Aho gothim a gift.

37) What’s the funniest storyyou’ve written?

Maybe, Rest is for the Weak?You said Aomine was strangely acting like a mother hen in that one.

38) If you could collab withany other writer on here, who would it be? (Perhaps this question will inspiresome collabs!) If you’re shy, don’t tag the blog, just name it.

I’d love to work with any ofthe friendos in the AoKise~ discord.

39) Do you prefer first,second or third person?

Third person. I like tellingstories through the bird’s eye view, it gives me a lot of control.

40) Do people know you writefanfiction?

For sure, my mom will disownme if she finds out about the things I write. Only two people in real life knewthat I do fanfics. I told one friend during high school and a cousin who is somuch into anime accidentally found out.

41) What’s your favouriteminor character you’ve written?

Ranmaru (Wallflower) in Loveis a Scheme. With his charms, he successfully made his friend jealous out ofhis wits which resulted into an awkward confession.

42) Song fic - What made youdecide to use the song xxx for xxx.

I only wrote 1 songfic forthe heck of it. The song was very popular at that time

43) Has anyone ever guessedthe plot twist of one of your fics before you posted it?

I haven’t encountered suchcomments from my readers..

44) What is the last line youwrote?

Can’t you see how he looks atour Ryou-chan like he’s looking at fireworks?

45) What spurs you on duringthe writing process?

Thinking I’m getting closerto fluffy, lovey-dovey scenes gets me going. The fluff scenes are my ‘checkpoint’,my pit-stop for every leg of the writing journey.

46) Ireally loved your [Distance of the Falling Sun] fic. If you were ever to do asequel, what do you think might happen in it?

Hey, thank you for the love!If there will be a sequel, it will be a countdown beginning from 1 to 10, set10 years into the future, in Aomine’s POV as he recalls the ups and downs, thejoys and pains of his beautiful relationship with Kise.

47) Here’s afic title – [The man who never lied (or morelike, what would a story inspired by that song be about? :D)]. Whatwould this story be about? (from Ruru’s ask too)

Mmm. Ok, first, I love Maroon 5 and ADAM LEVINE! I’ll write an AoKiserunning along these lines: What Kise would give up for Aomine to achieve hisdreams… What Aomine would give up just to keep Kise’s love. Or, Aomine is tornbetween choosing to follow his dreams of becoming an NBA player or keeping thelove of his life. On the premise that he can’t have both because real life islike that… you can’t be thoroughly happy XD

(Because I’ve read a lot ofstories wherein Ao gets to be NBA star and gets Kise too. Not that I don’tthink he deserves all the joys of this life, but I want to explore this Ao whogets to give up his dreams for Kise. Ofc, I’ll make him choose love overdreams, heh.)

48) What’s your favouritetrope to write?

Enemies to lovers.

49) Can you remember thefirst fic you read? What was it about?

Yes, I do. Its title is Giftof Love (FFVIII fandom). It’s inspired by O’Henry’s The Gift of the Magi. Lotsof angst and fluff in the end.

50)If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life,which would it be and why?

Angst. I love writing journeys that explorethe depths of human emotions and I think there’s no better way than angst tobring me there. But with happy endings. Always with happy endings. Because thatis the whole point of my shipping, to see my children struggle in the midst ofthe storm, turbulent waters raging all around, and see them dock safe and soundto happy couple-land.

#ask #answered #fanfiction #writing #blahs and thoughts #so much fun #thanks for asking

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babycharmander · 6 years

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5, 9 (NCY), 18, 21, 29 aaa sorry there's so many! These are good questions

5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?

blllhhhh how do I choose? DX;; uhh... It’s poooobably still The Rodent and the Robot, though I think Neither Can You is shaping up pretty well? TRatR is a longfic that wasn’t 500% self-indulgent like most of my others and I feel like I managed a nice, coherent plot and got some good character development in there with characters I’d almost never written before, so...? But NCY is turning out a lot better than I expected. It’s more on the self-indulgent side than TRatR is but this is my first time writing ALL of these characters and I think I’m doing okay, so...?

9) In Neither Can You, what’s your favourite scene that you wrote?

I don’t know if I could pick just one. I’m pretty pleased with the buildup in chapter 5 up to where Héctor is found. Also kinda like the bit a few chapters later when Pepita tries to get Héctor out of his depressed musings (and is only partially successful). But Victoria’s scene in chapter 10 was a blast to write--I had a lot of fun with that one and was laughing as I was writing some of that stuff. Also had a lot of fun with Pepita’s perspective in the chapter after that, though it was a bit of a challenge.

18) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

As far as fics I’ve posted go, I have ONE unfinished fic--a 15-year-old fic that’s a Kirby parody of the Pokemon anime. I remember I abandoned it upon realizing that it was an impossible task--there were too many episodes of Pokemon (even the first season), and even if I could somehow write a parody of every one of those, I couldn’t match every Pokemon to a Kirby enemy.

I also have an unfinished series--my Cutter-Dagger series (an OC-centric series of Kirby fics based on the main story campaigns in Kirby Super Star). I was several chapters into the next fic before I just stopped. I was in college at the time, and working on tons of writing and art projects for my classes. I think that was also around the time I got into Portal, so I started writing a lot of fics for that, too, and that WIP kinda fell by the wayside.

As far as fics I HAVEN’T posted, oh, yeah, there’s plenty of unfinished WIPs. I don’t like to consider them necessarily abandoned, though--there’s fics in older fandoms of mine that I may decide to revisit should I ever get really invested in that fandom again. A bit too many fics to list here, though (but if you want to ask about a specific fandom I could probably bring up some of them).

21) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

NO I HATE THESE KINDS OF QUESTIONS D

it’s not that I don’t admire other authors--it’s just that we’re sortof in an unprofessional setting, here, and elevating one author kindof seems unfair?

29) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?

Hmm... Probably The Reaper’s Bedtime Story? Sorta, anyway. I mean, I kinda went into that one knowing I was going to get very little feedback, if any, since it’s a fanfic featuring three minor characters from a 20-year-old video game that has a pretty small fandom. Still! I think I was fairly happy with that one? Ah well, it’s not a big deal. You can’t write for feedback alone! I had fun writing from Sal’s perspective.

#writing #jaywings

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maythedreadwolftakeyou · 6 years

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Fic Writer Meme! tagged by @aban-asaara, thank you!! a nice meme to self-indulgently wind down with after a stressful day...

What is your total word count on AO3?

160,546. I had forgotten all about the AO3 stats page until having to dig that out, oops. I have more short drabbles etc on tumblr as well (and a LOT of stuff I just... never finished/posted anywhere).

How often do you write?

varies hugely depending on what else is going on in my life. In good times, I aim for daily, at least 500 words. During years I participate in NaNoWriMo, 1500-2000 per day in November. Other times I just can’t make even 500 happen with work/etc. Still more other times, my depression kicks in and I’m pretty useless at everything, and unfortunately go months with no writing at all.

Do you have a routine for writing?

I try to write in several short bursts. If doing 500/words/day, then two chunks of 250, and some editing/planning on top. If during NaNoWriMo, 4 chunks of about 500 words each. If I really push myself to get them done in sections, I spend less time fiddling around, but the break between them makes it still relaxing/fun.

I also have a computer/document setup that works very well for me. I write on a laptop that can scroll between several different ‘desktop’ screens. I have one for fun stuff, and set one aside for writing. The only browser window/tabs allowed to be open on that desktop are writing-related ones--research, youtube clips of scenes, wiki articles, etc. All other fun stuff goes on the other desktop where it can’t distract me while I get through a section. Then over the browser I have two word documents: one on the left titled “[StoryTitle.docx]”, and one next to it titled “[StoryTitleNotes.docx]”. On the left is the “final version” of what I’m working on--aka the working document, with the most current edits/chapters/etc. The right “Notes” one is for outlines, summaries, lines I had to delete but might want to use somewhere else, passages I haven’t gotten to yet but wanted to sketch out before I lost the inspiration for them, quotes that I want to echo the feel of, copied dialogue from the game so I don’t forget it, etc etc. Anything related to the story in the working document that I might want to reference. The notes doc can be fairly messy--my level of organization for it changes from project to project. But it makes it WAY easier for me mentally to delete and tweak things when I can put them somewhere else just in case it turns out the first way was better.

What are your favorite kinks/tropes/pairing?

Ohh... my pairings are pretty obvious, I’m really into Lavellan/Solas, Hawke/Fenris, and Shepard/Garrus.

But what I’m really into is Hawke/the concept of found family and also various coping mechanisms+mental health issues; Lavellan/the weight of duty above all else, Shepard/the giddy knowledge that you won’t survive what you have to turn yourself into in order to save everything you love, Ryder+Sam/breaking the boundaries of what it means to be a single conscious entity...

my big literary kinks are pretty much any narrative that has to do with one or more of the following: self-sacrifice, the transcendence of humanity in pursuit of a goal, the knowledge of the futility of one’s actions, the duality of self plus other, the terrifying and terrible beauty of rage, stubborn and violent perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds, the frailty of people who nonetheless fool everyone into believing they’re not broken. I am also a very big fan of nontraditional formats, and the meta-narrative of a story over usual structure.

tl;dr: I like my fiction weird.

Like... I recognize that most of my fics. Do not include a majority of these. And the ones that do aren’t really very popular. The one that gets closest to these concepts is probably the people you love become ghosts inside of you, and like this, you keep them alive which very few people read and got almost no attention. But I knew that when I posted it. I wrote it for me, after finishing the ME trilogy for the first time. The above tropes show up way more in my original writing, while I use fanfiction as a break from these more complicated/heavier themes, and to just have some fun with less technical writing. They’re there, just in smaller doses.

Fics with that sort of bend are WAY harder to search for than ones based on pairings though so like... if you have recs for anything that follows the above themes. please send them to me. i’m dying. please.

Do you have a favorite fic of yours?

How can I not answer this with Fallout from the Fade? It’s my baby. It’s the longest thing I’ve consistently written, without getting bored and abandoning it halfway through. It will probably take me a while yet (depending on mental health/writing pace/etc) to finish but I know how it ends, and most of how to get there. It’s also the third fanfiction I had ever started writing. The beginning feels rough to me when I go back to it (which an inevitable fact of my decision to post as I write/not use beta readers, which I still think was the only way for me to do this story), but I still think a lot of my ideas were clever and my execution may not have been perfect but it was pretty good. I’ve learned a lot while writing this fic.

And also I love to make people suffer. Knowing that people have shed literal tears because of things i have written fills me with the delightful glee to push forward.

But really. Comments mean the world to me. They spur me on through rough patches where I otherwise abandon works. I’m really not used to having an audience: most of what I’ve written in my life is original content that I don’t post/share. Having other people also invested makes me feel accountable, in a good way.

Other honorable mentions: I think Grief is one of my best fics in terms of execution and balance. Less a man than a wild cat and A Slip of the Tongue were both exercises in pacing/timing as well as forays into the highly unfamiliar territory of comedy. The aforementioned the people you love become ghosts inside of you, and like this, you keep them alive satisfies my eternal desire for weird presentation and ideology taking a front seat over narrative structure (I have like. 4 other partial fics similar to this that will probably never be posted because I know they’re what I want to explore, not what other people actually want to read).

Your fic with the most kudos?

Fallout from the Fade, with 626.

Anything you don’t like about your writing?

I wish I was more consistent about sitting down and working. I managed it for 6 straight months when I started the fanfic gig, but to be fair, during that time I also had no friends and spent 5 days every other week camped out in Death Valley with no internet and nothing to do but write and brainstorm. Having the barest scrapings of a social life now that I’ve moved doesn’t do much for wordcount, it turns out.

Now something you do like?

I think I can write about mental illness realistically without it coming across as either overdramatic or idealistic. I like my descriptions, when I allow myself to use them (y’all don’t want to see how flowery most of my works would be without my self control). I have visibly improved since I started writing in 2015.

i feel like a lot of my original circle on tumblr isnt active/writing anymore but gonna tag some people w/ no obligation… @leviathanmirror @seekingidlewild @littleblue-eyedbird @loquaciousquark @kayla-bird and anyone else who wants to answer!! feel free to tag me if you do it, im lonely...

#ramblings #tumblr games #my stuff #my writing #ish #writing extras

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