#yes this is the most niche crossover of all time

[ariapmdeol]

if i had a nickel for every blonde protagonist who's heavily associated with plants and kind of has another version of himself, both of whom are derived from the same 'original' AND have identity crises, id have two nickels

#cell of empireo #pact #pact web serial #wildbow #otherverse #세포신곡 #細胞神曲 #pactblr #haruki atou #origin alpha #blake thorburn #rose thorburn jr #my art #aria draws #coe spoilers #pact spoilers #yes this is the most niche crossover of all time #i am the only person into both of these things :pensive: #i will do my best to change that #ill otherverse propagandize the coe fans #and coe propagandize the otherverse fans

[halfagone]

Oooh, good point! I think I’d prefer to go for a mix of two and three. An experienced Danny who’s super sick of the hero life, but he’s still pretty experience and maybe even harbors resent for the league since they never helped him out. I kinda have a thing for stories about Danny having issues with the league, lol. What do you think?

This is in continuation to this post.

From what I've seen you're not alone with that preference/niche! lol I've even read some Miraculous Ladybug x DC crossover with a similar concept, back when I used to read fics for MLB (it's been a while since I last read fanfic for MLB though). I know I did play around with the concept for down the rabbit hole (goes the throne). However, something that's very tricky to balance is making sure Danny doesn't come off as... self-centered, I guess the right word would be?

Because yes, it's understandable that Danny would be upset that no one tried to help him if they did reach out. At the same time, you have to consider the possibility of censorship thanks to the GIW (which is a popular headcanon) or that Vlad used Desiree to make a wish that would shield the town for his machinations and schemes (which is another headcanon I've seen used before). Danny can be upset at first but if he finds out that their attempts for contact literally could not connect, then it would be unreasonable for Danny to keep harboring that resentment when they're here now because they found out. That implies that had they known back then they would have tried something too, but they are not meant to be omniscient, no matter how hard Bruce might try to be.

Plus... the JL already have a lot of responsibilities. Most if not all these heroes have a base of operations- an entire city to take care of. And yes, so does Danny, but they can't just drop everything and come to his rescue, especially if the problem is much more extensive than just closing the portal. (Which Danny could technically do at any given time, but chooses not to.) But let's not talk about that. And there's also all the off-world missions they're in charge of or participate in. And many heroes have their day jobs and civilian lives to maintain, and plenty of these heroes have kids! Things are complicated!

But complex situations make things all the more interesting, do they not? ;3

Let's play around with that, shall we?

---

"Are you really a ghost?" Bart asks Phantom in curiosity. Is it just 'Phantom' or is it 'The Phantom' because the latter sounds much more mysterious, but is that trade-marked by-

"You think too fast," Phantom grumbles under his breath as he zips around a burning piece of rubble. He hardly bats an eye at it, just watches it fly past and then freezes it, effectively putting out the flames. The rubble slides innocently across the blacktop, falling alongside all the other pieces he's already frozen over.

Phantom's hardly even trying. It's so not crash.

"You're not like any ghost I've ever seen before," Secret agrees with a small frown. She doesn't distrust Phantom necessarily, but her own curiosity is hard to fight down.

Phantom's lips twist with amusement. "I could say the same to you actually." The group collectively watch as Phantom's legs twist and disappear into a wispy tail, the ghost curling it around as if to hug himself.

"What kind of Casper..." Kon overhears Tim mutter to himself. It's a good thing he doesn't have a piece of paper, else he'd be taking rapid fire notes. A computer would've done in a jiffy, of course, but it's not like they had access to one of those in a blown out city street like this.

"I've never heard about you before," Cassie comments with pinched brows. She doesn't look happy about it.

And for what it's worth, Phantom doesn't either.

"You wouldn't," Phantom drawls. There's no mirth in his voice. He turns back to the villain of the day, hands sparking as he zaps the machine so thoroughly that sparks fly and the metal audibly creaks.

Kon shivers at the display. He's not afraid, not really, but he's still uneasy... He knows that Captain Marvel is one of those heroes on par with Superman, and right now, watching Phantom wield his lightning, Kon's starting to see why.

The group shuffle around uncomfortably as Phantom sucks up the villain into a soup thermos? Now that's not something you see every day.

"What's that do?" Tim, ever perceptive, prods Phantom for answers.

"It contains ghosts, spectral entities, the works," Phantom replies curtly, capping the thermos with practiced ease. Ease that spoke of experience. "You kids alright?"

"Dude, you're barely four years older than some of us," Anita deadpans with an unimpressed look. "You don't get to call us 'kids'."

Phantom lifts his shoulders in a shrug. "Sorry, y'all are still babies to me." He points at Kon. "You've gotta be, what, not even six months old?"

Kon prickles at the remark. "That's none of your business." He knows he's not that old chronologically, but that doesn't make him an infant. He'd appreciate some respect about it.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you," Danny replies and it sounds sincere? But most of them don't take too kindly to him anyways. He just gives bad vibes is all. "Where are your mentors? I feel like there should be at least one of them around to supervise."

"We can take care of ourselves," Tim insists, crossing his arms over his chest. Uh oh, he's hurt Timmy's feelings. That's never a good sign.

"You're kids, you shouldn't have to," Phantom sneers slightly, snidely more like.

"Like you did?" Secret asks tentatively. Phantom's hair visibly floats up, picked up by an inexplicable wind. His eyes glow a shade brighter. It's eerie. It's uncomfortable.

Phantom's face might be impassive, but he still remains an open book.

"Yeah, something like that," Phantom murmurs, his tone unreadable. "I hope you can take care of yourselves. One day you might be the only ones that do."

With that ominous warning, Phantom disappears. Here one minute, gone the next. Like a true ghost.

"I vote we call him 'Casper the Unfriendly Ghost'," Bart announces out of the blue. "Raise your hand if you agree?"

At once, every single member raises their hand.

"Motion passed."

#halfagone replies #dpxdc

[maxwell-grant]

I guess it's also time for the annual ask: Thoughts on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

@mirrorfalls asked: Perhaps it's time to touch the elephant in the room: thoughts on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

anonymous asked: Any thoughts on Moore's LOEG? anonymous asked: any advice on how to do a fictional character mashup story ala chimera brigade, league, etc? anonymous asked: you wrote a bit on the wold newton universe and the chimera brigade, any thoughts on league of extraordinary gentleman?

(TW: sexual assault, also a whole lot of racism)

(clip from Anti-Spook Squad by Doctor Lalve)

Let it never be said I don't love or do anything for you people because Jesus Christ what an ordeal.

It was pretty inevitable that I'd eventually have to talk about LOEG given the, niche, I made for myself here, and given I'd read and touched on all these other works that either inspired it or were inspired by it, like the Wold Newton Universe, The Chimera Brigade, Tales of the Shadowmen and etc. I'd read through plenty of different LOEG takes and fics, it's an idea that has a lot of appeal on it's own and is easy to flirt with, if not so easy to pull off.

One thing to put upfront: Kevin O'Neil was a brilliant, one-of-a-kind creator and his work here is great, it's the one thing almost unimpeachably great about the whole thing except when he's asked to draw racist caricatures, which he does quite a bit, we'll get into those. I love the collaboration between Moore and O'Neil and I frequently enjoy the little tidbits where they show up as themselves within the supplemental material. O'Neil does a lot of heavy lifting in these even at their worst, in fact especially at their worst. This comic is a legitimately impressive achievement, and I don't regret reading it, if nothing else I think it was a hell of a wake-up call in regards to all of it's warts I may have been overlooking or replicating in my work or that of others.

I'm gonna break it down by going through the individual installments:

Volume 1: One of the nicest things there is to League is that it only keeps getting better, in the sense that it starts off on the worst foot and it gets better by virtue of not really being able to get worse (yes, even with the Golleywog and Harry Potter sections and whatever). From the moment you open the book it takes about six pages for Mina to be assaulted by Brute Arab Rapist Hordes that Quatermain and Nemo have to gun down, and that pretty much sets the stage on what to expect. Volume 1 is where the series has yet to jump off the deep end in tackling all of fiction, being a more grounded adventure story based on it's premise of being a comic book crossover/hero team comprised of Victorian era literary characters. It's LOEG at it's shallowest and most straightforward, and also at it's least impressive. I'm not remotely charmed by much of what's done here, I've seen a million variants of these before and many of those weren't that great either, but their lows weren't as catastrophic.

(text comes from an essay Alan Moore wrote regarding his usage of Fu Manchu in the book, which was scanned and sent to me by @mirrorfalls, thank you for that.)

The LOEG's first enemy is Fu Manchu and the book sure likes depicting leering hordes of yellow peril cartoons for our heroes, Mr Hyde in particular, to brutally mow down. Alan Moore thought the genius trick to making Fu Manchu not-racist was to make him as inscrutable and sinister as possible so as to not even appear human, which is a great understanding of how racial caricatures work guys, the "not potentially offensive" shirt has people asking a lot of questions answered by it.

I've heard a lot of claims over the years that LOEG was intended to be a parody, or satire, and that it's using Fu Manchu to make a point as a criticism of the British Empire and imperialism, and I'm gonna make this clear before we move on: LOEG is not a parody or satire, not as a whole. It parodies and satirizes a lot of things, but it is neither parody nor satire. It is very much in love with much of it's subject matter even when it wants to burn it down. LOEG is also a frankly terrible critique of imperialism, it is one of the most imperialist things I've ever read. Part of it is because you can't just recycle problematic garbage and claim it's commentary, especially when you're going out of your way to sensationalize said garbage to be provocative or in many cases add shit that wasn't even there in the first place. Moore asked if anyone else was gonna try and criticize colonialist bigotry in fiction by tripling down on reproducing it as hard as possible, and then didn't wait for an answer before doing it.

Volume 2: Objectively an improvement over the first if only because Fu Manchu isn't there. It's also where the book kinda improves in terms of making a critique. LOEG never really has much to say about it's characters, instead developing them in service of the story or social commentary, and Volume 2 is better at it than the first. Still has a lot of the same problems as 1, it's still a shallow team-up thing that wants to have it's cake and eat it too, it's still the worse version of a concept that's been done many many times before and after. Edward Hyde gets the bulk of the focus here and he was very clearly Moore and O'Neil's favorite character to work on, he gets the most memorable sequences for better or worse. I don't wanna talk about him much and I don't wanna talk about how the book wraps up the Invisible Man's subplot (and how it's not even gonna be the last time sexual violation of a villain is played for oh-so-horrific catharsis), I'd frankly like to stop thinking about it.

The Traveler's Almanac was definitely the most exhausting part to read in full and only not a total waste of time because of Jess Nevins' annotations, which turn this into fairly valuable research material. But so do Wold Newton articles and they're really not the most riveting thing to read, and at least those have a point or constrain themselves to a single topic or character, or are briefer and come with resources on hand or have a point or even can pitch some neat/cool ideas and concepts as a whole. Jess Nevins even did the better version of this in his own WNU chronologies.

Where as this is just complete ass and there's only so many times you can read a variant of "and then we went to this place with horrible cannibal savages and then we went to the other place with beautiful cannibal savages and then we found this utopia and then we found this dystopia and then we referenced this and that and this and that", and it brings me to another point I'd also seen brought up a lot in regards to LOEG: that it's too damn anglocentric to live up to it's premise, too contradictory within itself, and it was always too big of an undertaking to be done the way Moore and O'Neill did it.

I appreciate Moore trying to make this world feel like a world, in as gigantic all-encompassing a scale as he could possibly account for, with a full world tour and internal chronology. I sure would have liked a big fiction crossover almanac with entire chapters for Africa and China and South America, but we don't get that, because EVERYTHING in them is taken from colonial texts elevated to fact. Literally, entire paragraphs taken from political and colonial texts. All the time spent dicking around with all of those Euro political texts and ancient lore that just had to be paid it's due, and then Orlando goes to China and finds Sun Wukong stuffed as a public freakshow and dismisses his mythos as a bunch of loony (but intriguing and exotic!) hogwash, and Godzilla is later brought up in one line of dialogue to mention how Hugo Hercules killed him offscreen. (I think those might be the only two texts Moore brings up that aren't from European/American sources? There might be others but good luck finding them in the annotations).

Is it unfair to expect Moore to have read all of fiction? Of course it is, but that's what he wants this to be about, he wants this to be about All of Fiction and he wants to write about Africa and China and South America with nothing but colonial texts about those places as reference. He wants to write about how the things he likes are cool and happened and are real while the things he doesn't like don't count or are garbage or didn't happen the way we were told happened. He wants to make a story criticizing racism and misogyny in fiction while writing a text far more racist and misogynistic than most of the things he's bringing up. It's irreconcilable.

Black Dossier: It's constantly jumping between different formats and having to adjust it's prose and visual style accordingly, and it does that fairly well (the beatnik section is completely fucking unreadable though, the prose sections are already a handful to get through as is but that one was too much even for me), although Tempest I think is gonna do it much better. It's got some good parts, it's also got some bad ones. Definitely more readable than the prior two + Almanac.

This is the one with the Gollywog in it and I'm not gonna talk about that thing, I think what's wrong with it is self-explanatory as is. Look, I truly love a lot of Moore's work I've read, and I think a lot of the pushback against Alan Moore painting him as just a cranky old man who hates comics is overblown and shitty and symptomatic of bigger issues with how fans discuss comics and superheroes, but his defense of the Gollywog and his response to the criticisms of LOEG was embarassing and beneath him.

Century: This is the one with Harry Potter and The Lightning Penis in it. To those of you who heard at some point that Alan Moore had done a much-maligned pisstake on Harry Potter and got curious, don't get your hopes up. It's nothing, it's not even that mean, it's just a crude crayon doodle in service of a larger and very dumb critique of modern fiction that could have been anyone. Shame that he bullseyed ahead of the schedule the cultural about-face against Harry Potter without having anything actually criticizing Harry Potter to show for it.

Century does work for me a bit better because it dispenses with the pretense of the series and has it build up to the big awful tragedy it ends on, with all of it's remaining characters miserable immortals and all the fictions having curdled up and gone sour. It works for me only because I have no love whatsoever for this world and so it destroying our characters in the service of the larger narrative about stories and fictional immortality and whatnot is a decision I agree with and I think makes it stronger, even if the social commentary / the story's criticism of modern stories compared to the old ones is frankly absurd. Century I think was perceived as Moore/O'Neill having lost the plot, but to me it feels like the plot (more importantly, the point of it) finally showing up after so much pointless dicking around.

The Nemo trilogy: Easily the one I most enjoyed reading, the Nemo Trilogy is almost like a breather set in between books, just fairly straightforward pulp adventure stories done in far less rancid a fashion than Volume 1. It feels less like a LOEG book and more like one of those LOEG fanfics made by people who like the concept and characters but are dissappointed by the books, so they fill or add or rewrite in the blanks with their own ideas, which is basically every LOEG fanfic ever made. I quite like Janni Dakkar as a character and I'm already a huge mark for Captain Nemo, one of my favorite characters ever, and I was of course very glad to get away from the extremely tiresome Mina/Allan/Orlando trio for a change. Frankly I'd even recommend these as a standalone, they're so disconnected from everything else in LOEG.

If you guys want to read a comic take on Captain Nemo though, read Mobilis by Juni Ba. Infinitely better than anything Moore did with the concept of Nemo, takes far less pages to actually explore the character meaningfully and has far more interesting, more humane and personal things to say and do in general, one of the best things I ever read and a tremendous palette cleanser after LOEG.

Tempest: Tempest is what I'd call the best of the LOEG books, in terms of craft and in terms of achieving what it sets out to do. Namely, it's one of the most elaborate and most artistically impressive slowly unfurling middle fingers I'd ever read, Alan and Kevin in full burning down the house mode throwing everything they've got at the wall, playing around with as many different styles and gags and ideas as they can cram into the great apocalyptic ending of their collaboration. It's a very spiteful work that has a lot of joy and humor to it, fully divested from giving a shit about it's characters and instead recasting them as the bit players they always were in the grand fuckening of humanity at the hands of our fictions.

It gets to burn down everything and also preserve everything in a big dreamy Noah's Ark forever, it plays to every strength the series had, and frankly I barely minded the detours because this thing is all detours. The superhero parody that takes up so much of it isn't really anything funny or insightful or really anything, but there's good bits in it, and I like Alan Moore talking trash about superheroes (of course, it pales in comparison to What Can We Know About Thunderman, but that one is a league of it's own). It's Alan and Kevin's farewell to comics with all the mixed feelings towards it and the industry and the subject matter they both have decades of so much experience with it. It is The End of Everything and I think it ended on the best note it could have ended with.

In summary, I think LOEG has a lot of individually cool or neat or even great ideas that I think get lost, because there is so, so much of it, and so much of it is impressively painted sludge. Sometimes it is ingenious, sometimes it is fun, it is never not visually impressive, but it's more frequently dull and grotesquely self-indulgent and far too shallow. It suffers from an almost inescapable side effect of doing this dealing with the fiction he was dealing with without accounting for taste or bothering to reign in his worst impulses, too much to cover and not enough actually being said about it. In truth, much of it doesn't feel much different than reading the wiki summaries for it I had already read forever ago. It is a unique beast taking swings that I'd never seen before that most wouldn't, probably for very good reasons most of the time. It is also guilty of literally everything it's criticizing other works of being and doing, and sometimes it actually provides it's best commentary because of that! It's a complicated thing to tackle and wrap your head around. God knows what Jess Nevins must have gone through to make the annotations for this, as they put it on the Almanac annotations.

I don't consider it wasted time because, I did really enjoy the final two installments, there are good bits scattered across the other books and I learned some good things from it as a whole, but would I recommend it in it's entirety? Unless you're really a huge fan or completionist for it's creators (although reading LOEG really disillusioned me on Moore in a lot of ways, not that this is a bad thing, if anything that's a necessary thing to really try and grasp a creator's body of work) or you're the kind of sicko who'd be in the tank for the whole thing, no, not really.

It is one of the most impressive and accomplished works I've ever read, I will probably come back to it for research purposes, but holy shit am I glad to put it behind me.

#also thank you davidmann for sending me the epilogue #replies tag #loeg #league of extraordinary gentlemen #alan moore #kevin o'neill #abc comics #comics

[writingjourney]

Ibi I have a really important (and not at all silly question) who would each Papas favourite BG3 character be?

this wins best question award easily, the crossover we need!!!

The Papas' Favorite BG3 Characters:

Primo: Well, it's easy to say (fanon) Primo relates most to Halsin and I think he does, a gentle man who loves nature, not adhering to the rules of society when it comes to love and existing in general, but I actually think if we forget about the nature thing for a while who he would feel drawn to is Lae'zel. He comes from a time where a more authoritarian approach was normal and people started to question their God/faith more and more and whether He truly offers the salvation they all crave (and perhaps turned to Satanism and his own Church). That's pretty much Lae'zel's path, a very inspirational story in terms of abuse, faith, rebellion and finding your own purpose.

Secondo: He relates most to Wyll, definitely, heavy expectations from his father to fulfil a certain role he did not choose, dealing with the emotional neglect and ultimately being cast aside after a perceived mistake but still working hard no matter what. However, I think his favourite would be Minthara. He is a bad bitch, he loves women, he enjoys a strong, morally grey female character and he would appreciate her dry cynical sense of humour. She thought her purpose was serving her God but realised that she can easily be cast aside, just like he was by the clergy. And yes, she comes across as cool and uncaring but is actually very warm and vulnerable when you know her, reminds me of someone.

Terzo: I think people would assume Astarion for the flamboyance and dramatics but I actually think he would not gravitate towards these superficial traits and instead relate a lot to characters like Shadowheart (or Orin) who were forced into roles they did have a say in and tried to appeal to those who put them there. They're following these dogmatic rules until they realise they will never get what they need, that the promises are hollow. And like Shadowheart, who realises that she's been lied to her whole life, that she can in fact become better, he also tried to bring about positive change (and was punished for it like Shadowheart is by Shar).

Copia: I want to say that he relates most to Gale, a bit awkward at times, niche interests (or not so niche) that he loves to learn about and the unexpected Casanova of the group with more confidence than people give him credit for (and skill). I also think he would enjoy using magic, if he had the chance (Fireball accidents included). However, I also think he would be very drawn to the strong female characters, especially Karlach. A badass woman who is kind despite the horrors and did not get corrupted by the evil that happened to her throughout her life (which he is fighting for but in the end he might win or lose the battle, depending on other people's choices).

#asks #bg3 #the band ghost #the band ghost headcanons #tbf i think primo and secondo could swap like either of them would enjoy laezel and minthara i think

[alliluyevas]

Fic Author Interview (meme)

I was tagged by the lovely @heckofabecca. Thanks, Becca :)

1- How many works do you have on AO3?

71...I honestly was a bit surprised it was that many. I guess I've had that account a while and it adds up! Almost all of them are oneshots, though.

2- What's your total AO3 word count?

204,091.

3- What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

They're all ATLA, which makes sense when you think about it. ATLA is probably the second-biggest fandom I've written for other than ASOIAF, but ASOIAF is so big it's sometimes hard to get noticed. That being said, when I sort by hits, three of the top five are ASOIAF so I guess more people are reading those and not liking them. It probably helps that my top-kudos ATLA fics are all Zuko-centric and he's one of the most popular ATLA characters in fic whereas I think the ASOIAF topics I focus on are perhaps a bit more niche.

tongued with fire (728 kudos)

i got soul, but i'm not a soldier (714 kudos)

cold fire (655 kudos)

we die with the dying; we are born with the dead (597)

the sword and the pen (577 kudos)

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

I try to! I'll respond to all comments on recently published fic (unless it's a hate comment, which I delete) and for older works I try to respond, especially if it's a substantive comment. I like to engage with readers, especially since I tend to write a lot of really niche fandoms and it's nice to connect with other fans.

5- What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

probably either another atla fic that's set right after ursa leaves zuko and azula behind or this big love fic which has an ending that is... not necessarily angsty for the narrator but super bleak in context.

6- What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

I don't typically write fluffy romantic fic (I usually do more bittersweet gen focused on family relationships) but I did when I participated in the Jaime/Brienne ship exchange a few times and this bakery-themed modern AU is probably my fluffiest/happiest ending. Exchanges are kind of fun because this is very much the type of fic I would not have ever written on my own.

7- Do you write crossovers?

I have not!

8- Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes, lol. My Lannister twins genderswap fic was very controversial among a certain subset of fans who vocally disagreed with my characterization (I will sum this up as them basically believing that genderswapped Jaime would just be canon Cersei which...lol). That's the only fic I've ever got hate comments on, though I did get a really bizarre comment back in ninth grade on FF.net before I migrated to ao3 where the person enjoyed the fic but also used the comment to grandstand against abortion, a topic that in no way was mentioned in my fic. Sir This Is A Wendy's.

9- Do you write smut?

I do write sex scenes but I wouldn't describe them as smut because they're non-explicit and mostly like fade to black stuff.

10- Have you ever had a fic stolen?

YES LMFAOOOOOOOO SOMEONE TOOK A MULTICHAPTER FIC I WROTE ABOUT NINA AND OLEG FROM THE AMERICANS AND SELF-PUBLISHED IT ON AMAZON AS AN EBOOK.

11- Have you ever had a fic translated?

I think someone asked if they could translate one of my fics into another language but it was years ago and I don't remember if they did it or not or which fic it was or even which language it was.

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

Yes, my first ever fic! Me and my best friend wrote it in sixth grade and it's an unfinished sequel to Ivanhoe. We never published it, though. It's really, really bad lol.

13- What's your all-time favorite ship?

Tony and Carmela Soprano. sorry. Not ship in the fandom sense but...relationship of all time. (I honestly tend to write for canon pairings that I want to build on, anyway). In the traditional sense of "wanting them to get together in canon", probably Jaime/Brienne.

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

I honestly don't really have a lot of published WIPs, because I tend to do oneshots and if they're not ready they're just not published. Right now I do have a two-chapter Greek mythology/Iliad retelling I wrote in high school that is absolutely never going to get updated ever, but frankly I don't feel particularly strongly about finishing that. I did have an actual multichapter WIP with the Lannister genderswap fic that I really felt bad about not working on, but I finally finished it!

15- What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good with dialogue and characterization! A lot of my fic focuses on precanon/younger versions of canon characters ("flashback fic") and I think I'm pretty good at developing backstories. Also if I may say so myself, I write decent prose.

16- What are your writing weaknesses?

Plotting, which is why I tend to do shorter character-study stories. I really struggle with doing actual plotlines. (This is also a problem in my original fiction, lol. I'm always like. Okay I have these fascinating people in an interesting setting. Now what the hell are they going to do).

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

If it makes sense in context, like a bilingual character, sure. I do think it should probably be written so that it's clear what is going on to readers who only know the primary language of the fic, though.

18- What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Other than the aforementioned Ivanhoe sequel, it was Harry Potter.

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

Can't really think of anything!

20- What's your favorite fic you've written?

I'm very proud of the Lannister genderswap fic because it's probably my most significant achievement in terms of plotting, which as I mentioned is hard for me, and I'm really happy I returned to it after over a year's hiatus and finished it! I'm also really proud of this big love fic because I appreciate the effort I put into fleshing out the characters' world (including historical research) and I think it is a really good work of character study.

Tagging @when-did-this-become-difficult @ofhouseadama and anyone else who wants to do this, I can't think of many mutuals on here whose fanfiction output I'm particularly familiar with.

[polutrope]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you @niennawept @melestasflight @sallysavestheday @spiritofwhitefire @grey-gazania for the tag! I've enjoyed reading all of yours.

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 89 on main, 12 on my pseud, 2 anon.

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 284k on main.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Silmarillion.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

The Seven Trials of Fingon the Valiant (Fingon/Sons of Feanor humour)

Who Shall Release Us? (Maedhros post-reembodiment angst)

A Gift (M&M childhood fluff)

Improving Relations (Maglor & Caranthir fluff)

A Proposition (Russinglor smut)

Y'all are predictable, but I do enjoy all of these myself so. Good choices. 

5. Do you respond to comments? Always. Unless they're rude, in which case I delete them without replying.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm reading the last lines of my fics trying to find one that ends with pure angst and laughing because they're all like "... but there was hope."

Anyway, The Marks that Bind Us (Celegorm/OC) and His Hour Had Come (Saeros & OC) end on a sinister note.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Pretty much everything in my Sex Is Fun series. People have sex, it's fun, the end :).

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not hate, but I've had a couple people be rude, like commenting on a word choice they didn't like and nothing else. *Delete*.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Shamelessly. Prolifically. Joyfully. I co-mod @silmsmutweek with the marvellously shameless @ettelene. I'd say my niche is fun sex... hot elves + open communication + laughter. I've written dark stuff too though.

As with most in this fandom, my smut is mostly M/M but I'm proud of the amount of F/M smut I've written. Which is a weird thing to be proud of, if this weren't Silm fandom.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? No. Keep thinking about doing something with Silm + Greek myth but it's amorphous.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! The Seven Trials of Fingon the Valiant with @melestasflight and currently co-writing with the same. I love it.

Besides that, almost everything I've ever posted is some level of collaborative, whether it be with some big-brained anonymous prompter on silmkinkmeme or by shoving a mess of words at a friend and crying, "Help!" etc etc. I cannot and do not create in a vacuum, at all.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Maglor/Most Anyone.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? If I want to finish it, I probably will. There are a lot of things I don't want to finish, and I won't.

16. What are your writing strengths? Language and characterisation. Editing.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I was going to say "Perfectionism", then started questioning if that made me sound like an asshole, and whether people would get what I meant by that, and so then I started making a whole list of things I don't think I am good at, and have so far spent about 10 minutes on this question, and ... you see the irony here?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I don't know, I wouldn't do it (unless my universal disclaimer -- "Except if it's funny." -- applies.)

19. First fandom you wrote for? Silmarillion, in 2003. There was then a 17 year break. I have no other fandoms and need no other fandoms.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Refuse to answer.

I have a feeling a lot of people have done this over the last week while I have been buried in work but @ettelene @tethysresort @millenariumhappinesstheorem @a-tehta @gwaedhannen @zealouswerewolfcollector I don't think I saw one from you so please feel welcome to share these, if you like.

#ask game

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

Thanks for the tag @branwendaughterofllyr

1. How many works do you have on ao3(or masterlist)? 20

2. What’s your total ao3 word count? 568,678

3. What fandoms do you write for? ASOIAF/F&B/HOTD and ROTE (Realm of the Elderlings)

4. Top five fics by kudos? All Kings Are Beautiful; Inside a Chrysalis, Writhing; Our Fathers Clad in Red; Sunlight and Air; Unbound and Infinite

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes! I might miss a few here or there, but I try to respond to most comments.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I think it's probably My Sister's Letter, a fic I wrote that takes place several decades after the end of Assassin's Fate

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Sunlight and Air, probably, my ROTE post F&F fix-it

8. Do you get hate on fics? I've gotten a few weird comments on All Kings Are Beautiful, mostly people being weird about me not writing Aegon as a hardass warrior. The most recent one was someone complaining that the fic shouldn't be tagged neutral because Rhaenyra doesn't become queen lol

9. Do you write smut? I have, occasionally, but it's not usually super explicit

10. Craziest crossover? I've never written any crossovers!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Nope!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know of!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! Our Fathers Clad in Red is co-written with @aifsaath

14. All time favorite ship? Braime, probably. The rest of my ships are mostly rarepairs and crackships. RegalGold still has me in a chokehold, and of course my beloved Baegon.

15. What’s a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? All of my unfinished fics that are published I do plan to finish. I have a WIP in my drafts for a Fitzloved fic set during Fool's Assassin that I will probably never get to.

16. What are your writing strengths? Internality, dialogue, characterization.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Description. I can write good descriptions, but I'm more of a verbal person than a visual person. My co-writer often jokes that I'm the screenwriter and she's the director of photography.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I tend to use italics and dialogue tags, unless the other characters aren't meant to understand what's being said.

19. First fandom you wrote in? Realm of the Elderlings, if you don't count the thinly veiled Star Trek knockoff I wrote when I was thirteen before I knew fanfic existed (pre-internet!)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? Right now it's Our Fathers Clad in Red, but I'm also very proud of my Realm of the Elderlings Modern AUs. They're niche as fuck but I think they're fun.

no pressure tags: @aifsaath @dearlyfetching @theothermaidoftarth @inthedayswhenlandswerefew @tragediegh @whatevsbla @mellowthorn @spectrum-color

#tag game #fanfic

[rhysiana]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @hmslusitania!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

96, somehow (some of them are ficlets preserved for posterity, so there should probably be more, if I remembered to move some more things from here)

2. What’s your total word count on AO3?

342,331

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Most actively at this exact moment, kpop rpf (ATEEZ and SHINee), but all but one thing in this category is a WIP I haven't posted yet. But I also have a Devil Judge AU I *really* want to write, if my writing brain picks back up properly.

4. Top five fics by kudos

This is hilariously skewed to Teen Wolf just by virtue of the size of the fandom, I don't actually think these are the fics I'm most known for, but:

-The (un)Usual? -Can I...? -Derek from the Club -You Give Me Butterflies -Rebalance

*Bonus content, least amount of kudos (because it is one of two fics for the entire fandom):

-This Would Be Enough

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably "In Love with Ghosts," a character study about Lan Xichen and Song Lan have to deal with being left behind in the world of the living

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I write so much fluff, I'm sure this is very subjective, but I think the one that makes *me* the happiest is the 2-part Petopher series Silver & Gold, because the middle-aged second-chance romance of them finally getting everything they've ever wanted was written to cater exactly to me.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, but I do have a hilarious bookmark saying one of my rare M-rated fics should be a G (????)

9. Do you write smut?

Related to the above answer, not really. I collab for smut very happily, but I spent several years in my irl career copy editing for a self-published romance writer who was very prolific but not great at keeping characterization consistent in sex scenes and it kind of burned me out on thinking through such scenarios for my own hobby purposes. That said, I do keep writing things that toe closer and closer to the line, so. Perhaps I am recovering from the trauma.

10. Craziest crossover?

Uh, I'm pretty sure that would be the Kent Parson/Derek Hale thing I wrote here as penance for being a vector of cross-fandom Derek confusion, but I don't think that ever got moved over to AO3. The funniest AU that's almost but not quite a crossover was the Wenzhou AU ("Persistence Pays Off") I wrote that started from the premise of Senpai, Don't You Know?, which is a niche enough reference that I'm probably the only one who understands how hilarious the mismatch is.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes! Several times, it's very fun.

14. All time favourite ship?

You want me to choose??? Nurseydex, for the sheer power they had over my brain for so long, and Petopher, for being such tired Actual Adults

15. What’s a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I really want to finish Bull City Blues, but my brain started avoiding working on it hardcore because it was bringing up all my own bad grad school experiences, so I'm stuck here with most of the end written but not the ability to push through the middle, and I deeply apologize for that. I keep hoping I'll come up with a way around it, just so I can post the end, finally.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue (where I mentally always start) and descriptions of specific imagery (because I see scenes like movies in my head)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot. (Longfic who? I don't know her.)

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

It's fine? If I ever wrote a long enough passage in not-English that it wasn't apparent from context, I'd have the translation in footnotes/hovertext, but it hasn't come up yet. Since so many of the fandoms I've written in recently have been non-English, I do sometimes have the dialogue in my head running in two languages simultaneously, but I tend to just write it all in English for ease of reading.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

Like, to be posted on the internet? Check, Please! Ever? I genuinely could not tell you.

20. Fave fics you’ve written?

-Petals & Thorns (Nurseydex pop punk star/florist AU series)

-Silver & Gold (Petopher rock star/lawyer second-chance romance)

-This Would Be Enough (Atom no Ko post-canon, the ace-est thing I've written so far)

-Fragments of a Life Lived in Dreams (Nirvana in Fire dreamsharing AU)

Ngl, I reread all my own fics regularly, but these are probably some of the most reread ones.

Tagging: anyone who wants to play! (but especially @annundriel, @cobrilee, and @gendzl, if you want)

#looking at those rock star AUs I am suddenly less surprised by the swerve into kpop rpf #tag games #rhys's stuff

[junemermaid]

writer interview

I was tagged by @vaynglories, @lynne-monstr and @la-muerta all at one point or another. Thank you all kindly, sorry it took me so long! 💗

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

120 unique works. I have two double entries from when the old Yuletide archive was imported to AO3, so the total on my author page is 122. It's missing any fic I wrote before 2005 but honestly I'm fine with those being lost in the mists of the internet. If you know, you know.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,004,161.

I didn't actually wait to do this meme until I passed the one million words mark, but I also kinda did.

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

bodies full of untold stories (malec, E, Shadowhunters) / 1,343

an act of faith against the night (malec, T, Shadowhunters) / 1,037

House of Ash and Salt (dorian x bull, M, DA:I) / 995

Walkers of the Winding Path (malec, E, Shadowhunters) / 933

Talking With Strangers (malec, E, Shadowhunters) / 930

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

I used to and it's my one continuing regret that I haven't been able to catch up with my inbox! The greatest reason why I currently seldom reply to comments is that I have such a backlog. The other reason is that I will either answer comments or write more fic, and I'm sure everyone rather that I do the latter. Still, I miss the conversation around fic that replying to comments often generated.

I mean: I need more writing friends and goddamn, please talk to me because I feel detached from fandom and it's the worst thing.

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

Probably to make the saints attend them long (malec, T, SH) which ends with extremely heavily implied MCD.

I tend to write hopeful to bittersweet endings, so this was a rarity for me.

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

Define happy ending? I do have one, all souls sheltered, (dorian x bull, T, DA:I) which IS the soft epilogue I wanted those two characters to have after all their toils and troubles.

These two questions mostly tell me that most of my endings don't fit well on the happy to sad scale. I tend to leave characters at points where they can look forward to the future and any acute crises are over, but I really wish "happy for now" or "a happy middle" would stick as ending descriptions because that's where I live.

7. Do you write crossovers?

I write fusions? Not traditional crossovers but I have a very niche fic thing where I take Alec and Magnus and stick them into the worlds of videogames I love. To wit, the Witcher (Walkers of the Winding Path) and Final Fantasy X (Servant of the Spiral).

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yep. Didn't much care for it.

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

I do! I've written my share of PWP but more typically the process goes something like this:

I find a kink/trope/sex situation I want to try writing

the fic grows copious amounts of plot/worldbuilding/interpersonal drama (exhibit A: the tentacle porn that came with 3,000 words of, uh, creature logistics so I could have tentacles)

I spend two years working on bullet point two before the characters ever get naked in each other's company

My smut fic tends to the tender/longing/emotional, though. I use sex mostly as a vehicle for character exploration or to drive the drama of a story, so most of my sex scenes pull double duty to also move the overall story forward.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge. I'm a pretty niche writer in most of my fandoms, I don't think you would make either much fandom fame or big bucks with my writing.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! to make the saints attend them long is translated into Italian.

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

No. I'm a slow writer and I have to hew out writing time from the bedrock of my RL, so it wouldn't be very conducive to sharing a creative project, even though the basic idea appeals to me.

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

I was gonna make a joke about being asked to rate my children, but tbh I would rather not refer to fictional characters by any family term. However! I have changing obsessions and there's always some ship or canon that is eating up my brain at any given time, but I don't really get over ships. The details of canons fade with time but characters live forever in my heart.

Back in the mists of time, Ichigo and Rukia changed who I was as a person. (Then I added in Renji and It Got Better.) I adore Alec and Magnus but the fandom was categorically A Lot. Same with Dorian and Bull. Josephine and Cassandra were a total crack ship in the sense that there's no canon but I still love the idea of an f/f lady/champion pairing.

And right now I have two competing wuxia ot3s vying from my attention so. This is not a question I can answer.

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

My general fic writing philosophy is "whatever you can, whenever you can". I've made my peace with the fact that sometimes I'll start a thing and post a bit and then it simply won't get finished. Fic is free and no one has to click on a WIP (much as I love those people who will!)

So, unfortunately there's a few old WIPs on my ao3 that I don't think will ever get wrapped. The older the fic, the less likely it is. I keep them up as testament to the process, I suppose, or in case anyone likes the idea enough to read whatever I managed of it.

15. What are your writing strengths?

Putting canon under a lens until I have a mental Wall of Crazy with ten thousand interconnecting red strings and obscure notes, and then wringing story out of elements in the text that might not seem to connect on the surface.

I know sometimes you have to just wholesale go "this makes zero sense" and drop a bit of canon, but what I enjoy is taking bits and pieces and adapting them to fic. My current project is writing all the Mu Nihuang POV she really kind of doesn't get in Nirvana in Fire itself, and I am having a blast.

Also: character voice, action scenes, evocative description, setting up an emotional punch and taking you out with it 2,000 words later

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm slow, picky, and obsessive. I have to be In A Mood before I can put words to paper (I'm trying to combat this by becoming more of a garbage goblin about my first drafts. All words are good words! Hissss!) I'm bad at humour unless I'm accidentally funny.

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

It can be used to good effect but it's best used sparingly. I would generally always prefer that plot-relevant or important dialogue were simply, "This is the murder weapon," she said in French. Don't withhold information or emotional impact for the sake of showing off.

And oh god, never, ever put dialogue through MTL and expect it to come out right. If you absolutely need dialogue in a foreign language, consult an actual person that speaks it.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Very technically, ElfQuest. For actual published fic, Rurouni Kenshin.

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

Mysterious Lotus Casebook tickles my brain but I don't yet quite know what I want to write about! I have enough trouble herding the rowdy cats that are my NiF ideas right now.

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

Always the one I'm working on. So much of the joy of fic is bound up in the good creative rush of making it happen. Just as so much of the woe of fic is in the fucking toil of making it happen.

Anyway! Flowers in Dreamland Weather (jingsuhuang, E, Nirvana in Fire) got me out of a slump and gave me new characters and relationships to rotate in my head, and I love it for that.

Talking With Strangers (malec, E, Shadowhunters) actually got finished in a satisfying way, and I love it for that.

Maybe those are my current answers.

-

I will no-pressure tag — @theotherjax, @electricshoebox, @faejilly, @sinni-ok-sessi, @ladymatt, and anyone that still wants to do this! I've seen this doing the rounds, so if you haven't yet, please feel free to blame me for enabling you!

#meme me #june does a meme #june answers #june rambles #my fanfic #I've forgotten all my fic tags #the writing life #writing is the best hobby #writing is the worst hobby

[the-ravening]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you @zsparz and @six-demon-bag for tagging me! ❤️

1. How many works do you have on ao3? Only 12, because I am a baby writer.

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 86k

3. What fandoms do you write for? Winterbaron, or more accurately, Zemo/everyone

4. Top five fics by kudos: Let's do a top 3, since top 5 would just be like half my fics.

Something Sweet to Eat (142 kudos) Extremely underage Halloween fic, bunny boy Zemo shows up trick or treating at Bucky's house Adopt, Don’t Shop (123 kudos) Omegaverse, bratty teen Zemo is for sale at an Omega kennel and Alpha Bucky goes shopping Gift-Wrapped (113 kudos) This was the first fic I ever posted (just a few years ago) and I'm still pretty proud of it. Just a silly Winterbaron rimming PWP, but it's hot

5. Do you respond to comments? I try to, I always mean to, but I think I'm a bit behind right now. I know there are some amazing comments on Home to Me from last year that I still haven't replied to and I feel bad about it all the time.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Probably Under Lock and Key (what a mess we’ve made), the Heinrich/Helmut Zemo dadcest fic I wrote for @ex0rin where I followed her hurt/no comfort philosophy of leaving him on the floor crying.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I don't know if I really do happy endings? I have PWPs where the happy ending is they both come, if that counts. 😅 Let's say... Ink Kissed (with violent precision) where tattoo artist Bucky gives his client Zemo a dick tattoo, and Zemo ends up quite happy with the tattoo as well as the rest of the service.

8. Do you get hate on fics? I've only gotten one or two of the world's mildest hate comments. I guess my ships are sufficiently niche that no one cares about them.

9. Do you write smut? Yeah! Do I write anything other than smut? No.

10. Craziest crossover: I've only written one crossover, A Suitable Course of Treatment, Bucky Barnes/Laszlo Kreizler from The Alienist, which isn't crazy at all because as we all know, Laszlo has Zemo's face. (If it counts, I once started a Dir en grey x Sailormoon fic where the band members magically turned into Sailor Scouts, but I did not ever get far on it.)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, the aforementioned Adopt, Don’t Shop was co-written with @violenciorp and @tales-from-a-maphia-don, because Vio lovingly bullied us into it, despite me and Mel ostensibly not being into Omegaverse.

14. All time favorite ship? I've jumped ship a lot over the years, but it's gotta be Winterbaron, since this is the ship that finally got me writing and posting and getting really involved in a fandom.

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? The first serious attempt I made at writing in this fandom was this teen Zemo necrophilia thing, and I wrote the necro part but none of the plotty stuff leading up to it. I still dream of finishing it, in an abstract way where I have no motivation to ever work on it.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think I'm pretty good at rhythm and flow and making my prose sound musical? That's something I focus a lot on and I tend to read aloud while editing to make sure it sounds good to my ear.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Probably plot and dialogue, and figuring out how to include technical details of things I know nothing about. But most of all procrastination, my arch-nemesis.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I personally avoid it, because I find it annoying to have to look up the translations in the middle of reading. I prefer to just say they're speaking in whatever language but write the dialogue in English.

19. First fandom you wrote in? J-rock RPF in the early 2000s, but I mostly just did a bit of RP and never got far with any fics I started.

20. Favorite fic you've written? Sometimes it feels like every new thing I post is my new favourite, haha. But I thiiiink my fave has been Something Sweet to Eat since I wrote it (the Halloween fic mentioned earlier), because it's probably the most self-indulgent thing I've written to date. I am truly the main audience for that fic and I'm very happy with it.

No pressure tagging: @violenciorp, @tales-from-a-maphia-don, @thepiper0fhameln, @ex0rin, @unlikelymilliner, @evenmyhivemindisempty, and anyone else who sees this and wants to join in!

#this was fun but wow I ramble #tag game #writer asks #ravening writes

[cornchrunchie]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

I'm very excited you tagged me in this, @all-my-worlds-a-stage and @fallingforfandoms! I really enjoy reading the answers from all of you.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

109, which makes around 12 stories per year. Fun fact!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

360,182, which is about the total word count of C.S. Lewis’ seven-book Chronicles of Narnia series. Fun fact #2!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Tatort Münster. Like 99.9 % mostly. I think I have only one story posted on AO3 for a different fandom (Knives Out), though I don’t post everything I write. As you might have guessed from my recent content on this blog, I’ve also started a fic for Good Omens. We will see if I will finish it, let alone post it.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Unsurprisingly, the fic for Knives Out has the most Kudos. Less niche than the other ones :)

Tonight Will be a Memory Too – Knives Out, Benoit Blanc/Phillip It's part of Evelyn's job at the musical theater to talk to guests. Once in a while, she gets to meet truly fascinating people. A glimpse into Benoit's and Phillip's life through the eyes of an outsider.

Ein Leben lang daheim – Tatort Münster, Thiel/Boerne Auf der Fortbildung, die sie besuchen, gibt es einen Coronafall und Thiel und Boerne müssen präventiv zwei Wochen lang in Quarantäne.

Schnee von gestern – Tatort Münster, Thiel/Boerne, co-written with Tjej Es wird Rum gemacht und es wird rumgemacht.

Tauchen ist wie Fliegen unter Wasser – Tatort Münster, Thiel/Boerne Im Münsteraner Schwimmbad kommt vor hunderten von Zuschauern eine junge Frau ums Leben. Doch die Ermittlungen gestalten sich für Thiel nicht nur aufgrund der widersprüchlichen Hinweise als schwierig …

Zuhause – Tatort Münster, Thiel/Boerne, co-written with Tjej Thiel ließ ihn gar nicht erst ausreden. Auch wenn das für ihn vielleicht ungewöhnlich war, aber er hatte sich eigentlich schon Pläne für die Feiertage gemacht. „Danke für das Angebot, aber ich wollte mal wieder nach Hause fahren.“

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

Yes, I do! I try to answer every single one, even if it might take me a while to do so. Comments mean a lot to me and I appreciate when someone takes the time to write one. I'm especially fond of those short comment conversations, and the interaction with like-minded people. I made some friends that way.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't write a lot of angst and if I do, there will probably be at least a comforting ending. One of my rare fics, if not the only one, with angst throughout is Alles (Tatort Münster, Thiel & Boerne with hints of possible slash). Even after several years, I still like this one a lot.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Well, what exactly does happiest mean, right? The great majority of my fics end with two people getting together, a storyline that tends to be quite happy in itself. One fic I consider to have a very happy ending where there is no direct romance to the plot is Ein Tännlein aus dem Walde (Tatort Münster). It's with almost everybody on the team, so a lot of Found Family feelings. I guess the Christmas theme, the high spirits of everybody and this feeling of... content make this a very happy fic to me.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I can't remember any hate, so I guess this is a No.

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

Depends on the fic but sometimes I do. I've written explicit and less explicit stuff alike. It's been a while since I last wrote something explicit, though.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No, I've never written a crossover. I rarely read them, too.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

If so, I haven't noticed.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

None that I know of.

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

As it becomes clear through my top fics: Yes, several and in different ways! I've co-written some fics where we took turns in writing, some where one person wrote the beginning and the other person completed the story, some where we brainstormed together and one person wrote most of it by themselves. I really enjoy writing with another person! The discussions, different ideas and chances to read parts I haven't written keep me excited about the story. It's like a series of prompts!

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

I would have to lie to say that it wasn't Thiel/Boerne from Tatort Münster. They were the first ship I can remember shipping (apart from Ernie and Bert, maybe) and even though I don't agree with everything done in the canon, I hold them close to my heart.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I once started writing a Groundhog-Day-inspired fic for Tatort Münster where Boerne relives the same day over and over again and thinks it's about a murder case when it's actually about, shocked noises, love. The idea is still interesting to me but I doubt I will find the motivation to properly plot this.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Something that comes relatively easy to me and what people tend to highlight in their comments is the dialogues I write. I think they're what I like best about many of my stories.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm not good at writing quickly, as I tend to overthink. And it’s difficult for me to keep the right tempo of telling the story, and having a conclusive story arch, especially in long fics. I sometimes feel like I randomly elaborate on parts of the fic rather than actually think about it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

If it suits the story, why not. I don’t think I have done it yet, though.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Tatort Münster :)

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

This one is hard. Of course, my writing style changed over the years (developed, I should hope) but I still feel very fond of most of my stories. If I absolutely have to pick a favorite, it might be Tauchen ist wie Fliegen unter Wasser (Tatort Münster, Thiel/Boerne). It took me about five years to finish this story and I am proud of all the love and work I put into it. Coming up with the murder crime, making it interesting and connecting it to the romance of Thiel and Boerne was challenging, and I am happy with how it turned out. The fic still means a lot to me.

This was so much fun! Props to everybody who read this far.

I think most people I know have already done this by now, so feel free to ignore: @cricrithings @holly-hop @keinbutterdieb @khalaris and anybody else that feels like it!

#about me #on writing #fanfiction #tag meme #twenty questions #interesting to look back on my fics

[bluespring864]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you @yoellglia, @kingfisherprince and @shambolicchaos for tagging me even though I haven't done one of these in months, I appreciate it <3 And look at this, I am actually doing a tag game.

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 57. How did that happen.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

418,066. Some of those 57 are pretty long ;-)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Well I won't list them all, we'll be here tomorrow. The published ones are mainly: Tatort, Good Omens, Potter, Tennis RPF, Skating RPF and a few Music RPFs. There's an awful lot of WiPs from Sherlock Holmes to Poirot to Star Trek to Oasis to Austen to various Panel Shows to Les Miz to The Hobbit and back again though. Plus WiPs for all the published fandoms. Sigh.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Alright this is going to be a trip down memory lane, seeing as I'm mostly active in very niche fandoms these days. Also, this statistic is perhaps skewed by the fact that lots of my fics are in German (a few nearly made it onto the list though!) and my RPF is locked (for registered users only).

Days in the Sun: Tops the list by a very long way. Harry Potter. A Snape/Hermione post war fic published in 2018. I'm a different writer these days but I still like lots of things about it.

To Trust in One Another: Good Omens. Aziraphale/Crowley post Season 1. I remember the response to this overwhelming me at the time, I had never gotten so many comments so quickly after posting and haven't since. This fandom is so lovely (and filled with writers!).

To those who wait, eventually: Harry Potter. Snape/McGonagall. I love this pairing and this story. And while I am very surprised that both the Potter Fics I actually published are het, I am not surprised they both feature Severus Snape.

Almost Too Kind, or: Prometo: Figure Skating RPF. Yuzu/Javi. I still like the Yuzu POV, although I think I've perhaps written more interesting skating stories, but this was obviously the most popular parinig at the time. Hence the amount of kudos I guess.

Language Barrier Sidestepped: Figure Skating RPF. Yuzu/Javi. This one surprised me because it's just a silly fluffy oneshot. But with some language nerdship in the title and the story (that part is less surprising, if you know me)

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

Always, and sometimes too verbosely :D I like a good comment discussion and I have made friends that way.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Angsty endings? Me? I would if I could. Maybe some day. I guess the angstiest one is this unrequited love drabble in the Tatort Münster Fandom.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Well, most of them have pretty happy endings, I think.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not so far. Most of the comments I get are really nice. I can remember only a handful slightly weird ones over the years.

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

No one is more surprised than me, but yes. In my case, it's usually part of a story and has a function in the story. But it can be pretty graphic because it's weird to me to treat sex as something to gloss over. That being said, sometimes a story decides on a fade to black. On the other end of the spectrum, I've also come pretty close to writing PwP, depending on your definition of it.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Never written one, very rarely read them.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

People have asked for permission several times and I always grant it (of course I do) but I don't think I've ever gotten a link to a finished translation (which I always ask for). I get it though, some of my stories are pretty long and I know all about the difficulties of translation :-)

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

It's not finished but I hope we can get back to it @kingfisherprince! I might not always be the easiest person to work with, but I thoroughly enjoyed it so far.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

I don't have one, I write whatever pairing is interesting to me. And would love to write more gen fic if inspiration strikes. The concept of an OTP used to make no senses to me either, though I guess I've come close with Novandy in the Tennis fandom. I still write lots of other stuff in that fandom though.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have trouble going back to the Potter stuff for various reasons. Would love to finish a Snarry which is already at almost 30k but doubt I will. I also have a Poirot/Hastings case fic I really want to finish but (see writing weaknesses)

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm not sure. I hope Í write realistic relationships that make sense in the story. I try to write clear prose that's not too cluttered (I don't always succeed). Sometimes with my longer fics I've managed to slightly miraculously tie things together, which is amazing to me when it happens but I can't control that at all.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I sometimes overexplain. I tend to forget about 'setting the scene' descriptions now and then. And the big one: I can't plot for the life of me, I write as I go along, which isn't always a problem but definitely is when you try to write a murder mystery (I've got an unfinished Poirot one and an unfinished Tatort Münster one which I would love to continue).

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I like it, though I tend to use it relatively sparingly and either add translations or try to make it clear in other ways in the text what was being said (a translation degree comes in handy for this).

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Well the first time I tried writing fic it was Kirk/Spock but the first thing I finished and published was Tatort Münster.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Don't do this to me. The answer will be different every day, I think, and for lots of reasons. This is not me being pretentious (I hope), because I would have just as much trouble choosing my favourite song or book etc. Let's pick Two and Two Together for today because I never would have thought I'd write a 42k poly fic, but here we are. I think we've established I sometimes surprise myself.

Tagging: I think most of the writers on my dash have been tagged... but maybe @bonos-grindcore-sideproject and @advantage-sinner and @savageandwise and @all-my-worlds-a-stage if you want to do it?

#about bluespring #it's been so long that i don't remember how i used to tag these

[bombcollar]

I was tagged by @go-go-devil!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I currently have 151.

2. What is your AO3 wordcount?

327,526

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently the most recent fics I wrote have been for Cadence of Hyrule but I've also recently written for Iconoclasts and Pokemon.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Ferris Wheel (Bugsnax, Snorplo) - 248

Gemini (Bugsnax, body horror) - 169

Imitation Beef (Bugsnax, continuation of a canon scene) - 165

Imago (Elden Ring, Miquella wakes up as a big bug) - 154

Field Notes (Bugsnax, AU, cosmic horror) - 148

5. Do you respond to comments?

I always try to, even if it's just to say thanks.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

oh god probably one of my bugsnax fics... bugsnax really was ripe for angst. Both One Last Dance and Weary end in the implication that everybody has succumbed to the snax. I tend to leave things on more ambiguous notes than angsty, so even if the characters are in a sad or desperate situation it's uncertain what's going to happen to them next.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Sleep is Dark Souls III fic that implies the age of dark is actually a good thing and Lorian and Lothric survive to see it after all they've been through. I know I have written other happy things but this one is very hopeful.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten a couple shitty comments or ones where I was just like, I have no idea what you're trying to communicate to me, but they're extremely rare and I just delete them if I do get them.

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

I do not write smut. Just not my thing.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest crossover you’ve ever written?

Not often, I have a few Fromsoft crossovers but I did write a Bugsnax/Nier Automata fic that never got finished. That's Between My Teeth.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, quite a few. Ao3 user Dashana in particular has translated a number of my Iconoclasts fics to Russian. I will probably never say no to having a fic translated if it helps it reach a larger audience, especially because I tend to pick niche fandoms or subjects.

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

I have, with @malicious-fisheeves and with @wheeled-jack as well as some other friends who don't really use tumblr.

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

I really don't feel that strongly about ships much of the time but I do really like Wally/May from Pokemon RSE/ORAS and Gwyndolin/Darkmoon Knightess from Dark Souls.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Ugh I have this Mochi Mayhem rewrite thing in the works but I just can't seem to make any progress on it. I may put it out there unfinished but the problem is I have a big chunk of the beginning done and then a scene at the very end and nothing in the middle lmao.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told I'm really good at building dread. I personally think I'm good at writing platonic and familial character relationships, and writing characters who might be antagonists but who are complex and sympathetic.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I have some trouble when it comes to writing incidental side characters that might serve a purpose for one scene but aren't really that important.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I really enjoy writing dialogue, it's one of my favorite parts of the process.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I wrote a Rayman 3 fic about some OCs of mine probably back in 2003 or something. It was about these griffin-like creatures that had the powerups tested on them and it fucked them up because they were flesh and blood rather than made of cloth like the Hoodlum enemies are. They were trying to escape the facility they were kept in. Unfortunately I do not think it's still posted on my old ff.net account so it may be lost media.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I'll always be extremely proud of Monarch Sunrise (the bugsnax timeskip cruise fic) for the sheer scale of it (as far as my fics go) and for all the help I had plotting and editing it.

This is a tough question to answer though because I'm really happy with many of them. I'd say my favorite thing I've written lately is Lyre Lyre, my Octavo backstory fic, because I think it does a good job of laying out his situation in a concise and entertaining manner, like he's telling this story to a crowd.

as for tagging folks uhhh how about @wheeled-jack @mumagi @disco-descent

#ask games

[troublemakingrebel]

Fanfic Tag Game

Ayyy, @krankittoeleven, thanks for tagging! Love these little lists!

1. How many fics do you have on AO3?

34! (I used to write in two languages, but for this game i count only the English ones)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

295,814... (~1.5 times more words than "Fellowship of the Ring" by JRR Tolkien *sweating*)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Totally obsessed with Assassin's Creed (Valhalla in particular), but also have some WIPs for Cyberpunk 2077.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Right Behind You (Witcher 3), a piece about epic friendship & love between Geralt of Rivia and the absolute husband material Emiel Regis

10 years apart, no more (AC Valhalla), a fix-it for the fLicKEriNg flame nonsense (if you know you know...)

Shall We? (AC Syndicate), another fix-it that makes Maxwell Roth survive the fire as there's no fire at all

The Truth (The Wolf Among Us), about shaky relationship between the Big Bad Wolf and the Woodsman (i'm so surprised it made it to the top-5!!)

In the Belly of the Beast (AC Valhalla), about Ivarr Ragnarsson eating the forbidden Saxon fruit while no one is watching hehe

5. Do you respond to comments?

Of course! Can't leave them hanging there in silence!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Usually, I don't do sad endings, but the most bitter-sweet one is Pebble (Dragon Age: Inquisition) about a kossith who cuts his massive horns off to look more like a human so he could follow his lover to the city where kossith race isn't welcome :c Although I don't think his lover would let him go there anyway......

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Haha every other one :D But Sun, Rum and Gunpowder (AC Black Flag) has the happiest and the most carefree vibes whatsoever!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not on the fics, but the ships! I just delete those because why is it an author's problem suddenly that some people don't know how filters work??

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

Oh, I sure do ;> It's not extremely explicit (no holes in sight, but dicks and balls can be spotted) and is mostly focused on emotions and dialogues.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Nope, but I write AUs sometimes to spice things up! Modern days AUs are the bane of my existence, and still... somehow... I keep making them...

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, but I noticed my lines and phrases in the stories of fellow writers. I appreciate it!!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah!! Out of all possible fics, it was The Remnants of a Ruined Past, a Mad Max (the game!) story translated into Polish. Love it lots!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Never as i am incapable to work in groups haha. I did some challenges though, such as picking a theme and writing something small with a fren to compare the results later. It's very fun and helps to keep your brain gears spinning!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Like, the one and only ship that I could bring along if I was stuck on a desert island? Or the one I don't even write for anymore but carry in my heart daily? The former would be Hawke x Varric (Dragon Age 2) because they're a comfort ship with many possibilities for plots. The latter is Ezio x Leonardo (AC II + Brotherhood + Revelations) and Arthur x Eames (Inception) because they started it all hehe.

15. What’s a fic you’d like to finish but don’t think you ever will?

It's a compilation of drabbles written for a very niche CGI Resident Evil movie (Damnation) & very rare pair that i was planning to continue for as long as the planet keeps spinning, but got overwhelmed with the amount of ideas I had in mind :c

16. What are your writing strengths?

Humor and dialogues!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Everything el– 🥲 Deep character studies, believable politics and fights.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

A big yes from me, it ads depth and character when used correctly. Also, it's very interesting to keep an evening reading about the language you're planning to use, even it's for a few simple words.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

It was an attempt to mimic Marie Corelli and write a ficlet for her novel "The Sorrows of Satan". And then Assassin's Creed took my soul and I've never seen it since! Kinda ironic, huh...

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I'm gonna cheat bc I'm quite proud about Beautiful Decline, a series of four fics written for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. It's an enormous project that was never meant to break out from its confinements and produce three more stories lmao.

Tagging @firefly-partyn and @krankittoeleven if you wanna join!

#ask game #tag game

[ineadhyn]

Writer interview

@vixstarria tagged me and I finally get to do it! Thank you <3

I am tagging @sky-kiss @scuttlingcrab and @thedomesticanthropologist

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

13 and some are multi-chapter. All are BG3 except for a german Inkheart one

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

85.408 -that is a surprising amount of words for being active less than a year

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

His consort, his god - I finally wrote smut for a popular ship XD (bloodweave)

At her mercy - kinky sapphic Karlach x Durge smut

Natures most beloved treasure - Halsin x trans masc Tav smut

Direct from Hell Logistics - ongoing Raphael x Haarlep comedy/angst/smut/plot - this one has it all

A song of snow and embers and Copper Hearts share this place. one is a F/F/F/F foursome and the other my Astarion x male Tav longfic

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

I appreciate every single comment and try to show that. There's nothing better than the e-mail that says "comment on your work" and it can make my whole day. Sometimes I don't know what to respond if it's just a word or a keybord smash, but rest assured I see you and I love every one of those, too.

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

Angsty ending hmmmm. Because some of my stuff is not completed yet I am not gonna spoil anything but Dust and ash about Astarion's backstory was naturally quite angsty

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

Not. gonna. spoil XD

7. Do you write crossovers?

Not yet. Maybe I could count Copper hearts because I took Francys from my original work and planted him into Bg3

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, not yet.

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

I do. I am exploring all kinds atm with preferably queer pairings wlw or mlm or nb. I can also write mlw from the men's perspective but not the other way round :D

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Boy I wish.

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

No and I am not sure if I could commit to a project like that.

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

Hmmmmm ... Raphlep probably

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

My german Inkheart fic with a genderbent lesbian Basta. Damn I was invested in creating this character, but gave up after a while because it was a lot of work and it being german and a niche topic in a small fandom was not very rewarding tbh. I know I should not care and maybe I'll come back to it when the Inkheart obsession comes over me again.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I am good at setting the scene. Atmosphere and small mundane details that make the setting feel alive. I have always liked that in reading as in writing, because it makes you feel like you are actually there when you can hear and smell and taste the scene.

Also I am okay at developing coherent plot, but that's mainly practice from writing a lot of og work before I started with fics.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I still struggle with english grammar and punctuation at times so I always have a beta reader. And I am lucky to have great ones.

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

I am not a fan. It confuses me. Singular phrases and such yes, but not entire dialogue. Especially if it's german in an english fic I get super confused.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

*digs through her files* So, my first works were basically fic for my best friend's story. (I was in my early teens.) But since she was the author the lines between canon and fic are blurry and the "fandom" consisted of three people of which one was the author XD

So if we don't count that the first one would be Hunger Games - It was one chapter and I never published it

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

We'll see what posesses me next I guess, though I think Bg3 will stay with me for a considerable amount of time. And ship wise ... I feel Durgetash creeping up on me.

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

Definitely Direct from Hell Logistics. I am having so much fun with it. It constantly makes me laugh and sheme and I also feel all the angst. Also it is ongoing and I get to explore the story alongside the readers (though I have a rough plot structure to keep me on track).

#bg3 #raphael fic #astarion fic #ao3 writer #bg3 fanfiction #my writing

[anneapocalypse]

🎇20 Questions for Fic Writers🎇

Tagged by @dreadfutures 💙 Thank you!

Tagging @chocochipbiscuit @farfromdaylight @rakshadow @skyeventide

Blank questions for your convenience! My answers are below the cut.

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

3. what fandoms do you write for?

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

5. do you respond to comments?

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. do you get hate on fics?

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? T

16. what are your writing strengths?

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

19. first fandom you wrote for?

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Answers!

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

If I count everything, 181. If we're not counting meta pieces, 163.

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

802,674

3. what fandoms do you write for?

I've written for quite a few, but my big ones have been Fallout, Red vs. Blue, and Dragon Age. I've also written for The Penumbra Podcast, RWBY, Mass Effect, Person of Interest, and The 13 Clocks. (And now I'm also writing for Final Fantasy XIV, though I haven't posted anything yet and probably won't until after I'm caught up with MSQ.)

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

Homecoming (Red vs. Blue, Tucker & Junior, rated T)

Juno Steel & the Fox's Teeth (Penumbra Podcast, Juno/Peter, rated E)

Sensibility (Penumbra Podcast, Juno/Peter, rated E)

Respite (Red vs. Blue, North/Wash/York, rated T)

Home Front (Fallout 3, Amata/F!LW, rated T)

I was genuinely surprised and charmed at how well-received "Homecoming" was (and continues to be), as I considered it fairly niche at the time of writing, but then, Tucker is a popular character. The response to my Penumbra fics certainly caught me by surprise, in the manor of, "OH, this is what it's like to write the popular pairing!" "Respite" was one of my very early RvB fics and it's not one I'm particularly happy with now, as I think I would have done certain things differently had I written it later, but nonetheless it was well-received; not a lot of people were actually writing North/Wash/York at the time. "Home Front" is one of my favorite Fallout fics I've written; I'm still proud of it.

5. do you respond to comments?

Yes, I try to! Sometimes I take a bit longer these days, but I do try to reply to every comment, barring the odd rude one which I'll just delete or ignore.

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

It's maybe cheating to say The Fall, given that it's the second in a trilogy so the story isn't actually over at the end of that fic. But that fic is a downer the whole way and ends with the main character's probable death, so. It's pretty angsty. After that, I'd say "Please (Don't Leave Me)", an RvB South/CT fic where CT doesn't live and South is dealing with the aftermath, poorly.

7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'd say I've written quite a few--I'm a big fan of the hard-won happy ending. I'm going to distinguish happy from fluffy here--I could pick any number of my one-shorts for fluffiest ending--and say The Landing, because relative to what comes before, and also canon, it's an incredibly happy and optimistic ending for Maine.

8. do you get hate on fics?

Rarely. The vast majority of my readers are perfectly sweet and kind. For some reason, my Mainelina fic has drawn the most bad commenters out of any. I wouldn't call those comments hate, but I have gotten a few that were pretty rude and/or backhanded. My guess is that I hit a particular unfulfilled niche with a long Maine-POV fic that happened to appeal to a particular kind of RvB fan, a kind who like Maine and like the fic but also felt the need to like, flex on me about it. Most of them have seemed not overly familiar with fandom etiquette and transformative fandom culture in general. Embarrassing for them tbh. I just ignore or delete them.

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

Whatever kind I feel like! Less in recent years perhaps, but that's less a lack of interest and more that I get bored easily if I feel like I'm writing something repetitive, and writing non-repetitive smut can be genuinely challenging! We only have so many words, descriptors, euphemisms, and slang terms that actually sound appealing when you're trying to write erotica, so I think writing good smut requires no small amount of creativity and resourcefulness, and I always admire those who do it well.

Bondage is a theme I've explored repeatedly. I would say that I enjoy writing established relationship smut the most because it can be assumed that the characters already know each other's likes and dislikes. But first-times can be fun too. I think I most enjoy writing smut between characters who trust each other and have a high level of emotional intimacy, whatever the specific activities involved might be.

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

To be honest I'm just not really a crossover person. I can find the idea of a crossover interesting, but at the end of the day I just don't enjoy transplanting characters out of their home setting as much as I enjoy exploring who they are within that setting and how it's shaped them.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes. I had a kink meme fill straight up plagiarized once, very obviously, such that when I took it to the mods it was an open and shut takedown.

I've also had less cut and dry incidents, and those are much harder to know how to deal with. I have had people basically rewrite a scene that I wrote, using pieces of the same dialogue, almost as if they thought we were both interpreting a scene from canon when we were not, it was something that I had made up. And yet it's not really plagiarism strictly speaking, and it wasn't worth the social fallout of calling them out on it, so I never did more than grumble vaguely about what happened. I've also had things where like... I ran across something pretty distinctly inspired by a fic of mine that I know the author had read, without bothering to give me a shoutout. That's not theft, but it is a bummer.

In every such case if the author had just asked me, "Hey, can I borrow your idea here? Can I post a remix of your fic?" I probably would have said yes without hesitation. Hell, even if they had not asked and simply given me a shoutout in their author's notes, I would have been pleased to have inspired them. But they didn't do that, and there's nothing I can do about it but I am going to be cranky about it.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

I did have someone ask about translating a fic of mine once, and I gave permission, but I never heard back after that, so I don't know if they ever did. (This is something I have blanket permission for, by the way, so long as you let me know about it!)

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

Sort of? A friend and I did post a polished-up RP as a fic once, though we ended up not keeping it up. In general I think I'm a pretty solitary writer, though I wouldn't rule it out entirely, but I'd have to really feel that both my style and my writing process meshed well with my collaborator.

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

I'm too much of a multi-shipper to have a real answer to this.

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

If I want on any level to finish it, then I consider it still on the table. It might take me years to get back to it, but I still mean to. I still want to finish Small Blessings. I still want to finish Radio Silence. I trust that their time will come, even if it's not now.

16. what are your writing strengths?

Character voice, I think. Both dialogue, and getting inside a character's head and writing a plausible inner monologue.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

Combat, always combat and action scenes, though I do think I'm getting better with practice.

Selfishness. As soon as I need to write something as an obligation to someone else, I don't want to do it, which is why I'd make a terrible professional writer, at least one who has to write to order.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Just write it. You don't have to italicize it or put some kind of indicator marks around it. Language is language. I think it's fine to post translations as a footnote but I don't think it's 100% necessary all the time, when it's something the reader can easily look up for themselves. I know I'm willing to do that kind of legwork for a fic I'm enjoying. I suppose it depends on the reader, and what kind of reader you want.

There are also times when it's perfectly fine to just write it in English (or the default language of the piece) while indicating in the narrative that the character is actually speaking in another language, such as ASL. Again I don't think you need to italicize or use some kind of weird formatting. Just write "He signed," and what he said in quotes like you would any other dialogue. If you've firmly established already that a character primarily speaks in ASL, you might not even need that. The reader can keep up.

Things do shift a bit when you're writing in a fictional language, especially one that's very incomplete and not a true conlang. I'll go with the obvious example of Dragon Age's Elvish (and yes, canonically the language is called Elvish or Elven, it's not called Elvhen, that's the people, not the language). Even if I string the appropriate words together, the meaning might not always be strictly clear to the reader out of context because Elvish is a pretty simple cipher. It doesn't have conjugation, for example. Nonetheless, I think often context clues can be enough for an engaged reader, especially if it's a word we encounter a lot in canon. Where it might not be clear, and if it's very important to the story, I will usually simply work some kind of translation into the narrative itself. This can work particularly well when your POV character also has it as a second language. Example from my Briala/f!Tabris draft:

Gheyna and Cammen, having finished tending to the halla, stood aside, hand in hand, and Gheyna waved. "Dareth shiral, Keeper. Talith, Briala, dareth shiral. Sylaise ma ghilana vhenas." Cammen added solemnly, "Dareth shiral, Talith. Elgar'nan ma ghilana, lasa mala enasalin." At that, Talith's expression grew solemn as well. "Ma serannas, lethallen. Dareth shiral." Briala recognized a few words. Dareth shiral, "Safe journey." Vhenas, enasalin. And the names of the elven gods. Gheyna had bid the Hearthkeeper guide them safely home.

I personally prefer to stick to what we have in canon for Elvish (I'm not going to set myself up to be jossed if I don't have to), or if I ever really need an unknown word I'll make something up for myself. While there are some fanmade Elvish dictionaries out there, I'm not comfortable hanging too much of my own work on someone else's fanon, and also I inevitably disagree with some of their decisions on ambiguous canon words. (Ma does not mean "my," it means "you." This is consistent with every canon use of "ma" except one, and that one is in DA2 and is thus really, really likely to have been an oversight due to rushed development; every other instance of "ma" supports it meaning "you." Sorry, that has been eating at me for ages and I needed to get it off my chest. 😅) That said there are multiple fanmade Elvish dictionaries out there at this point, so if you're going to use someone else's, in this case I would strongly recommend supplying the reader with a link, both to credit the author and so the reader knows where to go to look up the words if they choose to. Don't assume that everyone knows you're using so-and-so's Elvish dictionary; I had never even heard of the big popular one until a couple years ago.

That was a lot, but at the end of the day, it's all about making a judgment call on how much you need to hold the reader's hand, as with anything; I personally tend to err on the side of trusting my reader, and if I assumed too much, well, maybe that's my mistake and maybe that reader wasn't my target audience anyway. 🤷🏻‍♀️ You'll figure out what's right for your work.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

The first fandom I wrote for was actually Dragon Age, but that early writing never saw the light of day. First fandom I posted fic for was Fallout.

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written?

OH MAN. That's hard! I referenced The Drop, my Mainelina trilogy for RvB, multiple times in this post so obviously I'm still pretty fond of it. I'll add to that Inroads, my Kimbalina series. For Fallout, I'm real happy with Home Front (Amata/F!LW) and Cast Your Bread Upon the Water (Dr. Li/Star Paladin Cross, past Dr. Li/Catherine/James). And for Dragon Age, my current faves are No Woman Rules Alone (Anora/F!Tabris) and A Pot to Piss In (Sera backstory fic).

#tag meme #writing #fanfiction #this was a fun one