#'your mutual stole a fic idea from this other person' and it's like. hm. okay.

[torchickentacos]

Very rarely I'll (accidentally) find someone who's blocked me on pokemon tumblr, and realistically I know that they probably saw one of my posts too many times and just got sick of seeing it or I simply annoy them or whatever. But part of me really wants to believe that my pokemon anime opinions were just too much for someone. I want to believe that someone saw me say 'The absol scene needed better build-up to justify Drew talking to one of his pokemon like that, it goes against everything we've seen of him imo' or whatever and they just put a hand over their heart, wounded, and clicked the block button while cursing my family for several generations, past and future. I really want to think that I had a lukewarm enough drew opinion that someone blocked me about it

[daily-rayless]

Fic-writer questions!

I stole this from @runicmagitek so thank you! I'm not going to tag anyone specifically, but I know I have a number of talented fic-writing mutuals, so take a stab at this if you want to.

I'm going to include original fiction in a few places, as well as all my fics currently posted to FFN, just so we have more data to work with.

How many works do you have on AO3?

FFN: 52

AO3: 10

What's your total AO3 word count?

FFN (assuming their word counter is still functional, which is perhaps foolish of me): 601436

AO3: 517070

What fandoms do you write for? Tales of the Abyss, Transistor, and Fate most recently. In the past, Persona, Suikoden, Harry Potter, Soul Nomad, Makai Kingdom, Yggdra Union, Wild Arms, and some assorted others.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? (Including FFN's faves):

363 – Birds (Harry Potter)

333 – Death and Ker (Persona 3)

182 – Elysion (Persona 3 & 4)

180 – Word on the Inside (Persona 4)

122 – Crime and Creme Brulee (Persona 4)

All on FFN! These are all very old fics, and I think I'll need a good long while before I get numbers like that on AO3.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Generally, yes. I like to let the reader know I'm aware of them and appreciate them leaving their thoughts, because readers who do want to comment are a minority. As for situations where I wouldn't, I'd probably ignore a flame. Or if a person leaves a bunch of comments at once, I might not respond to each individually. Or if someone left something without much context, like “huh” or “wow”, I might have no idea how to respond and just leave it.

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hm, it could depend. Anyone who's reading Scarlet has probably already played Yggdra Union and knows we're going to end with our fourteen-year-old heroine falling in battle while desperately defending her kingdom. “Misbegotten” focuses on the Demon Path of Soul Nomad, so, again, you'd go into that with a certain expectation of angst. So I think my ending that combines the most angst with surprise is the ending of “Cycles”, a Normal Path Soul Nomad fic where I decided to explore the game's concept of reincarnation. So someone dies at the end, very abruptly and somewhat graphically. The fact that I let Gig and Revya be married in it adds to the angst. Looking back more than ten years, yeah, it's very angsty, but I got some good feedback for it, so I don't regret it.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? On the subject of happy endings, I've been accused of not liking them. I love happy endings! But I do live in some dread of things feeling too pat and “wrapped up with a bow”. A lot of my oneshots are fairly low stakes, so the endings are happy enough, but looking at my longer stuff... Soul Searching ends with Gig and Revya getting married, the world being at peace, everything on a pretty happy note. (Unless you count the tragedy of Danette eating all of Gig's and Revya's hotpods, and, honestly, you should.)

Do you get hate on fics? I've never gotten seriously flamed so far. In the early 2010s, there was this one anon going through Persona fics and leaving very short flames on MinakoxShinjiro stuff, barely changing their wording at all. It was extremely low effort, impersonal, and I don't really count it.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? No, I wouldn't say so. When it comes to sex, I tend to focus more on a few individual details than a moment-to-moment description, and then the reader can fill in what they're comfortable with. With my latest original project (not Eola), I did get the threshold moment of my mom reading the draft and saying, “You write sex really well!”

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Okay, so when I was much younger, in the early 2000s, I had this long-running thing I wrote that I ended up calling “Kuja's Coffee-Bean Cafe”. Basically, it was a crossover of every video game I'd played at the time, where Kuja from Final Fantasy 9 ran a restaurant where all the various villains gather and have their own hierarchy and petty infighting and shenanigans. Some good guys are allowed to visit, and some of them have been captured for the villains' amusement, and all of it was played for humor. Trust me when I tell you that it was very funny to me at the time and it does not hold up. (Though it did make me speculatively ship Sephiroth and Celes, and I still think that ship has merit...) Since then, I do still sometimes write crossovers, but they're for my own amusement.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Last year (I think?) there was a post going around about how a lesser-known fan archive was grabbing stuff from FFN and AO3...but I honestly don't remember whether any of my fics were affected.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope, not that I know of.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? My best friend and I came up with a Lion King sequel which I then wrote down. Some years later, me and the same friend wrote two original novellas together. For the first one, one of us would write a paragraph or two, and then the other would take over, and it built from there. For the second one (which we never finished), we each controlled a main character, so we would switch off for dialogue and individual actions, but otherwise we shared the rest of the story. It worked pretty well, and if you have a writing buddy whose style works with yours, I highly recommend it.

What's your all-time favorite ship? I'm not sure I have a mathematically favorite ship versus whatever ship I'm currently most focused on. In 2019, it was Red and Boxer from Transistor. Last year, it was Asch and Natalia from Tales of the Abyss. Right now, I've been swinging back towards Archer and Hakuno from Fate.

What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I've always been sad I never finished Public Speaking, my Suikoden V longfic about super minor npc Salisha Raulbel and what she thought of the war. It was very niche, but readers still found it and enjoyed it. I hung with it for two years, between 2006-08, but a lot was happening in my life, I was changing as a person, I was getting into new fandoms, and I couldn't maintain my interest; I also abandoned another long Suikoden fic and an original novel during that period. What's even worse was that the fic was over halfway done, and for a couple years afterwards, I would get comments asking for an update. I think that's part of why I now never start posting fics until I've completed at least one draft. Do I think I'll pull one of those 10+ Years Later updates? Probably not. But it was a good fic, and I'm sorry I left people hanging.

What are your writing strengths? I'm told my dialogue and descriptions are good. People also seem to respond well to my emotional scenes. And of course on my next book I'm going to put this right on the cover:

“She writes sex well!” – Her Mom

What are your writing weaknesses? Having just praised my dialogue, I'll admit I have a problem with slowing down dialogue to add too much physical communication – compressed lips, narrowed eyes, raised eyebrows. I know it can start to feel ridiculous, but I want you all to see the scene I'm seeing and I can't very well hire actors. I also feel like my fight scenes aren't the greatest; I find them a pain to write. Probably a byproduct of not running around the wilderness with a sword myself. I also, no matter how hard I try, fall prey to typos. I'm pretty good at editing other people's work, but my own writing is a whole 'nother animal.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I think it's a case by case thing. In general though, it can be overdone, especially if the author is, say, writing a character who's speaking in Spanish, but they keep having the character saying “I'm going to do my tarea” or “I need to go to la escuela!” when just saying “homework” and “school” flows so much more naturally. On the other hand, language is culture and character and history – using some of it can be very helpful in establishing setting and even time period. It also changes depending on how tightly we're in a character's pov. If we're right in the protagonist's head, and my hero doesn't speak French, and they overhear a spy saying, “J'ai volé le lapin sacré!" the meaning should remain a mystery. I shouldn't have the translation provided in a footnote or a parenthetical. On the other hand, if the pov is more pulled back and omniscient, then the author can translate it while reminding the reader the hero didn't understand it.

Overall, when it comes to using other languages, I think you need to keep the reader's needs in mind. If you want to throw out foreign phrases for a bit of flair, go for it, but limit it to phrases that aren't crucial to understanding the scene or story. Otherwise, you need to find a way to elegantly explain what's being said, without making it feel like a footnote. Something like that just breaks the immersive feeling of reading.

First fandom you wrote for? Probably that Lion King story. It was called The Lion King IV: The Revenge of Scar. There was a) no Lion King III and b) no Scar. I called it that because it took place three generations after the original (because that's how titles work), and Scar apparently had such a long con going he'd foreseen the actions of future evil lion villains who'd never even met him.

Favorite fic you've ever written? I'm going to repeat what I said on this post – The Beast in the Dark, the third installment of my unposted Fate trilogy. All three fics were written with the intention that I wouldn't be sharing them. That's also true of the Muse Trilogy and all my recent Tales of the Abyss stuff, but the Fate stuff was at a somewhat sadder, lonelier period in my life. I think that's one reason it's so special to me. Also, like I say in the linked post, because I wasn't going to share it, I allowed myself to throw all sorts of over the top tropes at it. I think it really helped me along in my writing, and, arguably, opening it up for public consumption might mess with how I feel about it. We'll see. I'm still not sure about posting it.

When it comes to fics I have posted though, I'll refer back to the same post and say Death and Ker. It was a fic that was really exciting both to write and post, right as Persona 3: Portable was coming out. I feel a lot of nostalgia for it, and while it's not perfect, I think parts of it still hold up.

[missjanjie]

Branjie Fic | Take Me Back to the Start (5/?)

Title: Take Me Back to the Start Summary:   Everyone remembers their first love. Not everyone carries those feelings from childhood to senior year. Yet Brock is starting his last year of high school while still longing for the relationship he lost five years ago. Meanwhile, José is at the top of the food chain and seems to have it all together. But maybe their story isn’t over yet. Word Count: ~3.1k (this chapter) / ~15.8k (total) Relationship: Branjie (Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo) Rating: T (so far)

Read on AO3

To say Brock had a tendency to overanalyze things would be the understatement of the century. So, to suddenly be kissed by someone he’d been pining for - especially after everything they had recently been through - was enough to keep him up at night. Tossing and turning, getting up and lying back down, there was nothing he could do to quell the overwhelming onslaught of conflicting emotions towards a memory that wouldn’t stop playing on repeat.

Finally, he sat up and grabbed his phone. “Yes, I know it’s almost three in the morning. You got me into this mess, so you have to listen to the details,” he said as soon as Courtney picked up the other line.

“What mess? What details? I… What?” The groggy voice answered.

Brock exhaled deeply and flopped back down on the bed. “Maybe not ‘mess’… I’m a mess, actually.”

“Elaborate.”

“José kissed me. And bitch, I mean he kissed me. Like, I swear my soul left my body for a minute there. It was… it was totally out of nowhere but, I don’t know, it felt right. It felt like we both needed it. I just have no idea what to do now.”

There was a beat of silence before Brock could hear Courtney trying to stifle what he could only assume was a squeal of delight. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You didn’t even have to make the first move! You can’t even doubt that he feels something for you.”

“Don’t question my ability to doubt, Courtney,” he countered. “What if he just wanted to get it out of his system so he could move on?”

She groaned and let out an exasperated breath. “Do you hear yourself when you talk like this? He’s not that type, not from what I’ve seen. Do you know what the issue is? I think you’re scared. I think that now that you know your feelings might be mutual, it got too real, and you’re afraid it won’t live up to your expectations.”

“Are you done psychoanalyzing me?”

“Am I wrong though?”

Silence.

“Exactly. Talk to him. Or just kiss him, that seemed to get the job done,” she chuckled. “I need to get to sleep now, babe. You gonna be alright?”

That was the million dollar question. While he knew in theory he should feel alright, more than alright even. He wished he could simply shut his mind down and allow himself to bask in the afterglow of sharing a passionate kiss with someone he’d spent all this time longing for.

“I think so,” he finally offered, then ended the call after they shared goodbyes.

------

He set his phone down on his nightstand and buried his face in his pillows. There wasn’t much time left for a proper night’s sleep, but he did feel more relaxed after getting his feelings out to another person. Addressing them with José, however, would be a different story entirely.

“How are you holding up, B?”

Brock rested his head against the lockers and stared up at the ceiling. “I talked myself down in the shower, I’m okay. It was only a kiss, right?”

“Hope your shower pep talk worked, Mr. Brightside, ‘cause here he comes,” Courtney hummed before ducking out of the way, leaving José with a clear path to walk right towards him.

“Hey,” José mimicked Brock’s pose, leaning against the locker and tilting his head against it with his hands shoved into his pockets.

Brock looked over at him and let out a soft chuckle. “You making fun of me?”

“Ain’t my fault your resting pose looks like you tryna be a fuckin’ T-Bird.”

He breathed out a soft laugh and elbowed his shoulder lightly. “Oh, shut up.”

As Brock’s arm dropped back down, his hand lingered. It swung and twitched a bit awkwardly as it shifted ever so slightly closer to José’s. Their skin touched, goosebumps spreading up both of their arms. He inched closer still, letting their pointer fingers link.

José looked up at him, and he could feel the nerves radiating off of him. There was a shyness, a hesitation that still hadn’t dissipated. So, he looked out into the distance, as if they just happened to be occupying the same space. But he held his hand properly, standing in silence with their fingers laced. He stole another glance and saw Brock had relaxed, and couldn’t help but smile as his gaze drifted down to the floor. Suddenly they were nine years old and holding hands for the first time all over again.

The peaceful coexistence lasted until the bell rang, the jarring noise forcing them back into reality. They reluctantly let go of each other’s hands and returned them to their previous positions buried in their pockets.

“I’ll see you at practice?” There was a quiet hopefulness in José’s voice, a vulnerability that made it impossible to hide that it was far beyond just the cheerleading.

Brock bit his lip and nodded. “I’ll be there,” a smile tugged at his lips and he gave his shoulder a light squeeze. He stood at his locker a bit longer as he watched the smaller male walk away, cheeks pink and smile wide.

Courtney laughed softly and took him by the arm. “Come on, puppy love. You’ll have plenty of time to make heart eyes at him later.”

“You make me sound so lame,” he huffed as they made their way down the hall.

“Babe, you do that all on your own. But it’s cute, I’m rooting for you two.”

Brock felt his blood run cold as they rounded the corner, briskly walking past Kyle and two of his friends that were staring him down once he was in their field of vision. “Well, someone needs to be,” he muttered.

“You don’t think they’re gonna go after you or something, do you?”

He winced, pressing his lips into a line. “I don’t know,” he admitted, “but I’m sleeping with a bat under my pillow from now on.”

------

José frowned, after poking Brock’s shoulder for the tenth time or so, he still wasn’t getting a reaction out of him. He was completely checked out, his physical body was there while nothing else was. “Come on, boo,” he took him by the shoulder and tried to shake the life back into him. “Why you all in your head like that?”

Brock blinked rapidly and sat upright. “Hm?” He cleared his throat and chewed his lip. “Nothing, don’t want to worry you about it.”

“You too fuckin’ late on that, so you better just go on and come out with it,” he said simply, shifting so he was sitting cross-legged and facing him.

“Okay, fine,” Brock sighed, leaning back until he was resting against the next level of the bleachers. “I didn’t want to scare you, but I guess I dropped the ball on that. It’s just… obviously Kyle is pissed that you guys broke up, and I think he and his cronies have it out for me now. I know, I know, I must sound totally paranoid.”

He clicked his tongue and looked down, tracing patterns on the floor with his toe. “Nah, I get it,” but then he looked up and put his hand on Brock’s knee. “But you listen to me. I ain’t gonna let no one lay no damn hands on you again. ‘Sides, if any of them try shit they gon’ be blacklisted from getting any cheerleader pussy, and none of them wanna risk that shit.” That elicited a snort from him, causing him to hide his grin behind his hand. “You make a compelling argument,” he propped his elbow on his other knee and rested his chin on his hand.

José moved his hand from his knee to his lower back. “This why you were so afraid to touch me this morning?”

Brock’s body stiffened at the question. He inhaled a deep breath and blew it out slowly, eyes flicking from the ceiling to the ground and back. In a detached voice he answered “Yes.”

He had nothing to go off of but his word, so he nodded, rubbing small circles into his lower back. “Do you remember when we was kids and you’d jump in and help me fight off bullies no matter how many times your mama told you not to? That’s the type of you that you need to be, you just seem so damn worried all the time, always watching over your shoulder. My mama says that’s how you get ulcers and shit.”

It was unnerving to Brock that even after all this time, José figured him out so effortlessly. It was like suddenly being naked - exposed and vulnerable with no way to cover it up. On one hand, it shook him to his very core and made him want to curl deeper into himself and hide away, but on the other, he knew it was something he needed, something that made him feel alive in the most raw, unadulterated way. And maybe that was what pushed him to his feet just then. “Let’s go somewhere,” he said as he turned back to him.

José’s brows knitted and his head tilted to the side, but he got up and threw his bag over his shoulder. “Aight, lead the way,” and with a subtle spring in his step, he followed the taller teen outside of the gym and around back to the parking lot. “Do I get a hint or is this a surprise?”

“Just consider the context clues,” Brock hummed as he strapped the seatbelt across his chest and backed out of the lot.

“Context clues,” he mimicked and rolled his eyes. “Man, you know I’m barely pulling a C- in English.”

Brock reached a hand over and patted his thigh reassuringly. “Just hang tight, babe.”

José conceded and sat quietly (which was a feat in and of itself) for the rest of the ride. Well, almost the rest of the ride, until he figured out where they were going and started bouncing in his seat and hitting Brock’s shoulder. “Aww, we’re going to the playground! You know I’m a sucker for sentimental shit.”

“I had a hunch,” he chuckled as he pulled into a parking spot.

As they stepped out of the car, Brock was already hit with the first wave of nostalgia. The sound of the wind pushing empty swings, the wet, stale smell that lingered after the kids had left because the forecast called for rain. It took him right back to childhood and all the time he had spent there. All the time he had spent with José.

“You remember when we started going just on the cloudiest, almost rainy days ‘cause that’s when it was the emptiest? We thought we was so damn clever,” José recalled with a laugh as he looked up at the sky, covered with a thick gray sheet of clouds.

Brock chuckled as they walked down the path that took them towards the center of the playground. “And we only got stuck in heavy rain, what, four times? Five?” He looked over at the swingset.

José turned to face it, smiling wanely. “That’s where it all began.”

“And ended.”

They wordlessly made their way over and sat on the swings, both of them staring up at the sky, as if something would transcend from above and tell them what their next moves should be.

“Did you ever think about me?” Brock asked, looking ahead instead of up. “When we weren’t talking, you know, just in general…”

José smiled at the ground and clicked his tongue. “We spent four years together. You think Imma just forget you like that?”

Brock looked over at him with a fond expression. “It really was four years, that sounds so crazy when you think about it. That’s like…” he paused to count on his fingers. “It’s more than a fifth of our whole lives. I swear, literally half of my childhood memories involve you. Maybe more.”

“Probably ‘cause y’all let me tag along on your family vacations,” he chuckled, then went quiet. “Are we gonna keep not talking about how we feel now, though?” It felt odd to outright ask him how he felt about the kiss, considering it was entirely his move, but he needed to know where he stood.

His cheeks turned red and he swallowed thickly. “I mean… I’m very good at not talking about things, to be fair.”

“And I’m very good at running my mouth, so maybe we should meet somewhere in the middle.”

Brock got up and sat on the ground across from José. It was one of the rare times he was looking up at him. “So, what’s the middle?”

“Dunno yet. I’m not a planner,” José had started to swing in a playful way where he’d pretend to almost kick him. It was amusing until he swung his leg too far and almost got him for real, and in his scrambling to avoid that, he ended up launching himself off the swing and landing with a thud on top of Brock.

The impact knocked them both down, leaving Brock flat on his back with José on top of him. It took them both a moment to recover before either of them could properly acknowledge the compromising position they had suddenly landed themselves in.

Brock could feel his heartbeat jump into overdrive and his face felt so hot that José’s breath on his skin created a cooling sensation. He licked his lips, mouth feeling dry and words escaping him. At least, that was until he managed a soft “Hi.”

A broad, dimpled grin spread across José’s face. He leaned forward, resting their foreheads together and whispering “Hi” in response.

It took another brief moment for Brock to decide his next move. He ended up wrapping his arms around the smaller teen’s body and let their legs intertwine. He tilted his head just enough for their lips to touch, capturing them in a slow, tender kiss. It felt different when he was initiating it; it sent sparks through his body, every inch of him telling his brain that this was what he wanted, what he needed.

And José needed it just as badly. He melted into the kiss, his eyes fluttering shut. One hand moved to cup his face, the other carding his fingers through his hair. It felt natural and familiar, even though the kisses they had shared as kids were innocent, close-mouthed pecks, often with their hands at their sides or in a loose hug.

But this kiss was intimate. It was deep and languid and filled with the desire and longing that had carried over from their last kiss, from every touch and longing gaze they had shared in the interim. Their lips parted, tongues tangling and heads tilting, granting each other as much access as they could physically allow.

Brock’s hand slipped under José’s shirt, his hand spreading across the smooth expanse of skin as he rubbed his back, holding him even closer as well. Nothing was enough, he had to have more after every touch and taste he got.

“Mm…” A soft, pleased sigh escaped José’s mouth in the midst of the heated kisses. The hand he’d had on Brock’s face moved down his chest to fist into the fabric of his shirt, trying to pull him even closer still.

They had been so wrapped up in each other, so utterly lost in the moment, that the sudden, loud crack of thunder nearly scared them senseless. And on top of that, it was starting to rain. So, there went the moment.

“Fuck, we better get out of here,” Brock grunted, reluctantly standing up and helping José to his feet as well. “Come on, I’ll drop you off at home,” he offered as they jogged back up the path and into the car, pulling back onto the road just as the rain started to pour down hard.

When they arrived at the Cancel household, neither of them wanted José to leave just yet. They sat there in silence, hoping the right way to say goodbye would come to them. Brock made an attempt, shifting to face him. “If I, uh, don’t hear from you before then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Do you want to hear from me before then?”

He let out a soft laugh and strummed his fingers across the steering wheel. “I always want to hear from you.”

José leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Text me when you get home, then,” he told him before grabbing his bag and sprinting from the car to the house, lest he get completely soaked.

------

Brock still sat for another moment, letting it all catch up with him. “Everything really does happen on that fucking playground,” he laughed to himself before driving home.

Part of Brock hadn’t even wanted to divulge the details of the playground rendezvous with his well-meaning but overly-invested friends. But, at the same time, it probably wouldn’t have happened without them. So, he sat with them both on his bedroom floor, ready to recount the events.

“Look at that shit-eating grin,” Steve teased. “Alright, spill.”

Brock bit his lip and looked down at his lap. “We went to the playground. You know, the one a couple blocks over. And we were just talking, reminiscing… then one thing led to another and we were making out right there by the swings,” he blushed just from recounting the experience. “Then it started to rain and we had to make a run for it.”

“How anticlimactic,” Courtney pouted, then laughed. “Nah, I’m happy for you, you really almost got some. What do you think would’ve happened if it didn’t rain?”

It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about it - it was actually one of the only things he could think about. But he didn’t know, in actuality, how it would’ve played out. “I mean, I don’t think we were going to fuck in a playground. Pretty sure that’s illegal anyway.”

“Does he know you’re a virgin?”

The question stopped him dead in his tracks, freezing him in place. The redness in his face spread and deepened and he felt a knot tighten in the pit of his stomach. “No…” he mumbled.

“Are you going to tell him you’re a virgin?”

Brock still couldn’t look either of his friends in the eye. He pulled his knees up under his chin and looked down at his feet. He pressed his lips into a fine line, then exhaled deeply. “I don’t know.”