#I'm 6k deep into writing chapter 4 currently

[wordsofwilderness]

Mood board: Spotlight on me (and I'm ready to break)

[tawus]

if you don’t mind me asking, when will you be updating “Sophisticated” on AO3?

Hii! Very soon actually, sorry about the massive delay! Besides just plain life getting in the way, I was busy with the principal writing of another project. Currently, besides editing that project, I'm also writing the Tangerine smut ✨

Now please feel me (figuratively and literally): this chapter, unlike all the previous ones, isn't going to be a 2-3k baby, oh no! This one is a complete, uninterrupted smut of minimum 6k words, that boasts 4 positions (not counting the finger-fucking) and checks off all the kinks promised in the AO3 tags. This kinky, sloppy, moist monster of a chapter is now in the making, and here's a little snippet as a thanks for all your patience and love ❤️

“What do you see this as?” he asked, out of breath.

“What do I see what as?” you asked, just as out of breath.

His moustache twitched with annoyance.

“This."

He raked his large, ringed hand down the side of your body, freeing your right nipple completely from your dress in the process. Both your eyes glazed with thicker arousal at this moment, yet both of you kept them peeled to each other. His hand continued down your curves and approached your gradually opening hips – where he cupped your burning sex unabashedly – his hand so big that your pussy fit in his palm fully, like that of a doll. His sudden touch shattered your composure and you keened for his face above you with a crippled cry.

Himself breathing harder as well, Tangerine only smirked with a corner of his mouth at seeing your desperate reaction. He was an edger. One who could keep his own needs in check just to have the upper hand. Aka the worst sex partner for you…

Half-breathing, half-moaning, half-whimpering, you stared at him through lust-heavy lashes, trying to consider your response - since he was expecting one. His hand on your clothed pussy didn’t move an inch, but you sensed the twitching of his fingers – how they wanted to move, wanted to touch, to enter, to fuck. But his self-control was worlds better than yours: you saw it from his amused smirk, as he watched you struggle to not grind on his palm and struggle with your answer as well.

You wanted to lie and make up some diplomatic response to his dumb question – such was your reflex as a public figure. But there was something about this situation which had hurled you beyond everything you were used to, beyond all that was normal, ordinary, and daily to you. The shocking events of tonight had flipped you from your usual rational, calculating way of thinking – into that of primal overdrive. From contracts, press conferences, and speeches – to being hunted like an animal, then made into a prisoner of your own lust; tumbling to your base instincts of survival and reproduction – cast back to your roots.

As someone who had never considered death and extinction beyond a technicality reserved for your doddery days, past your 70s perhaps – tonight, in the prime of your youth, your fame, and your power – you got faced with both your mortality and carnality at once. And staring in the face of Tangerine now – the harbinger of your death – and having your pulsing, needing pussy in his hand, it felt like the parallels had converged and you were looking Death itself in the eyes. Enigmatic, carnal, tall and muscular, cockney Death.

This convergence of everything primal in Tangerine – ignited your senses. It commenced the unpeeling of your essence. It made you want to be honest with him to a fault. So you gave yourself to his baring blues and told him your honest answer.

“I see this as…humiliation.”

Tangerine hummed in a closed-mouthed chuckle.

“Blimey, are you a piece of work…” he voiced the summary of his thoughts before he moved your soaked panties to the side just like that, with laughable ease, and thrust deep into you – two fingers at a time.

You looked up in panicked desperation, your mouth not your own – crying out and whimpering and moaning – but all you were met with were Tangerine’s abyssal black pupils rimed with blue frost.

“You haven’t a fucking clue what humiliation is, darling,” he spelled out.

[gliyerabaa]

For fanfic writer asks: 8 and 17 :D

8. What projects are you currently working on?

Ahhhh i LOVE getting to talk about my projects!!!!!!!! <3

Per Aspera Ad Astra: Also known as the kansas au, this has been my pride and joy over the past 4 1/2 years. The premise of the fic is essentially capturing the experience of growing up queer in rural america. I've posted 23 chapters but I have the entire fic outlined, it's just a matter of writing it. I'm probably about halfway to two-thirds way done with the fic. It's been a beast but like I said earlier, it really is my pride and joy

Thank Goodness (smutfic series): Currently only a oneshot but I plan to add one or two more installments in the series. What I intended to be a quick, slightly smutty character study on Glinda accidentally turned into 6k of messy, raw gelphie smut. Definitely my best interpretation of the canon gelphie dynamic, both in terms of emotional dynamics and how that carries over into the smut. I'm really proud of this fic, it's definitely getting a sequel and maybe even a part 3

untitled gelphie 'wedding' series: this one is still a true WIP. I was reading a few scholarly journals about queer themes in the stage version of Wicked and how it both adheres to and subverts typical midcentury theatre tropes. For example, so many 'traditional' musicals end in the marriage of the two leads, and 'For Good' can be seen as the fulfillment of that trope when viewed through a queer lens. I adored that analysis and it's inspired me to create a sort of miniseries exploring those themes a little more. it's a fun idea, and I have some outline framework going, we'll see if anything comes of it

17. What's something you've learned about while doing research for a fic?

Honestly, I haven't done a ton of research for Wicked fics due to the fictional nature of the world. Years and years ago I wrote a lot of Frozen fics so I had done a lot of extensive research on Norwegian/Scandinavian culture.

WAIT no duh, I've done SO MUCH research for Per Aspera Ad Astra!!!!!!!!!!! Including:

researching different high schools in Kansas (to come up with ideas for a mascot for the fictional Tri-City high school)

learning the state motto of Kansas (it's Ad Astra Per Aspera, which I stole and rearranged for my fic title, and I think I'm so clever for that)

also the state flower of Kansas is the sunflower and the state bird is the western meadowlark and the state mammal is the bison but those have yet to be relevant to the story

deep dives into the climate and weather patterns in Kansas (I have a tab saved on my phone's weather app for a city in Kansas in the approximate location I imagine the fictional town of Shiz to be. I check it regularly)

about three different drafts for the Road Trip in chapters 20 onwards. like extensive planning of how long to drive, where to stop, etc. etc.

research into radio stations in Western Colorado for That One Scene in ch. 20

extensive research into colleges in California, including which ones have good architecture programs since it's canon in this fic that Glinda is an architecture nerd

[bettsfic]

could you share the director's cut of digging for orchids?

i have never rewritten a fic so many times as i did with DFO. there are some chapters that went through six revisions. i just kept getting it wrong.

so while i was reading tgcf, i was already coming up with fic ideas. for some reason my first fic idea was an au where hua cheng is a hospice nurse. i was just really into the emotional fuckery and whump of book 4. after revising it three or four times i realized there was just something about it that wasn't working and decided to write something a little more light-hearted.

(i still want to finish and post the hospice au. it's on the list! [it's xie lian's father who is in hospice care, and xie lian is dealing with daddy issues alongside a mounting crush on the in-house hospice nurse])

anyway. even early on while reading tgcf, i knew i wanted to do an actor au, but i thought they were both going to be actors, xie lian the washed-up has-been and hua cheng the rising starlet who grew up with xie lian's movies. that was going to be a different fic. DFO's initial draft was about xie lian as a former stunt actor who couldn't act anymore due to an injury, and hua cheng was his weird roommate/bff who was kind of slowly piecing xie lian's life back together. initially i wanted the story to be about xie lian's slow recovery from a pill addiction and finding more effective pain management.

why did i read tgcf and come away with story ideas about hospice care and the opioid epidemic? i have no idea. that's what happens when you read a 600k-word novel while glaringly depressed i guess.

i would write 10k, cut 6k, add 10k more, cut 8k, back and forth. it was awful. it took me weeks to realize the problem was the xie lian was OOC. without much thinking about it, i had given him my belief in the highest ideal: becoming a cottagecore ho. and then i realized, xie lian is a god! he wants to be worshipped! so modern au xie lian would be a superfamous c-drama actor and he'd want his acting career back. i think i related so much to xie lian i neglected to realize the ways in which we're different. i would absolutely hate to be famous. and it was hard for me to write the drive for attention-seeking as a positive thing, after so much of my life being convinced it was the worst thing a person could be. so that was one of the major narrative questions for me -- how can i portray xie lian's ambition and desire to be worshipped in a positive light? how can i make it a strength?

once i realized all that, the plot came a lot easier. i still think because of all the major changes, the pacing is kinda wonky (it takes 10k just to reach the hook). and thematically it's all over the place, but i also think those things are what make it tgcf fanfiction, because tgcf is a thematic and pacing nightmare (lovingly).

the chronic pain aspect was hard to write, because i don't currently live with chronic pain but i used to. i didn't want to write a "and then he made a full recovery!" kind of story, because a lot of his battle involved dealing with the shame of his injury and its aftermath. i hope i did that aspect of the story justice. when i had chronic pain, i struggled a lot with the underlying belief that it was normal and i didn't deserve to be helped. that was the epiphany i wanted for him, the realization he deserved to recover. obviously that was heavily inspired by the self-harm themes of tgcf.

and lastly, possibly the most fun part of DFO for me was coming up with hua cheng's art, which i based on all the truly wild stuff i saw when i was doing artist residencies. i hope i did that aspect of the story justice too -- i learned so much from the artists i stayed with, and even if i couldn't fully understand their work, i still had a deep respect for it.

despite all these struggles i really had a good time writing it. i'm glad it found its audience, and i'm grateful for all the comments, fanart, and translations i've received for it.

it’s @oficmag promo day, send me asks!

[freakwiththeknifecollection]

13, 21, 37?

13. What's the best writing advice you've ever come across?

Oh geez I don't know about BEST... "Show don't tell" comes to mind. Brandon Sanderson has SUCH good writing advice videos on YouTube, he has whole class lectures on there and stuff he's an excellent resource for writing advice. The ones of his I keep in mind most often are 1. MOST of the time the word "that" can be dropped. It's often just filler and if you remove it it doesn't take away from the sentence at all.

2. Unless it's significant, you don't have to say a character started to do something. "He started to get up." Unless it's significant for whatever reason, like for example I have a scene where characters start to get dressed. The reason I say start is that (see? That didn't need to be there) there's a lot of dialogue between them as they're getting dressed. But if a character is just by themselves and nothing happens to interrupt them or anything like that, there's no reason to go into detail about them starting and finishing an action. You can just say "He got dressed."

3. This is slightly related to the last point. Start the story where the plot starts. Unless it's significant (most writing advice is just "unless it's significant" lmao) If the plot starts at the character's workplace or school, there's no reason to show your character going through their entire morning routine step by step and their commute. Unless you're doing it to show their relationship with their family, if you're establishing their character in a meaningful way, etc, there's no real reason for it.

4. If you find yourself getting bored writing a scene, your reader is probably going to be bored reading the scene.

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

If we're talking revision sessions, like how many times I go into one work and edit [x] scene? Dozens upon dozens of times. I couldn't even tell you. It takes me awhile to really feel comfortable with how something looks before I can post it. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I just last night made final revisions on a prologue I started a year ago.

37. Talk about your current wips.

I have sooooo many in the progress stage. Like 200+. Actual, fully fledged wips though? (All of these I have a lot to revise more of, but as I mentioned earlier, I take a long time to revise lmao)

I write exclusively Dean/Jo fics. Why? Sometimes you like two characters on screen, your friend likes them too, you egg each other on hyping it for awhile and before you know it, it's 4 years later and you're so deep in your own fanon about them, there's no hope of return.

Anyway. Let's get to the wips.

House of Memories (1k) (I have like, 6k more of this I'm working on revising though)

My newest fic!! This one is my favorite I've written so far, it's the best quality-wise IMO. *Ferris Bueller voice* If you have the means, I highly recommend checking it out. But oh BOY is it angsty. It'll get better though! Slowly but surely.

Summary:

In this AU, Ellen and Jo never died, Ellen and Bobby are together, and Bobby was never there for the final showdown with Lucifer and Michael.

After Sam sacrifices himself, Dean doesn't know where else to turn and goes to Bobby's for the night and delivers the bad news. There, he's forced to confront an old friend he'd wronged, and try to make things right while he figures out what to do in this new reality without his brother.

Preview:

She stopped halfway down the stairs. The man before her was not the same man she saw four years ago. He had gotten older, sure, but it was more than that. The spark, the little glimmer of hope that was once in his eyes, was gone. Now, they were dark and tired- the eyes of a man who had survived too much, and wished he hadn't.

Something Just Like This (3.6k)

Summary:

Dean dislocated his right shoulder a couple days ago on a werewolf hunt, so he's needed help with just about everything. Usually that falls to Sam. Now that Jo joined them, however, when he's not around, it falls to her. Which means a lot more physical contact with Dean than her poor heart can take.

Oh My God They Were Neighbors - High School AU (3.4k)

Summary:

Dean meets their new next-door neighbors and is immediately smitten with Jo, who just so happens to be his same age, so he offers to help her unpack after school.

Jo soon realizes her new bedroom window is facing Dean's before he does.

Check Yes, Juliet - High School AU (20k)

(My first ever published fic!! I don't LOVE all of it, I wrote a lot of it when I was 17, but I learned a lot and it has a special place in my heart. One day I'll get inspiration for this one back and update it lol)

Summary:

Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle secretly dating. 'Nough said.

Preview:

"What are you doing here? I thought you were coming on Friday."

"I am," Dean said, as he climbed through the window and into her room, "But I figured you'd have nothing better to do on a Tuesday night." He teased, and flashed her a smile.

"Well, I'm not the one who came all the way over here and climbed up to a second story window for no reason, so which one of us had nothing better to do?" Jo retorted.

"That's fair." He said between a laugh.