#a huge thank you to anyone who has ever let me podfic their work

[burningaurora]

50 Podfics!!! Well technically 51...

I'm sitting here pondering how I'm already up to 51 podfics. I found the wolfstar community less than 2 years ago and decided I wanted to start podfic'ing in July of 2022. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I went into this, but knew I need more audio content not only for myself but for the world. When @heartofspells gave me permission to post my first TTS podfic I was floored and not really sure anybody would listen to it, but here we are 5 months later and I have an entire portfolio of them.

@r33sespieces and @msalexwp have been some of my biggest supports and have essentially let me have free reign over their fics. I knew I wanted to do something special for "post number 50" and felt that creating something for these 2 was the best way to do it.

There are so many other creators out there who I have interacted with in the past few months that have made this whole journey possible - @sliebman10, @theresthesnitch, @aqua-myosotis, @squintclover, @mostlyoptimisticdinosaur, @fonkeloog to name a few. I don't know that I can tag everyone, but know that I see you and I appreciate you. An extra special thanks to @itsaash for being my constant sounding board and overall just amazing friend. This fandom is truly amazing because of the wonderful people who choose to interact with it. 🥰

[happiness-of-the-pursuit]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks to @kiwiana-writes for the tag!! I did this back in like... October, and a LOT has changed since then lol

How many works do you have on ao3?

29

What's your total ao3 word count?

299,988 (though this includes 110,000 from the co-written PJO AU and 2,000 words from Manu's fic that I podficced to)

What fandoms do you write for?

Only RWRB for now, though never say never to others. I recently read Check, Please! and I've had some thoughts, but I have far too many WIPs for RWRB to write them rn. Also I have some ideas for The Pairing, but again, I have... so many RWRB wips...

Top five fics by kudos:

Longer Than Most | 26K, trans Henry accidental pregnancy (also this is how I found out it had become my top kudos-ed fic AH)

The Super Six Take a Lie Detector Test | Vanity Fair | 7K, YouTube interview

Let Me inside (I Want to Get to Know You) | 6K, epistolary roommates

Claremont 2008 | 28K, canon divergence where Ellen gets elected in 2008, childhood friends to lovers

(Dil)Do It Yourself | 17K, meet cute at a DIY dildo workshop

Do you respond to comments?

I really try to. But. I have gotten quite behind recently. I would love to catch up but it's just a bit overwhelming at the moment.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't really have any angsty endings?? but a fic @affectionatelyrs and I are working on is going to have an ambiguous ending and my joke is that someone should the version of it where things take the angsty route

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I mostly write happy endings, but I am going to say that Let Me inside (I Want to Get to Know You) is the happiest because it's kinda the tropiest

Do you get hate on fics?

Not hate, but I've gotten one or two weird comments, or comments asking about updates.

Do you write smut?

I do! (this is one of the things that's changed since the fall)

Craziest crossover:

The closest I've gotten to a crossover is the PJO AU, but that's not even an actual crossover.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes!! Super Six and the Siren's Call with @inexplicablymine and @read-and-write- was the first, and then I wrote Let Me inside (I Want to Get to Know You) with @affectionatelyrs. I also did the podficcing of the voice notes for love has a voice (and it's yours) by Manu. I've also got a couple more projects coming up with Jamie also.

All time favorite ship?

Well that I've written for, FirstPrince :)

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Unfortunately I don't know if I'll ever finish Baby's First Pride because I've grown a ton as a writer since then and I would want to redo the old chapters and that just isn't all the compelling to me anymore...

What are your writing strengths?

I fucking hate this question. But I am going with dialogue and humor (and humorous dialogue) which has been co-signed by others so I feel less weird about saying this.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I would like to be able to keep smut more concise at times, because it always turns into a Big Scene but it doesn't always need to be a Big Scene. And I've been trying to work on a particular style of writing which is a bit more uhhh snappy? I don't know how to describe it. But that's still a huge work in progress, because I always get more rambly than I want.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I definitely try to include it for the characters in RWRB who speak other languages, and when I do I lean on my friends who speak those languages as a native speaker.

First fandom you wrote in?

Officially: RWRB. For myself: HP.

Favorite fic you've written?

Honestly it's always whatever I'm working on at the moment, which is a couple of WIPs: Fire Island WIP, Parasocial Relationship AU with @affectionatelyrs, and my Big Bang fic come to mind.

But really I want to know what y'all's favorite fic of mine is!!!!

I'll tag 20 people, sorry if anyone's done this recently, but in case anyone wants to go again: @mainstreamelectricalparade @14carrotghoul @anincompletelist @littlemisskittentoes @gay-flyboys

and @songliili @gayrootvegetable @leojfitz @welcometololaland @rmd-writes

and @bigassbowlingballhead @eusuntgratie @captainjunglegym @cactusdragon517 @cricketnationrise

and @violetbaudelaire-quagmire @bribumblebee @nocoastposts @magicandarchery @itsmaybitheway!!!

[v-thinks-on]

Wanna Know a Writer

Thank you very much to @sparrow-ink for the tag - I love doing these when I get the chance! Incidentally, this is also my 1001st post on Tumblr!

How many works do you have on AO3?

It looks like I have 116 right now, but it will be 117 tomorrow (with a short Batman/Superman fic)

What’s your total AO3 word count?

716,792 apparently... I’ve been writing like crazy lately and I still swear that can’t be right, but there you go

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

It looks like I’ve posted fic for 30 (including crossovers and fusions) and there may be more I haven’t posted, so not listing all of them. You can see the whole list here

Following @sparrow-ink‘s example, I’ll let my filesystem speak for itself:

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Language of Chess has been the undisputed champion for a while (Kirk and Spock flirt using the Vulcan language of chess)

The Old Family Farm is a more recent fic that came up from behind while I wasn’t looking (Clark Kent takes Bruce Wayne to meet his parents)

The Gift Giving Game was my K/S secret santa gift for Herenya_writes (Kirk and Spock stir up rumors as professors at Starfleet Academy)

A Hidden, Personal Thing (Spock offers to mind meld with Kirk)

Human, Vulcan, and Everything in Between (Spock is ace, Kirk is polyamorous, and it works well for them)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to respond to every comment because there’s nothing I like more than talking with people about my writing and the stories that inspire it! I’m more than happy to answer questions on here too, if anyone has any!

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

So, these days I’m generally a firm believer in happy endings, but in the pre-AO3 days, I used to mostly write death!fic and a few highlights actually made it onto AO3:

The Death of Spock - Spock dies during the original five-year mission and Kirk is left to pick up the pieces

Only a Fool - Watson dies at Reichenbach and Holmes is left to pick up the pieces

Honorable mention: Devoted - the inevitable tragedy of Mary Watson (nee Morstan)

Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

As it turns out, the other thing I used to write is crazy crossovers, many of which were never finished, let alone saw the light of day. I’ve dialed back on it (a little), but here are some highlights:

Spock in Wonderland

Millennium Death Note - currently in progress! (What if Light Yagami solved the Millennium Puzzle?)

The Mysterious Mr. Jeeves - Jeeves and Wooster x Everything, but I think the most outlandish one in there would have to be The Phantom of the Opera

Honorable mention: my old BBC Sherlock x Harry Potter - the writing isn’t great and the plot is a bit of a mess, but it will likely always be my most viewed fic

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Only a little bit and mostly just on FanFiction.net - there was one person offended that my big Star Trek TOS x TNG crossover was “secretly” Kirk/Spock. More often I get people who like most of my fics, but then get annoyed about Kirk being polyamorous or Spock being ace or don’t like how I decided to end something, which isn’t terribly helpful, but could be worse.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Nope, don’t read it, don’t write it, just not for me.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge, thankfully.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I’m honored that people want to translate my stories into other languages (and make podfic of them)!

The first three chapters of Devoted (the tragedy of Mary Watson) are available in Chinese

Enough to Drive a Man to Madness (Mycroft puts up with Sherlock Holmes angsting about Dr. Watson) is available in Russian

Once Upon a Dream (Holmes and Watson dance) is available in Russian

The Appearance of Dorian Gray (Bertie Wooster meets Dorian Gray) has a podfic

And I think someone did a podfic of a scene from A Crazy Little Thing Called Love (the progression of Kirk and Spock’s relationship over The Original Series), but I can’t seem to find it right now

What’s your all time favorite ship?

My first and dearest will always be Holmes/Watson from the original Sherlock Holmes stories

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

I’ve gotten to be pretty good at finishing things I want to write, but there’s this huge Disney crossover I started writing with a friend that is glorious and complicated and almost 1/3 of the way done despite being over 90k already. Whenever I think about it, I always think that, yes, I will finish it some day, even though my co-author has lost interest, but the truth is probably not... But who knows, maybe I’ll turn around and have it done for next year’s @wipbigbang!

What are your writing strengths?

I’ve discovered a secret talent for finishing what I start, which is nice - a combination of planning and just keeping at it, slow and steady.

I think I do a good job of capturing characters’ voices, whether in dialogue or narration, and it serves me particularly well when I’m trying to imitate a style - I’m especially proud of some of my Jeeves and Wooster. I can also do some nice flowery prose if put my mind to it.

What are your writing weaknesses?

For all of my love of pretty prose, it’s easy for me to forget to describe things, so my writing can end up fairly sparse. I also feel like I could get better at integrating romance and plot - the romance often ends up getting drowned out by everything else going on, which is especially frustrating because I’m usually writing it because of the romance.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

That’s a good question. Probably Death Note (my friends and I used to ship L/Light) - that’s the oldest fic I have on my computer, at least, but I used to write on paper, so there may be something even older there. The first fandom I posted anything for is Harry Potter (a next-gen OC fic about the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange - it’s best not to ask). I also posted my first Holmes/Watson fic at about the same time (it’s pretty bad, but I tried).

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

I’m actually really happy with a couple of my somewhat recent longer fics:

Generations - my Kirk/Spock Star Trek: Generations fix-it

Bertie Solves a Mystery - Jeeves and Wooster get embroiled in a murder mystery and meet Hercule Poirot and Hastings (also Jeeves has a mysterious backstory)

tagging: I’m going to second @plaudiusplants and tag @the-z-part​ and @marlinspirkhall​ if you’d like to do it, along with anyone else who wants to go for it!

[eyeliner-vampire]

Fanfiction Reader Tag

Stole this from @ao3commentoftheday , because it looked like fun and I have time to kill. Thanks for this!

Fanfiction Reader Tag!

1. When did you start reading Fanfic (How old you were or how long ago)?

2007 so I was... 13? Fanfiction has literally shaped me as a reader and a person.

2. Do you have an AO3 account?

Yep. Eyeliner-Vampire (yes, this is a name I will never let go of)

3. Do you read WIP (work in progress)? Why or why not?

Hell yeah. Gotta support that author. You can do it! I believe in you!

4. What time of day is your ‘fic reading time’?

Anytime I’m lying in bed with nothing to do

5. How much time do you spend reading fic per week?

It used to be around 4 hours or so (I tend to binge read a whole fic so it could be longer) but I don’t read nearly as often anymore

6. Do you listen to podfic (fanfic recorded like an audiobook)?

No but if anyone has a good one to rec I’ll give it a try.

7. What’s your favorite fic genre to read?

Suspense! Adventure! Horror! Tragedy!

I like pain

8. Are there any genres that you tend to avoid?

Pure romance isn’t my thing

9. What tag(s) do you track?

None? Maybe I should start tracking ‘spooky scary’

10. How do you find new fic?

Recommendations are a huge thing. I will also go to an author that I follow and see who they’re following and just go down the line until I find a fic to read.

11. How do you organize your fic bookmarks?

I don’t. Maybe that’s my problem

12. Do you subscribe to authors or stories?

HELL YEAH. Usually if I do one I will follow with the other.

13. What is your favorite fanfic trope?

Don’t have one. I have a wish of reading a fic with every trope possible. Someone please make it happen.

14. What kind of plot line are you always here for?

Repressed feelings, slow burn, spooky scary stuff. I live for that.

15. What can an author do to make you love them?

Try their best. Give me a story you would like to read and I will love you for it.

16. What can an author do to make you avoid them?

Draw conclusions from evidence that was never presented to me as the reader. It’s confusing and takes away the fun of figuring it all out.

17. What do kudos mean to you?

To me, a kudo is akin to leaving someone on read. I appreciate you taking the time to read, but the amount of satisfaction it brings is nothing compared to a comment or a follow.

18. What kind of commenter are you (No comment, short comment, keyboard smash)?

I try my best for long comments to tell the author exactly what it was I liked about their work. Depending how flowery I wanna be that day, it can vary in length.

19. Have you ever stopped reading a fic? Why or why not?

I think I’ve only done this once, and it was because the plot revolved around something I didn’t care for.

20. Have you ever read a fic more than once? What is it about that fic that makes you want to read it again?

Hell yeah. Repeatability is a key factor in the fics I choose to read. I like fics that read differently the more you look at it. Peeling back the layers of plot.

21. Do you like sequels?

My most favorite fic in the world is a sequel.

22. Do you like dabbles?

I’m still yet to understand what exactly this is but yes. I’ll read anything.

23. What do you wish more fic authors would do?

UPDATE. POST. WRITE. PLEASE JUST GIVE ME EVERYTHING. Give me your notes, your musings, literally I just want more content. I know a lot of writers who want everything to be right before they post, and I respect that immensely, but on the reader side, I am willing to read anything you write. (*´Д｀*) just give it to me.

24. What do you wish more authors would stop doing?

Writing before the story is (mostly) planned. I’m guilty of this and I know it annoys readers to change things mid way, so think the whole story through and then write it. It’ll solve so many future problems.

25. Do you like one-shots or multi-chapter?

Collections of one-shots are my weakness.

26. How long do you like chapters to be?

Hmmm this is a tough one. There’s no specific length I prefer, as long as the chapter does what it was intended to do. I’d read a 30page chapter as long as we got to the point and I enjoyed the journey there. I think I prefer chapters to be long, but cut into smaller sections so I can read one and stop if I need to.

27. What’s your favorite POV (point of view) to read (first, second, third)?

Third! First POV has fallen out for me a bit. Close third is my absolute fav, you get the distance of third but the ‘over the shoulder’ feeling of first which leaves a lot of room humor, especially for Naru (ghosthunt) who doesn’t usually show that much.

28. What do you think of OC’s?

They can be hit or miss. I like when OC’s are used for more than your typical ‘wrench in the love story’. Give them depth and meaning please and I promise to love them.

29. Do you download fic?

I used to print fic out so I could continue reading at school ;>.> I’ve killed so many trees.

30. Tell me something else about your fic reading! Anything else!

One word titles? Love em. Japanese titles? Gimme that shit. Title that makes no sense until you finish the story? Live For It.

Tag!

@everbrilliantheartbreaker @books-tea-ghosts @seoulsborne123 @frenchcirce and of course the lovely @radiowrites

[itsadrizzit]

Fanfic writer meme 22, 19 and 50

22. Has there ever been anyone who’s made you freak out because they read your work and followed/favorited/reviewed?

Yes! Yes, yes, yes! So. When I first took a crack at writing fanfic back in 2009 I was (as usual) in a small fandom. I also wrote for a small pairing in said small fandom (business as usual). Basically, I’d read ALL THE FIC for this pairing and most of it (certainly all the good ones) were written by one particular author. Despite the fact that this pairing was small, I still basically considered her the BNF of our tiny corner of fandom. I’d never really interacted with her beyond leaving socially awkward comments on her fic about how much I liked them, but I really respected her work.

I, having never really tried to write fiction in any serious capacity, started floundering about in this (still unfinished) super long fic about this pairing. I just wrote it and edited it and posted it chapter by chapter and I’ve since rewritten it three entire times and it’s still not good, so I can only IMAGINE the state it was in at first, but I kept moving forward because I had a story to tell and dammit I was going to tell it. Then, one night, after a particularly stressful day, no less, I got notifications that she had not only read all fourteen existing chapters of that hot mess, but had left comments on every single one and had praised how descriptive I was with the setting and how she usually didn’t read WIPs, but she’d taken a flyer on it and it was now 3am and she couldn’t stop reading it.

And that was an amazing day.

We’re friends now. I still respect every word she writes.

19. If you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick?

This is super hard. Because my portfolio is so divergent, really. Both because it’s in two very disparate fandoms AND because I stopped writing for so long that it’s really like my stories were written by two different people. I really feel like I need to choose two, one from “then” and one from “now” as it were:

The “then” fic... Things I’ll Never Say. Dragon Age, written for a Big Bang in 2013. 6000ish words, which is actually pretty short for me. I think it’s most reflective of my most natural writing style at the time (the others I was trying to do various things for effect, so a lot of the “me” is edited out of them. I would probably make different decisions if I did it again.) This one I think I just let myself write and it feels more natural and more “me” to me.

The “now” fic... honestly it’s still hard to say. I’ve only really written two fics in my modern writing era, so I’m not sure I can call that a portfolio. If I go with all the things I have planned, I suppose it would be the first chapter of “This May Be My Last Song” where I build out the relationship between Christian and Vincent that I’ve established in my mind and I drop some hints about their backstory and I sort of set up a lot of the things I want to talk about (and hopefully will get to) in other fics.

50. Has writing fanfic had a significant impact on your life? Would you say it’s entirely positive?

Definitely a significant impact. It’s what brought me into fandom on deeper levels. It’s given me many friends who I value highly, and I will always be grateful. Never a regret, and often something I’m SO GLAD that I do. I wouldn’t be on this site, most likely, and I wouldn’t know most of you (which would be a huge loss!), and I would be a hugely different person.

Nothing in life, I think, is ever entirely positive or entirely negative. I won’t say it’s entirely positive. There are days that I think I’ll never be good enough. That I’m a terrible writer. That there are so many better ways I can spend my time.

Writing takes time. It’s hard. I’m slow. And I’m mostly bad at it. Some days the words aren’t there and it’s like pulling teeth. Every time I post something, the deeply anxious part of me is convinced that everyone is going to hate it and laugh at me and ask me what I’m doing.

But thanks to fanfic I now experience football on a deeper level, and I value that, even though THAT isn’t an entirely positive experience either. My feelings around the transfer window this year were amped up to ELEVEN at all times. I was barely holding it together some days. I had to take days off from work because I was so close to losing it over a transfer rumour, and that, friends, is not a healthy way for me to live my life. However...it birthed one of my favourite stories, and one that needed telling, so I can’t say I regret it.

I think about this recent dive back into writing fanfiction and how I decided to write a Spurs fic for a fic/podfic challenge based on a crack idea someone and I were riffing off of while watching a match. Getting back into writing has been SO HARD, but before I started working on that fic in May/June I’d been in a place in life where I felt like nothing I did mattered and I was basically wasting my life and what was I even doing in the world? How was I making an impact? A difference? What was the point of me, anyway? What was my contribution? Somewhere along the journey of writing that fic--and it wasn’t at first because my first few chapters of writing were painful and awful and I thought “you’ve been out of the game for too long, you’ll never get it back. This was a mistake.”--something unlocked in me. I’ll never forget the Friday night where I was standing on my back deck and all of a sudden everything in the whole entire world felt right again in a way it hadn’t felt in so long, and I didn’t know what had changed, but I knew it had.

I remember the days I got up at 7AM started writing by 9AM paused for a few meals, and had to be dragged away from my laptop at 11PM to go to bed. I wrote for more than 12 hours. I didn’t want to stop writing even then. I lay awake, buzzing with energy, thinking about the story and the words and playing out the scenes in my head. Working through ways I could make it better and unstick the plots. The next day I got up and did the same thing all over again. And I felt GOOD. Good in a way that I hadn’t felt in so long. Buzzing with energy and excitement and riding this sort of euphoric feeling because I was creating something and I LOVED it.

So yeah, it’s impacted my life. And it hasn’t been entirely positive, but right now the positives are SO IMPORTANT that they make the negatives look like next to nothing in comparison. Even if I do complain about the negatives more often than I rave about the positives...