#also currently writing an epilogue because I can never write fics like this without one

[andhumanslovedstories]

If You Don't Have Store-Bought Character Growth, Homemade is Fine (chapter 15)

Luo Binghe knew he had demonic heritage. As he got older, his blood's influence became more and more apparent. He embraced the power it gave him and tried hard to stomp down everything else. His attraction was disgusting, violent, possessive, frightening—nothing Shizun could possibly tolerate. Nothing Shizun deserved. To win Shizun’s love, it was not enough to get older and attain glory, though both were essential parts of Luo Binghe’s elaborate forty-part seduction plan. Luo Binghe needed Shizun to feel safe. Hearing that Luo Binghe dreamed of ripping open his own chest and tucking Shizun within his ribs and viscera  so that no one could ever hurt him again was not what would make Shizun feel safe. 

(“Hey kid,” Meng Mo had said after that dream. “What the fuck.”)

ch 15 of ??? (but my current outline says 22) on AO3

So much dvd commentary:

This chapter is, astonishingly, exactly how I outlined. Some of the sections are in different places, but I managed to get through without adding another POV, introducing a new subplot, or going into such detail that I had to split the chapter in half. It IS about 8,000 words, but it's still one chapter. That's a win in my book.

With this chapter, I hit a total word count of about 85,000 with the first chapter posted in August. That's about 14,000 words a month. Fourteen thousand words, by the way, was my original lestimate for the whole thing. My new wordcount goal is to not double my wordcount before the story is over. In theory, that 85,000 represents about 2/3s of the story, but also I know how my long fic tendencies work. The later chapters always get longer and longer and longer.

The first chapter of Homesick (total word count 118,000) is 4k words. The last chapter of Homesick (not counting epilogue) is 16k. Character Growth fic has so many plot and character threads I want to wrap up. That's the thing about doing a canon rewrite (A PARTIAL CANON REWRITE. I'M NOT DOING ALL FOUR BOOKS)--I want to address all the parts of canon that would be affected by this AU. And then there's the stuff I invented for the fanfic, which also need to be resolved.

The increasing length and detail is the result of the stories being an evolving work in progress. I've always known the ending of the story and the very broad strokes of how we're getting there, but the details that texture the story develop as I'm actually writing. That means I'm adding stuff to current chapters because I find them interesting but also because I might need them later. The reason this fic has gotten so long is because I want big moments to feel like they had good buildup, but I'm not always sure what will be most useful for those big moments before I'm actually writing the scenes in context. So I want to have multiple elements I can draw upon, but I don't want those elements to feel unresolved if they never appear again. Like Yao Lijuan, for example. I wasn't sure if I'd need her again in a later chapter, so I tried to write her previous sections in a way where I could either bring her back as a pov character or keep her as a fairly simple joke.

Ocs in general are one of the most versatile tools I have for making narrative choices while still keeping my options open. It's so delightful to me when people comment that they like my OCs in chapters where the OCs are prominently featured, because I think very heard about how to give them a narrative purpose that couldn’t be filled by a canon character. I want to have a reason that I’m not just writing like Ning Yingying here instead. I'm aware fanfic is for fun and I can do whatever I want, but I find it really fun to deal with the challenge of "justifying" an original character.

Yao Lijuan was originally conceived because I wanted to show an outside POV on this timeline's Shen Qingqiu and on Qing Jing Peak in general. I also use Liu Qingge (and to a smaller degree Mu Qingfang) as outside POVs, but they're both Shen Qingqiu's peer. I wanted an outside POV from a younger geneartion disciple talking to other disciples, so I invented a feral ten-year-old girl from a rival peak. In addition to her filling this POV role I wanted, her voice is also SUPER useful to me. She's blunt, shameless, and knows what she wants. It's so easy to keep conversations and action moving with her because she just plows forward as reasonable characters try to keep up. She's the younger generation equivalent of LQG in that way, except with none of the relationship baggage.

That's the main reason I have certain OCs in this story. For the story I have in mind, I want SQQ to have relationships and conversations that don't have the weight of canon attached to them. There are things I want SQQ to do, say, or think that would be a lot harder if he’s interacting with someone who has set characterization and relationships. Like sometimes you don’t want to think about Ming Fang’s interior life.

Yao Lijuan emerged to be an outside POV disciple because I wanted to show how the younger generation views the new SQQ. She’s also there to characterize Bai Zhan Peak culture. Interacting with her in turn characterizes Qing Jing culture. The relationship between Bai Zhan and Qing Jing has ended up being more prominent than I originally anticipated, because that relationship functions as a representation of both Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge's relationship and as Cang Qiong versus Shen Qingqiu in general. The canon presents LQG and SQQ as bitter enemies prior to transmigration at which point LQG gets so down bad. I wanted that present in a lesser degree between the peaks themselves. Enemies to people who hang out together an inexplicable amount.

The OCs narrative need molds their personality, sometimes drastically from my original idea. The previous Qing Jing head disciple evolved as in response to what I needed to show about canon characters. In the originally posted version of her first appearance, she was straight up the peak lord. I snuck back in and retconned that when I realized that I wanted a foil for head disciple Shen Jiu, not Peak Lord Shen Qingqiu. Shen Jiu was originally going to kill her, but I thought that was too evil. Then she was going to die off-screen so he could become head disciple, but then I thought it was too easy.

I also thought about how if I want him ousting her to be a character moment with SJ that had weight to it, then Dai Qinglai should to be more sympathetic. But I’d already written her as affably abrasive and openly skeptical of SJ. I’d written it that way to compare to LBH’s tea ceremony with SQQ. So what way do I want her relationship with SJ to contrast with LBH and SQQ’s? I liked SJ seeing enough of himself in DQL and LBH that he can’t control his bitterness and envy. If they are like him, what would it mean if they were happy or successful and he wasn’t? Either something is wrong with him or something is wrong with the world, and he believes whichever version brings him the most satisfaction.

At the same time, I’m trying to figure out why Dai Qinglai is the one to welcome SJ? I was like, okay maybe the actual lord is absent so she’s in running the peak. The next question is if she’s doing a good job. I decided yes so she would be a genuine threat to SJ’s aspirations. Then since I was writing this in between scenes with Ming Fan, I shaped her so that she would be an interest foil to him. She’s someone who is considered by her shizun to be remarkable but too withholding and sly. She doesn’t like or respect her master. Meanwhile Ming Fan is a dedicated SQQ flunky, completely loyal and desperate to please. This isn’t not a major element on page in the outline, but I keep this comparison I’ve drawn in mind when I write Ming Fan and SQQ. Ming Fan’s narrative needs shape her character.

I also realized that I could pull in more of Shen Jiu's sexual trauma. I didn't want to write him as a sexual predator (again, I think that would be a bridge too far) but I wanted to show him inflicting his traumas upon others by betraying her in a way that relies upon sex work. He’s aware that she did a brave thing in being open about her past with him, and he cannot accept her doing that because he cannot conceive of reciprocating. He is misunderstood because he wants to be. He is incapable of the vulnerability of openness. And since Shen Jiu visiting brothels is such a big part of his character, I knew that we’d inevitably have a scene in a brothel, I just didn’t know when, so I did myself a favor by giving myself material to build on later.

Chapters later, when I wanted to flesh out the history of the previous generation in Liu Qingge's, I already had a character that I could use that was connected to Shen Jiu. Since Liu Qingge is reflecting on/responding to new knowledge about SJ being abused, it made sense for him to think about someone willing to say another peak is harboring an abuser. We see Dai Qinglai as the only person standing up to a repeat predator in the sect, and that this action is neither successful nor popular. That something about her but also about Liu Qingge for the way he recounts it and sect politics in general.

Plus, she had only been seen from SJ’s pov. SQQ is such an unreliable narrator and I want to constantly draw attention to that, which means multiple narrators dealing with the same or similar events, noticing different traits than he would and offering different opinions.

Besides just wanting to give Liu Qingge narrative space to react to the last chapter, I wanted to zoom out to look at the sect as a whole. Part of the issue of Original Shen Qingqiu was that he had no checks on his actions. His misconduct and abuse is tolerated. Additionally, Luo Binghe is bullied by basically everyone. Both of those speak to a more systemic problem than just one cruel peak lord. I could characterize the sect and LQG through this recounting of failed attempts to check an abuser’s actions through proper process and the ultimate solution of circumventing the official process to just beat the shit out of the guy.

I could have used a canon character in that role, but none of them were perfect. MQF didn’t have the right personality, Yue Qingyuan would have required giving the event more narrative weight than I wanted, and the other canonical peak lords haven’t really come up. And I knew that the next chapter or two was going to involve the brothel, and that DQL was going to be connected to the brothel, so if she was the character challenging LQG, then I can further characterize her which characterizes SJ by proxy for his decision to betray her AND remind people that she exists before she became plot relevant again.

That’s how plotting and characterization usually works for me. I like it when any given detail is able to serve at least four different needs. And thinking about narrative purpose and intent rather than specific plot actions helps me get out of ruts. Makes me thinking on a structural level.

I hope these are interesting to read, btw. I love hearing how authors think about their stories and find it very useful for my own writing. I'm not trying to like "explain how to read the story" or anything like that, but to show (some of) the reasoning that goes on behind the scenes for people like me who find the mechanics of writing fascinating.

[chairofchaos]

Evening friend!

You bring chaos to my life so here is a little chaos for you

2, 3, 5, 8, 19, 26

And just for fun because I know it will probably hurt me 40

Feel free to answer what you want and ignore the rest 🤍

GOOD EVENING.

Thank you for letting me bring chaos to your life, and for bringing me some in return. In your honor, I will answer all. Seemed like the most chaotic thing to do. I considered making separate posts for each question but then again that was a lot of work so just... bear with me. This is a long read, but hopefully, you will find it worth it.

2. Anything that you'd like to write but feel like you're unable to?

Yes. I am currently bouncing around multiple Greek/Roman tragedy adaptations of our beloved ACOTAR and TOG characters. I do not feel prepared to write these yet. I want to do them justice. That semester of studying tragic plays of the ancients has stuck with me.

3. How would you describe your writing style?

I don't even know how to answer this, but my best shot is this:

The vibe must be chaotic.

It must be written as fast as possible.

It should be entirely unplanned.

If it is planned, it should be entirely overwhelming and likely a bigger project than I should ever take on *cough cough* LETTERS *cough cough*

It's not a style as much as it is entirely based on my whims. And that's not always great. In fact, it's something I don't really enjoy about myself (comment on this and I will edit it out of this post so fast I SWEAR).

But I enjoy the product. I think there are at least a couple of you that do, too, so hopefully we can all enjoy that little piece of chaos together. If not, I'll just enjoy the pain I create on my own like a good little fanfic writer.

5. What's a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies?

I don't think such a thing exists. I don't like surprises? Idk, this doesn't really make sense to me. Clearly I have no problem tagging things Dead Dove so we all know what I'm up to lol

8. How slow is a slow burn?

Somewhere between 100 and 100k words. I genuinely do not care. Depends on the medium? The pacing? A slow burn described in a poem is going to look very different than a slow burn in a fic the length of The Iliad and the Odyssey. Or Wheel of Time (that's a long series, right?). I don't care. It's all great. I love slow burns. Haven't written one because I think those characters should be enjoying each other romantically on page 1, but I LOVE reading them.

19. Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

UNANSWERED STARS YOU BEAUTIFUL HUMAN. Is this what you expect to hurt (I haven't looked ahead at the other questions I'm doing this straight through, no edits, no takebacks. Welcome to Chaos- you get two.).

Eris was no saint, either. Cauldron knew he kept his mate up some nights. But the Cauldron also knew Azriel would get out of bed in the middle of the night and take off into flight, not returning until he knew Eris would also be awake. After the first time, they would rarely talk about where Azriel went or what he did. Instead, Eris would press a mug of overly sweet coffee into his hands and they would sit together in silence on the front porch, Azriel’s head on Eris’ shoulder and their hands clasped together. - {Working Title is Coffee and Psychotherapy. THIS ONE IS ACTUALLY FLUFF YOU CAN THANK DUSK-MUSE AND NINTHCIRCLEOFPRYTHIAN}

And maybe more along the lines of what you were expecting:

Azriel found the most enjoyment in the training and teaching of others. In his time as spymaster, he regularly found time to work with young soldiers, for which many have since thanked him, crediting him with saving their lives by instructing them in his limited spare time. In the years since the war, Azriel enjoyed collecting books from all over the world. The collection he amassed was the instigator for a library to honor his mate. - Death, and All That Follows (This may or may not be a sort of extended epilogue to something I wrote recently.)

26. What would you describe as OOC?

This is possibly a wild take: I don't think I care what is out of character for characters I write. It depends on the fic, sure. But I think perspective forms our understanding of characters, and seeing them in a new light can often bring a different, even "OOC" type attitude to fics which I often enjoy. I am very much an advocate for "Don't Like, Don't Read" not only for plot points but for characterization as well. If you don't enjoy the way someone writes your favorite (or your least-favorite!) character, don't read it. The beautiful thing about being a part of a fandom is the diversity of experiences within it.

I did not read Nesta's journey the same way you did, or the way your friend did, or the way my best friend did. I brought my own perspectives, my own experiences, to my interpretation of her actions, words, and thoughts. I came out of the other side loving her, and loving the way she loves. I recognize myself in her. I know I'm not alone in that. I know that there are a great many who do not like her in the slightest.

ACOSF Nesta was presented very differently to ACOTAR Nesta. (For the purposes of this argument, we are removing the debate about The Author Herself because I simply don't care at the moment and that's a much larger topic.) I don't think that anyone's interpretation of Nesta is "wrong" or "bad" because we all bring a pair of glasses to reading, and that glass is made of our experiences. That's the filter through which you consume the work. My glasses are different from yours. That's okay.

Little tangent while we're on the topic: I don't care if your glasses are different. But if you break those glasses to use the shards of glass for the purpose of hurting other people, that's a problem. I have a problem now, and so do you. Because of the inclusion of the argument above, it needed to be said, and so here it is: Don't hurt others because of your glasses. Theirs are different. Please learn to recognize that, and that it is okay to view pieces of media differently. Tangent over.

So TLDR on OOC: I don't care. If you want to write a piece where character canonically named Bubblegum Sunshine Princess because of her (in-canon) overwhelming joy and love of the outdoors and her kingdom's candy trees is a murderous assassin filled with rage and the destructive flame of a thousand suns, go right ahead. There's a very good chance I would love to read it.

40. Write a 9-word fic.

Title: This is a Thing [REDACTED] Learned. The title will be longer than the fic itself, and that's the beauty of The Thing [REDACTED] Learned. Thanks.

A/N: (Stars. My dearest friend. You expect pain here? Now I want to prove you wrong...)

Pairing: Your OTP. Or my OCs. Or is this about my life? Or yours? Who knows. I'm not currently well lol

...........................................

Knowledge came with no promises, no love, no you.

...........................................

All the love, Stars. You're the best. <3<3<3<3<3

[fiona-fififi]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @spotsandsocks. Thank you for the tag!!

How many works do you have on Ao3?

59

What's your total Ao3 word count?

250,243 words

What fandoms do you write for?

Currently only 911. In the past, Supernatural, Shameless, Bones, and BtVS.

Top 5 fics by kudos:

Breaking News

The jury's out, but my choice is you

On the Outside

say (don't) go

Believe in one thing, I won't go away

Do you respond to comments?

Honestly, no. Trying to respond stresses me out. It can take me literally hours to figure out how to respond to a single comment, and then I feel like, if I respond to one, I have to respond to all immediately, and my anxiety can't handle it. So I've mostly stopped responding. Every now and then, I will respond to a friend because I don't stress over those, or if someone makes a weird comment where they seem to have misunderstood something I might respond to try to clear things up.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

For 911, honestly, I don't think I have any angsty endings. Plenty of angsty fics, but most of my endings are happy or at least hopeful. I guess I would maybe say the one with the angstiest ending is Believe in one thing, I won't go away, but the end is still pretty hopeful.

Outside of 911, the angstiest ending was definitely in a little Supernatural fic I wrote many years ago titled The Things They've Left Behind. It's also one of fics I'm proudest of. But it's a rough one.

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

Honestly, there are quite a few happy endings to my fics, but I think say (don't) go takes this one. It's a little angsty through the main story, but the epilogue is just pure fluff.

Do you get hate on fics?

Not often, but once or twice. More often than hate for the fic, I get sort of weird hate comments about side characters in the story. Like, I'll have a fic where Taylor Kelly is kind of in the background, but not in any way written hatefully or even negatively, and people will just go off on the character in the comments, which is weird and not a great look. Don't do this, y'all.

I did once get a hate comment accusing me of villainizing Eddie based on the summary alone, I believe. I responded, and they apologized, which I appreciated. But I will never understand people's need to toss around accusations without even reading the actual fic.

Do you write smut?

I have in the past, but not recently. I really have to be in a very specific mood to write smut, and often I just cannot tap into the focus I'd need for it because I generally find writing smut boring. So it takes me forever to actually finish anything even a little bit smutty. I've had a post vow renewal smut fic in the works since the vow renewal aired, and I just can't get it together.

So. Often not my cup of tea as a writer.

Craziest Crossover:

Okay, I don't have this posted on Ao3 (I think it's on ff.net?), but I once wrote a series of Sam Winchester/Temperance Brennan fics. Those were fun times.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so. I had a couple of fanvids stolen back when I vidded for Bones, but never fics, I don't think.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I think someone asked once and may have done the translation? I can't remember if anything ever came of it, though.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not. I don't have the focus or discipline to co-write with anyone. I would immediately lose focus and cause everything to go off the rails, and I would never want to do that to someone else.

All time favorite ship?

All time? I don't know. I really want to say buddie, but also, like Mulder/Scully and Sam/Dean. Honestly, I tend to be just very, very attached to my ship of the moment, so answering for all time is tough.

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

Probably this Natalia finds out about Chris fic because I keep accidentally fogetting it exists, which. is hindering progress.

What are your writing strengths?

I honestly don't know. I think maybe emotional scenes or angst?

What are your writing weaknesses?

A lot. Focus is the worst. I just don't really have it, and it makes writing near impossible. I also don't think I'm any good at scene transitions or dialogue sometimes.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I wouldn't personally do it because I don't have enough of any other lanuage to feel comfortable with it. I might use a word here or there if the character uses it regularly and I feel generally comfortable with the context and/or translation. I also don't love when people drop in dialogue or things in other languages and admit to just using google translate because that feels. not great.

I also don't think it should be translated in the middle of the fic. Sometimes, it's okay to not understand every single word of a fic, and people who speak and write in other languages shouldn't have to translate every word for their readers over a couple of lines in another language. Which might be a weird take, but that's where I stand on it, I think.

First fandom you wrote in?

Like, in my little notebooks before the internet was a thing in my house, it was The X-Files when I was like 8-11. That I posted in a fandom I actually interacted with, I think it was BtVS.

Favorite fic you've written?

This one's kind of a toss up. For 911, I think it's probably one of the following:

I got nothing to believe (unless you're choosing me)

say (don't) go

You were bigger than the whole sky

Home

I know I should narrow it down more, but I don't know. That first one is probably recency bias and the fact that parts of it are deeply personal to me. The second is the Eddie wants kids fic, which I worked on for months, so it has a special place in my heart. The third one is kind of a weird little experiment that was just unlike anything I'd ever written before. And the fourth one is a post break-up fic, and I really enjoyed playing with that kind of angst.

So they were all pretty different, and I can't choose.

Tagging (no pressure! and sorry for any double tags!): @messyhairdiaz @shortsighted-owl @elvensorceress @reachingforaspark @wh0re-behavi0r @daffi-990 @eddiebabygirldiaz and anyone else who wants to participate.

[junkshop-disco]

Just posted a new chapter so what better time for a fic meme. Tagged by @magicalrocketships but idk if I have any better screen grabs than theirs.

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

38, which makes the average word count completely ridiculous.

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

1,048,397. Average word count 27,589. Brevity, I don't know her.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Downton Abbey, Fate the Winx Saga, Good Omens currently.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Honeysuckle Arch

Learning to Speak the Language of Flowers

An Equal and Opposite Reaction

Instalments

The Could in People

Whenever I look at the stats, I'm taken aback at just how skewed my sense of which fics are the most popular is. Because I would not have guessed some of these at all.

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

I try to, but I am--at heart--a deeply anxious squirrel masquerading as a person and any sort of interaction with people I don't know well can sometimes be too much for me to handle. When my anxiety is bad, I imagine that every single comment will be about how shit my writing is and what an awful person I am, so I can't read them right away, let alone reply. I have to work up to them and do a couple at a time and I always intend to reply but sometimes, weeks/months/years pass without me feeling up to it and then it feels too awkward. Right now my anxiety is much better thanks to lots of medication and some pretty hefty life changes, so I'm more able to engage with them like a vaguely normal person, but sometimes if I have a bad week, opening the comment box to reply 'thanks! Glad you liked it' makes me feel like James Bond sitting nose to nose with an armed bomb. I do hold onto comments, though. I screen grab ones that really resonated and re-read them when I feel down. They mean a great deal to me, even if I can't always say so in a timely fashion.

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

It's definitely a Merlin fic, possibly Doubt Creeps In? That whole thing is pretty angsty and there's no real resolution. I wrote a few angsty endings in Merlin fic.

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

Idk that I've ever written truly happy ending. I've written cute endings, give-them-a-break endings, but I don't know if I'd describe any of them as happy. I don't tend to go in for them. Nothing winds me up more than an epilogue with a pasted on happy ending. I have been known to hurl a book across the room.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven't for a while but I used to when I wrote HP fic. My favourite ever was 'you should be flayed for writing this. I hope you die.' I still laugh when I think about it.

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

Yes. All kinds? I have written the odd fade to black in my time and also the most unremitting filth in all flavours of vanilla to kinky.

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

I've written a handful. Back on LJ I wrote a Merlin/Twilight crossover where Edward and Merlin team up to fight evil vampire unicorns who can only be killed by virgins singing at them until they explode.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yep. Tbh I just feel sad for the people who do it. It seems like a very hollow way to do fandom.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep. And podficced! It's always nice.

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

I've done a few Big Bangs and other events where I collaborated with someone and it's always one of my favourite things to do. I've also co-written some... stuff on anon, which we're not going to talk about 👀

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

Can anyone pick just one? Like Hotel California, I check out but I never leave. I am still here for Mulder and Scully, Mal and Inara, Tara and Willow, Giles and Jenny, Bradley and Colin, Merlin and Gwaine, Nick and Harry and Niall, Isak and Even, Remus, Lily, Sirius and Tonks, Crowley and Aziraphale, Thomas and Richard, Ed and Stede, Farah and Saul. The ships I love never leave me and picking a favourite would make me sad.

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

If I'm posting it, it will get finished. I have a couple of things languishing on my hard drive that may never see the light of day, like a Thomas in LA fic post DA2, but I can't not finish things.

16. What are your writing strengths?

A commitment to the bit? An unwavering belief there's never a bad time for banter? An unfailing devotion to poking people's bruises?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

See above.

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

Would attempt only in a comedy situation where getting it wrong was the point.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Firefly. The first one I posted in was HP though, rip.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Saying I'm fond of all of them would be such a cop out, wouldn't it? In truth, my favourite is usually the one I'm currently writing, so let's say Sum of the In-between Things. It's morphed so far from what I intended it to be and I have literally no idea if I can stick the landing on it, but I've genuinely had a blast writing it, and that's the point, isn't it?

Tagging: @septemberrie @myalchod and @magnolia822!

[dontbelasagnax]

Fic Writer 20 Questions

Thank you for the tag @lttrsfrmlnrrgby! I am so very behind on all the tag games oops

1.) How many works do you have on ao3?

Technically 41 but 35 are fics and 6 are artworks.

2.) What's your ao3 word count?  

150,270!

3.) What fandoms do you write for? 

Currently I mainly write for Star Wars (codywan) but I also write for Good Omens! In the past I've also written fic for Doctor Who, Supernatural, Hannibal, and Criminal Minds. I think there's also a She-Ra fic that never made it past a couple paragraphs in my Google Docs 😂

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos?

1- kiss it better, baby: short and sweet destiel fic exploring sex repulsed asexuality in omegaverse

2 - Some Secrets aren't Meant to be Told: unfinished reader insert Criminal Minds x Supernatural crossover casefic I started when I was a teenager and abysmal at writing. Not to further disparage my age appropriate writing skills, but the formatting makes it nearly unreadable. We all learn and grow

3 - I'll Try and Somehow Make a Meaning of the Poison in this Place: 5 firsts between codywan as friends-with-benefits PLUS 1 time as boyfriends!

4 - catch me if you can (you already have): very sweet THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED codywan fic

5 - you're cute when you're nervous: good ol' codywan fic where they fulfill their promise of "after the war"

The blurbs are necessary because I do not recognize my fics by their titles 😂

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

I respond to every comment! Sometimes it just takes me a while because I've got anxiety and overthink everything. But I do always eventually reply! *glances at my inbox of 45+ comments and sweats*

6.) What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

If you discard the blip of an epilogue at the end of what's left unspoken, your heart will ache. I wrote the epilogue because after I finished the fic, I read it through, sat back and thought "ow, what the fuck". Couldn't leave myself and everyone else with that bittersweet open ending.

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

Oh God. Everything I've ever written has a happy ending. I don't even know, man. Maybe my fwb codywan fic since it has so many rocky bits that the ending feels all the more sweet?

8.) Do you get hate on fics?

Very fortunate to say that I haven't!

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

Yes, yes I do. My smut exists as an expression of love and a vessel of emotional and physical intimacy between the characters. Even when I think I've just written something properly fucknasty, all my comments are like "wow this is so soft and sweet 🥺". Genuinely, my smut is so asexual. It's rare I write characters experiencing sexual attraction; it's all about how the characters feel, both physically and emotionally. I've not done a very good job of making this sound sexy. I promise people say it's hot too.

I really respect authors who write unabashedly horny things without the characters being in love. Hats off to you guys. I've got no fucking clue how that works!

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

I have written one crossover (the one linked in the kudos question) but I don't think it was particularly crazy. Don't think I'll ever write another crossover but I do love fusions and I've done one of Sleeping Beauty and Star Wars! I'd definitely love to do something like that again.

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated?

I haven't but that would be so cool.

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Nope!

14.) What's your all time favorite ship?

Oh goodness. Well. Hm. My ships have all gotten me through the lowest points of my life thus far and led me to meet my most treasured friends. I don't think I could concretely give an answer to this because every ship is special to me in a different way. I will say that I find myself so unbelievably grateful for codywan these days. 

15.) What's a WIP you'd like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I have a Hannibal coffeeshop AU (Hannibal is still a cannibal, he just falls in love (unhealthily obsessed) with Will who's the only barista at the overpriced coffeeshop he frequents to get his order perfectly correct every single time) that I loooooove but I genuinely have not been able to get into the right headspace and flow to finish it.

16.) What are your writing strengths?

I'm really good at writing tender and heartfelt emotions. All the sap. It's my niche. If it's not implanted into every crevice of the fic just how sickeningly in love the characters are with one another, then it's not something I've written. I don't even do it on purpose most of the time. I sneeze and it appears on the page.

17.) What are your writing weaknesses?

I cannot possibly comprehend drafts (for fic writing). Everything has to be as close to how it is in my head on the first try. This is why it takes me so excruciatingly long to write anything. I hunker down and overthink and rewrite the same sentence five times over the course of an hour. Yes I know this isn't a sustainable writing method, HOWEVER, I've never claimed to have a good method of writing. Also, I'm not changing it. I'm stuck in my ways and I like it here. I'm cozy.

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

If not done in a very specific way, it's definitely a pet peeve of mine.

19.) First fandom you wrote for?

Doctor Who!

20.) Favorite fic you've ever written?

At the moment, it's you're cute when you're nervous. Everytime I read it--which isn't often because I like to give myself time and space from my fics so I can enjoy them properly--it hits me with violent waves of emotion. Everything feels so palpable. I just really love it.

I've got no clue who's already been tagged so, truly, these are no pressure tags: @shortcuts-make-long-delays @aquaticflames @inkformyblood @agreekdemigod @cillyscribbles

[navysealt4t]

HELLO BLUE!! ^_^ i am back in your inbox to peddle my wares (fic concepts that are plaguing me actively)

BASICALLY for further context: this fic is like. how i have it in my head is the first chapter is a wishful-thinking type of thing. where clown is intentionally out of character (and specifically more in-line with zam's perception of him, being strong willed and close with the thing plaguing him. accepting it and emerging unharmed from the process of becoming one with [in his case] the void.) and celebrated. it's a fantasy. which is part of why that's specifically referred to as abacināre; to be blinded (typically by a red-hot iron rod or basin). because it isn't the truth.

"wind up the music box, look at the book again. whose story is it really?" is a call to the correct story, the one that zam was hiding behind this dream of being someone else.

currently i haven't fully finished zam's part. but. i gave him moths as a manifestation of trauma & paranoia & fear ^_^ because i just. something in my brain makes that click. (i've used that in previous fics. i can't remember where it came from but i like it, i use it). zam's spend his life trying to kill his fear, or hide away from it, only for it to come fluttering in through the cracks. so harmless, yet absolutely soul-destroying for him. he's tearing himself apart by proxy, since he's killing a part of himself with those moths.

something something trauma acceptance... i dunno it's a flowery metaphor for admiring people who've learnt to cope with trauma (or at least, what you've perceived as such. this is untrue in the case of what zam's seeing. clown was never bothered or hurt by the void, it was just a part of life to him. making this goal completely unachievable and unreasonable on zam's part) and not knowing how to, since their example doesn't apply to what you experienced. so instead you try and follow the example and it just brings you back to square one time and time again.

also, hence, spērāre, which can mean any of the following: "to hope, expect", "to await, anticipate", "to fear, be apprehensive", "to assume, suppose".

ALSO LASTLY, the fic's title being Asomatous, meaning without a material body; incorporeal. is just the icing on the cake that is this horrible angst riddled fic. because like. zam's assumptions aren't based in anything real, they have no grounding to them. and honestly? in this... zam may as well be a ghost. and the moths as well. they aren't real, they're a manifestation ^_^ (i can't go ten minute without giving my blorbos issues. and i just like making them Like Me yk yk)

(if i give this fic a nice/happy ending then we'll get a little healing. otherwise uh. self destructive tendencies the curse yet also my beloved as a plot device.)

ogugffbhjnkfmk i have. so many thoughts...... this is supposed to just be a random fic concept that i write and never think about again. im thinking about this one a LOT. i hope you've enjoyed my nonsense ramblings because i didnt realize i could talk this much until i just. started. talking.

oh. also. song ^_^

ooiugh pitting all of this In my Mouth <3333 i LOVEEE this idea clown being intentionally out of character and idk why but i LOVEE ‘whose story is it really?’

AND MOTHS!!!! AS THE MANIFSTATION OF FEAR AND TRAUMA AIUHH <3333 i love bugs as like metaphors and in writing it’s sooo ���💥

FUCKING . HOLD U IN MY HAND I LOVEEE HOW UR BRAIN WORKS <333333 oughh the title i love it i LOVE this 🫶🫶🫶🫶

i loveeee the nonsense rambling <3 just getting lil bits of ur brain i love words fuck yeah !!!!!

[unhitches-similes]

20 Questions for Fanfic Writers

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

13 (current penname)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

122,174 (current penname)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Under my current penname: Marvel/MCU, Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis, and Miraculous Ladybug--but I have ideas for fics in other fandoms!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Eidetic Image (T) Marvel

The Stand-In (G) Marvel - Stony

How to Avoid Thinking (E) Marvel - IronHawk

You Wanna Go (on a Date with Me)?! (T) Marvel - Stony

Change is All (T) - SG-1

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

Yes, absolutely. That said, it can occasionally take me months to do so, especially on my older works, because I leave them in my inbox and hoard them like a dragon because they make me so happy.

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

I really should write more angst, tbh... that said, the only fic I currently have that can really be called angsty and ends without a happy ending is Worse Than Myth.

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

I would say Eidetic Image has a happy ending, if you don't count the teaser/cliffhanger that is the epilogue. Otherwise probably Change is All?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've been writing fanfiction in some form for 20+ years and posting for nearly as long, so I've definitely gotten a few hate comments over the years, but nothing on any of my recent stuff. In part because I'm not that known, probably.

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

Yes, and it really depends on the muse.

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

I don't really write any crazy crossovers, although technically, most of my Marvel fics are a fusion of various Marvel sources (MCU, 616, etc.) and I've also got a crossover between SG-1 and Atlantis, but they're really the same fandom families and don't really count as real crossovers, imo.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge and it's my hope that I never do.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I had several translated under my previous penname, but none of my recent stuff; I've divorced myself from the fandom in question.

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

Under a previous penname, yes.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Asking a shipper's favorite ship is cruel and unusual, but it's probably almost definitely IronHawk or Stuckony. Also Spirk. I also really love the Lovesquare in all its permutations.

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

I don't have an WIPs currently being posted for this very reason. So many ideas. With my motivation and butterfly brain, I'll never finish them all.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm pretty great with dialogue and emotive scenes, I think? I'm not sure--please let me know!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Not actually writing even though I really want to. I also struggle with action scenes, but everyone says they always come out fine, so I'm not sure.

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

Oh. Oh, this is a bad question to ask me.

Listen, if the readers are supposed to understand what's being said, then freaking write it in the same language as the rest of fic and italicize to indicate it's in a different language. If I have to go hunting for a goddamn translation, or scroll back and forth to the mf-ing notes, when I'm supposed to know what's being said, odds are very high that I'm going to simply stop reading a fic. It's bad writing. Yes, I said it. It's bad writing--it's your job as a writer to make sure a reader can understand what they need to without making them jump through hoops. If your "aesthetic" matters more to you than making your narrative readily accessible to your readers, you need to rethink having another language being spoken. That said, if readers aren't supposed to understand what is said (or it's obvious/doesn't matter in the case of, like, spells or something), or you work the translation into the story right away, I'm all for it. Those are the only times I find it acceptable to actually have another language that's spoken written in a language different from the rest of the narrative.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Cats (the 1998 video, not that 2019 monstrosity)

20. Favorite fics you’ve written?

I'm really rather proud of Eidetic Image despite its numerous and varied flaws, as well as The Seeds of Great Enterprises. I also really had a lot of fun writing my Miraculous BFF-swap story Crushes and Antics.

Thank you so much for tagging me, @hamsteriffic! <3 I think I shall give a poke to... ahhhhh--anyone who sees this and might wanna do it as well! I lack the temerity to ask anyone apart from Hamster or Waffle lol

[princesscolumbia]

And on today's episode of "I was today years old when I found out that not everyone does it that way..."

I have been writing with varying degrees of productivity and mostly been really trial-and-error with what makes me a good writer. Sometime last November (more like late-October, but I only really noticed in November), some bit flipped and now I can just sit down and write, every day, whenever I want, for hours at a stretch sometimes.

I have, in fact, gotten to the point where I need to consciously NOT choose to write on days when I'm low on spoons or I'll burn myself out...again.

I kinda knew it was a bit exceptional when I had wrapped up what, in my mind, was the starting section, the first establishing story arc, of a novel...or at least it's one novel in my head. I threw the whole blob of text for the establishment of my setting, what makes this variant universe of the setting in which my fanfic is based unique, and I popped in an author's note saying, "Okay, setup's done."

My first comment was the following, single-line reply:

This was all SETUP?

And that made me realize that most novels usually don't take 45k words for the setup.

It also made me realize that I'd powered through an entire novel's worth of writing in around a month...right on the heels of another 110k+ word novel that I'd written in the course of about 2 months, right after I'd body-slammed the NaNoWriMo word-count in November and blew right past it with four short stories and an update to a WIP.

I currently have a word-count daily goal of 1,400 words...and I often rocket right past that without noticing. I have to intentionally take days off for my mental health and physical well-being or I will write.

I don't know what caused this, I don't know why I do it, I am very aware there are many authors out there that are insanely jealous of my ability and I've been asked for the secret sauce a dozen times, and I just haven't really known what to tell people...until reading this post and realizing that this is just the stuff that I do and I thought every author did it.

So without further ado, minor supplemental commentary of my take on the prev author's advice, with the assurance that everything they said is 100% correct and at this point I'm just gilding the lily:

1. Writing nonlinearly

Seriously, if you have ADHD and are pushing yourself to write linearly, stop. For 3 of the last five completed projects I did I had something like an epilogue or novel climax already written before I'd finished writing chapter 3. Yes, you may have an idea how you want a fic to go and you'll be conscious about making sure your writing gets there, but nothing helps an ADHD brain like a target to hyperfixate on.

1.a - Jump around! Jump around! Jump up, jump up and get down!

Now that I've shown my age; if you have ADHD (and maybe if you don't, not like I've never not been ADHD so I wouldn't know), your brain doesn't work linearly at all and you're only fighting yourself if you try not to follow the dopamine.

On my current WIP, I jammed through chapters 14 through 19 all in a row...then suddenly had a yen to do some text for the tentatively numbered chapter 25. I hammered out a daily-goal's worth of scene chewing (currently available as a sneak peak to all tiers, even free, on my Patreon /shameless_plug). I then bounced back to do ch. 20 before my brain locked in on exactly how I wanted to write the climax of the entire book and that took me all the way to the end (but before the epilogia). I'm not back to chapter 21 and practically pouring the words out from the full pitcher that is my brain because I allowed it to fill with content at the pace it works best at.

2. Rereading my own work

Of course I re-read my own stuff! I'm the only one who knows exactly what I want to read! 😋 Quite seriously, I have gone back to reading stuff I wrote, like, 10 or even 20 years ago because my brain is saying that's where it wants to be...and it turns out that was just what was causing me to not be able to write. Whether I just needed to take a break, needed to revisit a headspace, or I wrote something that reminded me of something else and I wanted to write it again, I've learned to let my brain lead me in the direction it needs to go.

3. Marinating in the headspace of the story

OP is probably right that this isn't a necessary thing for your writing. Heaven knows I've got a day job and can't just stew in my headspace for my fics all the time. But one thing that cannot be denied is sometimes it's hard to get back into the right headspace, and for me the solution turned out to be; playlists.

This is the playlist for my current WIP. Obviously, at a 2+ hour runtime, what you see above isn't the entire list. That list constitutes, however, all the music that I have, in whatever fashion, mentally associated with the headspace for Code of Ethics. I've done this for every WIP I have for nearly 20 years, and even if I decided to go back to one of those early, early fics that I haven't touched since before Trump was elected, all I need to do is dig up the playlist for it (even if that means re-launching iTunes for the first time in over a year) and hitting "play" and I'm back in that headspace.

Going to tag on one more thing that works for me 99% of the time:

4. Read OTHER PEOPLE'S work!

I write because I was inspired to write. There's other ways to tell the stories I want to tell and be creative and be good at it. I chose writing because other people wrote stuff that 'spoke' to me. Fission came about because I had some ideas that I knew could work because @burgerbecky had already done similar stuff with her writing. I knew Deviation was a thing that could be successful because I'd read plenty of Omegaverse fics. Double Isekai was going to be written by someone and so I figured I might as well get in there first because I'd already read DOZENS of isekai fics. And Code of Ethics came out of, "Okay, but what about...?" while I was reading QuietValerie's Troubleverse. Whatever inspired you to write, sometimes you just gotta go back in and read it again, read the sequel, read more of whatever it was that got you into writing so you remember, "...oh yeah, that's why I write!"

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

[chornayadrakoshig]

saw this fic writter tag on @oh-hush-its-perfect page and decided to join too :) I'm not tagging anyone directly but feel free to participate!

My Ao3 if anyone is interested: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChornayaDrakoshig

1. How many fics do you have published on Ao3? 

70 currently posted; I'm moving to Ao3 from another website and there is one collection of oneshot translations that I haven't reposted yet + a few essays/character analysis works that are kinda in question, as well as some old things and original works (I'm still not 100% if I want to repost them or not, maybe I'll do some editing first)

2. What's your total word count on Ao3?

235,711 at the time of posting (9 feb 2024) - not a total word count ever published, but the other website I've used doesn't have stats like that (it's in pages and this stat is disabled since I've hidden everything into drafts there)

3. For which fandoms do you write?

mostly Code Lyoko; second largest is Harry Potter, but I doubt I'll write any more HP after finishing the current WIP crossover. I'm not going to say "never" but well...

besides that, I have a few one shots written for Miraculous Ladybug, Humans, Parked, Testament of Youth (yes, I was hardcore Colin Morgan fan okay? I watched most of the films/shows with him pre 2016 and even one theatre play recording)

and I have a lot of fandoms on my "want to write" list including one large fic activelly in planning/plotting stage 👀

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

tbh I barelly have any kudos on my Ao3 account because I'm reposting my works under original publication date so they are deep, deep in the tags. Also at the moment I'm writting/translating in russian only, and Ao3 isn't even in top 3 of popular fanfic websites for this language. But I picked it for reasons

so, originally posted top 5 were (unsurprisingly all HP):

Сломанный маховик (time-travel fix-it, marauders era, Sirius/OC - and that's the largest multichapter I've ever did)

Шесть шагов (Jily one shot)

Чем пахнет свобода? (Sirius-related one shot, OC mentioned but unspecified, related to 1st fic but can be read separately)

Крёстная (7ish years post main canon [not epilogue], Teddy Lupin and his OC godmother - again related to 1st fic but can be read separately)

Осеннее обострение (Jily oneshot)

and on Ao3 currently:

Сломанный маховик (yep again)

Снежный Ангел (Code Lyoko, that's a translation actually! William/Aelita)

Остаточное погружение (Miraculous Ladybug, one shot, darker take on the results of akumatization, focuses on Alya)

Маршмеллоу и овсяное печенье (Miraculous Ladybug, one shot, fluff, Alya/Nino)

Lyokober (Code Lyoko, one shot collection made for challenge, each fic is a different pairing - has both popular ships and rarepairs)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to respond to everyone (especially now when I don't get a lot of them on the new platform)

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

ooooh I love angsty open endings :) I think one of my favourite is "Ритуал" (Code Lyoko, aftermath of main character(s) death, kinda apocalyptic AU)

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

that's the hardest question so far xD As I mentioned I like to breathe in the angst, so, eh, I think "Сломанный маховик"as it was time-travel fix-it?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really? I got a few "this is a dumb idea" type of comments, but it was few and far between idk if it counts as hate comments.

But I got banned from one discord server and part of the reason was mentioning one ship I've written for. So...

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

Not my thing really - tbh I rarelly read smut too (maybe like, 25% or less of things I read?). If we don't include translations, I have one original work that's kinda Prelude/PWP without Porn thing. And one one shot with rape/non-con. Most of the time, if the fic even touches that, I'm more "fading into darkness, no detailed description of body parts of poses, feelings-focused, T rating at most" type of smut writer.

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

I love crossovers but I've ever written (or, rather, I'm currently writting) only one. It's Code Lyoko & Harry Potter, where Harry's world is a virtual reality that Lyoko Warriors explore.

However, I like to go into inspired-by-fandom AUs that aren't really full crossovers, as they don't include characters or detailed worldbuilding from another fandom, but they are heavily inspired - I think I have multiple fics like that.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I had one fic stolen (I think one of my HP ones? honestly I don't remember at this point). Also had a few shorter original works reposted with minor edits and no links/credit on social media.

And, unrelated to writting - there was an art of my fan character (not made by me, I think I got it as art trade or gift?) that was recolored & reposted on instagram once.

12. Have you ever had a work translated?

No, but I translate a lot myself - currently out of 70 posted works 16 are translations! I mostly translate from english but there are 2 french-russian translations too.

13. Have you co-written a fic before?

Nope, but I helped to beta-read/edit a handfull of works before. Also worked on ideas/worldbuilding for original work together but I haven't wrote for it. Also co-translated a fic once!

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

Odd/Aelita (Code Lyoko)

Sirius/Hermione (Harry Potter, a specific subset of time-travel fix-it fanfic but I occasionally read other stuff)

Raine/Eda (The owl house)

Crowley/Aziraphale (Good Omens)

Eddie/Chrissy (Stranger Things)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but probably never will? 

I had one WIP (not reposted currently and probably never will) that is canon retelling in format of poetry, kinda witty and satirical. I'm bad at poetry. And at satire. The original show is over 100 episodes long. I wrote 3 poems on this wave of inspiration and abandoned it. But I still think the idea is funny and it would be cool to finish it but I have all those other WIPs I'm a) more interested in now b) more likelly to finish

16. What are your writing strengths?

God I like descriptions. Maybe even too much. Also with book-based fandoms, I've often got comments that my writting gives the same vibe as the book writting, so I guess I tend to imitate the tone & writting style relativelly well?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm so bad in plotting long-form content it's not even funny. I tend to get one-liner ideas, about a setting, AU type, or a scene, but I struggle to come up with conflict, character development, events. I literally completed only 2 multichapter fics.

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

I'm not a big fan of including whole dialogs in one language into a fic written in another. My go-to is 3 or less phrases per chapter, with translation in the notes. If I need to include larger dialogue, and the scene include character(s) that don't know the language, I write it in translation, maybe highlight it in italic or bold font, and sprinkle in mentions of what language are they speaking and that other character(s) don't understand what's going on.

Maybe I'm traumatised by reading "War and Peace" back in school but 1st tome has pages after pages that are almost all in french. The footnotes with translation take half of the page. It's not fun to read when you don't know the other language!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Merlin (this fic is an abandoned wip and currently isn't on my Ao3 but I plan to repost it for sentimantal reasons :) - written in 2011)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I can't pick one they all are my babies 😭 but some of the favourites:

Гордое фарфоровое божество (Humans, poem, Astrid/Niska)

Вырви мне сердце (Parked, poem - and it has stunning podfic that makes me emotional every time I listen to it)

Крёстная (HP, Teddy Lupin and his OC godmother)

Снаружи (current WIP! Code Lyoko & Harry Potter crossover)

[letsyesnomaybe]

Never Gonna Wanna Let Me Go | Part 6

Zayn Malik is one of the highest paid escorts in London. He’s good at his job, he knows this. But it’s not his chosen field, it’s easy money so he can have a chance to pursue his chosen field without becoming homeless. His employer Caroline has many rules to keep him safe but Zayn only has one ‘Don’t Get Attached’. Of course, there was always going to be one, the guy who would come in to the picture and make Zayn’s easy job almost impossible.

Liam Payne. Twenty Six. Made his money by inheriting his father’s music business after he passed away. Quite well known so expect publicity. Wants a pretty face on his arm to cover the events he has to attend while in town on business. Make sure he knows if he wants extra he has to pay. You’ve got your usual expenses on your card, don’t go overboard like last time. I mean it, Malik! Your share for the weekend will go in your account on Monday when you’ve done your job.

Love you babes, stay safe, C x

Part 1, 2 ,3, 4 & 5  (also on ao3)

“I can’t, I’m sorry.” 

Those were the last words Louis had breathed before he’d walked out of the hotel room and out of Zayn’s life. He was eighteen and heartbroken and he swore from that day, he’d never let another person break him the way Louis had. 

“It’s worse than it was then,” Harry whispers to Niall, when he thinks he’s out of Zayn’s hearing. “He was heartbroken over Louis but this, it feels like it’s so much more.” 

“He’s a smart lad,” Niall would always reply. “He knows what he’s doing.” 

Harry would always sigh, as if it wasn’t the answer he wanted to pacify his worry over his best friend. He’d always come to Zayn afterwards, curl up next to where he was binge watching the walking dead or spread out on the floor of the art room, to watch him paint. 

Zayn knows he’s trying to be a good friend but now he’s not working, there’s no escape. It’s twenty four seven Harry and as much as he loves the lad, it’s a little too much of him to handle. 

It’s been four days since he left Liam at the cabin (not that he’s counting) and quit his job with Caroline. It takes Niall and Harry’s usual morning activity to push him out of the house. 

He only goes twenty minutes down the road, to their local café and tucks himself at the back with his laptop, hoping to get some graphics done that he could sell to local business for a tiny bit of income. 

But he’s barely there ten minutes when intrusive thoughts lead him down a different path than intended. 

He’s a glutton for punishment, he thinks, as he googles Louis’ name and gets greeted with thousands of articles about him and Stella because they had recently announced they were expecting a baby boy. 

Zayn slams to laptop shut when he sees a cosy photo of them in Paris where they’d travelled to the night of his championship win for a little R&R. 

He decided to head back to the flat, hoping the hour he had been out of said flat would be enough time for his friends to get done with their activities. 

The moment he steps foot back in his apartment, all he can think about is Louis, he can’t get those stupid blue eyes and curled smile out of his mind. 

Which is probably why the moment he gets to his room, he absolutely rips it apart, trying to find one particular thing. 

He finds it tucked in the very back of the draws he keeps his hoodies and he has to give it a hard tug from where it had managed to jam itself in the corners of the drawer. 

When he finally gets the little brown envelope out from inside the drawer, a polaroid falls out on to the floor. When he picks it up he’s greeted by the image of two grinning boys. Two young lads who don’t know the world yet and had no idea of the pain they were about to cause one another.

The only other thing in the envelope is a key to an apartment that Zayn had never visited.

‘I want you to have a place where you’re safe,’ Louis had said. ‘It’s yours, for whenever you’re ready.’

“Zayn?!” Harry calls out suddenly. 

Zayn shoves the key and polaroid back in the envelope and tucks them it back where it was. 

“Z?!” Harry calls again, only this time closer. 

“I’m here.” Zayn calls back. 

Harry’s head pops around Zayn’s bedroom door and he gives him curious eyes. 

“What?” Zayn asks sharply, which he instantly regrets when Harry’s lips twitch in a way they only do when he’s upset. 

“Liam’s here,” Harry tells him softly. “I said he was only allowed to see you, if you wanted him to. If not, then me and Ni will throw him out.” 

“I’d quite like to see you try and throw him out.” Zayn teases. 

“I’m stronger than you think, Malik.” Harry retorts and a big smile graces his lips, the earlier hurt easily forgotten. “So, shall I send him down?” 

Zayn nods his head but before Harry can leave, he calls after him. 

“Yes, darling?” Harry asks, the grin still gracing his lips. 

“Don’t stick around to listen, okay?” Zayn pleads. “It’s probably not going to be nice but I’m good, yeah?” 

Harry looks curious but nods his agreement before continuing out of the room. 

Zayn doesn’t know what to do with himself and he’s spends so much time fretting over if he should sit or stand that he’s still stood dumbly in the middle of the room when Liam appears in it. 

“I thought you wouldn’t see me.” Liam admits as greeting. 

Zayn shrugs and tucks his shaking his hands in to his pockets because if he’s honest, he thought he wouldn’t see Liam again, not in person anyway. 

“I’ll get straight to the point then.” Liam decides and rustles around in the back pocket of his jeans for a few seconds. 

Zayn raises his eyebrows because his curiosity is slightly peaked and if it is something painful, at least he’ll be amused when he has to call Harry back for him and Niall to attempt to throw Liam out. 

“I was packing my things and this fell out of my bag,” Liam explains and holds out the drawing Zayn had done in the hotel room. “It’s me, isn’t it?”

Zayn stares down at the crumpled paper that contains a real life drawing of a heart that he’d converted in to a home.

“I thought it was about Penny,” Liam admits. “I thought it was your way of saying that the people we loose will always have a home in our hearts. But that’s not the meaning behind it, is it?”

Zayn looks to him and then back to the drawing.

“Is it?” Liam asks a little more desperate.

“It’s whatever you want it to be.” Zayn tells him and tries to hand the drawing back.

Liam snatches it from his hand. “That’s bullshit.”

“I can’t tell you what the drawing means to you, Liam.” Zayn says with a shrug.

“I don’t care what it means to me,” Liam argues. “I want to know what it means to you. Why did you draw it?”

“I draw a lot of things that have no meaning.” Zayn replies and folds his arms.

Harry snorts loudly from the other room.

“I told you to fuck off, Styles.” Zayn shouts at him.

There’s a scramble and then a loud crash before the door to Zayn’s room opens and Niall’s head pops in.

“We’re heading out,” He informs Zayn. “If you need us then give us a ring, yeah?”

Zayn drags his fingers through his hair and nods his head.

“If Liam was going to kill him I’m sure us being here wouldn’t stop him.” Niall shouts at Harry as he must lead him out of the flat.

Liam steps towards Zayn as the sound of the front door closing echoes through the flat.

“Did you draw this because you’re trying to tell me you’re letting me in to the only place that’s yours to protect?” He asks. “The last place you’re allowed to call the shots on who comes and goes.”

Zayn stares at the crumpled paper in Liam’s hand. “It’s just a drawing.”

“I know Louis was let in and he didn’t treat it well but we’re not the same people, Zayn.” Liam tries.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Zayn scoffs.

“What don’t I get?” Liam pleads.

“He trashed the place but you still broke the windows,” Zayn replies and moves away from Liam’s touch. “You both lost your right to the key, the way you went about it doesn’t matter.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Liam tells.

‘I’m not trying to hurt you,’ Louis echoes in his head. ‘I love you, Malik, maybe not in the same way but I still want to take care of you--’

“Shut up!” Zee cries.

Liam hushes him like he’s a small child throwing a tantrum. “It’s okay, Z, you’re okay.” 

The nickname cuts Zayn deep and he takes a step back, to put space between him and Liam. 

“What did Louis tell you?” He asks, thanking the heavens above that his voice holds out and doesn’t crack. 

“He told he that he was a dickhead who really hurt you,” Liam explains. “He shouldn’t have done what he did, you didn’t deserve to be treated like that.” 

“Did he tell you that I was barely an adult when we met,” Zee starts because the anger he’s been harbouring for the past six years is finally bubbling over. “I was a kid and his manager used to pay me to fuck him because he was terrified Louis would be one of the braves ones and would come out and then he wouldn’t see as well.” 

“That’s disgusting.” Liam decides. 

“Right?” Zee agrees and then laughs but it’s not joyful, it’s pained. “We used to talk about it, after the fucking was done. We’d talk for hours about how much of a dickhead his manager was and how homophobic his chosen career path was.” 

Liam looks sad like it was something he’d already been told but Zayn’s too far gone, he’s finally letting him relive the memories he’d buried deep for so many ears. 

“Falling in love with him was so easy,” Zayn decides. “Christ, he only had to suck my dick good once and make me laugh a few times and I was gone.” 

‘I’m not gay,’ Louis’ voice echoes in his head. ‘It was like shagging a mate, there weren’t any feelings involved, I’m sorry’. 

Zayn should have known really, they never really kissed and when the sex was done they wouldn’t touch. They would share a blunt and talk about fixing the world but the conversation never really went deeper than that, they never really got to know each other past the obvious. 

He knows now, what it’s like to shag a bi guy who leans more in favour of girls. Louis could get hard for a guy, he can find men attractive but for some reason when it comes to anything more than physical, his brain won’t let him get passed it. 

He remembers being so cruel when Louis had finally ended it, he’d told him he was as bad as the people who had forced them together in the first place and the hurt expression Louis had given him following that outburst still haunts him to this day. 

But he knows now, Louis was a kid himself, he was trying to figure out himself too. It was sad that he had to use Zayn to do it but Zayn doesn’t resent him, not for that anyway. 

“Zayn?” Liam asks softly, after a silence had fallen over them for quite a long time. 

“I need you to leave,” Zayn decides because he’s about to break apart all over again and he doesn’t want Liam here for that. “Can you leave, please?” 

“That’s what you want?” Liam checks. 

Zayn nods his head but can’t lift it to meet the younger lad’s eyes. 

“Alright,” Liam agrees  “I’ve got a plane to catch anyway.” 

“You’re going to LA?” Zayn asks, finally looking up. 

Liam nods, looking hopeful. “The offer is still there for you to come with me?” 

“What as this time?” Zayn replies spitefully. “Can’t be much left on the roaster, right?” 

Liam nods, taking the hit because he must know he deserves it. “Well, it’s there if you want it, I’m sure Caroline has Amara’s number, she can book you a flight, if you change your mind.” 

“I don’t work for Caroline anymore,” Zayn informs him, though he’s not sure why he has a need for Liam to know that information. “But I won’t be needing Amara’s number so I suppose it doesn’t matter.” 

“You don’t work for Caroline anymore?” Liam asks shocked. 

Zayn shrugs.

“Why?” Liam pushes. 

Zayn shrugs again and drops his gaze to Liam’s stupid air max trainers, they’re the most recently released ones and it’s just a reminder of how much money is in this guy’s bank account. 

“Why, Z?” Liam pleads this time. 

“Because I’m done,” Zayn answers finally and looks back up to meet Liam’s eyes. “It’s my turn to call the shots over my body and life.” 

Liam steps forward tentatively. “Come to LA with me?” 

“You can’t buy me anymore, Liam.” Zayn reminds him. 

“I don’t want to,” Liam promises. “I want you come willingly, I want you to come because you want to, I want you to come because...” 

“What?” Zayn demands when the sentence trails off. 

“I think I’m in love with you,” Liam concludes. “You’re so fucking much, Zayn. You’re too much and I probably don’t deserve you but if you were willing to give me a shot I’d really hope you could fall in love with me too.” 

“It’s been one week.” Zayn says a little breathless because he wasn’t expecting love. 

“My sister always said I went in to things heart first with my head taking a long time to follow,” Liam admits and reaches up to rub at the back of his neck. “She said it what made me such a good song writer but it has led to a lot of heartbreak in my lifetime, I’ll admit.” 

Zayn lets that information sink in to his brain and realise he’d spent a lot of their time together, putting a lot of his past traumas on to this boy, all because of who had made their interaction happen. He’d never thought there would be a chance that while he was so focused on his own haunting memories, the beautiful boy he’d been spending his time with might have been returning his feelings. 

“It was her on the phone.” Liam tells him. 

“What?” Zayn asks confused. 

“It was Roo, my sister, she was who I was talking to when you overheard the conversation.” Liam explains. “She worries a lot, if I told her I was with you at the cabin, I would have got a lecture.” 

“Because you were falling in love with a prostitute?” Zayn asks because hearing that conversation had still hurt him. 

“I rang her on my way back from Scotland,” Liam continues with a sad smile. “She called me an idiot, said I had my very own pretty woman moment and I’d been the idiot who had let it go.” 

“If you’d tried to climb up out fire escape you would have probably died.” Zayn admits. “It’s not safe, at all.” 

Liam looks very confused by that response. 

“You really need to watch the damn film if you’re going to reference it, Liam.” Zayn says frustrated. 

“We could watch it on the plane to LA?” Liam suggests. “I have a meeting with Simmons but I was thinking there might be a few studios we could check out.” 

“I don’t--” 

“Want my money,” Liam finishes for him. “I know, I thought about that--the hour long flight back from Scotland was a long one, okay? I had a lot of time to plan and think.” 

Zayn nods for him to explain his idea. 

“I’ll buy a studio,” Liam starts and when he’s sure Zayn isn’t going to interrupt. “Then when your art starts making money, you can pay me rent for that studio.” 

“It’ll be at a discounted price?” Zayn guesses. 

“I could think of another form of payment.” Liam jokes, it’s a bad one considering how they met. 

Zayn frowns. 

“It was a joke,” Liam assures him. “It’ll of course be at a discounted price but I don’t even know if it’ll have to be, I’ve seen your art, Z. The kids in LA, they’re going to lap that shit up, lots of rich trust fund kids have nothing better to do than pretend they understand your art.” 

Zayn snorts. “Great, I’ll be pouring my heart and sole in to pieces for them to be hung up in rooms of rich college kids so they can stare at them to stop themselves coming to quick.” 

“If you don’t like that idea,” Liam says quickly. “We have a design team at the label, they work with artists for like album covers and posters and shit. They could really do with an artist like you, someone to think outside the box.” 

“You really have thought this over.” Zayn observes. 

Liam nods his head several times. “The minute you left the cabin, I couldn’t think of anything but how to get you back.” 

“You love me?” Zayn checks again. 

Liam nods, the smile Zayn adores taking over his face completely. “I love you.” 

“Fuck,” Zayn replies and finally closes the gap between them. “I think I love you too.” 

“You do?” Liam asks, worrying his lip between his teeth. 

Zayn reaches his hand up to tug it out. “I love you.” 

“I love you too.” Liam replies. 

Zayn’s the one who leans in and seals it with a kiss but Liam’s the one who slips a hand around his back to tug their bodies completely together, not an inch of them not touching. 

They stand like that for the longest time until Harry and Niall’s overpowering personas fill the apartment again. 

Zayn breaks the LA news to Harry softly but it’s Liam who makes the news easier for his best friend by promising to fly them both out whenever they want for however long they want. 

Harry still looks a bit reluctant but it’s one simple gesture that has an easy smile pulling at his lips and it’s Liam kissing Zayn on the cheek before he gets up to help Niall make a round of teas. The moment a happy smile pulls at Zayn’s lips, it mirrors on his best friends and like that he knows he’s got his blessing. 

[silentauroriamthereal]

My HP fics

Hey hey! 

From about 2003-2006, I was very involved in the Harry Potter fandom, with a trickling out of activity in the three years following that. I believe the last fic I wrote in that fandom was in 2010, and it definitely felt like an extra, very much last burst of will to make that one happen. The fandom was dwindling, JKR was JKR-ing, and people were already starting to move off the main fora: LJ for the social side, and a veritable flurry of archive choices. My main one had always been skyehawke.com. 

I got busy with my masters degree and life in a different city, and thought I’d moved on. Then, in the spring of 2013, I moved cities again, discovered the massive talents of Benedict Cumberbatch and thereby, Sherlock, and suddenly discovered that I wanted to start writing again. It was bewildering, because in that time, I’d lost contact with everyone I’d ever known in the fanworld in general, and a huge migration had happened - from LJ to tumblr, and from every archive to ao3. I didn’t know if anyone would even read something I wrote, especially as a newbie in a brand new fandom. I was startled to find that some people remembered me, and had also come over to the Sherlock fandom. As I started reconnecting with people, some of them started asking me if I was going to bring all of my HP material over to ao3. I always said no, immediately. I had lots of reasons: 

the fics were old, and the oldest of those were frankly not very good

I had no interest in either promoting them, or engaging with readers about them anymore

JKR is JKR, and she rather spoiled the fandom backwards for me. Between her unapologetic and highly public transphobia, her active queerbaiting in making characters gay after the fact without any overt inclusion of that in her canon, including in films she was involved in writing/making after said statements, and her active loathing for the fandom, especially the slash side of it, which was obviously what fuelled the epilogue that made writing Harry/literally anyone so much harder than it needed to be, I just decided I was out

it would have been a lot of work to reformat the stories, and there are a lot of them. I had written 1.7 words of fiction in that fandom, spread out over 105 individual stories, so yeah: a lot of work. Plus, I was painfully aware that many of them had many typos, and I wouldn’t have wanted to bring them to a new archive and thereby potentially a new audience in that state, so: even more work

However, not actively wanting to promote that work is a very different thing from not wanting to HAVE that work, or allow anyone else to have access to it ever again, so I had always said that I would let the entire collection stand, as is, on skyehawke.com. 

Skyehawke finally crashed for apparently the final time about two weeks ago. There was no warning from the archive owner, no chance for anyone to pull any of their unsaved stuff. Some of my stuff is so old that it was literally saved on floppy disks. The rest was saved on the hard drives of laptops now long gone. I was devastated. Rather than posting about it on here, I made my first post on LJ in literal years, asking without much hope if anyone happened to have saved a copy of any of my stuff, just wanting to see if I could regain any of it. 

What I received was yet another outpouring of the kind of fandom generosity that always just floors me. People linked me to reddit searches of my stuff, pointed me to the Wayback Machine (which I had never heard of, lol), sent me entire google drives, emailed me one or twelve or sixty files of my stories. Some emailed or commented on the post only to express their sympathies and best hopes for document recovery. It’s 48 hours later now, and I got every single word back. It took me hours and hours of downloading or copy/pasting from Wayback, but I have it all back now. 

So, I made a decision: I’m changing my mind. Some of these stories still make me cringe, and it will be HEAPS of work, but in gratitude for all of this, I AM going to upload my HP material to ao3, after all. It’s going to take me a lot of time, because if I’m going to do it, then I might as well make it typo-free, or as typo-free as I can. I need to reformat it anyway, so why not? That said, I’m going to hold off on starting this project until I’ve finished my current Sherlock story. This community, of fandom in general, is beyond amazing. It’s a stronger network of humanity and good will than I’ve ever found anywhere else and I’m so grateful to have this in my life. I once thought that I had “moved on” from fandom or outgrown it in some way, but that was an immature thought: fandom is for anyone, at any age, and even if I were to lose interest in whatever my current fandom is, I would stay for the community. Thank you for existing. Thank you for all your friendship, support, readership, and all of the fanwork you folks put out into this world, too. I love you all. <333333333333333333333333

[imagining-in-the-margins]

WIP Challenge Snippets!

Big thank you to everyone who requested something. I love hearing what ideas you all are excited for! I'll put each of the snippets below in alphabetical order. All but one are just dialogue - I'm currently at a point where that's all I have done for most of my WIPs.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, only smut fics were requested, so minors please DNI!

Hope you enjoy!

Centerfold*

I'm still unsure if this will be a mini-series or a oneshot. I have no freaking clue. Here's a snippet of dialogue, though! Starts with Derek.

“Alright kid, spill the beans.” “Did you know that phrase could stem from numerous possible practices? It could just be a reference to vomiting, but there’s an alternate explanation involving an ancient voting practice of dropping colored beans into a jar and—“ “Not gonna work on me, Reid.” “Fine.” (whispers) “That girl in that magazine? The ‘Vegas Vixen?’ I lost my virginity to her.” “You’re messing with me.” “No! I’m not! I swear that I am not messing with you.” “There’s no way.” “Would I make that up?!” “To mess with me? Yeah, maybe.”

Coquette*

This is a long work that has been heavily inquired about and a very long time coming, so here is a long snippet of dialogue to continue the trend. Starts with Spencer.

“Don’t sound so scared. I’m not going to tell anyone.” “I-I know.” “Do you?” “No. I just hoped not…” “What were you planning if I said I was going to?” “Where are we going? I never told you my address.” “I need to drive around in case someone is following us.” “Oh. That makes sense.” “Answer my question.” “I… hadn’t considered it.” “That’s a lie.” “Fine. I would make a deal with you.” “Tell me the deal. Maybe I’ve changed my mind.” “I won’t tell everyone how hard you got for me when I danced on your lap if you don’t tell them I’m a stripper.” “A tempting offer, although I’m not very ashamed of being turned on by a woman who’s made a career out of being tantalizing, Coquette.” “What’s your idea of a good deal, then?” “Hmmm… My silence in exchange for whatever you were willing to offer me before you found out who I was.” “What are you implying?” “I know a lot about that club… And that it was your first night in the backroom. But your nerves tell me you knew what you were there for.” “Are you seriously propositioning me right now? Through blackmail?” “You asked me what a good deal was, not what I would ask for.” “So what would you ask for?” “Your address. So I can take you home.”

H2M Epilogue*

This whole part makes me want to melt, but here is a funny dialogue snippet.

Derek: “Alright, I know you love to break rules, but Penelope made me doorman for a reason.” Reader: “You really want to pick a fight with me? On my wedding day? I know you know me, Derek Morgan. I know you know better than to stand between me and my husband.” Derek: “He’s not your husband yet, Princess.” Spencer: “Actually, we had a courthouse ceremony a few weeks ago, just in case something happened and we had to miss this ceremony.” (Reader tackles him as he walks up to the door) Derek: “Hopeless. And selfish. Penelope is going to kill me, you know.”

Lane Courtesy* (Franklin)

This fic is purely for my beta @sunlight-moonrise, but y'all can read it if you want. Starts with Franklin.

“Maybe it’d be easier if you bought clothes that fit.” “I think I look pretty good in what I’m wearing. And I think you think so, too. Besides... it’s all in the wrist, anyway. You wanna see?” (She grabs his ball, he grabs her arm) “Don’t worry, babe. I’m good at handling men’s balls.” “Oh, I bet you are.” “Plus, I promise I’ll give them back to you after.”

Practice Makes Perfect* (backburner)

This is a very old original idea I had. I'm not sure if/when I'll ever get around to it - if anyone wants it, I'd love to hand over the dialogue I have so far. Here is a snippet regardless! Starts with Spencer.

“Hey (y/n), what—" “Spencer! Can I come in?” “C-come in? Into my room?” “Uh... yeah.” “But you... you’re... you’re dressed like a...” “A stripper, yeah. Are you going to make me stand out here like this longer?” (He lets her in) “Is there something I can do?” “Can I dance on you?” “What?” “I want to give you a lap dance. Please.” “A lap— why?" “Who else am I going to ask? Hotch? Please, Spencer. You’re the only person I trust.” “Trust?” “Please stop rephrasing everything I say as a question.”

Shortbread (Chip)

Love me some Sub!Chip. This is honestly probably on the backburner. I've been in a very Spencer mood lately. Starts with Chip.

“Can I ask you something?” “What’s up, sweetheart?” “Why are you so nice to me all the time?” “What do you mean?” “You don’t really know me. But ever since I met you, you’ve always just been nice to me. I mean, I know you’re nice to everyone, but it feels…” “Different? It should.”

Seatbelt Safety* (Chip)

Gosh, this fic is so short, I really need to just write it. Uber Driver Chip. Starts with Reader.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. I kind of needed to act a bit crazy.” “Why?” “I was trying to get out a super awkward date.” “By running into the street?” “Trust me. It was a bad date.” “Oh. Well, I’m sorry you had a bad date.” “It’s fine. You know how it goes.” “Not really. Haven’t had a date in a long time.” “Why is that?” “Idunno.” “Hm.” “What?” “You wanna go on a date with me?” “What?” “Let’s go on a date.” “... What?” “Most people say yes or no. ‘What’ isn’t very helpful. Is this why you can’t get a date?” “I can get a date! I just... haven’t been asked by anyone in awhile. And definitely not like that. That was weird.”

Study Session* (requested three times!):

I have a lot of this done already, so you get an actual sneak peek here!

“Listen closely, young lady,” he said like I had any other option. Like I wasn’t enraptured and enchanted by the feel of his warm breath once again hitting my ear. He could feel the way breath stuttered and my body stumbled straight into him with eager hands. I could almost feel his smirk against my ear when he concluded, “I would never... ever sleep with you.” And just like that, he was gone. He didn’t just drop me; he tossed me to his side like the very notion of being that close to me disgusted him. The desire that had been burning inside of my chest quickly shifted to rage. He could pretend like he didn’t want me, but there was no other justification for bringing me out to the back in the first place. There was no reason to allow me to confront him, nor for him to discuss my sex life in any manner at all. Seconds after we were both inside again, I grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back to me. Surprisingly, there was very little resistance. It was almost like he was waiting for me to do it. I tugged him into the small, dimly lit bathroom without a care in the world for who might have seen us or what whispers might follow. Spencer was already laughing, apparently amused by anger rolling off of me. “Say it again,” I ordered through heavy breaths, “Say it to my face.” I’d prepared myself for a number of responses — most of which were varying levels of humiliating. What I hadn’t prepared for, however, were the words that actually came out of his mouth. Casually, and without question, Spencer ordered, “Get on your knees.” He was so calm that I felt like it must have been a trick. It took everything in me not to fall to my knees, and instead I managed to ask, “Why?” His answer was equally unhelpful and alluring. “Because I said so.”

The Agent Assigned to My Webcam*

This is a beast of a fic, so it'll also be a while. There were so many parts I could show you, but I thought this one was the most thought provoking.

Reader: “Wait! Sorry, I-I... uh... Can I see your ring?” Spencer: “... Sure.” Reader: “Thanks. What did you say your name was?” Spencer: “I didn’t.” (He leaves, she follows him into the empty hallway) Reader: “Do I know you, Doctor Reid?” Spencer: “No.” Reader: “Are you sure?” Spencer: “I could ask you the same thing.” Reader: “Drop your pants and I’ll tell you exactly how sure I am.” Luke: (walks in) “Sorry. Am I... interrupting something?”

That's all for now, folks!

Thanks for reading. If you feel so inclined, let me know what you thought about any of the above here!

[raquians]

don’t suppose there’s an update on the epilogue of the fremonie story ? I just finished your fic and it was superb ! I’m so curious to read more ! your fremonie is one of the first ones I’ve read of the pairing and it’s squarely put me in the fan column ! thanks for your writing !!

hi!!

current update: the epilogue is sitting at about 18k and i expect it to end around 25k but i lost a lot of drive for it. i was in a really bad place with my writing when i was writing it, to the point where i hated a lot of what i was writing, and i'm really struggling to get back into it because of the feelings associated with it. i'm hoping within the next few months i'll be able to, but for my mental health at the moment, i just really needed the break so i could learn to love writing again. <3

i'll post a snippet from it under the cut though!!

but also thank you so much, i'm so glad you enjoyed it!! <3

*\

“I think I’d like to go back to Hogwarts,” Hermione announces at the end of July. She’s been thinking on it for a while, even had multiple conversations with Fred about it, but she’d yet to make any concrete decisions. However, after meeting with her therapist, Celia, for the first time and having a professional able to help her sort out her thoughts on the matter, she’d come to the conclusion that she needs to do this for herself, and for her career.

Fred pierces a piece of chicken and lifts it to his mouth, biting it off the end. “Yeah?” he asks with a full mouth.

“Yeah. I—I know the Ministry offered me a position but I want to raise my position over time, and I don’t know if I can do that without my N.E.W.T.s. Being a war hero only garners so many favors.”

George snorts. “’Mione, they’d probably make you Minister for Magic based on your status without your N.E.W.T.s.” Fred looks up and glares at his twin. “Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t go back! I just think you’re severely underestimating your war hero status powers.”

“Even if that were true, I want to do things right,” Hermione says. “I want people to know I earned my positions fairly and honestly, and that won’t be true if I don’t have the proper qualifications.”

“I think it’s a great idea, ‘Mine,” Fred says.

“You do?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “You’ve been bringing it up for weeks now, if it hasn’t left your head yet, it was never going to. And I know you talked through this with Celia, you told me you were going to, at least. That alone told me you were just looking for confirmation that you were making the right decision.”

“You’re not upset with me? It’ll be an entire year apart again,” she points out.

Fred shakes his head. “No. You need to do this for you, and I’m proud of you, I could never be mad about something like this. Of course I’ll miss you, but we still have our letters, and I can see you at Hogsmeade. We can work it out. And after this year, it’ll be over and done with and we won’t have to go through a separation like this again.”

“You really knew this was coming, didn’t you?”

“I knew you were going to go through with it as soon as McGonagall brought it up back during repairs,” Fred admits.

[the-dead-sea-trilogy]

a major update on the series

i have news that is both good and bad.  [the fic is not getting cancelled, don’t worry].

after a lot of deliberation - and i mean going back and forth for over a year now trying to write Icarus and the Blistering Sun, the prequel to The Devil and the Dead Sea - i have made the difficult (but i think really important, for reasons i will get into) decision to postpone Icarus and rearrange the order of the series.

Mother Earth and Her Infinite Sky, the sequel to the Devil and the Dead Sea, will be the book to be released next.  NOT Icarus, as I have previously been stating.

This is good because I think it is a better, more cohesive choice for the series from a narrative standpoint.  This is good because we get to see our boys being in love on a team right away once it’s out.  This is good because I am excited about writing a story about our boys being in love on a team to immediately follow DATDS.

This is bad because it means I have to put the prequel on hold (again) and full publication will be pushed back, again.  My life is super hectic rn, so at this current time, I’m not able to offer an estimate on when Mother Earth will be released, but I do have the first few chapters written already.

Read below the cut if you want to know some more reasons, both from a narrative and personal standpoint, on why i made this decision and why it was actually really hard for me to do.

if not, all you need to know is the series is not getting abandoned. the order is just getting rearranged, which means publication is being delayed again.

i intend to help this along and keep you guys interested (and myself accountable) by continuing to occasionally post WIP updates and writing updates like these, as well as a tiny one shot compilation like i’m doing for my Legend of Zelda series, if you follow that.

until then, stay safe, love yourselves, and two wishes remain.

-jirachi (silv)

Narrative and Personal Reasons The Dead Sea Trilogy is Getting Rearranged

I work really hard on making a cohesive story with thought, poetry, and themes that I can hand to you guys, and I want to use this time to give you some insight on that and why it’s taking so long.  The narrative reasons are the easiest to explain and kind of go hand in hand with the personal reasons, so I’ll approach it from that angle.

The Narrative:

Ever since I started writing Icarus in November 2019 after DATDS, once NaNoWriMo was over (yes, I tried it), I just kept hitting walls.  And stopping and starting.  And I couldn’t understand why I was hitting so many walls, and I realized it maybe had to do with the narrative structure of the series not being as cohesive as it could be yet.  What I came to realize is that:

A big thing in this trilogy is the idea of the cycles of Birth, Death, and Rebirth.

“And y’know, that’s like, the nature of the beast, inn’t it?” Archie said. “Night and day. Water and fire. Land and sea. Birth, death, rebirth—”

“And we’re in the death stage right now…”

“Then one day we’ll be reborn.”

There was a pause. Archie was right.

-Epilogue, DATDS

Icarus was always intended to be the Birth story.  Archie and Maxie meet, have their first sparks of inspiration, first sparks of their relationship, and first sparks of their rivalry.  It’s all supposed to ignite there, I mention a couple times in DATDS there being a “spark” in Maxie.  That was intentional.

Devil is the Death story.  They literally say this in the Epilogue.  Archie and Maxie purge all the bad blood between one another, die to their pretenses of themselves so that they can kickstart the process of building things new.  In dying to their own egos and having an exorcism of sorts (oh you mean a literal exorcism?) they saw into one another and realized how much they really loved one another the whole time. 

Mother Earth is the Rebirth story.  Archie and Maxie build their new team, learn about what it means to love each other and what they need to do to make their relationship work.  (Among other things that have to do with rebirth).

The issue:

When I started writing DATDS many, many years ago, I never intended/anticipated there to be a prequel, let alone a sequel.  But I fell in love with this story, fell in love with these characters, and it just kept growing and growing and I love it so much.  However, this means, as it stands currently,

I started the cycle with Death.

That isn’t a bad thing - DATDS works as a beautiful introduction to this story.  However, this means in order for the cycle (and narrative) to make any sense, it just flows so much better to have Mother Earth be next.  Because otherwise, I’m going

Death (Devil) -> Birth (Icarus) -> Rebirth (Mother Earth)

And that just.. doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense when you look at it like that??  Having two “birth” moments in a row seems really wonky, and this is probably the source of one of the (many) issues I was having with it.

Not to mention the strange time jumping that would be happening between

ORAS Canon PRESENT (Devil) -> 15 years PAST (Icarus) -> 1-2 Years FUTURE (Mother Earth)

The solution? Simple

Death/Present (Devil) -> Rebirth/Future (Mother Earth) -> Birth/Past (Icarus)

It loops back around from both a timeline and a narrative/symbolic standpoint.

The bottom line:

Devil set up a rebirth story beautifully.  The stage is set for Archie and Maxie to walk down from the mountain and start their new lives.  It just doesn’t make sense for me to put that on hold.  Especially when things in Mother Earth will end up making it easy to loop back around to Icarus.

And, as much as I didn’t want to end the series on a “sad” note, the fact of the matter is Icarus ends in a moment of “Death,” where Archie betrays Maxie and sets up the spiraling chain of events that lead up to Devil, closing the cycle and making it all a complete circle.

That, and it will be incredibly easy to end Icarus with another Epilogue where things suddenly aren’t as sad anymore, even though they ended sadly once long ago, and it can all come together in a reflective way.

There are other reasons I was hesitant to remove Icarus from its second slot, ranging from “I didn’t want to end on a ‘sad’ book” to “I took a lot of creative liberties with Colress as a character and throwing him in at full force in Mother Earth without any sort of warning is gonna be.. strange, to say the least, and at least introducing him slowly in Icarus wouldn’t make him seem like a complete psychopath” but also Colress is.. just kind of like that.

But also ultimately, even though I love Colress as a character and he does have an arc I’m interested in, this ain’t about him.  Much to his dismay, I am sure.

[he already robbed me of valuable covid writing time once by holding me hostage and forcing me to write 120,000+ words about his Team Plasma hot girl summer so he can die mad about it i guess]

What I’m trying to say, ultimately, with this, is that I put a lot of thought and work into what I do.  I’m putting so much effort into this story because I care about it, and I want to give you guys (and myself) the best story I can possibly make.  That is just, now gonna require more time than I anticipated, especially with this change.  And I wanted to give you guys some insight into why delays are happening and why such changes are being made.

Because to be completely fucking transparent, I was really struggling with Icarus.  And once I made this realization, it all kind of made sense why.  And I think once Mother Earth is complete, things in Icarus with start coming together for me.

In the meantime, stay posted, keep an eye out for the other updates, and I absolutely cannot wait to share Mother Earth with you.

[jacaranda-bloom]

FIC WRITER QUESTIONS

Thank you to the lovely @allwaswell16 @runaway-train-works @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed @uhoh-but-yeah-alright and @evilovesyou for tagging me to answer some questions about my writing.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

47

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

901,445 (Hoping to hit the Magic Million by the end of the year!)

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

1 (One Direction)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

When Tomorrow Comes 1155

The Baby Whisperer 950

Love, Ever After 898

Harry Poppins 856

Play Me A Memory 760

More under the cut…

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

Oh gosh. Uhm. I don’t really write angsty endings? All my fics have Happy Endings and most have epilogues to round them out and tie them up in a bow. Perhaps I’d say If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow) purely because (spoiler ahead) the epilogue is written 100 years into the future so they’ve both passed.

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

Interestingly, I would actually say the answer is the same as above, If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow). The epilogue is so uplifting and I cry happy tears every time I re-read it. It’s written from the POV of their granddaughter and you get to see the world they had a hand in changing for the better through her eyes, so you get a sense of how impactful their lives were on the rest of society. Oof, tearing up right now just thinking about it.

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Yeah, I have actually. I really enjoy doing new takes on an existing universes, although they aren’t always the easiest thing to pull off tbh. I’m not sure which I would say is the craziest, but the hardest to write was definitely The Peter Pan/Hook AU.

Harry Poppins - Loosely based on the book/movie Mary Poppins, but without any magical aspects.

Playing To Win - Set in the Big Brother house.

The Pirate and The Piper - A Peter Pan/Hook AU which I took a lot of liberties with.

In The Still Of The Night - My Dirty Dancing AU.

A Hungry Heart - This is a Great British Bake Off AU that is due out in September for the Cliche Fic Fest!

8) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Whoa Nelly. Yeah, I do. All the time. Every fic actually. There’s only one, Exposed, the only fic I’ve published that’s not rated Explicit and doesn’t have smut. But, to be fair, the challenge was to write exactly 666 words and I still managed to get the implication in there. Plus, Louis was naked and Harry was applying body paint for the majority of the story, so like, I think I can get a free pass on that one - I tried!

In terms of what type of smut, I guess it varies depending on the story. I tend not to push the boat out too far, but I do dabble in BDSM in quite a few of my fics. A recurring theme in the comments I receive is that my smut scenes are well constructed and detailed, without being too tedious or drawn out, which is lovely feedback to get because they can be challenging to write.

9) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Absolutely. Every single one.

10) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not often, people are usually so kind, but there have been a couple.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, quite a lot, particularly on Wattpad, all with my full consent. That said, I’m thinking of stopping this because it’s getting a bit out of hand and I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about it recently for various reasons that I won’t bore you with here. 

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

Nope! I don’t think it’s really my thing tbh. I get very in my head about writing and struggle even to brainstorm or share too much until I’m well into a story.

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

Of the 47 fics I’ve written, there are 45 Larry, 1 Narry, and 1 Louis/Dermot O’Leary (I think mine is still the only fic with this ship hahahaa), so that’s probably a good indication of my fave writing ship.

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

I have one lonely WIP sitting on AO3 from 2018. I keep promising myself I’ll finish it and it’s on my schedule every year, then I get distracted by other fics/fests and it gets pushed back. Plus, it needs a complete rewrite because my style has developed so much since I started it, so it’ll be a big job. Based on that, I think that the fic, in its current form, won’t ever be finished as the rewrite will completely wipe out what it was, although the underlying plot will still be there.

16) What are your writing strengths?

World building (or so I’m often told). I write very visually and people often say they can imagine the scene exactly, or that it’s like a movie, or that they think it’s actually a real place I’m describing, when most of the time it absolutely isn’t, it’s just something I’ve created in my weird brain.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue (although my lovely beta disagrees) and telling rather than showing. They’re both things I’m actively working on.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’ve never really considered it. It’s not something I’d shy away from necessarily, but it’s just never come up.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

One Direction. First and only.

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

Wow. This is really tough because it changes over time. I find that once I’ve finished a fic I don’t want to revisit it for a few months because I’m kind of over it. But I find comfort in them after a while, like I get to go back to that happy place and immerse myself in that world and the characters again, similar to catching up with an old friend. It’s familiar. I think I also like different stories for different reasons and I’m drawn to various ones depending on my mood. My top 3 (although, ask me next week and the list will probably be completely different!) would probably be:

1. If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow). Written for the hybrid fic fest (a fest I created just for this fic lol). It’s not everyone’s cup of tea due to the hybrid aspect, but it’s one of the stories I feel is the most rounded from a character development perspective and the world building was pretty epic, if I can be so bold as to throw that out there myself!

2. No Going Back. One of my Big Bangs from 2020. I adore the way their relationship develops in this fic and the setting (as remote lighthouse keepers) was such a lot of fun to write. Plus I got to collaborate with an amazing artist who created an entire website as an accompanying travel blog which was truly wonderful.

3. From The Heart. This is a series I wrote for wordplay back in 2019. I had no idea that what I was doing was so unusual and so meta by having Louis essentially write for the equivalent of wordplay in the fic. It was such an fun way to share my writing process and challenges I encounter (exactly how many synonyms tabs do I have open at any one time?!) and I thoroughly enjoyed the outcome (although getting there was definitely a struggle).

~

This was really fun and thanks to anyone who made it this far! Writing brings me so much joy and is a wonderful outlet for all the imaginings in my head, so I appreciate everyone who supports me and joins me on that journey.

~

I’m pretty late with this and I’m not sure who has already done it but I’ll tag @fallinglikethis @homosociallyyours @lululawrence @reminiscingintherain and @beau-soleil-louis if they’d like to do this and haven’t already.

[bedlamsbard]

I got a couple of different asks about Luke and Ahsoka in other side AU 10, so I guess I will just make it a regular post after all so I can answer all of them at once.

@slecnaztemnot: 

Okay i just read your latest other side chapter and I wanted to ask about Ahsoka and Luke dynamics. I wonder what exactly where their heretics disagreemts about the jedi doctrine? while i can guess some of the stuff like attachements i guess i mostly see ahsoka as nonjedi and therefore someone who should not be attached to doctrine about attachements (haha) so i am wondering how you see her. i would actually love your take on how their first meetings went. continued in next ask, 1/2

1/2 continuation since most people write them as Ashoka immediately spilling the beans about the whole Vader situation to Luke and yours Ahsoka didn't. So I am curious what do you think Ahsoka feels about it. I got of course lot of it from the fic itself so i am mostly asking about how did you base your interpretation, if that makes sense and what led you to the narrative choices to portray their relationship in such way.

@comentter:

I'm most interested in what Luke and Ahsoka know about each other. Luke doesn't know much about Ahsoka obviously, but does he have any idea why she seems to hate him? He must be desperate lol. And how much does Ahsoka know about what happened on the DS2? And how much does Kanan know about these events? What was Hera able to tell him and what else did Luke and Ahsoka tell him? I always figure that everyone but Luke and a few people he told (like Leia) think the Emperor and Vader from the DS2 explosion.

I now have this image in my head of Ahsoka spending time with Rex and her laughing as Rex does something like tell a joke or a specific gesture. Then Luke walks by, does the exact same thing and Ahsoka is like "Of course, you'd do this stupid thing, you idiot!" :D

I think shortly before I started writing this sequence I had seen some cute art of Luke and Ahsoka hugging, which is a pretty common art trope and which has never sat quite right with me.  I also have the tendency to want to do the opposite of common fanon, which I can’t leave out either.  I also wanted to logic out what the hell was going on with Ahsoka’s charaterization in her Mando episode on a Watsonian level rather than a Doylist one (which I did a few weeks ago), even if other side takes place well before Mando and doesn’t intersect with it in any meaningful way.

When it came to the Luke and Ahsoka relationship (or lack thereof), it came down to three questions for me:

Who knows what?

What do they know?

When do they know it?

I made the decision early on in the chapter to leave Leia out of this relationship entirely, since the new canon seems to at this point in time (within a year of RotJ) be keeping it relatively quiet that she and Luke are siblings, and it’s not something that Hera would have a reason to know.  (Note also that this entire sequence is told from Hera’s POV, which plays into the “who knows what when” angle.)

As per Rebels S4 (not the epilogue, because Mando’s thrown that out the window), Ahsoka knows (or has good reason to believe) the following:

Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader, Sith Lord

Darth Vader was directly or indirectly responsible for the genocide of the Jedi Order and the deaths of any Jedi who survived the Purge (”you and your Inquisitors saw to that”)

Padme Amidala is dead

Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead (Obi-Wan was not dead, but she has no way to know this)

no Darksider can return to the Light side

At the end of RotJ (not taking into account anything that happened in the comics or ancillary novels, which I’m not up to date on), Luke knows (or has good reason to believe) the following:

Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker

everyone Anakin ever knew is dead, mostly because of him

Vader returned to being Anakin Skywalker at the end of his life

(Leia presumably also knows all of this, perhaps with a few more details based on things her parents might have told her, but her feelings about Darth Vader are: Bad, Do Not Want, to be glib about it.)

Now, there’s one other factor here, which is Rex.  Rex knew Anakin and knew Ahsoka and was in the Rebel Alliance -- we know that he was on Yavin IV prior to Luke’s arrival and we know that he fought in the Battle of Endor. (And turns up in a couple of scattered art panels from the comics.)  If we want to take his brief appearance in Galaxy of Adventures with Han Solo’s strike force as canon, then he may have also known Han and probably Luke -- certainly his ears would have pricked up at the name “Skywalker.”  (Okay, there’s one other factor, which is R2-D2, but Artoo never tells anyone anything despite knowing...everything. Or most things, anyway.)  Rex doesn’t seem to know that Anakin became Darth Vader (I believe there’s an interview somewhere where Dave or Pablo or someone says that a meeting between Rex and Vader would be “awkward,” but there’s no canonical reason to believe that he knew about the Anakin/Vader connection), but he probably found out at some point that the 501st was the battalion involved in the assault on the Jedi Temple.  He also, as of Rebels S3-4, assumes that Vader killed Ahsoka -- presumably Ezra would have told him as much as he could.  (And Ezra does know that Vader is Anakin, so he may have told Rex that as well.)  Rex also knows that Anakin Skywalker was having an affair with Padme Amidala, but presumably didn’t know about (a) the marriage or (b) the pregnancy, because how would he know?

Then we come to Ahsoka’s return and unfortunately the current canon gives us no time point for when it actually happened: presumably Ahsoka did not or could not return to the greater galaxy at the point she “left”, during the fight on Malachor (3 BBY), because as of Rebels S3-4 everyone still believes she’s dead.  Maybe she’s still stuck on Malachor without a way to get off, who knows; maybe after S4 Ezra grabbed her into the World Between Worlds she decided to stay on Malachor until she ~caught up with the main timeline, which...you then have to believe that Ahsoka is going to deliberately remove herself from the war, which I can get to, but is not something I’m totally comfortable with.  Or she pops out in the timeline at the same time that Ezra returns to the main timeline and is able to more or less immediately return to the main timeline narrative, plus or minus a few weeks.  (There are, after all, still a couple of Advanced TIE fighters parked in the Sith temple, even if they were potentially damaged in the temple collapse.  Ahsoka could have repaired them or used the comms systems to call for a pick-up -- this is, btw, what happens in Crown.)  We don’t know when the S2 finale scene/S4 WBW scene of Ahsoka walking back into the temple actually takes place in the timeline; it doesn’t have to be at the exact same time as the rest of the S2 finale sequence (since obvs Vader dragging himself out, Maul flying off, and the Rebels crew looking sad doesn’t all take place at the exact same time).

Other side AU is deliberately vague about when Ahsoka returns from the World Between Worlds/Malachor/to the Rebel Alliance; it’s not stated in the story, but I made the assumption that she came back shortly after the (non-epilogue) end of the Rebels finale, but was still deeply messed up from her Malachor revelations.  (Also, like, Sidious, I guess, but she was probably so messed up about Anakin/Vader that Sidious being around barely registered.)  Since she never seems to have held a formal position in the Rebel Alliance, I assumed that after she returned and let everyone know she was still alive, she then immediately took off to try and figure out what the hell happened with Anakin at the end of the Clone Wars, since she saw him like a week before he snapped and at the time he seemed fine.

The problem is that almost everyone involved is dead.

Now, at this point (shortly before Scarif and ANH), a few people are still alive who then die shortly, but whom Ahsoka may have no reason to believe were involved.  Bail Organa, for example, is still around, but aside from him being Padme’s friend Ahsoka doesn’t have a reason to know that Bail was there when Padme died -- and since they were in contact for the nineteen years preceding there’s no reason for her to assume now that he was keeping something for her.  Back in the comics (before I stopped reading them), Vader did some digging to figure out what was going on with Padme and his child; Ahsoka probably would have done the same digging (without having to torture anyone), but without necessarily knowing that Padme was pregnant.  Knowing the date of Padme’s death (same as the Republic, essentially), she may have had a previous assumption that Padme was assassinated on Palpatine’s orders, but knowing that Vader is Anakin probably moves that assumption closer to the truth, that Anakin was somehow involved in Padme’s death one way or another.  Sooner or later Ahsoka will turn up the fact that Padme was pregnant, come to the obvious conclusion that Anakin was the father, and possibly find out the same thing that Vader does in the comics -- that the child was born before Padme died.  (But also probably not that Padme was carrying twins, but even if she found that out, it wouldn’t make a difference.)

While Ahsoka is doing her digging (and there really isn’t much information out there to find), the events of Rogue One and ANH happen, and Ahsoka comes back to the Rebel Alliance to find out which of her friends are still alive.  (Maybe Rex is with her at this point, who knows.)

Everyone in the Rebel Alliance is talking about some young hotshot named Luke Skywalker.

Luke Skywalker who has a very familiar lightsaber, who claims his father was Anakin Skywalker, and who had some kind of relationship with Obi-Wan Kenobi, who turned up on the Death Star, fought Darth Vader, and died.

Ahsoka has just spent the past few months trying to figure out what happened with Anakin, and as best she can reassemble the facts it mostly comes down to “Anakin did something dumb for Padme, that something dumb was ‘turn to the Dark Side and kill literally everyone,’ and then Padme died, the Republic was overturned, and the Jedi Order was wiped out.”  Ahsoka presumably walks into a room, hears the name Luke Skywalker -- maybe sees him -- and is all at once face to face with the living evidence of just how badly Anakin fucked up.

This is just too much for Ahsoka to deal with at the moment, so she takes off again, and spends the next five years brushing in and out of the Rebel Alliance doing odd missions that can really only be done by a trained Force-user.  Rex, who seems to have a more stable position in the Alliance, is always going to side with Ahsoka over anyone else; if she tells him not to tell Luke that she knew Anakin, he won’t.  (And for that matter, he may have somewhat fraught feelings about Luke himself.)  She may have the odd interaction with Luke -- who has heard that there’s another Jedi in the Alliance and wants to be friends/get real training -- but Ahsoka just does not want any part of this. It’s irrational! She knows it’s irrational! But this is the living evidence of Anakin’s failure, Anakin who last she saw him TRIED TO KILL HER, who was at least partially responsible for the deaths of everyone she ever knew.  (And honestly, finding out that Vader topped it all off by killing Obi-Wan is not going to help.)

Ahsoka may also be feeling a certain amount of survivor’s guilt: if Ezra had not pulled her out of the Malachor temple at that exact moment, she came pretty close to bringing the temple down on both herself and Vader, and may have succeeded in killing him.  She did not do so, and who knows how many people died because of that in the years between Malachor and Yavin?  (Just because Tarkin was the one who gave the order doesn’t mean that Ahsoka may at least partially blame Alderaan’s destruction on Vader, if she knew he was on the Death Star then.) She knows he killed Obi-Wan.

The Yoda lineage is very good at going “yikes, I am going off to live alone and beat myself up over my failure for years” and Ahsoka is very much an example of that lineage.

She and Luke have a relationship of “Hi, I’m Luke Skywalker, do you want to talk?” and “I have to leave immediately,” maybe with the odd “please stop using that lightsaber grip it is physically painful for me to watch, do it like this instead, okay, bye.”  Luke probably told all of two other people about what happened with Vader on the Death Star, Leia and Han; he has no reason to tell anyone else about it because it won’t matter to them.  Why would he tell Ahsoka, whom he has no relationship with?  He doesn’t know that Ahsoka knew Anakin Skywalker and would only know if one of four people told him: Ahsoka herself (no), Rex (no), R2-D2 (maybe), or Admiral Ackbar (would never have occurred to Luke to ask, might have occurred to Ackbar to say).  (We also don’t know that Mon Mothma knew Ahsoka very well, or at all, for that matter; they never interacted in TCW.)

As for her swinging harder into overt Jedi-ness by Mando after her blatant “I am no Jedi” of Rebels, it reads to me as a response to the Anakin/Vader revelation (especially the attachment thing).  She had made certain assumptions in the TCW period (see her saving Rex in the TCW finale) and prior to Rebels; Kanan’s method of Jediness was something she could accept in the time period and in those circumstances; the Anakin/Vader revelation shattered all of that, followed immediately as it was by Kanan apparently going full Jedi self-sacrifice despite his attachments.  (Her reaction to Ezra being a trauma response about two very different circumstances.)  All of a sudden what she thought might have been mutable based on the circumstances became something that had to be adhered to in case of dangerous results, which she had just had brought home to her in extremely bad circumstances.

I made a crack somewhere about Mando’s central tension being between “being Mandalorian” and “being doing Mandalorianness”; I think in the post-OT period with Ahsoka and Luke we’re seeing something similar with “being Jedi” and “being doing Jediness.”  Even if Ahsoka isn’t actively claiming the title Jedi anymore (because what does that accomplish in most contexts?), she’s leaning far more into the tenets of the Jedi Order -- which Luke doesn’t know and doesn’t know he doesn’t know.

Thus the doctrinal dispute.

Ahsoka grew up in the Jedi Order.  That’s what she knows, that’s how she knows how to be a Jedi; for her being a Jedi is being part of the Jedi Order, whether or not the actions associated with performing Jediness are being actively practiced.  Luke doesn’t have that context.  For Luke, being a Jedi is...being doing Jediness.  (This is super awkward phrasing.)  Performing the actions of a Jedi.  Luke has a few holocrons, but I’m guessing that a lot of what is on those holocrons makes the assumption that whoever is opening with them has the context of being a part of the Jedi Order and doesn’t explain really basic stuff about the Order or what that means.  Luke’s Jedi Order is not going to be the Republic Jedi Order made anew; it’s going to be something that has a resemblance to it and is based on a similar view of the Force, even arguably its heir, but is just not going to be the same thing.  It can’t be.  Luke doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

Kanan, of course, is coming into all of this from a similar context as Ahsoka: he grew up in the Jedi Order, it’s what he knows, it’s who he is.  Except Kanan never walked away from the Order, so while Ahsoka had been disconnected from her Jediness at the time of the Purge, he never lost his -- part of Ahsoka’s tension from TCW S7-Rebels was “I can’t be a Jedi because the Order is gone” and Kanan’s was “can I be a Jedi without the Jedi Order?”  (Ezra is a whole ‘nother thing but is somewhat outside the scope of this.)  The Jedi Order never factors in Luke’s Jediness at all.  (There’s some lineage doctrinal dispute here as well -- the Yoda lineage seems to be very closely connected to the Order as the font of Jediness, the Windu-Billaba lineage somewhat less so.  The Yoda lineage is like...the hardcore conservatives of the Jedi Order, though, and are probably not typical.)

Poor Kanan came back from the dead, after a week in another universe (which had its own problems; he’s been trying to very gently convince his counterpart that even after being an Inquisitor for months he can still be a Jedi), into Luke trying to build a new Jedi Order from scratch, Ahsoka firmly believing it couldn’t and shouldn’t be done and not wanting to be in the same room as Luke at all (not to mention that she really did not believe that they should have gone for “hey, let’s send Hera Syndulla to another universe” as even being an option), and both of them having essentially incompatible notions of being a Jedi at each other -- this is probably the most time Luke and Ahsoka ever spent in each other’s presence.  They’ve probably never articulated their problems at each other, just assumed that the other knew them.  And Kanan has his own “how to be a Jedi” approach, which is from a very different than either Ahsoka or Luke because despite originating from the same context as Ahsoka, he had a very different path to get to his present position.

As for what Kanan knows -- uh, pretty much only what Hera knew, and Hera knew very little?  She was friendly with Luke and Leia, but didn’t have much interaction with them -- she states that she had a tendency to avoid Luke because even if she would never say it to Luke’s face, she silently believes that if any Jedi should have been in the Rebel Alliance, it should have been Kanan and Ezra and not this relative newcomer.  If the Death Star 2 news about Vader and Palps was never common knowledge, then Hera wouldn’t have known it.  Kanan’s in a position of having to play catch-up, but also having a completely different priority (finding Ezra).  He sat through this meeting where after they’d finished grilling him on “you were in ANOTHER UNIVERSE and also you CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD?” they politely sniped at each other with a bunch of context he didn’t have and flat out decided that wow, he did not want to deal with this at all, whatsoever.

(This is also not stated in the story, but Luke and Ahsoka also disagreed about whether Jacen should be trained or not: Luke said, yeah, of course, when he’s a little older! and Ahsoka said nope, he’ll be fine, it will go away. Hera was just very “...I will deal with this later” about it since it wasn’t an urgent issue.)