#but i haven't even finished the game so I have no idea how canon-compliant it is

[befuddledmackem]

Title: Hold Me, Lover, Like You Used To

Author: Mackem

Fandom: Alan Wake 2

Characters: Alice Wake, Alan Wake

Pairing: Alice Wake / Alan Wake

Rating: Teen

Word count: 2,677

Summary:

Alice is on her tiptoes, pulling flour out of an overhead cupboard, when she feels a presence at her back. She can’t help but let out a surprised noise, even though this was her goal when she started puttering about in the kitchen. It dissolves into a sheepish laugh when arms curl around her waist and a chin rests on her shoulder, slotting perfectly against the line of her throat like they were made to fit together.

“Sorry.” Alan’s voice is thick with sleep, dozy and quiet in the soft light of the kitchen. Alice hums as his lips brush against her neck; she still isn’t used to the feel of his beard, but she finds that she likes the scratch of it against her skin. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

[murahel]

Fanfics Masterpost

Transformers Cyberverse Fanfics Ideas:

Soundwave survives the end of the show (even if only to not leave Shadow Striker alone to command Decepticons, come on we've got Hot Rod, Bumblebee and Windblade at the very least to replace Optimus but Shadow Striker has to deal with everything alone? Nah.): Hand Over The Relationship, Offish Decepticon! I'm this close to finishing the last chapter. There's an update on the 1st every month meanwhile to give me time to close that last chapter.

"Wherever Bumblebee goes on Cybertron, Cheetor, be with him." If Cyberverse doesn't give me Cheetor remembrance, then I will.

Bumblebee & Windblade friendship post-war (with sprinkles of Windblade's cityspeaker ability and her time in the Matrix of Leadership of the Other One). Maybe even Cheetor communicating with them from Primus' AllSpark.

Optimus' nightmare after using the Matrix against Starscream is a bit more than just a nightmare. Set with the idea of Optimus being (a reincarnation of) the Thirteenth, therefor a sibling of the Thirteen First Primes: Standing Among The Blue

Transformers EarthSpark Fanfics Ideas:

Brave Educational Experience: or when the Terrans shatter Bumblebee's worldview through a single question.

Shockwave & Wheeljack relationship, but still with their dynamic from in Cyberverse (dancing robots, Shockwave's invention liking Wheeljack (s2 ep10, Secret Science)). Also Wheeljack calls Shockwave out on his racism towards the Terrans/Twitch his daughter.

The ones I probably won't write:

Decepticons meeting up with Autobots at the border after defeating the Quintessons (too vague).

AU fix-it in which Starscream gets better (I just don't know his character enough).

The ones I said I wouldn't write but did in a way or another:

I've read a fic headcanoning Soundwave as a cityspeaker too, which I find interesting but don't think I'll write about it <- Hand Over The Relationship Offish Decepticon! (chapter 5 especially)

--------------------------------------------------

Other stuff I've written unrelated to Transformers medias: ⬇️

And The Sun Snuffed Itself Out So Icare Could Keep Flying: "In this world, Hawks doesn't lose his wings." MHA, canon-compliant up to the moment Hawks loses his alter to AFO. I've always felt like Endeavor/the Todoroki family owned him one after what Dabi does to him (also why the hell are people shipping Dabi and Hawks together wtf) and that with Endeavor's whole "redemption" thing he would at least try to protect Hawks more?? Maybe it's just me. Might get a sequel or follow up if I can work my mind around some plot.

Triangle Is The Strongest Shape: Monastario/Zorro/Lolita trouple. I know, I've got you, you'll have at least one fic with the three of them (it's silly tho). I honestly don't know how Monastorio's name is canonically spelled.

Oh Little Angel's Family: the one I keep forgetting. Supernatural, it's about family feels among the angels (especially the archangels and Castiel) and isn't canon-compliant in the slightest. I think it diverges from canon at s4, but honestly I don't care about that one enough to search back my notes about it. It has an attempt to plot in it, it has. Anyway it's written in french and Michael is called Michel in it.

Not home: an Outer Worlds game character-study(ish) fic about the Captain being an outsider. Do not be fooled by the english title, it's written in french.

Star Wars. I've written many a fic of Star Wars stuff starring the Codywan ship, some in french that haven't been translated since I switched to full english. I've still got unfinished drafts of more fics including them which will probably never be finished because I can't be bothered, and I don't post unfinished drafts (there's one exception to this and I won't elaborate on it).

Ideas of fics that haven't been written (yet):

A Baroness fic. From The Cat Returns Ghibli movie. In which she either gets reunited with Baron or has Toto and other birds travel letters between them.

A Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas time-travel fix-it fic centering on Shion, in which Zeus is actually responsible for the Holy War and the Aries cloth has time powers because of Chronos. Featuring being hunted as a traitor by his fellow Golds, soul wound, and Lady Persephone.

A Kuraerti fic (you know. the one yall keep calling Clerifa like it's a fucking Pokémon.) post-canon, a timeline what timeline, everyobody lives, setting: Gold Saucer. Featuring an Oblivious!Cloud, background Reno/Rude, Zack being around, Rufus and his dog learning to be a Good PersonTM under mentorship from Dio, the most adults members of the group acting like parents and a frustrated Barret.

A Brooklyn Nine-Nine fic in which Kevin's family is actually from the mafia. His parents don't talk to him anymore because he married a cop and the whole Seamus situation gets worse because that's a mafia family kidnapping somedoby from another mafia family. It is unclear if Holt is aware or not.

[sallysavestheday]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks very much to @nocompromise-noregrets for the tag! This is always an interesting exercise and I haven't done it in a while.

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 182, but a goodly subset of those are collections of very short works (drabbles, my beloveds!).

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 137,372. I average around 700 words per ficlet (counting those that are collections of drabbles). I have only two works over 2,000 words -- one at barely 2,100 and one at 5,600 by dint of TRSB last summer.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Tolkien only. Mostly Silmarillion but occasionally Lord of the Rings, as well.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? I'm splitting this by fandom because the older LoTR stuff has more kudos simply as a function of time.

For LoTR: Deep in the Ancient Forests of the World; Light a Little Fire in Me; I Do Not Grudge You the Game; Rash Words and Bitter Hopes; Sing, O Stone and Air. These are all Legolas/Gimli ficlets.

For Silm: When All Other Lights Go Out (the aforementioned TRSB Feanorian family drama); What We Make, Makes Us (Caranthir and Feanor); What Keeps Us Here (Celeborn and Thranduil); Still Plenty of Good in the World (Sam Gamgee fixes Feanor and Nerdanel); and It Is the Opinion of this Reviewer (Finrod critiques the research of his peers).

No method to the madness here, it seems. Some shippy, most not. Some angsty, some humorous, mostly canon compliant. Range of Silm characters. Interesting to see the variety, actually.

5. Do you respond to comments? Always. Usually within a few days. Comments are a great way to get to know other people in the fandom, and it's always a pleasure to see familiar names pop up. It's nice to know I have a bit of a following. But I also love seeing new people appear, and I welcome everything from a single emoji to a full blown rant. I reply to them all.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Only one? Impossible to choose. I love an angsty ending. Killing Fingon off is always a delight (like this, or this). Sending people off to their dooms (like this, or this) is another. Making them consider might-have-beens, too (like this, or this, or this).

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I do also like happy endings! I write many happy post-canon returns, to tie up all the loose ends. Also happy moments within canon, but you usually have to pretend you don't know what comes next (blame the Professor, not me). For LoTR, These Our Braided Lives has a very happy Gimleaf ending. For Silm, try In These Altered States, Rejoice.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Spitting over my shoulder on this one, but no. Even the people who don't agree with my takes on particular characters have always been polite. Thank you, kind readers!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I don't write anything explicit. I'll read a wide variety but am more restrained in my writing. I've snuck a little bit into the mature range for a few things recently, but I prefer allusion and metaphor, really. It's the spirit of the intimacy that interests me, not so much the mechanics.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Nope. Canon compliant or canon adjacent always.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, I've had a few requests. My Thranduil seems to be quite popular in other languages.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I haven't but would be happy to explore the possibility.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Can't pick just one. Legolas/Gimli, Glorfindel/Ecthelion, Maedhros/Fingon, Finrod/Edrahil. The much rarer Egalmoth/Rog. And I'm pleased to have originated the tag for Amrod/Aredhel. Spitfire fans, get on that! (thanks to chestnut_pod for the horrible, wonderful ship name)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Not a WIP, even, just an idea that I've mentioned before: an AU in which Fingon, returning from Thangorodrim with Maedhros, can't hold onto him, and he falls from the eagle's back into Lake Mithrim. I won't write it, but I sure hope someone else will.

16. What are your writing strengths? Brevity, ha! Condensing a great deal of emotional development into very few words. Figurative language. Ripping your heart out and stomping on it, tidily.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Dialogue. I don't write much of it, and it takes a long time to get it right.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I'm not likely to do so. I don't like the way it interrupts the flow. I'd rather indicate the language that is being spoken than try to craft compelling dialogue in it. This is especially fraught in the Tolkien fandoms, where the linguists WILL come for you if you get it wrong, lol!

19. First fandom you wrote for? LoTR. I've only been doing this for a couple of years.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Impossible to choose! But my comfort series is The Flower and the Fountain: 16,000 words of Glorfindel and Ecthelion in 32 vignettes. I love those guys.

Thank you so much for the tag! @polutrope @eilinelsghost @melestasflight @tathrin @thelordofgifs @zealouswerewolfcollector, what about you? And anyone else who'd like to share, hop in!

[sarasa-cat]

Well. Here in Bad Decisions Dragon Age Land, I'm about to ignore real work for the rest of the day, open up various online references, and make a spreadsheet that creates my PRIMARY canon in Thedas.

Other columns for secondary canon, branching non-compliant canon, etc.

And then I'm grabbing my steamdeck and getting the old games set up (mods as required) so I can play my canon between now and whenever DA:D DA:tV comes out.

(gotta make all those long boring flights less boring)

...

Meanwhile, last night I almost stayed up late to make the weirdest xover character ever for Cyberpunk 2077. Have been thinking about turning my SDV farmer, Viola, into a nomad.

Gotta finish playing out my ideas for how that crossover even works. ;)

Given all of the new stuff added to CP77 last year (that I haven't yet had time to play), I was thinking of playing a nomad for an end-to-end run to see how that shakes out, and then going back to one of my earlier saves for my Corpo V and tweaking her canon story as appropriate.

[hungrydolphin91]

@v-voeux RIGHT so. This is gonna be MASSIVE spoilers for my ongoing post-game Zestiria fic Falling Awake, that one i started over a year ago that Nash made beautiful art of ;_; I still have plans to finish it someday, but currently I'm struggling because there's 11 characters I'm trying to juggle at the same time 😅 not to mention I haven't played zesty in a while, so some the scenes I'm trying to write feel a little stale or unfocused. I WILL come back to it though I SWEAR I wanna finish this story because this premise drives me insane hhhhh

I kinda lied in the fic tags calling it a berzesty crossover because it's much more Zestiria-focused than Berseria, set in zesty post-game in a world where humans can suddenly see both seraphim and hellions which causes lots of problems (not to plug my own work but I would recommend reading what's been posted so far, the text itself can do a much better job emotionally conveying the context than I can here). Mikleo in particular is struggling ('cause that's what we're here for, mikleo angst 😅) because their former group is falling apart over various issues, such as a lack of purification powers/Shepherd and whether it's ethical to kill hellions/dragons since basically no one has the ability to purify them anymore. Mikleo is lonely, desperate, and depressed, but he's still holding out for some kind of long-term solution to the malevolence hidden in the past, when humans and seraphim coexisted.

And while's he's researching he discovers the true nature of a powerful but long-forgotten Empyrean, Innominat, who has been sealed away inside the earthpulse. He takes the steps needed to free him, and is rewarded by being immediately devoured. RIP.

Except the twist is that he fucking planned this. I took the idea of Empyreans being influenced by the souls that are sacrificed to them and ran with it so Mikleo DELIBERATELY fed himself to a god in order to reincarnate as said god (kinda similar to his seraphic rebirth actually), and with the powers of an Empyrean he'd be able to cleanse the land's malevolence himself and Sorey could awaken.

EXCEPT it's not quite enough yet. Innominat is a forgotten Empyrean so no humans are giving him their prayers and therefore he is much weaker than he was in Berseria. So despite Meebominat devouring as much malevolence as he can for now, it's not gonna be enough to really purify anything unless he gets even more powerful.

It's worth noting that up until this point, Mikleo hasn't really done anything amoral yet, other than traumatizing Zaveid who witnessed his 'murder' and letting the others think he's evil 'cause he doesn't expect them to be onboard for his plan. He fights the others when they confront him but he always leaves them alive because he doesn't want to hurt them, he just wants them out of the way. His goal is to find Sorey again and more importantly, Maotelus.

At the same time as Innomeebo's galavanting around and dealing with his angry friends, Sorey and Maotelus wake up because Maotelus has sensed Innominat's awakening and wants to personally stop him. They depart from their own pocket of Earthpulse on borrowed time (not canon compliant but who cares fight me) in order to track him down or at least warn someone that he's a threat, because few alive today even know who he is, much less how dangerous his return is.

A bunch of things I have yet to write happen but ultimately Sorey and Mikleo end up reunited, initially delighted to see each other again until Sorey starts to realize Mikleo's domain is on par with an Empyrean, maybe the exact Empyrean he was looking for actually. Sorey starts to doubt whether he can even trust Mikleo or if this is just Innominat wearing his face to torment him. Meebominat, meanwhile, is arguing firmly that yes, it's really him, and he doesn't have any of Innominat's old evil plans for the world like the Ceremony of Suppression. He really does want to save the world. He just needs to devour Maotelus first-- after all, Maotelus is a part of Innominat, and with their powers combined and consolidated he should be able to purify the world fully.

Cue Sorey's sort of BSOD moment, trying to figure out if this is all a lie, somewhat swayed by the logic of it since Maotelus wouldn't even technically die, he'd just become a part of Innominat like Mikleo already has. But Maotelus absolutely does not want this (picture lil babby Laphicet telling Innomeebo to fuck off) and of course Sorey doesn't want to sacrifice one person, even if it would save the world. But now he's not sure if he has to stop and maybe kill Mikleo to save Maotelus, or if he can actually be reasoned with and saved somehow.

Eventually Sorey gets the idea to solve this problem the way he addressed the last major antagonist he came up against: get to the truth of the matter, using the Earthen Historia. He witnesses for himself what led Mikleo to this point of voluntarily sacrificing himself to gain power, and comes to the heartbreaking conclusion that this is, in fact, pure Mikleo, genuinely asking him to hand over Maotelus so he can eat him.

Again it's worth noting that Mikleo is motivated by more than just loneliness and longing to see Sorey again, although that's a big part of it. He's confident in his own abilities to be in charge and ambitious enough to embrace Empyrean levels of power. He's seen how much the world is suffering and wants to change that and fulfill the dream the two once shared. But Sorey's own words ("My dream will live on, so long as I don't forget,") are part of what inspired him to do this, though twisted through his own lens of desperation, and that's how Sorey realizes Mikleo WILL still listen to him. Mikleo has the power to fight and maybe take Maotelus by force, but he doesn't. Even if he's not consciously aware of it, he's handed over his moral compass to Sorey, and as long as Sorey approved of his actions, they'd all be worth it, no matter who was hurt along the way.

So of course Sorey doesn't approve, because he can't let Mikleo down even though he's begging him to. Mikleo is heartbroken and for a second Sorey worries he might lash out after all, but he doesn't, because Mikleo trusts Sorey more than anything else including himself. He willingly surrenders Innominat's power using the deus ex machina that is Siegfried, all while utterly grieving the eventual parting that's coming, since ultimately nothing has been fixed and Sorey will still have to go to sleep.

And that's the emotional climax of the story, the part that drives me insane every time I reread it 😅 I have ideas for more to follow afterward, hopefully a happier ending because even I hate to leave Mikleo exactly where he started after how far he went to change things, but between the confusing, inconsistent lore of berzesty and the endless possibilities of endings here I am once again overwhelmed. Thanks for reading this far though, I hope my sormik angst was to your taste 😄

[lesbianrobin]

3, 8, 15 💕❤️💖

hi jas <3 <3 <3 thank u!

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

i could literally make a bingo sheet for my own fics if i didn't think that would be an embarrassingly self-absorbed act so i shall provide a list that you might potentially make some sort of drinking game from:

steve and robin do some little weirdo thing to demonstrate that they are freakishly close, robin talks about a foreign film that i like, someone dies and people have to process it, steve cries, reference to steve winning prom king, steve cries, steve cries more, somebody else cries, genuinely i cannot write a fic or even a single chapter of a multichapter fic without making somebody cry it's a problem, please help me.

8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?

oh i've always wanted to write an st fic inspired by "i know the end" by phoebe bridgers! i love the blend of intensely personal emotional turmoil and like the sense of smallness in the universe like you're insignificant but simultaneously feeling like you're maybe the only one in the universe. the surreal pseudo-science fiction vibe. the classic americana. when the sirens sound you'll hide under the floor but i'm not gonna go down with my hometown in a tornado i'm gonna chase it i know i know i know......... either way we're not alone i'll find a new place to be from a haunted house with a picket fence to float around and ghost my friends no i'm not afraid to disappear the billboard said the end is near i turned around there was nothing there yeah i guess the end is here.....

i'd really love to write something kinda surreal and trippy with the st universe i love the idea of hawkins becoming a bit like night vale and bending reality and playing with the idea of converging universes. so i may try to write something like that someday idk i have so many fics in progress already lmao

15. What’s your favorite AU that you’ve written?

ok so this fic is still in progress but my favorite au's gotta be young strangers. so far it's barely an au i must admit it's Technically all canon compliant and actually my original plan had been for it to be completely canon compliant!! but then s4 came out and the way max and eddie's plots went it became. unfathomable for me to stick to canon.

for those who haven't read young strangers the concept is that steve had an older brother who died prior to the start of the show, and originally i was just going to explore how that impacted his interiority yknow? i was going to focus on him processing and healing from his grief through his relationships with the kids and robin. but then s4 happened. and like max being suicidal and dying/becoming comatose because of the complicated feelings she has about billy's death + having eddie die right there in dustin's arms just seemed far too dark and it was impossible for me to reconcile those things with my goal in this fic. so! in the last half of the fic we're gonna be veering way off-course and i'm really excited for when this semester's over and i have some time to finish it up!!

[daryascurse]

Hey I just want to say, I'm so happy to see you back! I saw your post yesterday about works being discontinued and stuff today about TBSOS. Can I just ask what you are planning on continuing from now? And this isn't meant to make you feel like you owe us to continue working on anything or that I'll unfollow if there's something I was looking forward to, I'm just curious, if you're ok answering (:

hihi no offense taken!! that's a fair question and i'm really super grateful for the interest / that people are still around and want to read my things after completely disappearing! and i also realized after i wrote my "hello world i'm alive" that i phrased some of it super ominously. long story short, i have no intention of dropping fics entirely or erasing everything to restart. but i am kind of "starting clean" in the sense of what i'd promised coming down the pipe before the hiatus. looking at my masterlist, here's a rundown of fic statuses from works i previously left unfinished/ open; putting under a cut bc even as i start this i can tell it's going to be a long post:

Events: I'm not going to continue either my Tropetember or Kinktober series. a few reasons -- primarily that they were intended to be seasonal miniseries, and i DON'T meant to say that you can't write for kinktober if it's not October. but personally, it's very hard for me to break that internal rule of not having met my goals or plan, especially when i kept readjusting my original ideas over and over to be more realistic, and it just didn't work out. if you're curious i have more i could say on those, can even share the various lists of planning, but eh for now.

AOT: Chainsmoking His Love: 100% want to finish this. it's meant to be 20 chapters, as a play off of 20 cigarettes in a box, and i really intended it to fit this pattern once i decided to expand it from a one-shot. but, i should be on #14 now, and i have plans for 18, 19, 20, but.... not ideas to get us there. and idk how many chapters i can get away with as just filler moments, and i worry i've already done too many. so.. that's a frustrating one to be stuck on, but by no means am I giving up.

Quiet Through the Trees: unfortunately, this one is on indefinite hiatus, likely not to be concluded. again, i can say more specifically if you're curious but i'm trying to keep this post from being 1000 lines. i will say that part of that is bc i was inspired / wanted to write it for a moot who dropped out of fandom and that kind of took a lot of my motivaiton with it. (no hate to her i want her to be happy and healthy! just a byproduct.)

Hunger Games: Caveat Emptor is a series with no planned length or even super planned out plot; based on the BOOK Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - I haven't actually seen the movie yet. but i had a lot of fun writing the first chapter, more fun writing than i have in a really long time, actually, and so.. yeah i'm going to keep with it, even if it isn't exactly the thing for this blog which is mostly anime-related. but i mean, i have passions about other stuff too, so.. why not just put all the writing together? you guys are lucky it isn't tom from succession and that's all i'll say lmaaaaoo.

JJK: Commandment series: while this is probably my longest hiatus work, i 100% plan to finish this. i have 2 fics to go in it and they've been on my mind since 2021 so... fuck it i MUST get them out. but they're foggy ideas that are really daunting when i go to write, and i find i lose my writing stamina/ motivation quickly. but they're not dead.

Unholy Land: while I've said i'm kind of leaving it open and i'd come back to do more, especially as jjk progresses, i'm finding it hard to do so. this was my first big piece on my old account and it was when i was most concerned with being a canon-compliant fic writer. as jjk lore continues, i'm not confident in its continued accuracy from the original 2020 publication. i have possible ideas of where to go from how i'd left off, but.. i have a complex relationship with jjk now and i'd kind of like to see how gege keeps things moving before i make a decision on that.

i think that's all of what was up in the air in October... again, feel free to ask more specific questions, or lmk if i missed anything / there's anything else you're curious about. thank you SO, so, so much for asking and caring about my fics <33333

[limetameta]

For the new fanfic writers ask game:

3, 4 & 29?

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

ooh, this ao no exorcist one i wrote way back in the day while i was still on ffnet that i'm most likely going to repurpose bits of into an og story. (has been deleted since, i think on ao3 itself you can find the first chapter just which i decided to keep for posterity sake lmao) definitely one of my favourite fics of all time - technically - absolute garbage - worldbuilding wise? so good it deserves to be its own thing. ao no exorcist was a formative influence on me lmao. fuck fmab the only reason why i haven't written 10k fics of ao no exorcist is because im writing so much og shit in that genre.

though i will say! i never actually finished ao no exorcist. i got to the point where the grigori's identities were revealed and then i just kind of quit because my at the time pretty canon compliant fic went in COMPLETELY different direction due to the manga's revelations so i quit the fic and the manga lmaooo.

4. How many WIPs do you have right now?

bitch a looootttttt

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

Here's a discarded scene from Retired Prometheus, in the Battle of Grimmauld Place arc:

There was a thing about bullies that many people wished was 100% real and accurate: that they all met their justice at some point.

This wasn’t at all true and people who thought bullies actually got their just desserts really were optimistic. Though, as this was fiction-land, the author could be very optimistic.  All of this meant one thing: Sirius Black was not long for this world.

Death stretched her legs and her wings as she glanced at a watch she’d materialized out of thin air. It had a small hourglass on it with Sirius’ name. She tapped it a few times. The date did not at all correspond with the time left in the glass. ’’Did I account for daylight saving’s time?’’ These things had to be accounted for, but even if Death had accounted for that, it still wouldn’t explain why Sirius had managed to live past his mark. The only thing that could possibly explain why these people, whom she was going to finally get around to taking to the other side of the veil, were still kicking was the fact that Death was enthralled by the sight of a faux-American kicking it in Montenegro. Doing her job had slipped her mind.

Well, this Battle was the perfect time to catch up on her duties. She looked at Sirius and then the man he was duelling. Severus the infamous turncloak. His clock, too, was irregular.

Death hoped they would kill each other to save her the trouble.

[prepnursey]

10,11,15,and 29 for the ask game? ~dexsbruins

Thanks for asking! Questions are from this post

10. How do you stay motivated to finish what you’ve started?

Great question, honestly. Most of my published fic has been created as either part of fandom theme weeks (and it's been short oneshots) so there's been the pressure to finish and post the thing during that day, or as a part of a big bang event, so someone quite literally gave me a schedule and told me when I had to be done.

Still, I've got a chaptered fic I haven't updated in a year, and my newest fic sat half-completed for a while when I didn't even think about it. I write because it's fun, but I think the final push to get something polished enough that I want to show it to people is at least partially caused by the desire to get attention. Who doesn't like seeing nice tumblr tags or enthusiastic ao3 comments?

11. What’s your longest fanfic?

That would be She knows herself (and that's enough), my technically canon-compliant big bang fic about Whiskey being a trans woman, dating Tango and Foxtrot and going to the NHL.

This fic is my baby, I had a wonderful time writing it (by which I mean projecting onto Whiskey) and honestly I think about it approximately ten times a week

15. OCs or no OCs?

My fics have their fair bit of OCs, but I'm more in my comfort zone writing the inner landscapes of characters I know and understand well, so the OCs are very much there to move the plot, rather than to have rich inner lives of their own.

29. What’s more difficult? Fanfics or original work?

Hmm, both have their difficulties. I feel like my strength as a writer (or maybe just what I feel most comfortable doing) is writing characters' thoughts (and describing nature. i love talking about forests and wetlands), but I'm not really great at developing characters and giving them distinct personalities.

In original fiction it's easier to get around these issues, I can create characters that are easy for me to write and just write them walking around a town experiencing gay angst and thinking in melodramatic metaphors (I should finish this story, it slaps but I get sad every time I read it because the main character's so stuck! but then he starts flirting with a guy and it's not going anywhere because I don't know how to write it!)

In fanfic I avoid characters who I have difficulty with, I have so many ideas for fics with a lot of Bitty in them, but I don't know if I'll ever write them because his speech patterns are so difficult to get right! But on the other hand having those canon personalities helps me distinguish characters, even if they all tend closer to my style of introspective and sort of serious. I think Tango is a great example of this, I probably wouldn't put a character like him into my original writing, but in fanfic I can sort of write his canon personality, so it creates an interesting contrast with Whiskey, who very much has the exact same personality as most of the main characters in my original writing.

I don't think it really contributes to the difficulty that much, but I want to mention that I write fanfic in English, while my original fiction is in Finnish. I think what I write in both of them plays to my strengths, because writing natural-sounding dialogue is absolutely horrible in Finnish because of how different spoken and written Finnish are, but I have a bigger vocabulary for waxing poetic about trees in Finnish. (although poetic might be a bit misleading, since I write poetry in both languages) ((well okay the nature poems are all in finnish, but i write notes app poetry about gender and family and everything in whichever language the idea comes to mind in))

So in conclusion, I really can't say which one is easier, but they are pretty different for me!

[beck-a-leck]

Tagged by @thychesters

rules: tell us the titles of all the WIPs you are currently working on right now and a little about them. then tag five other writers.

I'm calling this the Pimp My WIPS Game! fite me

Anyways I have 2 categories: The WIPS currently posted on AO3 and I am actively writing, no matter how slowly. and the WIPS that are currently stuck in Unposted Purgatory, the might one day get finished and posted, they might languish forever on my hard drive. Even I don't know!

Current WIPS

Our Dear Empress: A Rune Factory 4 fic in which, after in-game events, the protagonist, Frey, unwittingly becomes Empress of the enemy Sech Empire. It's a Sad Fic. There's grief and mourning and having to say goodbye to friends and loved ones and leave the safety of home for the dangerous unknown. I might try and pretend like I know anything about how politics work. In the future, there might be an arranged marriage for the Drama. We'll see.

Take My Arm That I Might Reach You: an offshooting branch of my big, main canon-compliant Star Wars Prequels fic (Wells of Silence) featuring gender bent Anakin and Padme. In this fic, Padme lives and takes the twins, Obi-Wan doesn't leave Vader to die on Mustafar and takes her into exile on Tatooine (to rehabilitate her and/or keep her imprisoned for the remainder of their lives), and Vader eventually gets a hard-earned redemption arc to reunite with her babies. Lots of angst. I predict I will focus on the story a lot once the Kenobi show drops in a couple months

Stranded: A Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns fic in which I explore the shared Childhood Trauma TM the Lulukoko kids experienced together. Equal parts adventure and world building and backstory exploration and an exercise for me to see how well I can write characters who are only like 13 years old.

Earth and Rebirth: Another SoS:3oT fic putting a twist on the standard protagonist's story for the game. Typically in these games your character is a young 20-something, single and ready to mingle, but for this story I widowed by MC and left her pregnant and now she has to figure out what she wants to do as an Adult TM, where she wants to live, how to move on after a devastating loss, and on top of all that how to also be a mom before she's ready for it. As per usual with my stories, it's full of delicious angst.

Remember Us: This RF4 fic was my 2020 Covid Lockdown hyperfixation fic, as RF4Special was my Covid lockdown hyperfixation game. (my writing for this one got a little sidetracked when Empress came along, but It still lives in my brain. I'll write more soon, I promise!) Anyways, in this one Frey agrees to have a magical baby, suffers some Terribly Inconvenient head trauma and Amnesia Strikes Back, and this inevitably stirs up all sorts of relationship drama between her and Arthur, and it is, in the long run, a story about them falling out of love, and then realizing that they never really didn't love each other and falling back in love.

Carve Yourself From Sandstone: My Sig-centric Jak and Daxter fic! (that i'm also writing at a glacially slow speed) In this one we take a look at Sig's back story and mix in a little bit of Damas' back story for good measure, plus some world and lore building for the whole J&D world. It will eventually lead up to the point where baby Jak gets taken and Sig adopts the Demolition Duo in Haven City, but at the rate I'm writing that will happen in like 20 years 😬

WIP Purgatory Fics

If You Give A Droid A Knife: Look. I started and almost finished this story Last May and I just haven't gone back to put the finishing touches on it! I saw a piece of art (and I can't remember where now I'd need to go digging through my sw tag) where someone drew BD-1 with a knife and I immediately got the idea "What if the droids found out Palpatine was evil?" because Naturally, they'd collect All the Knives and shank the Sith Lord and thus the galaxy was saved and everyone lives happily ever after!

Galaxy's Best Dad AU: Another Star Wars fic. I had the idea back in October, I think, of what if Plo Koon took Anakin on as his padawan after Qui-Gon's death? Because Obi-Wan was not emotionally prepared to take care of a child, and Plo is the Galaxy's Best Dad. Obi-Wan could get to be the Cool Cousin or something to Anakin, so they're still together a lot. And like, most things still happen as they do in canon, but at the end when Anakin's just about to fall he takes a moment to think about how utterly disappointed Plo would be in him if he fell to the dark side, and Anakin couldn't live with himself if he disappointed the Galaxy's Best Dad! And thus the galaxy is saved and everyone lives happily ever after! (and order 66 never happens) I want to actually write this, but I know it's going to turn into another Long WIP and I have Enough of those right now!

Boba And Omega Sibling Fic and the Grown Omega Fic: These two are grouped together because the former directly caused the later. So back when Book of Boba Fett was coming out I said "lmao. i absolutely don't want to see this happen in the show, but what if Omega came to help out Boba?" and I started writing a little fic about the two of them realizing they're sort-of siblings and over the years developing a begrudging but ultimately loving sibling relationship. And as siblings do, they give each other shit, constantly, and it is glorious to see them bickering sometimes. Anyways, spawned off that I started messing around with the shenanigans a grown up Omega might get into with the Bad Batch and those disjointed scenes and bits got tossed together into one document. I might finish up the Sibling fic, probably won't finish up the Grown fic, but who knows.

Clean Slate: A Friends of Mineral Town fic. I got an idea while I was writing my Mineral Town Big Bang fic and starting up a new file as Pete to get a feel for the town and characters and stuff, and it's really just a Super Basic 'novelization of the game plot' sort of story, but with extra Drama and Angst, because I cannot be helped. Ultimately I don't think this one's going to get finished, but I guess we'll see.

Beatrice: This one's a Rune Factory 5 fic, so mild spoilers if you care. Anyways Beatrice shows up in town under all sorts of hush-hush circumstances with nobody but a Knight to accompany her. And I started thinking about what kind of trouble a princess could possibly get into that would require her to be sent so far away from home alone. But also it includes some delicious pining on Reinhard's behalf because he's just a knight and she's a princess and it could never be, but he definitely volunteered to come to Rigbarth with Beatrice because he loves her is very dedicated to his profession. Not sure if I'll finish this one either, I want to see what information I can learn in game before I really try and join together the random scenes I wrote down.

oh gosh this got so long and now I have to tag people... uhh... idk. I'm so tired and it's late.

If you want to paly along, feel free to say I tagged you!

(or maybe I'll come back tomorrow morning and tag folks)