#cici speaks

[wizard-finix]

Ao3 tag game!

THANKS @ragecndybars FOR THE TAG I APPRECIATE IT

*cracks knuckles* lets do this

How many works do you have on AO3?

24 works! I would have never expected to have that many 5 years ago, hahaha

What's your total AO3 word count?

186,291! oh wow, almost 200k!! (unsurprisingly PT minato takes up over a third of that LMAO)

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

10 fandoms! I'm counting Persona 3, 4, and 5 and separate, but I'm grouping all the Zelda fandoms together since it's all Linked Universe fic.

Here's the breakdown!

The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms (6)

Persona 5 (5)

Persona 3 (5)

SPY x FAMILY (Anime) (3)

Wizard101 (Video Game) (3)

SPY x FAMILY (Manga) (3)

Runescape (Video Games) (3)

Pirate101 (Video Game) (3)

Persona 4 (2)

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom (2)

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga (1)

Star Wars - All Media Types (1)

The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Warriors (1)

Top five fics by kudos:

The Ghost of Mementos/Stygian Ringlet (Persona3/5) - to the surprise of absolutely no one, since this is currently my longest fic. I'm very happy with Stygian Ringlet being the top because I love my boys :)

True Crime Special on the Midnight Channel (Persona 4/5) - my Ren has a TV Dungeon fic! also very proud of the dungeon concept for this one, I really need to finish the last two chapters

Dark Clouds on the Horizon (Linked Universe/TOTK) - I feel like this one got a lot of momentum partially because it was directly in the wake of TOTK's release, but I'm happy with how it turned out :)

Strangers Are Just Friends You Haven't Met (Persona 3/SPY x FAMILY) - this was a collab series with mewrose and a few others in the marigolds discord! we were throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck and I really had a lot of fun with Shinjiro-related prompts, because I LOVE him and hitting him with the isekai baseball bat into a universe with Anya brings me great joy

Salt Tears and Raindrops (Linked Universe/TOTK) - directly related to Dark Clouds, and I'm glad people enjoyed good ol' fashioned angst >:) (I do need to post more of my wips, I do have a couple more roleswap AU wips that I want to post)

Do you respond to comments?

Yes! I almost always do because I really appreciate them and its my way of saying thanks for the comment! If I don't comment it's because I lost track of it or because I can't think of a response.

What's the fic with the angstiest ending you've ever written?

Probably Salt Tears and Raindrops. I was in a Mood and decided to go for the tried-and-true method of putting fictional characters I like through the emotional wringer. That's how I got the rough draft for this fic :)

Do you write crossovers?

*looks at my persona fics and recent LU fics*

...I think it's safe to say most of my fics these days fall under crossovers lmao

Have you ever gotten hate on a fic?

I wouldn't say I have? One or two comments that came off as rude, but no actual hate, thankfully. If I did, I forgot about it. I've been blessed by wonderfully nice readers <3

Do you write smut?

Nope. I don't read it, so I wouldn't know how to write it anyway.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of? I sure hope not.

I have seen a couple short fics slightly imitate Ghost of Mementos though, which I thought was really sweet that they liked it enough to inspire their own writing.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope, but I'd definitely be open to it!

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

RYOMINA. Hands down. I love them so much, I am so mentally unwell about these two

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

My two Runescape fics, Whispers in the Temple and Welcome to the Jungle. I absolutely loved going hogwild with rewriting old quests in Runescape, but I psyched myself out of Welcome to the Jungle because I got overly anxious about accidentally doing bad representation.

(in hindsight, it probably wouldn't have been as big a deal as I thought; it's hard to make it worse considering how bad Legend's Quest was with the british-african stereotypes. that quest DID NOT age well.)

I also want to finish Snake in the Grass; that was my first attempt at a genuine mystery plot and I really liked playing with Warriors in that fic in the context of the gang trying to figure out who the heck is trying to murder him.

What are your writing strengths?

I feel like I'm pretty good at dialogue! I try to make sure it matches the character's speech patterns and personality. Really well-written dialogue can tell you who's speaking without actually telling who it is. (For example, the way I write them: Minato speaks as few words as possible and has very little filter with his observations when he does share them, and Shinjiro is pretty rough around the edges, with shortened words and the occasional swear. Warriors is good with words and wit, but he has a certain military-esque directness and doesn't dance around the topic.)

I do try hard to keep the plot clear and understandable over everything else, so probably that as well.

Also, now that I think about it, maybe fight sequences? I don't do them much, but I do enjoy the challenge of making a clear sequence of what happens in a fight and trying to make it understandable. Fight sequences are easy to skip or gloss over, but I think of them like their own miniature plot. What happens? What surprises are there? What are their movesets? How do they get the upper hand? (and of course, what looks cool as fuck)

What are your writing weaknesses?

Time management. I tend to over-proofread since I beta my own work, and often I'll go back to tweak stuff if I had additional thoughts to add to it, or extra insight. Lately, it takes longer to write chapters than I'd like.

Also, dialogue-heavy scenes often get very chaotic in my WIPs because of the way I rough out fics. I'll throw together a bunch of dialogue bits I think would be cool to include, and sometimes they'll clash or get really messy, especially if there's lots of characters (looking at the latest two chapters of Stygian Ringlet)

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fics?

I think it's cool! It adds flavor to fics. If it's more than one short phrase though, or if it's story important, then I do prefer that there is a translation in the author's notes. I haven't done any non-English dialogue in fics, save for one memorable adventure into trying to figure out how Latin grammar structure works for a character that didn't speak English.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Wizard101 and Pirate101. I was obsessed with those two for YEARS. I really, really liked pirate stories in high school, and having a cast of crewmates that accompany you throughout the game really inspired me to write my first fic featuring my OC. (I was also into One Piece at the time, but I never wrote for it.)

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written so far?

Stygian Ringlet. It's really dear to my heart. I have poured so much love and effort into that fic, and the reception on it has completely blown me away.

THANKS FOR THE TAG!! Uhhhmmm for tags I'm going to go with @skyward-floored, @catreginae and @breannasfluff (but only if you want to!! no obligation of course)

and of course any other writers that want to do it as well!! go forth

[143studies]

born to vibe

forced to make assignments and tasks in group

[nam-nam-joon]

hello

thank you for staying strong and staying alive

i know it's so hard (so so so hard)

but just know i'm unbelievably proud of you

and that i will always fight alongside you

<3

i don't know when this one came in bc i've been offline for so long but.

thank you. <3

[spellsthename]

I honestly love coming back to my hometown. There’s many odd and strange things about it, but it’s such a safe place.

I went to the dispo and talked to the guy for a while about how we both trained and raised service dogs Bc the training location is local. We talked about how we’ve been able to send service animals across the country to help people.

I miss my hometown, but only once I return and feel the love of my people.

[143studies]

aw I feel this a lot.. I decide to respond to op in form of a reblog just in case I could enlighten some others in any way(and so I could write more!) whenever I feel stuck I like to play a little "memory" game with myself. it may be even more interesting if u are someone learning more languages!

I choose a variety of themes (such as fruits, foods, body parts, basic verbs etc pieces from the vocabulary you are learning), write them in tiny pieces of paper, close them, mix it all together and choose one randomly. If I get a theme like, for example family members, I start naming them as if it was a list and I go one by one in all of my target languages. this will depend on your choice by I would do it like this:

* mãe (my native language) / mother (my 2nd) / 엄마 (my target) / madre (target example 2)

* pai / father / 아빠 / padre

and so on. it helps me to acknowledge if 1) I am able to remember what I've learnt so far and 2) how's my time response to do it and also if applicable 3) if I actually have learned it or not.

if I don't remember any word, it would look somewhat like this:

* tio / uncle / ??? (or blank space) / ???

then I immediately search it to emphasize the missing word in my brain. you can spice it up too if you want because there are no rules for it hahaha! you can also set a period of time to make this dynamic to see how fast you can write it all, or instead of randomly choosing themes, you can write a bunch of more complicated / niche words and see if you name them in your other target languages, etc.

hope this helps! ♡♡♡

1 april 2024

EN: I wish I could be more productive, the language learning plateau has hit me hard. If anyone could give me advice on how to overcome this, please let me know

-

ES: Ojalá pudiera ser más productiva, el estancamiento del aprendizaje de idiomas me ha afectado mucho. Si alguien pudiera aconsejarme sobre como superar esto, por favor, házmelo saber

-

FR: J'aimerais être plus productive, le plateau du apprentissage des langues m'a beaucoup affectée. Si quelqu'un pouvait me conseiller sur comment surmonter cela, laissez-moi savoir s'il vous plaît

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PT: Quem me dera ser mais produtivo, o patamar da aprendizagem de línguas atingiu-me muito. Se alguém me puder dar um conselho sobre como superar isto, por favor, informe-me

-

If I made any mistakes in the written pieces above, please correct me!

[wolfytae-exe]

i wanna sit on taehyuns face so bad rn actually.

[marshmallowloves]

Back in X/Y, a friend traded me a sassy-natured Rotom originating from a German-speaking region. So I got the idea that every time we received a Rotom-inhabited device in the following games, it's actually inhabited by my own sassy German Rotom… and I'm kind of in love with that now kdfjg

bonus:

[cicidarkarts]

More Idrees AI voice clips, much smaller ones this time 🖤 Love his voice, it's so calming. He gets heccin angsty in that last one

[electoons]

so im having an issue regarding Cici (my courier and probably my favorite oc. for newcomers who didn't have to put up with me when I was being insufferable about her for about 5 years starting in 2015 ish when I first played fallout new vegas) where I decided to give her a daughter who I named Cricket but the issue is I actually love that name so much now that I'm fighting the urge to just rename Cici to Cricket but I can't do that because she's Cici, she's always been Cici

[chloerie]

Feed my obsession with Cecelia thg please

Send me asks abt her NOW

[wizard-finix]

Should the next Zelda game be open world like BOTW & TotK, or linear like the prior games? Why?

Hot take, but definitely a little more linear.

Listen, I love open world as much as anyone. BOTW did a fantastic job at it! The main storyline split up into four threads across the regions and then converged again for the final boss, which I though was cool to be able to pick a region and work on it at your pace. But it needs to be done *well*. TOTK's story suffered a bit because when you met the past champions, they coughed up the exact same explanation four times, and it got old fast. BOTW managed to avoid this because each of the champions' appearances and personalities were unique, which just shows you that it can be done well, it just has to be written with that in mind.

Not to mention critical story beats are optional, not required (see: the dragon's tears), and if you head straight to the boss fight without realizing that you've missed important information, you end up losing some of that significance because you're not fully aware of what's going on. And you risk major spoilers if you try to look up what you're missing before the boss fight. (seriously, imagine going through the Demon King boss fight not knowing anything about draconification or the light dragon.)

Also, the storyline and characters don't get much chance to build off themselves. The new sages don't interact because each region quest operates under the assumption that you haven't done any of the others yet. I want the cast to interact a bit! The moment where the new sages all took a stand together? That was excellent! I miss having companions like Fi and Midna and Ravio that stick with you for your entire journey, rather than going it alone.

Also, most important of all: I need *some* objective to focus on or I'm never going to actually finish the dang story. I love vibing and seeing the sights and exploring the depths for treasure, but there's a reason why I never finished Skyrim despite having played ~200 hours. 😂

Nintendo seems to focus more on mechanics and gameplay than the storyline for a lot of their Zelda games. Which is fine! It is a game at the end of the day, and it's genuinely fun to play! And I don't mind the classic style of unlocking new regions as you go through the main quest, but I don't think linear storylines and open worlds have to be mutually exclusive, either. Technology has come so far in the past decades, and the BOTW and TOTK maps are excellent for exploring all the nooks and crannies and meeting the people of Hyrule. I do enjoy side questlines to fill out the world a bit! Wind Waker and Twilight Princess had them too! Heck, I loved the Hateno and Yiga questlines! Just, y'know, maybe help us not lose sight of what we're supposed to do along the way.

[143studies]

to my classmates who are +40 and are trying hard to learn a new language... i love you you're doing amazing you'll never be cringe to me you're amazing and fuck off who says otherwise

[nam-nam-joon]

Hi ! idk if you kept writing or no, but i just re read some stuff over on AO 3 and it made me happy, your writing brought me hope whenver i was struggling in the last three years or so. I hope your 2023 ends well and your 2024 brings you peace and a lot of happy things <3

omg hi!!!

i still have some drafts that are pretty advanced already but i've just drifted into so many other fandoms over time... :')

i'd still love to post the two i've worked on for very long, but i really don't know if i ever will.

i'm so happy that you chose to reread my silly little fics and that they brought you so much comfort over such a long time!!!! that's the warmest praise to me ^-^

i hope 2024 brings you many nice things as well :) <3

[spacey-png]

Every day I think about the fact I’ll never get to see my cat as a kitten or know what her life was like before I adopted her. It’s fucking wild adopting an adult animal. Like girl where WERE you.

[specterpants]

@numetalpuppygirl tagged me to name 5 things i like, giving this my best shot

1.) Insects: I think the way they work has always been fascinating to me, the fact they are so small yet so complex. Their appearance and place in culture is also just very appealing to me, i find them cute and i lowkey like the fact most people think they are gross apart from the fact that usually results in ppl tryna kill em

2.) Nature: very basic, but maybe it just feels that way because i dont tend to keep the company of people who dont love the natural world. A good hike more often than not will improve my mood by a notable degree. I especially love a nice cross between nature and some man-made structures, i think that one may just be in our DNA as humans.

3.) Horror: I used to be a very big fraidy-cat as a kid but now i really enjoy something that can get under my skin. This includes stuff that just has an unsettling "aesthetic" to it, first thing that comes to mind is something like Plastiboos art

4.) My friends and loved ones: i like to be sappy but yknow it has taken a lot of work for me to become an even somewhat decent person to those around me and i have a lot of people to thank for sticking by me

5.) Themes of love and passion: It is hard for me to be motivated or live with love in my heart 100% of the time like anyone on this planet, but the idea of pushing forward out of love and devotion to another person hits me very hard. I also just like to practice finding joy in small things, the world is beautiful in many ways if you take the time to look.

i tag other people now, you must do this, its the law because i tagged you @cacneas @6io @dorohedorah @rebootsnake @rukafais @hellothepixel @prospera-mercury

[toasty-self-shipping]

Boyfriend: 🎶🎼🎵

Cici: ⋏⍜ ⎎⍀ ⌰⟟☍⟒ ⟟’⋔ ⌇⏃⊬⟟⋏☌ ⊑⍜⍙ ☊⏃⋏ ⏃ ⌇⋔⏃⌰⌰ ⌇⊑⍀⟟⋔⌿ ⎎⍀⊬ ⏁⊑⟟⌇⍀⟟☊⟒?

pico: what are you two fucking talking about!?