#do not ask how long i've spent on like 2 paragraphs

[allpossibilities]

i've just been thinking about how in addition to the you know, snapped leg, fucked up ribs, bruises and cuts, the rash from the anomaly in a in a few palaces he probably also fucked up his hands to an extent. at least some surface level cuts if not deeper. at least a few burns on on his hands or along his wrists from you know. literally tearing apart his hammer and then having to turn it into his leg brace which had to involve fire and all the force he had left

[zoloteh-volossya]

Minthy and Trust

One of the interesting things about the evil endings from patch 7 is how surprised Minthara is if you enthrall her with the Brain or murder her as a Dark Urge who embraced Bhaal. I've talked a little bit about it before here, but a conversation with @alicelufenia that resulted from that post got me thinking.

Minthara grew up in a culture where backstabbing is pretty much de rigueur. She has spent at least two centuries living and loving in a city where she could not trust anybody, and where lovers and family alike may try and betray or murder her at any given moment. It's implied that she's survived multiple such attempts. Why, then, does she put such complete and total trust in you? Shouldn't she be more wary?

Part of it could be her faith - or rather, the gaping hole where her faith once was. She was completely devoted to Lolth until she encountered the Absolute, and while her faith in the Absolute was forced I think the habits we see - her prayer after her romance scene, for instance - are genuine. After Moonrise, she has lost two faiths in rapid succession. I think she'd done with gods for good, but still wants - almost reflexively - something or someone to believe in. Lolth's favor is described in some D&D novels as being able to feel her love, however fleetingly. I think a partner whose acceptance and affection she can actually feel goes a long way to filling that sudden void in her life. (I also feel like she does best with direction, that fundamentally to some extent she is a follower and not a leader. A partner provides the support she prefers in this sort of context; she can essentially make them her purpose. But this is more of a headcanon and not as strongly textually supported so I will not actually argue it. Feel free to disagree.)

Part of it could also be her loneliness. Minthara is clearly an introvert but all people need social contact of some sort. Back in Menzoberranzan, she would have been enmeshed in a strict social sphere that would have provided both regular opportunities for social engagement and rules for how to go about it. Minthy obviously feels very defined by her (former) social station - per her act 2 romance scene she doesn't know who she is without it - and laments the loss of the structure of her former life. On the surface, she thinks (incorrectly) that no one likes her, and she lacks the status and strict rules of behavior that once shielded her. She has nothing and no one... until the protagonist comes along. Once in a relationship with them, it feels like Minthara is almost trying to make them the entirety of her social life (which is hella unhealthy, girl). We see this the most in the evil endings, where she is fine with the loss of all the companions so long as she and the protagonist are together.

But my above two paragraphs explain why Minthy would want to trust the protagonist (a want, a burning driving need, a drowning woman grasping a rope, desperation making her overlook warning signs and red flags), not why she actually does. I think the answer to that can probably be found in her act 2 romance scene. She asks to see the protagonist's mind in their entirety and uses it to verify the protagonist's opinion of her. This is something she never was able to do in Menzoberranzan. For once in her life, she (thinks she) is able to confirm that this lover is safe, that she can completely unabashedly trust them. And so she does - she throws herself into it completely and utterly, as she does everything she sets herself to. It never occurs to her that this might be a false assurance, that her partner could change or be less devoted in their affections than she is. She checked; it's safe.

Until it isn't.

[utilitycaster]

On the last episode of Divergence, it made me so happy to watch when Liam heard Brennan say "By road's end" and I could see his brain connect it with "Byroden" and I was once again really touched by the... tenderness, I suppose, with which this miniseries is treating that period of time and the world of Exandria.

I don't intend to use this ask as a place to just shit talk c3 because even tho i AM a hater at heart it just feels more than pointless to do it now, but after years of watching a group of characters actively refuse to engage with the world and its history having these 3 episodes go out of their way to show that history happening and how the people of Exandria cared for each other feels really refreshing and I was wondering if this is something others have felt too or if I'm just bitter at this point

So: I do think it's kind of bitterness, which isn't like, bad, but isn't necessarily helpful either.

I will personally admit that like. how do I put this. I love how Byroden was developed and portrayed in EXU Prime by Aabria and Aimee, but I've never particularly been that deeply attached to it (though understandably Liam would be). The twins' story is much more about Byroden as a place they cannot go home to and so I suppose I never felt a need to go there, because what's important about them is what Vex found in Whitestone and Vax in Zephrah (and both of them in Emon).

The above paragraph may seem a little like a digression but I think it's worth bringing up because, much as I adore Campaign 2 for spending so much time establishing the place of Wildemount, Fjord's story is no less strong for us not seeing Port Damali in the same way Yasha's is no less strong for us not seeing the Iothia Moorlands during the course of the campaign. As characters, Vex, Vax, Fjord, and Yasha all are so rich and interesting and develop so thoroughly over the course of their stories that we don't need to see every little piece of the world. And I don't think the problem with Campaign was lack of care; I think it is, again, lack of preparation combined with a highly specific intended...plot's not the right word even, but setup, that played to the characters' weaknesses and for which insufficient guidance was given. I think the cast and Matt all love Exandria, and it's just...they were trying to collaborate on a story where most of them didn't know what the fuck was going on and were stuck playing people who didn't particularly care what was going on. I think the cast would have loved to have explored the Shattered Teeth, but they couldn't! I think they'd have liked to have spent more time in Yios, or the Feywild, or Isslrya, or on Ruidus, and they kept being shoved from place to place to place. It is not lack of care; it's just that this was a story that needed to be told very differently. I do place the bulk of the blame on Matt because this is a DM-ing problem, and the problem was that Bells Hells engaging with the world wasn't rewarded with any kind of payoff because payoff probably would have derailed this whole moon plot or made the campaign 300 episodes long, so Matt didn't reward it, so the cast stopped doing it.

For what it's worth this is why I am generally optimistic if cautious about future works; because while I'll admit that some of Bells Hells' character concepts fail to impress me, I don't think the cast came in with the intention of playing indecisive and selfish idiots; it's just that they were not really given much to work with. Even Laudna's unbelievably unsympathetic behavior in the finale feels less like "I'm an asshole here to break things" and more on a Doylist level of Marisha trying to make some conflict happen for once. To be clear, it still makes me think the character sucks, but it was just a poor alignment of DM and player goals that never got resolved and would have been so easy to avoid that it's impossible to excuse, and Divergence seems to have had a much more robust planning stage. That is ultimately it.

[feedthefandomfest]

Hiya!

I love this blog and just wanted to ask- do you know any advice on formatting and tagging for AO3?

Or just general etiquette!!

I'm not new to AO3 (reading or writing) but I haven't interacted with the actual community much and would love to know more :)

oof, I still feel like a newbie posting stuff on ao3, and tagging is something i've always struggled with. and actually formatting is also on ongoing issue 😅 so with that in mind, here's what i try to consider:

TAGGING

relationships -> tagging the main is obvious, but i'm sometimes torn about tagging side relationships that feature in the fic, especially since it's annoying to be searching for that pairing and get a bunch of results where they're not the main focus; unless the other pairing is a prominent feature, i leave it out of the relationship tags and at most add it to the additional tags

characters -> i remember updating the character tags on my early fics every time another character popped up in the story, but now i'm of the same mind as the side pairing issue; unless the character is prominently featured, i leave them out of the tags

content warning/advertising -> if i know the fic features an element that some people might wish to avoid, i always tag it and also always fret that i've forgotten to tag something in that regard. when it's more about advertising what's in the fic, especially sexual content, i sometimes feel silly listing every flavor of physical encounter unless the fic is pwp/smut (in which case i gleefully list all the depravity); i sometimes worry that over-emphasizing the sexual content in the tags is misleading? like of this 100k fic, if 15k is spent fucking, how do i get the tags to reflect that while also tag cw appropriately? is there an established tag for that?

sometimes i see fics with TONS of tags, like an exhausting amount, and sometimes i see fics with very minimal tags... sometimes frustratingly few. i also know some writers add chapter-specific warnings in the author's notes. in the end, so long as you're making it possible for people to find or avoid your fic as needed, then you're good. Here are some good posts that dive into it more!

(i remember when people on tumblr would scold writers for monologuing in the tags on ao3 like we do on here, claiming it was a strain on the system, but i believe that's been debunked?)

FORMATTING

i've noticed some MEGA annoying quirks with copy & pasting over from Google Docs and Word, and I know there are some tricks to get around them, but i tend to just slog through the Rich Text window fixing everything manually 🙃 OKAY I FOUND SOLUTIONS LINKED BELOW.

spacing problem #1 -> pet peeve of mine, but i dislike it when the paragraphs have massive spaces between them (ditto for indented paragraphs). idk why, but it's tiring for my eyes to constantly leap the chasm between paragraphs. so whenever i copy and paste from Word, which for some reason ALWAYS appears with double spacing between line breaks, i go in and manually fix it. SOLUTION

spacing problem #2 -> when copying over from Google Doc, whenever there's a punctuation mark following an italicized word, a random space appears between them. and yep, i have to go in and fix every one because typos make me twitch. (this might not be an issue for everyone; i overuse italics and dashes like it's my job) SOLUTION

spacing problem #3 -> again probably a me issue, but i tend to include song lyrics a lot, and it's always a headache to format because when pasting from the doc, ao3 embeds these spaces between the lines that i can't remove by backspacing. only fix i've found is to copy and paste lyrics directly from a website, and then it formats fine. random and annoying and weird. (no solution 😔)

since this section has just been me whining about finding SOLUTIONS for formatting issues, i'll offer one tip that's more about general editing: i try to proofread best i can in Word/GDocs, but it's always easier to spot errors when i'm reading the draft on my phone. the typos always jump out at me from a phone screen. it's now my favorite way to edit!

every writer has their own preferences on formatting, and every reader has their own level of tolerance for formatting quirks. in the end, so long as the formatting doesn't interfere with the reading experience, you're all good.

[shallanigans]

So, you want to write fanfiction? Here's some advice from someone who spends too much time on ao3, Part 1:

Hey everyone! This is a bit of a deviation from my usual shitposts. I was looking at the "#writers on tumblr" tag today, and I got inspired to post this after some interesting discussions. I'm someone who has read a lot (and I mean A LOT) of fanfic, as well as written some myself... so I thought I'd make this little (no, I lied, it's Very Long) post with some writing tips that I find personally meaningful for those of you who may be getting started or want to try something new.

My qualifications? Honestly, because I said so. This is just my opinion. Feel free to ignore, disagree, hate, ask questions, whatever. I'll be discussing some common fanfic writing advice and what I think about it, as well as giving some general pointers.

Disclaimer: What is "good writing?"

Good writing is effective writing. There is no one way in which everyone should write. Effective writing compels the reader; it makes them interested in your story, keeps them turning the pages, makes them click that "next chapter" button and stay up all night to finish your 500k epic. Some people achieve this through flowery, descriptive prose. Others do so with their quick wit and snappy dialogue. Others write all their fanfictions in second person epistolary format only and make you cry harder than you ever have. The first thing to know is that 1) tastes vary and 2) confidence matters. Find your voice, and be proud of it. If you feel that what you are doing is working for you, and you love it, then keep at it. Someone has already made every "writing mistake" and made it well. Don't fall into the trap of getting bogged down with 674835 contradictory tips and being too terrified to write at all. The only real writing sin is being boring.

Furthermore, this post is for fanfiction specifically. A lot of this advice might be useful for traditional fiction, but it's not a 1:1 carryover. A lot of fanfic advice will be irrelevant for traditional fiction, and vice versa.

That's all fine and dandy, but what do I do?

Good question. First, let's break down what makes a fanfiction effective. Most people searching ao3 for a story probably want:

A compelling premise

With in-character characters

Good spelling, formatting, grammar, and syntax

Stylistically strong writing

A coherent plot

With a certain degree of wish-fulfillment sprinkled in (this is fanfic, after all)

In this series, I will be mostly discussing elements 2-6. Number 1, unfortunately, comes down to "don't be boring," and I can't tell you how to come up with an idea that's going to hook your reader. However, assuming that you already have The Coolest Idea Ever, and you only need the reader to see that, then here's what you can do:

Effective Summaries

No, seriously. Tell people what your fucking story is about. One of my favorite stories on ao3 has the worst, vaguest one-liner of a summary I've ever seen. It is a gem, and if it hadn't been for a friend's recommendation, I would have never read it. You may think that your epic out of context quote from the paragraph you spent hours perfecting will make people care, but it will probably just confuse them. This is likely to be the most controversial thing I say today, so I'm starting off strong.

When I say effective summary, I mean a summary that will tell people the basic premise of the plot while also making them want to learn more. I don't mean something fancy. I mean something like:

When Blorbo started his new tech development job at Tumblr, he never expected to have Blorbette for a boss. She is smart, cold, calculating - and, to his horror, totally irresistible. In order to win her heart, he decides to make her jealous by fake-dating his colleague and frenemy, Blorbinson. But he soon finds that there is more to his mysterious friend than meets the eye. Could it be that the real Tumblr sexyman has been next to him all along?

That's a pretty standard summary for a relatively long fic. It's nothing fancy, but it tells the reader what the story's about. Now this same summary, in the hands of someone who refuses to inform the reader about the premise of the story, would probably say something like:

His eyes are the color of spring.

You can get away with that kind of stuff more often in a one-shot, but best practice is always to tell your reader what the story is about. Say to your reader:

Blorbinson's eyes are too easy to get lost in. Blorbo cannot find his way out.

If you MUST include a quote from your story, then do it alongside your informative summary, in the much-loved format below:

"What do you mean Welcome to Nightvale is winning the contest?" --- In which things get heated at Tumblr dot com, and Blorbinson's the one making Blorbo get all sweaty.

I can already hear you arguing. You say to me, "But there are people who choose quotes that are both pretty AND informative! But writing anything is better than writing nothing in the summary!"

True. My response to the first point is this: if you had mastered that skill, you wouldn't be here. A simple, to-the-point-summary is almost never going to make the interested reader scroll past your story. You know what will? An out-of-context block of text about how much Sans Undertale loves the player from chapter 3, paragraph six.

To the second point, I say: obviously. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't seek to improve. No one is perfect. I'm certainly not. But you're doing yourself a disservice by spending so much time and effort on the content of your story and then fumbling it on the home stretch. If you take pride in your work (and I'm assuming you do, because you posted this story for a reason), then make like a chef at a five-star restaurant and start caring about presentation. It goes without saying that there shouldn't be any typos in the summary.

A note on tagging: I will make a separate post on tagging your stories appropriately. This is a writing-related rant.

Now, onto characterization:

If you're one of those people who thinks that there's no such thing as "too OOC," congratulations. May you enjoy fanfiction free from the shackles of the narrative. Tag appropriately and have fun. If you're like the rest of us haters, you probably want to keep your characters as faithful to canon as possible. Yes, even in an AU.

I've included this wonderful addition because entryn17 said it better than I ever could have. There's difference of interpretation, and then there's Severus Snape deciding that James Potter was actually just misunderstood.

Being "in-character" is an elusive ideal that we all strive for, but no one can quite tell you what it means except for "the vibes." The way I like to define it is this: If you asked yourself the question "Would He Fucking Say That/Do That/Feel That?" and the answer is "yes, absolutely," then it's in-character. If the answer is "absolutely not," then it's out of character. If the answer is "maybe?" then your goal is to move that needle firmly into the Yes camp.

To do this, you must first determine what is making you unsure. Is it the dialogue? Is your stuffy Edwardian speaking like a Gen Alpha well-versed in Cocomelonese? Is your overconfident flirt stammering and stuttering through a conversation? Often, the content of what a character is saying agrees perfectly with the source material, but the how doesn't match it. Beta readers can help with this, as can going back to the source material to study a character's speech patterns in canon. You don't have to get it perfect. Just make sure it doesn't stand out. Would Snape perhaps say "Come over here!" in a much wordier, snarkier manner? Maybe. Maybe not. But he sure as hell wouldn't say, "Yo! bring your ass over and check this out!"

Actions and feelings are a bit trickier. There's always some leeway in personal interpretation here, and most of the time your reader won't question this very much so long as the rest of the story keeps them engaged. One OOC action or thought is easy to brush off. Ten, not so much. Read up on the wiki pages for whatever you're writing, go back to the source material, and maybe get the opinion of a willing beta reader. Ultimately, if your characters start feeling like featureless puppets subject to your whims rather than people with established personalities, you might want to go back and revisit what made them stand out to you in the first place.

Keep things consistent within your story. Especially in AUs and canon divergence fics, there are certain character traits that are malleable. Maybe Draco Malfoy wouldn't have been such a dickhead if he'd had caring adult mentors in his life. So, justify that within your story. You don't necessarily need to keep the characterization faithful to the canon, but you do need to convince the reader that their beloved character has a reason for their behavior. Keep things consistent. Whenever a character deviates from their canon behavior, make sure there's a valid explanation for it in your narrative.

Don't fall for the trap of confusing canon and fanon. Fandom is like a game of telephone. Someone writes one story of Blorbo adopting a cat, and suddenly he's the biggest cat person in the universe. The poor author who posts about Blorbo's canonical love of dogs gets trashed for writing OOC. You can't prevent people getting mad at you, but you can always grin smugly and go to bed happy with the knowledge that you were right. Someone will love you for it.

SPAG

Ew! It sounds like something your dog spit up. Spelling and Grammar might be boring, but they're necessary. You shouldn't break the rules until you know the rules. One day, you will write a run-on postmodern epic to rival the worst of Wallace's page-long sentences. Today is not that day. No one wants to open a story only to be greeted by a massive block of text, a lack of punctuation, and a heretofore undiscovered form of there/they're/their.

In the modern age, we have many tools at our disposal to clarify our SPAG doubts. Dictionaries! Spellcheck! The weirdos on those Substack forums! Oh, my. If you wrote your story at 3AM directly onto the ao3 editor, perhaps take a moment to run it through some kind of spellchecker before posting. Microsoft Word has a pretty good one, but Grammarly and other such software can help you if that's not available. There's also nothing quite like a beta reader. There are people in this world who love picking apart every comma, period, and quotation mark, and they'll be happy to do it for you. I am one of them, and I volunteer. There are many of us.

Here are some SPAG mistakes common in fanfiction.

1.Your/you're, they're/their/there, "could of," and "lie" vs "lay."

"YOUR" means that something is yours. You possess that thing. YOUR story is going to be great if you fix the grammar. "YOU'RE" is a contracted form of "YOU ARE." If you fix your grammar, YOU'RE going to be a great writer.

They're: Shortened form of "they are." They're going to the beach. They're very nice people.

Their: They possess a thing. A thing belongs to them. They're going to the beach in THEIR car.

There: Related to a place. You are going to be THERE. THERE are many pretty horses in the field.

"Could of" does not exist. It is an incorrect way of writing "could've," the shortened form of "could have."

The verbs lie and lay are tricky ones. You (a person) LIE down on your bed. You LAY an object down on a surface. However, the past tense of LIE is LAY. I know! Who invented English, am I right? Blorbo LIES on his bed in the present tense. He LAY on his bed in the past.

The past tense of "lay" is "laid." Blorbo LAID down his water bottle.

2. Run-on sentences.

Sometimes, when we're writing, we get a little excited. We have so many thoughts and we never know how to end them. You might think the solution here is to just keep throwing down commas, but you'd be wrong.

Run-on sentences can be effective if used intentionally, but a lot of the time, they're not. The period isn't your enemy. In general, you want to make sure your sentences have a subject, a verb, and an object, and that they end when you've finished your thought.

Blorbo was the most beautiful of all the tumblr sexymen. He really liked to show off his sick gains at the gym. He had a hot wife and an even hotter side piece.

This writing isn't very exciting, but it's correct. Contrast that with:

Blorbo was the most beautiful of all the tumblr sexymen, he really liked to show off his sick gains at the gym, he had a hot wife and an even hotter side piece.

Finish your thoughts. There are ways to connect independent clauses (a group of words that can work on its own as a sentence) correctly, like the semicolon; the semicolon is a great piece of punctuation. There is also the em-dash. Sometimes, you really need to add clarification to a thought — you really want to emphasize the second part of what you're saying. Em-dashes also work like a cooler version of parentheses — because who uses those, am I right? — and can help you seem like a chic and seasoned writer. Don't overuse them, though. I know you want to. And no, I don't heed my own advice here.

Look, these rules aren't intuitive. I can't possibly go through all of them in a way that's easy and digestible. There are smarter people than me who have written all about it, and I use incorrect punctuation all the time. Misplacing a comma isn't going to be the end of the world for your story, but at least give it a once-over with a beta or spellchecker to fix the worst of it. At the very least, make the reader think that run-on sentence was totally on purpose.

3. Paragraphs

Make sure your paragraphs stick to a single theme or thought. Fanfiction writers love to have one-sentence paragraphs for the impact, but you don't need to do that. Just keep them coherent. For example, if you're writing about Blorbo's weekend, you might say,

Blorbo loved Saturdays. On Saturdays, the world seemed to sparkle and sing with the whole of the city's shared happiness over not having to work. He would wake up on those mornings and leap out of bed while singing a jaunty little tune. Then, he'd text Blorbinson a string of heart emojis and plan to meet up for their weekly ice cream date. But Sundays — oh, how he hated Sundays! Sundays were the day before Monday, and he'd always spend so long worrying about going back to the office that, by the time he decided to do something, it would be dark outside already.

Each of the paragraphs above, clumsy as they are, have a clear idea that starts and ends within the same paragraph. If you talk about Blorbo's Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday all within one paragraph, your reader will be confused!

On the other hand, if you make every single paragraph one line, your reader is going to resent you. You have unwittingly made them take part in a bad action thriller. One-line paragraphs are supposed to be impactful and create suspense. When writing, a good tip is to consider the word "impactful" a synonym of "sparing." See below:

Blorbo loved Saturdays. On Saturdays, the world seemed to sparkle and sing with the whole of the city's shared happiness over not having to work. He would wake up on those mornings and leap out of bed while singing a jaunty little tune. Then, he'd text Blorbinson a string of heart emojis and plan to meet up for their weekly ice cream date.

Doesn't it suck? Not to mention all that scrolling!

3. Dialogue

Right off the bat, I'll say that the best way to learn how to format dialogue is by reading books. Not fanfiction. BOOKS. They have been checked by an editor, so you know you're getting the real deal. Generally, well-formatted dialogue achieves an engaging and seamless conversation between your characters. Poorly-formatted dialogue forces your reader into a game of Who's Who?

See for, instance, the following abomination:

"I can't believe you cheated on me with Blorbette!" Blorbo had been crying about it for a week. His tears would soon erode a riverbank down his cheeks. Blorbinson sneered at him, "I can't believe you ever thought this was real." "I was only with you for the tax benefits." No! How could you? Blorbo said. Blorbinson laughed a wicked laugh and looked at him. "My heart is shattered into a million tiny pieces. Love isn't real!"

Did you follow that? Because I sure didn't. Generally, here are the rules of dialogue:

Start a new line for each character that speaks, and keep a single character's dialogue within the same paragraph.*

Use dialogue tags to CLARIFY who is speaking. Note: I said clarify. If it's redundant take it out. I will write more about good (not merely correct) dialogue in a follow-up post.

Put a period after or before an ACTION tag in dialogue, but a comma before a SPEECH tag. The reason you do this is that ["Here is an example line of dialogue," he said] is a complete sentence, but ["Here is an example line of dialogue." He looked at his watch.] is TWO sentences. The quotation marks are merely to indicate speech. Whether or not something is a sentence is determined by the content of what the writing actually says, not by any punctuation it may have.

Use quotation marks to indicate speech. If you want to quote something within quotation marks (in American English), you put it in single quotes, like so: "And then he called me 'a lost cause who's doomed to be single forever.' Can you believe that?"

By following these rules, we get the much nicer:

"I can't believe you cheated on me with Blorbette!" Blorbo had been crying about it for a week. His tears would soon erode a riverbank down his cheeks. Blorbinson sneered at him. "I can't believe you ever thought this was real. I was only with you for the tax benefits." "No! How could you?" Blorbinson only laughed a wicked laugh. "My heart is shattered into a million tiny pieces. Love isn't real!" Blorbo said.

Obviously that's still pretty bad, but now it's readable. Formatting your dialogue properly will fix a lot of problems with your story, make it clear who is talking, and make the reading experience much nicer for everyone.

* An Important addendum: sometimes, characters will speak for a long time, and you'll want to split up their dialogue into paragraphs. To do that, you start the dialogue in quotation marks, but you leave them open until the character is done speaking, like so:

"My favorite thing about Blorbinson was that he always knew just what to say. He had this magical ability to always tell when I was sad, and he showed up with ice cream every single time. It always made me feel better," Blorbo said. "I can't believe our relationship is over now. I should probably tell you all about how that happened. "I walked into my house one day to find another pair of shoes by the door, where Blorbinson's usually are. I knew Blorbinson would never wear those shoes, because his style is more boho-inspired. Anyway, my worst fear was confirmed when I walked into the bedroom and found him there with Blorbette! My two loves, betraying me so callously!"

This is common in fantasy stories where you need to impart some deep lore knowledge on the reader, or for characters who like to talk a lot.

4. Verb tenses (edited after posting, in true fanfic writer fashion)

Us writers tend to have very strong opinions about verbs. You could even say things get a little bit... tense sometimes. Ok, but seriously; whether you write in past or present doesn't matter. What matters is that you keep things consistent.

Nothing takes the reader out of a fanfic faster than abrupt tense switches in the middle of the narrative. If you are writing in a specific verb tense, stick with it.

Don't say:

Blorbo is never sure what Blorbinson is thinking. He watched him chew his pencil from across the office, that beautiful face scrunched in concentration as he stares at his computer. Blorbo knows he's in love the minute Blorbinson looks back.

DO say:

Blorbo was never sure what Blorbinson was thinking. He watched him chew his pencil from across the office, that beautiful face scrunched in concentration as he stared at his computer. Blorbo knew he was in love the minute Blorbinson looked back. or Blorbo is never sure what Blorbinson is thinking. He watches him chew his pencil from across the office, that beautiful face scrunched in concentration as he stares at his computer. Blorbo knows he's in love the minute Blorbinson looks back.

When we write in past tense and we want to talk about events that happened prior to the narrative, we use the past perfect. When we write in present, we can use either simple past or past perfect. This one's kind of iffy. As you write more, you'll get a sense of what "sounds correct."

Ultimately, your choice of verb tense is personal opinion and what you feel best fits your story. Just make sure that you keep whatever you choose consistent. A beta reader can help you with this.

And that's it for Part 1!

This post dealt with some technical, basic things about fanfic that will mostly be useful to new writers. I will be going more in depth about making your prose stronger at the sentence level in Part 2, where #4 is getting an entire post. It'll probably be even longer than this one. I hope it was able to help someone!

[kenobster]

3, 18 and 29 please <3333

From AO3 Wrapped [Writers' Edition]

Thank you for the ask, anon! ^_^

#3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

I hate to be a cliche of myself again, but Five Peggats Each. (And this includes all things I've ever written in my life actually :D). There's a few reasons for it, I think. One, it's like HUGELY within my comfort zone. The limited setting, the noncon, the tropes of the characters themselves. This is the type of story I have the most practice with, so it naturally comes easier and in better quality I think? Two, how, despite it being a comfort zone, I've used this fic as kind of a sandbox to experiment a lot of different writing techniques. For example, this is the most POVs I've ever written in a single fandom, let alone a single story (which usually stays around 1-2). For other examples, like, I've tried to be really mindful about metaphors/prose and how they can twist reality (like that time I spent like 8 hours researching in-universe Star Wars bands & instruments just so I could write one paragraph lmao)... or even how I recently tried to use second person POV to give the reader the same disassociation/discomfort/dysphoria that Anakin was feeling after regaining use of the Force. These experiments were all really hard to pull off, and I'm proud of myself for attempting them. And three, how I've allowed 5PE to be a project that can take as long as I want it to take to finish, so long as I do finish it. So on one hand, it's been a really good exercise in self-discipline & practice in maintaining my passion for the story, despite the constant barrage of shiny new plot bunnies. And on the other hand, the lack of a time pressure allows me to really spend time on the quality of every single line (excepting human mistakes & typos of course lmfao), while also not letting that perfectionism stand in the way of progress. It's really helped me become more confident in storycrafting from beginning to end, in a way I've never really felt in my old fandom or writing. On top of all that, it's the only fic that I can actually read after posting updates without feeling like it's exfoliating my entire body to do so lol. I actually enjoy reading it sometimes. So that's nice.

#18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

Answered here. :)

#29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year

Really hard one omg. If I have to choose something I've already posted on ao3, then it'd probably be one of these three: (1) in Five Peggats Each, the passage I also described above regarding Anakin's fever as it relates to the jizz band & cantina in chapter 6; the passage I put in the fic summary for Every Shadow, but the full version of it as written in chapter 2, not the abridged version in the summary; and (3) the opening paragraph of What Dead Things See.

But but but imo -trembles with excitement (I've been dying to show this, folks, what a good opportunity)- none of those passages even hold a candle to this thing that poured out of my brain one sleepless night at 2am for some unposted/unfinished oneshot:

For a moment, when he was nine years old, Anakin thought himself to be a whore. In an effort to scrub the slave out of him, the temple healers had pumped him full of vaccines and medications and water and food. He'd been lying on a brand new bed in a brand new room and counting the speeders whose lights flashed across the wall. That's when the memory burned. If they want you for your strength, his anma said, then they won't squander a second of it. Your back will ache and your feet will throb before the very first sunset. But Anakin's back wasn't aching and his feet didn’t throb. If they want you for your mind, they'll test your skills and put you to work, and they'd tested him, yes, but not his ability to steer the yoke of a podracer at the drop of a pin, nor his ability to disassemble and reassemble any gadget known to sentient life. They'd only studied the gaps in his knowledge and he'd had none of the answers and he'd seen the pity in their gazes. And if they feed you, said his anma, if they let you rest in a bed and say they'll take care of you, then the first chance you get, you must run. As fast as you can, as hard as you can, even if they activate your bomb. Because some fates, my love, are worse than death. You must always be wise enough to know that.  And Anakin, well fed and well rested, hadn't wanted to run fast or run hard or detonate his bomb. Anakin hadn't wanted to escape this new place that sang of plenty and of love and of home. So he pushed himself to his feet and stumbled through the darkened shared quarters until he found his new master's bed. Clammy, feverish, and half-asleep, Anakin crawled under the covers and felt around for his master's trousers. Obi-Wan awoke in an instant.  That night, they found no rest at all—rather, hours of conversation while Anakin shivered on the couch huddled in afghans and quilts and comforters and tried to explain that, yes, he knew he was free and he knew he was safe and he knew all he had to say was a word and he'd be taken wherever else he wanted by whomever else he wanted and that, no, Obi-Wan had never said or done anything to suggest such a thing was wanted and that if he ever did going forward, Anakin would tell him straight away, and that, yes, he understood the difference between a master and a Master and that, no, he didn't need to use a different word—because Obi-Wan didn't yet know that there are some things you learn with your mind but other things you learn with your body, and that there's no actual function in the branding of a slave because the brand is already burnt into a slave's mind, as crisply and as permanently, as a molten pattern pressed to flesh. As he kneels before his Master, Anakin decides that Palpatine would have liked the gift of a nine-year-old groping beneath the bed sheets better. It would have saved them all a lot of time.

I will finish this one day... Have about 3 scenes written, and just need to write 1.5 scenes more. But the above part stands pretty well on its own so hopefully you all enjoyed! ^_^

[shamera]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @bbcphile 🥰🥰🥰

1. How many works do you have on AO3? site says 21! (I also have 50+ on ff.net from when I was younger, and uhhh idk how many that I shoved into my dreamwidth/livejournal never to see the light of day again.)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 619,848

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently Mysterious Lotus Casebook! (Although I might sneak something for Love and Redemption or Scum Villain.) I am mostly a writer in the Final Fantasy XIII fandom, although I have spent years in Code Geass and Merlin fandoms. Before that, it was Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto, Harry Potter, and Star Wars.... loads more.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Leave Me Your Starlight, Code Geass fic Nunnally-centric time-travel fix-it

Five Minutes, FFXIII fluff oneshot featuring Noel and Hope

World Enough and Time, Code Geass AU post-apocalyptic rewrite

First (and Second) Impressions, FFXIII modern babysitting AU Noel/Hope

Lost in a Moment (lost in a song), Mysterious Lotus Casebook post-canon fix-it casefic

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try to! I'm, um. I'm really bad at it. In that I will attempt to respond to everyone in the first few days, but then I get distracted doing/writing something else and I am so tunnel-visioned that you won't hear from me until a week later and then I feel bad about taking so long to respond. Also I am very, very bad at responding because while I love love love seeing comments, it's just happy reactions and incoherent noises from me. How do I words to translate my appreciation???

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? ...probably everything I wrote as a kid? I have very different ideas on angst nowadays, but I guess while I was writing it... between Gedächtnisse (FMA fic) and Sound of Silence (HP fic), I guess!

Newer stuff might be between The Other (FFXIII fic) and Test Subjects (FFXIII fic).

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I write a lot of fluff pieces nowadays! But overall, probably Something About December (FFXIII fic), since it's a Christmas fic or Family (FFXIII), which was written to give Sazh more support in the third game.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Once, someone pointed out my join date on the website and asked me why I was still writing fanfiction.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I have, but generally don't. Even most of my ships are closer to gen than not. I'm closer to the repulsed spectrum of ace, but I do like attempting to write all sorts of things.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Yes! Love them! I've written a good handful-- but the craziest one was when I was... 10? 11? and I wrote Orions'Ka on a notebook and when I typed it up, it was well over 60,000 words. It had absolutely everything I loved back then.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not by a person, no. By website bots, yes.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I have had... people ask me if they could translate my fics? My answer is always yes, but I don't recall seeing it anywhere.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I had an entire online journal with my best friend back in middle school.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship? ...MXTX ships, maybe? I don't feel particularly strongly about ships most of the time, only about characters, who I will ship around for the fun of it. But for MXTX pairings, that just doesn't feel right. They just belong together.

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? ....my old Harry Potter stuff, I'm sorry. Not a fandom I got back into again.

16. What are your writing strengths? I've been told it's characterizations! And descriptions.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else. Confidence, I guess. Also energy and interest. And once I overcome those, plot.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? ...me, or fics that do that? Because I've seen fics do that, full on paragraphs of dialogue in the original language but descriptions in English, and I don't understand. But if it's just... an important word, a statement, something the fandom would normally understand kept in its original language because there's just no good translation in English for it, then it absolutely works. Some things don't translate well, and fans usually like learning more about their canons. I personally try to keep things mostly in English nowadays, though, but I slip time to time.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Star Wars. I was in the single digits age, and wrote an introspective ficlet on Luke and Leia's feelings about how the original trilogy's ending, sitting together on Endor to watch it all burn.

20. Favorite fic you've written? ...I don't know if I have one. I either tend to be proud or hate what I've written, depending on the day, my mood, wind speeds, and cats. Currently I want to say Lost in a Moment, because I finished that recently and I had so many doubts about it so I'm proud I got through it.

Tagging... omg, anyone who still follows me all the way from FFXIII days and writes, or all the way from the Gundam Wing days gosh.

but also @seventhstrife, @rhystheceo, @teekettle, @adriannasharp @tunnelofdusk 🤭 ya'll suffer through my random selection because I know you guys are writerssss

[cinderflower]

🍛🍠🍣🥮🍡!!!!

🍠 How long does it take you to write one of your fics or a chapter/part?

This varies so much depending on the length of the fic or chapter, if it's a longfic or one shot, plot or pwp, etc. I can usually crack out a ~4k word oneshot that's either a pwp or not too plot-heavy in a weekend (2 writing sessions between 3-6hrs each) then usually another hour for editing after sleeping on it. For my very long fics that are plot heavy I try to trend more toward 5k words per part which usually take 1-2 weeks to write (anywhere from 10-24hrs total writing & editing time) just because I have to triple check lore, make sure I'm keeping all my plot threads in sync, and layering in the echoes and callbacks appropriately.

Also I just tend to write very, very slowly because I'm always rewriting sentences/dialogue/etc and researching miscellaneous details on the fly as I go. For example, I spent a good hour lost researching information about the pain and process for resetting a dislocated shoulder for the last UtFF chapter to write like 2 paragraphs "accurately".

🍣 What helps you focus or get in the mood to write?

I have to set time aside and make sure I have as few distractions as possible which is why I write mostly in the dead of night or on weekends. And then personally I have to have a playlist that matches the mood of what I'm writing, if the music vibes aren't right, nothing is getting written. I have some fic-specific playlists and some mood-specific playlists I rotate through. Also, art! I hoard art I enjoy for ships I write because just looking at certain art pieces help reignite the inspiration or even provide the inspiration for what I'm writing.

🥮 Do you have any writing milestones you're working toward?

Not particularly. I do have two books I'm passively working on that I'd like to finish but both are at very tough points in the creative process so I've been ignoring them. I should pick them up again though.

🍡 Which of your fics was the most emotionally difficult to write?

This is a fascinating question because my approach to writing fics is in a very detached manner. Even if the characters are going through emotional turmoil or it's covering a very difficult/squeamish topic, I don't necessarily personally connect with those emotions while going through the writing process. When I write it's more like that meme that when an artist is drawing a character with a specific expression, they mimic that expression on their own face - I sort of "project" those emotions to tap into them for what I'm writing then put them away again.

From that aspect, I'd have to say the ficlet "Guilt" was probably the most challenging to write from an emotional perspective.

🍛 Answered in another ask!

[queenharumiura]

Meet the mun. Basics

NAME:  Neo

PRONOUNS:  She/her

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: Discord > Asks > Replies on posts = Tumblr IM

SINGLE / TAKEN: Taken

— three facts

I have an excel document where I keep track of all art that I've purchased/commissioned since 2021 because that's when my huge craze for collecting art from artists I like started. I did this to really put into perspective how bad my 'nochillitis' gets. I've--- spent a lot on dA artists lol. (don't get me started on gacha games)

If anyone knows Prince of Tennis, I have all of the 'Valentine Day Kiss' songs. Wouldn't you know that they keep releasing a new one every year? I collect them!

I don't know how accurate it is because I was doing it in my car and people were walking around so I got nervous but, according to singingcarrots, My lowest singing note is a F#3 and my highest is a D6.

— experience

I believe I've been rp'ing for about 16-17 years? I think only 7 years on tumblr.

— sub-genres

Tbh I don't understand what this means. KHR has a bit of crack humor to it, which appeals to my troll heart. It's easy to do wholesome fluffy things with Haru as well as it is to do angst. IDK if that answers the question.

— plots vs memes

Mmm... so I'm fine with winging threads and seeing where things go, but plotting things out usually does retain attention for both sides. Memes are fun, even if I tend to write them as if they are standalone things. Some memes are fine to be continued- but the drabble ones usually aren't. I do always make sure to specify that somewhere, either in tags or in the response itself.

If I had to say, I have a stronger preference to plots since it's easier to cater things to your muse. Memes are something I throw onto the dash when I have the time or in the mood for it. I don't have the best relationship with the inbox, so I personally don't have a good association with memes in general.

— long or short replies

Depends on the definition. I'm honestly not very good with sentence threads, and I will often slowly veer into paragraph territory. I tried sentence threads before, but that's when I was hit with 2 word responses- which is why it's in my rules to never give me 2 word replies. It became a peeve of mine.

The shortest I can go is probably a paragraph. The longest... I think to date may have been something between 1.5-2k words? I write whatever feels right for me in the moment, and I honestly don't mind however much or little my partner wants to write.

I can however be asked to keep my replies within a certain length (ie 3 paragraphs) and i'll adhere to that. 8)

— best time to write

Any time i'm not distracted with youtube/discord I tend to be more active in the afternoon to late evening hours. As for chatting, I tend to prefer hours 10am-4pm because it feels like it's still early in the day that I can afford to be distracted with conversations. After that, I do try to stay away from discord if I can so I can focus on writing.

If I have nothing to work on, then any hour of the day i'm awake is a good time to talk.

Stole from: @whiskeysmulti

Tagging: I don't tag, but I can if you'd like me to.

[celeste-fitzgerald]

thou brought this upon thyself.

get to know your fic writer asks:

7, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 34, 37, 43, 45, 46, 53, 56, 59, 63, 64 and 74

:>

Girl you're crazy lmao ily

7) How do you choose which POV to write from?

Oh damn that's a good question! I don't have a good answer to this one, I usually just think about whose eyes it would be more interesting to see through for each fic.

10) Cltr+f "blinks" on your WIP & copy paste the first sentence/paragraph that comes up

Uhhhh. I haven't been doing much writing lately. And the one fic I have been working on, "blinks" isn't in there (and neither is "blink"). So I went back to 2 other wips I haven't added to in a couple months and THOSE DON'T HAVE "BLINKS" EITHER. So I just searched "wink" instead so here's that one. (Unfortunately for you dear rufusrant you've already read what I have so far on this wip, but for everyone else, here's a teeny tiny snippet of the next chap of Learning How To Love You.)

Richard winked and inched toward the seat on George’s right. “Well?” 

11) Link your three favorite fics right now

Oh lord let's see. I'm interpreting "right now" as "currently on my mind," so these are ones that I've been reading and/or have been posted recently. for mutual benefit by thestartofnothing (fandom: JJBA; ship: jotakak) Not Lost In Translation by @007waffles007 (fandom: JJBA; ship: avpol) She Makes Me Smile by @007waffles007 (fandom: ELO; ship: mik/kelly)

12) how does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?

Well as with any writer, I love feedback! Though after being in some tiny fandoms (or at least tiny from a fanfic perspective) I've gotten more used to not getting much feedback. All feedback is very very very appreciated of course, but feedback/support from 1 or 2 friends tends to make me very happy regardless of what other kudos/comments I get.

19) What is the most-used tag on your ao3?

To the surprise of literally no one, it is "fluff" (283 fics).

20) Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

Already answered!

23) Best writing advice for other writers?

Write what YOU want to see, regardless of whether you think other people will like it.

24) Worst writing advice anyone ever gave you?

I honestly can't think of any?

25) What fic do you wish you got more of a response on?

I don't knowwwww!! I spent a while looking through my fics to see if any of them fit, but that just ended up being me going "oh I forgot I wrote that, that one was cute!" for 15 minutes haha. I think I'm fine with how things are tbh.

34) Five years from now, where do you see yourself as a writer?

Man I don't know where I see myself in five weeks XD Mostly I just hope I'll still be posting fluffy oneshots on ao3 and sharing fic ideas with friends.

37) How do you choose where to end a chapter?

Not really a good way to answer this one, just where it feels right. But that's entirely dependent on the context of the fic.

43) Do you take a sadistic joy in whumping your characters, or are you more the "If you hurt them I would kill everyone and then myself" kind of person?

😭I'm definitely more of an "I want everyone to be safe and happy" kinda girl. When I make the characters suffer it's usually very mild suffering. Though, fun(?) fact about me, when I daydream about my fandoms, the daydreams often get pretty angsty and rough. But those ideas usually remain as daydreams because it would be too hard to actually write them.

45) Do you want to break your readers‘ heart or make them laugh?

Laugh and smileeee.

46) How would you describe your style? (Character/emotion/action-driven, etc)

Oh emotion-driven 100%.

53) How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?

Ooh, that really depends on my mood and how long I've been in the fandom for. When I get into a new fandom, I tend to read tons and tons of fics, then much later I'll actually start writing for it. And I tend to spend less time reading the longer I've been in a fandom. But every once in a while I get hit with an urge to spend all night reading fics.

56) What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

Oh boy let's see...I think I'm pretty good at giving readers warm fuzzy feelings? And I love when I'm able to do that.

59) Does anyone in your personal life know you write fic? if not, would you tell anyone?

Yes. A small number of my in-person friends. Plus my parents and my sister. But I'm pretty sure my sister still thinks it's stupid lmao. My dad's great about it though. Oh and my gf!!

63) Something you hate to see in smut.

Huh, when I read this question, I thought "oh boy, I'm gonna have lots of things I hate." But now I'm...struggling to come up with any? There are certain things I like more than others, and things I need to be in a certain mood to read. I guess maybe just when the relationship feels unequal. Don't like that.

64) Something you love to see in smut.

When the characters laugh/joke around/etc. Just anything to show them being really comfy and genuine with each other in such an intimate moment.

74) You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?

I have posted a fic anonymously. Try to find it >:) (not you, rufusrant, you already know it's me.) Haha but in all seriousness, probably by me going "ahhhhh thank you" in every reply to every comment lmaooooo.

:>

[aerick-cosmic-cauldron]

My mom died a few days ago, I couldn't even write how painful the sadness was... But after going crazy thinking and thinking I feel kinda numb.

My mom was fine a few days ago, I went to the hospital to see her and we talked we joked we laughed a bit. When the visit hour ended, I kissed her goodbye, we did a silly clumsy move and I ended up kissing her in her lips, I told her "goodbye, see ya tomorrow". And she just said "goodbye". The next day she was in bad shape, she was hallucinating and feeling bad, I still spent time with her. I put Bon Jovi (her all time crush) music until it started to bother her.

That same day, at almost midnight they called us and told us that my mom was dying. I was playing League of Legends, the match ended quickly, me and my sister got dressed and then went to the hospital. She was agonizing and barely could breath, we spent the whole night by her side crying and trying to tell her how much we love her. I was like telling her to try and get better and my sister was like telling her to rest and find peace. She was anguished, she barely could talk but she still said she wanted to go home, she also said "help me" in the most agonizing way possible, I talked to the nurse she said my mom was beyond help but we could talk to the doctors the next morning, we stayed there until next morning, sleeping a few short times, then we decided to go home and rest fr. We did that, we ate something and we went back to the hospital, the moment we stepped in the room my mom vital signs, started to slowly go down, she asked for help again, I talked to the nurse, she said there was no hope, that they couldn't do anything and she died an hour later.

There are a lot of guilt, shame, regret in me for not insisting more, for almost ghosting my mom these last 2 years and for being so useless in these situations. But all of that is meaningless to her, my mom is gone, none of this ugly feelings have to do anything with her. Nothing that happened after or that is going to happen will do something good for her anymore. I've been being a pessimist depressed bitch my whole life, obsesed with suicide, and still cannot fully comprehend death. She's gone, the person I loved more, I trusted more than anyone else.

Her only sin was she destroyed herself with alcohol little by little, not knowing she hurt my sister and I deeply by doing so. I barely could catch glimpses of the cause of her alcoholism, It's no mystery anyways, shame, extreme sensitivity, lots of pain and injustice. And instead of doing something for her I just entered in survival mode, fell into the comfort of deep fantasy and cut her off when she needed me the most.

My worst sin is I cannot find the strength to be a person who can be relied upon, I cannot stop being a childish, self-indulgent person, obsesed with safety and comfort. My worst sin is I refused to change for so long, that I let everyone who loved me the most die without my company. I'm like a black hole, my mom and grandmas tried to shine and give me love the best they could, and it was for nothing, it got lost somewhere inside of me and I couldn't give anything back, other than pull them closer and absorbing more and more of their light.

Since my mom is gone, and all of this is pointless for her. I might as well and try to make something good out of it for me, something she loved until the very end.

I need to remember the agonizing pain my mom was in whenever I can't find the strength to do something hard and uncomfortable. I need feel this guilt and regret of abandoning the people I love and watching them die, everytime I can't find the strength to get out of my head and prioritize others. I need to go back to this paragraph everytime I can't find the strength to transform words into actions...like rn.

I needed to write this tho, writing sincerely like this is definitely hard, these events and it's memories are the most painful experience I've ever had, just besides the ones my brain has put me through, but I know worse things will come until I fucking change for the better.

I beg to my self, go for the shit you really want, and help everyone on your way to do the same. No matter how hard it is to do both. Please at least do it for a delusional sense of justice for the people betrayed by you and your lazy, egocentrical tendencies. Please do that justice that you care so much and minimize those tendencies as much as you can.

[deathbecomesnerds]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for the tag @supermarine-silvally! Sorry for taking so long on this!

How many works do you have on ao3?

I have an impressive 81 works.

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

*checks A03* Holy Banana Nut Muffins...a whopping 664,798 words. That's impressive, Liz! Thanks, Liz!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

So, I currently write mainly for the Guy Ritchie universe? But I focus on 'The Gentlemen' but that doesn't mean some characters from any of his other works don't creep in.

I write also for 'Control', it's my favorite video game. Everyone should play it.

Sometimes, depending, I do write the occasional Stranger Things fic.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Trouble (The Man From U.N.C.L.E): 240 Down, But Not Out (The Man From U.N.C.L.E): 189 Little Girl/Old Man (Stranger Things): 151 Mess (The Gentlemen): 125 Til Death Do Us Part (Stranger Things): 110

5. Do you respond to comments?

Sometimes. It depends on what is said. I like to let comments/reviews be, but every so often they'll say something or ask a question and I feel compelled to answer.

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

Ooff. Umm...The Imposter? Maybe? I don't know. I like to make sure all of my work has happy endings for the most part.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

'The Unfortunate Reunion'. All the shit went sideways, people died, and a pregnancy was lost. But the bad guys were killed, and there was peace and love...

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No.

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

Yes. I do. I guess I write all kinds of smut? Idk, it's smut! What more do you want? lol.

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

Sometimes? But not really. I like to keep all my dollhouses separated.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes! A long, long time ago...and it was translated into Spanish, too!!

12. What's the longest you've spent working on one fic? And the shortest?

I guess my ongoing one, Bark Like A God. I'm going on two years with it and I've still got a long ways to go.

My shortest? I'm not sure. I do write a lot of one shot/stand alones. But if you are talking about something with multiple chapters, probably 'The Unfortunate Reunion', or "...And Baby Makes 3', I wrote them both in two months.

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

Nope.

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

I prefer to write OC's, and like to pair them with characters.

BUTTTTTT...I am a sucker for Jesse Faden/Dr. Casper Darling (Control) and you can fucking fight me on that one!

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

There is this one fic, "Did You Hear About Jackie?', it's a Castle Rock fic, I've gotten 3 chapters in and then dropped it for my current fic spiral of 'The Gentlemen'. I'd love to get back to it and finish but I doubt it. It's been like, 3 years.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm not sure. Character development? Dialogue?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Run-on sentences and paragraphs. Like...I go full blown Stephen King with describing things sometimes.

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

I wish that I knew other languages so I could very openly do that. I do use Google Translate, or if I happen to know someone who speaks the particular language, I'd ask them.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Okay, hear me out...CSI: Vegas. I was in middle school. Greg Sanders/OC. The fics I still have on my A03 & FF.Net accounts. They're horrible written. Lol.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Y'know what, I am so proud of 'New Daddy', it's a smut that I literally spent a whole year writing. Nobody really paid it any mind, but I don't care. I put so much time and energy into it. I fucking love it.

I guess I'll ask @rayslittlekitten @kesskirata @autumnleaves1991-blog @spacegoldilocks

[heycoyotegirl]

@ibrushmyteeth-donttellanyone I (a Benvi) am actually really interested in what you mean by this. Could you elaborate? I'm curious I promise I'm not looking for trouble!

Yeah, no worries! I love talking meta :)

So I've realized that Devi and Paxton were actually on parallel arcs for the entire series, but I'll focus on the college/career aspect of the show, since that's what I was talking about in the original post.

Every major character other than Devi and Paxton knows what they want to do in the future. They either have a specific career in mind, or a field that they're interested in. Fab has robotics, and Eleanor wants to be an actress (and later, director). Ben plans to go to Columbia and then be a lawyer like his dad. Even Trent has an (admittedly bad) plan to make a career out of reacting to reaction videos. ((Aneesa's an outlier here, but she was barely in season 4 at all (and was only introduced in s2), so she doesn't really count for this discussion.))

Even when there are bumps on the road—like Ben sending himself to the hospital in s3 or having a bad visit to Columbia in s4 or Eleanor being rejected by Julliard—the end goal doesn't change. Ben is still admitted to Columbia and then Devi gives him a pep talk that convinces him that he can fit in there (and, if you take the alternate ending into account, ends up becoming a lawyer). Eleanor decides to pursue directing so that she can cast herself.

But unlike everyone else, Devi and Paxton don't have plans for after college.

In season 2, Paxton tells his parents that he wants an education and a career. But he doesn't actually say (or know) what career. And in season 4, Devi literally admits that she's worried about the future because she's never thought about what comes after getting into Princeton, but that plot line is never meaningfully explored.

For both of them, the goal was getting into college. Full stop. No idea what comes next.

Obviously the fixation on just-getting-into-college comes from different places (Devi clinging to her memories of her dad and unable to think of anything other than getting into Princeton vs Paxton who had his plan to go to college on a swimming scholarship ripped away and then had to fight to even have a chance of being admitted), but it gives us the same result: Characters who are uniquely aimless compared to everyone else.

Even their struggles with getting into college are similar. Fabiola and Ben both get into colleges right away, and then any conflict that arises is whether the school they're thinking of going to is a good fit. But Paxton and Devi both have a "maybe I'm not good enough for college" arc. Paxton's conversation with Ojichan where he asks if he's too stupid to get into college parallels Devi's conversation with Dr. Ryan after she's deferred by Princeton.

(sorry, my daxton bias is gonna show for this paragraph) This is also why I think the post-prom scene would've been stronger with Paxton. It was sweet with Ben talking about how hard she's worked and how she would regret not writing the supplemental essay, but he can't actually relate to that experience. He hasn't lived it (and, in fact, his arc was the opposite: learning to work less rather than pushing himself). But Paxton has. He spent an entire season realizing that other people's opinions don't matter; all that matters is that he puts in the effort and believes in himself.

Devi and Paxton both have a series long arc of figuring out who they are and fighting to escape from the boxes that other people put them in (which I will probably make a post about in the future). And season 4 gave us the conclusion to that arc for Paxton: He's returning to college to become a teacher.

But the insane part—the part that makes me froth at the mouth and rave and believe that something went seriously wrong in the writers' room this season—is that we never get a conclusion to that arc for Devi, our main character.

She gets the dream college and the boy, but narratively, she still has no future! In real life, yes, it's totally normal to go to college not knowing what you want to do (though, often if people don't even have a specific area of interest, they take a gap year), but it doesn't make any sense for this character in this show.

The logical conclusion to Devi's story is her finding a passion to pursue, which would've shown her growth and how much she's healed; she's now able to think about her future, rather than centering her entire life around this goal she made with her dad.

currently going feral over the way paxton's arc (wrt figuring out life after high school) is a mirror of devi's, while ben's is more similar to her friends/the supporting characters

[novakstiel]

because i have no life i just spent the last 4 hours going through my entire follower list and blocking and then unblocking every single person who hadn’t posted anything in the last 2+ years, thus getting them to unfollow me. i mean i’ve had this blog for 4 years and not everyone is as dependent on tumblr as i am, so for sure many people have left this site in that time. and not knowing how big a portion of my followers were actually still there and actually seeing my posts was kinda bothering me, so.

in the process my follower count dropped with almost a hundred, and even that’s not still reflective of the real amount of followers i have. i mean i only really weeded out the 100% definitely dead blogs. i didn’t block anyone who’d posted anything in 2017 or later, for now, on the off-chance they decided to come back in the near future, but some of them have still been inactive for nearly 2 years now, so basically that left me with another probably ~200 inactive followers.

but! i was also very surprised by the amount of active followers i actually do have! and how long some of you have actually been following me! i mean many of you have been following me for 2-3 years, some of you even longer. some i even remember all the way from my old blog, meaning you’ve literally been following me for 5 or 6 years. and i just think that’s insane. so many of you don’t even blog about anything remotely close to what i blog about, and considering in the last year or so i’ve completely switched from the movie and tv-show fandoms (mainly supernatural) over to literature... it really leaves me wondering how come y’all haven’t unfollowed me yet. to top it off with all my whinyass personal posts and general rambling. (like rn)

so..... this got longer than i intended it to be but uhhhh... thank you, i guess, is what i wanted to say? i know this is just a stupid tumblr blog so idkidk it feels kinda silly feeling grateful about it but. i’m honestly feeling overwhelmed by how many people have stuck with me all through my depressed and inactive periods and all that complaining.

!!! thanks a lot guys !!!!

[maraudersmap123]

Trouble (Theodore Nott)

Summary: Theodore Nott was trouble, and everyone knew it. But for whatever reason, she decided she didn't care. OR. Based on 'I knew you were trouble' by Taylor Swift.

Warning: Mentions of cheating. Not exactly got smut, but only because it's only like two paragraphs so dunno if it counts. I'll put a warning before this part so you can skip it if you'd like.

Word count: 4,142

Reading Time: 15 Minutes

***

Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago

I was in your sights, you got me alone

It was her first night out after her breakup, and to say she felt out of place would be an understatement. Her ex-boyfriend, Rodger Davis, had cheated on her after just under 2 years together, so understandably her confidence had taken a huge knock. Her friends had forced her out of the depression hole she had buried herself in for the past month, dressing her up in the sexiest dress they could find and doing her makeup and hair.

As soon as she had stepped foot in the Ravenclaw common room she took quick notice of Rodger and his new girlfriend standing in the corner. He looked all too impressed with himself when he saw that she had noticed it was the same girl she had caught him with a month ago.

"Ignore them, they don't deserve the attention," her best friend Marianne told her with a gentle smile.

"I know, you go dance I'll get us a drink"

A few hours later the pair of friends were verging on being drunk. They had found their other friends and were having a generally good time when she realised she had run out of whatever alcohol was in her cup. After asking if anyone else needed a refill, and finding they never, she departed and made her way to the drinks table. After only a couple minutes she felt someone moving beside her, their shoulders bumping.

Looking up at the boy beside her she felt her heartbeat increase slightly at the beautiful boy looking down at her.

"Having a nice evening darling?" He asked her with a small smirk. Something about the way he was looking at her and the use of the pet name left her unable to speak for a few seconds but she quickly recovered.

"Alright, you?" She returned, quickly turning back to the half-filled cup in front of her.

"Bit crowded," He answered, putting his cup beside hers for her to fill up before introducing himself. "Theodore Nott"

"Y/n L/n," He smiled down at her again when she turned to face him, his body being far closer than she expected.

"Are you needing the get back to anyone?" Whispered the tall boy as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. All she could do was shake her head.

Before long they found themselves sitting on the couch in the far corner of the common room, the furthest from the makeshift dance floor. Her friends had spied her long ago and given her a big smile to encourage her to move on. She could see in their faces however that they likely weren't pleased with the person, it was the same look they had given Rodger all those years ago.

"You look beautiful tonight," They were sat outrageously close as he whispered in her ear, one of his arms wrapped behind her back and the other hand rested on her thigh. She blushed at his words and caught Rodger's eye across the room. It seemed he and his new girlfriend weren't having as good a time anymore, as she tried to get his attention and he watched his ex with a jealous expression.

"I've had my eye on you all night you know," Theodore continued, she broke eye contact with Rodger and smiled up at the beautiful boy beside her. With little thought she pushed her lips against his, his hands resting firmly on her waist as his tongue slipped into her mouth.

"How about we get out of here," He mumbled against her.

I guess you didn't care, and I guess I liked that

And when I fell hard you took a step back, without me

After that night they started a somewhat relationship. It wasn't like he was her boyfriend, not really anyway. They had sex regularly and spent a fair amount of time together, but it all either led to or ended in sex. He never stayed long afterwards, and he never ever stayed the night.

It was a very different dynamic from what she was used to. Rodger had treated her like he loved her, though evidently he never did. He wouldn't just stay the night after they would sleep together but he would care for her also. However, she'd be hugely lying if she said the sex with Theodore was incomparable to that of her ex.

She had fallen quite deeply for the boy. He gave her very little to go off, and she couldn't work out for the life of her why she loved him when she knew fine well he was only meant trouble, but she did.

They had been seeing each other for around 3 months at this point. As far as the school was concerned they were a couple. A very sexually active one at that.

*Over 18 until next red text*

"Theodore" the pale bedsheets were bundled tightly in her hands, his pressed firmly on the mattress on each side of her head as he pushed himself back into her, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead as he increased his pace.

"Fuck I love you," He whimpered into her ear. The three words sent her over the edge in seconds and he followed closely behind her, leaving a trail of kisses down her neck as she started to come down from her long-coming high, the room finally growing quiet.

*Warning over*

He collapsed next to her on the bed and she looked up at him with somewhat hopeful eyes. They had never said anything like I love you to one another. Anything other than compliments on one another's appearances, especially hers, wasn't yet something they really did.

"I love you too," She whispered, gaining no response as he looked away from her. A few moments later, after he had fully caught his breath he pulled himself from the bed. He began getting pulling his clothes back on and a small frown fell upon her face.

"I'd better get going, see you later," He said with no hint of warmth in his voice. And just like that, he left.

Almost instantaneously she noticed him getting more and more distant with her. The sex had grown impersonal and he left, if possible, even quicker than he did at the beginning. She knew her friends were right, he was like every Slytherin boy, they were no good for relationships. And given his reputation, he was no exception but she couldn't bring herself to care enough to end things.

He's long gone when he's next to me

And I realise the blame is on me

Things had far from improved between the two, with every day he got colder towards her and more distant. However, one good thing that came out of the months after they exchanged 'I love yous' was the friendship she gained with his friends.

As their relationship deteriorated his friends made an effort, though clearly against his will, to include her in things. She was sure it was to do with her family being part of the sacred 28. Draco and Blaise were always somewhat nice to her, but her real friendship lay with Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass.

The pair sat in the Slytherin common room one night with his friends sitting around them. They were the last to occupy the room as everyone else had gone to bed, the girl hadn't yet begun to consider how she would get back to the Ravenclaw dorms.

"Did you take the notes for potions tomorrow?" Pansy asked her. She was cuddled up next to Draco on the loveseat beside the fire. If you had to guess which pair out of the six were in a relationship you would never guess Theodore and Y/n, in fact, they would likely be your last guess.

"Ye I did. I can get them for you tomorrow if you'd like," She told pansy with a small smile.

"That would be great, NEWT potions was the worst decision I've ever made" the brunette laughed and the Ravenclaw girl nodded in agreement

"Same, I knew it would be difficult, but merlin nothing like this" she laughed. She heard Theodore clearing his throat beside her and she glanced over. Pansy looked away from the pair quickly, not wanting to be involved in the conversation.

"Are you thinking of heading back anytime soon" raising her eyebrows at the question asked she shrugged her shoulders.

"It's getting pretty late and you'll end up with detention if you go back on your own. Let's go," He mumbled. She stood up, giving Pansy and Daphne a tight-lipped smile as they furrowed their eyebrows at her.

"Where are you going," Daphne asked her quickly, Blaise looking up from his book at the words and watching the couple curiously.

"Oh, I'd best get going before I end up with a detention" she responded simply.

"Don't be silly, stay here there's plenty of space" Pansy said with a confused tone.

"She'd best be getting back, we have classes pretty early" Theodore intervened causing all eyes to fall on him. Draco simply scoffed at his words, knowing he was making things more difficult for everyone as there was no reason she couldn't stay.

"Ye it's alright Pans, my roommates would worry anyway" gathering her stuff off the couch she looked up at Theodore who was watching her impatiently, clear he wanted her out of the room "I'll see you guys later"

Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in

So shame on me now

Slytherin had won a quidditch match again Gryffindor and just like always, a party was thrown in the common room to celebrate. Y/n, Marianne, and a few of their other friends decided to go, having been invited earlier in the day by Pansy and Daphne.

"I'm happy that you're happy, honestly I am. I just worry" Marianne told her as they got ready in their dorm. The other girls had left earlier than them, having dates to meet.

"There's nothing to worry about Marianne" she assured and her friend simply shook her head

"He's trouble Y/n. He always has been and he always will be"

"There's nothing to worry about"

They eventually made their way to the dungeons and found their group of friends in the crowd on the dance floor. After a while, she turned around the scan the room for either Pansy and Daphne or Theodore. However, when she spied the boy she wished she hadn't.

He was sitting on one of the couch legs, with a small black hair girl standing between his legs with her tongue down his throat. The girl had her back to her so she couldn't recognise her, but she didn't care about her. She cared about Theodore who had clearly felt the eyes on him and looked up at the girl he had been sleeping with for months stood with her mouth agape and sad look in her eyes.

They held eye contact for a few moments before he turned his attention back to the girl in front of him and continued as though he hadn't just been caught. She quickly turned on her heel, leaving the room before anyone could stop her.

Making her way back to her dorm as quickly as she could she fell onto her bed, tears falling down her face. She knew it was only a matter of time, everyone did. He was Theodore Nott, after all, he couldn't keep a girl no matter how good she was, he always saw something better and had to take it.

He was trouble and she'd known it all along. After all, that's what she loved about him. He was trouble and she was used to peace.

No apologies. He'll never see you cry

Pretends he doesn't know that he's the reason why

She couldn't remember at what time she fell asleep, though she assumed it was late as she had heard each of her roommates return from the party, though they left her alone as she had her bed curtains pulled tightly shut. She was awoken by someone banging on her door and after glancing at her bedside clock she saw it was 2 PM, with further investigation she noticed that her roommates were nowhere to be found, obviously having long started their days.

Pulling herself from the warmth of her bed she wandered over to the door, opening it expecting one of her friends.

"What are you doing here," She asked when she caught sight of the tall brunette towering over her.

"What do you think I'm doing here," he asked with a smirk as he entered her room. He glanced at her bed as he walked towards it, then the box of tissues beside her bed that had been emptied, then finally turned back to look at her, rolling his eyes at the obvious signs she had been crying.

"What were you crying about," Theodore asked her, though they both knew exactly what she had been crying about.

"Theodore don't" she begged him as he leaned around her and shut the door.

"No come on, what were you crying about" he pushed, she stepped away from him at this and he once again rolled his eyes "Y/n"

"I don't like what you did last night, in front of me," she told him, crossing her arms over her body in a somewhat defensive manner.

"And what exactly did I do last night," He asked, his voice clearly taunting her

"You know exactly what" She mumbled

"Please enlighten me"

"You kissed someone, right in front of me," She told him and he scoffed loudly at her words.

"I'm single aren't I?" He asked

"You embarrassed me" At this he stepped away from her, walking towards the door.

"If you're going to get so emotional over such stupid shit then it's probably best we don't see each other anymore. Not worth the effort" he mumbled before walking out the door, leaving her frozen in shock at his words.

Now I heard you moved on from whispers on the streets

A new notch on your belt is all I've ever been

After the breakup, if you could even call it that, she somehow stayed friends with some of his friends. It would be generous to say that she was friends with Draco or Blaise, but they would smile at her in passing and sometimes say hello. However Daphne and Pansy had become some of her best friends after the split.

They regularly told her that the entire group hated the way he had treated her and that she was the favourite of all his many ex's. She would brush this off with a small thanks, never lingering on it much.

They were sat in the great hall one afternoon, attempting to study for their upcoming mid-year exams. The boys were all off somewhere so they were left alone, able to sit together without it feeling weird.

"I saw a girl in the year below leaving the boys dorm last night," Daphne told them, gaining both Pansy and Y/n's attention.

"It couldn't have been Draco, I saw him leaving the common room right after dinner and he didn't come back until morning," Pansy told them, and Daphne nodded.

"It wasn't Blaise, he was still in the hospital wing for that broken wrist from the weekends game" Daphne added, and suddenly the trio fell very quiet as they realised what this meant and it sunk in what they had just told the Ravenclaw girl.

"Shit I'm sorry Y/n, I wasn't thinking" Daphne rambled on after a minute of awkward silence.

"Don't be silly, I don't care anymore. He's at free liberty to do whatever he wants. He always has been" she smiled at the girls in front of them, and they gave her a small smile back.

"He wasn't at free liberty to do whatever he wanted that night Y/n. He was your boyfriend and we all know it" Pansy whispered

"I know," She said "It's a shame that to him all I was, was an extra notch in his belt"

And the saddest fear comes creeping in

That you never loved me, or her, or anyone, or anything

In less than a month of breaking things off with her, Theodore had a new girlfriend. She was a year younger than them in Slytherin. Pansy and Daphne had attempted to hide the information as best they could, and with the help of Marianne, they had succeeded for a while. But of course, she found out eventually.

She had been walking back from the library early one evening when she heard loud giggling around the corner, she continued walking thinking nothing of it until she spied her ex-boyfriend and a girl clinging to his arm.

She tried to look away but couldn't seem to. He didn't look any happier than his new girl than she had ever seen him with her, or any of his previous ex's.

As she walked past him he caught sight of her and didn't let his eyes drop from her own until the new couple had passed around the corner.

She realised with deep sadness that he had never loved her. The same way he undeniable didn't love his new girlfriend. The same way he never loved his friends. She concluded that he had never loved anyone or anything in his life. He lured people in with his sweet-talking and his beautiful eyes, let them fall in love with him, then dropped them on the Cold floor to deal with the consequences alone.

I knew you were trouble when you walked in

So shame on me

Months had passed, he and his girlfriend had broken up, and she had seen another boy for a while in between, though it never lasted long. His break-up had been public, with the younger girl begging him to take her back in the great hall one morning in a very loud, hysterical way. It had been the talk of the castle for weeks.

Her fling on the other hand hadn't come to anything and had ended quite normally. They had gone on a few dates but decided it was best if they stayed friends. She also made amends with Rodger. He apologised for his actions and they decided to be civil, perhaps not friends but certainly acquaintances.

The summer holidays were upon them at last. It hadn't been a good year by any means. Dumbledore was dead and no one knew the state the world was about the fall into. The only bright side she could see was that her family was safely in the middle. She could return to school in September without the crippling fear many children were about to experience.

At the very end of July Daphne had a small garden party. She had invited a few friends, mostly Slytherins, however she also invited Y/n and Marianne. After much consideration, they decided to go. It was likely that by the time they went back to Hogwarts in September everything would have changed even further, and who knows where that would put their friendships.

Daphnes parents were one of the few sacred 28 that weren't involved in the pureblood supremacy that was doing the rounds at the moment, or else there was no way her parents would have allowed her to go.

"How have you been" Daphne mumbled after engulfing her friends in a hug.

"Oh alright," Marianne responded with a smile.

"As good as you can be given the circumstances" Y/n added, returning the hug.

Daphne lead the pair out to the large back garden and the girls let their eyes roam around, seeing who was around. Noticeably Draco Malfoy was absent, but everyone knew he would be. Pansy was sat with a few girls who looked, by the matching pale blue jumpers they were wearing, to be from Beauxbatons. across from her, there were a group of boys Y/n recognised from the years above her, Adrian Pucey and Terrence Higgs along with a few others.

Finally sat on a bench at the far end of the garden sat Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott. The two had their backs faced to the entrance so hadn't yet seen the Ravenclaw girls that had just arrived.

"How are they," Marriane asked, having watched her best friends face grow in concern as she observed the two boys.

"They've been better" Daphne responded sadly "but haven't we all"

"Y/n!" Pansy yelled from her place In the garden. She quickly ran up to her and she tried to ignore the eyes from the other end of the garden that had snapped to her at the call of her name.

She was suddenly engulfed in a hug and she quickly returned it.

"Merlin I've missed you" Pansy mumbled as she pulled away from the hug

"I've missed you too Pans"

After about half an hour she decided it was time to approach Theodore. He was still sitting at that bench with Blaise. Neither had heard her approaching them, so when she cleared her throat from behind them they both got a fright and jumped slightly. They turned to face her and Blaise broke out in a grin.

"Alright my favourite Ravenclaw" He expressed, moving around the bench to hug her. She had never received so many hugs in one day before.

"Blaise, how're you?" She asked warmly, though he could see that her eyes were firmly on the boy still sitting on the bench who had turned back around as to no longer face her.

"I'm good, I'm good. I'll see you later ye, I need another drink" He had clearly caught on that she was here to talk to Theodore not him.

"Ye, see you later"

She moved slowly to sit next to Theodore, not wanting to sit too close and make things uncomfortable. A silence fell over them and neither looked up, they simply looked ahead at the rows of fields in front of them.

"It's peaceful here, I like it" She broke the silence and he nodded from beside her

"Ye, the Greengrass's have always had a lovely home" He answered simply.

"How's your summer been?" She asked him. Though the question sounded simple it was quite clear she was really asking him if he was safe at home. He knew this.

"Alright, doing what I have to do" He responded simply

"Me too" She whispered. At this, he looked over at her and she wasted no time in looking back. He let out a small sigh before moving closer towards her, wrapping her arm around her shoulder and pulling her into a sort of side hug.

"I've been worried about you" He confessed and she just laughed quietly at what she considered a lie.

"I mean it Y/n" He continued quickly "No one heard from you for months"

The next morning she woke up to the sound of the birds outside her window and the weight of somebodies arm dropped over her bare stomach. When she looked down she wasn't surprised to see that she had in fact had Theodore over last night, however, she was surprised that he had stayed, for he never had done before.

"I missed you darling" he mumbled against her skin, leaving a gentle kiss on her collar bone.

"I missed you too Theodore" she whispered back after a few seconds of contemplating her words.

Before either could comprehend what they had said there was a tapping at her window that could only be caused by her owl Erwin.

"Please don't get up" He groaned in a tired voice, grabbing onto her waist to hold her in place.

"Give me a second Theo, it could be important" She responded, pulling herself from his grip with a gentle kiss to his temples as she walked over the window. Cautious of the fact she was naked and he was certainly watching her every move, she saw the smirk on his face.

Quickly grabbing the letter and giving Erwin a treat, she retreated back to bed and opened the parchment that seemed to be Daphne. Her jaw dropped as she read the letter. It started quite normal, telling her that Daphne, Pansy and Marianne hoped she got home alright but they know she's with Theodore so they assume she did.

But before she could even comprehend what she was reading things had changed. In a matter of words, the world around them changed once again. Theodore was reading over her shoulder at this point and had clearly just read the same sentence as her.

"Theodore The Minister of Magic is dead, the Ministry has fallen"

[bbygirl-aemond]

do you have any advice for planning out the story and each chapter? im trying to plan out this fic idea i have but i don’t really know how so i thought i’d ask one of the best ao3 authors i’ve seen

oh bby i'm about to go into SO much detail that i'm sure you didn't ask for but here we go! i've spent countless hours of my life on fic planning, and it usually goes entirely unseen by y'all! i'll try to use parts of my earlier planning for stormbreak as an example so as to avoid spoilers while giving you the ability to see how the plans translate into the finished product. this will also give anyone who's interested a cool behind-the-scenes look at how some of stormbreak's chapters evolved from my earliest notes!

i organize all of my planning in google drive, and i have several distinct stages i go through that increase in detail the further along you go.

at the broadest level, i have two documents that i use for brainstorming. one of them, called "snippets," is miscellaneous little half-thoughts and snippets or late-night ideas. it includes both scenes and characterizations. it's basically little notes and reminders to myself. these snippets can usually be worked into the fic at mostly any point. this document is pretty long; about 50 pages. here are some examples of the types of things i put in this doc, including something that inspired a scene later in chapter 11:

the second brainstorming document is called "scenes." this is basically a list of every single interaction and moment that i want to happen. each line of text will represent one of the povs that will end up in stormbreak, with usually 2-3 povs per chapter. each sentence is super brief, like max 10 words, and i'll usually spit them out without regard to chronology since some scenes can be worked in anywhere.

now beginning to put things together i have the document i call "chronological events." here, the scenes are all put in a specific chronological order. i'll assign chronology to certain scenes that have chronological flexibility. and each scene will be expanded into 3-4 bullet points that get at how this scene will advance the plot (through politics, characters, or relationships). here's an example of what this looked like for the scene that became alicent's pov in chapter 12:

and for the scene that became aemond and daeron's povs later in the same chapter:

the "chronological events" document is what i reference first any time i'm going through the planning process for a new chapter. it reminds me of what i need to accomplish with the chapter.

so now let's say i've looked at this document and want to proceed to the initial outline for the chapter. i write these in documents within a folder called "short chapter outlines," and each document is titled "short chapter X outline," with X just corresponding to the number in the actual fic. this will expand the bullet points from "chronological events" into an a few actual paragraphs, and add in some extra padding that isn't strictly plot-relevant but helps to build out the scenes. this is an example of what this looked like for the scene that became aemond's pov in chapter 2:

you can also see that this doesn't always end up being fully translated into the end product. in this example, i changed the events towards the end when writing the actual chapter because it made more sense to me.

okay now we go onto the last stage of planning before i write the actual chapter: the long outline. just like with the short versions, i keep these documents in a "long chapter outlines" folder and each doc is titled "long chapter X outline." it further expands upon the short outline; i'll put the short outline on the left half of the screen to look at it while i write the long outline on the right half of the screen. this is basically me stream-of-consciousness writing the chapter. the goal is to get the entire scene hammered out, pretty much paragraph by paragraph. if there are any particular descriptions, lines of dialogue, or even brief moments that i get stuck on, i write them in shorthand and don't worry about making them pretty. here's an example of this, from the scene that became aemond's pov at the start of chapter 6:

you can see that i expanded on most of these paragraphs and polished the sentences between this and the final chapter. but also that the level of detail here is really high.

lastly, we have the actual chapter, which i write based off of this long outline. i put the long outline on the left side and the chapter itself on the right side of my screen so i can see both at once. i write all of my chapters in microsoft word because that's the format i've written stories in since i was a child and it's where my creativity works best for whatever weird reason. the chapter always stays very true to the long outline, but as you'll see if you compare the long outline above to the actual chapter 6 i do add in a bunch of extra detail. the long outline is usually between 4,000 and 5,000 words and 10-15 pages, while my chapters are pretty much upwards of 9,000 words and 20+ pages. so it about doubles in length at this step.

i do most of my editing (switching certain lines and paragraphs around) as i write this first full draft of the chapter. so when i'm proofreading, i'm only ever checking for errors and seeing if i want to replace any words or phrases with a better idea. this last step usually doesn't take me more than a hour.

from there on, you guys are familiar with the end result! as a note, the "chronological events" and "short chapter outlines" are all fully completed for this story! i prefer to finish this level of planning before even beginning to seriously write. it helps me to lay the foundation for my plot twists from the very beginning of the fic!