#hmmm it's been a while i don't remember if i put any other tags hmmmm

[lucientelrunya]

twenty questions for fic writers!

tagged by the lovely @sunriseverse, thank you dear!

And I'll also do my tagging up here so you don't have to work your way through all my blabbering :) @s1utspeare, @forerussake, @kholran, @lacommunarde, @adelaiderowan, @elletromil if any of you want to do this!

The questions (and my answers) are below the cut :)

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

12

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

541,787 since september 2021

3. what fandoms do you write for?

at the moment only dmbj and basically only fuba, I have two (and a half) Stranger Things WIPs, but I don't know if I'll ever get back to them. Also there are some original works floating around.

4. top five fics by kudos

Mostly my multi-chapter ones (which I guess only have that many because one of my regular readers is unregistered, and as a guest you can leave multiple kudos on the same fic, something I did before I made an account, too). Okay, lets see: 1. Like a lonely house 292 kudos 2. The Crystal Menace 266 kudos 3. Promise in the Dark 256 kudos 4. We go deeper than the ink beneath the skin of our tattoos 85 kudos 5. Stolen Moments 55 kudos

5. do you respond to comments?

Always, at least to thank the reader for reading and taking the time to write a comment. I love hearing what people think, especially with the multi-chapter stories, what they think is going to happen and all that. It might take me a few days to respond, but I wouldn't miss it.

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

Hmmmm, probably The Crystal Menace because it's the first part of a series and has a rather heartbreaking ending (because it's not the actual end of their story). I generally tend to give my characters a happy ending because to me whump is only fun if it gets a happy ending.

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

As I said in 6, I usually give my stories a happy ending because while I love putting the characters through it, I need them to be safe in the end. I guess Like a lonely house has the happiest of them all, if I had to chose.

8. do you get hate on fics?

No, AO3 user are all lovely and I don't really remember how it was on the sites I used before (like ff.net), but I don't think I ever got hate there, I'm sure I would remember that.

9. do you write smut?

Oh yes, I love writing smut :) I even have a series that is only smut.

10. craziest crossover?

Hmmm, probably the Sailor Moon & Stargate crossover I wrote back when I was thirteen and that I never finished. I have never written a crossover since, at least not that I remember.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that I know of. But the only fics I have on AO3 are from such a small fandom that stealing would not be profitable.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so.

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

Oh yes, that's how I started out writing fanfic. Always with one other person in an rpg-style (each had a main character and we planned the story together and shared side characters). I was the one with the crazy ideas and my writing partners mostly tuned them down and brought order to my chaos. I loved writing like that, sharing thoughts, having someone to discuss things, someone to give input on my ideas, to shape all the rough ideas into something better.

14. all time favorite ship?

Nope, not gonna chose. I am a multi-shipper and even if I have been writing dmbj-only for 3 three years, that doesn't mean anything.

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

Hmmmm, there is a Hei Xiazi/Zhang Rishan-idea in my drafts, but it's only an outline, it's not even really a WIP, so I don't know if it counts. And I still haven't given up hope that I will finish my Stranger Things WIPs one day^^°°°

16. what are your writing strengths?

erm.. I have been complimented on my smut, recently. Other than that, no idea. I'm not good at telling these things.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

Knowing when to quit, probably? I hate having to let go of characters and finding a good ending for a story.

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Full dialogue? I'd probably write that the character speaks in another language, depending on the POV character. In one older story I wrote with a partner we used ~ as a marker that certain dialogues were in another language because the reader was supposed to know what they were saying while one of the main characters wasn't. So I would write the dialogue in the language I'm writing in and then add a "said character in language" if the POV character understands that language and otherwise just mention that the other characters are talking a language MC can't understand.

19. first fandom you wrote in?

Stargate SG-1 and Sailor Moon if I remember correctly.

20. favorite fic you've written?

I love all my stories, but Like a lonely house will always have a special place in my heart because it was the first story I wrote all by myself and the first story I wrote when I started writing again after my dad died.

[greatshell-rider]

87. nasty-tasting medicine (sensory prompts)

Jerry tried to twist away. “I don’t want it!”

“I don’t care.” Ardu’s grasping hands didn’t relent, gripping his arms to hold him down, grabbing his chin and forcing his head up toward the wavering spoonful of dark red liquid. “You’ll take it anyway!”

“No!” Jerry’s hand flew out and smacked the spoon, sending its contents splattering across a pale lavender shirt. Everything paused, as both child and adult stared at the stains.

“That’s it,” they growled, and Jerry had only gotten out the beginnings of a scream before they were on him, grabbing his wrist in one painfully strong fist and dragging him out of the room, down the stairs, then a second flight. Jerry yelled and fought the whole way, scraping the nails of his free hand at Ardu’s fist, but was too small, too young. Ardu all but threw him down the last couple of steps, sending him stumbling through the doorway into the basement.

He spun and lunged for the stairs, but the door slammed shut, plunging him in darkness. “No!” Jerry screamed, shaking hands wrenching uselessly at the doorknob. “Don’t leave me in here!” His voice lifted to a high-pitched shriek of panic. He heard the scrape of a key, locking the door.

“Die of fever for all I care,” Ardu spat. “The Baroness will thank me.”

Jerry sagged to the cold cement floor as heavy thumps announced the departure of Ardu, going back up the stairs and leaving him alone. He couldn’t stop shaking, from fear and exhaustion of both the fight and the illness hollowing out his bones. “I don’t want to be here,” he whispered, stretching bruised fingers through the crack of light between the bottom of the door and the floor, curling the tips around the wood. Why did we ever come here, Lani? he thought bitterly, and the anger that rose in him brought tears to his eyes. He bit his lip, trying to force them back, but began to sniffle.

“Neither do I,” a voice said from behind. “Want to be friends?”

Jerry whirled, his back slamming against the door as another scream clawed up his throat—but old instinct killed it before he could open his mouth, leaving him staring wide-eyed into the dark of the basement. “Who’s there?” His voice wavered, still choked with tears, and Jerry coughed to clear it—then kept coughing, doubling over as pain wracked his skinny body and white flashed across his vision.

“Oh no, now that’s no good,” the voice murmured, and Jerry sensed a—a presence creeping towards him, like mist brushing against his cheek.

“S-st-ay back!” he shrieked, scrambling away from the door and into a far corner, as if that would take him any farther away from the thing. “What are you?”

He felt the presence withdraw slightly, as if alarmed, or insulted, and though he couldn’t see it, he could imagine it clearly somehow, standing over him, much taller than any human or alien he’d seen, with long claws instead of fingers, and a triangular head with no mouth and no eyes. It still gazed down at him, considering whether to eat him or not, maybe, its claws flicking up and down almost absently.

“Go away!” Jerry kicked out, but the presence didn’t flinch. His foot didn’t hit against anything, and he quickly drew it back in, pulling both legs up tight against his chest and wrapping his arms around them, but didn’t dare bury his face in his knees, in case the presence chose that moment to strike.

“I don’t want to be alone, either,” it said, upset. “You’ve hurt my feelings.”

Jerry hesitated. “S-sorry? Do you have feelings?”

“I’m a person, like you, aren’t I?” With his not-seeing, Jerry sensed the presence suddenly crouch, triangle head cocking to the side as it trailed its claws along the floor, leaving no mark in the cement yet swirling shadows like water.

“I think you’re a demon,” Jerry whispered, using the English word because he didn’t know the one in Wide.

The thing tilted its head the other way. “Is a demon a bad thing?”

“Y-yh.” Jerry paused. Suddenly he couldn’t remember. His memories did that sometimes, blurring or getting mixed up, until Lani laughed at him for remembering wrong what had happened on Earth and what happened after. “I don’t know,” he admitted, then regretted it, hunching his shoulders as the presence made a strange trilling sound, like a bird, and shivered in delight, its long, serpentine spine bending at angles it shouldn’t have.

“Well I think it is,” the demon said. “So a demon I shall be.”

Jerry frowned. “You want to be bad?”

It had no mouth to smile with, but he heard it in its voice. “Mustn’t we be? Here? With them?”

Somehow Jerry understood the them to be the caretakers of the halfway house. He went very still, and immediately his thoughts flew to Lani. Why had she brought him here? And then left? He refused to think the answer.

Instead, he cautiously let his knees drop to the side, lifting his chin to the demon. “You—you said you wanted to be friends?” His voice still shook, but not as badly as before.

The demon tapped its claws excitedly. “I’ve never had one before,” it admitted. “Will I be good at it?”

“We . . . we can figure it out. Together.”

“Together,” the demon hummed. “Yes, I like that.”

Jerry tried to nod, but another coughing fit came, feeling like a massive fist squeezing his entire chest, and when he could dizzily look up again, he found himself lying in the claws of the demon, as if it had caught him before he fell, and he stared up at its pale head, and at the darkness behind the mask.

“You need medicine,” the demon told him seriously.

“No!” he blurted, trying to wiggle free. The demon let him go, carefully lowering him to the floor, and he stood before it defiantly, prepared to run if it pushed any kind of spoon or pill at him. “I—I won’t!”

The demon sat back on its haunches. “You will die if you don’t.”

It said it so matter-of-factly, so certainly, that Jerry was stunned into silence. The demon continued to peer at him. “Which would you rather do?” it asked. “It is either this or that.” it extended its claws, and balanced on the lump of clay that served as its fist was a small gummy shaped like crescent moon. Jerry glared suspiciously at it.

“Look, it’ll turn your frown, upside down!” It plucked the gummy up with its other set of claws and held it up to its triangle head, so the tips curled up its face.

Jerry didn’t move.

“Just try it?” the demon pleaded. “For me, your friend? That’s what friends do, you know.”

Jerry didn’t want to admit he wasn’t sure what friends did, so though that sounded not quite right, he relented and held out his hand. The demon trilled again, quieter, as if it knew the sound had scared Jerry the first time, and placed the gummy on his palm.

“Take it quick,” it urged, when Jerry grimaced. “Before you lose your courage.”

“I’m not scared!” Jerry objected, and slapped his palm against his mouth, chewing the gummy furiously. It tasted awful, making his tongue pucker and face scrunch, but at the sight of the demon’s curiously canted head, he forced himself to keep going until it was mush, and he could swallow it all without gagging.

“Good job, friend!” the demon cheered, bounding a happy circle around him until it was coiled all around him like a snake wrapped around a tree branch. “I’m so proud of you!”

“It was gross,” he muttered, but secretly felt pleased. Bitch, he thought towards Ardu.

“Now that we’re friends, and you’ve taken your medicine, what should we do next?” the demon asked.

Jerry thought hard, determined to come up with something friends did together. “B-build a clubhouse?” he guessed. “Or—or a pillow fort? But the basement doesn’t have pillows,” he said flatly, disappointed.

The demon tutted. “Only one way to find out!” It dived between Jerry’s legs, scooping him up into the air and turning to dart deeper into the basement. Jerry gasped, nearly toppling backwards in surprise, then caught himself and gripped a knobby bone of the demon’s spine, leaning forward and feeling the wind of the demon’s movement blow through his hair so it felt like he was riding a galloping horse, or flying.

He laughed aloud—the first time in weeks, he realized—and the laughter didn’t even hurt, unlike his coughs. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, as the demon spiraled a few loop-de-loops as if the low ceiling weren’t even there, that nasty medicine was good for something after all.