#i've spent many years thinking i could do the writing better than the actual writers

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: hello! thank you for running this blog. i hope your vacation was well-spent!

i am an enfp in the third year of my engineering degree. i had initially wanted to do literature and become an author. however, due to the job security associated with this field, my parents got me to do computer science, specialising in artificial intelligence. i did think it was the end of my life at the time, but eventually convinced myself otherwise. after all, i could still continue reading and writing as hobbies.

now, three years in, i am having the same thoughts again. i've been feeling disillusioned from the whole gen-ai thing due to art theft issues and people using it to bypass - dare i say, outsource - creative work. also, the environmental impact of this technology is astounding. yet, every instructor tells us to use ai to get information that could easily be looked up in textbooks or google. what makes it worse is that i recently lost an essay competition to a guy who i know for a fact used chatgpt.

i can't help feeling that by working in this industry, i am becoming a part of the problem. at the same time, i feel like a conservative old person who is rejecting modern technology and griping about 'the good old days'.

another thing is that college work is just so all-consuming and tiring that i've barely read or written anything non-academic in the past few years. quitting my job and becoming a writer a few years down the road is seeming more and more like a doomed possibility.

i've been trying to do what i can at my level. i write articles about ethical considerations in ai for the college newsletter. i am in a technical events club, and am planning out an artificial intelligence introductory workshop for juniors where i will include these topics, if approved by the superiors.

from what i've read on your blog, it doesn't seem like you have a very high opinion of ai, either, but i've only seen you address it in terms of writing. i'd like to know, are there any ai applications that you find beneficial? i think that now that i am here, i could try to make a difference by working on projects that actually help people, rather than use some chatgpt api to do the same things, repackaged. i just felt like i need the perspective of someone who thinks differently than all those around me. not in a 'feed my tunnel-vision' way, but in a 'tell me i'm not stupid' way.

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It's kind of interesting (in the "isn't life whacky?" sort of way) you chose the one field that has the potential to decimate the field that you actually wanted to be in. I certainly understand your inner conflict and I'll give you my personal views, but I don't know how much they will help your decision making.

I'm of course concerned about the ramifications on writing not just because I'm a writer but because, from the perspective of education and personal growth, I understand the enormous value of writing skills. Learning to write analytically is challenging. I've witnessed many people meet that challenge bravely, and in the process, they became much more intelligent and thoughtful human beings, better able to contribute positively to society. So, it pains me to see the attitude of "don't have to learn it cuz the machine does it". However, writing doesn't encompass my full view on AI.

I wouldn't necessarily stereotype people who are against new technology as "old and conservative", though some of them are. My parents taught me to be an early adopter of new tech, but it doesn't mean I don't have reservations about it. I think, psychologically, the main reason people resist is because of the real threat it poses. Historically, we like to gloss over the real human suffering that results from technological advancement. But it is a reasonable and legitimate response to resist something that threatens your livelihood and even your very existence.

For example, it is already difficult enough to make a living in the arts, and AI just might make it impossible. Even if you do come up with something genuinely creative and valuable, how are you going to make a living with it? As soon as creative products are digitized, they just get scraped up, regurgitated, and disseminated to the masses with no credit or compensation given to the original creator. It's cannibalism. Cannibalism isn't sustainable.

I wonder if people can seriously imagine a society where human creativity in the arts has been made obsolete and people only have exposure to AI creation. There are plenty of people who don't fully grasp the value of human creativity, so they wouldn't mind it, but I would personally consider it to be a kind of hell.

I occasionally mention that my true passion is researching "meaning" and how people come to imbue their life with a sense of meaning. Creativity has a major role to play in 1) almost everything that makes life/living feel worthwhile, 2) generating a culture that is worth honoring and preserving, and 3) building a society that is worthy of devoting our efforts to.

Living in a capitalist society that treats people as mere tools of productivity and treats education as a mere means to a paycheck already robs us of so much meaning. In many ways, AI is a logical result of that mindset, of trying to "extract" whatever value humans have left to offer, until we are nothing but empty shells.

I don't think it's a coincidence that AI comes out of a society that devalues humanity to the point where a troubling portion of the population suffers marginalization, mental disorder, and/or feels existentially empty. Many of the arguments I've heard from AI proponents about how it can improve life sound to me like they're actually going to accelerate spiritual starvation.

Existential concerns are serious enough, before we even get to the environmental concerns. For me, environment is the biggest reason to be suspicious of AI and its true cost. I think too many people are unaware of the environmental impact of computing and networking in general, let alone running AI systems. I recently read about how much energy it takes to store all the forgotten chats, memes, and posts on social media. AI ramps up carbon emissions dramatically and wastes an already dwindling supply of fresh water.

Can we really afford a mass experiment with AI at a time when we are already hurtling toward climate catastrophe? When you think about how much AI is used for trivial entertainment or pointless busywork, it doesn't seem worth the environmental cost. I care about this enough that I try to reduce my digital footprint. But I'm just one person and most of the population is trending the other way.

With respect to integrating AI into personal life or everyday living, I struggle to see the value, often because those who might benefit the most are the ones who don't have access. Yes, I've seen some people have success with using AI to plan and organize, but I also always secretly wonder at how their life got to the point of needing that much outside help. Sure, AI may help with certain disadvantages such as learning or physical disabilities, but this segment of the population is usually the last to reap the benefits of technology.

More often than not, I see people using AI to lie, cheat, steal, and protect their own privilege. It's particularly sad for me to see people lying to themselves, e.g., believing that they're smart for using AI when they're actually making themselves stupider, or thinking that an AI companion can replace real human relationship.

I continue to believe that releasing AI into the wild, without developing proper safeguards, was the biggest mistake made so far. The revolts at OpenAI prove, once again, that companies cannot be trusted to regulate themselves. Tech companies need a constant stream of data to feed the beast and they're willing to sacrifice our well-being to do it. It seems the only thing we can do as individuals is stop offering up our data, but that's not going to happen en masse.

Even though you're aware of these issues, I want to mention them for those who aren't, and for the sake of emphasizing just how important it is to regulate AI and limit its use to the things that are most likely to produce a benefit to humanity, in terms of actually improving quality of human life in concrete terms.

In my opinion, the most worthwhile place to use AI is medicine and medical research. For example, aggregating and analyzing information for doctors, assisting surgeons with difficult procedures, and coming up with new possibilities for vaccines, treatments, and cures is where I'd like to see AI shine. I'd also love to see AI applied to:

scientific research, to help scientists sort, manage, and process huge amounts of information

educational resources, to help learners find quality information more efficiently, rather than feeding them misinformation

engineering and design, to build more sustainable infrastructure

space exploration, to find better ways of traveling through space or surviving on other planets

statistical analysis, to help policymakers take a more objective look at whether solutions are actually working as intended, as opposed to being blinded by wishful thinking, bias, hubris, or ideology (I recognize this point is controversial since AI can be biased as well)

Even though you work in the field, you're still only one person, so you don't have that much more power than anyone else to change its direction. There's no putting the worms back in the can at this point. I agree with you that, for the sake of your well-being, staying in the field means choosing your work carefully. However, if you want to work for an organization that doesn't sacrifice people at the altar of profit, it might be slim pickings and the pay might not be great. Staying true to your values can be costly too.

[goodluckclove]

Why Are You a Writer?

So the other day I did the second of my Writer's Refuge interview series, soon to be posted later this week. It went pretty well! It was with an artist on here I admire a lot and it was a really interesting conversation.

Perhaps even too interesting. We got onto the topic on why a person would tell stories, and their answer ended up being drastically different than mine. It ended up sending my on a little bit of a spiral (No fault of yours if you read this, Cass), but I didn't really talk about it with her at the time. You know, it's an interview. It's not about me.

My instinct when I'm feeling emotionally vulnerable is to sort of hide away most of the time, but it's a sleepy day in the Gardener household and I think it might help me to talk about it. So below the read more I'm going to get deeper into the question often asked to people in my trade: why are you a writer?

Spoiler alert: it's because I'm lonely.

No real gravitas or dramatics there, I don't think. Little actual literary merit. I've heard people say that they're writers because they're overtaken by stories, just a vessel to the act of creation that can't help but craft narratives. I think that's cool in theory, and it's something I relate to, but I also think it's a mind type that doesn't exist in a vacuum.

I grew up a child of addicts with about a five and eight-year age gap between me and the rest of my siblings. We were conditioned to be deeply loyal to each other and care in the way our parents couldn't care for us, but most of the time my siblings didn't want to play with me. My parents didn't want to play with me. I had a few friends at school, but not many of them were able to hang out with me outside of campus for one reason or another. Throughout my developmental years I spent a majority of my time on my own, just figuring out different ways to entertain myself.

And I felt a fundamental other-ing from the rest of the people around me. I was precocious, considered "mature for my age" (a poison adults have been feeding the youth for generations), but it went deeper than that. I would speak quickly to my peers, joking almost frantically without letting them get a word in edgewise. It felt like they all knew a common language I was never able to learn and never could. At one point in middle school I told myself I was better than them. i don't think that anymore. Now I'm just confused.

As an adult I'm often confused by other people, sometimes to the point of fear. I struggle to stay afloat in large social situations, to look charming and keep the other person placated and talking, making sure they don't realize the fundamental truth that I'm not supposed to be there. Sometimes it gets to the point where I'm so exhausted that I physically can't look at human faces for hours afterwards. They all look like fleshy slugs.

Does that make sense? I say that a lot in conversation with those around me, a constant plea for validation. Am I making sense?

So I write. I write a lot. With no other line of work at the moment I've been writing about 60k words every month for the better part of the last year. And I do it to tell a story I'm passionate about, sure. I do it to process emotional ghosts from my past. But if I'm being honest with myself I know I write to create a connection between myself and the audience. To create a story that someone can read or watch and say "I understand", even if their interpretation is different than my own.

I do it because I'm lonely. And I'm not really proud of that. But it's the truth.

Riley was surprised when I told them this. So are you saying that if you were happy you wouldn't be a writer? They asked. Well, I am happy. I'm also lonely. These two things can exist at once.

But if I had a different life. A more functional family system that would've likely resulted in me needing far less treatment than I currently do. If all that was the case then I might not see the need to be deeply embedded in my own head. The rest of the world might not come off as the threat it sometimes is. But then again, my life and my identity would be so drastically different that I don't really see the point in speculating.

Would I be a writer? Maybe. I don't know. I'd probably have other hobbies.

I don't usually like talking about myself like this. It feels indulgent. A little too skin-less for my tastes. But, as with anything else, maybe someone younger and in a similar state could read me talking in this way and feel an aspect of comfort. If one person does then that would be worth it. I'm glad I'm a writer and I think I'm a capable one. I'm also aware that being a capable writer doesn't necessarily mean you're also deeply neurotic, which is both a comfort and a small point of envy.

If you've read to this point - which, by the way, is an oddity of cosmic proportions to me, maybe reblog and speak a bit about how you became a writer. But maybe be a little honest with yourself. If it comes from a deep well of pain, that's meaningful. If you just want to create a powerful story that people can lose themselves in, that's also meaningful.

You don't need to suffer to be a good artist. That's absolutely not something I believe to any extent. I'm just one of the ones that did, and that's something I'm going to have to work out over the course of the next rest of my life.

I don't know. I'm rambling. Maybe it can be your turn to talk now.

[wearethecyclones]

hi I'm pretty sure I read once that you don't write anymore (idk if you don't write for teen wolf or you just don't write in general) but I wanted to let you know that back in 2014 I found Play Crack the Sky and it completely changed my life. I know it sounds like an exaggeration, but I never thought I could read something so beautiful and well written for free online. You set the standard for what I consider a good story.

I know there's a big chance you don't care for the story or you think it's not up to your own standards now, but I wanted to let you know that it's been 10 years since I first started reading it and I have read it dozens of times since then and it always takes me back to a simpler time, when a band AU about two dudes getting back together was enough to pick me up from a shitty day at uni or at work.

I wish I had enough words to thank you for all the work and love you put into that piece, but I'm afraid you took all the good ones, so all I can say is this: thank you for writing my favorite fic ever.

PS. When I first read that fic, I gave a second chance to Brand New's album Deja Entendu (which I used to think was sort of 'eh, alright' at that moment) and it has, since then, become one of my favorite albums ever. Idk if it's related to the fic per se, I just wanted to thank you for making me reconsider my previous opinion of it.

PS 2. Yes, I was reading Play Crack the Sky again and got emotional about fanworks in general and how they connect people around the world? and usually the only rewards the writers get are kudos and comments? like, is there a higher form of praise than "I was inspired by your work so I put the characters in Situations then shared it with the world without earning a cent from it"? idk, I'm feeling a lot of things about PCtS today. I think I've gushed about your fic out loud to so many people throughout the years and today is just another example of that. I thought the author should know there's someone out there who still thinks of their little universe and still wishes they could listen to Smokes for Harries live.

have a great day!

(cont.) same PCtS anon from the long message: omg you're writing a 911 buddie fic? well, don't mind me if I do PS. even if you never pick it up again, I'm just happy to read something else from you. PS 2: I feel a little silly telling you this but I also wanted you to know you inspired me to write fic as well. I'm not great at it and I have taken years off at a time, but I always think that good writers had to start somewhere and maybe I'm never gonna be a best-selling author, but if a bunch of people on the internet like some of my stories, then I think that's enough.

WHERE to even begin!!! Thank you so much for this, it made me cry (positive) when I first read it and now I'm still an overwhelmed little puddle about it.

A numbered list response so I don't have to do connective tissue here hahaha:

I am SO touched to hear that I inspired you to write, I'm so honored! And you're so right, the connection we get through fanworks is so special and as a writer, you're a part of that! No matter how infrequent or what you feel about how great you are at it, you're in it! It's so cool! Everyone playing in the same sandboxes together with the sole purpose of expressing themselves and being entertained, what a beautiful thing.

Deja Entenduuuuu. I recently re-listened and it really is such a beautiful album. I'm glad you gave it another go!

I genuinely still have a lot of affection for Play Crack, I'm never gonna feel any sorta negative feelings toward it. If I wrote it now, the truth is i WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO so it lives in a very special sweet spot where my ability to put words together and my ability to actually sustain a story through the finish meet. I think maybe now I could put the words together better, but I don't think I'd be able to finish it. Also, the time I spent writing it was really really special to me, I got to escape into that world when my own world was very unexciting, but then I also got to play in the Teen Wolf sandbox and make friends I STILL talk to all the time and I'm really grateful for all of that.

RE: Still writing + Buddie Fic: writing is so hard??? I didn't think writing was hard before, but now I think it is so hard. I wish I could recapture whatever it was during the Play Crack era of my life that let me just spill it all out and form it into a story and commit and finish it. Was it confidence? Was it having more time? Was it not having a real big kid job/career? Was it being young and caring a lot more??? I do not know. I wish I'd bottled it then. I do want to finish the Buddie fic, I want to write other stuff, I'm just like so writers blocked and stoppered up and have been for a longgg time.

Anyway, idk, long winded answer that ultimately boils down to: thank you, you really made me feel some feelings that I kinda needed to feel, and I really appreciate you. Thank you for loving my long ass silly little band au <3

[practically-an-x-man]

Director’s Commentary on your favorite Nikoletta/Abner fic?

Ooooh yes! I'm gonna go with The Facts Were These, since I really love how that one came together (and it's got a lot of references to talk about). That's the fifth fic in the series so I don't believe you've read it yet, warnings for spoilers apply.

Link to the ask game here, and to the original fic here

____

La Gatita Amable. One look around the bar told her it wasn’t exactly… well, amable. No outright fights had broken out, but the room was packed to the gills and flooded with chatter so loud Nikoletta could barely hear herself think. The press of bodies all around her made her hackles rise from the moment she stepped through the door.

In total honesty, this is probably one of my favorite ways I've opened a fic. Pulling the Spanish term amable (meaning "gentle") from the canon name of the bar, using it ironically to describe the chaos and clutter inside the bar, and trying to push Nikoletta's discomfort right from the first few sentences, I just feel like this introductory paragraph sets the scene so well.

The second was the dress. Cleo had found it buried at the bottom of the trunk: a crisp goldenrod, sleek fabric (pure polyester, synthetic and safe) layered with delicate lace flowers, that hugged every curve of her body and pulled in tight to a Grecian neckline at her throat. It was exactly the sort of thing Nikoletta would have worn in her prior life, before the shadows. Despite every warning in her mind… it called to her. She couldn’t resist. She wanted a taste of the life she’d left.

I did actually pick out an existing dress for her here! Obviously it's just a random model wearing it, not Nikoletta's faceclaim (Teyonah Parris), but I thought the dress would look really pretty on her and I loved the flower patterning on it. It's one of the rare times I actually picked out a specific article of clothing and described it rather than going from an image in my head (excluding outfits that are already canon, of course)

But… she wished she could lay her head on his shoulder. She wished she could be closer than this. She wished… a lot of things.

The way this fic is structured, there's this flashback scene here followed by a flash-forward to months after Starro. And there are a lot of parallels between the two scenes! Here's the first one: Nikoletta wishes she could rest her head on Abner's shoulder, and that's one of the first things she does in the second scene.

Abner nodded but didn’t speak. His eyes shifted back and forth, refusing to settle on her. Finally, seeming to summon his courage, he held out a hand. “Care to dance?”

The other thing this fic has a lot of is references to Pushing Daisies. This is for good reason, since their first is canonically inspired by the show, but there are a lot of subtler references sprinkled throughout. This is one of those. Abner holding his hand out and asking "care to dance?" is a reference to s1e4 of Pushing Daisies, in which Ned and Chuck dance on a rooftop while wearing beekeeper suits (so they don't touch directly).

Oh, and the title is a reference to Pushing Daisies as well.

She wondered why it was so hard to speak gently. Sharp words she’d mastered. Anything softer than that just felt awkward, like she was stumbling over herself and couldn’t quite find her balance. She remembered being better at this. Maybe she’d spent too long in prison, surrounded by so many barbs and spurs on every side.

The tough thing about writing Nikoletta is the way that she speaks. She, by her nature, speaks a little awkwardly when it comes to gentle moments. She's spent fifteen years keeping up the persona of the Queen of Belle Reve, in which she perceived any softness as a weak point, so she's not used to vulnerability or soft words like this.

But from a writing perspective... how do I write a character speaking awkwardly without it reflecting on my skills as a writer? Where's the balance between "this character speaks oddly because of her background" and "this author can't seem to write realistic dialogue"? I know that choppy dialogue can take a reader out of the fic, but I also know that therapy-speak from a character that wouldn't give a shit about that breaks the illusion just as much. It's just a tough balance to strike, no matter how many times I write for Nikoletta.

“You know, you…” she sighed, “You really shouldn’t do that.” Despite the words, a faint smile crossed his face. Nikoletta had no idea why.

Another line from Pushing Daisies! In s1e3, Ned and Chuck share a kiss through plastic wrap just like the kiss in the scene here, and the first thing Ned says afterwards is "You really shouldn't do that". Abner smiles because he's thinking of the show and realizes she's just quoted it accidentally, which is even more special to him because (as we see in the second scene of this fic) he'd held up that scene as the pinnacle of romance in his mind and now gets to live it himself.

Who would dare to seek out romance with the most damaged person in Belle Reve? She didn't know why he wanted her.

When I wrote this scene, I really hoped this line came across the way I meant it. It's supposed to be a bit of a fake-out, leading the audience to think she's referring to Abner as the "most damaged person" when really it's herself, in a reflection of her own self-hatred. I almost rewrote it or even outright deleted it, because I was worried it would get misread as her being callous towards Abner, but I liked the line so much that I decided to keep it. And nobody's remarked on it yet (though it's not exactly a popular fic...), so I guess we're fine.

She obliged, turning her attention to the washed-out images flashing across the screen. It struck her, for the briefest moment, as an echo of her own life: a dark-haired man, not too dissimilar from Abner himself, sharing a kiss with a shorter woman through a layer of plastic wrap. She could see why he was so connected to this show. “You really shouldn't do that…”

There's those parallels I was talking about! They're watching the same scene they semi-accidentally reenacted earlier in the fic! Technically speaking this is fit weirdly into the fic (it's the third episode of the show, and most of the way through that episode, so Nikoletta had to be really distracted not to have realized it was the same show earlier), but that's one of those little creative liberties that I didn't figure people would notice or take much issue with. Maybe Nik was distracted, or Abner jumped to episode 3 since it's his favorite, or it was being rerun on live TV and they only caught that part of the episode, or any number of other explanations, it doesn't really matter.

“You look like him, too.” she added, brushing the hair out of his face to get a better look. Abner’s brows crinkled. “Tall and sad?”

Not much to add here, I just thought this line was really funny and wanted to draw attention to it XD It was one of the first lines I wrote when I conceptualized this piece, it just made me crack up.

“I saw myself in him,” Abner mumbled after he’d pulled back from her. His eyes darted briefly to the TV as credits rolled across the screen, “Watching it the first time. I always thought that the plastic wrap was the most romantic thing. Y’know, just… wanting to be so close to someone you couldn’t be close to that you came up with any solution you could. And… being loved even though you weren’t normal.”

Honestly, this is a huge running theme in their relationship - two people who aren't exactly "normal", who have both adverse superpowers and mundane personal issues to work through, who fight hard to work through them and stay together despite that. The whole Pushing Daisies comparison was really just luck, too: I love the show and ended up going through a huge hyperfixation with it at about the same time I started writing for Nik and Abner, and figured that Abner would end up seeing himself in Ned, and it ended up fitting together even better than I initially hoped it would.

I'm just... I'm really happy with how this piece fell together. It's one of my best.

[that-was-anticlimactic]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by my beloved @zukkaoru & @lesmiserablol <333

tagging (with no pressure): @beachytablecloth, @fabro-de-omres, & @milf-harrington (so sorry if you've already been tagged!)

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

69 which... is honestly more than i was expecting? i think it helps that my goal is to post a fic once a month mostly bc that's my motivation to keep writing even when i'm busy/stressed!

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

396,183 - omg i am SO CLOSE to 400k ahhhhhhhhh

3. what fandoms do you write for?

uhhhhhhh many??? right now, it's a lot of bsd/bnha, but it's always a plethora of things, haha! my first was prolly ninjago tbh

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

hey, little songbird, give me a song

you never quite say (but i hear)

lost in love and lost in feelings

Deeper Than Words

for a new world to begin, the old one must fall

okay the #1 for that is honestly so real that is one of my absolute favorite things i've written EVER lol, same with #2! the rest are... idk #4 is AWFUL - like one of my first atla fics and also my first time writing a ts fic (i have gotten SO MUCH BETTER AT IT NOW)

*note: i started this in like nov or early dec, and #5 changed! it was the zukka goose fic but now it's actually one of my favorites iugytfyhujiko

5. do you respond to comments

i used to be good at it. then i got stressed bc of school. and then i was suddenly like "uhhhh idk How to respond???" i think the thing that got me was i didn't know how to reply to the distressed comments on my sokka falling fic so i just. accidentally stopped.

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

oh here in the garden (let's play a game) 100% rip to sokka sorry babes ilysm hate to do it to ya, love the angst tho <333 rip to everyone who missed the major character death tag lol. well... that or a spring and summer song, too brief rip to geto in the +1 oops... oh shoot... it could also be take me where my soul can run... hm...

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

this was hard, but imma go with i was a child and she was a child bc it's based on one of my favorite childhood memories! rip to zuko and his ice cream tho :/ but azula is VIBING the whole time oiuygfcgyhuij

8. do you get hate on fics?

not really? i did once have someone try to correct me and say that i wrote sokka with ocd instead of tourette's but it was in the bookmarks and it made me laugh lol. i also got this comment on my kubokai kaidou with ts fic: ".. the self projection is heavy in this one ... -_-" so idk if that counts lol

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

nope :)

10. do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written?

uhhhh not really? i wrote ninjago equestria girls crossover oneshot in middle school but i never finished it and it SUCKED lol

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of?

12. what's the longest you've spent working on a fic? and the shortest?

uhhh i wrote a 7,600 word fic in three hours while i had covid? that's prolly the shortest? i count that as shorter than anything i may have finished faster bc i had covid lol but longest? ummmm over a year? multiple years? idkkkkkk the jay with ts fic i posted was something i wrote in 2019 and i edited it (a lot) and posted it in 2022 so??? that maybe?

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

uhhh i did with friends in middle/high school, but those never left the docs! also grace and i have. very many much so aus lol

14. what's your all-time favorite ship? from all fandoms?

RARIJACK!!! it was one of my first hardcore ships, and also was my introduction to queer ships!!! renga is a close second, but rarijack just is really important and special to me for sentimental reasons that put it above renga and others! i am also on a seroroki kick right now. it's not my all-time favorite, but the brain rot seems never ending right now lol

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

GOD SO MANY i have a folder in gdocs just for ninjago fics and there are folders within the folder for different types of wips i'll never finish - i have That many: "no substance", "baby girls", "drafts"... etc...

16. what are your writing strengths?

uhhhhhhhhhh ngl i'm in a place right now where i feel like the answer is Nothing (writer's block has been Bad recently), but i think something i'm good at in a very specific way is making readers feel the discomfort of characters? like idk i've been told that the way i write ts and tics (specifically tic attacks) makes the readers feel uncomfortable in like a "wow i didn't know it felt this way" kind of way??? i like to think i'm good at characterization??? idkkkk

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

ummm setting and scenery & connecting parts of a story, especially if they're parts that i'm stuck on/transitions are prolly my biggest ones???

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

i mean go for it as long as it's respectful and like... you tried making sure it's accurate?

19. first fandom you wrote for?

uhh rainbow fairy/a-z mysteries... but that was like very briefly on paper. first time like... for Realsies was ninjago

20. favorite fic you've written?

oh 100% hey, little songbird, give me a song. it's just really special to me and writing it helped me cope with a new tic i had. but one that i wrote more recently is fantasies i'm not sure that i'm worthy of which is a ritsu-centric fic and is prolly tied as my favorite fic i wrote in 2023. the other one would be sun comes streaming through the window (& i can't sleep anymore) which is my 21k word kenji-centric fic lol but that one is like... i'm more proud of it than anything, which is what puts it up there.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

20 questions for fic writers meme, tagged by @chubsthehamster -- thank you, friend! :D

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

42 at the moment

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

269,795. Almost half of that is one fic though, lol

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently most active in Trigun, perennially/intermittently active in Nirvana in Fire, currently dormant in CritRole, and hiatus in Sandman. Interests wax and wane! And who knows what I'll discover next? Not me, that's for sure.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Mate, I write mostly gen fic. I'm not here for the numbers. A kudos means that a whole human being with thoughts of their own spent some of their precious moments on God's green earth reading my thoughts and kinda liked 'em.

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

I do! ...........eventually. sometimes several years later. And why? I dunno, it just feels polite? Also human connection, even digital. That's a thing.

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

Probably Inference, but that's just because of the canonical main character death. Visitation Hours is bleak in implication, not in actual ending. My definition of "angst" does not always align with readers' definitions of "angst," which can be hilarious for me when I get weepy reactions on something I thought was relatively lighthearted.

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

I do 'equivocal' better than 'happy,' I think? The goal is emotional resolution or emotional discordance. Happy's incidental, which almost certainly means I don't write a lot of happy endings by the standard measure.

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Not hate so much as people who are belligerently confused? I get some bonkers fucking comments and anons sometimes, which I delete, a smattering of entitled weirdos, and a sprinkle of (typically unintentionally) back-handed compliments.

9. Do you write smut?

Nope! Suggestive, sure. Dirty language, if relevant. Implication, when called-for. Smut? Nope.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I have written a short series of crossovers between Machineries of Empire and Nirvana in Fire. Haven't written any since, but they're not off the table.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yup! More plagiarism than theft in entirety, though. At least once had someone lift a whole scene, dialogue, phrasing and all, and claim it as their own with obvious intent to get mileage without credit. And I have happened upon recognizable lines from my fics in other fics enough times to have several nickles. I get miffed about the latter, but the charitable assumption is just that it was a phrase fresh in their minds/recalled without association.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Into Russian, I think? Godspeed, fanfic translators, the strongest of us all.

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

I've co-written original stuff before, but I don't think I could ever do it again, original or fanfic. Not that it wasn't a pleasant experience at the time!

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I don't have a favorite ship, but I do have a favorite dynamic, which is the mutual "you're the only motherfucker in this club who can handle me" a la that one Lorde tweet. The buckwildness has to be compatible, preferably complimentary. We're not talking enabling, though that can be part of it. It doesn't even have to be a ship. That grok/trust combination.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

Look, I don't know what WIPs are going to get finished until I post them, okay?

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like character studies! And I feel like I am getting better at limited points of view, though they keep wanting to slide omniscient.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Same-hatting with @chubsthehamster here: plot. What the characters are doing in any given story is largely just to break up the dialogue and introspection. Things happening? They don't, sorry. Gotta work on this.

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

For straight dialogue in another language, it's still dialogue, and it still has to serve the story, so if it makes more sense to drop it untranslated, drop it untranslated. If the reader needs to know what's being said, italics or paraphrase.

For mixed languages, it's totally situational and depends on the character, too. Did they just get back from an exchange program in France and they're insufferable about it? Are they a very new second language speaker? Are they an expat? A bilingual parent who wants their child to grow up speaking one language preferentially? An academic, or someone who learned their whole vocabulary based on a single vocation (ie: a doctor who can get by using Spanish in a medical scenario but not outside the clinic)? All of that is going to influence their speech pattern.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Nirvana in Fire!

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Just as interests wax and wane, I like some fics more and some less, and today's favorite could be tomorrow's cringe.

Please consider yourself tagged if you see this and would like to play! @ me, if you like!

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

Answer the questions and tag five fanfiction authors you know!

Tagged by the amazing @asteria-argo

1. How many fandoms have you written in?

One! Or two if you count original fiction as a fandom. Or three if you also count the couple of sentences of Black Sails fic that I'll hopefully get around to expanding into a full fic at some point.

2. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

I started writing The Hedgehog's Dilemma on August 2, 2023, so about 9 months. Before that, I exclusively wrote original fic from ages 8 to 22.

3. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

Read, because reading is fast and writing is slow.

4. What is one way you've improved as a writer?

For a long time, I had a terrible case of writer over-complication syndrome, a thing I made up just now: every story I planned somehow ended up with 5+ different story lines which were at best loosely connected and each had their own cast of characters and sometimes world-building. As in, I once put "character goes to space and turns into a demigod(?)" and "ethics of dealing with a slow-acting zombie plague where people gradually transform in to zombies over the course of ~10 years" in the same story, then got overwhelmed and never wrote it. I still have a bit of this tendency, but I've gotten much better at axing plotlines that don't need to be there in the planning stage.

5. What's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I don't know how weird it is, but I did spent more time than was probably reasonable trying to figure out what type of houseplant Higgins had in his box of office supplies in 2x02. I also found out that there are multiple record-breaking balls of twine in the US (largest ball of sisal twine by a community; largest ball of sisal twine by one person; heaviest ball of twine; largest ball of nylon twine) and figured out the route Ted and Beard could have taken on a road trip to see all of them.

6. What's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

I love the long, detailed type with quotes and literary analysis, but I also love the ones that are clearly just someone's instinctive reaction to the chapter, like the person who commented "oh no" on chapter 5 of THD.

7. What's the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

I don't know if anyone's noticed, but I love writing time loop/other time travel stories, and I honestly think it comes from my background studying history. One of the main ideas in history is of contigency: that events aren't the product of a single cause but rather of the confluence of many other events interacting in a specific way. Time travel in general and time loops in specific, where the characters restart each time with a clean slate, let me play around with the cause and effect in stories in a way that I really enjoy.

8. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

I struggle a bit with fluffy, slice of life-type stories where everyone's mostly happy and everything's basically going well, which is why Flightless Birds is actually the fic that gave me the most trouble.

9. What is the easiest type?

Occasionally I'll write these short, introspective, sort of stream of consciousness fics where it's a bit ambiguous what's going on and the narrator's usually having some degree of a bad time — think All I Have (And a Little More) or Ephemera.

10. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I'm currently shopping around for new writing platforms in anticipation of losing access to the university's Word license after I graduate. I'll probably go with LibreOffice since it's free and works decently well.

11. What is something you've been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

Basically any Black Sails canon divergence fic because of how many moving pieces there are in the plot. I floated the hypothetical on here a while ago of what would go differently if season 1 Flint magically got end of season 4 Flint's memories because I'd love to write something with that premise but am daunted by figuring out an answer to that question.

12. What made you choose your username?

I am not good at naming things, so my ao3 username/username for main, the-sea-anemone, was basically me being like "what's a cool animal? Sea anemones, I guess? Username acquired." kvetchinglyneurotic comes from the fact that I initially created this side blog to complain about the ending to Jamie's arc with his dad, and also from the fact that I was in the hyperfixation stage where you think about the thing a solid 90% of the time while also being like. okay I do actually have other things to do so can we please focus on that instead.

I'm not sure who's been tagged yet so I'll go with @thirteenemeraldcats @jamietarttsnorthernattitude @sighonaraa @abubblingcandle

[asteria-argo]

Answer the questions and tag five fanfiction authors you know!

tagged by the wonderful wonderful @altschmerzes

1. How many fandoms have you written in?

Written in about 15 but I've only published in two. According to ao3 it's five but that's because of the umbrella fandom of DC comics.

2. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

Since I was around 6 and I'm now 20 so about,,, 14 years

3. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I read way more than I write, I read a bare minimum of 3 fics a day and I go through really long periods of not writing anything so I for sure read more than I write

4. What is one way you've improved as a writer?

since I started publishing my fics I've gotten a lot better at actually finishing them, but my grammar and tense has also improved A Lot just from practicing even if it's still not the best out there.

5. What's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I mean it's not that weird but I get very hyperfixated on small details so I did a lot of researching into the different degrees offered at Yale and Harvard in order to decide what degrees I think would be offered at a fictional Ivy League university when I was writing character bios a little while ago.

Also for To All The Better Places I spent a truly inane amount of time researching grassroots U12 girls football teams for a side character so I could name one in the right area that would suit her needs the best.

6. What's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

long ones for sure. I love getting long comments especially on my longer fics where people like,, point out things they liked or quote my work as me. Also love those like,, live slug reaction comments you get sometimes where people go paragraph by paragraph telling you their thoughts as they have them in one long comment,

7. What's the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

I have a lot of ambiguous gender feelings a lot of the time, and I also grew up watching a lot of "boy" oriented media that would only have like,, one or two girl characters at best so from a young age I was fascinated with reading like,, canon divergent "always-a-girl" trope fics and I have written a couple of them myself which I think is a bit of an unpopular trope in wider fandom.

8. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

angst and whump because I really struggle describing physical sensation and angst usually just ends up with me making myself sad and/or sick in the process of writing it if I don't have a happy ending planned and ready to go

9. What is the easiest type?

found family stories are my bread and butter, slice of life, friends just being friends, those kinds of stories

10. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I usually write at home at my desk, since I study online I've got a pretty perfect set up to spend long hours there. If I'm not at home I'm at the library. I use Notion, because it's free, I have personal beef with Word and google docs sucks. It's not technically a writing platform in the sense I use it in but it works fine as one, it also makes it super easy to organise my files and extra notes of fics, on top of my editing and the drafts.

11. What is something you've been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

I actually recently overcame my big too nervous to write fic. I am,, an asexual virgin but I also really enjoy reading smut. I've wanted to write some for ages, but on account of not knowing how sex works because I've never had it and also my inability to describe physical sensations I've been weary to give it a go in case it's terrible but I finally wrote some not long ago and published it over on ao3

12. What made you choose your username?

Well Asteria is just my name, and then Argo is a combined DC/Greek Mythology references. Argo comes from the Argonauts of The Golden Fleece myth, but it's also the name of the original supergirls home.

I do not know whose already been tagged or whose already done it so I'm just going to go for it and hope for the best @jamtartandsunshine @kvetchinglyneurotic @jamiesfootball @antitheticaally @its-not-easy-being-green-things

[joanthangroff]

Answer the Questions and Tag 5 Fanfic Authors

Thanks for the tag @incorrectcoldflashblog! :)

1. How did you get into writing fanfiction?

I've been writing my own stories since I was like 10 or 11, but when I got on tumblr a few years later I discovered fanfiction :D First in a German forum where I mostly read Harry Potter fanfiction and eventually I tried my own hand – with drabbles (the actual exactly-100-words-kind of drabble, thank you very much) and then oneshots about Draco/Luna – because what else could have made me write than a rarepair? When I got more into the Glee fandom, I also got more used to fic in English and then I tried my hand on that, too (mostly because, again, I was into a rarepair that nobody else wrote about).

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

If we take all the Arrowverse shows as one fandom, it's 10 :)

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

At least for 13 years :D

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

At the moment I read more – because I rarely write at the moment :D But usually I'd say I write more.

5. What is one way you’ve improved as a writer?

I'm much much much better at introspection!! My fics consisted mostly of dialogue when I started writing. And now I spend more time analyzing characters' thoughts and feelings, I think?

6. What’s the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Oh, don't we all have that moment where we text our bio-engineer friend at 2am in the morning and ask "Hey, if a person in Illinois died in the night of December 11 2013 because they were struck by lightning and then got buried in moist soil, how rotten would their body have been after nine months?"

Otherwise I'd say the month I spent researching lacrosse which almost made me start playing the sport was a very wild ride, personally.

7. What’s your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

"I love all comments equally!", I say like a father who's asked to name their favourite child. (In truth, I have always loved comments that are written while people read the fic. I used to write them, too, but since I mostly read via phone nowadays it's a hassle.)

8. What’s the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

Trans Indian Epic, baby!

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

TIME TRAVEL!!! Do you know how many fic ideas I have that I just can't execute because I keep running in circles whenever I think about the implications of time travel?????? And also anything involved with lots of movement.

10. What is the easiest type?

Chatfics, my beloved <3

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I write per hand most of the time while my mum's watching something on TV that I'm not interested in. Then it gets typed up to Google Docs and from there it finds its way to ao3.

12. What is something you’ve been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

The Glee/Flash AU of your dreams is resting in my head. And also the Teen Wolf season 5+6 rewrite where Mason can see Auras.

13. What made you choose your username?

It was my tumblr URL at the time and is a relict of my Marauders phase. pettigrace = pettigrew + ace. Do not mention Peter Pettigrew to me unless you want to be exposed to a rant that would make me look like a Rat Apologist. (On that note: FUCK JKR!!!!!)

I am tagging @lalalenii @pikechris @sophiainspace @frosty-the-killer-doll and I cannot think of a fifth writer rn.

[stereax]

over explain hockey rpf pairings and why people like them - sincerely a girlie who wants to get into rpf but only knows her home team

hahahaha, alright :)

hockey rpf: a thing

So firstly, I'll say that, honestly, I'm not the top person to answer this. I am a bit of a fanfic writer, but I'm nowhere near established enough to have a very concrete understanding of it all.

That being said - generally, the reason any RPF (real-person fiction) exists is as an extension of a parasocial relationship. RPF allows people to project feelings onto a fictionalized version of a real person (here a hockey player) who we know much more about than they do us.

RPF can be divided into two subcategories - Player x Player and Player x Reader.

"x readers" (generally found on Tumblr) are often contested in the world of RPF, as many people consider it a bit too far in breaking the fourth wall. There are also issues with diversity in "x readers". The reader in question is almost always assumed white, Anglo-American, cisgender, female, heterosexual, heteroromantic, neurotypical, not fat, not disabled and not disordered in any way. Not only does this reinforce a "beauty standard" (by insinuating that only this kind of person is "attractive enough" to be a partner of a hockey player), it alienates those who do not fall into these categories - this is especially pertinent, at least in my limited experience, for transmasculine people, for whom being perceived as female can cause discomfort and dysphoria. If you're an "x reader" writer reading this and thinking that you're the problem for writing to uphold this standard, please don't feel bad - this is the standard "x reader" fiction has upheld for years. I ask only that you consider writing for more diverse audiences. Maybe one of your next "x readers" could be for a character explicitly written to be of color, or a transgender character, or the character could be hard of hearing or require a wheelchair... The possibilities are endless.

Enough about "x readers" and my gripes on them, though, as your question leads me to believe you're not all that interested in them. Player x player fics (generally posted on Ao3), while not as divisive as "x readers", also carry their own issues, often around misportrayal. For instance, some hockey players, such as Carey Price and Zach Whitecloud, have Indigenous backgrounds, which are an important part of their identities, but are rarely discussed in any detail.

In both areas, it's generally emphasized not to have the fics interact with the public figures - this means archive-locking on Ao3 and other measures to reduce the probability of players actually finding and reading these fics. Don't send a hockey player fic about him boning his teammate. That's weird.

As perhaps the "homoerotic homophobic" sport, hockey RPF situates itself in an environment that allows writers, who are often queer, to tackle issues of sexuality (sometimes gender as well) in a sport that is not always tolerant, mimicking some writers' experiences with homophobia and transphobia. This is especially pertinent in an era when Pride jerseys are being disavowed by players and the NHL itself.

The main idea of RPF, though, isn't a group of queer scholars writing treatises on queer topics - it's simply being a witness to the joy of others, watching people you like being happy (with each other) in situations just left of reality. Hockey, and hockey players, are just the medium for finding that joy. I think that's the long and short of it, honestly. I've spent a solid half hour trying to figure out a better way to put it and I really can't. People care about hockey pairs because they care about the players and want to see them happy. Whether it's a realistic hockey fic or a high fantasy AU where the players are royalty and knights, the idea is to create something that makes oneself (and others) happy. There are fics that, for some of us, hit home in a way that fundamentally changes our point of view on life. Not every fic is earth-shattering, but they are all labors of love, generally in the name of love, and perhaps that's something to cherish in and of itself.

Let's get into some of the pairings, then.

Generally, the more popular pairings have some sort of impetus or drive behind them - an interaction (or usually series thereof) that makes the pair enticing. Popular pairings almost always deal with popular players, too - it is incredibly rare that bottom-six players and journeymen are featured in fics.

Often, the impetus for a pair is them being teammates and growing close, giving interviews about each other, having good chemistry (and cuddles!) on the ice, and so on and so forth. Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin, Mitch Marner/Auston Matthews, Jamie Drysdale/Trevor Zegras are some of the most common teammate pairs on Ao3 - going into the specifics on each pair I mention from here on out would require my making entire primers at this point, which others have done far better than I could. Teammate pairings are often denoted by jersey numbers. (8771, 3416, 611, respectively.)

The other main impetus for a pair is a rivalry. Who doesn't love a good rivals to lovers? Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk, Sidney Crosby/Claude Giroux, Jack Eichel/Connor McDavid are some of the top rival pairings, with each having strong motives. The first stems from the Battle of Alberta and Draisaitl's "get off the ice" comment about Tkachuk before combining for a sweet goal during one of the All-Star Games; the second is the Pennsylvania teams' rivalry that led to Crosby basically breaking Giroux's wrists before they made up on one of the Worlds Team Canada rosters with Crosby centering Giroux; the 2015 draft class where Eichel and McDavid were pit against each other and the media-stoked rivalry, only stronger now that the "worse" player Eichel has a Stanley Cup whereas the Oilers' "savior" and "generational talent" McDavid is still Cupless, fuel that pairing.) These pairings generally are denoted by portmanteaus of last names. (MattDrai, Cheesby [Giroux's love of grilled cheese makes a better pairing name], McEichel.)

Obviously for pairing names, there are exceptions - Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid is often referred to as McDrai and not 2997, as one example. Oftentimes, numbers or last names aren't used, and it's just written as "first name/first name" or "firstfirst" - sidgeno and nicojack are two examples of that. That works better when your pair has at least one distinguishable name.

As always, I know this is far from complete, and I invite others in the HRPF community to share their thoughts and experiences as well! :)

Your hometown team (don't know what it is) probably has a few pairs that are written about. If you're up to it, maybe start from there. If that feels a bit much for you, maybe start from a pair whose players you aren't yet emotionally attached to, from a different team. That's, of course, if you want to dive into the world of hockey RPF at all - if not, that's totally cool too!

If you want to know more about a specific pair, let me know and I'll do some Tumblr trawling for ya.

[goodluckclove]

John Green's Thoughts on Adulthood: A Post-Mortem Analysis

So I was thinking about the time years and years ago, back when writer John Green was more active on Tumblr. Someone asked if he would ever write a book about adults, and his perspective were that adults were boring.

There's mixed physical evidence online. I remember seeing it, the first line of the ask was captured on a Buzzfeed article from 2013. I couldn't find the actual ask, because from what I've heard at some point John Green was torn apart with such intensity that he is now just a collection of atoms. And I don't hate John Green. I liked his books when I was also young. I watched the VlogBrothers. If I met him in an author space I would thank him for introducing me to NaNoWriMo when I was in middle school.

And then I would ask if he was doing okay. Like - emotionally? Because the shit she said in that ask is some of the saddest I have ever heard in my life. I'm using this Wordpress post as a reference of the rest of what he said and I just want to go through why it's just such a fucked and dangerous thing to say as an author who advocates for young people.

Follow me!

“Would you ever write a YA novel where an adult plays a key role? I know you like to leave the focus around the teenagers and their “peer relationships… but I was just wondering if it had ever crossed your mind.”

That was the ask. Fairly reasonable! And John Green responded immediately with the following:

I mean, to be totally honest with you, I don’t really give a shit about adults.

This on its own is a massive self-report. Not to any sort of crime or character flaw. In my mind, it's part of the reason why I feel like a point where big enough online figures, writers included, either need a PR team or a LOT of therapy. But he continues.

Like, all of my friends are adults. My spouse is an adult. My parents and brother are adults. I know and like many adults. But I don’t want to write for them. Or God forbid about them. They’re just so…boring. It’s like, “Oh I have a mortgage. I buy six pairs of identical khaki pants at a time. I take care of children and watch the television program CSI.” I admire people who can make that crap into the stuff of interesting fiction, but…yeah. No.”

I am angry. I am very angry. If someone said this shit to me in person I would make a face. If we were sharing a space with anyone under the age of 21 I would immediately say "you need to shut the fuck up right now jesus christ".

The thought of a writer who really made his whole brand caring for youth telling them that their future is inevitably dull and unremarkable, especially when you deal with themes of suicide and mental illness, is actually one of the most artistically unethical things I can think of at the moment. I understand that John Green struggled with untreated OCD for very long time, so there's a chance this could actually just be him voicing an intrusive thought that honestly terrifies him.

But he's wrong. We know this, right? Including the adults on here who complain about the tedious aspects of adult life? We know that in a majority of cases it is generally better to be a legal adult than a minor? If you are someone who would go back to being in high school because you maybe had less responsibilities, are you really prepared to lose bodily/legal/societal autonomy?

Like I struggle in life. Sometimes I've struggled a lot. But at my worst, when I was unemployed and flat broke and I couldn't even sell my blood because I took Lithium, if someone told them they could magic me back to being 16 years old again I would scream in their face until they left.

Also, I have a mortgage. It's not boring. Mortgage and insurances are, in fact, pretty confusing and something you have to learn and research. The most boring part about my mortgage was the thirty minute meeting I spent signing paperwork, and once I did that I owned a house with my wife.

Young people who see this - there are going to be boring parts of your life. That's a thing that happens, and sometimes you'll actually be grateful for it. You aren't boring for being thrilled that there's a sale on khakis if you're buying them for a theatrical production, or donating them to a war relief effort, or you're using the fabric, or if it allows you to save money and time in a way that means you get to have a smoothie or something later.

I cannot speak for the experiences of people with higher support needs than I have. But I did talk about this to a friend with higher support needs, and they agreed that being an adult rules. There is a point in which you are no longer an extension of your family or upbringing and it is your life.

It's not always fun. It's scary and confusing and lonely. I had to learn a lot of what my parents never taught me. Adults are always learning things. But since I graduated high school, the only boring period of my life has been the times where I overworked myself into a breakdown and was forced to recover.

And, considering where John Green is now, that kind of explains his perspective a lot.

I hope he figures stuff out. There's no age limit to having to figure stuff out. We're all going to have to do it a lot in our lives.

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

Writer Q&A

I was tagged by @clairelsonao3 and I think I'll leave it an open tag, because it's a whole lot of questions and I am tired and can't think.

What is your absolute all-time favorite idea you’ve ever had?

What if I started writing in English?

More under the cut, template at the end.

Is there a question you’ve been asked in the past that really stands out to you, and you still think about sometimes?

Ok so. Kinda two. One was basically "but does he have to be gay?" about a side character (Cedric) who just arrived with packed bags and a husband. It annoyed me so much, I made sure there wasn't a single confirmed straight char in the next book.

The other was also about Glass Shards, the first version of which was very similar to the current one, including the two scenes of SA. Which got basically a concerned "do you want to say anything with that?"

Which yes. I had a lot of frustrations back then, but not like that. And I get the question for the SA. No one asks me about the childhood trauma or any of the other shit. The possibility of people jumping to conclusions is always at the back of my mind when I think about sharing what I write.

What is your favorite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

Creating something. Just. I made something. I can hold it. I can share it. It exists, and it will not un-exist.

Fuck editing, though, I don't like it, and fuck worrying about putting it out there.

What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

The story I want to tell does not exist, so I need to write it.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever read or been given as a writer?

Not a piece, but a very dear friend once went through the trouble of leaving so. many. line. edits. on two of my chapters when I had just started out writing in English. I truly believe that has done more for my style than all the "don't use adverbs! :)" — "don't listen to them! >:(" posts ever could.

Half of those edits could probably be summarized as "please remove this and" 🤣 I like to think I've since gotten better at uh, balancing sentence structure and length 😬

What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

I think I answered something similar to this before, and it boils down to... I don't know. I think my progression was fine. There's no glaring problem that could have been fixed by a glorious piece of knowledge. Yes, I "wasted" years of my life trying to worldbuild, but I don't think I would have been ready to write a story I was happy with anyway, so whatever.

Without the hundreds of books I've read, without the roleplays I did, without the friends I found, without the games I played, I would not be where I am today, and I like where I am today. The time I spent experimenting, and the time I spent away from writing, doing other things I enjoyed, was not wasted.

What is your favorite story you’ve written to completion? Link it if you’d like and can!

Should I cheat and count the Glass Shard saga as one? I mean technically it starts at Nuisance and ends at Fancy Boots :)

I only wish I were done editing already, I know the first chapters especially can be better. But alas, it asked for story, not prose :p

Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so, and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

I mean, if we leave the bad guys out of this (I am sure hoping no one here agrees with Ed! 😂), Cedric is fun in fiction, but I actually do not think a murdery criminal is a good role model, no matter how kind he is to people he likes.

If you, when you first started writing, met you now, what would younger you think?

"Whoa, cool. Can I read that?"

Is there a question you’ve been asked in the past that really stands out to you, and you still think about sometimes?

What is your favorite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever read or been given as a writer?

What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

What is your favorite story you’ve written to completion? Link it if you’d like and can!

Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so, and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

If you, when you first started writing, met you now, what would younger you think?

[evendale]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

I was tagged in this by the lovely @once-in-a-blue-moon-rising. Thank you! 😊 It's nice to revisit my fics, it's been a while.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

23

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

1,014,041 words. Yikes 😂

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Most of my works are in the La Casa de Papél fandom. Before that, I was in the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries fandom. I also have a handful of ficlets in the fandom for the Stormlight Archive books by Brandon Sanderson.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

My top 5 fics by kudos are all in the LCDP fandom, and they're all +100k words.

Number one is 'The White Queen', a Regency romance AU. It's got almost double the amount of kudos than the second-highest fic.

'Personal Relationships', a canon-compliant AU.

'Back to Galicia', a movie star second chance AU.

'Safe House', a witness protection program AU.

'Tell Me What You Like', a collection of canon 'fill the gap' smutty scenes.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I used to 😅 I used to love spending a lot of time writing elaborate and personal responses to comments, and I in fact met several of my best fandom friends through comment conversations! However, over time I just simply didn't have the energy for it anymore. There are still a bunch of super lovely comments on the last chapter of my last fic that I really should have responded to, but I simply don't have the mental space. I do feel bad about that 🙈

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

I don't write angsty endings. I love angst in the main fic, but I'm committed to HEAs :)

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

Probably 'The White Queen', where I spent about 50k words describing just how happy they were 😂

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've had a few nasty comments, but they're absolutely nothing compared to the vast sea of incredibly kind, lovely, and supportive comments I've gotten. I've been very lucky.

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

My earlier work is almost entirely smut 😂 It's funny to see my later fics evolving into containing more and more plot, and less and less smut. I wonder how my readers felt about that 😂 The smut is explicit, but I've always tried to keep it tasteful.

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

I haven't written any crossovers yet. I'm usually obsessed with only one piece of media at a time :)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes -- I discovered a few years ago that one of my LCDP fics had been stolen and put on Amazon for money! It took ages to explain things to Amazon (because I didn't own the characters) and to get it taken down. It was a very icky feeling.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, I've had several requests from people who wanted to translate my fics into Russian :)

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

No, and I don't think I could. I love to brainstorm about plot with a friend or beta reader, but I couldn't actually share the writing process. I'm too much of a control freak 😅

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

If we're only looking at the first 2 seasons of LCDP, then Serquel. However, the subsequent seasons partially ruined them for me, so maybe I'd better choose Phryne and Jack from Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries.

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

My only unfinished fic on AO3 is 'Tell Me What You Love' in the LCDP fandom, but that's more a series of vignettes that I kept open in case I wanted to add more. It wasn't really meant to have an ending. That said, I don't think I'll ever add to it anymore.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, I think. I also think in general I'm a clear writer who gets to the point without too many flourishes or detours.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

For a long time, I felt like I couldn't come up with any kind of original plot, but I think I got better at that over time. I'm still pretty bad at descriptions, though. I just want to get to the action and dialogue, and I forget that my readers are not in my head and can't see the characters or surroundings like I do :D

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

I wouldn't include more than a few words of phrases sprinkled through the dialogue.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. I was all of 26 when I first discovered fanfiction!

20. Favourite fic you've written?

That's such a tough choice 😅😅 If I absolutely have to choose, then I think 'The White Queen'. I was really just writing the exact fic that I wanted to read myself with that one. I had so much fun with it, I was so inspired that the chapters literally flowed out without any effort, and I got the most amazing response to it from the fandom. It will always be extra special to me 😊

I'm not tagging anyone in particular, but if you see this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged! :)

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Tagged by @batrachised. Thank you!

1-How many works do you have on AO3?

102. We will not discuss the number of fics posted on the ff.net account I maintained in high school.

2-What's your total AO3 word count?

298,956. Lower than I would have expected, actually. My longfic days were primarily, again, in high school, so on AO3 it's mostly shorter one-shots.

3-What fandoms do you write for?

Currently on a Blue Castle kick. Previously my main fandom was Les Mis, mostly bookverse, and prior to that I spent a decade or so as a Harry Potter girl. I have dabbled in other things, but none of them deeply enough for me to consider them actual fandoms that I am in.

4-What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

In the darkest time of year -- Hadestown, post-canon. I believe this is also the fic with the most notes on tumblr.

The Black Sheep and the Mad Muggleborn: a love story -- HP, post-canon. I really liked writing this one and, like all my HP work, now have deeply conflicted feelings about it.

And I could be enough -- Power Rangers 2017, character study. I only wrote 2 fics for this movie and I adore them both so much.

Stormforged -- ASOIAF, alternate ending. This was written for Femslash February and represents the sum total amount of time I have spent thinking about ASOIAF since reading the first four books in a week during standardized testing week back in high school.

We rose with voices ringing -- HP, alternate post-canon. Can you tell I default to song lyric titles a lot and also enjoy musicals?

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

I am trying to be better about this! For a long time I didn't because I hated everything I wrote the moment I published it and the only way I could publish at all was to throw a fic out the door and never think of it again.

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

You know, I'm not sure. I haven't done full on angst in a long time. Probably either Waiting for sunrise (LM) or With nothing to remember (also LM). Honorable mention goes to Real in its consequences (still LM) which exists solely to take a ridiculous premise seriously.

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

It's new and still my beautiful child, so this one goes to Ties That Bind, Bonds That Strengthen (TBC).

Oh! Honorable mention to The title of citizen (LM Animates-verse). It's... it just has to be read to be understood, tbh.

8-Do you get hate on fics?

Not since the old aforementioned high school era ffn account, where I once got flamed for writing het. Ah, the good old days. (It wasn't even endgame het, lol.)

9-Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Nope. I've played with some fade to black and a couple, like, sensuous bed scenes, but I find it boring to read so I don't write it.

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

I have come to love crossovers, honestly. I like putting characters into Situations. Can't think of any particularly crazy ones though.

11-Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I've ever found or been told about, although realistically with how much I've written and how long I've been doing it I'm sure there are some out there.

12-Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, but I can't off the top of my head remember which ones, unfortunately.

13-Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No. I am a dreadful co-writer. I will, however, build a world with you at the drop of a hat. Shout out to @steelplatedhearts for the PoTC mermaid worldbuilding we did years and years ago that I still think about fondly.

14-What's your all-time favourite ship?

It varies. Right now unfortunately it's the two leads from the Forbidden Hugs story, which is unfinished original fiction. Fandom wise, I still like me some Logic and Philosophy.

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

Anything started earlier than this year, unfortunately.

16-What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I have gotten decent at having an entertaining narrative voice without it being too distracting.

17-What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot? What plot? Plot is when people sit in rooms and have conversations about their feelings, right? What do you mean Events must occur? I'm calling my manager, this doesn't sound right at all.

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

Mostly feels needlessly pretentious, honestly. I don't know if I've ever really even considered it.

19-First fandom you wrote for?

HP, starting at age, oh, 14 or so.

20-Favorite fic you've ever written?

Again, Ties That Bind is still my beloved child, but I have a huge soft spot for both Power Rangers (2017) fics. Oh, and underdog fav status to Never go anywhere, never see anyone, the nichest of niche crossovers where Mary Bolkonskaya befriends doesn't-even-get-a-canonical-first-name Aunt Gillenormand.

Tagging @lemeute, @manyswarmsofbees, @amarguerite, @ohhgingersnaps

[starberry-cupcake]

I spent the past week re-reading a novel I started to write when I was 17 and abandoned a couple years after.

I had written it in notebooks because my first novel (that I wrote when I was 14) got lost in computer mess ups. I had decided to drop that one anyway because a friend at school made me feel insecure when she kind of mocked it for being self-insert-y/wish fulfillment-y. This would be something the fic world would also advice me strongly against.

Anyway, I knew where the second one was all along but I was afraid of re-visiting it ever since I abandoned it, like 14 years ago? not sure when exactly. I guess I was partially afraid of the cringe and partially afraid of finding that it wasn't that different from what I do now.

I think that many years studying in spaces that undervalued the kind of fantasy narrative I enjoyed and pushed me to fit more conventional boxes for what is published more successfully in my country had a bit on an effect on my perception of my younger self.

The editor side made me hyper aware of mistakes and issues, so I started to be more and more reticent to enjoy the process and even afraid to start them, if I judged them unworthy from the get-go.

The literary workshops that were always focused on contemporary fiction (no fantasy, sci fi or horror) intended me to fit more commercially viable molds where I live and "push me out of my confort zone" (words I was told many times in them) so much that I became afraid that going back to what I enjoyed would mean sacrificing "progress".

In the past few years, I noticed these things, been working on them and decided to finally sit down and write a sci fi fantasy project I've been marinating in my head for ages.

There's one thing from that second teen novel I had written that I wanted to keep, so I took the notebooks out from their box and read them.

Imagine my surprise upon finding out that I had written over 400 pages before abandoning it.

Contrary to my fears, reading it was a pretty great experience. It was a product of a teen me and all but I was so invested and I had so much fun writing it.

However, as cool as some concepts were and as wide a world I had built and character roster I had accomplished, I realized upon reading it back that is was very...impersonal.

It was drenched in things I liked and enjoyed in media, and it had some ideas of things I thought were interesting to work with, but I didn't see myself reflected in it. There was some stuff, there always is in art, but I think I had taken the criticisms on self-insertion so hard that I left out all of my experiences and perceptions of self.

I shoehorned in a lot of things and I can tell and remember how some of it was doing what I thought had to be done in a story like that. I had gone so far off the extreme of "no self-insertion" that I didn't see myself reflected in my own imagination.

The names sounded foreign, the spaces looked foreign (now there's thankfully more fantasy that isn't Euro-based or US-based but at that time it was rare), the bodies were unlike mine, the identities were different from what I experienced myself at that time and even now.

I know we all do this and I know it's not a bad thing to reproduce what you admire and like but, as cool as the story was for something I wrote in my teens; for the most part, it felt as if it could have come out of anywhere, not necessarily from me. If that makes any sense at all.

It was actually better than I remember it being and I can see in its progress an interesting development of me as a writer. I cherish the characters and story and will take that bit I remembered for something new. But I can't help but feel a bit sad.

Sad for the 14 year old I tried to tone down for being wish-fullfilment-y and self-insert-y, to the point of not seeing in her a story worth telling. And sad for the 17 year old because I spent all this time hiding her in a box and afraid of the cringe she might have created.

They were both cool fun imaginative girls and I'd like them to come with me in my new journey with this new project. They were "young and unafraid", but mostly unafraid, and that's something I admire from them.

[amewinterswriting]

🦋 tell us about your current wip

🍄 name a song that represents your mc

My current blurb for Magic's Servant is:

A dark rural fantasy set in modern day Wales, featuring Talli, a teenager who is in way over her head. There's also a talking cat with a secret, shadowy manipulative demons, and immortal figures from Arthurian mythology locked into a vicious stalemate over the centuries.

On a more personal note, the way I approached writing this is a list of my least favorite ways to write anything ever, and as such, this has been a thorn in my side for years. I started off with the idea of a mysterious magic cat and an abandoned church. To explore who the cat was and why he lived in an abandoned church, I pantsed a whole film script over the course of a month (Script Frenzy, NaNoWriMo's forgotten and abandoned sister), which gave me a vague outline of a story, introduced a lot of main elements and scenes but also introduced a lot of loose plot threads, characters and sideplots that didn't really go anywhere. Worse, I really didn't feel like there was anything interesting or notable about my MC (which as we all know is utterly unforgivable in writing).

So over the course of the next few years, I wrote a lot of backstory, sidestory, continuation of the story and notes. I also rewrote some key scenes of the script. Some of which was in first person prose, some of which was also in script format and some of which was in third person. If this already sounds like a mess...well, it was. Which is why I procrastinated on doing anything else with it for years. (To be entirely fair, I still thought about it a lot, and thought about the themes I wanted to explore and other characters in that world and more directions I could take the plot in. But I procrastinated actually getting all my various drafts together into one readable manuscript in a single tense and narrative.) I also developed a lot as a writer, practicing longform fiction on entirely different work and finding a more coherent voice.

The main reason I'm actually working on it now is my wife. I realised while talking with her about it that there were interesting things about the story that I don't want just relegated to a hard drive somewhere, and I want it in a form that other real human people can read. Or as she said: you need to write the thing. So I spent an absolute age on Scrivener importing all the documents I had, even the scripts and notes and scenes I had three different versions of. Then I plotted out a coherent outline - where would it make sense for backstory to be placed between chapters? What backstory would make more impact just implied instead of outright text? What order do things need to happen in? Can I actually fit this subplot in this book or is this going to be better as a sequel? Scrivener was especially useful for the notecard feature - you can write up a quick sentence or two describing the chapter and move it around within the project, so I could play around with placement and get a feel for the flow of the plot. I also love the notes I can make for each chapter - since it can get complicated very quickly. I use them to make a note of what knowledge each character has by the end of a scene - especially because in the earlier drafts, characters (and thus, the reader) learnt far too much, far too quickly, so this refining draft has been about slowing down the rate of information and introducing more emotion. That means I need to know what characters know what information at an glance, since it's usually a lot less than I think it is!

Of course, the most important thing is that I now actually like my main character. I think this is something only time could fix - when I first wrote the first draft, I was an insecure teenager who felt like I wasn't notable or interesting, and I was writing a teenager in a similar situation. With time, I've grown and had life experiences and can also treasure the abnormal that seemed so normal to me at the time. In many ways, this is a collaboration with my teenage self and a love letter to myself.

Which neatly leads to the song that represents Talli, the MC. I have a few, but the one I've settled on is One Day by Kodaline. I think it sums up the experience of undergoing big changes that can seem overwhelming, the awkward self-consciousness of teenage years and not necessarily having the right help and support available to you. As the song asks: "how are you still holding on?" and that feels like a large part of Talli's struggle throughout the plot; barely holding on while powerful beings try to use her for their own convenience.