#idk I really don't think I'm ever going to actually write it but these snippets are fun

[freddie-77-ao3]

sup yall we're vibing here

anyway. hey, my name's freddie, and i'm finally trying to write an actual intro/master post which... we'll see how this goes.

important stuff is highlighted in orange.

so, basic stuff:

as I said, my name's freddie. he/him pronouns. i'm a college student (majoring in accounting, might add a psych minor). not gonna say which college but i'm currently in california.

i've been on tumblr since 2019 i think? not under this account, this started as a fandom account and then spiralled out of control... really fast. um, my regular tumblr which i've not actually opened in ages is @chronicchthonic14 so. yeah.

not particularly relevant to this blog, but i might mention it at some point so, i have autism and adhd. and some other things but. like. that list is very long and those are the two most relevant because i promise if i come off wrong/mean, i didn't mean to, i just forget to make my words normal. but. those are the two most referenced. if for whatever reason someone wants to know more or has questions you can send an ask ig?

i'm scottish, born there. moved to US when I was four. finishing uni and moving back.

some quick warnings

this blog definitely contains cursing/vulgar language, whatever you want to call it, so if you're not comfortable with that, probably not the blog for you, as i don't tag cursing or anything for you to filter out.

if, for whatever reason, if i ever reblog something that contains a slur (against racial minorities, queer people, anything) i will ABSOLUTELY tag that though.

also if anyone has any trigger warnings they think any content needs, please let me know-- asks, dms, comments, reblogs

the cursing thing also applies for sort of dirty jokes? think that only applies to like. two posts and very not explicit. those aren't currently tagged but if they get any more explicit they certainly will be.

queer identity because the explicit reminded me, i'm asexual, and probably straight. maybe bi? dunno, don't particularly care. and i'm trans. ftm. this isn't the blog i talk about that on usually though, unless it relates to a specific ask or a fandom thing.

which, getting into what this blog is for because i can't think of anything else i need to add here (guys let me know if i forgot important stuff, please, i'm an idiot!!! i will forget the important stuff and write random shit instead!! i've already deleted three tangents from this!!)

sooooo

fandoms!! ones i write and/or post about or will potentially post about

percy jackson extending to hoo, toa, tkc (definitely post way less about this), mcga (again, way less). haven't read TSATS or COTG yet, but spoilers are fine. i post way more about minor characters. write fanfiction for and have some posted (both on here and ao3) and a bunch of snippets.

dcu-- films, comics, animated shows, all of it. personally, my favorites are young justice (the comics, not show version), new teen titans, and batman inc (batgirls, nightwing, and red robin esp). late 90s yj run is my favorite, and i loved the DCeased event. favorite batman comic is definitely court of owls run. no fanfics posted, but some on docs.

mcu-- way less so, but have a stucky oneshot. slowly making my way through in timeline order.

throne of glass. i'm an aedion and chaol apologizer because they do a bunch of dumb shit but then WHO DOESN'T in this series. fanfics in doc, not posted.

this would go on for ages if i listed everything so instead, here's an ask i answered on my fandoms/genres and everything. feel free to send me asks about anyone. if you send me something about radium girls i may cry though (tears of joy) so there's your advanced warning.

main things you'll see on my blog are incorrect quotes, snippets, and the occasional fic

this^^

my... idk, contact policy? seriously what do i word this

asks are always open, anon is on.

if you send hate... whatever. i'll probably delete it.

unless i find it funny. then I'll post it. there's really little you could say to me that would hurt.

when i say asks are always open, you can drop anything you want.

literally anything

you need to vent? want advice? want to request headcanons? request a fic? give me a prompt? ask random things about me? something else I've forgotten? go right ahead

if you want to ask me to update my fics? go right ahead. sometimes i forget i didn't post something.

send as many asks as you want, i don't care if it might be spam

i can't promise i'll respond to asks in a timely manner, sometimes i open my inbox and forget they exist for months, i'm sorry. if it's something you really want answered you can send another one

dm's are alright? if you want to be friends or something, go right ahead.

anyone can reblog any of my posts/comment/heart, i don't care. you want to heart 50 things in a row? i adore you. if i had kids, you would get my firstborn

if we're mutuals you can ask for my insta/give me yours.

now, other accounts:

anyway, i think that's it?

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

would you ever consider making like little one-shots for CN? like the way you like respond to all the asks abt like childe and his blorbos would u ever make one shots of those? (idk if that made sense sorry if it didn't ahaha)

it's making sense, dw hahah

and idk tbh i kinda like to keep stories contained in their own thing, if that makes any sense? i know this tumblr's existance and all the cyanide discussion is sort of fucking with that notion, but idk how else to say it

i think the main issue here isn't that i wouldn't be willing to write more on cyanide or other works i've already finished. if anything, if there was a priority list of on what story to make extra text for (and keep your hopes down for what i'm about to say bc i don't mean it in the sense that i'm actually really thinking of making it) then an itysg sequel would probably be atop the list, followed by cyanide snippets if that makes any sense.

but what i was trying to get at is that it's not that i don't want to write those, but more that i have so many other wips that i want to write that making room for extra stuff about stories i already managed to get out of wip hell isn't really an easy task LMAOO

and this is all not accounting for original story wips i have revolving around in my head. like i have 18 total genshin wips with jadeite not counted among them and fuck if i know if any of them are going to see the light of day. but they sure are fighting to get out, and they sure aren't sparing the preceived low-priority-ness of extra stuff for stories that already made it out

idk if that makes any sense hahah;,,

[torialefay]

Babe, I mean in another life if we were living in the same country I would have shoot my shot by now with you so the feeling is mutual.

Did you see the fanmeeting snippet of Hyunjin sniffing the wrist of a Stay because her perfume smelled nice?

And he full-on just went for it like he really sniffed that girls wrist.

It further confirms for me that Hyunjin is definitely a primal dom and would have a thing for scent play or olfactophilia if you want to be technical.

He just would love your natural pheromones and scent, and it's so hot in my opinion.

Because we all know he sweats excessively when performing so I'm sure he would sweat during the art of love-making as well.

And he would love to smell your neck and lick the sweat off your neck while he's fucking into you, would probably be the type to-

And im sorry- idk how to write this in a romantic way but I feel like he would sniff your panties or breathe into your cunt before he goes down on you because he loves the way your body smells when you get turned on by him.

If we're venturing into darker territory, could totally see him being a panty stealer and using them as jerk off material if you're away from him.

It's not for everyone but my Taurus Mars finds it sexy.

(why did reading that feel like the most depressing love story ive ever heard oh my god) but no, i concur. you're basically the other half of my brain at this point & we're 100% girlfriends somewhere in another dimension. (but you're so hot how can i not 🥵)

i didn't see ittttt! i swear i don't see anything unless someone drops it in my inbox 😭 but yessss i read somewhere ab the scents he uses & from what i remember, he likes a good floral? but i agree that he'd be attracted in that primal way too. like almost to the point of being wayyyyy too into it.

i am totally envisioning what you mean though by saying he'd steal your underwear 😭😂 idk if he'd ever actually go through with it, but i think if you "accidentally" slipped a pair into his bag or something... i don't think he'd complain. and i DONT think he'd be giving them back either 😳

[existentialterror]

Hiii I’m Normal about Dr. Iceberg (red flag, I know) but his name being Julian is complete fanon! Idk where it originally came from, but he’s never referred to as Julian Finn in any onsite tale. The only time he’s been named on the wiki, as far as I know, is when he is called Ellis Gill in a tale called “But We Do Not Talk About That”. While last updated in 2022, was originally written in 2015. Why that name never caught on, I don’t know, but I’m kind of glad. Despite Iceberg being a misogynistic piece of shit, I’m intrigued by the fact that so much is unknown about his character.

Giving him a name detracts from the horror of his story, someone who was once a person being filed down and reshaped to fit a role perfectly, only to snap under pressure and take his own life. And then, if you go with the Resurrection canon/the calm tale, he gets brought back as a cyborg (Cyberg?) that blatantly states it doesn’t have a name. He can’t escape the foundation, even in death.

I’ll cut myself off there— If I don’t, I’m liable to write an entire novel in your inbox.

Fun fish fact (since, if I remember correctly, that is the toll for sending an ask): Lampreys have been around for 400 million years, and haven’t evolved much during that time!

(I forgot about this for a while, sorry!) (In response to this exchange with @scp-l4-clef-alto-001.)

YOOOO Nice research! Today I learned. Thank you! I don't think I'd heard "Finn" before, but I believe you that it's out there. Also thank you for the fish facts. The fish facts are not necessary to send me an ask but are MUCH appreciated. The hagfish is the relative of the lamprey and is another old jawless fish. It has two powers: producing LOTS of mucus, and tying itself in knots, both overhand and underhand. I'm gonna have to read more about ciguatoxins. ❤️🐟

Hey, in exchange for the nice ask and the research, here's a snippet I wrote a long time ago about Sophia Light and your guy. (I like him too! I think he's really interesting.) It's set in the Resurrection canon but back in the past, not long after Dr. Light was recruited to the Foundation. (Might end up on the site eventually but I hate to promise. If nothing else, you know, have this.)

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

1997

Light shows up to her appointments on time. She’s trying out this business of being a person again, really giving it her all, and that’s one of the things she decides: she shows up on time. 

She’s at the entrance to Research five minutes before her assignment today. There are other two people there: a pretty woman with waves of black hair in business casual behind the receptionist deck, and a pretty man in a labcoat whose spiky hair is bleached at the tips. They’re flirting.

No, that’s not true. The man is flirting, voraciously, draped over the desk to get closer. The woman is listening, and looks bored, and tired. She catches Light’s eye, and rolls her eyes.

Light recognizes this situation from the before-world. She knows what to do. She squares her shoulders and walks right up to them. With the energy of a woman who realized yesterday that she has permanent institutional access to every academic journal ever, and has not regretted any sleep- or non-sleep-related decisions made since then, she says, “So do you know about sail jellyfish?”

She proceeds to tell the man about them, at length, for five straight minutes. The man is confused and unhappy but apparently transfixed. The woman restrains herself from laughing and drifts back to her computer screen.

“ - So that’s why the asymmetry is actually a fitness advantage,” she says, “So that they react differently to the same wind patterns and they won’t risk washing ashore. But because that’s basically random, the evolutionary pressure maintains a 50-50 balance.”

“Cool beans,” says the man, whose eyes have glazed over. “Hey, I gotta go, I’ve gotta meet up with someone - uh, Dr. Light, I think - ”

“I am Dr. Light,” Light says. 

The woman doesn’t bother muffling her guffaw. The man - Dr. Iceberg, presumably - looks uncomfortable and then flustered. Light mentally congratulates herself.

“You two are in the dissection room today, right?” the woman says, checking her computer. “Should be set up. Use the cart to move samples, do not lift large samples yourself, I do not care how strong you are, please and thank you. Decon’s ready, just go through the back. One at a time. Ice, you first.”

“Isn’t it set up for multiple people? There’s all the showers and everything - ”

The secretary shrugs. “New policy. Now get out of my sight, Ice.”

“Always good to see you, Break.” Iceberg shoots finger guns at her, as he heads to the decon room entrance.

“Drop dead,” Break calls after him.

They wait for the sounds of the door opening and closing. Break grins at Light. “Thanks for the spiel,” she says. “You got one of those locked and loaded all the time?”

“Usually you have to ask nicely first,” Light says, automatically, because affected confidence was sort of her go-to before, and it seems to be working for her so far. Then she remembers that the last thing this poor woman needs is someone else ambiguously hitting on her and feels bad. But Break just laughs.

“You know that guy?” Break asks.

“I’ve seen him around, I think? I’m - I’m bad with faces.”

“Yeah. Dr. Iceberg. He’s like that. Been a thorn in my fucking side for years. You know, the Foundation is usually pretty good about this kind of thing, in my experience. But Ice, he’s like, Gears’ special little boy, so he can get away with murder.”

Light is confused. “He’s Gears’ son?”

“No, god no - like, you know, he’s… he’s Gears’. …Doesn’t matter. I thought Ice got better for a while there, but it looks like he’s back on his bullshit.”

“Ugh,” Light agrees. 

The bulb over the decon chamber entrance turns green. Break tilts her head at it. “You’re doing, like, an autopsy, right?”

“A necropsy - uh, yeah.”

“Well, that’ll probably bring the mood down, you’ll be fine. He’s not the worst, honestly. But if you need, just say the word ‘Ice’ into the lab comms and I’ll fake an evac drill or something to get you out.”

“Thanks,” says Light. She tries to figure out how serious Break is. Break’s permanent wry plausibly-deniable customer service smile offers no hint.

Maybe Light’s overconfident. Maybe this whole business of being a person again has made her cocky. Perhaps she’s been away from a normal social fabric for so long that she’s lost sense of real implications and rules. But she finds she’s not too worried. “I think it’ll be fine,” she tells Break. “I have a lot more jellyfish facts.”

Break laughs, loudly. “Attagirl.” She waves Light into the decon chamber.

[klutzymaiden123]

HII, ok so I finished reading the current chapters of the fanfic and I've got to say, IM IN LOVE. The way you portray Helga's character is amazing like that's exactly the image of her than I had in my head. Of course, I love all the characters but Helga stands out to me the most because of this guilt complex she has and the complexity of her character (idk if that makes sense but I hope it does). I wanted to know if you were including a snippet of Arnold's POV in the chapter(s) your currently working on and I also wanted to know if you were planning on releasing chapter 31 when it's done or releasing it when you already have a clear thought of what chapter 32-35 (guesstimate) are gonna include/look like

THANK YOU SO MUCH. I enjoy writing this story so much and Helga is such a fun and intriguing character to write! Most of the girls are, but Helga is the most challenging and rewarding for me to write, since she's canonically already such a complex character!

And totally, of course! Arnold's POV originally wasn't even apart of the drafts. Their encounter in 28 was supposed to be a lot different, but when I was actually writing it, things spurred out of control. So for Chapter 31, I decided to throw in a scene from his perspective, because even I was like, "What's going on with this kid?" It's definitely my favourite scene in the chapter so don't worry, his POV is still apart of the re-drafts. And the Shortaki will be cranking up from now on!

Chapter 31 will be released when I have finished writing Chapter 32. It's taken so long just because it's quite an intense and emotionally driven chapter. I've had it planned from the start and like Chapter 30, I want to get it exactly right. Good news, I'm already on my third re-write for 32, so even if I go back for a fourth re-write (as I did for 30), 31 will be posted before then! 32-35 have been re-organised and to an extent, they still are, but they're falling really well into place because the inspiration that hit me was HAWT.

But thank you so much for your kindness and your comment! I am happy that you're enjoying this as much as I am! Annnnnd normally, I don't squeeze in snippets into asks, but because this chapter has taken awhile and you guys have been so patient, I'm sharing a portion of Arnold's section in the next chapter. Enjoy!

Years ago, when Helga had walked away from him, Arnold thought that there would only ever be ashes between them. That between them stood a barren wasteland. But she had come back and turned everything back around.

He realised how nonsensical that sounded; she had walked away and yet somehow, he had become lost. It was like she had turned the light out. Or led him deep into a maze then sealed it shut as she abandoned him. There had been a loss carved into his chest and he knew that if he tugged hard enough, it would all lead back to her. The guilt. Maybe it had been his fault; maybe it had always been his fault. It was his words that had caused her to pull back until she was with the shadows. He wanted another go so he could make things right.

He had spent years wondering what would happen if there had been a second chance. Did he want something to happen? What was he supposed to say—sorry that I hurt you? Would that ever be enough? He had searched for words that could match his feelings, but he had never found them. He still hadn’t gotten it right because Helga had always been different from everyone that he ever knew.

So when she turned to repeat what had happened between them years ago, he had acted without thinking. He wrapped his hands around her and pulled her back until she was at his side.

And it was weird. He was touching her and yet, it was her touch that sent sparks shooting across his skin. His heart had been in his throat and he suddenly found it hard to talk. And maybe over the years, he had begun to believe her. Maybe, for as much as he had preached that there was more to Helga Pataki, a part of him had also gotten swept up within her performance. Believed that she was hardened and nothing could affect her. But beneath his fingers, her cheeks had turned into rosebuds, and he remembered that she was nothing like the girl she pretended to be.

And when she had looked at him, something passed between them. Something had been passing between them for a while now. It filled him with that feeling. The feeling that he had only gotten when he was around her—something that welled in his chest and flushed him so warm that he couldn’t help smiling. It happened automatically and without permission. He couldn’t control it. He didn’t know when it had begun, only that it had been getting harder and harder to hold himself back from doing something stupid while in her presence.

It had been happening more and more frequently lately. When the lights became tangled in her hair. When her eyes would lift from the ground into his. When her fingers were wrapped around his arm. When she said his name. When she stood so close that he could smell her hair. Daffodils. He loved that smell. But what had changed? Had anything changed? There had been many times where he had looked at her and thought that she was pretty. Beautiful. And it made Arnold’s cheeks burn. His stomach would dance. But why? Where was all this coming from? And why was he checking his inbox again?

[chairofchaos]

Evening friend!

You bring chaos to my life so here is a little chaos for you

2, 3, 5, 8, 19, 26

And just for fun because I know it will probably hurt me 40

Feel free to answer what you want and ignore the rest 🤍

GOOD EVENING.

Thank you for letting me bring chaos to your life, and for bringing me some in return. In your honor, I will answer all. Seemed like the most chaotic thing to do. I considered making separate posts for each question but then again that was a lot of work so just... bear with me. This is a long read, but hopefully, you will find it worth it.

2. Anything that you'd like to write but feel like you're unable to?

Yes. I am currently bouncing around multiple Greek/Roman tragedy adaptations of our beloved ACOTAR and TOG characters. I do not feel prepared to write these yet. I want to do them justice. That semester of studying tragic plays of the ancients has stuck with me.

3. How would you describe your writing style?

I don't even know how to answer this, but my best shot is this:

The vibe must be chaotic.

It must be written as fast as possible.

It should be entirely unplanned.

If it is planned, it should be entirely overwhelming and likely a bigger project than I should ever take on *cough cough* LETTERS *cough cough*

It's not a style as much as it is entirely based on my whims. And that's not always great. In fact, it's something I don't really enjoy about myself (comment on this and I will edit it out of this post so fast I SWEAR).

But I enjoy the product. I think there are at least a couple of you that do, too, so hopefully we can all enjoy that little piece of chaos together. If not, I'll just enjoy the pain I create on my own like a good little fanfic writer.

5. What's a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies?

I don't think such a thing exists. I don't like surprises? Idk, this doesn't really make sense to me. Clearly I have no problem tagging things Dead Dove so we all know what I'm up to lol

8. How slow is a slow burn?

Somewhere between 100 and 100k words. I genuinely do not care. Depends on the medium? The pacing? A slow burn described in a poem is going to look very different than a slow burn in a fic the length of The Iliad and the Odyssey. Or Wheel of Time (that's a long series, right?). I don't care. It's all great. I love slow burns. Haven't written one because I think those characters should be enjoying each other romantically on page 1, but I LOVE reading them.

19. Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

UNANSWERED STARS YOU BEAUTIFUL HUMAN. Is this what you expect to hurt (I haven't looked ahead at the other questions I'm doing this straight through, no edits, no takebacks. Welcome to Chaos- you get two.).

Eris was no saint, either. Cauldron knew he kept his mate up some nights. But the Cauldron also knew Azriel would get out of bed in the middle of the night and take off into flight, not returning until he knew Eris would also be awake. After the first time, they would rarely talk about where Azriel went or what he did. Instead, Eris would press a mug of overly sweet coffee into his hands and they would sit together in silence on the front porch, Azriel’s head on Eris’ shoulder and their hands clasped together. - {Working Title is Coffee and Psychotherapy. THIS ONE IS ACTUALLY FLUFF YOU CAN THANK DUSK-MUSE AND NINTHCIRCLEOFPRYTHIAN}

And maybe more along the lines of what you were expecting:

Azriel found the most enjoyment in the training and teaching of others. In his time as spymaster, he regularly found time to work with young soldiers, for which many have since thanked him, crediting him with saving their lives by instructing them in his limited spare time. In the years since the war, Azriel enjoyed collecting books from all over the world. The collection he amassed was the instigator for a library to honor his mate. - Death, and All That Follows (This may or may not be a sort of extended epilogue to something I wrote recently.)

26. What would you describe as OOC?

This is possibly a wild take: I don't think I care what is out of character for characters I write. It depends on the fic, sure. But I think perspective forms our understanding of characters, and seeing them in a new light can often bring a different, even "OOC" type attitude to fics which I often enjoy. I am very much an advocate for "Don't Like, Don't Read" not only for plot points but for characterization as well. If you don't enjoy the way someone writes your favorite (or your least-favorite!) character, don't read it. The beautiful thing about being a part of a fandom is the diversity of experiences within it.

I did not read Nesta's journey the same way you did, or the way your friend did, or the way my best friend did. I brought my own perspectives, my own experiences, to my interpretation of her actions, words, and thoughts. I came out of the other side loving her, and loving the way she loves. I recognize myself in her. I know I'm not alone in that. I know that there are a great many who do not like her in the slightest.

ACOSF Nesta was presented very differently to ACOTAR Nesta. (For the purposes of this argument, we are removing the debate about The Author Herself because I simply don't care at the moment and that's a much larger topic.) I don't think that anyone's interpretation of Nesta is "wrong" or "bad" because we all bring a pair of glasses to reading, and that glass is made of our experiences. That's the filter through which you consume the work. My glasses are different from yours. That's okay.

Little tangent while we're on the topic: I don't care if your glasses are different. But if you break those glasses to use the shards of glass for the purpose of hurting other people, that's a problem. I have a problem now, and so do you. Because of the inclusion of the argument above, it needed to be said, and so here it is: Don't hurt others because of your glasses. Theirs are different. Please learn to recognize that, and that it is okay to view pieces of media differently. Tangent over.

So TLDR on OOC: I don't care. If you want to write a piece where character canonically named Bubblegum Sunshine Princess because of her (in-canon) overwhelming joy and love of the outdoors and her kingdom's candy trees is a murderous assassin filled with rage and the destructive flame of a thousand suns, go right ahead. There's a very good chance I would love to read it.

40. Write a 9-word fic.

Title: This is a Thing [REDACTED] Learned. The title will be longer than the fic itself, and that's the beauty of The Thing [REDACTED] Learned. Thanks.

A/N: (Stars. My dearest friend. You expect pain here? Now I want to prove you wrong...)

Pairing: Your OTP. Or my OCs. Or is this about my life? Or yours? Who knows. I'm not currently well lol

...........................................

Knowledge came with no promises, no love, no you.

...........................................

All the love, Stars. You're the best. <3<3<3<3<3

[plothooksinc]

Tagged by @loadthebases

Turns out if I search by mentions I can find it immediately! I'm so clever. (And yet. I only just went "oh hey".)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

22! I am not as prolific as some-- a lot of these are one shots. |D And most of them are ancient.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

475,671!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The fandoms I write for that are published are Rurouni Kenshin, Final Fantasy VII, and TMNT '03, '07, and ROTTMNT. Unpublished I also have One Piece, Tiger & Bunny, SPN, FFXIV, annnd The Untamed, most of these just being snippets etc etc. (And then RP is another bag entirely, writing in a different format-- you can include Blade of the Immortal that way.)

4. Top five fics by kudos?

It was only recently I managed to clock the 1000 mark, and I did it on two fics at once, lmao. Uhhh--

Underdark - 1089!

No Rest For The Weary - ....1089. (You guys really are neck and neck still.)

The Zaibatsu Project - 291

Some Rest For The Weary. As A Treat. - 221

Snowblind - 174

Not altogether that bad, considering Ruroken is such a dead fandom these days. /o/

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yup. Unless someone is leaving a whole stream of one word OMG/!!!!/EEEK in which I'll probably just answer the last one they left. I did go through a very long period where I did not because I was too tired, but I started again around the 2020 mark when I actually started reading fanfiction again. And started engaging, etc etc.

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

I write angsty endings? :|a 404 File Not Found. I think the closest I got was the tiny ficlet I wrote for Ruroken which was just Kenshin being depressed in the rain after Tomoe's death, and I'm not sure that really counts. That was like three paragraphs of "well my life sucks" lmao. It never made it to AO3. (It's on ff dot net still, though.)

...OH. But I can tell you which one's going to have the angstiest ending and that's The Legacy. Which given the last chapter I had finished with Raph holding onto his dead not!girlfriend, I would assume most readers are not gonna be surprised by this fact. (File Soon* To Be Found.)

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

Idk man I tend to angle for happy endings in general, so that is very hard to answer as it comes under YMMV - people have different views of happy endings, after all. Probably Underdark as the most distinct "Yes, everything is okay now" ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nah, not really. I did have one serial reviewer that reviewed every chapter of Tanabata Jasmine back in the day with a lot of backhanded compliments and condescending comments? And one person who started off reviewing Misconduct with "well my friend told me to read this" and two chapters later said "okay I'm bored now bye", but none of this is hate. The only actual "hate" I got given was not actually ...for me? I don't think? It was someone who literally said: Why did you delete your slave fics? BITCH!! And I'm like... I have not now nor will i ever write... one of those...? So yeah. Think they mistook me for another author or something. Maybe Kikide. EH. Not my division.

9. Do you write smut?

Nah.

10. Craziest crossover?

Zaibatsu Project is a Rurouni Kenshin/Cyberpunk 2020 crossover, so that's taking all your 19th century samurai types and ditching them wholesale into 2029 Tokyo. It's fun. Maybe one day I will even write more of it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Outright? I don't think so. Buuut I've certainly had people ping me in the past to tell me someone's lifted a chunk of it wholesale or "they've written Snowblind, only with smut!" or there was one person who wrote a BNHA fic which followed the same plot of Underdark complete with dialogue borrowed directly from the fic. That last one I contacted the author and they apologised and offered to take the fic down and I told them they could keep it up provided they credit me for the inspiration somewhere. I'm sure by now some AI has scraped my stuff, but largely I write in fandoms that don't get lifted and sold like others do. And honestly, the above examples are more kinda flattering than anything else.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I believe most of my longer works have been translated into Russian, at the very least. I found Tanabata Jasmine back in the day being re-released onto a Russian forum site and I had a lot of fun translating the site to read responses (and laugh a bit at the machine translations because they kept telling me the readers were legless). Underdark has for sure. I've also found Snowblind.

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

I wrote a few pages of one with @shadowbends at one point! But we didn't get far in and we both got distracted with other projects. And I also wrote half a fic to set up the other half for an author, but she didn't end up going ahead. Alas. So.... kind of?

14. All time favourite ship?

I'm honestly not much of a shipper. I mean-- actually, I ship a lot of different pairings, but only kind of superficially for the most part? Like I really enjoy reading ships but I still vastly prefer gen. I will very rarely read an outright romance fic, there's gotta be a plot. (Or at the very least some interesting smut, god.) It's easier for me to point out ships that make me go UGH GOD NO rather than a preference. (In RP I'll ship a little more if the dynamics between our characters work out really well, but I still won't be crushed if nothing comes from it. This is a hard question for me to answer. I definitely don't have an all time favourite in this lukewarm pile of ships, that's for sure.)

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

Any of the WIPs that I have that I never bothered publishing have been abandoned. Anything I want to finish will get finished. It will just take some time. This is assuming I have a long life; I mean, if I'm scheduled to die, say, three years from now, the only thing that might get finished is Infinite Ricochet, lmao.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Action scenes! /o/ Pacing and tension. The most common review I get is from people vibrating from delighted stress, lmao.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Connective tissue. I can get really bogged down in getting from A to B. You can really see it in the early days of a fic where I'm still writing set up and wondering how to scale up realistically to the things I really want to write. Once everything starts going wrong, it gets much easier, rofl.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Depends on context. Like many I started writing fanfic at the time people tried to pepper as much Japanese into their dialogue as possible for realism or brownie points or whathaveyou - you can see that in my first fic on ff dot net lmaooo. Don't do this. Not unless you have a foreign phrase that just loses its flavour when translated through to English. Or, alternatively, when you actually have a non-English character who keeps dropping into their own language, or some try hard teenager who keeps trying to show off how much Spanish they know, as an example. There are always reasons to do so and reasons it will work. But if you're just going "LOOK AT THE WORDS I KNOW"... I recommend not doing so, you will look back years later and go "oh god".

19. First fandom you wrote in?

....look, technically the first fandom I wrote in was Inspector Gadget self insert fic. But I was nine so I feel I should not be judged. /cough

First time I sat down to write an actual story that was based off a show was for the old Defenders of the Earth cartoon while I was ...15? And then when I moved out my one sofa chair was surrounded by notepads as I wrote out my first 1987 TMNT fanfic. I didn't know it was called fanfic back then. In fact I didn't know anyone else did it at all and I was just weird. Please understand that when I got onto the web proper in the late 90s and found fanfic sites I was over the moon.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

It's gotta be Underdark. That thing is its own island by now. It's closely followed by the more recent There Is No Gravy, which much like Underdark wrote itself and also ended up far longer than I intended. It was just fun. It was a soft warm hug for the Rise fandom, okay, I love it.

Thank you! This was fun to reminisce about tbh. :D

I tag: @calliopechild, @radishhqueen, and @bobtheacorn ♥ No pressure, have at it if you like

* please note that the author's definition of soon may vary to yours. She has 13 year breaks between chapters sometimes, after all.

[littleobelia]

Offspring and the Arahura, please!! And if you wanted to throw in one more, vampire??

You clever clogs! sapphically intuiting which of my wips are f/f :D

Offspring belongs to my ikea verse, and I originally started writing it for your dirty thirty fic fest (best fest ever btw) but it just ran away from me and now its more than ten thousand words long - it'll be my longest one shot i've written so far. I'm pretty close to posting it --- definitely before Harry's 31st haha

here's a snippet of it !

The Arahura : when people ask my what my hobbies are I tell them I'm writing a lesbian historical romance novel about a shearer and a farmer's daughter but I'm really just talking about this WIP hahaha

It's set in Aotearoa during WWII when due to a shortage of manpower a lot of women were recruited to work on the farms. Louis emigrated a few years ago and has been drifting around the country labouring in various industries, until she's picked up by a shearing gang. Harry emigrated with her family to the Canterbury region where they took over a sheep farm. Harry's kinda sheltered and innocent and completely obsessed with tough, worldly Louis, who quickly charms the pants off her. I spend so much time thinking about it and fantasising and researching but not actually writing because the setting is so beyond my realm of understanding! As they say, the past is a foreign country. Also Aotearoa is a foreign country so it's doubly difficult lmao

As for Vampire, it's still in very early stages and only has about a thousand words so far, but I think it's a promising concept! Vampire!Louis is Orthodontist!Harry's private after-hours patient and the subject of some of his papers on vampire dentition. To celebrate getting one of his papers published in an important journal, Harry invites Louis around to his place for dinner. Let's say that Louis makes a real meal out of it lol

again I've stalled working on this one because of some of the ideas I had for the worldbuilding demand considerable thought and research, such as the idea that vampirism is a condition acquired through a bloodborne disease and so bears the stigma that accompanies suchlike diseases in our society. where I perhaps depart from genre convention in this fic is that vampires don't hold any sort of power in this universe, instead they're marginalised, which makes the character of Louis highly complex and interesting to write and the dynamic between practioner and patient (and predator and prey) more dicey. idk, there's obviously a lot of vampire media out there and I've barely looked at any of it cause I actually don't care for the fantasy or supernatural genres, maybe this has been done before a thousand times over! but i'm gonna give it a go anyway

Thank you for asking about my wips!!! I can't wait for you to read them one day <33

[transboysokka]

This is a big ask so don't feel like you have to, but would you be interested in pitching some summaries of the fics you have up on Ao3? I know there are summaries up there, but I like the casual way you have with words and you say fuck a lot and I dunno yeah

omg this is so funny bc i know the exact way with words you're talking about and of course im not gonna pass up a chance to promote my own work hehe YOU GOT IT!

i have 20 atla fics so I'm going to recommend them in order of... least to most kudos??? to try to trick people into reading more of my stuff? lol idk

I'm 99% sure all of these are Zukka fics...

The Last Five Years - ok actually this is a bad place to start bc i don't think im gonna finish it. it just really didn't take off but um its a The Last Five Years AU with really fucking sad Divorced Zukka

Do Not Stand At My Grave and Cry - this is i think my newest one, it has trans zukka and it's a bit angsty with a fake death but i also think it's kind of fun. it's the idea trans people have of ''who's going to care if my family puts the wrong name on my gravestone?" but there IS a happy ending

A Problem Halved is a Problem Shared - im gonna be honest i dont fucking remember writing this one lol but it says dialogue-only and it WILL be angsty bc it is about zuko and sokka dealing with different issues they have

One Last Time (and its sequel The End of All Things) - Actually OLT is definitely one of my faves I ever wrote. It's my canon-compliant take on um... *cough* Sokka's death, referenced in Korra. It's SO angsty but it has one of the most visceral scenes I've ever written and I DID cry writing this. TEoAT is the happy ending Divorced Zukka deserved with bonus Iroh but you WILL cry reading that too. BUT i cant fucking recommend these ones enough!!!!

If I fade away (the awful things we do to make the head go quiet) - VERY dead dove. trans zuko needs to pay a MASSIVE price to get home to the Fire Nation after Ba Sing Se, and it's not his choice at all. I love this but READ WITH CAUTION

In Which Sokka is Supportive Ally Boyfriend Goals - I am dead serious i like dont remember this one at all but i know it has trans zuko!

Nourishing the Flame Within - not the best written tbhtbh BUT it does have two very important Zukos in it that I hold to be universally true: trans zuko and eating disorder zuko

bad idea right? - okay this is DEF one of my faves lol its about divorced zukka but they just cant stop messing things up and sleeping with each other even though theyre not together anymore lolol

Keeping it in the Family - lmao OKAY SO this is the ONE version of zukka that im like 'ok all u z*tara folks, maybe zuko WAS with her and it obvs didnt work' and then he hooks up with sokka instead and its GREAT but oops now we have Family Drama

Scars of Trust - bro im not gonna like i barely remember writing this one but i remember I LOVE IT and it's about sokka who has been dating zuko a while but he finally learns that zuko is trans? its great

Playing the Long Game - eh, i don't love it, but I'd say it's worth a read. it was my first longer fic in the fandom. it DOES have a great Zukki evolution though if you're into that, and a nice mystery!! Also some whump and angst bc of course

Keeping Score - I liked this one! It's just little snippets of times Sokka has survived assassination attempts, because we always hear about it happening to Zuko, but Sokka gets them too. Angst obviously

It Was Cruel and It Was Wrong - wow, a dead dove fic, yes. It's basically like "If I'm Joo Lee and you're Joo Lee, then who's flying the bison?" Yeah so Sokka and Zuko are both brainwashed by the Dai Lee and Suffering but be careful because this gets DARK

Mother - Izumi has two dads but she feels bad she doesn't have a mom. But guess what, her dads don't have moms either!! She's very happy to find that out! Wow Izumi, way to have some sympathy.

Impact - It's about Zuko taking a longer time to recover from an assassination attempt than he'd want, and Sokka being loving and patient with him! I wrote this when I had a bad concussion for like three weeks and so it's pretty like. Medically accurate lol

Scratchy - Short and sweet. I don't remember this one much but I know that it is fluffy and involves turtle ducks!

Hidden Pain, Shared Love - Another short and fluffy one. It's about the first time Zuko sees that Sokka has problems with his leg sometimes?

Zuko and Sokka Get Engaged in the Most Zukka Way Possible - okay i actually really love this one because it's on brand and cute and also i made it fucking angsty because oF COURSE

Zuko Amongst the Dragons - yes so what if zuko was raised by dragons and met the gaang but he was super feral? and what if shenanigans ensued? AND what if sokka and zuko fell in love anyway????

[darkpoisonouslove]

1, 2, 5, 7, 12, 19, 26, 33, 39 for yet another writing ask game (I tried to pace myself, believe it or not 🤪)

(Mhm, I can see that! XD)

yet another writing ask

1. Which of your fics would you keep the basic plot of but rewrite completely?

Why would you do this to me? Don't I already have enough WiPs on my plate? You know this is only ever going to end one way.

I'd say Prey on the Heart. I do like the descriptions of the setting and the worldbuilding but *pinches bridge of nose* Valtor is SO OOC, I'm in literal pain. I don't know what was going on through my head but oh, boy! Then again, it's been almost three years since then and my understanding of the characters has definitely improved plus my headcanon game has evolved too!... Now I feel the need to add that to the pile of WiPs. I. Am. Mad. at. You! 😤

I'm also definitely touching up the three chapters of Gifts Are Given To Be Taken if I ever get to writing the rest. And same for Have No Name for My Heart. That one is such a downer. 😅 I need to rework the tone completely.

2. Anything that you'd like to write but feel like you're unable to?

In general? Murder mysteries. I LOVE murder mysteries (though I'm somehow way better at identifying the red herring (as such) than the actual culprit)! But they require way too much research and that's literally the bane of my existence. So, uh, yeah... that Scream AU for Winx is probably not going to happen.

In particular I feel that I'm unable to write the Winx rewrite. Like, I want to! I have so many cool ideas that I'm excited about! But I lack the motivation and the sheer size of it scares me. Besides, there are so many rewrites out there that it feels like a waste of time to do that when I can be working on Griffin x Valtor (or a Griffin x Faragonda or Marion... or anyone really) fics, which are... mostly my niche (not to monopolize the ship but *looks at the Griffin x Valtor tag on AO3*).

5. What's a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies?

I can't think of one? If I don't want something associated with my account, I just don't post it. But I guess, generally speaking, I wouldn't want to tag something if it's spoilers. AO3 luckily has the "creator chose not to use archive warnings" and you can write an additional tag to the same effect if it's a trope you don't want to tag rather than an archive warning.

7. Your favorite ao3 tag.

I was gonna say I didn't have one but I'm afraid that if my answer here isn't angst, you will hunt me for sport. XD You know I love my pain and tragedy.

12. If you write in more than one language, what's the difference?

I write in Bulgarian very rarely anymore. I think the last time was in the beginning of last year and I have only written down a few ideas since then. But the key difference I feel is that I have a much easier time describing things in Bulgarian because the language itself is more descriptive. It's possible that I simply understand it a lot better than English since it's my mother tongue but I have also analyzed some Bulgarian texts and their English translations and while translations can rarely capture the full spirit of the original, I still feel that the Bulgarian language just offers more when it comes to how descriptive words are. Idk if that makes sense.

Another one is that I have a much easier time with varying sentence structure in English. Though, that might be because I've paid special attention to that while I haven't practiced it in Bulgarian... at all.

19. Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

I want you to know that I have to try so hard to restrain myself from saying at least five different things about this:

She slid a hand between her breasts to touch only flesh instead of her monad necklace that was usually nestled there. Its shine was replaced by the gold she’d threaded into the plunging neckline of her nightgown with her own powers, all on Valtor’s insistence it would bring out her eyes. Despite the darkness trying to creep over her form, a smile was curling her lips at how right he’d been.

A draft disturbed the room, the air moving as if with something shuddering.

Griffin whispered his name. Only once. Like it was some cursed, forbidden knowledge. The power it held was immeasurable – greater than any spell.

Her fingers dipped under her neckline to trace a path for him directly to her heart.

As if offended by its thundering, a lightning tore through the blanket of clouds enveloping the castle.

The flash of light revealed in the mirror a pair of glacial blue eyes, pale skin and maroon fabric that would blend together with her nightgown perfectly if not for the gold threads distinguishing where her form ended and his began.

The darkness surged over the room once again a moment later, greedy, great enough to swallow even him, making it look like she was a lonely island surrounded only by empty air and the hazy glow of her magic. Yet, even that omnipotent cover failed to hide him from her.

He was silent, motionless, not even a gasp of breath coming from him to make the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. The magic that had clung to her day and night had evaporated, leaving only a hollowness behind, a cold that made her shiver as if she’d been thrown out in the storm.

It didn’t matter.

She was dressed for him, in her favorite nightgown she hadn’t worn for anyone else – a tribute to him. She’d only needed to call his name once and he’d come running. He wasn’t leaving here until she was ready to let him go, until all the cards were on the table, everything revealed. No more distant voyeurism and half-lies, only naked truth.

26. What would you describe as OOC?

A behavior or action that isn't properly supported by the previously established characterization. For fics specifically, a character isn't OOC if the story took the time to take them from their canon self to the person that they are in the fic but there has to be a hint at least of why they are the way they are.

33. Give your writing a compliment.

You know, I'm starting to like my descriptions more and more! I'm learning to focus more on the vibes and that makes it easier to pinpoint which parts I need to describe. I was panicking about this one description I needed to do recently and then I ended up getting it almost perfect right away!

39. Wildest AU scenario you have written?

I answered this here.

[canarydarity]

2023 Writing Round-Up

Rules: Share what you wrote this year! It can be works you posted to Ao3, Wattpad, Tumblr, or anywhere else! You can share everything you wrote or just the ones you’re most excited about.

I was tagged by @bidoofenergy :D thank you for the tag !!! <3

January

bright&fast [Jimmy & Tango | 1,019 words ]

ficlet based on this tumblr post

okay, FINE, i'll explore the ancient city with you—but ONLY if we hold hands the entire time we're down there!!! [Jimmy/Tango | 1,643 words]

That trip to the ancient city retrieving the diamond pants for Bigb

The Night Sky is Full of Love [Scar/Grian | 2,498 words]

Uhhhhhhhhhhh 3L finale from scars pov

Lonely Is the Long Con [Scar/Grian | 4,463 words]

'The trick to selling a good con was believing in it yourself—no one was going to fall for something they didn’t believe that you believed to be true. Scar knew this and he knew it well, but still, he was always his own toughest audience.' or, the product of my month-long last life scar breakdown :)

February

Strawberry Wine (and all the time we used to have) [Jimmy/Tango | 2,332 words]

𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘵 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳 or whatever it was the song said idk or, the product of my year-long strawberry wine breakdown :)

"I'm trusting you, please don't make me regret it" Dialogue prompt ask [Scar/Grian | 2,360 words]

uhhhhhhhhhhhh DL finale from scars pov

March

We Shall Prevail [Scar/Grian | 2,773 words]

Those few moments in the pond during the 3L finale from Scars pov

At Another Place in Time [Jimmy/Tango | 1,632 words]

limited life session 1 vignette Tangos pov

At Another Place in Time II [Jimmy/Tango | 1,884 words]

limited life session 2 vignette Tangos pov

April

Stay, Find, Become, Join, Soon [Pixlriffs | 2,343 words]

ES2 Pix clearing the capitals catacombs, finding the crown

May

Withering Away [Pixlriffs | 1,638 words]

ES2 ghost Pix, stuck reenacting his death

June

Sentinel Species, Chapter 1 [Jimmy Solidarity | 9,586 words]

An au with a slightly different take on the canary curse, leaning harder towards harbinger of death

July

Sentinel Species, Chapter 2 [Jimmy Solidarity | 7,000 words]

The Rest of His Life [Jimmy/Tango | 1,569 words]

mooooooooore rancher grief rehearsal <3 Jimmy mourning Tango before he's even gone

August

I was sick with covid for the entire month and had absolutely no brain function available for writing </33

September

🙌 gay baseball au 🙌 (which I...really have to start calling by its actual name: Against All Odds)

Which...I know is not finished and posted yet. But I am really proud of my progress and it's taken up a lot of my writing time so I'm including it here anyway!! plot summary snippets

October

see above^^^

November

Thus With A Kiss [Jimmy/Tango | 2,706 words]

Team Rancher Romeo and Juliet au, the balcony scene. a cliche maybe but godbless

December

personal projects mostly!

:D and that was my year!! I am really glad I was tagged in this because it was nice looking back and seeing how much I wrote! I don't think I've ever written and shared so much consistently throughout any year of my life, so it was a pleasant surprise to see what I was able to accomplish here :'))

I am (no pressure, /nf) tagging: @birrdies @liloinkoink @seasonal-writes @hitheeprithee @cillpiines if any of them would like to participate :))

[msmargaretmurry]

For writing ask game, 18, 19, 24!

sorry for the delay, i got home yesterday and was just too tired too think 😭❤ but ok! doing these backwards so i can put the writing commentary under a cut:

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

i don't do a lot of prep work in terms of outlining or anything — but i do a fair amount of prep work in terms of pondering and research. does pondering count as prep work? 😂 idk i'm counting it. just ruminating on a concept until it feels story-shaped in my head. i can't write it until it feels story-shaped! and then i'll do a lot of my research as i go, but if i need to know something for the overall story structure i do that research us front — for example if a fic is set over the course of a season i'll go look up the notable games and events so i can plan for story beats to hit in the right places.

answered 19 here!

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end.

choosing a passage was so hard!! but okay let's talk about this bit from the first chapter of haw:

so there are a few things going on here, writing-wise! i can't remember exactly when in my pondering i decided i was going to send them both to boots, but i knew that i wanted to get them alone together somewhere very away from hockey, and boots wound up being that place. this convenient run-in is the thing that's really going to set the stage for their relationship going forward, so i wanted to a) establish that they do have chemistry, even if they get off on kind of a fucked-up foot, and b) matthew kind of would like to know leon better, even though he's convinced leon hates him.

matthew's in such a shitty place mentally during this scene. he's so prickly and punchy, and it colors the entire interaction, and i think this scene is one of the first scenes where his tight and unreliable pov significantly warps the perception of what's actually happening. he's so sure leon doesn't like him at all, and so he reads all of leon's bluntness and sarcasm as dislike when really it's mostly just, you know. bluntness and sarcasm. so writing this scene was one of the first real challenges in the fic of knowing what's going on in leon's head while still writing from matthew's pov in a way that doesn't get what's going on in there at all. because matthew's correct that leon's not in a great mood when they encounter each other but he has no idea that leon a) has thought about hooking up with him ever, at all, and b) has been kind of stuck on their weird interaction in the locker room for days now (i can hear miriam now hollering at me from germany to just write the whole scene from leon's pov 😂❤)

the boots scenes in general were fun to write because i loved building the sense of atmosphere. there's not a ton of it in this snippet, but in general making boots feel like a very distinct place, a world apart from real life, was something i was definitely striving for during this stretch of the fic.

anyway, i love the long paragraph that's mostly the inside of matthew's head while they stand in line for beers. i just think it's a fun paragraph, prose-wise, and i just kind of love a paragraph that just kind of tumbles out and keeps going. i feel like some people are a little afraid of writing long paragraphs and i am here to say: don't be, they're fun. particularly with this one it was important for me getting a grasp on the way matthew's thoughts tend to sprawl and spiral and, i think, good for setting the tone for how the inside of his head is gonna work for this whole story.

(and like, that part that's like, "not quite a glare, almost a sizing up" — he's checking you out, matthew, you idiot. get it TOGETHER.)

[sinelanguage]

4, 11, 23, 39 :0?

4. Do you have any OCs? Do you have a story for them?

I do not!! Well, I have 2-3 DnD characters for previous campaigns, but I don't have any OCs outside of that, really. very much a fanfic person over original stuff.

11. Three tropes that are fine but overrated.

ohhh my god hardest question. I'm not sure about overrated, so this is more 'tropes that are fine and popular but I personally seek out':

Soulmates: I don't care for pre-destination in fiction! sometimes I think it works well and I indulge in it, but it's not something I seek out

Fix It Fix: look, I'm engaging with flawed canons all the time; I don't mind people saying canon is flawed and adjusting and/or ignoring canon entirely, I do this all the time (you will not see me adding a brook pantie joke to a fic even if it is in character), but I don't care for it when it's the primary focus of a fic. I'm here for a good time, not to explore the aspects of canon I don't care about lmao.

Love At First Sight: idk I like mess, and love at first sight avoids my type of mess (conflicted feelings realization). I'm fairly aro, so anything that hinges on romance alone doesn't really do it for me, and love at first sight definitely hinges a lot on overwhelming initial feelings.

23. Dialogue or description? Why is the other one so hard?

it kind of depends, but generally I prefer writing dialogue and find it easier-- one decent way I unblock myself on writing is to just do very loose dialog snippets until I know what I'm doing again

description I like sometimes, but find my own vocabulary for emotional descriptions kind of lacking so I struggle with making that non-repetitive. my favorite prose/descriptions come from humor/action, which is not always what I'm going for lol

39. Wildest AU scenario you have written?

HAHA for what I've written: there's a singular scene in 'same as it ever was' where after zoro dies in that timeline, sanji's a foxy pirate. implications here are incredibly funny. there's a bad end in one piece where Foxy Kills Zoro, Actually. bad end where sanji's forced to wear the iconic fox ear mask until the end.

[sapphire-weapon]

Intereshting… do you still think that way? I mean, you think people who write fanfiction are so detached from reality that is scary?

(Side note: I’m genuinely interested if you would’ve been a writer if you didn’t grow up w such fandom…idk prejudices?)

honestly, it's a relief for me that that stigma is dead in fandom, and modern fans can have fun in ways that I wasn't allowed to. so -- no, I don't think that self-shippers are detached from reality at all. if anything, I'm jealous.

but homie it's all good, you don't gotta worry about me. I got my own AO3. I've been writing fanfiction since I was 7.

I'm just paranoid about self-inserting (or being perceived as doing that).

so, here. would u like a snippet of an EagleOne fic that I started and have since abandoned involving Leon going to visit Ashley the night before her dad leaves office?

here u go, friend

-

Stopping just outside of her bedroom door, Leon closed his eyes and took another slow, steadying breath. He could feel his pulse beat at his temples and behind his eyes, and his hands in his pockets felt unsteady as the tips of his fingers tingled. Suddenly, it seemed as though the shoulders of his suit jacket were too tight, and the knot of his tie was overly constrictive at the hollow of his throat. In some ways, he almost felt like he was back in high school, trying to psych himself up to ask out the girl he liked.

It was stupid. Ridiculous, even. He was a grown-ass man now, and Ashley wasn't the cute girl in his Algebra II class. Ashley was just… Ashley. She'd already seen him bleeding and sweating and exhausted and covered in actual literal human shit. What was he so afraid of?

Opening his eyes and steeling his nerves, Leon raised his right hand and lightly rapped his knuckles against the heavy wood of her bedroom door.

At first, he was met with only silence. One full second passed without sound or movement. Then another. And then a third.

On that fourth beat, he heard some light shuffling from behind the door. And on the fifth, Ashley's voice finally called out, muffled and confused.

"Who is it?"

"Room service," Leon called back.

There was another extended pause then, followed by some more shuffling. A few seconds later, the door to her room swung open to reveal a very confused-looking Ashley, who practically had the words "what the fuck?" etched into the wrinkles of her furrowed brow. She clearly hadn't been expecting any visitors; her blonde hair — which was a bit longer than he remembered it being — was still damp from what Leon could only assume was a recent shower, and she was dressed only in a black band shirt and beige pajama shorts. If he hadn't known any better, Leon would've sworn he'd just knocked on the door of her college dorm room.

Within seconds, her expression switched from confusion to surprise, and she took a half-step back as the realization of what — or, rather, who — she was looking at seemed to finally sink in.

"Leon?" she asked breathlessly, her tone that of complete and utter disbelief.

He shoved both hands into his pockets and offered her a quiet, nervous, close-lipped smile. In truth, he didn't really know what to say to her. It wasn't as though he'd come here with a plan — or that he'd planned to come here at all.

"Hey," he offered simply. "Been a while."

It took her a moment to react, but when she finally did, her entire demeanor changed. Ashley's eyes lit up as a wide, genuine smile split her face. She nearly toppled over in her shock and excitement, with both shoulders jerking forward before she seemed to catch herself with a hand on her chest. It was as endearing a spectacle as Leon had ever seen, and he barely noticed the edges of his mouth tug further upwards into a more pronounced smile.

"Oh my god," she exclaimed.

Before all three words had even left her lips, she'd closed the distance between them, throwing her arms around Leon's shoulders and pulling him into a tight hug. And just like that, all of the anxiety and tension that'd been building up in him since President Graham's request vanished. A wave of relief came over him as her body crashed into his, and he suddenly had to wonder what he'd been so worried about in the first place. Chuckling a bit, he was quick to hug her back, and he even leaned down the slightest bit so that she wouldn't have to overextend her posture.

As they both settled into place, Leon couldn't help but notice just how well they fit together — how the contours of her body molded perfectly into his, as though she was the missing piece of a puzzle. It wasn't the first time he'd had this thought — this was something he'd felt all the way back at that very first time he'd caught her out of the window of the church in Spain, but back then, he'd eventually chalked it up to a combination of adrenaline and hyperfocus.

Neither were present here, and as the seconds ticked by in a hug that was going on much longer than it probably should have been, Leon was slightly alarmed at just how little he wanted to separate from her. He dragged his open palms down the length of her back in a gentle, comforting little motion, as he tried desperately to ignore how the sheer intimacy of her breath rolling against the side of his neck made him feel some type of way that he wasn't at all ready to acknowledge yet.

"I was scared I was never going to see you again," she whispered. Her voice was quiet and vulnerable, as though she'd just told him a secret that only he was ever meant to know.

Leon felt her words more than he heard them, and he felt himself wince in response. That horrible, oppressive guilt he'd felt earlier crept back into his awareness, slithering into the center of his chest and coiling around his heart. The weight of it was almost like an anchor, threatening to pull him down to the floor and leave him helplessly stranded there.

It was then that he finally broke the hug, but he didn't pull away from her completely. He kept his hands resting gingerly at her sides, and as she slid out from his embrace, her own palms came to settle on his biceps.

"Oh, come on," he said while putting on his best poker face. "You didn't really think I'd let you leave without saying goodbye, did you?"

A look of genuine unease spread across Ashley's delicate features, and her eyes shifted to the side, avoiding his gaze. After a second, she offered him a nervous, half-hearted smile and the weakest shrug he'd ever seen.

"Honestly?" she said. "At this point? … Yeah, kind of."

The sides of Leon's neck grew hot, and an embarrassed flush traveled up towards his ears. He'd never been good at reacting to people calling him out on his bullshit, and Ashley's close proximity to him made it even worse. He took a deep breath through his nose and dropped his head slightly as though to hang it in shame. The next time he spoke, his voice was quiet and gentle, as though he was returning the secret she'd told him earlier.

"I'm sorry, Ashley," he told her. "I didn't mean to disappear on you like that. It just… kind of happened that way."

"It's alright," she said in a tone that told him that it was anything but.

With that, she took a full step backwards, pulling away from him completely — though, her right hand stayed on his arm, traveling downwards until she was able to wrap her fingers around his wrist.

"Come on," she said. "Come inside. People will talk if they see us out here like this."

He nodded numbly, and she released her grip on him. Without a word, he followed her into her bedroom and quietly shut the door behind him.

[walkinginland]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

very kindly tagged by @freneticfloetry and @three-drink-amy. thanks, friends!!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

20! Three of those are drabble compilations, how I keep my 100-word drabbles organized for different fandoms, but I'm counting them 😂

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

35,104. I don't know how to write long lmao.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Most of my fics (15 of them to be exact, as well as the main longer fic I'm writing atm) are for Outlander, but I've written for a total of 5 fandoms, and hop between them at different times. In addition to Outlander, I have fics/drabbles for The Song of Achilles, The Last Binding Trilogy, 911, and 911: Lone Star.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

To Heart and Home (Outlander, multichap, canon divergent) - by farrrrr, which makes sense, as it's my only multichap

Foundations (Outlander, one shot, canon compliant)

return my fists to fingers (The Last Binding, one shot, canon compliant)(i need more of yall to read these books and write fic for them. i need it)

Sunlight (The Song of Achilles, one shot, canon compliant)

Grievances Raised (Outlander, one shot, modern au)

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

I do! I don't post often enough that I get an overwhelming amount of comments or anything, so it's not a huge burden to reply to them all. I just am continually baffled by people reading what I write, it genuinely blows my mind.

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

hmmmmmm. a lot of what I write is pretty angsty, but I love finding and weaving out the thread of hope that lives in those broken places. That said, does heaven have enough angels yet is pretty rough. It's a canon compliant little snippet from the pov of a stillborn infant so like...... she's sad. there's still hope tho! always still hope.

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

ooo probably the fluffiest happy fic I have is All the Colors in the Rainbow! It ends with all the Frasers going off to Pride, and it makes me hella happy.

The happiest fic story-wise is probably To Heart and Home, just because it fixes The Main Fuckening that happens in Outlander and brings that family back together earlier.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

*knocks on wood* i haven't yet!

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

I don't, I'm not brave enough. The closest I came to it was with Grievances Raised, wherein Claire pegs the brains out of her husband, but I only wrote the aftermath.

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

I haven't done one yet!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of 🤞🏻

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so? I feel like I remember someone asking me to translate To Heart and Home a few years ago, but I don't know if anything ever came of it.

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

I haven't! I feel like I would be the worst co-writer lol, I am farrrr too slow.

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

to write? idk, probably Jamie and Claire? I just feel like I know them, inside and out. I don't have to look for their voices, they're right there.

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

oh god, so many outlander ones lmao.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I am really good at matching the tone of the source material! Once I get the voice of the characters/narration/general story style, I feel like I can reproduce the general vibes of canon. I think that's why I sometimes have an easier time with writing fic from stories in the form of books - there's a written tone I can internalize. And consequently, why I've had a harder time with nailing a voice for 911 or Lone Star, even though I do want to eventually write fic for those shows.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue and plot! I write Vibes™, but I don't know how to write actual Stories. I would love to be that writer who could crank out a whole story with a plot and shit, because I love that type of fic with my whole self, but my brain just functions in vibes.

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

I am a Coward about it. I've written a fair amount of Gàidhlig into my Outlander fics, especially in To Heart and Home, and honestly I think I've done a pretty good job with it. I spent a lot of time researching the language, up to and including researching grammar structures and taking duolingo lessons at the beginning of the pandemic for a few months. I've forgotten most of it now though, despite duolingo being extremely persistent with its reminders lmao.

However.

If I were to write for 911 and Lone Star like I would like to, I would like to include some Spanish into those stories (especially with Lone Star), and I just don't think I would do it justice. I failed Spanish miserably in high school, and haven't taken a stab at it since. If I include it I want to do it well and respectfully, ya know? I'm bilingual (just not with Spanish lol) and an interpreter, and I think that has brought with it a better understanding of just how complicated language is, and how easy it is to fuck it up when you don't know what you're doing. And as a very white person, I also don't want to act like I know fuck-all about a non-white language and culture when I don't.

Sooooo, I'm a coward about it atm. Hoping to get better eventually though!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Outlander! Never ever thought I would write fic, didn't think I was "allowed." Hadn't ever written anything creatively before (in english at least), so it was a big jump for me. this makes it sound like english is my second language, when really it's just that the first time that anyone made me write creatively was in my deaf lit class

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh god this changes all the time. At the moment I've feeling very tender towards into the empty parts of me. It's a really tragic part of canon, but just gorgeous character potential. I loved how gentle this turned out, how John and Claire had a moment of healing in the middle of their tragedy.

But also I think that the fic I'm writing right now is gonna turn out to be my favorite ❤ once I get the writing juices flowing again for one last section 🤞🏻

I'm not sure who all has done this already, but no pressure tagging @liminalmemories21, @flyinghome-againstthewind, @theawkwardterrier, @homerforsure, @paperstorm

[eyesontheskyline]

when did you start writing fanfiction? and how do you motivate yourself to write? i have so many ideas but just feel like i'm not organized or disciplined enough to put pen to paper all the time

I thiiink between my 2nd and 3rd years at university? So I would've been 20. I did it for a couple of years but freaked myself out and stopped for like 4-5 years, then came back (with this shiny new name) because Crazy Ex Girlfriend altered my brain chemistry.

Honestly, organisation and discipline are... not my strong point. For various boring reasons I'm rawdogging unmedicated ADHD so getting started on something is hard and making myself do something I don't feel motivated to do is torturous. If writing felt like that, I wouldn't do it.

But I think usually with "I have ideas but I never sit down to write", the problem isn't motivation. If you actually don't write at all yet, I think the problem is usually that it feels like kind of a big barrier to cross, going from vague ideas in your head to sitting in front of a blank document typing "She..." and realising you're in charge of what comes next. So the way I deal with that problem is having a document where I just type whatever comes to me clearly.

So I'll have like, a snippet of dialogue that might turn into a scene or might not. Then just a couple of line spaces then "AU where ________". Then more line spaces then whatever else. Just completely disorganised, whatever the ideas in my head are whenever they pop up.

At least sometimes, something in there will spark something. And you just need to give yourself permission to just sit there and write stuff with no pressure. I have 24,000 words written of the first CM thing I started when I came back to writing and idk if I'll ever start posting it, but I'm really glad I started writing it with the intention of not posting until I was like 12 chapters ahead of myself, because it didn't feel like something I was getting ready to post, just something I was working on writing, so I could make as big a mess as I wanted.

I think it's mostly about creating a habit and making space in your brain and your life to write. Before I was writing CM again, whenever I had free time I was on the documentaries page on Netflix looking for stuff to watch. Or watching a billion things in a row about opioids for some reason. Now that I'm in the habit, sitting down to write is just where my brain goes in those times.

Also, timers. If you do get an idea you want to work on, set a timer for 10-15 minutes and work on it for that long, and if you want to stop after that then you can. But you might not. Then you're rolling.