#next to no writers' block for 10+ years in exchange for my soul I guess

[mylittleredgirl]

20 questions for fic writers

thanks @annerbhp for the tag! i really enjoyed reading her answers too!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

215

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

646,705 (average of 3k per fic, which sounds about right)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

stargate atlantis most often, followed by sg-1, various star treks, and the x-files (with other miscellaneous fandoms on demand for exchanges and gifts).

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

No Sooner Met (voyager, janeway/chakotay)

Career Day (sg-1, mini!otp)

Next Chapter (the good place, chidi/eleanor)

First Date (voyager, janeway/chakotay) editor's note: man my title game was weak in my voyager era

Occupational Hazards (the good place, chidi/eleanor)

it's so funny to spend my online time in small or inactive fandoms and look at statistics because i'm like yeah... i'm kind of a big deal... people know me... i have many leather-bound volumes... and not a single one of my fics crack 300 kudos (& very few over 100). the person i reblogged from topped out over 9,000! what's it like to write long fics for popular fandoms? is it cool?

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

i do now! and it's awesome! for a long time i was intimidated by praise and had a hard time responding, but my brain works now and i really enjoy exchanging comments that turn into long threads of headcanon back-and-forth and sometimes new friends.

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

oh god PLEASE let me unburden my soul about Twilight (sga, john/elizabeth). it's so uncharacteristically hopeless for me -- far future fic, complicated family dynamics, elizabeth has dementia and john is estranged from their son... really no one is having a good time. i think it's interesting and a cool departure from my usual writing style, but it's also a big sad mess.

i still feel sooooo guilty about these two thousand words of misery that i REGULARLY think about writing a sequel where john and his son fix it with time travel and mend fences. like i lie awake at night worrying about these characters because one time in 2007 i didn't give them a happy ending and suggested john might not break the bad father generational cycle. normal fic writer behavior.

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

Weaving Loose Ends (sg-1, sam/jack)! i love happy and hopeful endings but i think of all of them, this one is the most resolved and least complicated.

8. Do you get hate on fic?

nope. oh!!!! there was the one time when i caused Big Drama in a corner of the Dancing With The Stars fandom by turning people's headcanons into rpf, which everyone liked until one included porn. people got so heated with each other over this one smut fic (doxing! splinter factions! a fandom schism!) but somehow no one was ever actually mean to me. i didn't even get blocked or banned for my rpf transgressions, i was just standing there at the eye of the storm. so... i guess the answer is still no??

9. Do you write smut?

yes! i should probably write more, though. it has been all slow and gauzy the past few years, somebody should really get railed pretty soon.

10. Do you write crossovers?

nope.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don't think so. happily toiling in obscurity.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

back in the x-files days i think someone translated some of my doggett/reyes fics for a spanish archive, so those might still be out there.

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

no i haven't!! i am really not doing well collecting my fic writer girl scout badges here!!

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

john sheppard/elizabeth weir my beloved.

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

i have 10k of an sg-1 episode-by-episode soulmate fic that started really strong and i would love to share someday, but i lack staying power so it will surely just go to seed in my dropbox forever!!

16. What are your writing strengths?

hopefully character complexity and dialogue. dialogue is interesting in fanfic, because the dialogue on many TV shows is really different than how real humans speak (it's scripted to be clearer, more concise and direct, uninterrupted, etc), so it's a fun challenge to balance that and get something that sounds both in-character and realistic.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

long fics!

the big related weakness is that i find it incredibly difficult to keep writing on a fic after i show it to anyone (as a sneak peek, or because i want feedback / encouragement / brainstorming help). i lose steam on my own, but posting or inviting other people into the process is like pouring sugar in the gas tank. why is that!! how do i fix this!!!

and i don't know if this is a "writing weakness" or an "egregious personal character flaw" but i sure did finish an exchange fic this year literally forty seconds before reveals, so that's... pretty bad.

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

SO SCARY aughhhh my fear of Being Wrong really nukes me here. it doesn't even have to be a real language. it's like the ghost of JRR Tolkein himself is standing over my shoulder telling me that if i don't backwards engineer an entire proto-latinate space language instead of just chucking words into google translate and calling it Ancient i'm committing unpardonable sins.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

star trek! first internet-published fics were x-files, but first limited-print-edition fics were xeroxed hand-bound voyager stories my sister and i would give as "gifts" to family friends (and then stand there staring at them while they read the first few pages and told us how clever and creative we were and promised to "read the rest later").

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

new answer! i have always answered this before with ain't no sunshine (sga, john/elizabeth) or career day (sg-1, mini!otp), but i think i really stuck the landing this year on pieces (sga, john/elizabeth). which, incidentally, is the one i finished forty seconds before reveals so i'm definitely not going to learn anything from that narrow escape.

tagging @ussjellyfish if you haven't already done this one, @coraclavia, @havocthecat, @lonesomehighways, and anyone else who made it through this long post and would like to do it!

[seyaryminamoto]

What got you into the amazing ship that is Sokkla?

Well, gee. Ancient history lesson time! xD

There's a couple of culprits, but ultimately, the one to blame is a certain furtive and clever commissioner of art who requested this piece from the epic @saniika:

I had been on an Azula kick because well, as any Azula fan is wont to do, I was very depressed by ATLA's outcome and I wanted Azula fics to save my broken heart x'D I tested the waters with a few pairings, they weren't exactly what I was looking for... and then while scouring DeviantArt for Azula art (there are some seriously good pieces and artists there), this particular piece showed up and I was genuinely mindblown... and admittedly, perplexed. I had no idea what was going on here, and I wanted to understand it xD I could tell there was a story behind it, but I couldn't find it! And so, I started looking at more Sokkla art and found that this very sneaky commissioner had INDEED requested a LOT of art based on her fic...!

... If you want to know how that particular, personal story goes, said commissioner became one of the best friends I've ever had in my entire life xD She's not active in the fandom anymore, but I love her to pieces and we talk daily. I once even wrote a breakdown of what she planned for her story, Majesty, as I recalled it... the post's somewhere in my archive haha xD I'll try to look it up and link it later if I remember to.

Anyway! I didn't get to know that future best friend of mine right away XD but I got hooked on the concept of these two before I even had a clue of what was going on with me. A certain anime called Bleach had already taught me the joys in testing the waters of ships that appeared impossible in canon, simply by testing if characters worked well together, if their dynamics were enjoyable... and I didn't really care if Sokka and Azula weren't together in canon, I just wanted to find out if this pairing was as good as it looked, ya' know?

Then, I got cajoled by another person I knew in the fandom (... that one I'm not friends with anymore, heh... things happen) to start writing fics about ATLA, a concept I was a little bit daunted by, but the idea he gave me sounded relatively fun. I came up with the concept for my first fic, Origins of Pro-Bending, and because I wanted Azula in there, being my favorite character and all, I figured I needed an excuse to feature her in the story! And what better excuse... than to make her Sokka's girlfriend! XD

It was a spur of the moment choice, and one I was mostly making for the sake of humor + curiosity at first. I was really intrigued by the ship but I wasn't quite fully aware of its wonders yet...

... Not until I wrote chapter 2, though. That one was basically a long one-on-one chapter where Sokka and Azula had a very big, strategic discussion about what they had to do for the sake of ensuring Aang was a true master of water, earth and firebending, and damn, it started to click so well for me that I was pretty shook by realizing these two worked incredibly smoothly together.

And by the time I wrote chapter... 4? 5? The first actual kiss scene I wrote between them, as a follow-up of Sokka tickle-attacking Azula and giving her reasons to laugh? I was a goner by then. I was so sold on them I couldn't see any other possibilities anymore x'D the concept for The Reason (the lead up and explanation of how they got together, and the fic that actually ended up being the very core of that "fic verse", if I can call it that xD) arrived a little later for me, and I was so passionate about exploring the way they'd get together that I almost wanted to drop OoPB just to get to The Reason instead x'D

In the end, I went completely wild with these dorks. I had never found a burst of inspiration as powerful as the one they gave me...

And that was almost ten years ago! X'D will be ten years, exactly, in November. Completely insane, isn't it? I'm still here, still completely swept up by these two and still utterly fascinated by their relationship, their dynamics, their potential... I swear I wouldn't have been here for this long, with this much fire inside me still, if there wasn't something genuinely special in this ship. They're beautiful to me, I'm seriously grateful to be part of this community... and I'm very grateful, too, to the people who started it all for me <3 I don't want to imagine where I'd be right now if I weren't here, because frankly, I'm sure it would not be a better place than this one xD