#now i'm going through multiple character timelines trying to make this work because my brain was stupidly ameri-centric when planning things

[bucky-boychik-barnes]

I'm just trying to write a simple 'Meet the OC' post, and it ends up with me researching divorce in Ireland in the early 2000s.

[cousticks]

(im not sure if I asked this alr. please excuse my fried brain TT)

What top 5 bsd relationships do you find the most interesting/appeals to you? (can be platonic/familial/duo/etc)

no pressure btw 💗

oh gosh. top 5 most interesting??? i was rotating this in my mind at work all day and was still struggling. so here's five character interactions in no particular order

i'm always down for dynamics among the "big 4" aka the two younger soukoku generations. dazai chuuya atsushi akutagawa. both in their pairings and among each other--observing the different ways dazai interacts with atsushi vs with akutagawa will always be interesting to me as its a measure of dazai's own growth. i like the respect akutagawa and chuuya have for each other as coworkers and powerful ability users. atsushi and akutagawa......... they. them. those two. there's so much there. i think we're robbed of chuuya and atsushi interactions because there's SOOO many parallels between them that i like to chew on. and of course there's dazai and chuuya. which i have a lot of thoughts on, all the time. but... all four of them together and each respective dynamic is really interesting. the way being powerful ability users all shoved together on the front lines of every major catastrophe of the city messes with them each individually and together is fun.

this one is more recent for me but oda and dazai's friendship is really interesting to me, and the way oda's influence has followed dazai through his life (and multiple timelines). oda has grown on me as a character a lot recently, and i'm usually obsessed with dazai, so its natural for me to gravitate towards interactions between them.

i can't make a post about pairings without discussing rimlaine. rimbaud and verlaine and all their fucking problems. stormbringer is such a book. i could ramble for days about those two and it would never be enough. how rimbaud never stopped trying to understand. how verlaine didn't realize anything until it was too late. they're tragic and make me miserable. i'm obsessed with them.

the ada dynamics in general! i love seeing all of them come from all the wild pasts they do and coming together to be such a powerful group, to the point they can brush the entire mafia aside without much of a struggle. i love them all dearly. especially kunikida. but... all of them, really.

chuuya and his pseudo-siblings! like kouyou. i love their interactions a lot. i also kinda assign him the team older brother. kyoka? she was kouyou's charge. she's chuuya's little sister now. can't get around it. q? weird kid locked up in the dungeons? that's his little sibling. and verlaine goes here too because sure, they don't have an amicable sibling relationship, but they still have some kind of interaction, i believe. all the chuuya siblingships are fun to me.

there's so many more that i find interesting, honestly. like, i know i said the ada in full, but specifically ranpo and fukuzawa will always be fun to look at in their silly little family dynamic. katai hanging out in his futon shouldn't be ignored, someone (kunikida) has to check on him. whatever the hell steinbeck and lovecraft have going on? fascinating. the way dazai and fyodor go back and forth? the dead apple triumvirate?? every dynamic in bsd has its place in my heart honestly this was REALLY difficult to even think of a top 5. so this is more like a top 27 lmao

[flowerslut]

17 & 23?

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

I know people probably want me to answer this for roots but roots is so canon-compliant that getting into the little details really doesn’t add much to the story. instead, I’m gonna answer this one about call of the night!!!

what’s fun about call of the night is that imo it is canon-compliant, technically, if you squint, up until the late 18th century when I introduce cotn!Esme (who is honestly just a completely different character at this point). her presence, and her gift, is what alters the timeline and creates that canon divergence and why all the other tiny little details diverge as well. when vampires live alongside humans then suddenly (almost) everyone’s backstory has to change to fit that narrative!! so I love that most the cullens’ origin stories are so different—I think edward’s is the only one that hasn’t been talked about, but if it doesn’t come up in later stories then I’ll definitely share that one day—because I get to be more creative in that fun way that writing AUs allows!

I’ve been asked lots of little lore-related questions over the years, and since there’s going to be such a long gap in between books two and three, and there’s so many goddamn details in the first two fics, I’m going to put a little guide together at some point this or next year. it’ll basically be a CotN wiki when it’s done. that way, people who don’t feel like rereading before the novella or 3rd installment can just click around and refresh their memory. (I’ve also been told that a lot of Esme Details™️ are quite unclear, and that’s from people who’ve read CotN multiple times 💀)

hmmmm details details. I’m trying to think of things I can share that won’t spoil later stuff. I feel like so many people over the years have really asked all the right questions so far; if you browse through that link enough you'll get plenty of mindless bonus information! one thing that adds nothing to the story and that will never be mentioned in the text is that a few months ago lilia and I decided that instead of 9/11 never happening (boring, predictable) the same thing just happens on 9/12 (hilarious, galaxy-brained). so no, 9/11 isn't canon in the cotn!verse, but 9/12 is

23. Describe the physical environment in which you write. Be as detailed as possible. Tell me what’s around you as you work. Paint me a picture.

I probably do most of my writing in my bed even though, for the sake of my back, I try to sit at my desk more now as an adult. but alas, old habits die hard, yknow? I enjoy writing at night more and I love love love having the lights dimmed, candles lit, and some sort of ambient music playing in the background. I can’t listen to music with lyrics bc it distracts my brain too much, and I am not the type of person who can just “sit down and write for 20 minutes each day.” I struggle a lot with transitions when I don't have a strict plan/schedule for my day and that’s REALLY bad with writing. so when I DO write, I lowkey need to have at least a few hours of time set aside because I will write nonstop for that entire chunk of time. once I get going, stopping is something I only do because I have to, and rarely because I want to or because I just can’t go any longer. that's one of my weird superpowers: the ability to write for hours on end and get all the words out that I need to say. (and often times, too many words that aren’t even Needed)

but with all that said, now that I have a living room and a kitchen I can sit in (first time since 2019) I’ve been able to write in both!!!! which has been nice and refreshing!!!! unfortunately I haven’t been able to write too much since moving (even answering these asks has eaten into my carefully budgeted time) but i'm hoping to be able to get a few stories churned out (yes, including the cotn novella) this summer before the semester starts in the fall and podcast resumes!

weird questions for writers!

[compressednerve]

25 and 27 for the fic meme please 🙏

Thanks for the ask!!! :D Big rambling ahead <3

"25. What did you use to write? (e.g. writing programs, paper & pen, etc.)"

Most of my writing skill is fleeting based off how functional my brain is working that day, so I tend to go back and forth between hastily typed notes in Discord and attempts to flesh things out in google docs-- both of which I don't really love, but they're online and I can link the files easily to @parasitefun who's my creative partner and helps with my processes. I loathe the spellcheck/grammar function on docs! I used to write exclusively in notepad or OpenOffice back on my old computer but I find OpenOffice in general... lacking.

I wasn't taught to read or write in the uh... traditional way, so I usually have an exorbitantly difficult time with actually formulating sentences. So I guess using Clip Studio Paint is another program I use for writing, because I need to storyboard, assemble timelines of events, sketches of emotions... what have you. It helps me in "assembling" the information required for a plot, but usually I just end up scrapping the fic entirely and condensing it down to a comic or a few paragraphs attached to an illustration... for example, here's some sketches from a few weeks ago while I chip away at my millionth attempt at a chaptered longfic, this time now featuring Yung Northmoor!

Whether I complete this as an actualized comic or intermittent illustrations, or keep them as sketches for referencing certain vibes of the scene, is mostly up to luck if I even can keep the momentum up to carry the work to the finish line 😔 I am also extremely shy and precious about my WIPs most of the time, I feel like my sketches are very vulnerable... which is unfortunate because I finish maybe 15% of the pieces I start!!! This is due to CTE though, and thus for the most part cannot be helped at the moment. I think for 2024 a resolution I have is to try to hold myself to finishing at least one Large Project a month, cuz then at least I'll have 12! :D

Recently I ..........acquired.......... Scrivener which I hope will help with a lot of the messy notes and outlines become more organized. It's an old version of the program though, and I can't figure out how to make the text of the UI any larger which makes navigating the program itself a pain. It's also very informational dense. Which is. Difficult and maze-like for me to comprehend sometimes. Multiple times in the past few years I've bought corkboards, pushpins, notecards, and other utensils to try to help make physical note taking easier, but my arthritis makes my handwriting dogshit to a point where I can hardly read it myself... and we don't have the physical space for my pepe silva act XD Maybe some day, though!

"27. Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic?"

I wish! I never really thought of doing anything special for finishing fics- most of the time if it's not painstakingly planned out like above process described, the only time I get anything finished is if I do it all in one single sprint... hence so many abandoned WIPs... It's hard to take something to the end when so much of my ability to even start it is based off random whims! I think I get the genuine ability to write, coherently and cohesively, maybe every few months. I'm inspired and writing fic in my head pretty much all the time as a part of my psychotic processing as filtering my distorted reality through the lens of characters and scenarios has been one of my main perceptions of the world from a young age due to childhood schizophrenia, but capturing it in actual words and sentences that other people can actually read is a whole other basket!

...So, I guess nothing really, other than a large sigh of relief and a feeling of release in having finally achieved what I was hoping to achieve, or at least, an approximation that's close enough to it that I'm satisfied. Maybe this is my sign to try to incentivize finishing things by setting up a reward if I can manage! :D

[dairy-farmer]

hi! i have posted a few batcest fics but i was wondering if u had any tips on getting more involved with the community, mostly on twitter. i don't have a twitter acc dedicated to it yet but i follow some accs on my priv (yours included obviously) and the way people add onto threads and talk to eachoter abt it is really exciting. i'm nervous tho because i've never had an acc for something my irl friends aren't into and idk how to get mutuals or if it's okay to reply to tweets from people that don't follow you. i hope this made sense i'm just really scared abt reaching out to ppl

hi!!! first, i want to say it's so touching that you'd come to me for advice ❤️❤️❤️ 🥺🥺🥺. i'll do my best to give you the best advice possible!!!!

ive actually only been active on the batcest side of twitter for a few months (august was when i got more active and started following accounts)! before i got into batcest i didn't really go on twitter but so many talented people are on there and make such amazing tweets and au's i basically go on there once a day now haha 😄! that's probably because outside of places like discord there's really no concentrated communities or places to interact with people who like batcest in a way that feels more...active? on tumblr you can go weeks or days without every directly interacting with someone. tiktok is hostile to anyone with a brain plus it can show your videos to complete steangers outside of your intended audience which can be....yeah. instagram isnt bad but it would definitely be a weird way to interact. ive heard that facebook groups can be fun but how that pans out with 18+ content is...

from what i can tell most batcest accounts are pretty chill however i'm only speaking from the perspective of tim centric accounts. in terms of things such as "etiquette" there's only a few things most accounts do to sort of identify and differentiate each other.

- if you're following nsfw account or making nsfw tweets be sure to include that in your description whether that means having 'minors dni', 18+, 🔞, your age and an nsfw warning' it varies.

-you don't have to do this, in fact i don't even do it but it might make it easier to find mutuals, and that's to include your favorite ships in your bio as well! mentioning things like jaytim, jaydick, brutim, brudami, etc. a lot of batcest accounts have multiple ships that spread over different characters so them listing it makes it easier for people to see what they're about!

-inluding the link of your ao3/linking your twitter in your ao3 fics is a good way for people to follow your work! a lot of people might recognize your fics if they click on your ao3 fic and you can become mutuals like that!

in terms of how to interact with other accounts i get being nervous!! i definitely was when i first started posting my tim tweets!!! even now when i interact with mutuals i've been interacting with for a while I still get a little nervous sometimes!

but i do have some tips that I think have helped interact with others and keep it fun for everyone!❤️❤️❤️

- if a tweet talks about 2 specific characters or a specific ship and you really like the idea but don't care for the ship don't directly reply to the person saying something like "THIS but with x- instead would be so good!". i know wanting to give recognition for an idea is tempting but it's rude to try and change the intent of someone's tweet.

instead: you can make your own tweet and include something like "just saw someone on my tl talking about x-topic and now i can't stop thinking about y+z in that situation-" that way you're acknowledging the outside source but also not changing the tune of someone else's tweet

- if a lot of people on your timeline are all talking about the same idea and they're all coming out with their own spins and you have no idea who started it that's okay! twitter can be a bit of an echo chamber sometimes and no one's going to go through all their mutuals and find who tweeted what first. plus the very nature of art is that it often repeats itself.

if you want to join in: you can say something like "my tl is full of people about x and let me just say that-"

- emojis are your friend! i use them a lot because i have a hard time reading tone from text and think everyone else might too. when you're reading something it's hard to pick out whether someone is joking or saying something sarcastically without any indicators (ex. /joke /sarcasm at the end of a sentence, wrItInG LIkE tHiS tO MakE suRe someone knows they're being mocked/made fun of).

adding an emoji can really help change the tone of what you're saying making it sound less like you're stating a fact or making a demand or some other misinterpretation.

ex:

he deserves it.

vs

he deserves it 😈

he doesn't deserve that!!!

vs

he doesn't deserve that!!! 🥺🥺🥺

you just like torturing him don't you.

vs

you just like torturing him don't you 😭😭😭

you can tell there's a few tonal differences between the statements which helps ease the slide of interaction (at least I think so!) by making it clear you're joking or being humorous.

- it's common to see people adding onto each other's threads and while you may be nervous about who is okay with it at first, the general rule of thumb is that on twitter anyone can add on to anyone's thread or respond whether you follow them or not (i don't think anyone will even notice who is following who) but if it does make you anxious you can click on their profile and look at their replies to see if they've replied to other people's threads or been replied to.

you can reply even if two people are already having a convo, you can just split off and start a new one! ive seen and had multiple split off convos with different people from the same original thread who all had different ideas or things to add on.

ultimately a lot of conversations on twitter are people prodding each other's brains for their shared interests and mutuals come about from people seeing that someone has similar interests and is talking about them and so follow because they also like that thing and would love to see more of people talking about that thing!!!

try following people who share a lot of your interests in terms of ships and characters.

mutuals may take a little while (in some cases ive done two scrolls of a person's account and immediatly followed them back without any interaction because we both clearly had the same interests) if you want exact steps of how that might happen you could start with

a. commenting on people's threads. telling them you loved it, reacting to it, sending emojis. etc.

b. send tweets about your thoughts, headcanons, aus, etc. don't feel discouraged if no one likes them yet you're just starting!

c. after you've gotten comfortable with commenting with an account you can start adding more to the interaction, adding on, proposing a direction for the tweet, etc.

these are just a few of the things ive learned and seen and nothing here is fully concrete either so if you feel more comfortable doing something else then feel free!!!

besides in the first conversation i ever had with one of my current mutuals i revealed to them that i'd secretly written an entire fic about one of their tweets even though we'd, until that point, never talked even once 😭

i guess what I'm trying to say is: go for it!! you never know, it might go a lot better than the worst case scenarios you may be thinking of!! ❤️❤️❤️

[javisjeanjacket]

Writer Appreciation - RINI🌸

 Hellooo! It’s that time; appreciation time! Yay!! I feel like writers deserve more love for all that they put into their work, so I want to help them feel loved. I will be posting a short interview like this every week for 5 weeks, so be sure to give my gals some love!

This week I'm featuring Rini!! Rini was the first writer I read that made me think more abstractly about my own writing process. Her imagery and attention to detail is amazing! ( @kaminobiwan​ ) loves immersing herself in fantasy and spending her time learning about other universes (particularly Star Wars). Her desire to write came from spending hours pouring over random databanks and information, discovering tiny and overlooked factoids, and thinking, ‘What if they can go to use?’. For her, writing is basically an excuse to publish all the things she’s discovered in her obsessive research. She hasn’t been writing fanfiction very long, but she is thriving so far. Her strengths are in rhetorical analysis and report writing, and she tries to show that in her writing. Karina loves all of her pieces for different reasons, but if she had to choose a favorite, it would be ‘Cannonball’. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

1. What inspires you to write?

“Cannonball was the reason I had any and all other ideas for fics, essentially, so my inspiration for that continuity is best described as a way to legitimize that entire story. My other works were written to basically add and add all these things and backstory that built up to this one moment. I suppose to do so some other ideas had to be fleshed out first before I could drop Cannonball and it would make any sense, but truthfully, I wasn’t really ever writing with a “release order” in mind until now. I was was just taking little scenes that had been replaying in my brain for awhile and bringing them to life through storytelling.

For the clones, it’s different-I don’t have as much of a timeline that I’m following when I write installments for any of them. Instead, I’m focusing on traits, rather than moments, and then taking a deep dive into what’s led to that trait’s development and how it affects them both mentally and physically. Asking ‘What’s going on inside your brain?’ Perhaps that’s why most of my angst is written for the clones!”

2. When did you realize you liked writing for fun? 

“I suppose always, really! My favorite subject in grade school was always English, so even coursework writing was “fun” to me. But particularly with fic writing, I think it’s more of a creative release that had to be done in a sense. My motivation comes a lot from the idea of ‘writing the fic you’ve always wanted to read’, and in that sense, I get a lot of fun from it. Especially with the leisure of combining my love for endlessly reading about the SW universe!”

3. What is one thing a reader has told you about your work that you hold close to your heart?

“I’m sure you’ll hear this from every writer you talk to, but every comment really does make me feel so appreciated and loved! When I first started writing, I used to screenshot every reblog and read the reviews and tags over and over with a huge smile on my face. But, what really hits close to home is when people notice my details and compliment my characterization! My dedication to portraying the characters just the right way is where most of my time goes into, so when people point out how a small sentence was so powerful or that my depiction of the characters is so perfect, especially since most of my writing is in the character’s point of view, not the reader’s. I know that’s not one thing, but it’s just too impossible to pick a single review!” 

4. Do you drink coffee or tea when you write? 

“I don’t drink coffee ever, but I do drink lots of tea. However, when I’m writing, it’s neither-it’s almost always water that I’m drinking, lots and lots of it!” 

5. Have you ever had writer’s block? How did you overcome it? 

“Never until right now, actually! It’s less of writer’s block and more of indecision on which piece to write next...a lot of the WIPs I have are warring for my attention, and there isn’t one fic that’s standing out against the others so it’s a game of writing whatever idea comes to mind and sorting everything out to be more organized. I think it’s because I have multiple things in the works, so it’s different from taking one idea at a time and giving it all my focus. 

In the past, whenever I’ve hit a wall in my progress, I’ll just skip around to a different scene - I’m a very non-linear writer, and some of my longest fics have come together from writing the meatiest parts of the story and realizing that they should be connected - like Cannonball! Other than that, retreating to research and just re-reading the characters and places you’re trying to bring to life always helps, too.”

6. Lightsaber, blaster, or crossbow?

“Lightsaber, all the way.”

7. Someone on the Jedi Council is a vegan...who do you think it is?

“Definitely Yoda. I imagine rootleaf soup is the SW equivalent to replacing everything with tofu. He seems like a tofu guy.”

[eyesontheskyline]

(about the whole fic writer asks, except those answered now) the story specific ones have to be about 'but if you really hold me tight' - I love all your cxg fics and it's the longest one :D) it's just I'm thinking of getting back to writing and since you're of my favorites authors out there now i'd love to get some insight. kudos for being cool about it!

Hello!  Okay first of all thank you so much, that is a ridiculously big compliment and my face hurts.  And yes yes yes you should definitely write if you feel like writing - just go for it!  If you have any specific questions or you want a pep talk or whatever, message any time :) 

Okay I’m gonna put these under a Read More because wall of text.

2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?Right now only Crazy Ex Girlfriend.  I wrote for Criminal Minds under a different name then had a gap of several years.  I’m pretty far removed from CM now but I can safely say writing for CXG has been a nicer experience community wise (partly a smaller fandom thing and I suspect partly a demographic thing), and there’s more established character stuff to work with because all the character development isn’t like…  Crammed in the five minutes they have to work with either side of the crime solving.

3) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.I don’t really do either, but reader inserts are kind of a squick of mine honestly, so I’m gonna say OCs.  I’ve only written OC kids though.

4) What is your favourite genre to write for?I am not entirely sure what this means…  Fic genre?  Original media genre?  I have only ever written romance or friendship stuff for TV shows, an odd balance of fluff and angst?

5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?Mmm let the sun inside has a special place in my heart because it was the thing that got me back into writing after a really long gap and turned out pretty much how I wanted it to.  Writing it was just a very intense ‘I am writing again and my brain is on fire’ experience for me.

7) When is your preferred time to write?I would love to have a less dysfunctional answer to this, but probably between 1 and 4am unfortunately?  That can’t be a thing on work nights because I get up at 6.30.  If I can get myself on a roll early afternoon in a coffee shop though, that’s a better feeling.  Just… Less common than ‘the rest of the world around me is asleep and my brain just woke up’.

8) Where do you take your inspiration from?Oh everywhere.  The media I write fic about.  The stories I read. ��My life, my friends.  The world.

9) In but if you really hold me tight, what’s your favourite scene that you wrote?Oh god I really don’t know.  This story is really hard for me to have perspective on because of the ridiculously time pressured way I wrote and published it.  I’m probably proudest of chapter 12, where they discuss the ‘do we want a baby’ question properly, because that just…  Is an important conversation that you don’t really see in media?  I’m not sure it’s the best writing in the story, but I’m glad I didn’t chicken out of it.  I also enjoyed writing Rebecca meeting Plimpton Senior in chapter 19, because that feels like an opportunity the show missed and I will never see enough versions of it in fic honestly.  (Do you have a favourite?)

10) In but if you really hold me tight, why did you decide to end it like that? Did you have an alternative ending in mind?That one was pretty much always going to end where it did – just because of the format, it was always going to end in a fluffy happy place around midnight on the 1st of January 2021. The last chapter was going to be longer originally, with more characters getting a moment, but it was just getting kind of unfocused – Rebecca POV can handle tone shifts pretty well I think because of the way her brain is wired, but at some point it all just got a bit messy so I pared it back.  I think I’m pleased with how it turned out, but the chaos of writing it is still fresh enough that it’s hard to tell!

11) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?Nah, but I’ve fixed typos (thank you @what-the-elle-n!)

13) Who is your least favourite character to write for? Why?I find Valencia and Paula pretty difficult.  I love them, but I struggle.

14) How did you come up with the title - You can ask about multiple stories.(Since it says multiple and since I only have 3 currently…)  Everything I’ve published for CXG so far has had song lyric titles – mostly because I am not good at poetic turns of phrase, and I like lyricists who are.  (I’m also not a particularly romantic person, and I like lyricists who are!)

let the sun inside is from Ribcage by elbow.  The full line is ‘I wanted to explode – to pull my ribs apart and let the sun inside’, which feels to me like that feeling of having bottled everything up for so long that you just can’t feel anything anymore until you kind of break down and come out the other side?  And Rebecca = sunshine, so.  That is basically the premise of the story, so that was a stroke of luck.

the landing light is from K2 by elbow (I swear I listen to other music, they just have words that really lend themselves to fanfic titles lol).  I have a whole meta thing written to publish alongside the last chapter about why this song for this story, but basically the line is ‘Dickhead’s done a runner and he’s wondering if anyone cares – is the landing light on?’ which is just someone far from home feeling a bit stupid and homesick and wondering if there’s anybody waiting at home for him.  And of course Nathaniel comes home to a totally miserable situation and there Rebecca is.

but if you really hold me tight…  It had to be a lyric from a Christmas song, preferably one Frank Sinatra sang at some point, because that was the playlist I started listening to in mid-October while outlining this madness.  So it’s from Let It Snow, obviously, although that exact line is not in that version, ssshhhhhh (he sings ‘but if you’ll only hold me tight’).  I chose it because R&N being a team and getting through stuff together in a mostly-fluff-but-not-entirely way was kind of what I was aiming for, and it just felt like it fit.

15) If you write OC’s, how do you decide on their names?I kind of have an OC coming up in a story I’m writing now, and I just… Knew who named them, and tried to choose a name those people would choose.  I don’t really do OCs much in fic, but in not-fic (it’s been a while!) I try to go for a name that (1) means something, and importantly (2) I can imagine their parents having named them.

16) How did you come up with the idea for but if you really hold me tight?So a writer I used to read a lot from the Criminal Minds fandom did a Christmas fic a couple of years in a row – one short, mostly fluffy chapter for each day from the 1st-25th of December.  So that was the plan.  Except as soon as I started outlining it, I knew I couldn’t write an entire month fluffy and problem-free for these two (for anyone, but especially these two), so short and fluffy didn’t stick!

17) Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.“I’ve gotten better at a lot of things since you’ve been away, but my self-deception skills have taken a real hit.”

18) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?Yeah, I abandoned a few Criminal Minds fics.  I still feel bad about them actually – I get comments on them occasionally. (On the offchance anyone reading this is someone who feels nervous about commenting on old stories – these delight me in ways you cannot imagine.)  I ran out of steam in a lot of ways – I started them without any real idea where I was going and wrote myself into a corner, mostly, but also I was starting to really struggle to write unprompted.  I am not the most mentally well person, and I just got my brain into this spirally tangle where I thought nobody wanted to read anything they hadn’t asked for, so I filled a lot of prompts but couldn’t convince myself to write anything else.  It feels really weird to think about that now, which I guess is a good sign…

19) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?I toy with following the emotional arc of S4 but following let the sun inside sometimes – that was the plan, when I originally finished it and was panicking that I would never get another idea.  Also, but if you really hold me tight created a world of warm domesticity for R&N that I felt really sad leaving behind, so I would probably like to write in the timeline again.  And the landing light might get a oneshot sequel, depending on whether I end it the way I think I’m going to or the way I was originally planning to…

20) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?No, not in this fandom.  I’ve only written two endings though!  I’ve ended on some real cheeseball final lines in the past though.

21) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?@heartbash, who can do plot and slow-burn in a way my impatient ass will never be capable of.  @justwanted2dance who deserves a million flame emojis and writes BDSM stuff in a way that makes my anxious brain comfy enough to enjoy it (literally nobody else has achieved this).  @pictureofsoph1sticatedgrace who writes the loveliest fluff and is a badass individual.  @notbang and @anthropologicalhands and @catty-words and @akisazame and @romansuzume who write beautifully and can do those poetic turns of phrase I am not good at.  I’ve got to be forgetting someone but wowww there is so much talent and creativity in this lil room.  So many people to be inspired by.

22) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?God yes, but not in this fandom.  It’s fine, 19 or 20 year old me, you were learning.

23) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?Silence.  Or like white noise or the Hufflepuff Common Room 10 hour ASMR video on youtube or something lol.  Anything with words just ruins me – my attention span is laughable.

25) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?Ha yes actually, but I’m really not entirely sure why.  Sometimes my brain is just a really weird place to be.

26) Which part of but if you really hold me tight was the hardest to write?It depends how you measure hardest, I guess.  Several of the smut scenes just said ‘[insert sex]’ for the longest time, sometimes with descriptions?  So like ‘[insert feelingsy sex]’ or whatever lol.  In terms of getting voices right (like to the point of still being unsure whether it’s any good), this gurl group chapter.  

27) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?It really depends.  Usually I know roughly where I’m going and how I’m getting there and that’s good enough for me, but my NaNo fic got an outline because of the format and timescale. And I’m planning a thing with an actual plot arc (gasp!) so that’s getting an outline, in the hope of making it look vaguely romance novel shaped.  Basically it depends on the length of the thing for me, and how plotty it is.

28) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?Writing advice: if you’re struggling to move past a particular point, the thing you need to change is probably a few lines back.  It’s rarely the last line that painted you into the corner. If you think something needs to come out, paste it into an outtakes document – you might want to put it somewhere else later, or salvage lines from it or whatever, and it’s just easier to let go if you’re not actually hitting delete.

Posting advice: remember fandom is community – everyone is here because they love the thing you love.  They’re gonna be excited there’s a new story to read, and they’re rooting for you!  (Write the thing!)

29) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?Nahh I mean, it’s a smaallll fandom.

30) In contrast to 29 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?Again, smaaalll.  (Also I try not to publicly eye roll at things other people love even if they are my things – there’s nothing quite like loving a song just for the band to be like ‘ugh I fucking hate that song’, so I always try to keep that in mind.)

31) Send me a fic recommendation and I’ll post it for my followers to see! (The asker is to send the rec not the answerer)You did not send me a rec!  Feel free to send me one now!  In fact, open call, everyone send me fic recs, even if I’ve definitely read them.

32) Are any of your characters based on real people?Mm no I don’t do OCs.

33) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?I mean, I enjoyed hearing that someone read my story in the corner at a party lol, especially because it was a chapter I was pretty pleased with and nervous about.  Also any time anybody says something I wrote is a headcanon or ‘this should have happened in the show’ is a glittery feeling. When somebody notices a little clue or detail that isn’t obvious, it makes me ridiculously happy.  Humans reading my thing then saying something about it is still crazy, so, yeah.

34) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?Story time: my old fandom has this one character who has a lot of pretty hardcore stans.  I mostly dislike the word stan but like…  Yeah.  So anyway, I got an email saying I had a new comment on my ficlet collection (keeping in mind I was in my ‘very unhealthy relationship with feedback’ stage at this point), and clicked on it all happy, and all it said was ‘I didn’t read this because another comment said it doesn’t contain enough *stanned character* and you really should warn people upfront that he isn’t gonna be in it, I’m glad I didn’t waste my time on it’.  Which was just…  A bizarre comment.  Like, commenting to say you didn’t read the thing is weird in itself, but also you list the characters who are in the thing, not all the ones who aren’t?? Anyway, I then went on my tumblr and I had several anon messages that were just straight up hate along the same lines and…  Yeah.  The Criminal Minds fandom was a strange place. On a related note, have I told you today that I love you, CXG people?  I love you.

35) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?I am basically always up with talking stuff through with people.

36) Can you give us a spoiler for one of your WIP’s?This is actually difficult to do right now.  There’s a baby?

37) What’s the funniest story you’ve written?I mean, I made myself laugh a couple of times in my festive fic, but I’m more of a ‘this one line is funny’ writer than a ‘this story is funny’ writer.  I’m too angsty!

38) If you could collab with any other writer on here, who would it be? (Perhaps this question will inspire some collabs!) If you’re shy, don’t tag the blog, just name it.This question is faaar too terrifying.  I’ve actually never collabed with anyone, I’d love to though.

39) Do you prefer first, second or third person?Third.  I think because I’ve only written for TV shows, no matter how closely you’re following one character, if you’re seeing them on a screen, you’re in third person.  So it’s just an extra struggle to make that jump to another POV for me.  I have written my not-fanfic mostly in first though, and I’ve read some lovely fic in first and second.  I’m just not good at it.

40) Do people know you write fanfiction?One person.

41) What’s your favourite minor character you’ve written?Hmmmm who is minor, really?  I find AJ difficult but fun.

43) Has anyone ever guessed the plot twist of one of your fics before you posted it?I don’t write anything plotty enough for this to be a thing!

44) What is the last line you wrote?“Mm, because you know how irresistible your weird old timey voices are.”

45) What spurs you on during the writing process?I want people to read the thing, honestly.  It’s a ‘reach out my lonely haaand’ moment with a little less melodrama.  I want it to be out in the world doing what it’s meant to do.  I also want it to be finished so I can read it – I get a very particular kind of happy feeling from reading a good sentence I wrote.

46) I really loved but if you really hold me tight. If you were ever to do a sequel, what do you think might happen in it?Lol it felt really weird to type that in there when you didn’t actually say it directly, but you said all so here we are!  I’m just gonna take that compliment even though I wrote it…  When I started coming to the end of writing that story, I started to feel really sad about leaving behind the warm domestic feel of it, so if I ever feel more domestic fluff coming on, probably it’ll be set after that.  

47) Here’s a fic title - insert a made up title. What would this story be about?You did not insert a made up title!  Although insert a made up title has potential for Rebecca hounding everyone she knows to help her title a song she wrote.

48) What’s your favourite trope to write?Is ‘let’s have an actual conversation about this’ a trope because that’s my brand so far!  I haven’t written anything particularly tropey, I don’t think, although the pull of ‘omg there was only one bed’ is strong right now!

49) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?Yes!  It was a Criminal Minds fic, Hotch/Prentiss, canon compliant (ish) missing scenes kind of deal.  I can’t remember the first CXG fic I read, which is ridiculous because it was a lot more recent.  I started writing CXG fic before I started looking for it, because I hadn’t been inspired to write in so long that I didn’t want to scare myself away.  I read some before publishing, but I can’t remember where I started.

50) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?I can only dream of being mentally stable enough to have a consistent answer to this lol.  Angst comes more naturally to me, but writing angsty characters into happy situations is one of the ways I make sense of the world, so…  Fluff, maybe, as long as I can keep the characters screwed up, because they just…  Are.  And like, same.