#people have written fics and poems about them before and they make me go ~ bananas ~

[agrlsname]

Thank you @therealsaintscully for the tag! I'm soon about to post what might be my very last fic, so it's quite fitting to look back on my journey now.

How many works do you have on ao3?

38 – all Johnlock, except for one GO fic. On New Year's Eve I will post number 39!

What’s your total word count?

371,360 (will soon top it off with another 221 words ;))

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

What Friends Do (by FAR), Who I Really Am (personal fave), The General Idea, Coldness/Heat, Tomorrow's Song

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

At first I responded to every single one! And I still try to respond to every single person. But now, I sometimes only respond to the last one if it's a reader who's commented on every chapter and I get all the comments at once. I like staying connected to the readers, that's one of the most fun parts about fandom!

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

It has to be This Is Your Song. I mean, there's another one within a series that end in an angsty cliffhanger, but MCD surely has to take the prize?

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Oh my, nearly all of them have happy endings – so what would count as happier than happy..? Maybe it's actually the one that isn't posted yet – stay tuned for the resolution of the New Year's Kiss series!

Do you write crossovers?

Nope. I've written a fusion though (Johnlock and Moulin Rouge!).

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yup. Some people get really angry at John in What Friends Do and they take it out on me. It's interesting because many MANY others adore the story with all their hearts! I even wrote a sequel from John's POV just to try to get people to understand, but the haters didn't understand anyway.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Even though at the beginning I said I'd never, half of my works are now rated E or M. What kind? Um, is "emotional, gay sex" a genre?

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I hope not!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Many of them, into five different languages! Coolest thing ever.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I think I'm too pedantic for that. I've loved working with my beta on some poem translations, though, that The Sky is Full of Fiddles is based on.

What's your all-time favourite ship?

38 fics – you all know it's Johnlock, right? There are others that I love, but nothing can ever compare.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I don't have WIPs! I'm too much of a control freak and perfectionist when it comes to writing – I want to be able to change the beginning when I'm writing the ending. I don't even have unpublished WIPs – I hate the idea of leaving works unfinished. If I was still in those first years of writing frenzy, when I was single and didn't have a child, I'd have expanded on This Time – but as it is, I knew that I wouldn't have the time to do it justice. So I purposely ended on a cliffhanger that would still allow it to stand on its own the way it is.

What are your writing strengths?

Emotions, according to my beta! If you ask me, I'd say describing things – often emotions, I suppose – in new, poetic ways that play on different senses and therefore make them immediate. It's something I love reading myself, anyway, so it's something I've been practicing for... well, decades now. I'd like to think I've gotten at least somewhat good at it.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm weirdly bad at coming up with the small details that aren't important, but needed. A recent example is I needed a character to text another with an invented problem to try to get him to come over. It wasn't at all important what the problem was, but it also couldn't be just anything; it had to be in line with his character. I could not for the life of me come up with this problem myself – eventually my husband did it for me. So those kinds of details in my stories are rarely from my own brain!

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Hmm, well, I've tried not to do that. As a reader I find it annoying to have to look things up, or scroll down to the notes. I have three fics in which characters aren't English; in This Is Your Song I added a couple of "Bonjour"s for flavour, which is about as far as my own French knowledge reaches... In the Fiddles series they're Swedes and speak my mother tongue, but I've written everything in English except for the words that English doesn't have (like for example "polska", a kind of dance), and at the very end, some song lyrics that are then translated into English in the end notes that come immediately after. I did want to add that song for flavour, but I didn't want it to be annoying.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Johnlock! I started in the aftermath of season 4 back in January 2017 and then couldn't stop.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

I'm wondering whether I will come back to fic writing at a later point, but for another fandom. I've long wanted to write more for GO, although I already have written one fic. It would probably be a lot of fun to write for OFMD too. Doctor Who maybe? I don't know, it intimidates me to write for a new fandom where I don't yet know the characters as well as I know Sherlock and John.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

This question is too cruel! There are so many of them that I love. Maybe I have to say The Sky is Full of Fiddles, after all – it holds such a special place in my heart for many reasons that go beyond the story itself (although that's true for several fics). Other faves are Your Daughter, The Zebra Sheets and of course Who I Really Am, which I'm liking enough to turn it into a novel I'm now trying to get published. See, I couldn't pick one!!

I'm on Tumblr way too sporadically to have any idea of who's already done this and who hasn't, so I don't dare tag anyone... Feel free to take it and tag me if you feel like it!

[canisalbus]

Hi um, I know you're cool with fanart, but would fanfic of Vasco and Machete be okay and if so can we tag you when we finish it? 👉👈 Weeeeee... kinda wanna write like a BILLION words about these two from seeing all your art and canon about them.

-Stars system

Absolutely! I love seeing other people's interpretations of Vasco and Machete and I'd consider it an honor if they inspired you enough to want to write something about them. If you do, tag me or dm me a link please, I wouldn't want to miss it.

[taliesin-the-bored]

Tag game: tag nine people you’d like to know better.

Tagged by: @oneshoulderangel (Thank you for tagging me!)

Last song: At the moment, I have "Losing Your Memory" by Alan Star stuck in my head, which I suppose makes it my current song, not my last song. Hm. I get songs stuck in my head very easily, but the last one I had there for a significant amount of time was a mashup of different language versions of "Les Rois du Monde" for about a week. "Lehetsz Király", the Magyar version, is probably my favorite of them. It's worth a listen.

Currently watching: Normally, the answer would be "random mostly terrible old movies/shows" or "nothing much", but I currently have a hyperfixation on the musical Roméo et Juliette and have been watching it in multiple languages. (Thus, the song).

Three ships: This is hard. Maybe as a result of being on the ace and aro spectrums, I'm more likely to care about which characters are interacting than whether it's romantic or platonic. Here goes:

Kedivere/Bedikay. It can be romantic, platonic, or queerplatonic, but whichever way, I'm here for it. I probably spend too much time thinking about how in Cullwch and Olwen, when Cai gets mad at Arthur and marches out, Bedwyr stays behind, keeps acting like nothing's happened, and isn't the one to avenge Cai's death. The feeling of betrayal on both sides has a lot of unexplored potential. And the version where Bedivere dies and Kay fights to bring his body back safely while mortally wounded himself... And the version where Bedivere survives Camlann and Kay isn't said to fight in it, so they might be left together after their world has fallen apart...

Platonically or queerplatonically, Galahad and the Grail Heroine. I really like the tragic Grail Quest friendships, but I like theirs most, maybe because there's something weird and otherworldly about them both. I like it when characters are strange and endearing and doomed by the narrative.

Ever since reading John Matthews' retelling, which I read before the original, I've had a soft spot for Caradoc and Guinier. The Story of Caradoc is very disturbing, and I have some major qualms with Caradoc over a detail Matthews cut out, but all the same, there's a reason these two have the best track record with magical fidelity tests. Each of them would go to the ends of the earth for the other, and together, they're stronger than any curse.

Favorite Color: Blue, particularly royal blue and some teals.

Currently consuming: Black licorice with chocolate.

First ship: This is a hard one, since through elementary and most of middle school, I tended to go along with whatever I thought the author's intentions were and was more likely to unship something. The first non-endgame ship I got invested in was Sonya/Nikolai in War and Peace. I didn't like Nikolai, but Sonya did, and she was my favorite character, so I wanted her to be happy. The first non-canon couple I thought was meant to be together was also in War and Peace: Marya Bolkonskaya and Julie Karagina. My eighth grade self did not think their letters could be interpreted platonically. I still don't.

Last movie: If the musical doesn't count, the last movie I watched was Quest for Camelot, which was awful. Though not Robot Monster-level bad, Robot Monster has an elegance to its simplicity which Quest for Camelot lacks.

Currently working on: Various fics, most of them Arthuriana or CotRK-related (I am woefully behind on the Badfic Bingo), and (theoretically) an epic-style poem, though I haven't gotten much of it written for quite a while now.

Tagging: @gawrkin, @emperorcandy, @wildbasil, @gorewound, @knightsofsomethingorother, @ladyminaofcamelot, @tasosotaso, @amashelle, @gingersnaptaff (I have no idea who's been tagged so far, apart from the people on @oneshoulderangel's post, so I apologize for any multi-tags)

[annaraebananawriter]

Day 1 - Stars

Hello all! I come bearing a new fic for a new ship week. This one (created by @starsanspolyweek) (which is also me) is for the Star Sans Poly ship! It's so fun to explore how much they mean to one another, and I thought about doing a ship week for them a few years back, but only got the courage and motivation to start it last year. So sorry about not posting anything for that one--I honestly just didn't get anything written. But this year I have!

I will try and update daily, though today is the only full day I have pre-written. The others are mostly a handful of words, or a blank page. We'll see how it goes.

Without a further ado, happy reading!!

Fandom: Undertale, but specifically UTMV

Characters: Dream (Who belongs to Joku), Blue  (Who belongs to P0pcornPr1nce) and Ink (Who belongs to Comyet)

Pairings: Star Sans Poly/Pre-Star Sans Poly

Warnings: None, actually, now that I think about it. Let me know!

Summary: "Dream is not mortal. His brother, Nightmare, is also not mortal. They are both gods. An incident in the past involving both of them forced the hand of the other gods to create a new rule: Mortals and Gods are not to interact, let one infect the other with knowledge they should not possess.

This rule becomes a problem when Dream becomes infatuated with two mortals, Ink and Blue."

Word Count: 4420

***

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen:

***

The tree was always Dream’s favorite place to watch the stars. Nothing beat climbing up to the furthest branch, using skills built upon centuries of practice to get up with the ease and grace as a nimble forest animal would naturally have, using the same skills to balance there on a branch that would’ve cracked had he been anyone else.

Being so high up got him so close to the sky, so close he could almost feel the twinkling lights kissing him. He could spend hours there, crouched in the tree, staring up at the wonder most didn’t think twice of.

Correction: he has spent hours there. He often got so lost in the beauty of things that he forgot to return home, and so his brother would be forced to come and retrieve him. Though he’s often said to Nightmare to just let him be, and though his brother often agrees to do so, forever annoyed at having to leave their house for any reason, he is often going back on his word, there at the base of the tree to call him home before sunrise without fail, every night.

Tonight, it’s still early enough that he knows he has time to watch. He settles in, leaning against the trunk, eyes searching the sky for anything and nothing at the same time. If he were an artist, his fingers would itch with a drawing. If he were a writer, it would be a story or poem instead. He is neither, however, so instead all he does is look.

That is enough to content him.

Mostly.

He does sometimes wish he were more creative. Sure, he can sketch something and have it end up half-resembling the original idea, and he can string together a short story with a simple theme, but they both end up crude and childish. That’s not a bad thing overall, it just leaves him unsatisfied, forever envious of those who can do them.

It’s funny, really, that in all the centuries he’s been alive, he has never mastered the art of art. So many other things he can do with his eyes closed. Never art. The closest thing to it is baking, maybe gardening, both things he can do well enough. Healing might be considered an art in itself, but it’s not paint and words and colours and metaphors. It’s not something people will look at for years with awe, not something people will hang up on their walls or in galleries. It’s simply a skill to help others, as is his duty and job—the only thing he is ever frustrated by.

He doesn’t hate doing his job. No, he does enjoy helping people. It makes him smile when he can dry a child’s tears with some warm magic on the knee, or when he grants a miracle to a family who now needn’t worry about the cost of a funeral for someone so young. In fact, he prides himself on doing good, spreading laughter across the world. He loves the stories told of him, the kind way they portray him in artwork, and he’s flattered by the statues of him in temples. It’s all something he enjoys.

That doesn’t mean he can’t find it uncomfortable at times.

One of the very first things people decided about him was that he was never selfish. He was always working in favor of others, always, no matter the demand or price. As the people have sway over how the universe works, he is bound to this fact. He can never act for himself, not without it also benefiting others. In the beginning, he hadn’t minded this, naïve to there being a different way to live, but when he found out he was the exception to the general rule, he couldn’t help but find it unfair.

Yes, he is not mortal. That shouldn’t mean he cannot be as free as them.

He should not have to bend to their whim, pick up after their messes, make every tiny wish come true. He should not have to heal all their scraps, paper cuts to broken bones, and he should not have to drug them to feel happiness, his aura meant to be something soothing and helpful in a crisis, not something to get addicted to.

Through the years, he’s grown so irritated that the common belief about him is that he enjoys being seen as a slave. It is simply not true at all. He enjoys helping people, yes, but he does not enjoy how it is half of what people see when they look at him. He is so much more than that. He is the sun and the stars and the light of your home, the lightness in your chest. He is the pleasant morning breeze against your flushed skin as you close your eyes and bask in it. He is the relationship you have with your closest friends and family, the way they know you better than yourself, that unspoken trust that they will be there to hold you when you fall.

He is so much more than a helper.

Dream is a God.

Yet, the laws of the universe dictate that he never speak about his wants, for that would be ‘—blasphemy for suggesting that we have free will like the mortals. We do not. We serve Fate, and Fate tells us to serve the mortals, to act the part they want us to play.’

Nightmare is a stickler for the rules. He never used to be. He was once as dissatisfied with the role mortals gave him while he had not been able to see what he meant, too wrapped up in the glitz of attention. Time has seen that their roles flipped over. Now, Nightmare insists he remember the laws, remember the role he plays, the one both of them play. What happened all those years ago changed him so much…

Ah, but he rambles. As he always does when watching the stars.

It’s time to clear his mind, lean his head back against the bark and fall into his trance. Crickets are abound on the grassy floor of the hill below, providing a symphony as he follows his own instructions, stretching his leg out along the branch. On a whim, he plucks an apple out of the air, biting into it, letting the juice fill his mouth.

It makes him sigh, this simple act of savoring what he eats, especially since it’s not needed. It is something he wanted, and so it was something he did.

A small rebellion, if you wish to call it that.

Closing his eyes, he took another bite.

He should eat more often. It’s a pleasant experience, and the taste is amazing. This apple was just one of the many edible things out there, too. Perhaps he should try an orange next, or maybe one of those sweets he’s heard about. Something to consider the next time he comes to the tree to watch the stars, that’s for sure.

When he opens his eyes again to look at the sky, he finds himself looking at a face instead. Freezing like a deer caught in the hunter’s gaze, Dream looks at the face in front of him, eyes wide.

It belongs a skeleton monster, that much is obvious, and it’s eyelights do a curious thing he’s never seen before. They change. Shapes and colours, they change as the monster blinks, making him fascinated. He’s never met a monster whose eyes change colours. It’s intriguing to watch, and he wants to ask this monster how his eyes work. Does he pick the colours and shapes? Or do they just happen? Does he know his eyes change, or will the news surprise him?

And then he remembers the new law, instilled after Nightmare’s incident: Mortals and Gods are not to interact, let one infect the other with knowledge they should not possess.

Remembering it, and realizing this would count as a violation of the law, makes his eyes widen even further, something in his stomach churning uncomfortably. He starts to panic, thinking of the repercussions of this act is found out, how it will affect Nightmare, since the universe is much more willing to blame any fault of his onto his brother.

The apple slips from his hand as his grip loosens.

The mortal catches the apple before it falls too far to salvage. “Hello!” The mortal says, grinning. His eyes change again, distracting Dream from his panic for a few moments. There’s an ink splotch on his cheek. Is he aware of it? “What brings you all the way up here?”

“Um…” Dream says, and then his panic returns, engulfing his line of thought. Automatically, he tugs at his magic, giving it the order to teleport him out of this interaction before he gives away more than he should.

Unfortunately, he does think of a destination along with the order, so he blinks and finds himself falling, having only teleported below where he was sitting, in a space without any branches to catch himself with. The beginning of a scream escapes him before he manages to wrench his mouth shut. It’ll do no good to draw even more attention to himself, not now. The best he can do is keep quiet and begin to teleport again.

Before he can give the order, he is caught, his hand instinctively clenching the fabric of a shirt. Blinking once, then twice, he breathes heavily as it sinks in that if he was caught that means…he looks up at the face of another mortal, another skeleton monster at that, who is looking down at him with concern, checking that he is alright.

Then, his face changes, jaw clenching, and the mortal looks up at the tree. “Ink! You were supposed to ask him why he was up there, not scare him into falling!” The mortal shouts up at the other one.

Ink, Dream thinks. How fitting, considering the splotch of the substance on his cheek.

The mortal who caught him does not have the changing eyelights of his companion, but that does not mean they are any less fascinating. They are blue, a bright blue that almost seems to glow, contrasted by the darkness that surrounds them. It’s a trick, he knows that—and really, the only eyelights that can glow are his own, a tell that he is not as mortal as everyone else—but it still makes his heart skip a beat.

Sounds of leaves being shaken come from above their heads, and they watch the other mortal—Ink—hop down. At first, the height he jumps from makes Dream panic, a feeling echoed from the mortal whose arms he was still in. Or maybe that feeling came first and he was the one that echoed it. Emotions were vague, that way. Landing perfectly fine, though with a bit of a stumble, Ink does not feel regret for making them worry, instead just laughs at them.

“I didn’t mean to, honest!” Ink says, grinning first at his companion, then looking down at Dream, blinking. His eyes change again: two question marks, different colours. “I gotta say, it’s weird that you got down here so quickly. I mean, I know you fell, but still. I didn’t hear any branches break or anything. The only leaves on the ground are from me.”

He’s observant. How terrible. Not only will he have to scramble for an excuse to leave as soon as possible, praying that he makes it home before anyone can get suspicious, he will have to find a way to avoid these questions.

The companion answers before he finds any words. “Don’t be silly, Ink, he just fell. That’s it. There’s nothing different about him.” He says the words pointedly, as if referring to something only the two of them understand. What were they talking about?

No, no, don’t ponder that!

Just go home.

Except he’s still in the mortal’s arms, and now he’s been in them so long, it feels too awkward to ask him to set him on his feet. That is the only reason he hasn’t moved, he tells himself, and nothing to do with the fact that it’s comfy here.

Ink scoffs, throwing Dream’s apple in the air and catching it. He takes a bite out of the other side, opposite from where his marks were. For whatever reason, the fact that this mortal is eating his food makes his cheeks burn. “You don’t know that. I’m telling you, there’s something off about him! Something…magical.”

His companion—he really must discover his name—shakes his head. He feels exasperated. Obviously, they have had many conversations like this. “Magic doesn’t exist.”

Unable to stop himself in time, Dream flinches. To proclaim that magic does not exist in front of a God, a being comprised of and birthed from the rawest form of magic, knowing you were in the presence of one or not…well, that hurts. It’s like someone denying a piece of you exists, no matter how much proof is written down, how many times you explain it to scholars and historians. It’s like they shake their head, telling you that you are the uneducated one, and referring you to a handful of resources that provide all the reasons as to why, exactly, you’re wrong about yourself.

Ink sees this flinch. “Ah, but he flinched when you said that! Why would he flinch unless you wounded him personally?” Grinning in triumph, he walks closer, standing in front of them with his hands on his hips. There is a small bit of apple stuck on the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps it’s time to ask the man himself. What say you, Magician? How do you explain traveling such a distance in such a short time?”

As the mortals wait for an answer, Dream swallows.

The only way to get out of this is to lie, which goes against everything that he is; God of Honesty and all that. Which is different from truth, yes, but it still holds the same restrictions. He cannot lie here, not fully. But there are many ways to lie and perhaps he can use that to his advantage by taking a page out of Nightmare’s book: avoidance and omission.

Yes, this will work. Or else he risks all of them being in trouble.

“Uh…” Dream says, swallowing again as he draws on his courage to raise his eyes to meet Ink’s. The changing eyelights are trained on him with unwavering attention. Clearing his throat, Dream tilts his head, pushing a curious expression to fall over his face. “Your eyelights change, did you know that? I’ve never met someone like that before.”

It’s a very clear avoidance, much like seeing someone you don’t want to talk to, making eye contact with them even, and deliberately turning and walking right back where you came from. Ink doesn’t call him out on it, though, instead just hums. “I see, I see. You want to keep your secrets. I guess I can respect that. A magician never tells, correct?”

“They’re very pretty to watch,” Dream continues as if he hadn’t replied.

Ink stares at him some more before shrugging. “Alright, Magician, keep your secrets. Maybe you’ll tell me your trick one day.” Now that his topic seems to be finished, he smiles, putting on a show of blinking and unveiling the brand-new eyelights. “Thank you! They are my second-best trait, if I do say so myself.”

Dream blinks. “Second-best?”

“Yes,” Ink laughs, eyes scrunching up. New eyelights appear. “They’re fine, but I’m used to them by now. It doesn’t excite me as much as it seems to excite you.” Sending him a wink, he reaches into his satchel, which is sat on the ground on a blanket he had been too preoccupied to notice before now. There are other things scattered on the blanket, a few snacks, and a telescope aimed up at the sky.

Finding what he’s looking for, Ink holds a notebook in front of him. “But these are much more interesting. I say this with modesty, of course. I would never proclaim myself one of the greatest artists of my generation.” With a hand on his heart, and a grin on his face to say how he really feels, he offers the notebook to Dream, who reaches out to accept the notebook but falters, remembering he is still in the arms of the other mortal.

Isn’t he tired yet? His arms must be aching by now. He is not a light God, certainly would not come across as a light mortal. But the mortal doesn’t appear to really notice him in his arms, content to stand as long as needed. Still, even knowing he wouldn’t mind holding him for a while yet, it feels like he’s being mean by taking a notebook to look through, lounging in the arms like it was his idea. Certainly, if he does this, he would come across as selfish, and as already established, this is something he cannot do.

But how to explain such things to a mortal…?

Ink seems to notice his dilemma, and he smirks at his companion. “Are you going to hold him all night, Blue, or are you going to allow him to stand on his own two feet again? I’m sure you’ve had plenty of time to make sure he was uninjured.”

His companion—Blue, Dream thinks to himself. How appropriate, with eyelights the essence of the word itself—jumps as if just remembering he is, in fact, holding someone in his arms.

“Oh, I am so sorry! I didn’t think to—I didn’t mean to—I’m so sorry.” He doesn’t seem to know how to explain himself, stuttering and starting over as he sets Dream on his feet. When he looks back at him, Blue is blushing, flushed from his neck up, the colour just as bright as his eyelights as it glows. Ink is laughing in front of them, not even trying to hide it.

Dream smiles, laughs a little himself, patting him on the shoulder. “If it helps any, your arms are quite comfortable.”

Blue’s blush deepens. “Thanks.”

Taking the notebook from Ink, he first runs his fingers over the cool sensation of the leather cover. He’s unable to tell what colour it is exactly, too much of the pigment sucked into the darkness that surrounds them—which reminds him of another problem. “It’s too dark to see your art.”

Ink looks up at him as he plops himself down onto the blanket. He’s still eating Dream’s apple. “Ah, right. Forgot it was night.” Laughing at himself, he shrugs. “I guess you’ll just have to borrow it and wait till morning to look at it.”

Blue frowns at Ink, having walked around Dream and is fiddling with the telescope. “You’re giving it away? You never give your sketchbook away.”

With those words, Dream’s hand stills, fingers hovering in the air, a hair width away from the cover. Never? What made him so special, then?

It seems that’s Blue’s question as well, the one not spoken aloud. Ink shrugs again, answering both of them at the same time. “I’m not giving it away forever. It’s not like he’s just going to keep it.” Pausing, he looks at Dream, appearing for the first time this night nervous. “Are you?”

Dream shakes his head. “Of course not! I understand how important your art is to you artists. I would never steal it from you.”

“Right.” Gesturing at Dream, Ink continues talking to Blue, “See? I’m not giving it away. I’m letting someone borrow it.”

“Yes, but you never do that either.”

“There’s a first for everything.”

Silence rings in the air as both companions fall silent. He cannot help but feel that an unspoken conversation was just had with those few words, a conversation he is not even somewhat aware of. Like Ink said—a first for everything. What did they talk about? Was it about him? Must’ve been. Was he really that important to them?

Oh no, he didn’t interrupt anything, did he? Is he ruining something by lingering here? Well, he is, but is he ruining something for the mortals, too?

It’s best he leaves, quickly now, before—

“Are you going to sit down, Magician?”

Blinking out of his worries, Dream clutches the book to his chest. “Pardon?”

Ink tilts his head back, looking at him upside down. “Are you going to sit down, join us? I promise you; we don’t bite.” Another pause. “Not unless we have to.”

Blue smacks his arm. “Ink!”

Ink laughs, the sound beautiful, filling the quiet as if it was always meant to be there. “What? Just telling the truth. You really have nothing to be afraid of, I swear it. We’re out here to test run Blue’s telescope, that’s all—he built it himself, you see.”

Mouth opening in surprise, Dream draws closer, inspecting the telescope. It’s true. It’s made out of a mixture of wood and metal. If he reaches a hand out to touch the barrel, he runs the risk of getting a blister. Despite this, it is pretty, the rough wood a nice texture, the cool metal that frames the edges, that makes up the legs and the viewing port a nice difference, a good compliment. He cannot see too many details—again, too dark—but he can tell that a lot of work was put into it.

Shifting his gaze, he finds Blue’s gaze. “It’s amazing. How did you build it?”

Shrugging, gaze dropping back to his fiddling, Blue mumbles. “It’s nothing special, really…just wanted to make something to look closer at the stars…”

Beside him, Ink groans. “Don’t be silly, Blue.” Scooting over, he leans against Dream’s back, his breath warming the side of his skull as he whispers into where his ear would be if he was based on a human. “I keep telling him not to be so modest. It never sticks.” Getting louder, he leans forward even more, pointing at Blue and his telescope. “You built it to prove to your classmates that you didn’t get into school by chance. You built it because you knew you could. You built it with your heart, with determination—that’s how you built it.”

It seems Blue is unused to so many compliments in a row, the flush creeping back in, but Dream can tell that this is a proud flush, not an embarrassed one. “Bit more to it than that, but I suppose…and I can tell that I need to change the glass—I don’t think this was the correct cut. I need to change other things a bit, too, as it’s not zooming in as much as I want it to…” The longer he speaks, the more confident he gets, the more relaxed. He is in his comfort zone now, talking about his telescope, about the intricacies of it.

As he rambles, Dream glances over his shoulder to Ink, finding him looking at Blue with a smile far gentler than his grins were. This one, he can tell, is only used for moments like this, looking at someone he loves. Oh, how much he loves Blue…the emotion is like flying up into the sky, being among all the stars, all the lights, and closing your eyes and letting yourself fall, the euphoria in letting go.

It makes Dream’s essence pulse in tandem, like a heart skipping a beat.

However, in doing this, it reminds him of how different he is to these mortals. Why he puts them all in danger the longer he stays.

If Nightmare were to catch him like this…it would not be worse than the others, but it would mean being on lockdown. He would not be able to go anywhere without his brother breathing down his back, watching his every move, through his own eye or one of his familiars’. His brother is paranoid, afraid of what the others have done. If he sees this, he will worry that the others have as well, that the same thing that happened to him will happen to Dream…

He should leave. He should leave, right now.

But…

Tuning out of the conversation, Dream looks down at the book in his hands, runs his fingers over the leather, feeling an indentation where Ink has carved his name.

Ink has given him his sketchbook, obviously a weighted responsibility with the way they were talking earlier. Then there’s Blue and his telescope, which he built from the ground up with his own two hands, and the way lying in his arms was so comforting—he wants to know everything about them both. Why build things? Why draw things? Why create things?

These two mortals are the first ones he’s spoken to in a long, long time. Since before Nightmare’s incident and the law was fashioned. He wants to know how things have changed from last time, how much progress they’ve made as a society—he has heard of an Industrial Revolution, would like to know about it from the eye of mortals, maybe even see the changes it had made for himself. He longs for it, an ache in his bones that he cannot ignore any longer, has so many questions and two people able to answer these questions sitting so close to him.

It's dangerous to stay…but it would be terrible to leave.

The mortals deemed him selfless, to never act for himself. They might have had good intentions at first, but they quickly grew greedy with their order and wishes, and the gift turned into a curse, a prison. He has spent so long behind these bars, watching mortals grow close with one another, watched the others dictate the laws of the universe like they were the only deciding factor of it. He has watched mortals revolt tyranny all on their own, watched them write into their laws time after time some version of free will, that everyone has the right to be who they are, all of themselves, without judgement, without prohibition.

Perhaps the same can be true of a God…

Perhaps the same can be true of him.

There is a first for everything, and so Dream decides to try and be selfish, sitting down on the blanket to stay in the mortals’ company for a little while longer.

[wurmzirkus]

twenty questions for fic writers

@raylangivins tagged me in this!! TWICE! thank you sm and thanks for waiting so long, i love you

How many works do you have on ao3?

48! wow time passes quick

What’s your total word count?

354.554

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

unprofessional (432)

we are the next time around (312)

comet (159)

harder to hide than i thought (156)

prove it (112)

half of these i dont really wanna look at anymore lmaooo

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

i havent in a while but i DO! bro its the least i can do, getting comments is the nicest thing. i really love nerding about writing thoughts when they get a little longer...... imperial-evolution if youre reading this your comments mean everything to me

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

trying to figure out if there's something more angsty than those fics that just play with w359's canon ending. probably the kepler phonecall one.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

probably the kiradax fic i wrote that one time?? i really don't write many happy endings. the kepcobiwell timeloop had a pretty much perfect ending but like, the absolute trauma of it all puts a bit of a damper on it maybe

Do you write crossovers?

the last crossover i've written was in probably 2013/2014? which was a fic i wrote using my friends' and my ocs for their specific eyes only. the fandoms that i crossed over were uh. soul eater and the arthuriana. twas a jolly good time

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

nah, just one of those "ai content detected ☝️🤓" trolls

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

ive tried many many times. im bad at it! experience has shown im much better at erotic poems than prose :/

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

nnnnnno? most likely not

Have you ever had a fic translated?

nah

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

YEAH nammikisulora and i wrote the sequel of one of my fics together. it was soooo much fun, she's such a clever writer. as always, if you like kepcobi and youre not reading her fics.... what the hell are you doing

What's your all-time favourite ship?

i dont think i can indefinitely answer in an All Time way, but kepcobiwell sure did mean a lot to me. i havent written in a very long time and there probably wont be much of them from me in the future, but man. theyre something special

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

there was one kepwell fic i've been working on for i thiiiink over a year now, maybe longer. just the last sequence was missing which inclued kepler watching maxwell maim a guy and enjoying it wayyyy too much. i don't think it's happening but man. sure was a sexy image

and this is more of a wip than an idea, but i'm really sad i probably don't have it in me to write the wolf 359/severance crossover with kep undergoing severance... mo i think you and cherish and i were the ones talking about it agesssssss ago, and i think it would have been so good. alas alas.

What are your writing strengths?

i've been told i'm pretty good at writing intimacy and longing, and i think i'm good at putting multiple layers into characters' action and thoughts if that makes sense. also dialogue

What are your writing weaknesses?

ACTION................... terrible. i'm an all vibes no plot kinda writer :/

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i've literally never thought about it before. is this a big thing people do? i guess it depends on the context lmao?

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

first fandom i published on ao3 for was detroit become human, first fandom i ever wrote for.... well i wrote plants vs zombies fic when i was 10 or so, i think that counts

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

it's very rare that i get invested enough in something to actually write fic, so it's probably not going to happen again for a long ass while. it's been lots of arcane brainworms lately though. i really wanna write about sevika, i just don't think i could get the characterisation right very well. however. she's on my mind

What's your favourite fic you've written?

i dont know about favorite, but man i'm really really really proud of the comet sequel i finished + posted this year. i did so many things in there i was so pleased with, i could talk about it for so long. i think i really gave every character an interesting little arc to go through, i think i handled the emotional stakes of it really well. i watched the thing kinda go completely off the planning rails while i was writing and just, kept getting more and more excited about where it was going. and i was really unsure about how to wrap it up for a long time, so now i'm especially proud of the end. i think the final chapter is some of the most impactful fic i've ever written. just really happy with it all around :')

mo this was so much fun thank you for tagging me!! i shall tag @agentmika, @imperial-evolution, @unsureprincess, and anyone that would like to give this a go!!

[lgbtqreads]

hello there! this isn’t exactly a rec request, but it is something i’ve thought about a lot over the last couple of years — and i thought i could maybe ask you or your followers for some advice on it, since it sort of pertains to the idea behind this blog, if that’s okay?:)

so i’m a writer, and someone who reads a lot of queer books, and also someone who’s really passionate about seeing more queer books with characters from lesser-known places, with lesser-known queer identities, etc.

being someone from a place that’s definitely not as widely talked about as say, the usa, with a somewhat ‘complicated’ queer identity that i haven’t quite seen reflected in books before, and also someone who loves to write… i really want to write a book with queer characters who are similar to me and the queer community around me. but i genuinely can’t. and i know this sound stupid, but i honestly don’t know why that is.

the issue isn’t the writing itself, i don’t think — i write fic quite often, and a lot of the fic writing i do is about queer headcanons for characters. and whilst i’ve never written a novel before, like in a published sense, i’ve written a lot of (not fic) short stories, and have a couple of (also not fic) projects that could be described ‘almost complete novel-length drafts that i’ve put a lot of planning and editing into’

the problem is that all of these above projects were written before i realised i was queer. so whilst many of them have characters whose queerness is just a ‘casual’ thing that isn’t a huge part of the narrative — while that’s perfectly valid, it isn’t the sort of thing i’d like to write now.

i’ll often get ideas for queer novels or short stories i could write, and i’ll often try to outline those ideas. sometimes i even start writing these ideas — i’ve started so many of these projects — but i can never continue with them past a couple of pages, and i really don’t know why. i’ve tried switching povs, tried different genres, etc.

as i write this i think that some part of it may be that, for the past couple of years, most of what i’ve written has been fic; maybe i’m having a problem going from that to creating my ‘own’ worlds, even though i’ll often put more creativity into fic but that same creativity just doesn’t show up even when i only need a bit of it for writing that isn’t fic, lol

but i don’t know if that’s the whole problem. i write plenty of (not fandom related) poetry, but i can never bring myself to write poems that centre around the idea of queerness even though it’s a huge part of my life, even though i want to be writing poems about it.

i also wonder if the problem isn’t related to writing, but rather my life — i’m in a place where still forced be closeted, still living with homophobic parents and still living in a community that where i feel unsafe to even discuss queerness. although i’ve been able to write about, in a fandom and not fandom way, things that are also heavily disapproved of by those around me, like being mentally ill, so i don’t know why i can write about those things but when it gets to stories about being queer my brain just says ‘nope’

and this just… makes me really sad. i want there to be certain queer stories in the world, and i know that no one else can write the way i will (not an ego thing, just a ‘all stories are unique’ thing), and i want to create the stories i would’ve always wanted for others around me who want the same thing. i love this blog, and it always makes me so happy to see the amount of queer reads that exist, but i also kind of want to facepalm myself whenever i see the amount of stories on here because i always think, how is it possible that so many people can write what they want to but i just can’t, even though i also want to, like what is wrong with me, you know?

i’m so sorry, this got super long! feel free to delete/ignore, that’s also valid.

but after all of this my question is basically ‘i want to write original stuff that centres around queerness, can’t. does anyone have any advice, or has anyone been in a similar position and would like to share their experience’?

also really wanna say thanks to you and everyone who contributed to this blog, through rbs, replies, etc… seeing the amount of and variety of queer stories that people love makes me so emotional and grateful, and i love y’all for telling our stories and sharing them. even though i struggle with adding to this as a writer, that struggle hurts less when i know how much love there is for all of these stories that already exist<33

Well, I can only speak from my own experience as an author, but it is very much possible to be too close to something to be able to write it at that time... but it sounds like maybe it’s the idea of taking full ownership of a queer work from start to finish is really difficult considering where you’re coming from, or even an instinctive safety concern, and that certainly makes a lot of sense to me! 

You might try different points of inspiration, so that rather than fic, it still feels grounded in someone else’s source (e.g. my book Home Field Advantage was entirely inspired by a photograph from the New York Times), or maybe try working off one of your fics and just revising it so thoroughly that it becomes its own thing that way. Or, since you love poetry, maybe try a different form by writing a novel in verse? Could be a real fresh start to get you out of your head. 

I do hope you will find a way to put your work out into the world eventually, because while we do have many, many queer books, as you said, all stories are unique, and especially when it comes to stories from perspectives outside the US, there are certainly massive gaps I know would mean a lot to readers to see filled <3

[letsgoletsgetit08]

Hello new reader here 👋 love your writings! Especially the ateez soft hours posts. If you don't mind me asking this late, how about questions 3, 17 and 25 for the fic writer asks 💌

Thank you for reading and asking! The soft hour fic is one of my favorites, too. I may or may not have more of those planned 👀

3. How do you feel about your current WIP?

Well which one? I have several in progress at once bc I'm insane. The sci-fi post apocalypse Yeosang-centric multi-chapter fic (first 6 chapters are already published on AO3) has had me in a bit of a writer's block, but that's what gave caused me to write like my last 3-4 fics so I'm grateful for that reason. The other one I'm working on is Mingi-centric, it's probably the most scandalous and drama-filled one I've written yet and I'm pretty excited for it, I'm nearly done with the first chapter. It will also be pretty lengthy.

17. Talk about your writing and editing process

I get an idea and then I usually write the intro immediately because I find starting them to be the hardest part. Past that I'll put some planning notes in separate doc for lines I know I want a character to say or specific plot points I know I want to happen. That's as close to outlining as I get. Most of the content happens as I'm writing it in real time though, and I get my best plot ideas in the shower. I'm very bad about posting chapters as I write them rather than writing the whole thing first. None of my stuff is beta read bc I don't have anyone in my circle who would do that lol but I make myself read it three times through typically before posting unless I'm just too trigger happy and then I'm not above going back to fix grammar mistakes after I've published. Writing process is a bit chaotic tbh but I'm getting more organized! Probably!

25. Besides writing, what are your other hobbies?

I'm an avid reader, I'm in a Horror Book Club through a local bookstore in my town, which is fun and is like half of my personality atp. I write non-fan fic horror short stories and poems, too, and I really want to write a horror/mystery/thriller Ateez fic at some point. I also whined and begged until the some of the people in that book club agreed to start a DnD group (I didn't actually have to beg, it's just hard to wrangle a group of adults with our schedules) and we're on our first real campaign and it's so much fun, it's my - and most of our - first time playing. And since you asked, (no one asked) I'm playing a human bard based on a gender-bent Geoffrey Chaucer as portrayed by Paul Bettany in A Knight's Tale. Aside from that, I like to hike when the weather is nice, which right now, it is not. I'm also a multi-stan (ATZ, SKZ, Enha, TxT, The Rose, & P1H - don't tell Hongjoong) and a big music fan outside of k-pop so my vacation time tends to go towards concerts.

Thank you again for reading and for the asks! This was fun 🥰

[aniron48]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you for the tag, @anyawen! These were so much fun!

Answers under the cut, and tagging @sweetbabyangels, @mr-iskender, @stinastar, @aprettyspy and @thestalwartheart, in case you haven't done this already and it's of interest!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 30! That number seems astonishing to me now, considering I started writing fic in earnest like a year-and-a-half ago. 😁

2. What’s your total A03 word count? 138,358

3. What fandoms do you write for? James Bond, Glass Onion/Knives Out, and I just wrote my first fic for The Old Guard fandom, which has pulled me in by the lapels and refused to let me go. And the very first fic I ever wrote was for Stardew Valley.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? 1. A Good Man (Benoit Blanc/Phillip) 2. rain (00q) 3. open line (00q) 4. The More Loving One (00q) 5. Must Love Cats (00q)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Ok yes I definitely do and I love to *and also* I'm so sorry, I'm 288 days (yes I just checked) behind in responding to comments, because this year has been...something else. So, taking the opportunity to say that a) all of your comments are incredible bright spots for me, and b) I am working my way steadily through and enjoying your comments all over again as I re-read and respond to them.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? WELP (eyes my pile o' fics warily). If we go based off the fics with "Major Character Death" as a warning, for a certain value of angst, it's a tie between offering and and the wind at their backs. But both of these fics deal with grief, and the complicated emotions that result from the persistence of love even after the object of that love is gone, and there's some hope in that, too, I think.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? lmao most of the rest of them other than the two in number 6? 😂 this is a hard one to answer, so I'll list my RomCom-iest fics for now (Must Love Cats for 00q and in a space that they belong for The Old Guard). Special shout-out to 'tis the damn season, though, because the happiness at the end of this fic feels like some of the hardest fought, to me, and some of the tenderest I've written, I think.

8. Do you get hate on fics? No--I've gotten a few less than diplomatic comments, and a couple people making unflattering notes in bookmarks that I don't think they meant for me to see, but nothing terrible.

9. Do you write smut? ::offers you rain and for the age of the earth, and after as if I am a sommelier presenting you with some very fine wine:: "this one has notes of--" you know what I'm just going to stop there.

10. Do you write crossovers? I haven't yet!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? No, thank goodness (knocks on wood).

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not yet! #goals

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Use. Your. Words., which was a collaborative poem for 007 fest 2023. 😁

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship? I spent about five minutes hemming and hawing about this but you know what, it's impossible to pick. 😂

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Like Anyawen, I have aspirations of finishing all the ones hanging out in my Scrivener app...someday. Probably the one I have the most doubts about is a 5 + 1 fic where Bond tries out different activities post retirement. I still love the idea and some of the vision I had for this one, but it lives almost entirely in my head, still.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think maybe I have a good ear for language, both in terms of the rhythm of sentences and paragraphs, and for conveying a character's voice or accent. But it's hard to assess your own strengths, sometimes, so that's just my best guess!

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I'm actively working on trying to be better at descriptions, especially in giving details about setting or background. I realized I give these things short shrift, sometimes, and want to change that!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'll do it with languages I'm fluent in (and have done it with Spanish, since I'm a native speaker).

19. First fandom you wrote for? Stardew Valley, in What Dreams May Come.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written? Omg, another one that is almost impossible to answer! I think I have to go with all the flags we've hung. This is one of my least popular fics--it's a rarepair, the love depicted in it is complicated (though no less real), and it deals with light topics like, you know, structural racism in the United States. As one does. But it's a fic that's incredible close to my heart, for many reasons, and I remain so proud of this one.

Phew! If you have read all of this you deserve a cupcake. 💜

xoxo, Ani

[ardent-fox]

New Year's Ask Game for Fic Writers ✍✨

I decided to complete this game to help me reflect and possibly get back into writing regularly again, I was not tagged but here's a bit of self-indulgence nonetheless 😊💙

To close out 2023…

1) What fic did you have the most fun writing this year and why? Or, if you can’t decide, what was most fun about writing this year for you?

I've only completed and posted one fic this year/ever and about a dozen Galladrabbles, and had the most fun writing humorous dialog whenever it was sprinkled into them.

2) What’s a scene/story that you finished and felt “wow, I really accomplished that, that actually went so well”?

The mechanics of Mickey getting fucked and jerked off at the same time in Everything, followed by describing his and Ian's orgasms. I've never written erotica from a male perspective before fanfiction and had no idea how I was going to do it, but am pretty satisfied with the results.

3) What helped provide the most inspiration for stories, if anything? Was it poetry? A song on repeat? A gorgeous gifset? A walk outside? A book you read that made you want to change everything? Whatever it was! Tell all.

Music, I make playlists for most of my WIPs. Everything had only a couple of songs, the most prominent ones being Colorblind by Counting Crows for Mickey's and I'll Be Your Lover, Too by Van Morrison for Ian's perspective. Also the poem "My God, Why Are You Crying?" by Molly Peacock, which I discovered while going through a Reddit thread about people crying during sex, doing research is sometimes inspiring in itself.

4) What is something you want to share about what you’ve written this year? A particular line, a comment that made you feel really good, a scene that was difficult to write — you get to choose! What do you wish someone would ask you about when it comes to what you’ve written?

This little tidbit in Everything that I managed to write after coming back to what I thought was an abandoned fic five months later, capturing Mickey's conflicting feelings about making noise:

The beginning of a sob emerges and he gulps it down, flinching when he feels Ian nod encouragingly against him. Rather, he dips his head, cheek resting on the back of Ian's hand as fresh tears quietly leak from him, a rogue one snagging on Ian's wrist before sliding down. "Hey," Ian gentles, hand stirring beneath him. "Don't have to hold anything back. Can be as loud as usual." He wants to, he truly does. Pleasure builds deep within him, its sounds catching in his throat, begging to be freed. Other noises tether themselves, too, ones he'd rather not bring to fruition, and he draws in his bottom lip to keep them at bay, the stubborn desire to hand-pick them denying him the deliverance of any. Restraint coils around him and he clings to it in turn, actually praying Ian doesn't stand for it and finds a way to cut it down, his authority easier for Mickey to give in to than his own permission to be vocal.

Also, all the beautiful comments I got for the fic and all the reblog tags I got for my Galladrabbles, I always screenshot those so I can easily find and reread them whenever I need a pick-me-up 💕

And to start off 2024…

1) Do you have any writing/creation goals for the year? What are they?

Just to write more without any expectations and see where it takes me, whether it's fanfic or personal stuff. Make it fun, write with abandon and focus more on the process than the final result, more on the emotions I wish the story to evoke than on the construct of things. Try to finish up most of the Gallavich WIPs I've had going on since summer of 2022, but not be afraid to drift away if something else inspires me in the moment and just write, write, write.

2) Is there a fic or idea that you’re really excited to be able to continue to work on in the new year (shout out to my fellow fic writing folks who take forever to finish wips, sometimes it’s nice to be able to continue working on something even if you wish you’d gotten it done! Now you get even MORE time with it!)

There's one domestic/fluff/angst communication-centered Gallavich fic I got the idea for and outlined not long after I joined the fandom, but thought I needed more practice before writing it that I feel ready enough to jump back into now, so that's very exciting. I also have a 13K WIP one-shot of gratuitous smut that I wrote for Kinktober 2022 that I was 90% done with, but scrapped because I used my then limited resources to complete Everything instead, and I'd love to give it a rewrite and complete it. There are ideas brewing for a Blackbonnet fic as well, but I'd rather wait and see whether we get a season 3 before delving into it, since I prefer to write post-canon. Also continue Galladrabbles, my dear 100-word morsels that are super fun to write and allow me to experiment with different themes and styles which I can later apply to other projects if I see fit.

3) What’s something new in your writing you want to try/are going to try? A different writing style? Different fandom? Darker works? Fluffier? Longer or shorter?

I'd like to work on being less rigid in my sentence structure, play around with length/pacing in order to convey the mood better. Stop focusing on counting how many times I've used a certain word and switching it out even though it fits perfectly, not allow editing to suck the joy out of things in a way. I'd love to write more at a faster pace, too, but since severe brain fog prohibits me from writing a single coherent sentence on particularly bad days and that a 7K one-shot took me 6 months to write + 2 months to edit, I'm just content with keeping my motivation strong and spirits high while writing at whatever pace I can manage. I'd also like to experiment more with angst and see how I navigate difficult, dark, traumatic topics as well as possibly try writing in the past tense, as I'm not sure a present one is the way to go for every fic.

4) What’s something you love about your own writing that you will continue to appreciate in the new year?

My ability to dive into a character's psyche in order to describe their feelings and reasonings in complicated situations, all the while making sure I sprinkle at least a tiny bit of humor along the way. I'd love to continue playing with themes such as healing through communication and sex and working out their kinks as a couple, both in and outside the bedroom, all in favor of emotional breakthroughs that strengthen the bond between them. If the level at which I'm able to portray a character's vulnerability matches the enthusiasm I have for exploring it, I reckon I'll stay on the right track this year.

Tagging @lupeloto, @crossmydna, @metalheadmickey, @gallawitchxx, @whatthebodygraspsnot, @ian-galagher, @squidyyy23, @bawlbrayker, @secret-gallavich, @juliakayyy, @look-i-love-u, @thisdivorce, @mmmichyyy, @howlinchickhowl, @callivich, @lingy910y, @arrowflier and @sam-loves-seb in case you haven't done this and would like to, otherwise just ignore the double tag and accept this cookie as a token of my adoration 🍪🥰

[revenantghost]

[20 Question Fic Writer Game]

Tagged by @faindri and @pancake-breakfast!

How many works do you have on AO3?

18! Most are poetry collections, so a lot of smaller stories in one anthology.

What is your AO3 word count?

75,144

What fandoms do you write for?

Trigun is my main squeeze atm (and biggest in general, I have four projects for it which is double anything else--and the highest wordcount, too), but I've written for KinnPorsche, Sabikui Bisco, Danny Phantom, Vampire In The Garden, Sasaki to Miyano, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Goncharov (yeah... yeah), The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window, Signalis, Omori, Lycoris Recoil, and The Executioner and Her Way of Life

What are your top five fics by kudos?

No idea and I ain't looking! Trad publishing has me extremely scarred from some nasty comparison wars, so I have kudo and view counts blocked on ALL fics, including mine. From my kudos emails, though, Hallowboned has to be my top fic for sure. Last time I was paying attention most of my other fics didn't pass into triple digits by a long shot

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do!!! I adore comments, and I love chatting with folks, it really keeps me motivated and chugging along. I am... very behind on replying to the comments on my last chapter rn because I feel so awful and guilty about having to quit writing

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

Uh... I don't write a ton of narrative fics, and I do love me some tragic poetry, but I guess the angstiest collection might be my Signalis one, Observable System Transcendence? But my Omori poem and the Trined Soul collection might be contenders, too

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

I mean, Trembling Hands is a Trimax fix-it fic, so? Though the Sasaki and Miyano collection, Effortless Dreams, is definitely the most tooth-rotting fluff I've ever slapped onto the page

Do you get hate on fics?

Oh yeah, I've had my poetry called pretentious and also not good enough to be poetry lol. It's been a hot minute since that's happened, people are just jerks sometimes

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I used to! Porn with plot, my beloved. It would be interesting to explore in poetry format, but we'll see if I have the time who wants to commission some poetry porn from me lmao

Do you write crossovers?

Nah, not my cuppa

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yeah, many moons ago

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but that is one of the coolest things fandom does. Loving a thing so much you spend the time to painstakingly transform that art into something you can read and share in another language, bro??? Translators are amazing

Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

I've worked pretty closely with artists a loooong time ago, but I've only written fics where I'm the sole writer. I have used other writers' ideas and outlines (with their permission, of course), but that's the closest

What's your all-time favourite ship?

I DON'T KNOW?!?! Shipping has never really been my main focus of media typically, but when one digs its teeth into me I go rabid in a completely feral but different way each time.

What's a WIP you'd like to finish but doubt you ever will?

))): All of them

Life feels kinda... really dire atm, it's hard to see ever writing again. However! God I want to finish Hallowboned SO BADLY!!! I have so many chapters written for it that I haven't even posted!!!!! Y'all haven't met Livio yet!!!!!! GAH 3:

What are your writing strengths?

Uh... ??? I'll be real, I've got no idea. I feel like I write so weirdly atm, it's hard for me to analyze in that kinda way

What are your writing weaknesses?

I tend to get really excited/into things and flit around and forget to explain or describe things sometimes. Thank god for having been well-trained to edit my own work. Not that I catch it all, but I try!!!

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I think it'd really cool, but I'd need a native speaker on hand to make sure I don't fuck it up in my own fic

First fandom you wrote for?

I think my first piece of written fanwork was a Danny Phantom Quizilla thing lmao, I'm old. I don't remember what it was about, just that it was ANGSTY

Favourite fic you've ever written?

Ah?!?! Honestly, each project is so different and written from such a different place, I've got no idea. I'm proudest of Observable System Transcendence being my longest, most consistent project (outside of my Smaugust collection, which isn't a fan project), Hallowboned being the first thing that really inspired me in ages--and the most indulgent one lol. But each collection and fic and poem comes from such a different place, and it's hard to pull them apart and pick???

Tagging:

Whoever wants to hop in! :3

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

4, 15, 22 please

4. How many WIPs do you have right now?

Oh jeez. Okay, so I’ve got two for The Untamed, two for Naruto, one for The Penumbra Podcast, one for Sweet Home. I’m not going into detail on those because you guys don’t care. And also, “in progress” is generous for them, since I haven’t worked on any for well over a year. I’ll go into more detail about the uhhh, nine Stranger Things Ones?? -Steddie Upside-Down AU - this is almost done!!! So close! I’ve also partially written four smaller fics from other people’s pov’s, so those could be argued as separate! But I didn’t count them that way lol. -Platonic Stobin Mind-Reading AU - this one!!! I’ve been thinking of it <3 the name says it all. The Russians gave them mind-reading powers, but only for each other. I have no plans at all for this fic. I just want hijinks and mostly fun. -Aro4Aro Stancy AU - this one’s almost exclusively just for me <3 and the premise is, wouldn’t it be both funny and tragic if two aro people were dating each other, had never heard the word “Aromantic before” and couldn’t figure out why they were so fucking weird about each other once they broke up? -Christmas - I’m going to be honest, this was supposed to be posted LAST christmas, but it’s a character study on Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve’s relationship with each other post Stancy break-up, and the weird in-between world where you’ve fought monsters together, faced traumas together, and also hurt each other irreparably <3 Or, it’s about their reactions to Christmas lights! -The Crash Bang Incident - Max crashes the car into Eddie’s van on the way to the tunnels in season 2 with Steve passed out in the back seat. Enough said.  -There There - Steve goes back in time, but Robin DOESN’T. He has a mental breakdown about this and makes it Robin’s problem, whether she likes it or not.  -The Red Strings of Crazy - character study of Robin just sort of, spiraling about trying to figure out what the hell is going on with Steve Harrington post his introduction to the Upside Down. She admits to being virtually Obsessed with him in season 3, so I totally think she has a murder board and stalks him about it because come on. She WOULD.  -Carol/Nancy - this is just porn…..I’ll probably never post it because I’ve never written porn. But! Carol sees Jonathan’s creeper photos of Nancy, and feels a certain way about them.  -Stobin Body-Swapping AU - this has no actual words of the fic written, but I’ve got like thousands of words of contradicting world-building. Pretty much, something happens in the future that kicks them back into the past in each other’s bodies. But not at the same time??? So Robin in Steve’s body will go confront Robin in Robin’s body, and she’ll be like, dingus…is that you??? And no, it’s past Robin. And Steve does the same thing. And they completely fuck up the timeline, because by the time they GET to the inciting incident in the present, Steve and Robin have both thought the other was crazy for YEARS because of all the yelling and accusations. This one may never get written, or if it does, I might say fuck the logistics and just go for the vibes because I cannot figure it out. 

15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters? 

Almost always, I start with a theme that’s prevalent in the work. For example, for the Steddie Upside-Down AU, I was ruminating on survival, and hope through adversary. Usually, I spin through my mental rolodex of poetry/songs, find one that fits both thematically and has something I like as a title (either in the lyrics/verses or the title of the work). In this case, it was “A Litany For Survival” by Lorde which is an excellent poem. I think used lines from the poem as chapter titles. This doesn’t always work, but it’s my favorite method! One of my other favorite titles I’ve found this way is an unpublished au where the main character can see ghosts, which I titled “with feet that make no sound,” from the poem “Haunted Houses” by Longfellow. Sometimes, a title just comes to me without this method, but creating chapter/fic titles is like my least favorite part, so this is the go-to method. 

22. Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

Sometimes, but rarely! I know how the Aro4Aro Stancy AU is going to end. The Steddie Upside-Down AU was entirely a wild card. Often, when I’m writing, I’m telling the story to myself at the same time as I’m telling it to any readers. So, if something wild happens, we’re experiencing it together!

[stinastar]

20 questions for fic writers

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 101! Wow! Keep in mind many are short, and one is an even shorter poem about eggs 🥚

2. What’s your total A03 word count? 188,209

3. What fandoms do you write for? I honestly don't know how to answer this properly haha. I still have drafts or thoughts for fics for Good Omens, The Witcher, James Bond, and Our Flag Means Death. I'm currently mainly into writing Jason Todd (Red Hood / Batman).

I just looked in my folder and I also have notes for a piece each for Lord of the Rings and Shadow and Bone, but it's unlikely those will ever be finished and posted lol.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Of Dragons and Heartbreak, we’ll rip up the map by the seams, Which Half?, Sweet Truth, The Dumb Brute and the Bardling. So all for The Witcher, unsurprisingly. I don't think this kind of metric means much, honestly. It just means it was a big popular fandom at the time, I was writing the most popular ship, and these had tropes people were after. I think, at least. I by no means think those are my best works, is all I'm saying.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Of course! I love love love getting comments and so make an effort to always reply to them. If I missed one I promise it was by accident!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I think that has to be you’ve got a second chance, you could go home. I'm still quite pleased with it. But people really wanted it fixed, so I did write a follow up :)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I honestly don't know how to quantify that 😅 Maybe Fire Me Up? The fic as a whole is very soft and sappy.

8. Do you get hate on fics? No, not really. I had one nasty comment a few years back from a fan that clearly hated a character and wanted to make that my (and others') problem, lol, and have had a few iffy comments here and there, but.

9. Do you write smut? Not reallllly. But I used to only fade to black, and have started dabbling in writing sex scenes a bit, so we may get there. We'll see. I didn't think I would, lol.

10. Do you write crossovers? No (that one crackfic notwithstanding, lol), they don't really interest me.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of 🤞🏻

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know of, but what an honour!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I don't think so, yet? I wrote a fic that went along with others, once, and I have a very neglected draft that I was working on with @ahh-fxck (sorry friend!), but I don't think I have a fic posted that I wrote with someone else...?

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship? You want me to pick between my precious babies?? lol. I honestly really don't know that I have one.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Pffft, sadly and honestly, so many.

16. What are your writing strengths? Dialogue comes quite easily for me, and I think I tend to do it well. The rest has been a WIP lol, but I think I've been improving!

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else. Ha!! For real though. All the stuff in between dialogue lol. Longer stories. Patience (lack thereof). I'm getting tired because kiddo would not GTFTS, so apologies if I'm becoming less coherent...

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Thoughts? I mean, I've done it, a tiny bit. I did a bit of researching as well as using online dictionaries etc, and I was lucky to find a native speaker to read things over and give their input before posting.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Good Omens. It honestly happened by accident.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written? Oooooh. Possibly Wintersong? I'm quite happy with it. What can I say, I love angst. That one isn't my most favourite kind, but I'm proud of it and love it.

Thank you for the tag @aniron48 💗 Tagging @major-trouble @cicerfics @brothebro @girls-and-honey @holycatsandrabbits and anyone who sees this and wants to tag on 😘

[shizuoi]

20 Questions (for fanfic writers)

thank you for tagging me @seek--rest ♡♡♡

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

81

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

468,946

3. what fandoms do you write for?

i dabble in anything that attracts my interest, but for the last year it's been exclusively lockwood & co!

4. top five fics by kudos:

my scorching sun, show me the way (marvel's eternals)

you'll find love with me somehow (marvel's eternals)

i can see your heart beneath your ribcage (you should save it for me) (enola holmes)

prepare for trouble (and make it double) (the magnus archives)

pulling teeth behind bottom lip (山河令 word of honor)

5. do you respond to comments?

yes unless they make me uncomfortable

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

i don't really write non-happy endings but you might think you've caught her (but you've blown your only shot) (tua) had an open-ended dark ending which was pretty ooc for me

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

dskjalhsgdfjkal literally close your eyes and click on any of my fics tbh but recency bias demands the hanahaki au heartburn (l&co)

8. do you get hate on fics?

maybe once or twice but i deleted the comments immediately and haven't thought of them since. i don't tend to write in very big fandoms so i fly under the radar for the most part i think

9. do you write smut?

do i ever :3

10. craziest crossover:

i'm more an au person than a crossover person; closest thing that would qualify would be the l&co now you see me au pros and cons

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

i...think so? it wasn't a direct copy/stolen per se, but it felt heavily inspired...

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

many times!! very honored every time people ask ♡

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

TheMalapert and RainShadow07 and i have a few things cooking (katabasis, permutations, a secret new series coming up :3)

14. all time favorite ship?

oh jesus this is tough but i can't say no to some good spirk

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

mm not sure, my interests bounce around a lot so sometimes i'll think i won't ever pick anything up again and then BAM inspo so i'm gonna cop out of this question LOL

16. what are your writing strengths?

dialogue and realistic character interactions and introspection. characters are very important to me and i always strive to do them justice by taking readers through their struggles in a compelling way that makes the outcome that much more satisfying. i also think i do a decent job at creating interesting worlds (on the surface)

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

following up with my previous answer, i'm good at ideating smaller/surface worlds, but my worldbuilding is pretty weak when you dig deeper. i do this on purpose sometimes because if i get too sucked up in the worldbuilding/situation, it throttles my ability to explore characters without feeling trapped and that really frustrates me. i have a fic im going to post this month that i did so much research for the world and parts of the character's backstory that i'm creating that i basically paralyzed myself for months because i was too afraid to write the character inaccurately in accordance with all the research i had done and knowledge i had accumulated. definitely something i would like to improve on!

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language?

when done with respect and intention, it's a very powerful tool. i have a fic that i'm writing where there's non-english dialogue and i think about this poem often

19. first fandom you wrote in?

young justice i think? (on ye olde ff.net)

20. favorite fic you've written?

til' veins run red and blue because it has a strange longevity on ao3 and every time i go back to read it just to make sure it's not bad i always emerge very pleased with myself LOL

tagging: @ohmyoverland, @synestheticwanderings, @woahpip, @dappledwrites, @lemonsharks, and anyone else who wants to partake!! consider yourself tagged ♡♡♡

[space-blue]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💗

Hey, hi anon!! Thanks a lot for this, I enjoy gushing as much as any fic writer :3

#1 and closests to my heart, is Fathers and Daughters

You can tell I was mentally ill about it, because I'm forever struggling to finish WIPs, the ADHD constantly going "Oooh shiny new idea? Just take a break, this will be a one shot" only to lie to me, or do it X times in a row. But not with F&D. I stayed glued on to that one.

Yeah I had a couple long hiatus, but I'm finally working on the last chapter and I can tell you I'm going to be taking myself out to dinner to congratulate lol

I passed 100k words!!! I never thought I'd manage. I don't think I'll ever manage again!

#2 Then the dreadful night shall break

A Dark!Obi-Wan fic. I had for a long time this back and forth with a friend, where we kept gifting each other more and more tortured Star Wars fics. So I originally made this a one shot focusing on the horrors of sleep deprivation (from first hand experience…) and how it might break even the kindest of Jedi.

Things snowballed and got out of hand, and it turned into what I think is my best Star Wars story. It's also titled after a line in Cradle Song by William Blake. I am weirdly obsessed with naming fics from his poems. Only him. IDK why.

#3 Never Too Late

Another SW story but on the other end of the spectrum, focusing on H/C. Set right after Episode 1, with Obi-Wan reaching out to Dooku, who hasn't turned to the dark yet. It's my second most kudoed fic ever after the 100k words one, so you know I was cooking and people liked the taste of it.

In general I love writing reluctant father figures, and Dooku - Obi - Anakin, at that time and place, are like the holy trifecta of reluctant daddies lol

#4 For Always

My Elden Ring masterpiece and foray into Monsterfucking. I was very sauced for "pubber" Maliketh the Black Blade, even before I played the game. I owe a lot to my friend Spiced for this one--without them there wouldn't be much fucking in this fic! I just like tragic hee-heem-whimper men and Maliketh is that but also with a broken mind, rags, a raspy voice, and paws large enough to make a doll out of us sooooooooooo…..

The irony is that this story has some of my most purple and stuffy prose, despite how horny I make it out to be. I really enjoyed this writing style.

Would you stay with him, henceforth? Would you cast away your humanity, sacrifice your mortality to give him companionship? Would you twine your fate to his? How you'd laughed, naive little thing, telling him that it was no sacrifice. You hadn't known better then, and he, a god, knew even less. He kissed you and licked at your throat. He felt you shiver and asked once more if you truly wanted this. You wanted him and immortality at his side seemed close enough. So you said yes, and he clamped his jaws down on your throat and killed you—one last time.

The sauce stings my eyes to this day. This is the good shit. I wish I could brainrot on characters like this at will.

#5....

This one is impossible to pin down. I have stories where I'm really proud of the writing. Stories where, like the one above, I still really taste the sauce, and the dynamic really appeals to me. Got plenty like that which would easily fit in 5th place. I could also mention the ones I still have very much on the fire, simmering even if they haven't updated in a while.

Fuck it. I'll go for Chosen.

A one shot I wrote while in Florence, often sitting out on a little balcony… It was such a nice place and such a sweet time… And I packed the story with these (bitter) sweet feelings and tried to explore what would happen with Anakin died killing Grievous, leaving Obi-Wan lost, and Ahsoka fearing nobody will chose to take her on again.

It also has some of my favourite prose ever, in the way I wrote (for the second and better time) the backstory of major blorbo Taron Malicos. Nobody ever cares about this bit but I think it's the best part of the fic LOL

Thanks again anon! I'm spreading the love now in my mooties' ask box.

[lohstandfound]

🥝🍔🍊

this got kinda long so

🥝Who are your literary influences, and have they shaped your own writing? I've said it before how M.L. Rio influenced the way I write dialogue. And playwrights and poets in general have had a slight influence on my fiction writing.

It feels easier to list influenced for my poetry. The main one for poetry is probably essa may ranapiri. Their first poetry collection, ransack, was focused on exploring gender through a non binary lens. Their second poetry collection, Echidna, is a mash up of Greek and Māori mythology and Christianity.

Also, in regards to poetry (mostly). My museum studies lecturers placed so much emphasis on being poetic and creative and bring wordsmiths when it came to writing assignments I had to convince myself to not write a 2000 word poem for a material culture study. However, the assignments focused on making museum labels gave me an idea for a poetry collection of writing museum labels for people I know. (Also, everything about my museum studies degree has 100% influenced deities au and I don't think I tried to hide that)

🍔What's a headcanon that hasn't made it into a published fic yet? I think most things find their way into a fic??

I think the only thing I haven't put into a fic is a potential concept for a few character's cultural heritage that is very much me projecting and very self-indulgent. The one I've put the most thought into is Jake and it is. Very much. Me projecting similar circumstances. I made a post about it a total of one time ages ago.

It stemmed from a random thought I had that if bmc was set in new Zealand, Jeremy and Michael would 100% go to Armageddon (which I guess is basically like comic con or any other convention). To which it lead me on a train of thought of what else would it look like if it was set in NZ and one of those concepts involved imagining them as Māori. The only one that really stuck with putting the characters back in, y'know, new jersey was Jake being white passing Māori with a huge disconnect from his whakapapa, knowing next to nothing about it. I have a lot of thoughts on it. But. y'know. Self indulgent projecting headcanons that will never make it into a fic. so ive never properly talked about it

in summary, i dont think there's a headcanon that i haven't managed to put into a fic yet.

🍊What's a story that changed significantly from its initial idea to the final draft? The basis of the poets fic is the same: Michael, Jake, Brooke, and Rich make up a poet quartet, working together to workshop poems and spitball ideas and perform at open mic nights. There's still a few unresolved issues between Jeremy and Michael, and Brooke and Chloe. And the poems are still the same.

The original version was so much more rushed and was resolved by Jake and Christine tricking everyone into a group therapy session.

I figured I could do it better, make it less rushed and actually take the time for mostly Jeremy Michael Brooke and Chloe to work out their feelings. Jeremy and Michael have already started, but I have plans for Brooke and Chloe (and Jake).

(In my mind, Rich and Jake have already worked through everything. Brooke and Jake are super close in this fic and I imagine Jake has written so many poems about Rich as a way of processing (what's this? Jake Dillinger has a healthy coping mechanism?) so by the time Rich approaches the trio to ask for help with his own poems, Jake doesn't hold as much anger and is much more willing to talk things through with Rich).

But now that I've taken it so far from the original plot, I'm not sure where it's going. I have a plan for an argument between Brooke and Chloe, and I want a Jake-centred chapter (but I need to write a Jake poem first)

[wordsandrobots]

For the writer asks: 7, 27, 40! Thank you!

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

The same joy I get from any creative act: that of seeing something come into existence.

There's something incredible about taking an idea, fleshing it out and giving it a presence in the world. Be it writing, drawing, baking, building, whatever -- it's just wonderfully satisfying. I tend to do a lot of stuff in my head before I go to the keyboard (planning, scripting, feeling out the words) so it's always exciting to get to the point of actually doing. Because then it's there, on the page, more than just an image in my head.

And that's magic.

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

Heh.

When I was starting on my Iron-Blooded Orphans fan-fic spree (is it still a spree at this point?), I decided I needed a new villain, on account of the previous lower-level villains in the show meeting various ignoble fates and also because no one really filled the niche I was creating. I wanted someone who appeared nice, reasonable and even sympathetic on the surface (that is, showed sympathy to others) but who, not very deeply underneath, only ultimately cared about seeing their work completed.

(I explain this straight-up two chapters into them appearing in the story; it's not remotely a spoiler as I never intended to portray them *as* what they appeared to be on the surface.)

Additionally, I drew on ideas around assimilation and integration as a key part of their deal. They deliberately cultivated an 'acceptable' persona in the face of institutional elitism to get the power required to achieve their goals. There's a whole mass of reasons that plays on my mind generally (short version: I'm English) but I thought that, in context of this show, it would be an interesting thing to explore.

And you'd think they'd stress me out because I decided to make them non-binary and emphasise how deliberately appearing exactly androgynous was part a deeply performative and manipulative personality, as a means of stressing the way hierarchical organisations both allow space for people to game the system by playing into the signifiers of 'properness' and enforce those signifiers as the barrier to entry, and oh gods and muses I hope I haven't accidentally dropped into bad tropes about queer people, they can be bastards too, argh, argh, doubt, doubt, look they're not the only NB in my story, their gender isn't why they're like this I swear!

Except then I decided to write an entire fic from their point of view.

Writing close third person for a character whose view of the world is extremely cynical and selfish while also trying to convey to the reader that it is wrong is, when you do it for 10,000 words straight, rather exhausting! It's not just that they're a nasty piece of work. I *like* writing villains, especially the horrible ones; it's fun to show why the villainy makes sense from the other side. But *this* villain and this specific brand of 'I am always right, my goal is all that matters, anyone who disagrees is an idiot' was actively taxing to write.

Maybe it was the length, maybe it was the ways it struck closer to home in the middle of the giant robot fiction, maybe it was simply that their brand of betrayal and self-aggrandisement is ultimately kind of miserable. All I can say is, by the time I finished Of Obsessions and Erotemes, I was kind of burnt out. Constructing their headspace took a toll like nobody else I've ever written.

I'd do it all over again, obviously.

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

Argh, no, poetry, my one weakness!!!

OK, one of my weaknesses!!!

But in seriousness, me and poetry are ships in the night. I have known some lovely poets and been awed by their ability with words, but I've never really sought it out, so what I do know is mostly thunderingly obvious snatches of my ambient culture.

However, and though I suspect it's not entirely in the spirit of the question, for a poem about which I can say, this matters to me, Sassoon's The General sits somewhere near the heart of the great swell of anger I feel whenever we get to Poppy Fanaticism Season over here in Blighty. The fecklessness and callousness of our leaders during World War One has a through-line to the present that my own writing is likely always going to be in conversation with.

"Good-morning, good-morning!" the General said When we met him last week on our way to the line Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead, And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine. “He's a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

The General [Siegfried Sassoon]

For an ask game