#sophie nerds out about psychosexuality yet again

[freeuselandonorris]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers 💫

tysm for the tag @glasscushion !!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

32 currently!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

241,146 since 2018 which is absolutely wild to me, particularly as i have about another 30k waiting in the wings. three novels’ worth. WILD.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

largely motorsports (formula 1 and formula e) although i do occasionally dip a toe into other fandoms. largely RPF, i’m generally not that interested in writing non-RPF although i do read it sometimes.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

there was always warmth between us (maxiel)

lol, my magnum opus. the stats on this one still blow my mind (almost 1400 kudos at time of writing). sometimes people tell me it’s a comfort fic for them which really makes my day. there’s a lot about this fic i would change if i wrote it again now (the dialogue especially) but there you go, hindsight and all that.

nobody knows the trouble i’ve been (or the exacting improvement of sin) (maxiel)

i think this was the first vaguely kinky fic i posted on AO3? spanking and behaviour correction from the days when max and dan were starting to want to kill each other and it was spilling over on-track. definitely blessed dan with way too much emotional intelligence compared to real life but hey, i can do what i like with my paper dollies.

as if death itself was undone (maxiel)

undernegotiated breathplay porn my beloved! this remains one of my favourite fics i’ve ever written (although the paragraphs are way too long). i’m a real sucker for the trope of people discovering kinks they didn’t know they had and immediately acting on them — v bad idea in real life, v hot in fiction.

a siren on the rocks calling you into the deep (girl!landoscar)

so funny to me that the lunatic squirting rule 63 porn i posted less than a fortnight ago is in my top 4 already, landoscar fans you are all freaks and i love you for it. this is absolute filth, my first rule 63 and contains a lot of bodily fluids, my favourite thing.

unfucktheworld (maxiel)

i was very surprised to see this in my top 5 but honestly i think it’s only there because it’s my oldest fic so it’s just had time to accrue more kudos? it was my first time writing fic in about 10 years, the characterisation is all over the place, it’s just…not that great i don’t think? but it’s sweet and porny and it’s lovely that people are still digging back through the archives to give it a go, so i’m not complaining.

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

i try to! i went through a phase last year where i just got very easily overwhelmed by life and gave up on replying for a while (which sucks because i received some of my favourite ever comments during that period, so if i ever didn’t reply to your comment please know that i DID read and treasure it, i am just very bad at carrying out simple tasks sometimes). i tend to save them up and reply in batches, which is probably why i get overwhelmed 🫠

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

idk if i’ve written any with an outright angsty ending tbh! i am a sucker for a happy ending, or at least an ambiguous one. also frankly a lot of my fics are just porn and don’t really have endings per se lmao.

i guess my weird toto/christian all the blood runs hot before it’s cold has a not-happy ending in the sense that it’s clear that they doomed to repeat unhealthy behaviour with each other (to be explored in the sequel i nearly have completed once i get free of the landoscar brain rot) but it’s not angsty, really, because christian’s too far in denial to be angsty about it.

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

i think there was always warmth between us, being a slowburn friends to lovers that ends with a declaration of love, probably takes that crown!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not so far, fingers crossed it remains that way! i do remember being very nervous before i posted my first hardkink fic (the watersports fic eight of swords (reversed)) and feeling like i would be driven from the fandom with pitchforks, but thankfully that did not come to pass.

i do quite often receive comments that are just sort of…baffled? because i have a tendency to write extremely sexually explicit fics that are deliberately not actually that sexy. i like writing about the weirdness and grossness of sex, i like weird kinks and psychosexual oddness, i like unbalanced power dynamics and i like it when sex scenes aren’t all soft focus and simultaneous orgasms. so i think sometimes people go in to my fics expecting one thing and coming out with something else, but the comments are always very polite! also i think i have accidentally awakened something in quite a few readers but i consider that a public service.

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

looool. do i. as above — i write a LOT of smut and it is usually far too detailed, generally very informed by kink and power dynamics, and unnecessarily verbose. i’m a huge fan of the writing of JG Ballard who wrote the most clinical, bizarre sex scenes that make you horny and disturbed in equal measure, and that’s what i strive towards in most of my fics.

even the ones that are actually incredibly sweet and romantic (to me anyway!) like just found me a brand new box of matches (landoscar foot fetish gremlin weirdness) or playboy in the grotto (landoscar piss fetish gremlin weirdness) are still not sexy in a sanitised way, they’re about love and connection being found through cherishing and honouring the weird and gross and unconventional parts of each other. this is a political standpoint for me as much as anything else, not to get overwrought about it — my queerness is as expressed through my love for the unsanitary and unsavoury and taboo as much as it is my love of people of different genders, and i want to reflect that in my fic.

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

i don’t! i don’t tend to read them, either. maybe this is just a side effect of my preference for RPF but i just don’t find the concept all that interesting or appealing. i’m also not that much of a fan of AUs in general (rule 63 excepted), although i will make exceptions if they’re well-written and i like the concept enough.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

yeah someone reposted there was always warmth between us on wattpad a year or so ago and had to do the copyright strike thing. i felt very famous.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i don’t believe so! if anyone wants to translate any of my fics, please feel free to ask.

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

not officially! i think i am too much of a control freak for that tbh. but i have written a lot of fics that have been hashed out in forensic detail with @lost-decade and/or @scenetocause and so they probably should be given co-creator credits for half my fics.

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

oooooh this is a hard one yknow. I tend to love a ship very intensely for a few months and then lose interest. i guess max/daniel is the one i have liked for the longest time, although i don’t really read it much anymore because i…frankly don’t really like either of them irl all that much anymore? lmao. but yeah it’s probably them! i will also always have a soft spot for jeandre.

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

honestly my jeandre opus a universe hesitant to grant us grace is not technically finished, i just left it where it was due to real life events impinging on it at the time. it’s a shame because i did love what i was doing with that fic but i can’t revisit it because it’s too wrapped up in other stuff.

16. What are your writing strengths?

i’m good at vibes! good at small details that give an insight into a character or setting, good at seeding ideas and at description. I think i’m fairly decent at writing snappy dialogue too, and people tell me i’m good at writing humour too which i am always quite taken aback by but i will gratefully accept!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

long-winded sentences, not enough verbs/not making the verbs work for me, and too many adjectives. tight plotting (lack thereof). getting a bit too forensic in my sex scenes.

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

I do it occasionally when i’m writing people whose first language isn’t english, but i don’t speak any other languages well enough to be confident in using anything other than the odd word or phrase.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

ah, i’m ageing myself here… It was for placebo, on the fan forum they had hosted on their own website (god bless them, no wonder i’m so chill about the concept of RPF) around 20 years ago when i was 14. i learned a LOT from that forum. placebo are indeed largely to blame for stoking my degenerate tendencies at an impressionable age. good for them. the first fandom i wrote for on AO3 was in 2018 and it was F1.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

aghhh it’s hard to choose but i think it has to be all the blood runs hot before it’s cold, the toto/christian madness. it took me such a long time to write but i feel like i really achieved what i wanted to with it and caught the weird psychosexually unhealthy vibe i was aiming for. i’m also really fond of playboy in the grotto, the landoscar watersports porn. it was my first time writing them and it kicked off an obsession. piss kink is my holy grail kink and i just found this so easy and fun to write, and i think you can tell that i had fun from the writing.

WHEW. well done if you read all this. i think probably most people have already filled this in but if you have not and you would like to i am tagging @lost-decade @scenetocause @zeraparker @boxboxlewis @flawlessassholes @beechersnope

(edited to fix many typos)