#they're relatively quick to make and i've been short on time of late

[penultimate-step]

Lately, I've been thinking about the effect of real-world time on perception of media. Or, wait, let me start from the beginning.

When I was 11, I read the book Ender's Game for some school assignment or another. I don't remember ever considering Ender a relatable character, but certainly my understanding of the events was shaped by being of an age to see the protagonist not so much as a young child but as someone of my peer group, someone who could have been slotted amongst my classmates without anybody batting an eye.

Over a decade later, I read the sequel, Speaker for the Dead; it takes place many years later, when Ender is in his thirties, and my feelings about the in-universe time skip were undeniably shaped by the real life time gap between my reading of the novels. Reading the first book back then and then the second book now created a feeling where it's almost like, I'm browsing the facebook page of someone I had known in middle school but lost contact with, checking up on how they're doing today. The real-time factor caused me to perceive it less like a timeskip, and more like a reunion - the feelings were closer to "oh wow, that's my boy! I haven't seen him in years! Wonder what he's up to?" Which in turn gave me a better position to appreciate the parts of the narrative about him struggling to find a place in his adulthood than I would have been had I perceived it more strictly as a quick skip from 11 to 20 to 36.

While musing about this, I considered a VN I played a few years back, which took place over three in-game days - except at the end of one in-game day, the game would lock you out from progressing for 24 hours real time. So that as the in-game investigator protagonist was ruminating on the information that had been discovered that day, the player would be forced to do the same. In this example, by forcing the player to experience the same timeframe as the in-game characters, the sense of it being an in-depth and extensive investigation increases, even though without the forced pauses the game would be short enough to blow through in a handful of hours real-time.

Which brings to mind how time effects things in long-running serial works. It's well known that an audience which watches an episode or reads a chapter week by week has a very different experience than one binging through whole seasons or volumes at a time, but I wonder if the real time relative to the in-universe time makes that effect stand out more? Fight scenes, for instance, have been known to take up several chapters in certain manga or webnovels. What does it do to the reader's perception, if from their point a view a fight takes a whole month, while for the characters they read about it's only been a couple hours? Readers might feel that the situation is more stressful, since the pressure of the fight has been ongoing for a long time for them, while in-universe it was a rough afternoon but no more than that. Contrastingly, when a series skips ahead or otherwise has long periods of time for characters that feel short for readers, it can feel like no time has passed and everything is still the same, unless the author really stresses the differences in world-state that occurred offscreen. Because the reader hasn't changed at all.

No conclusion here exactly, I just think it's interesting how often an audience's response to a work, the emotions felt, are more closely tied to their real-life timescale, something almost completely out of the author's control, as opposed to in-universe time, which can be intentionally shifted or played with for the sake of the narrative.

[loquaciousquark]

So, I've been absolutely blown away by your fanfiction skills lately. How on earth do you manage to churn out so many amazing stories? And they're not just quick scribbles, they're true works of art! I've been dabbling myself and it is a *struggle* to stay focused and see a story through to the end. How do you keep that laser focus going? Any tips for maintaining a consistent writing style start to finish? Your latest story has McKinley vibes. :) Your talent is truly awe-inspiring, thanks!

Ahh, thank you so much! I'm sorry, I'm not sure how I missed this message until now!

The long version is here, just answered this morning. The short version is that finishing fics is something that drives a lot of satisfaction and joy for me--it's as much a part of the process as sitting down to write in the first place--so it's something I've made a personal priority when I write. Outside of two shorter pieces, I have clearly known the ending of every story I've written before it was started, and I take a lot of setup time with my extensive outlines before I ever begin to make sure that ending is achievable, internally consistent, and a logical conclusion for the characters. It's just something that matters a lot to me, so it's something I take a lot of time working towards!

The more practical answer is that I deliberately set aside time for projects and hobbies, whether that's writing, streaming, playing video games, whatever, and I have a lifestyle that lets me do these things relatively uninterrupted. It's been harder and harder to carve out this time as I've gotten older and more established in my career; and in some ways it's gotten simpler, too, mostly because I'm now just willing to say "no, I'm staying home that day" without guilt.

As far as style, I can't speak much to that except to say that if I have one, it's made of the things I love. Patricia McKillip was a formative influence, as were Megan Whalen Turner and Patricia Wrede and honestly Brian Jacques, and as I read their books I found things they did that resonated with me, whether that was plot structure, characterization, the way they structured dialogue, their language styles and word rhythms--even down to where they put line breaks in paragraphs. Heck, I have an incredibly vivid memory of reading Matthias striking the snake in Redwall for the first time in my elementary school library and getting chills, and looking back at the paragraph over and over trying to figure out what, mechanically, he'd done there to give me such an emotional reaction.

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that the more you read and love, the more you'll find things you want to emulate and make your own. My parents read LOTR to me as a bedtime story for years, and I can trace back my deep love of elevated language and high fantasy and kings and princes right to there, and to McKillip and Turner and a little DWJ and yes, even some McKinley.

Style isn't something you create. If anything it's a mirror, showing the reflection of what you love. If you've ever loved any part of beautiful writing, whether that's JRRT or fanfiction, it can't help but come out in what you make. :)

[parf-fan]

(Check out Michael Ulrich’s photography.)

[solradguy]

What is your plan once you're done with the scanlations?

I've got about ~35 captions left to do (time consuming) and 45 images left to clean up (easy) for the GGX art book. 2 of the scans are images that go across the gutter though so I'll have to draw in the missing part by-hand. Those will probably be done last or near last because they're big projects.

Then for the GG2Overture art book, I've got 5 stories left to translate. Another scanlator I've been collaborating with (Volcanic Fighter, who does GG stuff for the Spanish speaking community, including the first complete translation of the Begin novel; check him out, he's really good!!) has told me that the next two stories, Dr. Paradigm's and Valentine's, are quite difficult but then the rest after that are relatively easy. It takes about 2 entire days (or around 10-15 hours) to do one of these. I haven't had time lately for longer projects like that, which is why I've been slow getting around to them...

Other GG stuff I'd like to do are the GGX and GGXX Anthology manga. These seem to be split up into very short one-shot stories so I don't think they'll be too hard but I've never translated a manga before. Learning how to efficiently clean the pages, make a manuscript for them, and then applying the text will be a learning experience. I'm sure I'll find out very quickly why manga scanlators usually work in teams for these.

I also have a lighthearted/comedic SolKy doujinshi that I'd like to translate but this is super low priority. There are also the two other light novels, Lightning the Argent and The Butterfly and Her Gale. I'd like to do Lightning before Butterfly.

One of my buddies also asked if I'd look into doing some Devil May Cry translations in the future too, particularly for the novels DMC5: Before The Nightmare and DMC4: Deadly Fortune. The DMC5 one has priority over the DMC4 one because it already has an English translation so it will be pretty quick work just cross-referencing it with the JP text and cleaning up grammar, etc.

I don't really have a timeline for when any of this will get done lol. The GGX and GG2O stuff are my current focus, in that order, with everything else being a "when I feel like it" deal. I do this all in my free time for fun at the end of the day after work.

[birdkoskincare]

i've heard a lot of hate abt chemical sunscreens lately, is it true they're worse for the environment?

oof, do i ever have some Opinions about this! brace yourselves, it’s Rant Time!

first off, when you start to hear a lot of hate about something that everyone seemed to be a-okay with the previous day, especially when the hate is coming out of bloggers’ and facebook posters’ mouths rather than news sources and experts, it’s good policy to be suspicious. so, well done for not taking it at face value!

secondly, the issues of what is and is not good for the environment are never clear-cut or black-and-white. let’s look at packaging, for instance; plastics are bad, right? so if we cut them out and replace them with glass containers, that should be a net positive, right? not so fast — glass weighs more, which makes shipping more energetically wasteful and polluting, and it’s not as easily recycled as you might think (any coloured glass or specific moulds can make recycling very difficult for most facilities, so it ends up in landfills anyway).

so, with that in mind, where does the idea that chemical sunscreens are bad for the environment come from? in a series of studies published between 2008 and 2018, the use of common chemical UV filters on coral samples caused bleaching, which is a process that damages reefs and kills the coral, leaving the habitat they provide to sea life vulnerable. octinoxate and oxybenzone got a lot of bad press from that, but it should be noted that mineral UV filters like uncoated titanium dioxide and zinc oxide also caused coral bleaching in the experiments, so technically, the first mistake is made when you lay the blame solely at the feet of chemical sunscreen just because chemicals sound scary.

besides that — the scope of these studies is very limited, and marine ecologists themselves have been quick to point out that, while the experiments used small tanks wherein the UV filters’ concentration was relatively high, in the unimaginably massive amounts of water contained in the oceans, those same filters would be so diluted as to not even register as a blip amongst all the other water pollution. in short, their effect is null, with one exception, and that is if large groups of sunscreen-covered swimmers flock around reefs and the currents concentrate the water there. if you’re not going to be in such circumstances, you can use any sunscreen you want without worrying. read this post by lab muffin beauty if you want to know more.

the point has also been made that stirring up fearmongering about sunscreens and reef safety distracts from the actual major causes of coral bleaching — agricultural and industrial pollutant runoff. the illusion of choice under our current socioeconomic model places the blame and responsibility on individual choice (i.e. with straws), and misdirects attention away from the real culprits: governments, corporations and the massively wealthy & powerful individuals who gamble away the planet’s future for profit. but rising up against that isn’t as easy as railing against the specific type of sunscreen one chooses to wear.

finally, and back to cosmetics: chemical and mineral UV filters both have pros and cons, which i have discussed in the past. ultimately, the best sunscreen is the one you’ll want to wear everyday, and for many people (including POC for whom the white cast of mineral sunscreen is unacceptable, or those who can’t stand the heavier textures), chemical sunscreens are the best choice to ensure they stay protected from solar damage and skin cancer. it’s unethical to shame people for their choices and discourage them from what is the single most important step to take care of the health of their largest organ!

tl;dr: the answer is no. chemical sunscreen is a-ok.

[globaloscillations]

Highs and Lows.

Monday (yesterday…I think?) Kristen and I explored the local airfield in the morning and while the small museum was closed we did stumble upon a Vulcan Bomber on display which was pretty cool. I also had my first pasty of the trip at Greggs a bakery chain in the north and it was pretty solid. I mean I've yet to go to wrong when it comes to pastys so. In the afternoon we headed over to the famous Hadrian's wall and I hiked up enjoy the views assuming every stonewall was "the wall" and it wasn't until later on that stumbled upon the actual 1900 year old Hadrian's wall itself and it was somewhat hidden. We considered a stop at another museum but decided not to head in as it was getting late in the day and the helpful gentlemen at the entrance indicated it was a 3 hour minimum excursion. 😳

As we were walking out of the museum my phone rang and I didn't have a great feeling. I answered it to the news that on the first full day of the two week trip the kennel had decided that Luna couldn't stay. She apparently wasn't eating for them and was presenting some other symptoms that were new at least from when I dropped her off and the felt the combination of all factors she should be seen by a vet and had to go by 6:30pm that night. Due to prior commitments my mom who was one of the emergency contacts was unable to pick Luna up. Needless to say we were scrambling (full on panicking?!) to come up with anything workable. Long story short, one of Kristen's closest New England friends came through in an absolutely herculean way and agreed to go pick Luna up and keep her for the night. I'm incredibly grateful and also totally at a loss of how we can make good on that debt. Luna being Luna was ready to go for the latest adventure. It's only been one day so we'll see but I wonder if the lesson learned is that there was a very short turnaround time for her between trips to the kennel and she just kinda gave up. Time will tell I suppose.

That crisis having been averted we resumed our plans with a tinge of guilt and headed for the night's intended destination, Twice Brewed Pub/Inn/Brewery/Observatory. Yup. The whole complex is located in an area with some of the darkest skies in the UK. They have nightly programs for observing with a ton of telescopes each group in our session got their own scope. Will who leads the program was great, knowledgeable, passionate and engaging, a powerful combination. While we were using scopes, I appreciated his talks focusing on what can be seen with the naked eye. The reality is most people don't have a telescope and probably aren't going to buy one just from one talk. But they might leave with a little more of an inclination to look up and a little more knowledge about what they're seeing once they do. Oh and if you like proper Real Ale well you can't go wrong. Pints pouring from 6 casks. I actually enjoyed the table beer which was 2.67% but still has a good taste to it so I was able to have a few while looking at stars and seeing if I could get my Pixel 6 to do its whole Astrophotography thing. The time passed pretty quickly and when it was time to roll back to the Airbnb I was shocked it was as late as it was.

Then we have Tuesday. We rolled out mid-morning intending to head for another part of Hadrian's Wall we hadn't made it to yesterday. Which as it turns out was relatively close to the brewery. As we headed up some of the hills Kristen's friend who was driving that morning noticed the car revving and not engaging the way it should be. We made a quick backtrack to the brewery and rolled in with a dead car. The rental company's minimally helpful solution to this was to dispatch the BAA (essentially Britain's AAA). A nice guy rolled up and declared what we were all already fairly confident of the clutch was toast. Both Kristen and her friend are long time drivers or manual transmissions and it was certainly not anything that has been done in a relatively short period of having the car. It turns out that rental companies in the UK don't actually care about any of that and basically have a rule that of you're sitting in the car when it goes it is your problem and you get the privilege of being on the hook for replacing said clutch. Also of note is that neither the rental insurance nor travel insurance are likely to cover "mechanical breakdowns." It all seems like a pretty convenient little operation to me and the winner is for sure not the customer. I'll leave the tale there primarily as a cautionary one to any who might consider hoping in a rental, particularly a manual, in the UK and just going.

A lot of phone calls and research has yielded fewer answers than it should. Eventually efforts for a resolution kind of timed out as the close of business came. Which leaves me here on the couch of the Airbnb with my attention focused back on Luna dog at home and hoping that things go well when my mom picks her up from Kristen's friend and that she is inclined to eat and behave. 🤞

So yeah highs and lows and a reminder that no plan even the best laid one survives contact with the proverbial enemy.

[gemsofthegalaxy]

awh thank you SO much i love talking about myself writing. only like 3 days late or something tho :P

how many works do you have on AO3?

65 lol.

what’s your total AO3 word count?

759,272!

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

On ao3, at least 17 I think? We got: MCU/Marvel/Captain America, Les Mis, Check Please!, Dangan Ronpa, Dear Evan Hansen, Hadestown (kinda), Miraculous Ladybug, Tangled The Series, Shadow and Bone, Steven Universe, Supernatural, The Adventure Zone, The Bright Sessions, The Penumbra Podcast, Welcome to Night Vale, Wolf 359, and Yuri On Ice.

I also have written pokemon fanfic that was posted to my fanfic.net that I havent been on in yeaaaarsss.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

We can do this if you want - a check please olympics au! not derogatory at all, I think this is a good fic tbh and it was my longest for a LONG time so it had a lot of effort put in.

A Simple Misunderstanding - i think this is also check please... yeah, one where Bitty mistakes Jack for a DILF. i tried writing dialogue in French and much of it was not good but i had lovely people help with corrections in the comments lol.

Dancing with Desire - Yuri On Ice stripper au. lol. i was surprised this got this popular because I posted it this year, and I didn't realize the YOI fandom was so active? it's not my fav of the longfics i wrote recently (not even my fav of the stripper aus if i'm being frank >_>) but i DO like it a lot and it warms my heart how many COMMENTES i got.

Do it for the vine, Steve. - fucking. memey avengers shit from the 2014ish era (my beloved).

Of course, it was you - a check please zimbits soulmate au. tbh i think I was just writing check please stuff at the right time y'know, when it was super popular and lots of people were reading it.

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

YES i respond to mooooost comments. sometimes when people leave multiple in a relatively short period of time or they're just like "<3" i don't always respond to each, but for the most part I really like to thank people for their words. And if they give me something more substantial I also try to reply in kind, like, engaging specifically with what they mentioned if possible (say, someone is like "omg these boys are so obtuse i hate them" i'd be like "you are RIGHT they have their heads in the sand") just to, idk, try to personalize it? idk I don't usually think too hard.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Um i don't usually write angst but my one Dangan Ronpa fic (derogatory ?) that i refuse to re-read is, like, angsty and i THINK features suicide or contemplation of suicide. it's the darkest fic i've written and published (tbh probably the darkest fic i've written period?) and it's weird and angsty and experimental and every day i think about orphaning it but I don't. sigh.

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I was about to say "no" and then i read the next fic and I was like oh, wait... kind of?

I've written one thing that is sort of a crossover. or, like, an au? my Tangled The Series fic is mashed with the plot of Frozen 2, where Cassandra hears a mysterious voice calling her and it leads her to the black rocks. Like in TTS, they follow the black rocks. spoilers, the voice is the moonstone.

It's also a songfic.. with lyrics as dialogue and also monologues. i know, i know. this leads me to the next question.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not.. exactly? I guess? I've had some comments that were a bit nitpicky (again dipping in to the next question, someone told me my smut scenes were too quick :U) and stuff.

But one person commented on my TTS fic to tell me they Loved the fic, but HATED that i included song lyrics and it was weird and it "made their eyes glaze over" every time a 'song' started. And, hey, I kinda get it? I don't like reading songfics lmao. But it was a fun experiment for me to fit these lyrics into dialogue and try to make it work. i guess, according to this person, i was not successful. I do think it's best if you know the Frozen 2 soundtrack and this person said they hadn't seen it, so, yknow.

I told them their words came across as hurtful because of the tone, particularly saying their "eyes glazed over" and they were all "it's just an OPINION" and i was like "Well in my opinion it was rude of you to include that piece of criticism" and after a couple lengthy ass replies they never responded again, and i locked the thread. once again, i consider deleting that thread constantly. i feel weird unsure if i've just been overly defensive? like, i don't know if i'd consider it truly "hate" but I DO stand by feeling that it was a rude way to phrase something. & at the end of the day, the songs were not just a small part of the fic it was the entire premise, so, saying they were bad and should be removed is like. well. that's the whole point of the fic? so? okay?

wow this is a long response. i also had what turned out to be a pretty neat exchange one time where someone said, on my Check Please Olympic AU, that it might be sort of rude/callous to check your tinder and oogle at guys in front of someone you're currently sleeping with and i was like "yeah. maybe! i also based this on sort of college-like experiences where chatting about hot people with former/current hooks-ups wasn't that weird, and even if it was a bit rude i wouldn't put it past someone around my age to do it unthinkingly, so i stand by the character decision" and they were like "okay yeah i mean i can see that and i am definitely of a different generation so it still feels odd but i understandable". So that wasn't hate, but it was interesting to have someone question how i was framing something in a story when they really thought it would be a point of contention. That perspective was one I appreciated.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Yes! and i'm not sure what is meant exactly by "what kind" but, I DO think I write smut sort of weirdly. Usually it's plot relevant, meaningful to the characters in some way. I don't always go for super sexy sex meant only to get people heated, but a sort of middle-of-the-road with some realism, but not to the level of 'laying towels down before anal' or something of that nature (snort). i often try to depict safe sex (and i will admit, i'm partial to making characters blasé about safe sex as a specific Choice, indicating that they are not fully putting their wellbeing at the forefront, or they're more desperate for connection than they are concerned about themselves). So. Totally fun, right? lmao.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that I'm aware of

have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! I'd be open to it though

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! My partner @mostgeckcellent and I sort of wrote When The Chips Are Down together, except that I didn't write any of it. I contributed a lot to the concept and structure of the fic, came up with the original idea with them, etc. We watched the musical together and strategically paused to discuss and whatnot. it was fun!

what’s your all time favorite ship?

ummm i'm sort of coming out of a Stucky frenzy so I'm biased, but I think that might be it anyway. Or maybe minffel from wofl359 it's actualy fucked up how much i love those two lmfao.

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

AHHHHHHHHHHH why must this question be asked. kay. I have this monster of a Phantom Of The Opera fic that's, like, one of those "one year later" fics with the Opera reopening under new management and Meg Giry returning and. of course. She and Erik fall in love sgjh. and I actually love it dearly but.... I can't seem to end it UGH.

maybe I just love it too much? I don't know. i've re-read it a bunch but each time i'm just like "Where's the rest. oh well." and leave it again. OTL.

what are your writing strengths?

Mimicking what was said above, I think i am good at pretty snappy dialogue that is semi-realistic. In writing I do think it's a hard balance because, as someone who transcribes interviews sometimes, the way people talk, written out verbatim, is complete fucking gibberish, you know? We start and stop and cut ourselves off and make no sense, so while sometimes that can be achieved in films or possibly audio mediums I personally don't think it translates to reading/writing. But i like to try to strike that balance of naturalish realisticish but still readable, and i think I do a good job.

I also think I'm good at character dynamics and character voices, not just in dialogue itself (tho it shines there) but just nailing a lot of characters. at least people say that about me, lol, and i'm always left crying in joy and appreciation for the compliment.

what are your writing weaknesses?

Hmmm... who is good at endings? not me, for certain. I just hope the journey was good enough to pull through in the end. Also I would say, with how character focused I am, I usually have simpleish conflicts and sort of meandering, day-to-day life-plots. Which, is extremely common in fanfic as a genre, and there's nothing wrong with it, but more complicated plot driven stuff isnt my go to and I probably wouldnt be fantastic at it.

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

I've done it before lol, as I said above. I like having characters speak languages when it makes sense, it was VERY fun to make it plot-relevant (in the Hot Hockey Dad fic, Bitty couldn't speak french so he never knew that the kids with Jack were constantly teasing him about being into the cute cashier and stuff and he also didn't realize they weren't calling him dad or anything).

I do think it can get cumbersome to read especially since usually translations are at the bottom, but, I'm clearly not against it.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Pokemon! Gotta catch em aaallll

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

UM I think currently it's still Juno Steel And The Undercover Vixen. That fic possessed me, came to me at 5am and flowed through me like water and I think it's really good. I think you can see where I changed the backstory and how it fits together differently than canon but is still true to the people in the fic, etc. and i just love it. Part of me wishes i'd either eliminated the sex scene or written more than one but that's my only gripe that i can think of, and it's still just. good. I forget who has and hasn't been tagged aaaaaahhhhh (no pressure tho this is a long one) @taniushka12 @fragileanimals @sleepyandbi and literally whoever just reblog from me if you want.

finally i am SO sorry how long this is. i am. verbose.

thanks for tagging me @arofili for this writer ask meme!

how many works do you have on AO3?

73 (wtf when did that happen)

what’s your total AO3 word count?

531,796

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

ao3 lists 50, but some of these overlap, like me tagging something both “les mis all media types” and “les mis victor hugo”. so probably around 36?

The top fandoms are Les Mis, Fullmetal Alchemist, Bartimaeus, and The Adventure Zone

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Reunion –the Untamed from Lan Sizhui’s pov

Angus McDonald and the Case of the Soul Stealer –taz fic sort of modern with magic au (also my first long fic and probably the fic with the most plot, i am very proud of it)

Wanting to Be Wanted – fma fic, 5 times Greed didn’t realize he cared about people and 1 time he did

what if the real steel samurai fandom was the friends we made along the way – ace attorney characters in the steel samurai fandom from an outside pov (i only started posting this a bit over 2 months ago, so i’m kind of impressed)

Better Than Nothing – Magnus Chase, Alex Fierro has gender feelings and receives a gift (this fic is really the one where i have zero idea why it is as popular as it is)

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

yeah! I like it when authors respond to my comments, so I try to at least say “thanks!” If someone leaves a more detailed comment, it’s fun being able to respond to the things they say and talk about any sort of ‘behind the scenes’ writing things

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I’m honestly not sure? I think even my angstiest fics have at least somewhat hopeful endings. There’s probably 5 or so I could choose from, but most of them were written a long time ago, I’m going to say Sing Tomorrow’s Song because even though the ending isn’t too angsty compared to the rest of the fic, it is about Grantaire being seduced by the personification of Death as a semi-metaphor for him dealing with depression, so it’s not exactly cheery

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Yes! I love crossovers, though I don’t write them as much as I read them. Probably the weirdest two fandoms to crossover was Les Mis and the Beka Cooper series because me and my cowriter just sort of stuck France in the middle of the Tortall universe and didn’t question it

have you ever received hate on a fic?

A couple times, but the only one I remember was when someone didn’t like me writing Enjolras as a trans man

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Hah nope I’ll read it but as of right now I’m aroace enough that I’m barely comfortable with writing kissing

have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t believe so

have you ever had a fic translated?

One of my first fics was translated into Russian on ffn, Tricksters Running. (It’s sort of a weird character study on the Doctor from Doctor Who and Gabriel from Supernatural, and despite me writing it at the age of 14 it’s not terrible? younger me was better at poetic writing than current me)

have you ever co-written a fic before?

yeah, with @arofili !

what’s your all time favorite ship?

Uhhh this is hard. The ship that took up my brain for the longest time is Enjolras/Grantaire, and currently my favorite ship is Phoenix Wright/Edgeworth

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Well there’s a Lucifer au of fma that i wrote like 70k words of and hyped up to all my friends but never started posting and honestly at this point I don’t think I ever will.

For things that I started posting, A Home Beyond the What Ifs about Eponine/Cosette in Japan. I do like it, and I have a couple scenes of the next chapter written out, but I also have no motivation to actually work on it

what are your writing strengths?

Honestly? No clue, but not plot. Dialogue maybe?

what are your writing weaknesses?

Probably plot. I can sometimes come up with one, but most of my fics are just a series of loosely interconnected interactions it feels like

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

Generally I don’t with a few exceptions.

If the pov character doesn’t understand what is being said, I’ll sometimes write that bit of dialogue out in whatever other language it is in to sort of add to the experience (since I assume most readers would not be able to understand it either, and those who do will be delighted)

If the language is Japanese and characters mostly speak English, I also have the dialogue be in Japanese sometimes since that is the language I actually know well enough to be reasonably confident in writing it. I would not write a full conversation in Japanese or anything, but if they’re switching between two languages then I’ll write it out in the languages it’s supposed to be in (for other languages I would usually just say “xxx” they said in y language, or italicize it if they switch between two languages enough).

Lastly, if the fic is about language then I might also do that because that’s sort of the whole point of the fic (which mostly overlaps with at least one of the above, but I have a fic in my drafts where 2 sentences don’t fit the above exceptions, so i figured i’d include this)

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Technically it was a Les Mis/Beka Cooper crossover. The first fic I posted that I wrote all by myself was a Supernatural/Doctor Who crossover. Which honestly sums up my interests as a 13-14yo pretty well I feel

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

…this is so hard

I’m going to say Truth, In the Eye of the Beholder (40k study on sharing a body from the pov of Ling Yao) because I genuinely had so much fun working on it, and I’m extremely proud of how it turned out. Definitely one if the fics I put more effort into than normal, and wrangling character arcs into place was hard, but I think it was worth the effort

I tag @micamicster @shadowy-dumbo-octopus @aromantic-enjolras @queerfandommiscellany, if you want to!