#this is an idea that would be a longfic if I ever wrote it out

[green-eyedfirework]

It was a stupid idea to take a job like this. He'd waited and waited for his eye to heal and finally got fed up with waiting. He'd taken the first offer that had come his way.

And here he was, trapped on all fours, unable to speak, and with far more problems than a mere lack of depth perception.

He tried to shout and it came out a roar.

Fuck this. Fuck Gotham. He'd only come here because he needed something to get out of his own head, to stop seeing Joey's wide, terrified eyes every time he slept. He needed to run, to flee far and fast enough that he could outrun his greatest mistake.

He shouldn't have waited. He shouldn't have convinced himself that he was invincible, he was unstoppable, he was the best killer on the planet. He shouldn't have hesitated when he saw the man holding his son prisoner.

And here he was, trapped after all.

Slade grunted and forced himself forward, awkwardly crawling on his new limbs. No one had mentioned that there was fucking magic involved and now he was seeing shit in colors that didn't exist and trying to get used to moving four legs instead of two. The eye was still gone, though.

He couldn't even get the magician to undo it, because the man was dead.

When will you get it through your thick fucking skull that murder cannot solve everything, Adeline had screamed at him. Of course, she'd then done her level best to murder him, so Slade felt justified in ignoring her opinion.

Slade continued to drag himself to the warehouse door--and then paused. Where was he planning to go? His gear had been blown up by magic and his safehouse was blocks away. He couldn't unlock his security without opposable thumbs, or pick up a phone to call Wintergreen, or communicate with anyone. There wasn't a convenient sign hanging over his head that said 'actually a human!'.

He had, he realized chillingly, no idea if it could even be undone.

The sound of footsteps broke his horrified reverie and Slade immediately searched for a place to hide. He was a large animal, a predator judging by the sharp teeth and claws, and he did not want to meet whatever passed for Animal Control in this fucked-up city.

Unfortunately, he ended up cornered by animals of a different kind.

"Holy zoo jailbreak, Batman, is that a tiger?" a brightly colored kid exclaimed, peering from between a dark, forbidding shadow. Slade cast a glance at himself--he could only see white fur but he supposed it was possible. "How did it get here?"

Slade made a threatening growl as the vigilantes sidled forward and they froze. Well, Batman froze and Robin ducked around him.

"Robin!" Batman said sharply, but the kid ignored his orders. Of course he did, he was a kid, and Slade felt his ire grow--he had never meant to put Joey in danger and now his son was mute. What the fuck was Batman thinking, dressing his son as a brightly colored target and taking him out crimefighting.

"He's hurt, B," Robin said, still creeping forward. Slade snarled as loudly as he got, sending Batman rocking forward, but Robin ignored it. "See, he's bleeding!"

There was something wet and irritating in the crook of Slade's neck, and he kept having to fight the insane urge to lick it, but he held his ground, roaring furiously as Robin got closer.

"Robin!" Batman called out, now sounding distinctly worried, but the kid was barely a yard away from Slade now.

"It's okay," Robin murmured to Slade, holding out his empty hands. "I'm just trying to help you."

Jesus fucking Christ. Did this kid have no self-preservation or what? He was close enough to touch now, and while Slade wanted to lash out and test the sharpness of his claws, he also wasn't a monster. No matter what Adeline said.

He wasn't going to maul some kid barely older than Joey. Not when he kept seeing skin split open by a sharp knife, blood welling up almost as fast as the panic.

"It's okay," Robin soothed, gently placing a hand on Slade's head. Slade's ears flicked irritably. "I'm going to check if you're okay." Slade was not happy, but he let Robin examine the wound area on his blind side, keeping his eye fixed on Batman.

He growled low and deep when he caught the man creeping forward.

"Robin," Batman said tightly, "leave it. They can check on it when they take it to the zoo."

Slade snarled, loud and furious. He wasn't going to go meekly into some cage.

"But what about the evidence of magic?" Robin pointed out sensibly. He was a smart kid. "I don't think Gotham Zoo's equipped to take care of a magical tiger."

Very smart kid. Slade managed to figure out how to fold his legs and leaned heavily on the kid, half-pinning him in place as he glared down Batman.

Batman sighed, loud and put-upon. "Robin," he said, somewhere between firm and exasperated. "That's a tiger, not a pet. We're not putting it in the Batcave."

"He needs help," Robin said, voice wavering. "You said our job was to help whoever needed it."

Slade got to watch Batman, Dark Knight of Gotham, dreaded terror of criminals and vagabonds, fold like a bad hand.

"You're telling Alfred," Batman growled as Robin cheered in victory.

Slade decided to go along with the nudging. Batman and Robin were the only ones who knew about the magic, which meant they were his best chance at getting a solution.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the ear scritches. Nothing at all.

[myokk]

20 q's for fic writers

tagged by @crushribbons love you Laney😙😙😙😙💓💓💓

How many works do you have on AO3? I am a humble baby writer so I only have three...so far

What's your total AO3 word count? 99,211...before I joined tumblr and fanart hell (affectionate) I was writing SO MUCH...I started in January bahahahahhahahahahahahah

What fandoms do you write for? Hogwarts Legacy, but in the future I'll probably do Tomione…beginning of death eaters super evil but sexy 1940s Tom Riddle making Hermione turn evil… (among others). Tbh (fanart-wise NOT writing) I also want to draw harvest moon…stardew valley…x files… I would love to attempt writing for P&P bc I have so many ideas, but I am too lazy to make sure they're historically accurate and it would drive me crazy if they arent so I'll just enjoy them hehe

Top five fics by kudos? I only have three published so far, but the most popular is my Ominis oneshot, legilimency. I have no idea how that one actually got readers...but I'm happy bc I really like it too and I reread it sometimes!! My main fic is actually doing a lot better than I expected too, bc when I started posting I was just shouting into the void and I wasn’t part of the community or anything🥹 the little excerpts I post here too, that go along with my writing, also do a lot better than I expected and it makes me so happy to read your comments💓

Do you respond to comments? yes!!!!! Comments/hashtags always make me SO HAPPY and these interactions are the fun of sharing these things with you all. I get swamped by notifications sometimes so I might respond super late but I always try to bc I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? my main fic...I have a horrible ending planned but I might chicken out at the end and make it happy. in my fanarts I can make them happy so that might be enough for me...and I’ll go with the evil ending muahahahahahaa

What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? the Imelda/Poppy fic. Honestly it's not popular but it holds SUCH A SPECIAL PLACE IN MY HEART...it’s popular to me😤 I reread it a lot...my love letter to Imelda

Do you get hate on fics? I don't think so...If I do I'm out of the loop bahahahhahahahaha. Honestly I've had haters before on other platforms and it's not something that really bothers me bc if I don't personally know someone, I don't care what they think...and like Laney said...if they don't like something they should just make what they want to see instead lol

Do you write smut? yes😳

Craziest crossover? None I Am A Boring Girl

Have you ever had a fic stolen? not that I know of!!!!! But I also just started writing this year. I've had my art stolen sooooooo many times before though on IG and tiktok (not here yet that I know of…). If it's just copying my art I don't mind that much with these fanarts because that's how you learn and a copy will never look like the original but...

Have you ever had a fic translated? nope!!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? No but I'm collaborating with @versailles-black for fanart shenanigans bc our MCs are cousins🥹💓 plus the whole Leo/Bea thing with @the-ozzie …I’m actually considering writing a oneshot about the two of them so I think it counts!!

All time favorite ship I have two...Elizabeth/Mr Darcy have had me in a vicelike grip for my whole life...but so have Scully and Mulder...

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I really really really want to write my Ominis longfic that's a continuation of my oneshot, but it's hard to find the time to write lately bc I've been so busy!!! like...even finding time to do these fanarts is a struggle these days. I still have hope I'll finish it though bc apart from ME wanting to read it there are a few others who are also looking forward to it!!!

What are your writing strengths? no idea🥲

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I personally like it!!! But only if it's used correctly...I've seen Spanish in fics before where the person CLEARLY doesn't speak it and it drives me crazy, esp if the character is supposed to be Spanish-speaking. Or...when people add random phrases in with the rest English, bc as a bilingual person I feel like it doesn't really work like that lol. I added some Spanish to the Imelda oneshot I wrote and I like to read it when it's done naturally, and if anyone asks me for translation in the comments I’m happy to oblige🥰

First fandom you wrote in? Hogwarts Legacy is my first fandom ever bahahahhahahahahah

Favorite fic you've written? tbh I love all three that I've written so far!!!!!! I can't choose🥹🥹

Laney said there's no 20th question…I love you all😙😙😙

zerooo pressure tags for @kay9leo @writing-intheundercroft @heyitszev @noxxytocin and anyone else who thinks it would be fun to answer🥹💓😙💓😙

[zenaidamacrouras1]

Ten questions for writers

The lovely @somanywords tagged me and I'm all in my bullshit as I finish a long fic so it's the perfect time for this.

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

23

Why is it shouting? I didn't mean to make that big but whatever. 23.

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

Word Count: 764,847

And what I would like to say, is that I started writing in the summer of 2022, so pretty much exactly two years ago, and deleted one longfic when I decided I hated it, so my point is, that is an average of more than 1,000 words a day published, and I have a shit ton of unpublished stuff.

Is my math possibly close on this? Holy shit, I talk a lot, and don't worry, I do have an actual diagnosis for my mental health problems, not that it helps all that much, but hahahahaha, doing great.

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Captain America, though a lot of Marvel sneaks in around the edges.

Wandavision, Hawkeye (more the show and comics than the Avenger's movies version of Clint) and Black Widow in particular. I am interested in writing diverse stories which has me pulling from the more recent content for women, queer folks, and people of color to include. I do see the irony of hyper-fixating on two white males for literally years and nearly a million words and then complaining about lack of diversity. Let's talk about it.

4. do you respond to comments? why or why not?

I do, meticulously and with great joy. BUT.

When I first started writing I had no idea what to do with comments. They made me happy and thrilled, but also very stressed about social etiquette. I would rarely reply. At one point I saw an anon asking on Tumblr if the author was mad at them for commenting because they commented on every chapter of a work in progress without hearing anything back. I honestly had never thought about it from that perspective, so I starting replying, and it got easier with practice. I have gotten into my own groove and I enjoy it now.

I think if it stresses authors out, no pressure. It actually does take up a chunk of time, especially on my more popular fics or if a chapter is particularly exciting/has a cliff hanger, etc. I really enjoy doing it, so I don't mind at all, and if it ever feels like a TASK I don't pressure myself to reply, because I find if I wait a few days it brings me joy again.

5. have you ever had a fic stolen?

No (?)

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

No, I have collaborated with artists through Bangs though which is super neat!

7. what’s your all-time favourite ship?

Look the obvious answer is Stucky.

I think one of my first pairings was Mara Jade and Luke Skywalker, but in that pairing I was a stand in for Luke Skywalker and Mara was too cool for both of us but also imprinted on my developing brain.

Mara Jade (for those who don't know) is a formerly brainwashed lady spy superhero in the 1990s era Star Wars books with sexy red hair. I suspect the author had read some Black Widow but have not confirmed this. I had not seen any Marvel comics at that time and was very on board with Mara Jade. (Not literally, sadly.)

As far as writing though, it's Stucky that I keep thinking up stories that I have a compulsive need to write down. I think of lots of stories for other pairings but they don't eat my brain like Stucky.

8. what are your writing strengths?

I am stubborn as fuck.

9. what are your writing weaknesses?

Excess (see above).

10. first fandom you wrote for?

On ao3 it was Winter Soldier+Widow (since orphaned, it was bad).

In my head as a teen it was definitely MeLuke Skywalker/Mara Jade. Very extensive mental storylines between us them.

----

No pressure tags for anyone who sees this and wants to play! And also @dharmasharks @voylitscope and @fsbc-librarian and @late-to-the-party-81 and @metalbvcky and @aimmyarrowshigh and everyone else I am trying to get over my social anxiety around tagging please don't stab me.

[dustdeepsea]

3,4,14, please!

Answering replies from this list!

3. How you feel about your current WIP

Gods and Monsters (my current longfic) was truly sent by a demon to torment me. I wrestled with the idea for 3 months before I wrote the first chapter. It takes quite a bit out of me to write each part, but I've written more words for this pair than I have anything else ever in my life, so I'm going to keep at it.

4. A story idea you haven’t written yet

Most of my stray story ideas surrounding Tav will eventually get folded into Gods and Monsters so—no spoilers!

Other than that, it would be really cute to write Olly and Nora epistolary fiction, told in the letters they send each other over the course of a year or so. 

Luckily, I have the perfect excuse—I'm waiting for @my-favourite-zhent to finish New Tricks (the universe it's set in) so I can decide what kind of ending to give everyone ;)

14. Where do you get your inspiration?

Reading Forgotten Realms lore tickles my brain in a very specific way, and often sends me down a huge research rabbit hole. Hours later, I surface with more knowledge about blacksmithing or caring for animals than I needed. For the same reason, I enjoy reading other tabletop RPG systems' guidebooks as well.

I used to live and study in a European city built around a medieval town square, so that experience is quite useful for the current setting I am writing for (BG3).

A lot of the escapism I enjoy comes from shoujo manga (another flavour of the romance genre). A thing I really enjoy doing in my writing is examining what is left unsaid in the original text (oblique dialogue, words left up to interpretation, actions not corresponding with what is spoken) which definitely comes from here. You can see this from my earliest fic on AO3: Night Swimming/Delay (Gattaca).

Bits and pieces from my own experiences and stories from the people around me definitely appear in my characters, but I generally adhere to the 7 year rule from method acting if I am pulling from something personal ("You should only employ an affective memory if it is over 7 years old."). Otherwise, everything is well and truly the product of idle imagination.

[scary-grace]

ooooo, 2, 10, 11, 16 and 24 for Kairos please! :D :D :D

2) How did you come up with the idea?

I'm really not sure! It sort of emerged from the ether in March 2020, although I didn't start writing it until May when I'd finished 'show a little faith'. @greatestkindofcourage may remember, but I don't, unfortunately.

10) How did you approach writing the fic? (e.g. wrote it start to finish in order, started with the ending, starting with the twist)

I exclusively write start to finish in order, and Kairos was no exception. In Kairos it was especially important because of how much work needs to be done in the first half of the story to set up the back half -- if I'd tried to write it out of order, the foreshadowing would have been a mess and so would I.

11) What was the most challenging aspect of writing it?

I think I said the foreshadowing a little bit ago, but I'm also going to point at the subject matter. Kairos deals with some heavy stuff, and even though it's just a fanfic, I wanted to make sure I dealt with it with the appropriate gravity and care. The Cambodia elements in particular were what held me back from posting it for quite some time. I wanted to make sure I did them right, and I wasn't convinced I should be doing them at all.

16) Talk about the fic’s biggest moment & how you came up with it

Over the whole course of the story, there are two really important scenes, one of which has already happened. Since it's already happened I can talk about it without risking spoilers! To me the single most important scene in the first half of the fic was the handful of pages where Thranduil learns the truth about the house. It shifts Thranduil's perspective on the entire first half of the story and forces him to really reckon with his feelings for Bard. I knew how it was going to go almost as soon as I came up with the general storyline, and what I wrote initially is almost exactly what was posted in the eventual chapter. I don't think I've ever been more nervous to post a chapter in my life.

24) How did you celebrate finishing?

I, uh, didn't. I finished writing Kairos and IMMEDIATELY jumped into writing the first draft of 'seeking a friend'. My writing occupies such an important spot in my life that I can't not have a longfic to work on. Looking back I wish I had celebrated more!

Thanks you for the ask!

send me a question + a fic

[isiaiowin]

Tagged by @cheeseplants

How many works do you have on ao3? 11

What's your total ao3 word count? It's 69.589 if you include the BOOB OMENS crack fic, my own works are 66.934

What fandoms do you write for? Only Good Omens

Top five fics by kudos:

Saucy Saucers:

After a few days inside the bedroom, Aziraphale gets peckish. Then finds out a certain demon has been perverting his porcelain.

As I place this crown upon thee...:

Crowley meets up with Aziraphale at the crowning of Napoleon Bonaparte. It inspires him to make a grand gesture of his own.

Marshmallow Cat:

Aziraphale finds a Miaowing box on the doorstep of the cottage.

Happy Holidays Furfur:

Furfur finds a strange box on his desk. Short fluffy holiday fic.

Leave me broken on the leather, bring me home on satin sheets:

Ferdinand Fur, a top-tier investment banker, had asked Dominatrix Shax Stork to set up a special scenario. Nervous yet excited at work, he awaited the moment she would kidnap him and break him apart in her dungeon. Trusting her completely; his Mistress, his oxygen, his life, to give him the relief he so desperately craved.

Shax had been initially surprised by this request but had quickly warmed to the idea and couldn’t wait to give him what he needed. She enjoyed playing with him immensely, loved indulging herself with his body, loved him; her slave, her heart. Wrapped in the mantle of decades of experience, she would take him over the edge, into a free fall of emotions, just so she could catch him safely at the bottom and put him back together with care.

Do you respond to comments? Yes always, they really make my day!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hmm my Stag and the Scale longfic that only needs the last half of the last chapter is currently angsty.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? It must be Infernal Tango Shax and Furfur dancing back to the party together melts my heart.

Do you get hate on fics? I was hit by bots, but that is fixed now.

Do you write smut? I do! Never thought I would but now I'm even working on a dopplebanginging fic and oof... I really enjoyed writing the BDSM AU with dominatrix Shax and Furfur, just pure love in an unconventional way.

Craziest crossover: can it be collab? It must be the crack fic we wrote for the modcast over at @goodomensafterdark

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I hope not, do not think so I'm a way to small writer.

Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, crack fics and birthday collabs and have some more (serious) fics planned for the future.

All time favorite ship? Shax/Furfur otherwise known as Shafur. I love writing them, they have my heart and soul. It's a rare pair so it doesn't get the 'clicks' but I don't care I'll keep writing the carmine empress together with her emerald stag.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hmm let me see, a songfic with Crowley needing to leave before he does something that would disturb his friendship with Aziraphale. Aziraphale makes it very hard for him not to kiss him right there and then.

What are your writing strengths? Love? Pure love? I can't make it not 'sweet' It has to be LOVE.

What are your writing weaknesses? As English is not my native language, I had to learn how to properly punctuate and write in UK English. I sometimes lack the vocabulary but it is fun to see the growth over the last few months.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? Why not? If you add a translation in character so everyone can understand it.

First fandom you wrote in? Good Omens. Only started with a micro fic last November, then really started writing and posting since the beginning of March this year.

Favorite fic you've written? Leave me broken on the leather, bring me home on satin sheets. Written for the kink event in GOAD, this fic is very close to my heart. I wanted to show the Domme side of a BDSM relationship and Shax was perfect for it. Plus the dynamic between Furfur and Shax really worked for this idea (in my headcanon)

I tag: @aidaran-alha @yes-its-unholy @theonewiththeshippinggoogles @mightyshax

[badbatchposts]

🎱 🍓 🌵🔪🪲. I reblogged the ask game from you, so I wanted to be courteous and send you an ask! I'm honestly curious about these.

Thanks for the ask, friend! It's really nice to be able to reflect on some of these things!! Sorry in advance for the super long responses lol.

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats:

Works: 2

User Subscriptions: 6

Kudos: 204

Comment Threads: 84

Bookmarks: 67

Subscriptions: 51

Word Count: 67,351

Hits: 4,652

I honestly have no sense of how these stats compare for the usual fanfic writer, but it makes me happy to see how many people have subscribed to my longfic, especially since I don't always get a ton of comments on new chapters. But it seems people are reading! And definitely more people than read my dissertation, lol.

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

I used to write a lot of original work in high school and early college, but then as things got busy--and as I convinced myself my writing wasn't good enough to be worth it--I largely stopped. I always felt guilty about it. I really enjoyed writing, but didn't think I was creative enough or had the right amount of stamina that it took to complete a long work, and I had this perfectionist idea where it felt like it wasn't worth doing if I couldn't be the best at it.

Then right as the new Bad Batch season came out this year I was struggling a lot with burnout and found that I was spending a lot of time thinking about the show, and decided that I might as well start reading some fanfiction--for the first time ever--and felt like writing it would be a nice creative outlet that might help me recover from my burnout. It really has been great, and some of what's made it so good is actually exactly the sort of things that used to make me think writing fanfiction wasn't worth it. Namely: it's not professionally publishable.

That is, legally, I will never be able to professionally publish and profit from any of what I write--it can only be posted and enjoyed. This actually just took so much of the pressure off. It doesn't have to be perfect--it doesn't even have to be very good, because that's not what it's for.

I started thinking of it more as an exercise for working on my writing skills (things like, okay, in this chapter I'm going to practice writing dialogue, or in this next one I'm going to work more on establishing an interesting setting). As a result, I'm now thinking more about the writing process and improving my storytelling, rather than worrying about trying to make it perfect or good enough to publish or feeling competitive or down on myself when I encounter writing that I feel is much better than my own. It's been really freeing.

All of this happened over ten years since I stopped writing in college, and the other great thing has been seeing that my writing skills didn't disappear. In fact, they've gotten better and grown as a result of the learning I did in the meantime. I'm now much better at envisioning narrative arcs, outlining, getting myself to write consistently instead of just waiting for inspiration to strike me, and a whole load of other skills. It's really helped soothe a part of me that worried that I had abandoned writing, that it was too late for me to "do" anything with it, or that I only would have gotten worse.

🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love

Parasailing in Rio de Janeiro with a Caipirinha in Your Hand

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I've been spending a lot of time researching historical kitchens on sailing ships and historical brothels for the Pirate AU that I'm working on. Once for an academic paper I was working on a novel that depicts a (non-sexual) human-animal relationship but through very intimate and erotic terms, and I accidentally googled a combination of terms that came back with information on bestiality while on my university's wi-fi.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

The most recent thing I wrote for my Pirate AU (I'm skipping ahead SEVERAL chapters to inspire myself with the steamy bits haha)

“I hardly think I can get into much trouble here. Your crew have been perfect gentlemen.”

Hunter’s eyes glinted in the half-light of the lamps. Though he didn’t move, all of a sudden she was all-too-aware of how close he was, how easy it would be for him to reach out and touch her. “And what about me?” he murmured. “Haven’t you heard from the ladies in port? I’m a scoundrel. A very dangerous man. Maybe you ought to be afraid of me.”

Thanks again, this was a lot of fun!!

[dayurno]

so we can all agree on kevin later on in life having chronic pain and complications due to growing up in the nest right? cause i just know that shit weakened the hell out of his immune system. i know his ass is always sick. there’s a chill outside and he’s laid down on the sofa like her majesty just fainted. sickly frail ailing victorian child. he’s like a first grader who catches/brings home like 5 different diseases within the first month of school. he’s just a princess who’s been locked in a tower most of his life guys it’s not his fault 🙄

YEAH 100% :) my love @jaywalkers animediac on ao3 wrote a katekevaaron all about that and i think really as a concept we should talk about it more because to me it's very indicative that the moriyamas did not expect nor care if kevin lived long enough to see the consequences of his life in the nest. i love the idea of kevin having to reckon with his past in such a physical way, mostly because i love stories where the body remembers trauma even if the mind forgets. kevin day.... has no one ever told you that the body keeps score?

and it's true it's true! i think he'll experience a lifetime of easy sickness and fragile bones and as he grows older + advances into his career it will become very clear that the stretch of time he has to be the Greatest at exy is actually not so large. there's something very interesting to me about the idea of exy actively making kevin's health worse as he grows older and him desperately clinging to it anyway. it's so human you know......... i think they would have to plan an intervention to get him to retire after the second career threatening injury :') and there is no way it is going to be easy. i dream of a longfic about kevin post-retirement getting to live the rest of his life he feared deeply when he was young, and more so i dream of someone taking his cold little hands and saying life can be beautiful again..... we deserve this. after the year we had we all deserve this !

[snowcoffeee]

Thank you for the tag @rhodophoria!! :D This was fun!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Just one (but there will be more soon ;))

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

127,025! I think Ashen Wishes is the longest story I've ever written (and it's still going, holy-)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Undertale. In fact, I haven't written for anything else in years ^^' I need to have a lot of passion for a fandom to get myself to write. Unless the characters live 24/7 in my mind rent-free, no ideas will pop up.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Yes.

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

Yeah, I love to! I really appreciate when someone takes their time to leave a nice message :] I always try to reply as soon as possible, or at least within a day.

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

I currently have a few one-shot ideas that have rather angsty endings, but I couldn't bear writing a whole longfic that ends on a sad note. ...I think.

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

Ashen Wishes will have a pretty happy, positive ending, so I suppose that counts (?)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully, I never have :)

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

Well... not really. I've given it a shot a few times and I have a couple ideas, but I don't think I can bring myself to post anything too explicit at the moment.

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

I've never written one! I've always found them too difficult to execute well.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so...? Though I never looked for it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope, but I wonder what that would look like! Although when it comes to writing fics, I'm much more comfortable writing in English than my native language.

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

Not yet, but it sounds fun. I have friends who help with brainstorming sometimes, if that counts :)

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

I've never been into shipping characters that much. Sometimes I come across a ship and I genuinely like it, but then I move on. My reader-insert craze just never left me enough, I guess.

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

I strive to finish everything I start, even though it might, uh, take a little more time. I really hope I won't ever abandon my fics.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogues? Maybe? Those are usually the first things that pop up in my head when I'm trying to figure out a scene, and I build everything else around them. But I'm also really obsessed with pacing and trying to find a healthy balance between the events in a story. I'm not saying it's necessarily working, I just tend to pay more attention to it.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm very, very slow. I can linger on a single sentence for ten minutes because I can't get over how awkward a sentence feels, so I just stare at the screen trying to figure out how to fix it. Also, describing environments. I can't make them sound fun for the life of me. I feel like they always end up being very dry and unimaginative :/

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

I don't run into them often, but I think they can spice up a dialogue sometimes. I especially like special short phrases that give the conversation a deeper meaning.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Oof, uh, Hollow Knight, if I remember correctly. I don't plan to post any of my older works though ^^'

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Ashen Wishes is probably the fic I've put the most effort in so far, and it's currently my favorite, too!

@imtrashraccoon if you'd like to join, but as always, no pressure! :D

[solivagantingrebel]

Fanfic writer questions!

How many works do you have on ao3?

8! But if we count my other account that I abandoned, 10.

What's your total ao3 word count?

So far, roughly 142k words.

What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly just COD fandom (exclusively Ghostsoap!)

Top five fics by kudos:

Leaving Your Heart On Fire - omegaverse smut amirite? (first attempt at smut fic too, which is, something!)

carry me in your teeth (with tender jaws of sympathy) - seal!soap x orca!ghost with hurt/comfort, biting and other shenanigans. honestly, i never thought people would like it that much since i hallucinated the plot & the first chapter within a day lmaoo.

Only Yours - another omegaverse smut! second one in the series, but whatever. wall sex galore tho <33

Sweetest Gift - lingerie & shibari & bdsm. need i say more

With The Softness Of Your Breath - what if hallmark movies were good, and ghoap? ALSO childhood friends and retired au + all the christmas goodness. this one is very deserved and i will literally kiss everyone who read this on the mouth for giving it a chance even tho i know first person pov isn't favoured in fandom spaces. i poured my heart into it, ty <3

Do you respond to comments?

I try my best to! Miss some sometimes because i'm too busy giggling and kicking my feet over the sheer amount of elation i feel whenever i get the notification.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Happy ending kind of guy, so none. Unless you count the letter. MCD 😔

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

CHRISTMAS FIC,, but all of them are going to be happy ending so we'll see!! my current longfics will take the rest of the year, or more, to end though, so who knows.

Do you get hate on fics?

No? But I did get a comment about how first person pov was something that a reader hated and they were looking forward to reading the fic with the tags & summary. Oh well, their loss.

Do you write smut?

ABSOLUTELY,,, i adore writing smut. right after fluff and angst, i have to say.

Craziest crossover:

None yet :(

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! I wouldn't mind it though.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No but Alex. i am looking at you with the softest, darkest brown eyes ever.

All time favourite ship?

GHOSTSOAP. but also capitaru and cami. if you know you know. i don't mind ghoap x reader too, but i swear they NEED to be fucking each other as well, no ghoap 'thinking' of each other as friends and nothing more. all of us are in love and fucking and that is final, or there is nothing.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Beyond Life and Death,,, im so sorry my first attempt at a longfic but i really overestimated everything before i started writing it. Still hold it in my heart, since it was how I taught myself to write fanfics in general but it's a mess, honestly.

What are your writing strengths?

I. have no idea. I've been told I'm good at setting scene (emotional, erotic, angsty) so maybe that? Words also fly out of my mind at the speed of light whenever I am deeply dissecting a character's inner monologue, feelings and thought process AND ALSO TRAUMA, so that too.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I would say action if it were me from the past,, but I've gotten better at it. So, for now, plot, but I'm working on it!

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

HELL YEAH!!

First fandom you wrote in?

......JJK. You will not find that fic though.

Favourite fic you've written?

All of them are my babies don't make me choose 😭

I have no idea who has done this tag game and who hasn't. it was trending like months ago, so open tag for now! do feel free to yap about your fics and tag me if you, i'd love to know <3 (get some recs meself) ill tag a few but feel free to ignore me if youve already done it lmao @eiraeths @myriadblvck

[rivalsforlife]

hello!!! sorry for the long text (and for possible mistakes in this) in advance!!

in december last year i stumbled upon your fic "the catch up game". i decided to read it and honestly that was the best decision of my LIFE. that is the best fanfic ive ever read. this changed my life actually. i remember being impressed at how amazing the characterization was and how everything felt so canon. i was awake until 4 am reading because i couldnt sleep without knowing what would happen next. i started to cry while reading, not because of sadness, but because EVERYTHING was SO GOOD that i wasnt able to express my emotions properly and all i was able to do was CRY.

recently, after months have passed, i've decided to read your fanfic again, and everything was even better than before. i felt all the emotions again, and i was awake until late to read again, and i cried because it was great AGAIN. after i finished reading, i decided to read your other works and EVERYTHING is so well written!!!!

i should say that i LOVE the way you interpret narumitsu as a ship but more importantly as individual characters. i love the way you interpret the other ace attorney characters as well, they all feel so,,, alive? idk how i should put this (im horrible with words, sorry sgdugshs).

all i wanted to do telling you all this is: thank you. thank you for sharing your writing with us. know that when you write again (if you want to, of course!) i will be there to support you!!! i deeply admire your work and you deserve ALL the kudos.

well. i think thats it. i hope you have a good day/night <3 <3 <3!!

🥺 this is such a sweet ask, thanks so much for reaching out!! I'm so glad to hear that my writing had such a strong effect on you and that you enjoyed my works!

ace attorney is always so much fun to write because they're all fantastic characters on their own, but the games have all these great relationships between the characters and such a strong emphasis on platonic relationships as well (which might not be the thing to bring up while talking about a narumitsu fic, but it's always something I want to pay special attention to). Especially with the catch-up game which I intended to be more of a Phoenix characterization study/exercise I wanted to pay at least a little bit of attention to all of his important relationships!

I remember hearing writing advice once that you should have a general idea of what every character in a scene has going on in their own life, like where they came from before this scene, what they're doing after, what's the pressing issues on their mind, etc, so it doesn't feel so much like "and Maya stands off screen until she comes back in to talk about Phoenix and Edgeworth's relationship". So I'm always super happy to hear when people notice things like that because it means I'm doing it at least a little bit correctly!!

Anyways all that is to say that I really appreciate this ask and it definitely brightened my day. I know I haven't posted anything in a while (school + unemployment hell year + more school and now work??? have done a number on me). I have been writing, but I always want to wait until things are done before I post, and I think I've officially hit the year and a half mark on this project as of today, but I have no idea how much longer I'll be able to stand it before I decide it's too much work to wrangle this thing into something I like - and it's not ace attorney anyways and writing characters for the first time and figuring out how they sound is always a bit terrifying. (There's like 2/3 longfics that are the first things I wrote for ace attorney that I've abandoned.)

Maybe replaying aai2 when the official version comes out will motivate me to write more AA, because I do have one good narumitsu idea in my head that I hope I'll be able to write? But either way I'm glad that even my work from four years ago (!!!) is still having an effect on people. Catch-Up Game is still my favorite thing that I've written and I'm always happy to hear people liked it!!

This got more rambly than I intended sorry about that. Thanks again for the very sweet ask. I hope you have a good day/night as well!!

[quiet-nocturne]

Tag game for fanfiction authors!

Thanks to @the-blue-eyed-firebender for the tag!

Tell us:

The story you're proudest of: Probably my febuwhump 2024 collection, "i'll destroy you like I am", because I wrote a ficlet EVERY DAY for a month, often from scratch, and edited the fic as well. That's kind of crazy to me now, lol. I think the pressure of having to post each day really pushed me forward. Otherwise, I tend to procrastinate from editing. 🙃

Your story that's gotten the most love online: Definitely "i'll destroy you like I am" - people really do like whump, haha.

Tease a current WIP or idea you're working on: so this is from chapter 15 of overcome, my massive royai big bang fic - ironically, this is a moment where Riza is comforting Roy, when the majority of the fic is him comforting her, lol. But I wanted to include some scenes to show how he is still very much fucked up from the war/the promised day:

"I know." She soothed softly, her chin bumping against his shoulder as she held him. "You're the only one who does." He said hoarsely - the words sounded like they were being scraped out of his chest. "That's why I'm so fucking glad you haven't left me."  “You know I won't.” His voice hitched, betraying how torn up he was. "I can't fathom why you're still by my side, even after all these years." "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."  The hand clasping around her wrist tightened, a wordless acknowledgment of her admission.

this scene was exciting to write because they hug (!!!) and this fic is very, very slow burn, so there hasn't been much touching at this point. It will eventually escalate from there, though - trust me, the longing gets rectified. 😏

Your top 3 fandoms: FMA is the only fandom I've written/published for in the last few years. I also love Dragon Ball Z and Star Trek, and both of those I've written (and read) an extensive amount of fanfic for, but have never published what I've written lol. Maybe someday! 🤷‍♀️ Also X-Files as an honorary mention!

Your top 3 ships: I've only had a few ships that have utterly taken over my brain. Royai is still there, and I don't think it will ever leave. But they are: Roy/Riza (FMA), Vegeta/Bulma (DBZ), and Spock/Uhura (Star Trek Kelvin Timeline movies). Also Mulder/Scully as an honorary mention!

Rec someone else's fic: holy water cannot help you now by starsinherblood - it's a kidnapped!riza fic, with roy rescuing her... and the angst hits sooo good. Also roy goes a little crazy, which is always fun. It's an excellent read!

Pick one!

Fluff or Angst: Both - angst followed by fluff, especially!

Oneshots or longfics: Oohh, that's hard. A really good one-shot can hit the spot. But I do love a longfic, so that's the one I pick.

Canon compliance or canon divergence: Canon compliance! I love writing/thinking about behind the scenes moments.

AO3 or FF.net: AO3, my beloved. <3

Tagging @rizaposting, @flowersforriza, @littlewitchbee (no pressure though!!) and anyone else who writes and would like to do this! I think most of my writing mutuals have already been tagged, but yeah!

[bluebeebalmwrites]

About that Vampire Ascendant Tag on Houses...

Hello! My series Houses is getting some attention, and as the series keeps going and going [insert self-deprecating fic writer jokes], I’ve had a few conversations crop up about the Vampire Ascendant Astarion tag that have been similar. I thought it might be a good idea to address that tag and this version of Astarion in one place. I consider the tag to apply, but Housestarion is… complicated.

What I am not interested in writing:

Some folks have worried that, because of the Vampire Ascendant tag, Housestarion might eventually abuse Gale or the series might have an Abuser/sub dynamic. I promise that if I ever write a fic like that, I would put content warnings all over it /gen. I take that very seriously. Regardless, writing a two-dimensional abuser is not a headspace I want to go into for Houses. I wrote some rough abuse from Mystra in my other series (GCA), but I'm not interested in making Houses into some sort of in-depth character study about abusive relationships or even a moralizing tale. I think that would be the antithesis of the fun I’ve been trying to have with it while writing a salacious porn-with-plot series (it's intentionally trashy - like vintage pulp magazine content in my mind). I'm walking a fine line with them, for sure, but Gale and Astarion in Houses are dysfunctional, have obsessive/possessive toxic impulses, with some complex underlying abandonment issues. But ultimately, Houses is about guilty pleasures, not horror.

When thinking about the Ascendant character:

The in-game Ascendant is written to be very objectifying and dominant, but I also appreciate how he’s also comical and pitiful. He’s an almost cartoonish version of a vampire villain, complete with cheesy bat references. The complexity in his character, though, is how Ascendant is still scared, horribly codependent (and I don’t use that word lightly), and views the world as a terrifying place that is only worth either controlling, running away from (if you take him to Avernus, etc.), or destroying out of revenge. He’s composed of the worst parts of Astarion's character wrapped up under an outwardly confident façade. He’s the new Cazador, but he’s also an Astarion flavoured Vampire Lord and his outlook is filtered through that traumatized lens. Instead of healing from what happened to him, he’s weaponizing his trauma and looking to punish the world for it on top of controlling others around him to keep himself safe. He’s stuck and can’t move on, and he likes it that way because anything else would require work and vulnerability that he can’t let himself afford. That complexity is so juicy for a writing brain, because Ascendant Astarion can be simultaneously repulsive, tempting, tragic, and pitiable. Like, whoa. What game writing, right?

I seriously have to credit some other Bloodweave writers in this space for pointing a lot of this out to make Ascendant far more interesting to me (patheticfangirl is in the middle of writing a really in-depth, twisted longfic that involves a deep character study on him. It's better than what I'm doing. She takes the concept of how Cazador is tormented/regretful/grieving if you detect his thoughts in-game, and applies that to Ascendant who is psychologically tortured by what he’s done. It’s very good - though please mind the tags).

When looking at the vast majority of fics under the Ascendant tag, most of them are dark power fantasies with a Dom/Sado/Top Astarion with a self-insert Tav. If you're not personally into that or triggered by Ascendant characterization (due to PTSD from an abusive relationship with that dynamic), I absolutely understand avoiding the tag. That’s part of curating your content. It’s just the nature of the beast that sometimes it's tricky to decide how to tag a fic when the fanon has taken a character in a different direction than what you're going for.

Ascendant in Houses:

With Houses, I do my best to not have Housestarion be the strictly Sado/Dom/Top version of Ascendant. He has needs that crave to be filled by other dynamics. I want the complex and ridiculous parts of Ascendant. Housestarion starts off as a fuckboy (in Penthouse) and is revealed to be more of a messy, shattered guy. As an AU, he’s basically the idea of an Astarion that had to take Cazador out by himself – translated into a modern “real life” setting with no vampirism or magic. So some parts have been whittled out, some of the softer traumatized parts brought forward, but (hopefully) much of the edge and brattiness kept in. He’s more of his own character, rather than a straight translation.

However, I am keeping the series under the tag because while Housestarion is in many ways his Own Thing, he is still very much an interpretation of Ascendant Astarion and Ascendant inspired (complete with dialogue references) and I do not want anyone to be surprised by that. I hope that clears some things up!

[miraakulous-cloud-district]

Tag game that took me way too long to do

Hi, hello, I'm still here. Life and side-tracking happened a lot and, lately, my only online presence was some reblogs. Nonetheless!! It made me really happy to see that I've been tagged in this wonderful tag game by @inkoherentwriting and @dirty-bosmer and @blossom-adventures Thank you so much and sorry it took me this long to actually do it!

How many works do you have on AO3? Just 6 so far!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 100,271 (oh!! I didn't realize I hit the 100k word count before doing this!)

3. What fandoms do you write for? The Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age so far, but I would love to expand that list, and I have my eye on a few fandoms (looking directly at One Piece)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? I only have six fics, and I don't really like looking at the statistics because it makes me terribly sad and unmotivated.

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes!!! Comments are everything to me. It may take some time to respond, but just know that I read the comments as soon as I get the email notification and I reread whenever I feel self conscious about my fics (which is *very* often lmao)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? My longfics are not finished yet, but if you read chapter 15 of WYGTYA, then you'll know which one will have the angstiest ending Spoilers: it's Hymn of the Highs Seas, it's prequel. Author's note: WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO, I AM SO EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED TO THE PIRATES. But I *will* find a way to make it as satisfying an ending as possible, and it will most definitely have a fluffy/bittersweet epilogue. HOTHS will not be sad, I promise!

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? After all the shit I'll put Ravonna through, she deserves it the most, so WYGTYA, probably! Also, my Ralof/Hadvar fic has a really happy ending, if ya know what I mean :)))))

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not yet. I have this wonderful small community of dear readers and they're the most awesome people in the world <3

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Smut is not really my thing, so no. The most I'll do is imply.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I haven't, but I'll never say never!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of, and I doubt anyone would want to steal my writing out of anyone's

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No

13. Have you ever co-written a fic? No, but I think it would be a very nice experience! I've spoken to a few beloved mutuals about crossovers in which Ravonna meets their ldbs, and I have an idea in mind where I could write a few chapters, each of them exploring Ravonna accidentally teleporting into their ldb's world, but it's still just an idea at the moment :)

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship? That I've written? I don't know if I can choose because I love them all, but Rumcurio and Ralof/Hadvar are incredibly underrated ships in the TES fandom and I wish they had more content! Fave ship of all time? Well, right now I am watching Jujutsu Kaisen and I am, of course, having satosugu brainrot. They could have had everything :(((( So beautifully tragic, this one. The fix-it fanfics are amazing, too! But if I had to pick just one ship to be my favourite, I think I'll go with the ineffable husbands because 6000 years of pining is just exquisite <3 <3

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? A very sad and romantic reincarnation AU of WYGTYA where we get to see many versions of Ravonna through the ages! I say romantic, but knowing myself, it won't be super sappy. It's Ravonna that we're talking about here :))

16. What are your writing strengths? I would say that dialogue, and banter in particular. That's what flows the easiest to me, and I think that is how I'm able to express a character's traits and personality the best

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I believe there's room for improvement in all areas, but what I struggle with the most is angst, probably. I need to practice focusing on describing the character's feelings more. Also, politics. Crucial to the plot, but my mind never cooperates when I want to write politics.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue on another language in a fic? If it's a few words, it's fine, I think it adds flavour to the chapter, but translations should be provided. However, I would avoid writing entire paragraphs in another language, that's just confusing to readers.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Skyrim! I wrote for the Tes Summer Fest event in 2022!

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? I love them all very dearly, but hear me out!!! WYGTYA is my first baby, my longest fic and the thing that led me to start such beautiful friendships online. It will always have a special place in my heart! In my soul, there's a jewellery box dedicated to just WYGTYA, and it's all heart shaped and made out of love. Ravonna is by far my most developed oc, so much so that she feels like a real person sometimes when I think of her. She's even become a source of inspiration for me at times and her story with her fellowship will never fail to put a smile on my face. She's also such a big impact on my writing that I think she will become a blueprint for future stories that I write. Every story will have a Ravonna-type character, for sure. That's how much love I have for her! But I started writing WYGTYA as a beginner, and I sense that I will go back to some of the earlier chapters and re-edit some stuff. Right now, the fic that I'm most satisfied of is HOTHS. It's still at 2 chapters (soon to be three), but I'm so excited about this project, and the characters are all ocs, and my heart is so full of love for them that it overflows! It's also a pirate story, and I always have such a weak spot for pirates. It also follows the storyline and plot twist that I'm most proud of in WYGTYA, all about Ravonna's lineage. Damn, I guess I have Ravonna to thank for this, too. I'm just really happy with this twist and canon divergence in Deathbrand's character. I feel like he has so much potential in the TES Universe, and I'm about to explore all that and more in this fic!

Oh wow, that last bit got so very rambly, I'm so sorry! I don't know who has done this or not, but I'll tag @bougainvillea-and-saltwater @kiir-do-faal-rahhe @bostoniangirl21 @sheirukitriesfandom @illumiera

[mariyekos]

2024 Writing Count

Oh yeah! I've talked about it on Twitter, but I don't think I've mentioned it here: I'm keeping track of my fics/wordcount for 2024! I did it back in 2021, and then kept track of it for a few months in 2023, but this year I'm back at it again with more detail than ever.

Here's what it looks like. The further I get the more I add onto it as different things come to mind. I love color coding things, so I have a system: 0 word days get red, 1-99 word days get yellow, 100-499 word days get light green, 500-999 word days get medium green, and 1000+ word days get dark green. I also highlight the end of each month in blue to make it easy to see, and milestones (like hitting 50k in January!) are in blue!

More details, including a view of all days, beneath the cut!

Month-by-Month

January was my best month so far. That's when I started the longfic I'm currently plugging away at, which got me most of that word count. As in, it got me over 50k of that word count, because once I realized I was so close to 50k not just for the month but for a single fic, I powered through to the end. January was a month where my main focus was getting ideas down rather than shooting for top-of-the-line quality. You can't fix a fic that isn't written, so step 1 is to write! Right now I'm actually going through what I wrote and re-writing it, which is slow work but worth it.

February was okay. March was a bad month for me, and where I finally lost my "1 word a day" goal. You can tell how hard I was struggling in the middle there, which was from a combination of lack of sleep, lack of time (work and FFXIV prog were exhausting, plus I was trying hard to get through FFVII Rebirth before being spoiled (I failed)), and lack of motivation/inspiration. I got absolutely slammed by doubt and feelings of inadequacy, combined with some realizations about my longfic which means I had to do a MAJOR overhaul that I was absolutely dreading.

April was pretty good! I got slammed by motivation to finish a fic that I'd struggled with before and finally finished and published it. I'd been hesitating because I felt like I was getting that vibe out of another fic, but after struggling with that one I went back to the one I'd eventually publish and had a blast. It was very self-indulgent and I've realized that that's okay! I've rambled vaguely on this blog about it, but it was the fic where I knew I was diving deep into a fanon interpretation of a character that's not really seen in canon, and was worried about how it would be received.

In the end I decided whatever. I know it's fanon, but I love that fanon and clearly other people love that fanon too, so I decided I'd just post it. It has a lower kudos:hit ratio than my other fics but honestly? I don't care. I had so much fun writing it and I got two (2!!!!) whole comments on it so I'm over the moon. If my writing makes even one other person happy, that's fantastic. This fic I decided was ultimately for me in the end, and internalizing that it's okay to be self-indulgent has helped me a lot. When you're okay with self-indulgence, it frees you from a lot of worry and you just get to be happy writing the stuff you love.

Of course, I'm not completely over that. I still really want to get things right. I still do check over things to see how well they align in canon and to try to fix characterization and so on. I still want my fics to be good- it's just that I've changed my standards for what a good fic is to be more about quality than being an exact replica of canon. My current fic (the now 88k Time Travel Fic) is undergoing a massive overhaul right now as I not only improve micro-level things like grammar and phrasing, but also as I work to improve macro-level things like overall flow.

That's the sort of stuff that I think makes me a better writer. It might not always lead to very high word count, but I don't always need to have high word count. Sometimes a low wordcount day where I feel like I improved my craft is more than worth it.

Take these two days in April- ~250 words a day, lower than my monthly average of 1,050, that I'm perfectly fine with because I did more than 504 words worth of work that day, IMO. You can see on the second one that I finished Before the Nightmare, which is one of the DMC novels. That day I didn't get in many words because I spent my time researching instead, and that was worthwhile! On the day before it, I spent time revising the timeline and outlining things rather than adding to the main body of the fic itself, which again I think was more than worth the time! Having WCs is a good method of tracking things. I'm a numbers person. Seeing big numbers makes me happy. But there is more to writing than just working on the stuff readers are going to see! More that is important and improves your craft! Which is why I decided to include outline counts, for one. That and I'm the type of person who writes full sentences or even paragraphs into my outlines that I will take almost word-for-word into the fic itself so I might as well attribute it to the day I wrote it, rather than the day I copy-pasted it in, y'know?

How The Tracker Works

Some other stuff you might notice are the following:

My notes are a mix of me commenting on what I wrote in the fic and me commenting on whatever's going on in my life. For example, on January 17th I wrote "Went back 2 boys fighting convo" which is about what I wrote in the fic, whereas on January 25th I wrote "Super sleepy. Too late" and on March 2nd I wrote "FFVII Rebirth is amazing." which is instead about why I only wrote so much! Going back to my 2021 word count, I found my notes to be a really interesting snapshot into what was going on in my life at the time, so I don't mind making it a mix of both.

In the above, you can see that the Daily WC doesn't equal the Diff (End-Start WC), because in the comments section I mention that I wrote 3675 for another fic. (The 3675 is from the Fic in the Fic box there, while the 801 is from my Time Travel fic, which is the one with 80k words). But on days where I work on multiple fics I'm usually feeling active enough to be happy to do the very simple math of adding two things together, so I don't mind having to combine a few. If you check the picture above this one for March, you can see that the Daily WC = Diff. for every day that has a Start and End WC. The ones where there isn't a start or ending WC is because I just used the word count function in my document program since I wrote so little it was easy to figure things out.

There's also the Fic List section way back in my first picture, which just includes every fic or fic-adjacent (i.e. tumblr posts where I basically wrote a mini-fic that I will one day turn into a proper post) included in the main word count area. I also included the number of days I worked on each by occurrence. Given the way I track things it does mean that a few fics will be missing a few days because I can only mention one in the fic box (while having it function) so only one gets counted per day, even on days I work on two, but it's close enough that I think it's still a good way of keeping track! I copied the document Geryon partway through the year once I started some major restructuring so that one's split in two, but for the count I made the function count both Geryon and Copy of Geryon so it's just up in Geryon. The reason it's split is that I decided to automate that section rather than doing things manually, which means it include the - day and splits Geryon in two which I wouldn't do if I was doing it manually.

2021 Word count Document

As you can see, things were a lot simpler back in 2021. Both in terms of visuals and things I was keeping track of. One of the biggest changes from 2021->2024 was the addition of the Start and End word counts for each day. When I was doing 2023 I realized how much I hated doing the math in a separate tab, deleting it, fixing the formatting, and then putting the number into the daily total.

Then while talking to a friend (@/dithorba) about word counts, she showed me her document which had a start/end count on it and I felt like my eyes were open. So often I would get to the end of the day and realize I had math to do but would put it off, then do it again, then again, and then trying to figure out my word counts would result in a ton of going through document history, restoring documents, checking word count, restoring it to a different version, checking word count, etc. It became a chore that messed with my totals. (Which is funny because I actually love math! That specific math just was a sticking point for some reason). Then Monse/dithorba showed me the way and I decided I'd add that into my document, even if it "clutters" it up a bit by adding extra rows. I still kept Daily Wordcount separate from the total though, since sometimes I'll work on multiple fics so the start to end count on one fic doesn't represent all the writing I do in one day.

2024 Daily Totals So Far

I got so close to all greens for April and I'm really bummed about missing it because I just plain forgot to write more on my one yellow day. Yeah I was struggling a bit, but I could've written more and forgot to make sure I'd hit 100 before going to bed. Oh well. It was a really good month otherwise. I'll probably revise the color scheme in the bottom row later on so it's more evident which word counts had the most days per month, but for now it works as-is.

Last but not least, here's a link to the twitter thread where I go on about this year's writing. It technically starts in December of 2023 because I turned my thread about my longfic into my thread for all my fic writing in 2024, so whoops to that, but good enough.

This post could be longer but it's long enough as it is, so I'll leave it like this for now. Maybe I'll come back and edit it with more information later. I'll probably RB with additions a few times in the year too!

[practically-an-x-man]

Character Ask:

1, 11

Ship ask:

Q, S, T, W, Y

Author:

🎬, 🖌️, ‼️

Thank you!!! I think I'll answer this for Jimmy (and his relationship with Lars) since I know you love them <3

OC/Ship Ask Game: Firsts

First big aspiration (i.e. what did they want to be when they grew up?)

Oh, he bounced around from inspiration to inspiration as a kid. He passed some blues musicians playing out on the street, he wanted to pick up an instrument and be a musician himself. He wandered by leatherworkers, carpenters, any number of other artisan shops, and he wanted to learn those.

However, the main one that stuck was reading about Charles Darwin and his travels - it made him want to work with animals, and potentially even discover new species.

11. First "big purchase" they ever made on their own

His father didn't wear suits most days, being an ironworker, but he did have his good tailored suit that he wore for nights out, and Jimmy always associated that suit with success and comfort. When he was a teenager, he finally saved up enough to get himself a real tailored suit like his dad's, and he wore it just about as often as he could because he wanted to look like a distinguished gentleman.

____

Q. First act of non-sexual intimacy (e.g. washing the other's hair, taking a bath together, sharing food)

This will come up in the fic so I'll keep it succinct, but they do read to each other as an act of non-sexual intimacy :D

Lars enjoys podcasts and music while he works since it helps him focus, and Jimmy reads to him on the days he forgets his headphones and struggles to focus in the silence. And Lars returns the favor when... well, that one's a plot point, no spoilers.

S. First anniversary + how they celebrated

Honestly... I haven't really thought about it that far out yet. I could imagine something classic and romantic for them - Jimmy buys Lars some flowers or another small gift, they get a dinner reservation, and maybe walk around Coney Island after dinner for that callback to how they met... it would be sweet.

T. First time dancing together

Aww, this is also giving me a soft little thought - Jimmy insisting on finding some proper New York blues for Lars, finding a little jazz club somewhere in the city... It's Jimmy's first dance with a man, and Lars' first time dancing to that style of music (though he's probably not a particularly accomplished dancer in any genre...), they're both a little awkward, but they just have a great time regardless.

W. First time they realized their relationship is endgame... or isn't

Also a plot point, but I will say that there's a bit of a physical cue ;)

Y. First time living together

After they officially get together, Jimmy does start spending his nights at Lars' apartment. "Living together" is a bit generous in a sense, since Jimmy still just kinda exists in the space (I mean he doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, doesn't really have other bodily functions, so it's really just another place to be), but it's much nicer to be in the apartment than an empty lab.

____

🎬 - First fandom(s) you wrote for, and if you still write for them

Answered previously!

🖌️ - First character you created, or first character you wrote for

Also answered previously!

‼️ - Free space! Tell us about a notable "first" in your writing journey!

Hm... I started out exclusively writing longfics, actually. Coming up with the story plots was easy, but I always felt like I was missing out on key details about the characters and their relationships when I tried to write a oneshot, so they always ended up a lot longer than I intended. But as I've gotten more comfortable as a writer, I've been able to pare things down while still being satisfied with the final product, and I've written so many more impromptu oneshots and ficlets than new-writer me could have ever imagined!

Side note: I have no idea why long pieces were easier for me to write than short ones, I know it's the reverse for a lot of people, I just wanted to share all the details and references and inside jokes in these characters' relationships and I couldn't tell how to just write a singular moment in time.