#those are the only tags i'm using i don't feel like brainstorming for tags rn aldjsjs

[makemeimmortalwithahug]

18, 26, and 34 for the fic writer ask game?

Bonus - In regards to your writing, I want you to know that Until We Weep took me out at the knees and made me feel emotions never before discovered by science, and I loved every second of it. ESPECIALLY the fencing scene with Edwin which was so well described and also such a great character scene for him. Second, chatting about F1 with you (even as only a second-hand F1 fan) and having my sister send me things "to show to Dani" brings me so much joy <3

omg that took so long, I'm so sorry fatal!!

18 How do you decide what POV to write in?

already answered that one here in response to V's ask :D In short, my intuition always makes me think about ideas in Charles' POV first, probably because he is so multi-faceted in terms of which emotions he chooses to show and how he covers the real ones up. Also I love researching slang he can use haha which doesn't mean I don't enjoy Edwin's POV, it's just subtler and requires a bit more nuance and therefore if something's in Edwin's POV, it's definitely a conscious decision that was required to move the story along

26 What is your favorite part about writing?

I really love the spontaneous part about writing - brainstorming :D don't get me wrong, I've also come to enjoy editing, mostly because what I'm writing when I'm doing writing sprints cannot even be legally called a story before editing sets in xD but brainstorming is such a freeing experience, I love just throwing out the wildest of ideas and see how they might connect further down the line. It's even more fun if the brainstorming happens in writers room, of course :D

34 Have you ever done a collaboration? Would you?

Well, @arrow-jsy and I have a shared case file for the palasaki's moving castle au, but we don't really collaborate on those fics beyond having talked about which characters we write in which roles. But I'd love to do a collaboration sometime!!

AAAAHH FATAL :sob: please imagine here all the crying and sobbing emojis we have in the server, they represent me quite well rn

thank you so so much, Until We Weep holds such a dear spot in my heart and I can't put into words how glad I am that you liked it and I'm sobbing at the idea that it brought you so much joy <3 the fencing scene was soo much fun to do research for and to write, I wrote it in such a rush, everything just fell into place

<333 I also have the stupidest smile on my face when I see you tagged me with something your sister wanted me to see, it's so incredibly sweet, I love you both lots <3 thank you so much for indulging my ramblings and chaotic thoughts (not only in terms of F1, but in general) <3

thank you for the ask!!

ask me stuff!

[uss-genderprise]

20 fanfic author questions

tagged by @quietwingsinthesky. i don't usually do tag games but this is fun

1. How many works on AO3?

182, 174 if you exclude art

2. Total AO3 Word Count?

464,185. i think i'll be able to break 500k this year

3. Top 5 fics by Kudos

to absolutely no one's surprise, they're all star trek. there's also a lot of overlap with my top 5 by hits

Catch a Hint (1,613 kudos)

A Pressing Need (965 kudos)

Under Your Skin (665 kudos)

Beyond Mind and Matter (518 kudos)

Five Times Jim and Spock Kissed in Public and One Time Someone Noticed (512 kudos)

4. What fandoms do you write for?

these days it's almost exclusively torchwood, sprinkled in with some other doctor who and a bit of btvs. i used to write a lot of star trek tos/aos which i feel i'm more known for but i don't do that anymore

5. Do you respond to comments?

always

6. Angstiest Ending?

so many of my fics are angst, how am i supposed to choose? Love Is Hurting is my fic to get the most "nooooo whyyyyy" responses but i think The Agony of Hunger would be my personal choice

7. Fic with the Happiest Ending?

this is somehow even harder. i don't think i've written a proper happy ending in at least two years (unless you include smut where they decide to keep fucking after the fic is over). okay i just scrolled through basically all my fics i'm gonna have to say it's my very first trek fic, A Cat in a Bag

8. Do you get hate?

i've gotten a few extremely entitled comments but no actual hate

9. Do you write smut?

yes, i write smut. literally half of my fics are rated explicit and that's not even counting the more vague smut i just tag mature

10. Do you write crossovers?

i've written two. sometimes an idea grabs me and i have to do write it but it's not very common

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of, but then again i haven't gone on wattpad in years

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no :( i do allow translations of my works and i would be very very happy if someone did translate them. HOWEVER i translated someone else's fic once (i don't think i did a very good job but also no one read it, so). maybe i'll translate some of my own one day. maybe i'll translate them into vulcan

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

not exactly? i've brainstormed with someone to the point where i don't think the fic can be considered purely my own, and i've edited someone else's fic to the point where it's basically just me writing based on the plot they tell me but i feel like that's still more theirs than mine. but i never outright wrote a fic with someone else

14. All time favourite ship?

it probably won't be my all time fav forever but rn it's johnto

15. WIPs you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i don't have those. if i want to finish them i will. i swear. i will. really. and if i don't want to finish them then well. i know i won't finish them. those i have plenty of

16. Writing strengths?

i'm apparently very good at smut. i also think i'm pretty good at angst

17. Writing Weaknesses?

action scenes. how do they work? how do you write them not boring and bad? i can't even copy how someone else writes then cause i don't think i've ever read a good one either

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

really depends on how it's done. my most popular fic in both hits and kudos had large swaths of vulcan dialogue translated using a unique work skin, which i think is cool. doing dialogue like that and adding the translation in the end notes is very annoying unless you use the footnotes links. random words interspersed with english dialogue is fun if it's only terms of endearment or written by someone who actually knows the other language and is doing it naturally and well. "character said in [language]" only works if you make it extremely clear and usually takes me out of the story. sorry i have a lot of opinions

19. First fandom you wrote for?

excluding my complete oc au overhaul rewrite of a very popular children's magic series which was so far removed from the source as to be a heavily plagiarised original, my first proper fic was dan and phil rpf in like 2017 or something

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

again, really hard decision. Lovers Close, Enemies Closer is probably my favourite smut i've written. Paradoxical is one i worked really hard on but barely anyone read

tagging @shejustcalledmeafish @captain-ghost @deadianto and anyone else who wants to

[samiferboy]

20 Fanfic Author Questions

tagged by @quietwingsinthesky, thanks bug!

1. How many works on AO3?

8 on my current account, 2 on my old one

2. Total AO3 Word Count?

current is 103,882! old account is....over 200k probably

3. Top 5 fics by Kudos

we do not speak of what i wrote when i was 17, so not counting that, it's my joyful rewrite, a really short walten files thing, and my other three lisa fics. my only posted spn fics are really recent so they don't have much lol

4. What fandoms do you write for?

rn i'm like exclusively writing for spn bc the brainrot has consumed me, but i still have a few lisa fic ideas rolling around i might finish someday. i also write warriors fic on occasion. i might write weird lesbian clone fucking for westworld, idk.

5. Do you respond to comments?

mostly! not always, its usually an energy thing. but i deeply appreciate all of them!!!!!!!!!

6. Angstiest Ending?

prrrrobably the weight of us which is just me writing about how brad should not have been someone's father

7. Fic with the Happiest Ending?

joyful ends with buddy and dustin starting a pacifist society which is pretty happy!

8. Do you get hate?

shockingly even when i was writing extremely problematic stuff (not that my current stuff isn't also hashtag problematic lmao) i never got hate! but i definitely ended up on some blocklists Back In The Day (and probably now as well)

9. Do you write smut?

excessively, yes

10. Do you write crossovers?

sometimes, when one wriggles its way into my brain! but usually i just sit and think about them. i have multiple homestuck crossovers (9, madoka magica, portal, lisa (yes i know), ddlc), and i had a really fun idea for an x files/persona 4 crossover lmao

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of, but my fic from 10 yrs ago was posted on fucking goodreads? which was weird?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

my friend anna and i write shit together sometimes but never anything published

14. All time favourite ship?

oh god. obviously i'm terminally fixated on samifer rn and have been for almost two years, but all time? no idea. i am still insane about chelley and it's been 13 years

15. WIPs you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

oh jesus. an insane amount. i had two ideas for 100k+ samifer fics that i'm very iffy about now but i really really really want to write a longfic for my men so. i will keep brainstorming

16. Writing strengths?

i've been told i'm good at pornography 😎 i also think i'm quite good at dialogue bc i'm a big talker

17. Writing Weaknesses?

action scenes, i am dogshit at those. i also have a hard time with showing not telling when it comes to how people are feeling, i think because i myself have a hard time "reading the room" and understanding how people feel. good ol autism

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

so as a monolingual person i am not the person to ask, but, from my experience talking to people who speak multiple languages, it's not necessarily uncommon to like, switch languages if you're thinking of a thought that you mostly hear in one language and not the other? idk. it's not something i write, and if i do, i'll probably ask my multilingual pals how they think it's best to go about it

19. First fandom you wrote for?

came up with in my head? winnie the pooh, when i was a little bitty baby. actually written? i told this story a while back in some tags, it was for this water dinosaur movie they played at the local science museum. posted? guardians of ga'hoole or warrior cats.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

oh jesus. um. honestly i'm not like, that big of a fan of any of my writing? i'm kind of terribly insecure about it. wahoo. but if you like woundfucking i did just post this a few weeks ago and it's fun!

mutuals who write fic are welcome to do this and tag me so i can read your responses! <3

[sineala]

Hi Sine! I find myself in possession of a very long plot (not going to count how many of those are in my inventory), and was hoping you'd share what program(s) you use for yours? I'm the sort who'd use a murder-wall with notecards but I don't have space rn. I *should* use tagging systems but all the ones available are so sketchy and unreliable that I lose focus just typing. Also I tried to search but. This is tumbs. Thanks - Shusu

Oh boy, this question was made for me!

The first novel-length story I wrote, I wrote in TextEdit. All 90,000 words of it. I basically just made a list of the scenes I wanted in the order I wanted them in, started typing the story above the list, and deleted every scene from the list when I had written it. I don't recommend this.

These days, I use Scapple and Scrivener. I have much more detail below. I am sure I have talked about them before but, as you say, Tumblr is hard to search.

Different things will work for different people, and I don't always start this way, but sometimes, while I'm still trying to rough out an idea, I start with a mind mapping program. You know that brainstorming technique that you learned in, like, third grade, where you take a piece of paper and you write down the main idea in the center in a bubble and then branch lines out from those with more bubbles containing related ideas, and then branch things out from those, and so on? You can get programs to do that instead of a big piece of paper, and the advantage to doing this on a computer is that your piece of paper can be infinitely large and you won't ever run out of space.

I will sometimes skip this step if I already know what order things are going to happen in (in that case, I just make an outline), but if it's the kind of unformed idea where I just want to write down everything that happens as I think of it so I won't forget it later, then I use a mind map.

I also use it to write down bits of dialogue as I think of them; the program I use lets me change fonts and colors and so on, so I have color-coded my dialogue by character:

I feel like I have probably posted this before but Tumblr is not letting me search. Also, this is probably not how you're supposed to use this, judging by how it exports data, but whatever.

There are a variety of programs that can help you make mind maps, and I'm sure a lot of them are good. The one I use is Scapple, which I like for a few reasons: it's very easy to use (you type something in, and then to connect two bubbles you drag one on top of the other) in a way that gives you a lot of freedom; it's not a subscription model like a lot of apps are (you buy it, you pay once, you can use it forever, and it costs about $20); and mostly, it's made by the developer of the writing program I use (Scrivener), meaning that the two programs integrate very well.

So then there's Scrivener.

Scrivener is probably the absolute most useful software I have ever owned; I have bought it four times now. (All three desktop versions and then the iOS version.) It is a word processor that is designed to help you structure and write novels. There are similar programs for free or at least cheaper, of course, but this is the one I use. (It also isn't a subscription; you just buy it.)

The downside is that it's a very complex program. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can look a little daunting. It's one of those programs that has hundreds of features and you will only use about fifty percent of them, but everyone uses a different fifty percent, so there's something for everyone. (It can generate character names! There's a feature on the Mac version where it can highlight words by part of speech! You can change all the icons! The LaTeX export is pretty decent!)

Honestly, as long as you can figure out how to make scenes, rearrange scenes, edit synopses, and get your work out of the program, you're good to go; that's probably what you'll be doing most of the time.

Scrivener is basically designed around the murder-wall-of-notecards writing approach. A Scrivener project contains your Draft, which can have a bunch of folders in it (chapters) which can have individual documents (scenes). Each scene has an index card associated with it, and each index card is where you can write a synopsis for each scene.

You can view your story as single scenes or as a whole story (optionally with a window showing the synopses, so you can remember what you thought was going to happen while you are writing; I have shown this above) or you can just view the synopses as an outline or as index cards, like so:

There's your murder wall right there.

Rearranging the index cards also rearranges the scenes. (Rearranging the scenes using the list in the sidebar also rearranges the scenes.) So if you want to swap scenes around, you can do that. If you want to write the end first, you can do that. If you want to add three more scenes in the middle, you can do that.

You can also search your whole project, color code the index cards, tag them however you want with keywords (e.g., a keyword for every character who appears in the scene) and then look at everything you've tagged with particular keywords, notate scenes by whether they're done or not, and basically everything else you can think of. Mostly I have used this to color code scenes by POV so I can keep track of who's talking; I could also have used keywords.

So my first move when I start a project in Scrivener is to make a bunch of blank documents for all the scenes I think I will have, give them some kind of meaningful title, start writing down on the notecards things that will happen in each scene, and then move them around. This is where Scapple comes in handy -- both because I already have an idea from making a mind map in Scapple of what scenes I want, and also because the integration between Scapple and Scrivener makes it really, really easy to get started.

How do Scapple and Scrivener integrate, you ask? If you make a mind map in Scapple, you can drag and drop it into Scrivener and it will automatically make one scene for every bubble you have, and the text of each bubble will be on the notecard, so you can basically start with all of your scenes that you already have made in Scapple and then reorder them as you like.

Scrivener projects also have a Research section, where you can store basically anything related to what you're working on; you can set it to show your draft and your research at the same time. Basically anything can go in here. Mine usually have notes, more notes, character information, lines I cut but wanted to save somewhere (there is also a versioning system built in if you prefer that), comics panels, reference pictures, and entire webpages. This way, you'll never have to figure out what you did with that thing you looked up for your story, because you can keep it right there with your story.

Scrivener costs $60, which is kind of a lot, but there are very often coupons for 50% off from online software retailers (I just saw one on Boing Boing a couple days ago that still works as of the time I am answering this; I can vouch that they are a legit retailer). Also if you know anyone who has won NaNoWriMo, they get a Scrivener coupon as part of their winnings, and some people don't use theirs. It has a thirty-day free trial period (IIRC that's 30 days of use, not 30 calendar days) so you can try it and see if it works for you.

I also made a Compile Format for Scrivener 3 -- the current version -- so I can export HTML suitable for AO3 or Dreamwidth in one click. Scrivener can export your work in basically any format you can think of, but the default HTML exports all have too much stuff in them for my liking.

(Scrivener also has a bunch of preset templates for various kinds of writing -- like, there's a Novel template with room for character sheets and settings and all of that. You can make your own template, too. I actually made my own template for writing fanfiction for AO3. I'm not sharing this one because it is so personalized to me that it wouldn't be useful -- but, for example, I already know that I'm going to want a document in my Research section where I list notes about canon, and one where I list what bits I need to edit, and one where I copy in any conversations I've had with beta readers that I might want to refer to, and one where I list the things that will be in the AO3 header (it contains empty spaces for Title, Fandom, Tags, Summary, etc) so I can now always start with that. You can make a template yourself by opening a new project, setting it up exactly the way you like with the Research documents exactly the way you want, and then doing File > Save as Template. It will copy everything including any text that's in there so you want to use something that doesn't already have any story or research content written in it because then that will get copied. But it's a real timesaver.)

Anyway. Scrivener is the best.

[bandomgay]

hi, can you tell us a bit about the superhero au you mentioned in the tags? is miles in it? (you don't have to, no pressure! just curious :)

YIPPIE I'm gonna explode thank u for asking ERMMMM well

Okay so it's a milex fic

Miles is a hero/vigilante he's known pretty much everywhere but like when kinda ass at it not in bad guy type of way he's just genuinely always getting hurt but he's always sacrificing himself to save others and his power is pretty much if you know black bolt from marvel it's that his scream/voice is deadly and his can manipulate sound waves as well which includes his own voice cool things like making his voice only show up in certain frequencies so certain people or radio stations can only hear it on tune into it also debating letting him be able to do things like banshee from the x men , using to be able to fly even and he looks like jumpsuit coup de grace era and his suit looks like the jumpsuit but of course more superhero practical it keeps that dark blue with the white/pink lines with the makeup to! Like a mask! those hand wraps he had in that fitness video

, miles also has a team which is the mk band as you know Victoria (speedster) , Dom(mind reader, telepath) and Nathan (super strength)

(they r so cute....)

And Alex now I'm still very conflicted on making Alex humbug era because I don't know how I feel about that age difference even though their both adults I know? But however in my Alex does look exactly like humbug Alex maybe a more grown up version idk use ur imagination here

HFHGHGHF but he doesn't just look like humbug Alex cause he's a pretty princess it's actually because of humbug eras themes of being psychedelic,angsty and shrouded in mystery which is very much this Alex so now to the part u probably wanna hear about his power Alex is basically on his jean grey shit rn...like give that boy an Aspirin PLEASE lmao he's telepathic and telekinetic/psychokinetic and it's made him reclusive but when he begins to hear miles voice for months on end he kinda gets a little obsessed with him he's linked to him and he knows fuck all of how to deal with his powers so he's just always spying on him he feels bad about it but he can't really stop it, miles is unaware of this though he is in pursuit of other powered beings to help out with what his team mate Dom says might be an enemy looming over the earth he finds Alex out , there's a difference between Dom and Alex powers though where Dom is purely mind linking and mind reading can hyperfocus into feelings and such Alex' is much more abstract, psychedelic and possibly dangerous like he can't tell whether his dreams are dreams or these things are really happening to people ,questioning wether he's ever hurt someone and why does miles want or even need him and this looming pressure increases Alex' abilities for the worst making him unstable but it seems miles is the only one that can quell him...it does it crazier but like I won't spill it I ever like decide to post it...

I'm still developing the rest of the monkeys but a certain post may have just helped alleviate that block of what I want the rest of the monkeys powers to be because I've brainstormed some Matt scenes but the rest are yet to come also I'm thinking pyro powers Matt , earth/nature oriented powers Nick and water powers jamie , though I had something accuracy focused (like bullseye from marvel or Diego from the umbrella academy) still in mind for either Matt or Jamie idk...yet (Jamie throwing knives...sorry I didn't mean to MOAN like that...)

ERM here's a little drabble/scene as a bonus