#wrote out the entire plot scene by scene in my notes app on the way home

[cattons]

this has to be some sort of diagnosable condition

[uchihaharlot]

CEO! AU Where their employee is too naive about innuendo 😅

Too pure and these guys wreck her during a personal "meeting" in their office.

(Separate scenarios please 🙏)

Me dearest moot,

I apologize this took me so long. 😅 I find it hard to write ooc scenes, but then again everything written outside the Narutoverse is considered ooc. So I just rolled with it, didn’t feel it at first. Sat on it, went back edited it — added more and hopefully the outcome is to your standards.

I truly am committed to writing almost any ask that is sent my way.

I do apologize, this got lengthy. I cannot not write anything less than 3k it seems when in the mood. Lmao. I give you smut with minor plot, because I love a bit of backstory and I adore characters that have a familiarity between them or some fluffy shit like that.

(When I wrote this, I was not aware of your preference for Itachi at the time. Shisui CEO was already in the works. Honestly am not entirely convinced this is good. I would be willing to do Itachi in a separate ask, I just didn’t want this to be like 15k of figuring my shit out).

NSFW; airhead-ish intern; smut w/plot; praise kink; oral; vaginal; unprofessional work environment; sex at work; Enjoy!

wc: an exorbitant fucking 3.4k; fuck and I’m not editing it much more right now. Will go back, I just felt like the worlds biggest piece of shit for taking so long lol

As fresh blood in the world of accounting, credentials meant everything. Especially if you want roll with the big boys. Which is why when accepting an internship nearly six months ago from the most prestigious accounting firm, you didn’t hesitate to accept. It would look good on your resume and if lucky enough, you’d be offered a job and avoid the hassle of sending out hundreds of applications.

So far things have been mild and mundane.

Coffee this, tea that. Dry cleaning. You hardly even made an appearance into the conference room except on few occasions.

Today was one of those days your presence was requested. Shisui Uchiha, CEO, owner and founder of Tomoe LLC. An accounting firm for high profiled clients.

Yea, your designated boss was that guy.

The one who made tabloids left and right with his fuck you money and all. The guy who probably had every woman in the office, including yourself, humid and longing. Didn’t even have to try, and there was no lying. How unfortunate you had the hots for him. Regardless of your stance, you retained the upmost professionalism in his presence.

When Shisui walks into the conference room, all eyes are on him. Composed, clean cut and admirable. As an intern your job is to take minute notes, jot ideas he spouts off and anything of importance. At the end of his hour and a half long ramble. Everyone is dismissed.

‘Except you.’ Words you didn’t really expect, but nonetheless did as you were told.

Once the room is cleared, Shisui’s gaze catches yours. Sharp and observant, you felt under the microscope of his heavy dark eyed gaze. ‘I need your help on something.’

Which was great, usually.

This is what you’re here for. If it was coffee, you’d fetch it. If it was picking his dog up from the groomers, that too. You got to use his shiny new car, which was a treat. He made sure you knew nobody before you had that privilege.

‘I’m listening, Uchiha-san.’ Submissive and severely cute as you retained his attention. Even if unintentional, it made his eyes flicker whenever you called him that and he straightened up a bit. A smug grin on his face.

Ever the good girl.

Shisui taps at your laptop, quickly you open its notebook app, ready to record his thoughts. ‘I want you to draft your own document on project of your choosing. Consider it a ‘review.’ How can you make this company grow?’

Oh, it was one of those reviews. The preliminary ‘give me your thoughts and maybe you can have a job’ situation. He continues, ‘on one condition… meet me in my office after work. And we’ll discuss it more personally.’

‘Anything specific I should focus on?’ It wasn’t confusing, but you had the sense there was something particular he was looking for.

He smiles and gazes over you. Shisui always said he appreciated your tenacity and go-getter attitude. ‘Just whatever comes to mind; nothing too serious…..when you write this document, just remember it's for me. It should be tailored to suggestions you think I would….be interested in.’

‘Right, for you…for the company.’ You sheepishly smile back. Why was the room hot, why did your stomach disappear and leave you feeling sick almost. Not in a terrible way, but well….no. He’s your damned boss!!

‘Good girl.’ Something crawled up your spine when he said those words. Your body treasonously gushed, and it was hard not to flush warm in the cheeks. ‘Make sure to send this off before you stop by my office. It would be…beneficial for me to know before we further discuss this in a personal setting.’

A personal setting. After work.

You weren’t stupid by any means, part of you truly believed your boss was hitting on you and the other half was partial to the fact Shisui just knew how to get what he wanted. So, for the last few hours of your day, you focused on real issues within the company. You didn’t want to insult him, but there were things that could improve the numbers and have an impact. Small minute details you picked up the last few months. The document was sent off the last half hour of the day before you walked down to the elevator and took it three floors up to where the higher-ranking individuals in the company were stationed.

Maybe you could be up here. Maybe your ideas would actually mean something. A small smile spreads your face before you knock on his office door.

When Shisui opens the door, he immediately steps aside and motions for you to enter. That’s good sign, right? His gaze lingers as you take in the office that you see maybe three times a month. Your actual duties are handed down to the secretary on your floor directly from him.

A soft click of the door closing has your nerves striking flint at one another.

‘I like how you took this assignment so seriously….’ Taking a seat at his desk, hands folded together. He takes her in.

‘You’re not offended?’ Of course not! The numbers didn’t lie, you had found a hole in his company’s bottomline. Money was being filtered out. If anything, he was grateful you did this so thoroughly.

Shisui’s eyes seem almost piercing, ‘I’m not offended at all. In fact, it’s impressive. Very impressive….now exactly how did you figure this out?’

Oh, that was a toughie. It was by accident, really, you explain. Within the first few weeks of your internship, you were granted access to classified information. Unsure if this was even allowed, you figured that if a potential job was to be had. You needed to know the numbers. Unfortunately for Shisui, undoubtedly, someone was stealing money from him. He had his suspicions prior to your upheaval, but no real way of confirming without causing the perpetrator to become aware. Aside from that it was intricately encrypted, meaning you were incapable of providing further details of who.

Shisui eyes you the whole time, his unwavering gaze felt unkind almost, but sincere. ‘So, you were just casually going through the inflow and outflow. Just so happen to discover…. money missing?’

You exhale heavily, this sounded like it could backfire. ‘Y-yes. I’m sorry if that was a breach of my contract, I figured if I was granted access—’

Shisui’s light chuckle interrupts you, a sort of calm, almost relieved feeling washes down your nerves. ‘You’re fine, I admire your determination and commitment to this company. It seems I can’t trust everyone here…’

‘I suggest, if you’re open to it…. calling tech support, they might be able…’ the words hit your face from the floor. Someone in tech support would be the perfect position to lay low and hide or dispose of backlogs. Shisui quirks an eyebrow at your acute observation. ‘Tech support would be able to see behind all of that.’

At first, he is surprised, then perturbed. Tech support would be capable of seeing behind the encryption or worse. Creating it. Leaning back in his chair, he folds his hands under to his chin. ‘A smart observation….that is….unfortunate. For them, if so.’ A hint of admiration in his voice has you smiling at his praise.

Shisui can’t help but stare at you for a moment. That smile is adorable, even more when you’re not completely flustered by him. When you’re almost comfortable in his presence. ‘You’re a very sharp girl…and you have a good grasp of this business despite being just an intern….’

‘It’s nothing….really. I was just…trying to get on top of the game.’ A soft shrug is all you manage. What else could you say? Now wasn’t the time to toot your own horn.

Shisui leans forward in his chair. He can't help but notice you’re a still bit shy, reserved and overtly quiet in his presence. More times often than not are you loud and boisterous with the friends you’ve made here. Something lurches in the back of his mind; his tone of voice softens.

‘I’d like to commend you for your efforts. You’ve outdone yourself and even figured out someone is potentially funneling money from me.’ He pauses briefly, ‘just out of curiosity though….why did you accept this internship?’

The harsh truth resurfaced with a prejudice. You were bitter the first few weeks, though you were grateful for this opportunity here. Not a word back from a single firm within the five great nations when you sought them out. It was nearly a month later after you had sent out the portfolio did Shisui’s firm respond. ‘You were the only firm to return interest and extend an offer.’

This was not something Shisui expected to hear. It disheartened him and left a foul taste in his mouth. Surely other firms would have been interested. He hadn’t sent a reply as quickly beforehand. Thinking you would take an opportunity in another country. Most people wanted to leave their home cities; he responded solely on the fact he was too eager in his selection for you. The portfolio, while small, was exceptional. Organized and precise. His stubbornness made him hold off but the business side of him does what’s best for itself.

He had to have you, to see the woman behind the mind. Even if you weren’t the spectacular woman before him, he still would have hired you. He wasn’t discriminatory in that matter, only if you would be beneficial to the firm. He knew from the initial interview that you would be, it was just a bonus that you were drop dead gorgeous.

‘No other company reached out?’ The irritation in his voice was severe and brought blasphemy in his eyes.

The hardened look on his face softens once more as you continue, ‘I was shocked to receive your extension to interview.’

Another unexpected answer. Shisui didn’t expect that the other internships went unanswered, but he never once turned down the free labor hours of an internship. There wasn’t a damn thing that made you unworthy of a position here. Intelligent, well calculated….submissive. You did every thing he threw at you from silly errands he couldn’t be fucked with, to listening to him bitch about Genma’s vacation in the Land of Tea being two weeks.

‘So here I am. Almost the six month review. I was hoping that this recent development would…be a retainer for a full time position…’ the words taper off. Hearing how silly you were.

Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours was not at the forefront of your mind.

But it was his and, well, the funny thing is. Shisui’s back, is on his cock. That’s exactly the kind of back scratching he was referring to earlier when he asked for you to come up with a minor presentation for him. He figured this one wouldn’t fly over the crows nest, but it had. You didn’t quiet catch his intentions.

He would just have to be more…direct.

A small smile spreads his face, the fact that you were just so bashful with your request. Shisui rounds his desk quickly, his hands at your forearms. Sights sharp with intent. Deep baritone grows soft when he addresses you, ‘consider me impressed.’

You quickly dial in at his hands holding you so, so intimately. ‘Why?’ Is that really all you can manage? Though you didn’t understand, ‘why do I impress you? I did something that someone else should have been doing.’ Your brows pinch.

Shisui doesn’t answer right away, he takes the time to consider you. He thumbs small circles on your left arm, as if he is trying to properly convey the words of adoration without scaring you off. ‘You’re right, I should have someone doing this. I am just impressed you were that person when it should have been someone more experienced in this company.’

‘But…?’ Waiting for it. For the let down of not having a position here.

Shisui runs a hand through his hair, the other still on your left arm, ‘this is the first time I’ve ever thought about extending a full-time position to an intern in awhile. But…from now on, you will not be an intern…’ a pregnant pause makes the air thick and stale for a moment. ‘You’ll be my assistant.’

‘Assistant?’ That wasn’t working with numbers, ‘that’s not…numbers or anything close to it…’

Shisui’s laugh fills his chest and reverberates in his throat stopping at a light hum, the grip on your forearm tightens a little to capture your undivided attention wholly. ‘Do not worry. I never said that you would stop working with numbers. That will still be part of your position here. But, moreover, I want your input on other aspects of this company. Marketing, communication, etc. a more….intimate experience at my side.’

You gawk. ‘How can you consider that from a near bare portfolio. I surely haven’t worked my weight in ryo here, not even close.’

In this moment, you look adorable to Shisui. Exasperated and uncertain. Almost undeserving. ‘You’re forgetting exactly why I chose you for the internship. I knew from the moment I interviewed you that you were a very sharp young lady. My trust in your abilities has grown exponentially these past few months, and hence…this new position for you.’

A soft click of your tongue, it was all coming full circle now. ‘This sounds like a curated position that was just made up.’

Shisui’s lips curl into a devious smile, that slips below subtle smirk. He narrows his eyes a bit, those eyes ever intense and drinking you up like the finest whiskey. That calm and composed side of Shisui is replaced by a commanding and dominant presence. Unholy even.

‘Uchiha-san?’ A sharp exhale as Shisui snakes a hand around her waist.

He brings you flush to his chest, running a hand through your hair. Drags his nose along your jaw and up to your cheek before his lips stop at your ear. Hot and raspy, Shisui’s intentions are more than clear. You notice how tall he really is, just towering over you. How much older he is too.

‘What…are you doing?’ A whispered hiss of astonishment at his direct approach.

‘What do you think I am dong?’ Sweet like honey, his voice is deep. Commanding. Possessive.

‘I’m partial to believe this is not in my job description….’ Your soft breath fans the his cheek as he rakes a hand up the nape of your neck.

‘I never suggested it was….’ The words send shivers down your spine, his thumb traces down your cheekbone. His warm breath smells sweet, you know this is not appropriate. Against policy. And as much as you’d hate to admit it.

You enjoyed it. ‘Then what is this for?’

You graze your nose in return over his cheek, the boldness amuses Shisui. How much did you like this? ‘This is part of the perks that come with your new job. If you haven’t noticed by now… I tend to enjoy your company.’

Well no, you didn’t notice. Not until now, ‘no, how could I when I’m hardly doing as an intern should?’ That was cute.

The small moan from your lips is even more adorable as Shisui dragged his lips down your neck. Delirium filled your head space, this was moving too fast. Before you knew it your tight pencil skirt was shucked to above your hips and you were laid on his desk.

Subservient to his desire, fueled by your own deplorable greed within. You could just let Shisui have his way with you, not that you saw it this way. Sex was currency, was also free and felt fucking good. The part of you that may or may not have fantasized this exact scenario unfolding was in charge now.

Spread out, legs over his shoulders holding his head in a vice squeeze. How did it get far this fast? Nose in your heat, lapping and twirling his tongue over your clit. Fingers curling in the confines of your taut muscles. Muscles that ached for it; were drenched for him. If your knocked a few things off his desk, Shisui would forgive you. This was the reason why he’d drawn you in after hours, the sounds you made were no less than a few doors in range: if anyone was still here after hours. They’d hear and pretend they didn’t the next day.

When his cock stretched you, molded you to him. He reamed a hand around your neck and pressed your back into the keyboard. Every time you came close to coming, he squeezed and stopped thrusting. Making you writhe and submit further to him.

‘..please.’ Your desperate whimper.

‘Please..what?’

Those soft eyes of yours caught his attention, ‘..please let me come Uchiha-san.’

He kissed you sweetly, but fucked you like an office whore as you came all over him. ‘Such a good girl…’ rang your ears every so often as he softly panted out between thrusts. Shisui flipped you to your stomach once you succumbed to his relentless pounding. Wrung his hand in your hair and craned your neck back to expose the delicate flesh. Nipping your pulse point, he sheath himself once more. Slower, needier. On the verge of filling your sweet hole with his genetic markup. Gripping your waist to steady your body, he whispered many things of promise if you accepted his job offer.

His bed, car and money. What on earth had gotten into this man? Shisui couldn’t figure out for himself exactly what he was saying either, but it was all forgotten the split second your salacious whimper and saying you were coming again. Had his hips steam rolling and slamming into you harder. Pumping his thinking length as he coated your insides. Holding your back to his chest as you both moaned out loud.

Surely, this was unprofessional. The entire time you fixed your clothes, you expected him to rescind his decision. That didn’t happen. Not when he fixed his tie, adjusted your skirt and covered you with his coat. Not once did his resolve change as you both walked out the dark office and got out of the elevator. He took you to dinner, paid an extraordinary amount of money for too little food and ushered you home. Opened your door and lead you by the small of your back to your front door and gave you a chaste kiss.

‘See you in the morning, ill be here at 6:30am’ It was fully decided by now that you did have a a full time position now, and he handed you a check for the firsts three months salary, and then some that had your head spinning.

‘This is unnecessary..’ It was money that you’d only ever seen on paper, let alone now held in your hands.

‘Consider it a bonus, and a reward.’ Shisui lifted your chin, and kissed your cheek.

You watched as he waited for you to go inside of your apartment, then he left.

[rweoutofthewoods]

hiii just wanted to pop in here and ask what do you use to write (I've seen you mentio notion and Google docs but it would NOT be the first time an amazing fanfic writer wrote the entire thing in notes app lol) ? As well as what your writing process is like (for example if there are specific Pinterest or playlists you create/listen to to get ideas) or do you just go in, no background and sit yourself at a desk. Aside from all of that, I LOVE ALL YOUR FICS AND YOUR SUCH AN AMAZING WRITER <3 And you definitely deserve to be a published author if that is what you strive to be

Hi!!

I’m a Word diehard. I use Word to write everything (the amount of documents in my one drive is insane). I use google docs to send chapters to my beta just because sharing is easier that way, but it’s usually mostly done at that point. I just do the last read through on there and leave her questions and concerns (tho tbh mostly just random silly commentary and jokes). I do use my notes app sometimes, usually if I’m out. If I have an idea for a scene I write it down immediately. I’ve even tried to use speech to text to write while driving. SPOILER ALERT it doesn’t work at all 😭

I don’t usually have much when I sit down to write a fic at first. Usually it’s like a song I’m looping and a blank document. But with longer fics i eventually make a playlist and sometimes a Pinterest board, but usually that’s just to save pics to use for my playlist and maybe notion if I make a page. Though honestly out of my 40-something fics only 4 have a notion page and only one of those has actual plotting in there. The rest is just vibes and to get all my links, playlists, etc. grouped together.

For me I really work best while I’m writing if that makes sense. So I don’t often plan before I start a fic, I just start writing and things just come to me while I’m typing. Sometimes I wind up writing huge different plot points bc they just come out while I’m typing and then I have to sit back and be like where tf did that come from.

Hope this answers your question well enough. Tysm and I hope you have a great Thursday!!

[celestie0]

when you plan out scenes for a chapter how do you do it? like do you make bullet points for every major scene that happens? or do you also map out what you want the dialogue to be, or that just comes as you begin writing the chapter?

yeah sort of!! i just get intrusive thoughts of certain dialogue/scenes or even certain ways to put things, and i jot it all down in my notes, n then when i’m ready to write the chapter, i go back and organize my notes in chronological order n then write the chapter out while cross referencing my notes

sometimes these notes will literally just be one liners or exposition, or they’ll just be stripped down dialogue, or they’ll be like literally 2k words of an entire scene (this is what happened w the hotel bed sharing scene in ch8 of kickoff, i practically wrote that entire scene in my notes app before i wrote any of the other chapter lol)

i’d say i do come up with some dialogue sporadically here n there, and then i build the other dialogue around it? honestly one of my favorite things about writing is starting w an out of context dialogue that is cute or silly, and then finding ways to organically build up to it w what i have planned storywise for the chapter 🤣 like i’ll just have the most random dialogue and i’m like 🤔 how tf can i make this work w the plot. it’s like a game to me hahah and when the answers come to me, i get so excited (i did this a LOT with the next chapter of kickoff, since it first started off as just a bunch of lil dialogues, but now i’m really happy w the way the whole convo takes place as a whole, which i think is a flow of like 5k words now all build from like little pieces of random dialogue)

but yeah i hope this answers!! its just chaotic in my brain tbh.

[bbyboybucket]

1, 3, 13, 18, & 24 for the ask game 😁

1. I write in default but I don’t think the notes app has fonts to chose from actually 😭

3. I don’t really have a ritual 😭 but if we’re talking about cursed ways to write, there’s been 10000 times where I’ve been driving and I’ll have an idea for whatever I’m writing so I’ll just pull my phone out and start typing out like an entire scene or chunk of dialogue. No, I do not wait till I pull over. I think it’s self explanatory why this is so bad.

13. I feel like missions and action scenes are my hardest area. I’m not very good at coming up with them nor describing them, so I try to avoid it. I actually have a genius fic idea that I wanna write but I prolly never will bc it’d require all that mission stuff. Maybe I’m just bad at it because I have no experience, since most of my fics are mundane, random, little life moments rather than actual stories with plots lmao.

18. Honestly I had a hard time picking a passage bc most of my fics are so old that I don’t remember writing them or I straight up just think they’re cringe now 😭 so basically I just chose one from the last thing I wrote

Nakajima didn’t get the joy of having more holidays with his family. Collins didn’t get another Christmas. Weaver, Hudson, Gannod, Hauser, Whitaker; not a single one of them saw the light of Christmas morning again. The nameless faces didn’t either. They all got nothing ever again and their last breathes were filled with terror as his own merciless form stood before them. Bucky had no right to complain as his heart was still beating, his windpipe wasn’t crushed nor was his brain matter splattered on the walls.

The reason I chose this one is because I spent soooooo long looking, like literally scouring the whole internet, for a clear picture of Bucky’s notebook so I could use the actual last names written. The paragraph itself was nothing special and mainly just to play up his guilt some more, but the process of finding those names in his book was weirdly difficult. Like I swear it took me over 20 minutes.

24. My prep work is the bare minimum. I’ll have an idea for dialogue or a prompt and I’ll write it down, then I’ll make a really really shitty outline. Honestly idek if what I do qualifies as an outline. But then 99% of the time I won’t even end up following it.

[asleepinawell]

Found your Endlings series browsing the bayojeanne tag on AO3, and I absolutely loved it! It was much appreciated after the disaster of Bayonetta 3. The way you characterized Jeanne and Bayo was fantastic and there were some great story moments. I wanted to ask, as a writer who struggles sometimes with getting my planned stories out on paper, do you have a process? Like, do you structure a story, then write it out, do it piece by piece, or something else? The Endlings stories were all fantastic.

I have no structure at all. :') Basically if I have an idea I just sit down and start writing without any real plan and just write straight through it without outlining or going out of order. Drives my other writer friends nuts. I used to post each chapter as I wrote it with no idea how it would end and the plot always seemed to work itself out, but I switched to pre-writing entire fics so I could edit them as a whole before posting which I think improves the quality. I'll generally do 3-5 full editing passes before posting and often keep editing chapters right up until i post

The one thing I sometimes do is sketch out top-down maps of areas especially if there's action stuff going on. I find it helps me keep track of what's happening where. We're talking really rough maps that are a bunch of lines and circles mostly. I also did some "sketches" of some of the bosses I designed for the bayo fic series...which like...i'm not an artist and i did them in a sketch app on my phone so yeah. here's one:

I was having a really hard time describing the boss and doing this helped a lot

On a similar note, I often use reference images. For Endlings I went and took a ton of screenshots and for other stuff I've done in the past I've looked up whatever I'm writing about and found pictures. I just find it easier to have visuals to glance at

There are a lot of different ways to go about writing a longer piece and I think it's just a matter of finding the way that works best for you. I will get bored and quit if I try to outline first (I do sometimes have very specific scenes in my head ahead of time and I kind of look for a place for them as I go), so I just sit down and write. I can't really explain how that works. I think it might be worth trying a range of different planning strategies. Like try writing with no plan and then with a detailed outline and then try to look for the sweet spot in the middle if those don't work. I'm not sure that helps much but it's all I got

and thank you do much and i'm really glad you enjoyed my fics! i think we're all pretty bummed out about where bayo 3 went but that's what fandom content exists for

[scoops404]

18 for I was your willing accomplice, honey (or any fic you'd like) & 46!

From [X] this ask game:

18. If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it involve?

I haven't thought about this much, but I think it would deal more with the fandom side of things -- explaining to their fans that Dream was moving to London with George temporarily until the visa came through and then like the ache of missing their family. Maybe some hilarious Drista (Chloe) & Tommy moments. I think the plot would be like settling into London and living in a too small flat and like figuring out how to settle into each other -- george's family and Dream meeting them. Maybe Nancy and Chloe and Sap would come visit. VERY soppy and i probably won't write it but I imagine that DNF are happy and thriving

46. Do you prefer writing on your phone or on a computer (or something else)? Do you think where you write affects the way you write?

Actual writing happens on my laptop (where i am now) but the creative juices usually get flowing when i'm falling asleep so ill craft an entire scene of dialogue and write that into my notes app and then fill it out the next day (most of Fallen was written this way, especially the big talks with Kate and George in chapter 11 and between Dream and George in chapter 12) and sometimes they aren't in order. So I might picture the ending of the fic and have that scene outlined ages before I get there (very true for every multi chap i've written in this fandom) -- which is fun but does require some editing work when i finally get there. As for where I write -- yes, absolutely. It also depends on the time of year/season. Lol, lately my most successful days have been at Panera with an outlet. But most of the original novel i wrote was written at a picnic table outside like a couple miles from my house. Depends on the vibe, I guess. I can't stay writing at the same place too long. I actually moved my desk around my apartment (my dog thinks I'm crazy) just last night so my brain thinks I'm somewhere else. Lots of Presently in London was written sitting up in my bed when I hurt my back and couldn't sit. I very rarely write in the same place.

Fun to think about, thanks for sending!

[crowned-ladybug]

1, 6 (ik you do but I'm very curious on the process), 9, and 21 for the writers asks! ♡

As typical it's taking me ages to actually get to these I'm sorry!!!! Thank you for the ask tho anyway <3

1) Who is your favorite character to write for and is this the character you find easiest to write for?

With all the characters over the years this is a tough one to pick out but proooobably Benrey still. He's got very fun internal monologue in my hands and you can fuck around a Lot writing him, and that does in fact also make him Easy. He's always come pretty naturally to me which explains a thing or two about my HLVRAI fics i'd say sbhdcbhdcbs

(Recent honorable mention to Sam bc he's also been proving surprisingly fun and then Dima destroyed me by saying his POV is the closest to how i talk on discord out of all the characters they've read me write so far)

6) Do you outline your fics? If so, how?

I start with the notepad app and trying to do a relatively basic lineup of just what scenes are gonna happen, so that I can have the pacing and order of things down. I hardly ever go in with a full lineup of scenes/plot already laid out in my brain, so this is where the fic is first actually born

This works half the time, giving me about a sentence for a whole scene, and then other times i end up outlining an entire scene on the spot

Then comes copying the thing over into an actual document that isn't fuckin exhausting to look at and thus the second pass of rounding out the scenes I haven't accidentally outlined well enough already

My outlines have been getting more detailed lately, so here's to believing in ghosts in specific had a Lot of bits near the end where i was just copying notes over almost word for word bc i had entire paragraphs laid out already. Other times stuff gets left at "and then they talk about [topic]" level of detail until i get to it and have to suffer

A lot of fleshing out also happens on the fly while I'm writing a completely different scene or not writing at all and then have to tab back over to the outline and add like two sentences that i cannot allow myself to forget

It's hard to pick a good example without drowning this post but this was the outline for the first scene of poison in the ashes, for comparison's sake

(I very rarely use any dialogue tags at all when outlining unless they're Significant already. I either just know who's talking anyway or if there could be any doubt, I use a chat format instead)

9) Do you visualize scenes in your head before you write them? (Can you picture the setting, character body language etc)

YES

I am a Very visual person so a Lot of the times I'm trying to put entire movie scenes onto paper and even when that's not so painfully the case, I always have the visual counterpart in my brain. Things are always pictured. Hanging onto very Very specific line deliveries which i cannot convey in text is what's less often tho, and thus sadder to forever only be in my brain, unable to hand to anyone

(I've gotten compliments on specific scenes feeling movie-like before and every time it's such huge thing to hear, that the image not only got onto the paper but also into someone else's head)

21) Writers choice - pick any of these questions that you want to answer.

14) What is something you wrote in a fic that you are hoping readers picked up on but you don't know if they did? And/or, what is something that you were excited that readers did pick up on?

There's always stuff and hardly any confirmation one way or another, however very specific example from recently: the way the first collapse scene in poison in the ashes is arranged was very much a callback to the concussion scene in and what comes tomorrow that I never expected to be picked up on and then Dima screamed at me about it so much :D

Also from poison in the ashes: when in one scene they talk about bad tea, and Rafe tells Sam to just tell him to make some next time, and then the next day Rafe is in fact the one making the tea while Sam loiters. Very on purpose. Of all the things Sam has to fill Rafe in on every morning he's decided to include the tea

[ladywaffles]

hello fellow enjoyer of things >:)

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

🛠What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?

💖 What made you start writing?

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

💞 Who's your comfort character?

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

😈: i am so bad at writing smut scenes so i always fade to black, even when it feels like there should be a scene there and i've built up to it, and it just feels cruel. i would say like 60% of the time there was a sex scene there but i just couldn't get it right so i always end up cutting them out before posting. also i wrote a story once where the entire thesis was "what if the villain deliberately broke the rules on bioethics, as a character study and worldbuilding exercise" and well. readers did not seem to like that. conversely, i also have not updated either of my big WIPs in over a year, so like, that too.

🛒: music and sound are a very big part of my life, so they come up in my stories pretty often! i really enjoy writing to set the place of a scene/story, so i do a lot of touch/smell/hearing similes and metaphors. in terms of feelings, there's a lot of contemplating of loneliness, but not the kind that is, "i am alone in my room," rather the, "i am the only one who has this set of experiences and circumstances, and i cannot explain myself to this person who i care about so they can understand my actions/affections/choices fully, and that makes me feel isolated."

🛠: i primarily use scrivener to write fic, although if you catch me without my laptop, i'll sometimes use google docs or just a plain old fashioned pen and paper. if i'm plotting something out for a longer story, i might use a handwritten timeline on a blank sheet of paper and then just cover it in highlighter and sticky notes as i tack on addendums, if i'm not just screaming about it in a friend's DMs. thesaurus dot com is my best friend.

💖: i started writing fic when i was maybe 11 or 12, right around the time that i first learned that fic existed when i was looking up pictures to make my nook wallpaper, and you could do self-inserts and change the story around to suit your desires, like play-pretend but better. there were just so many permutations to explore, and i really liked that idea! i didn't start publishing fic until i was about 15. that first fic is still out there on ao3 somewhere, but i've since anonymized it so i don't have to look at it on my profile anymore lol. (not because i think the fandom is cringe, but rather because i've grown a lot as an author and it's not necessarily representative of my ability anymore!)

👀: so i know the answer you want me to tell you about is the comphet iceman accidental lovechild aaron tveit AU but sadly i have no more words on paper than that which i have already told you (iceman, very gay and upset over breakup # 3 with maverick, comphet rebounds with a woman who is also very gay and rebounding comphet style and whoops there's a baby now and here comes a bouncing baby aaron tveit). i'm still working on the timelines, because the top gun timeline in relation to the actual universe timeline of when everyone got married/how old aaron is versus when CMIYC was on broadway/aaron's nearly 10-year long absence from broadway is a hot mess and i'm trying to piece things together in the way that is the most true to form/makes the most sense.

💞: donald scripps from the history boys ("I have never particularly liked myself but the boy I was, kneeling in that cold and empty chapel that winter morning, fills me now with longing and pity," spoke wonders to my eighteen-year-old self who was also off to university and questioning reality) and obi-wan kenobi from star wars ("until this very moment, he had never realized he’d always expected, for no discernible reason—that when he died, anakin would be with him." his place in the series as a man who fights for good because it is the right thing to do, because he believes in goodwill, even as the world crumbles around him because it is inevitable that he fail in his mission and ultimately lose everything and everyone he loves, and we all know that he must fail so that others will succeed where he did not... i eat that shit RIGHT up.)

✅: there are at least three separate instances where i have used the righteous brothers' unchained melody in my writing, and two of them are because the song plays on a jukebox in a greasy spoon diner. it was completely unintentional, that's just a song that keeps popping up lol.

fanfic writer emoji ask

[myloveforhergoeson]

hey there! i was wondering - how have you already written such a LONG fic in only so few chapters? did you extensively plan this story ahead of time? make a beat sheet? please reveal your writerly ways 🙏 i struggle even reaching a decent word count for a single chapter 😭

hi!! oh my gosh thank you so much for your question!!! the first question about that's all she wrote ever!!! i have kind of a long answer for you; please find it under the cut

so, the idea for thats all she wrote came to me in november of 2021, and that was the first month that i ended up putting words on a google doc and creating roxy as a character. until a few months ago, this fic was just a silly little thing i could write in my free time so i had accumulated quite a few chapters just from writing whenever i felt like it! i never actually intended for this to be something i published until i had a friend who wanted to publish their own fic in a different fandom and we thought it would be fun to do together. so, i haven't actually written 75k words since the beginning of march, i've been slowly chugging along since the end of november 2021. as of now, since i've seriously began to write to make sure i can meet my every two week posting mark, i'm now writing the very last chapter of the first season - so I've got 17 full chapters written and i'm about 1/4 of the way through the last one (which i'll probably have to split up bc its already super long)

as for the extensive story planning... that is certainly one way to put it. i'm pretty acquainted with the first two seasons of the show, so as i remembered more and more plot points that happened i would just figure how to fix roxy into them and write it down in my notes app. i had major milestones (a plot point in the 7th chapter i cant spoil, a plot point for the dance episode i can't spoil, when she gets together with james... all the way until the end of the big time movie!!) in my head and worked from there. if i knew a major plot point was coming up, i did my best to kind of build the story around that as well as the main plot of the episode. it's kind of hard to explain, but yeah extensive story planning in the way that this story lives in my mind rent free and i love the little character i have made. it's kind of like a beat sheet, but it mostly lives in my brain. honestly, the worst part is writing something in my ideas note and then coming back to it like three months later and having no idea what i meant - for instance i'm trying to figure out what "Mona Lisa, when the world comes down aar finale, obvious westlife" means right now... probably something about the title of the chapter, but maybe i meant i wanted her to play mona lisa by the all american rejects on her guitar... maybe she was listening to obvious by westlife bc she loves '90s boybands... i don't know... we'll have to wait a few chapters to figure it out

when it comes to word count, i don't really have a goal or a cap, but most of the story is already written for me - i do follow most of the main plot and dialogue, just adding in spaces for roxy to exist both on her own as a character and in relation to her band :) a lot of the gags in the show are visual too, so i have to take extra time to make sure i'm able to write that out. plus, the world they live in isn't really fleshed out in the show and that drives me CRAZY, so i like to put my own spin on what i think different parts of the palm woods or rocque records look like... in the 7th chapter i think i went a bit crazy and invented the entire plot of the varsity vampire movies... plus i have little scenes that i either wanted to include in the episode from the get go so the readers can learn more about roxy and her thoughts/feelings about her crazy new life or that i just thought would fit within the episode. i'm really trying my best to give her her own character plot lines and motivations outside of the band, especially outside of james, to make sure she's just as fleshed out as the guys characters are!

tl;dr: i've had literal years sitting on this fic and lots and lots and lots of time to think about how i want it! if you have any more questions/comments/one-shot ideas please do not hesitate to send them my way :)) thanks for your support, i hope you'll like what i've got coming up!

[tiptapricot]

I'm finally off the floor lol

✏️👽🌈 📬 and 🥚

✏️—The first fan fiction you ever wrote? (doesn’t have to be a posted fic)

Honestly this one’s hard to pin down. There’s stuff that counts as fanfic from when I was in like preschool kindergarten era with like Winnie the Pooh and superhero stories, but when it comes to like… actually consciously writing fanfic that I knew was fic, it was probably two instances. One was a Danganronpa semi self insert that I wrote in my notes app n have now deleted (which I wish I didn’t bc it was terrible n I wanna look back on it now), and a similar ish Tiger n Bunny one w a hero insert (tho that one didn’t get as far). Both were very bad but good for me for starting somewhere, you’ve grown baby me!!

👽—Strangest fic you’ve ever written?

Idk if it counts as fic bc it was technically original but I typed something out to a friend over Instagram when red velvets Zimzalabim came out n Area 51 memes were happening, n it was ab a guard on duty witnessing a huge crowd naruto running and singing that as they approached the base. If that’s counted as more original, thennn hmmmm Well my first published work is a collection of (once again) danganronpa poems so probably that. (Also sry DR fans if this is in ur tag I can’t control tumblr)

🌈—Your favorite tropes to write about?

I love angst and hurt/comfort, and characters finding the small details to love ab each other. Tropes I haven’t written often that I want to do more are time travel/loops, mistaken identity, fake dating or being a couple for cover, and monsters (in general).

📬—The best comment you’ve ever received?

This is so hard bc I’ve gotten some rlly sweet ones over the years, but any that like… have the person talking ab how a fic hit for them rlly hard personally and that they reread it, or just rlly going in depth on details they noticed and loved. I got a really cool person who went chapter by chapter on my commander fic and left lovely comments on each one, n I got a REALLLYYYY nice one on my recent wwbn fic I still have to respond to that pointed out a ton of things I rlly wanted ppl to notice n just aghHh!! I love comments sm, they mean a lot to me n I couldn’t choose a fav bc ppl r so often so sweet. Those instances come to mind tho :-)

🥚—Any Easter eggs you put on a fic that you hoped people would notice?

Yeah! N usually in more snapshotty ones. In somewhere over the sun there’s a moment mentioned where Crawley pats Steven’s shoulder n leaves a smear of paint, which was meant to represent the passing of love and comradery onto him with the color themes I’d been keeping up throughout the story, and also to show the way Jake was separate from that, not carrying the physical mark himself.

In 10k Lightyears the entire plot of the 5th chapter was meant to b a ref to the multiverse colliding/collapsing in other MCU movies like no way home and multiverse of madness, though it wasn’t on a solid timeline as that verse was blended with comic lore as well, it was a cool way to incorporate a big in world event from a point of view of a character who doesn’t understand what’s happening but is still experiencing it.

And in my recent fic Third Time, in the scene where Jack takes a cab ride with Jake, I was trying to leave not just Jake as an Easter egg (even tho he’s tagged), but Khonshu as well, implying that being close to a moon god was the reason Jack turned prematurely, the energy messing with his brain and physiology.

Easter eggs or lil details like that r always so fun to include even if ppl don’t notice n I love talking ab my thoughts behind them aFGhhhHg!!!

Send me an emoji for a fic/writing ask!

[some-kindofgnome]

Do u have any fic recs? Nsfw or sfw?

hi anon! sorry it took me so long to get back to this, I’ve been sitting on it for a while as I compiled a list of my favourites for you! 

These are all nsfw to varying degrees, but many of them have lots of delicious plot and romance alongside the smut! (those are my favourite kind of stories, so I’m drawn mostly to that kind of writing) And they're all x reader, just in case that was unclear!

Some of these fics do contain dubcon elements and other darker themes, so please heed the warnings and proceed with caution!

Additionally, these are all BNHA. But if you have any jjk or haikyuu recs that have the same overarching tone or genre, please send them my way!

For your convenience, I’ve sorted them by character below: 

Katsuki Bakugou

surrender (whenever you're ready) by @ofmermaidstories : if you haven't read this one yet, you must. it's absolutely transcendent. it made me weep. there is an essay sitting in my notes app that i'll pluck up the courage to post in mermaid's comment section one day but- BIG FEELS.

Opposites Attract by @mindninjax : This is an INCREDIBLE soulmate/college AU that Marquie wrote for a Secret Santa exchange because she is an absolute angel. It's sweet and sexy and so, so well-written. Marquie does the college AU thing so well. I just wanted to live inside this story.

Smart Mouth by @dymphnasprose : This story is boiling lava, hot-pocket-filling-fresh-out-of-the-microwave hot. Bakugou is your next door neighbour with a SERIOUSLY bad attitude and you've got the eponymous smart mouth that knocks him on his ass. The banter in this fic and the dynamic is ADDICTING and the smut will make you throb.

how to set fires by @hawnks : This is another really gorgeous slow build of tender affection and intimate fondness. I really liked the way that Mint captures Katsuki in this. The imagery in this is really soft and special and the romance is sweet but subtle.

Shouto Todoroki

Siberia by @hoe-doroki : Another one that you NEED to check out, even if you've never felt so much as a tingle for Shouto before. Beta-ing this story for Ana was the best thing that ever happened to me. She makes you fall in love with Shou through the eyes of a reader that you also want to fall in love with. It's an incredible ride and you will love every moment.

Izuku Midoriya

one single thread of gold tied me to you by @spacelabrathor : This is A/B/O like I've never read it before. Cee toes the line between soft alpha!deku and ALPHA alpha!deku with devastating precision and the resulting story will sweep you off your feet. It is a masterclass in sexual tension and sweet pining and again, even if you've never spared Deku a single thought, you need to read this one.

Sunlight by @hoe-doroki : This is a quick little read that captures some sweet post-nap loving with an older-coded husband!deku. Ana's crafted an incredibly vivid scene here and I've re-read this story sO many times because it's such a lovely little world. It captures peace and soft love and I am in love.

Hanta Sero

Hero Santa by @lord-explosion-baku : This is the fic that made me fall for Sero. I really love the way he's captured in this as the sweet, funny and nurturing best-friend-turned-lover. There are lots of sweet moments in this and some heartwarming, goofy, giggly sex that turns me to mush every time i read it. If you read this, you'll fall for him too- guaranteed.

Words on Glass by @whats-her-quirk : This is a VERY sexy quarantine roommate fic with some really lovely moments of tension and desire. All culminating in some steamTASTIC shower sex. Sero is absolutely irresistible in this fic. And the roommates trope will absolutely never get old, especially with somebody like him.

Denki Kaminari 

Finish Line by @whats-her-quirk : This is another one of my favourite college AUs! Denki stars as your sexually-experienced but tender-as-hell best friend who finds out that you've never had an orgasm before. The friends-to-lovers softness in this is supplemented by some iNCREDIBLY sexy smut. another fic that you should read, even if you've never crushed on Denki before.

Keigo Takami

What's Said Is Said by @shadowworks *dubcon : This is a REALLY incredible Fantasy AU that features Fae!Hawks, which is a great characterization for him. The imagery in this story is out of this world- it's extremely rich and evocative. There's an eerie undertone to the entire story that is absolutely thrilling and very sexy.

Priorities by @keilemlucent : This was one of the first stories of Salem's I ever read. And even though it doesn't often show I am a SUCKER for angst. This story does a really incredible job of illustrating some of the tougher elements of a relationship with a pro like Keigo, but also walks you through a gentle (and tender, loving, sexy) solution afterward.

Dabi

Compulsion by @shadowworks *dubcon : This is one of my favourite Dabi stories out there. It's a black comedy/thriller mafia au that takes place on a chilling winter evening in the city. Dabi's characterization in this is spot on and totally irresistible. Every time he's even mentioned my heart flutters a little. And there are some guest appearances from some of your other favourites as well. This story is part one out of a series to come and I can't wait to read the rest!

[blarrghe]

Ooooh. For the ask game: The idea that got you to All Hail West Thedas or Twelve Nights?

funny you should pick those! Both of those fics were planned out in more or less one go, so it's a little harder to say which scene was their raison d'etre.

For Twelve Nights, I spontaneously wrote out the plot of a stereotypical Hallmark movie (only make it Pavellan) on my phone one day on a whim. It was very brief and silly, but I think it was the stereotypical "turning point" of that kind of film that hooked me into actually writing it. You know, the "BusinessMan McMoneybanks' business is a threat to LocalArtsit OutdoorsyGuy's small community!" of it all. The scene that really solidified first, and had the fullest pre-planned notes (literally the entire conversation word for word was written in my notes app I just had to fill in the scenery), was this one:

“I don’t want your help,” he said, and as he said it Dorian’s face fell into a frown, and another one of Taren’s agitated thoughts settled into place, “or your money.”

But Dorian kept his arm, and kept his eyes in their uneasy connection with his own; grey storm clouds of fear and longing pulling his heart into faster beats.

“Taren, please.”

He snapped his own eyes away, pulled back his arm with deliberate purpose. “What?” 

Dorian looked at first like he had a whole speech to give, but then he swallowed, the lump in his throat bobbing up and down before he opened his mouth, and all that came forth was a hoarse, quiet stutter. “I — I’m sorry.” 

Taren sighed, a vice around his heart, and whether it was because he was too tired to think or too full of thoughts to be reserved, it wasn’t clear, but he opened his mouth and out they came: the words to begin a conversation he wasn’t at all ready to have. 

“I care about you, Dorian.” His voice came out now with a sudden clarity, and from there it was really all over. He’d be honest, and he’d say everything, whether it was wise to or not. Dorian flinched with the confession, and Taren tried to keep from watching what was sure to be a trembling avalanche of guilt again in his eyes. “You might be the most interesting person I’ve ever met. You’re charming, you’re impossibly smart, and passionate, and I” — he shook his head — “I like you.” The word sounded juvenile and insufficient for what he felt: impossibly connected; fate-twined and breathless. His face full of smiles he couldn’t help every time Dorian’s glance fell on him, besieged by the knowledge that he’d risk his stupid heart over him from the moment he’d complained his way into his life. Like one of a pair of blushing pilgrims, and in the wrong play; "too much, probably.” he said.

Dorian reached for his arm again, and this time he didn’t draw back.

“But you’re so obviously unhappy, uncomfortable in whatever life it is that you have, and I think you deserve better.” Taren risked a glance up into his eyes, and found them quivering, a glint of distress mixed with that heady pull of want, “I believe that you're sorry, that you mean well, I just wish you had told me.” 

And that was that: all he had to say. He watched Dorian register the words and sigh, shaking his head as he took a turn now in tearing his eyes away. 

“I can't have better.” Dorian breathed bitterly, “I didn't tell you because, I don't know, because you’re right. I hate this life, and I hate that everything in it is about my father and his company. Even if fighting from the inside is the best thing I could do with my life, it somehow never feels like it. And I have such a history of just being that poor little rich boy, but…” It was more from him than Taren had expected to hear. He watched Dorian take a deep breath, and whether it was due to that pull on his heart or Dorian’s grip on his arm he couldn’t say, but he stepped closer. “With you I'm not. I'm just me, and you're so real and I've never had anything like this and I just wanted it to be mine.” Dorian continued, so close to him that Taren could fall, if he let himself, just collapse right there into the dark sea of longing waiting for him in Dorian’s eyes. “For just — fuck — for just twelve fucking nights.” 

Dorian took another deep breath, and then both of them fell — and it was still unclear who had the pull on who —  into a long, deep kiss. It filled him; shook his soul and cleared his mind and warmed up every ache left by the fight in the snow and the night on a cold bench in a cell. He closed his eyes and sank into it, Dorian’s hands firm at his sides the only thing keeping him standing. It felt like it might never end, like he might just keep falling into him forever.

But it did, and he pulled back and looked once again into Dorian’s lonely eyes, and then away. “I’m not your fantasy, Dorian.” He whispered. Twelve fucking nights, he’d said. Just something to have for the sake of having had it, a taste of freedom to remind him that somewhere in the world, things were still real. “I don’t want that.” 

(sorry that was long, I was gonna format it somehow but tumblr sucks)

For AHWT, similar thing. I had a couple conversations with @gaysolavellan where we came up with some hilarious ideas and then I basically plotted the whole thing out point-form in one go. The things I really wanted to include and looked forward to writing most were 1) All of the Satinalia chapter, especially Dorian Finding Out, and 2) Ehsaan feeds a baby goat.

[melatovnik]

hi, can u rec other sbwy fics?

yes i most certainly can!

below under the cut is a selection of very good sbwy (and sgwy) fics, i.e., wangxian fics where wwx experiences compulsory heterosexuality. by no means is it a comprehensive list of all the excellent fics of this genre, because i'm a super slow reader and simply haven't gotten to them all yet, but these are just the ones i've read and enjoyed so far. of course, mind all tags/content warnings etc you know what's up

~ the Straight Boy Wei Ying universe series by raitala | rated E | 36K words total | i know this ask was prompted by my earlier rec of this series but i'll include it here anyway. a very charming wonderful story, with extremely massively hot sex scenes

Sit down next to me | 7K words

Lan Zhan has been in love with his tragically straight best friend Wei Ying forever. So what if some girl says Wei Ying is a bad kisser? Lan Zhan has to prove to Wei Ying that this is incorrect. Because Lan Zhan is a good friend. He out does himself.

If I hadn't seen such riches | 29K words

Sequel to "Sit down next to me" - if you haven't read this all you need to know is that Wei Ying thinks he is straight. He just really likes his best friend Lan Zhan. Who is incidentally a really great kisser. Who also made him come in his pants one time. Who also has a *really* big dick, which Wei Ying sucked one time, but, like, in an experimental way, not in a gay way. They are just really good friends, right? Lan Zhan is the best. Lan Zhan is crying inside.

~ Keep Up by mimilamp | rated E | 27K words | i actually just read this one today and wwhfoohgkhdghihHHHHHHhghhhhhhgh 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 INSTANT FAVE. MUST READ.

“She was going to kiss me,” Wei Ying says, muffled, into his hands.

Lan Zhan makes sure he keeps his breaths even. “Hm,” he says. Wei Ying looks up at him, wild: a little tipsy, perhaps. Confused, in a panic. His mouth is red like he’s been kissed—he hasn’t. He’s a lip biter, has a habit of picking at his dry lips, the winter sores at the corner of his mouth. It drives Lan Zhan to madness. He dreams of Wei Ying’s puffy mouth, often, sometimes with the real Wei Ying in a sleeping bag on the floor next to his bed. On mornings like those he wakes up in a cloud of embarrassment—hobbling to the bathroom at dawn, running a loud shower to hide the sounds. Wei Ying sleeps on.

“How do I—” Wei Ying starts, stops. He then lets out a single laugh, another. He says: “Oh my god. How do I kiss? Lan Zhan, how do I kiss?”

*

Or: Wei Ying has a girlfriend now. Wei Ying doesn't want his best friend to lag behind.

~ A Brilliant Idea by FrameofMind | rated E | 25K words | good for you wei ying

The one where Wei Ying (straight) and Lan Zhan (gay) make a shared tinder account to save money, because Wei Ying has brilliant ideas.

(Wei Ying has terrible ideas.)

~ worth it for the feeling by occultings | rated E | 8K words | they're both girls in this one! "straight" girl wei ying 🥰

“I’ve never gotten off with another person,” Wei Ying says that night, apropos of nothing.

~ ready to run by detectorist | rated E | 21K words | really really enjoyed the plot and atmosphere and everything in this story

“You should make a Tinder account for campaigning,” Nie Huaisang says.

Wei Ying chokes out, “What?”

“Sounds like an absolutely terrible idea,” Jiang Cheng says flatly.

“No, it’s a great idea!” Nie Huaisang insists. “You just swipe right on everyone and then send them a message about how they should vote for you. You’re hot, Wei Ying! People will definitely match with you and then you can swoop in and hit them with the politics!”

“I don’t even have Tinder,” Wei Ying protests. He’d downloaded the app in first year but had quickly deleted it after a girl responded to his message of wanna get a drink with yeah sure, what time?

“That can be easily fixed,” Nie Huaisang says.

—

Wei Ying downloads Tinder to help him campaign for his student union election. He gets a little more than he bargained for.

~ drop the game by martyrsdaughter | rated E | 28K words | cheerleader wwx + jock lwj + fake dating + practice kissing + insane sexual tension = me, flattened like a cartoon character after getting run over by a truck

Wei Ying grabs a pen from Lan Zhan’s desk, curling his legs into a lotus pose under the arms of the chair so he can easily spread the journal out across his lap. Even upside down, Lan Zhan can read his large, messy characters scrawled across the top: Lan Zhan + Wei Ying’s Rules for Dating.

Perhaps this was a bad idea.

~ big hands (i know you're the one) by martyrsdaughter | rated E | 8K words | WHOOF 🥵

“Not a big talker, hm?” Wei Ying tilts his head to one side. “That’s okay, I’ve been told I’m a good enough conversationalist for three. My tongue is multi-talented and—”

He has just enough time to feel her palm on the back of his neck and think, oh, her hands are so big, before his words are being stolen into her mouth.

~ Boy Trouble, We've Got Double by saltyfeathers | rated E | 60K words | LAN ZHAN???? BETHROTHED???? NOT TO WEI YING??????? it's less likely than you think! canonverse casefic, featuring tons of pining and wwx taking outrageous liberties with lwj's person, as is his right

Lan Zhan stands there in his immaculate, cloud-patterned Lan robes, watching him calmly, one fist tucked up against his back. “I am betrothed.”

Wei Wuxian blinks. “Are you…” He tries to laugh. Again, it sounds inhuman. “Is this about last night? Are you mad at me? I only remember some of it, Lan Zhan. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I’m sure whatever I did I was just—” He gestures uselessly. He remembers being warm in Lan Zhan’s lap. He remembers fitting snugly in Lan Zhan’s lap. Wrapping his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck. Nosing at his jaw. “…playing around.”

“This has nothing to do with you, Wei Wuxian.”

~ cherry ass wei ying (Chapter 3 of threadfic) by saltyfeathers | rated E

wei ying is so straight he sucks lan zhan's fingers about it.

~ all(e)y (Chapter 11 of threadfic) by saltyfeathers | rated E

prompt fill on twitter for straight boy wei ying + fake dating that ended up being too long for twitter so now it lives here in stupid silly shame. sorry the fake dating is a complete flyover state in this. to make up for it, i wrote out an entire blowjob for some reason.

~ lan zhan has fallen in fuck-love with the straight toad boy (Chapter 14 of threadfic) by saltyfeathers | rated M | there is no chapter summary provided by the author. the title says it all, really

~ wei wuxian loves mysteries! (Chapter 15 of threadfic) by saltyfeathers | rated G | a canonverse character exploration of wwx, set pre-CR (before wangxian first meet). soooo good

~ the mall that has it all by saltyfeathers | rated E | 8K words | 😳 wrow

She introduced herself in the food court, breathless after sprinting across it in Lan Zhan’s direction and vaulting over a table only to crash into the seat across from her, ask, “Can I have a sip?”, spring forward with both elbows on the table to wrap her burgundy lips around Lan Zhan’s smoothie straw, wrinkle her nose, and say, “What is that, kale? Not really my thing, as like, a mall goth. Oh!” A pleased, chaotic exhale. “My name’s Wei Ying.”

Lan Zhan said, after taking a moment to fully process the last forty-five seconds, “What?”

or;

mall goth au

~ I Wish You Would by brooklinegirl | rated E | 52K words | lan zhan fucks guys, wei ying pines, and lan zhan also pines

Lan Zhan takes a breath. His hands are in fists on his thighs. He stares down at them hopelessly, then carefully unclenches them, one finger at a time, before taking another breath and reaching for his lukewarm tea. He'll go out, tomorrow. Maybe in the late afternoon. Something quick. Something easy. He'll text his brother first, the short note of when he should be home, so he'll know to track him. He'll be fine, just like he said.

~ all that and more by Euphorion | rated E | 20K words | hot hot hot! and a classic

Wei Wuxian locks his phone and puts it down, blinks at his ceiling, and picks it up again. The pictures are still there.

His first thought is that Lan Zhan meant them for someone else. That he just woke up at—he checks the timestamp—6:30 am on a Sunday and decided to go absolute full nuclear seduction option on some poor boy he met on Grindr, who would now be missing out on the best thing to ever happen to him because Wei Wuxian had a bad habit of distracting—of—oh.

Pieces of last night start to resurface and paste themselves together in his head. He winces.

~ dreaming and getting a glimmer by verseau | rated E | 27K words | THE comphet gloryhole fic

Wei Ying discovers himself.

~ wanna feel a different kinda tension by verseau | rated E | 10K words | THE comphet watching-porn-together-and-also-wwx-jerks-lwj-off-with-his-own-freshly-used-fleshlight fic

Four times Lan Zhan walks in on his roommate masturbating.

that's all for now! happy october!

[vampire-himbos-of-santa-perdita]

#showyourprocess tag game!

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Full disclosure, I’m not directly tagging anyone, but if you see this post and think it’s cool, consider yourself tagged!

Thanks so much @mr-writes for the tag! This one sounds super fun!

Inspiration: It’s no secret that Heaven’s Tiny Daggers is my My Chemical Romance novel... It didn’t really start out that way though. I jokingly started rumbling about a girl punk novel after watching Mad Max: Fury Road and seeing that three second shot of the pyromaniac guitarist harnessed to the stereo rig. I knew I wanted to write some sort of rival girl gangs novel, but it didn’t wind up that way...

As any OG emo might tell you, MCR’s breakup was a true tragedy that took several years to recover from. I couldn’t listen to “Welcome to the Black Parade” without having a complete breakdown until 2019, where I finally decided to bite the bullet and listen to their entire discography. I started catching myself up on all the MCR lore I missed over the years and stumbled upon the story of how they wrote The Black Parade in a haunted mansion. All the pieces started coming together from there...! It somehow became this novel about grief and the intensity of that feeling when you find out your favourite band breaks up. ...and then MCR promptly got back together a few months after I started writing it...

Preparation: I didn’t know anything about punk rock music beforehand, so I took about a year to listen to so much music, reading so much music history, and generally  immersing myself in the culture. The fun thing about writing a music-centric novel is any reading you’re doing can be easily supplemented by listening to whatever artists you’re reading about at the same time. So it was a lot of that and a lot of learning how to put on messy eyeliner and red eye shadow and sobbing it all off, watching old MCR concerts on Youtube. A lot of that.

Art Process: Prior to Heaven’s TIny Daggers, I was something of a pantser, but I was just coming out of a year of query rejections and a lot of editors telling me my best bet would be to start planning my plots more thoroughly. So, this is the first novel I really put my head down and plotted everything. I downloaded Scrivener and plugged in the Save the Cat 3 Act Structure into separate folders to keep everything in order. To keep myself on task, I would write every morning on my ipad Notes app and then copy/pasted scenes into Scrivener when I was done. First draft was just getting it all out of me and onto the page and then when I had wrung myself out of as much plot as I could get, I went back and refined and filled in scenes here and there, moved things around... all that good stuff.

I think one of the biggest changes that happened between the three drafts is I had this one scene that happens reasonably early in the original draft that I couldn’t figure out, so I just kept pushing it back until I realized it was sequel fodder. I had this idea that the main villain would be behind this big scheme where they were creating doppelgangers of female artists whenever they started standing up for themselves too much. I was feeling the Avril Lavigne is Dead conspiracy fantasy, but it wasn’t gelling with where I was going with the characters over all, so I moved it to the second book.

 The original plot was going to end a lot more tragically, and I’ve changed the ending about ten times by now and I’m still not 100% sure what is happening yet (which is why I keep going back and playing with more drafts instead of actually finishing it, RIP). I also don’t think it was going to be a murder mystery until the second draft. Once I cleaned out the doppelganger angle, the main concept was just a bunch of punks in a haunted house. As soon as the mansion became sentient and started fucking with everyone’s nightmares, it all came together in this demonic crescendo between drafts 2 and 3.

...and now I’m just finishing up Act 2 so I can finally fully write up Act 3 and send it out for querying by September!

Thoughts: I think in this whole process, it’s been so important for me to write something I love because it’s what teenage me would’ve been obsessed with reading. When you get stuck in a rejection spiral, it’s easy to forget why you’re writing what you’re working on. At the end of the day, it should be for you, and if you love it, you will find people out there who love that same topic too.

[princip1914]

A few thoughts on writing longfic

I’ve had this post brewing for a while and I figured since today is a Friday I might as well let it out into the wild. 

First off, this is not writing advice. I don’t feel qualified to give writing advice. This is a few observations I’ve made over the course of trying to write something that feels, well, long. Fandom is full of excellent authors writing long chaptered fic, but I don’t see a lot of people talking about how they go about producing such fics. I remember feeling like long fic was really out of reach for me when I started writing again in the summer of 2019 after not writing for years and years and I wanted to talk a bit about how that changed for me. Of course, this post comes with all the caveats that there is no need to ever write long fic if you’re not feeling it. Some of my favorite authors write mostly or only oneshots! But, if you are interested, here’s my lengthy, self indulgent, and entirely personal take on ~the longfic process~ below the cut. 

First, to get this out of the way: long fic is anything that feels long or complicated to you, the author. “I’m working on my long fic” can mean that you’re branching out from microfiction to write something that’s 2k long, or it can mean you’ve got a multi-part 800k epic. There’s no objective measure of if something is “long fic,” Your own personal definitions can also change as you grow in confidence or change your focus as a writer (a little over a year ago when I finished Doubt Thou the Stars are Fire topping out at 31k, that felt very very long to me. Now it feels….still long, but not very very long.) 

Here are a few specific things that helped me write something long. I don’t know if they will be interesting for anyone else, but at the very least writing these down has been a fun way for me to reflect on my own process. 

Practice exercises. Ok, this is going to sound exceedingly obvious, but writing one shots prepares you for writing chaptered fic. Here’s what I mean more specifically: if you know you want to write (as a totally hypothetical example) a chaptered fic set in America in the summer that relies heavily on a nature metaphors, is written out of chronological order, and features a melancholy tone--it helps to write a few one shots like that before you embark on the Big Fic. Just like artists tend to do sketches before starting a big piece, it’s very helpful to write something small that gives you a feel for the ~vibe~ of what you’re trying to do in the long fic. It’s helpful for all the usual reasons--you get to know a specific version of the characters which helps plan out a character driven plot for the long fic--but it’s also helpful because you will learn if the tone and mood of the fic has enough staying power to capture your interest for the long haul. For instance, I have a few unfinished chaptered fics that have a humorous tone. I wish I had done more short humorous fics before starting them, because I would have realized that I don’t currently have the mental stamina to hold up a humorous tone for the length of a chaptered fic (hopefully that will change and I will finish Last Days some time this century!). 

Plan it out ahead of time. I used google sheets for The False and the Fair. I do not think God intended google sheets to be used for fiction, but that was not going to stop me. On a more serious note, I think the best tool for planning fiction is the one you’re the most comfortable with--the notes app in your phone, handwriting, word, google drive, sheets, chalk board, summoning circle, the blood of your enemies, etc. The reason I chose to use sheets is that I knew from the very beginning that I wanted certain things to happen at specific places in the story--for instance, I wanted the first kiss to happen at the end of the first third of the story and I wanted the “reveal” about the mine accident to happen at the end of the second third of the story. But, I didn’t know what was supposed to go in between those elements. A traditional outline for a story at this point in development might have looked like: 

Meet cute

Kiss

Reveal 

Ending 

But, what my brain needed was to preserve the blank spaces in between these story elements, and specifically to preserve the right amount of blank space between these story elements so that it didn’t end up, for instance, that the first kiss was halfway through rather than a third of the way through. In this way, I found google sheets an invaluable tool for pacing in the early parts of the planning process. I simply made 30 rows assuming 30 chapters, and started plugging in the elements I knew I wanted in the locations I wanted them. Then I filled in the blank spaces by asking myself “how do we get from X plot element to Y plot element in Z amount of chapters.” I’m not a mountain climber, but I’ve often thought about the first things that go into the spreadsheet in terms of mountain climbing terminology.  In climbing, a crux move, which can be anywhere along the route, is the most difficult move of the route: if you can’t do it, you can’t do the route. I think of the first things that go into the planning spreadsheet as the crux moves of the story, the most important pieces around which everything else turns. It was not an accident that those were also all the first scenes of the fic that I wrote; if I couldn’t do those scenes, I couldn’t do the story the way I planned it so I wanted to know early on if I needed to make changes.

Make changes if you have to: even though it helps to have things planned in advance, don’t resist the story if it tries to change on you while you’re writing it. Usually the feeling that you have to make changes stems from having a plot that is not entirely character driven. As you write the story, the characters reveal themselves and sometimes the plot has to change to change with the characters’ motivations. Here’s an area where fanfic writers have a leg up on everyone else: if you write fic, you already know the characters really well. That means, (in my experience anyway) it’s less likely that you’ll have a surprise character development which leads to a rethinking of the whole plot. Less likely, but not completely unlikely, unfortunately.

Lie to yourself: The False and the Fair was supposed to be 90k words. I thought that sounded reasonable, a little less than 3x the longest fic I had ever written. Now it's 161k and will probably top out a little over 170k. Ooops. But I never would have set out to write something that long. I wouldn’t have thought I could do it, even though anyone more experienced looking at my plans for the fic probably would have laughed at the idea I could cover all those plot points in 90k. Ignorance is bliss. Protect your ignorance.

Scrivener: Long fic for me means “fic that is long enough you can’t hold all the parts of it in your head at once.” That’s where Scrivener comes in (or another app if you’d rather, but I really like Scrivener for the ability to see the project either linearly or as condensed notecards). You can put together an organizational scaffold in Scrivener that allows you to move back and forth between the forest and the trees. So, for instance, you might be going for a jog and come up with the perfect line of dialogue for chapter 27 when you’re only up to chapter 5 in terms of writing progress. With Scrivener, you can go home, and put that dialogue in the “bucket”/index card/whatever for chapter 27 without compromising your ability to see chapter 5 clearly or muddying up your google doc. You can then use the fact that you’ve started writing bits and pieces of the later chapters in conjunction with the tool of lying to yourself that, actually, you’ve written a lot more of the fic than you realize and that when you get to chapter 27 it won’t be as hard as chapter 5 because you’ve put in the groundwork already. In my experience, this lie turns out to be true about 50% of the time, which is better than 0% of the time.

Digestible mini arcs: The False and the Fair was originally broken up into thirds. I thought it would be 90k and 30k was the longest I had written, so thirds seemed to make sense. Also, 3 is a nice, time honored storytelling number. I think it’s good to give yourself seemingly achievable milestones along the way to completion. These milestones (for me anyway) lined up well with the “crux moments” I’ve described. If you’re someone who likes to write out of order, writing your way to an already written milestone can feel like sailing to an island where you get to rest for a bit from the stormy seas before setting out for the next island in the archipelago.

“It's all part of the process”: I’m categorically incapable of describing things without resorting to running metaphors, and so I apologize in advance, but I am now going to do the insufferable thing of comparing writing a long fic to running a marathon. Here’s the thing with a marathon. You are not going to feel good every step of the way. We all know this. It’s a marathon, it’s supposed to hurt a little bit, especially at the end. In the same way you literally cannot write something novel length or even novella or long short story length without, at least at some point, feeling bad about yourself and your writing. But you also can’t run a marathon if the whole thing is agony, and for most people, it’s not--your meat sack shuffling along the course is subjected to the slings and arrows of all sorts of weird body chemistry that only happens when you push it to its limits. So, you’ll be in agony and then the endorphins will kick in for a while and you’ll be thinking “this isn’t nearly as bad as everyone said,” and then you’ll drink some water at a rest stop and feel like a God for half a mile before you crash and you’re in agony again until that one perfect song comes up on the playlist...and you get the idea. Writing something long, for me at least, is a bit like that. There are massive ups and downs. The key for me is to just understand it’s all part of the process, a necessary step on the way to the finish line. If the fic is 10 chapters long, at some point you have to write chapter 5. Just like you have to write chapter 5, at some point you also have to go through a bit of despair before reaching the end. It is unfortunately non-optional. In fact, despairing is something you can check off your list each time you’ve done it. Cut dialogue tags, check. Feel awful about my writing for thirty minutes, check. Write ending section, check. Often I feel that the stress and shame and fear that come with bad emotions while writing are worse than the bad emotions themselves. It really helps me to remember these emotions are all part of the process and nothing to worry about. If I didn’t have them, then I would worry! 

I certainly have plenty more to say about writing, but this ramble has gone on long enough. If you’re interested in any of this stuff, please feel free to send me an ask. 

I would also love to know more about everyone else’s writing processes, so feel free to pop into my ask box to talk about your own approach too! I am very interested in this stuff!