#yoi x buffy

[lou-is-lurking]

omg you're writing an Otayuri Buffy AU?!?!?!?!

I've been in a very on and off relationship with this particular WIP for the past... 3? almost 4? years now. So far it's ~40k of chaos and it's haunting me 😅 It has Slayer!Mila (although she's incapacitated for like 99% of the fic lol), Witch!Yuri, DemonHunter!Otabek, Jock!JJ, Watcher!Yakov, Werewolf!Seung-Gil... and more ^^ I can't promise I'll post it any time soon, it's a whole entire mess at this point... But here's a snippet:

“You were engaged to Yakov?!”

Lilia met his eyes with the most icy stare he had ever received from her. Or from anybody else, and that included a literal glacier-demon.

“That is what you decided to focus on?”

When Yuri failed to come up with a suitable response, she shook her head, nostrils flaring.

“We were married for almost five years,” she said crisply, her expression daring him to share his opinion on this. Yuri decided that maybe he was better off if he didn't.

“I don't understand,” he began, referring to the contents of the notebook in general, but Lilia cut him short.

“Be glad about that. Getting married at such a young age is tremendously stupid, and-”

“No- uh, I mean, sure, if you say so. But I meant- all this other shit.” He waved the notebook at her. “What the hell is this?”

“I'm disappointed, Yurachka. Yakov keeps telling me what an intelligent young man you are, but maybe your horrific grades are representative of your cognitive abilities after all, if you are unable to figure this out.”

The seething remark would have made him furious had he not been so utterly confused. He looked back down at the pages and skipped to the point where the entries ended, about two years after Lilia and Yakov had gotten married (an event that Lilia had noted down with nothing more than a short “Wedding today.”).

The last entry was longer than most, and it sent shivers down his spine.

“It was reported that the Slayer, Elaine Grant, was killed in a demon attack yesterday. Today, we received notice that Ragna Borstad has become the new Slayer. It has been decided that, due to my advanced age of twenty-two, my training will be discontinued, as it is now highly unlikely that I will ever be Chosen.”

Eyes wide, Yuri looked up at Lilia, trying to imagine her thirty years younger, sitting down to make one last entry after years and years of training for something that would never come to pass.

“You were a Potential Slayer.”

-

(tbh I don't even know if this scene would make the final cut because I've changed the plot / structure so many times, but I just NEED badass Lilia in my life 🔥)

[unfortunatelycake]

Fic writer meme

Tagged by @anonymousedward! Thanks Ed! 

1) How many works do you have on AO3?  131

2) What’s your total AO3 word count? 2,430,852

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?  MANY! OPM, Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu LOVE!/Happy Kiss!, Tokyo Ghoul, BtVS, LOTR, Kuroshitsuji, OHSHC, Gravitation, Lost Souls, YOI!!!, Good Omens, M DZS, Seikaisuru KADO, Gundam Wing, Double Decker!, FFXV

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 

Anon (OPM, Genos x Saitama)

100 First Kisses (OPM, Genos x Saitama)

Found in Silence, These Things Unheard (OPM, Genos x Saitama)

Begin Again (Tokyo Ghoul, Hide x Sasaki, plus others)

Counterfeit Boyfriend (OPM, Garou x Mumen Rider)

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?  Usually! I appreciate when someone has taken a moment to comment, whether it’s a paragraph or keymashing or a simple ‘ahhh!’ type of comment! 

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?  Probably Last Call (Tokyo Ghoul, Hide x Kaneki). 

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? Most of them have happy endings! 

I’ll say Love is Glimpsed in a Magic Mirror (Boueibu LOVE!, Akoya x Arima, Fairytale AU) Because it’s a fairytale AU, and so far nobody has noticed the absence of something significant across the entire fic (which sort of becomes a plot device in the sequel).

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?  Sometimes! Craziest is probably A Tweed Slipper (Good Omens/Lost Souls; Aziraphale x Crowley & Steve x Ghost). Though it’s not the crackiest. 

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic? Someone once waited an entire five chapters of a fic to tell me they like the ship but the fic was too OOC? Don’t think I’d call that hate though, just an opinion.

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?  Sometimes. Either as gift fics for smut-loving friends, offshots of things implied on @vote-sensei, or when it suits the plot of a bigger fic/series. Not overall a smut fan and don’t feel I’m that great at writing it, but big respect to the people who can write it endlessly and always manage to make it fresh and new!

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?  Not as far as I know!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?  Not as far as I know!

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?  Yes

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?  Hnnn no this one is too difficult.

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?  There are too many! 

16) What are your writing strengths?  I have lots of ideas and will work my ass off until the fic is finished

17) What are your writing weaknesses? More ideas pop up when I’m writing and what starts off as a sweet and unassuming one-shot in my head becomes an eldritch horror of a multichapter with side-plots and side-ships I never dreamed of, all because I have no self-control. 

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?  Sometimes reasonable (e.g. character having no clue what other characters are saying) and sometimes unnecessary (e.g. all the characters speak that language but they’re speaking in a different language to the one they normally use to communicate)

I know there’s classic novels where a character will randomly come out with something french/latin/greek and honestly it drives me up the wall because all too often there is no translation. 

So I guess I’m mostly against it, though I’m probably guilty of doing it in old LOTR fics ^^;

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for? Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?  There’s a few that I’m particularly pleased with! Restricting myself to only one per fandom and avoiding repeating ones that were already mentioned...

Nightmare for all Seasons (Lost Souls, Steve x Ghost) 

A Place of Healing (OPM, Genos x Saitama, Garou x Mumen Rider, War AU)

Love is Sung in a Minor Key (Boueibu LOVE!, Io x Ryuu & Akoya x Arima, post-canon/ Bandman AU) 

My fics: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakera/work

Tagging: @rayadraws​ @mostlikelytofangirl​ if you please, plus anyone who wants to do it!

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Sophia Jirafe

Seven of Sophia Jirafe’s fics are at Gossamer, but more of her X-Files stories are at AO3 (as sophiahelix). I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Stones and Bones. She was active in the fandom during the show’s run and has never strayed far from fandom in general. She co-founded Glass Onion, a great multi-fandom mailing list that now has nearly 1,000 fics from 100 fandoms at AO3. Big thanks to Sophia Jirafe for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

It did initially, but so many old shows are on streaming now and getting discovered by new people, it makes sense.

I did get a comment from someone who said my first story under this name, posted in early 2000 when I was a college freshman, was older than her by a couple of months, and THAT took me aback.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

It was my first fandom, discovered when I was 17 and searching for info about the show on the school library computer, and it really shaped my whole life! I met a lot of people I still know today (mostly in non-fannish venues like FB, though I do still have some connections in fandom), and learned a lot about writing and just life generally, since I was younger than most of fandom at the time.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I started off on a tiny forum at a website called Squirrel’s Nest, but I kept seeing people thanking Scullyfic in fic headers and eventually I was able to join the mailing list (which was capped to 500 members). Scullyfic was everything to me — I made friends, betas, discussed the show, learned about all kinds of things on Off-Topic Fridays, etc. A lot of those friends, I would email with or more often chat on AIM (individual or these sprawling group chats that would go on all day), and then at the end of 2001 we started migrating to Livejournal. I was getting into Buffy more by then, but it was still mostly the same crowd of people I knew from Scullyfic.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

I feel like it started me on a whole life path really — finding that my deep obsession with fiction could be channeled like that and shared with other people, as well as deepening my writing. Online fandom has been a major part of my social life for over 20 years now, and I love the mix of getting excited about things with friends and also the creative outlet.

My corner of X-Files fandom in particular was just very calm and enjoyable for the most part, full of older professional women who were happy to be friends and give me advice about all kinds of things, and it really set the bar for me with my online interactions. Now I’m almost 40 and trying to be that person for my younger friends, as well as having no patience for toxicity and in-fighting in my fandom spaces.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

A combination of the creepy conspiracy angle and just adoring Scully. I remember how mysterious and fascinating the show seemed when I discovered it right before S5, and there was no way to find out more except to keep watching and hoping they explained. Scully was so smart and tough and beautiful and interesting, and as a teen I was just captivated by her (and the UST, though I didn’t care about Mulder as much).

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I ran across it a couple times early on but felt embarrassed by the concept, but then I read the first in Karen Rasch’s Words series and suddenly it clicked for me. After a while I started daydreaming my own conversations between them, very similar to what happens to me now when I’m getting into a new pairing, so after reading tons of recommended fic by big authors, I started writing my own (the 3-4 stories I posted in high school are all wiped from the internet now, though).

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Good memories, though because it was my senior year of high school and college, I know a lot of it is just tied to that time in my life, and also being in my very first fandom. I will rewatch episodes from time to time, but I basically never revisit former fandoms because they’re kind of like exes, even if I finished on a good note. I also think my taste in fic has changed (and there isn’t the same novelty of “characters I like getting together omg!”)

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

So many! None of them had quite the same combination of excellent central architecture (especially pre-AO3) and a really high level of discussion and friendliness without being enormous, but I’ve loved them all in their own ways. I’ve done fandom on LJ/DW, Tumblr, Discord, and now on Twitter, and I think I miss the mailing list days the most. You didn’t have to repeat yourself so much in multiple conversations, you weren’t character limited, and the discussion was all in one place, with personal stuff more confined to your side conversations. Discord is a little like that, but it moves too fast and there’s too much noise for my taste.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Heh, after X-Files I went through a whole phase of faves in the Scully vein — Buffy, Aeryn Sun, Kara Thrace, etc. Like many people I’ve shifted primarily into m/m in the last decade (Sherlock, YOI, and recently The Untamed have been my major fictional fandoms, along with a lot of sports RPF), but for non-fannish shows I’m always looking for awesome new female characters, like Elizabeth on the Americans, Peggy on Mad Men, Nadja on What We Do in the Shadows, etc. And I do LOVE Killing Eve and have written a little f/f over there.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I’ll rewatch favorite episodes occasionally, and I keep thinking about a full rewatch but it takes so much time! I never saw the second movie, and I didn’t finish the first of the new seasons because I was hating it, so it’s a little hard for me to think fannishly about them when I disliked basically everything after “Je Souhaite” so much (as far as I’m concerned the show ends there).

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

X-Files no, but yeah I’m still very active in fandoms.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I lost all my saved fic several computers ago, but I recall loving “Blue Christmas” by Plausible Deniability and “Diamonds and Rust” by MustangSally (obviously everything she wrote was great).

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Looking at my X-Files fic, I can’t believe how short it is and how comparatively little of it there is (I have lost track of a few ficlets). It felt like such a big deal to finish anything back then! I think my favorite remains Alphabetum, which involved a tricky structure and 5 elements given by people as part of the Scullyfic Improv challenge, where you had a week to write a story around those elements.

My favorite of my recent fic in fictional fandoms is probably the GoT/YOI crossover novel I wrote a couple years ago, for a completely opposite experience to this (and proof you can grow as a writer with a lot of effort!)

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

It’s honestly hard to imagine going back (like I said, I usually don’t), but I guess I could get inspired by something.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I certainly still write, and I do have to give credit to XF fandom and Scullyfic in particular for giving me the start I got, where I really wanted to be writing good fiction. The few things I wrote in high school were just me jamming out romantic cliches, but the people I was lucky to know in XF fandom showed me that “just” fanfic can still aspire to be high quality. I am a much, much better and more disciplined writer than I was back then, but I might never have started on this path without fandom friends encouraging me.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

Usually just daydreaming about emotional dynamics between characters/people, but sometimes something specific in canon or real life (I write a lot of RPF) gets me going, or maybe something I read.

What's the story behind your pen name?

When I wrote for X-Files, I picked “Sophia Jirafe” combining my favorite first name with a fancy spelling for my favorite animal (I was 18! Don’t judge!) Over on Livejournal, my friend Jintian and I initially shared an account with the same name as our website, double_helix, and when she got her own account I changed to sophia_helix, which is now sophiahelix just about everywhere. A little clunky, but I like the continuity (and I do run across old friends who remember the name).

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

The friends I’ve known for a very long time know about it, but we have never talked about it in depth. My husband, who I met not long after getting into fandom, also knows about it, and he’s encouraging and also a writer so we talk all the time. I told my mom in college and she was pretty dismissive, so we haven’t talked about it since (but my younger sister knows and is cool about it).

When I was younger, it was something I shared readily (I bonded with a new friend in law school I saw looking at LJ), but now I don’t really bring it up with new acquaintances.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

I just made a Carrd the other day with all my various fannish addresses (Twitter, locked fannish Twitter, AO3, Tumblr)

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just that it really was a high quality fandom — so much excellent long casefic, so many cool down to earth people, just generally a great launching place for a young fan. The friendships I made with older people were really important to me, and it makes me sad to see a lot of younger people now getting upset about the idea of anyone over a certain age being in their fandom spaces. I hope someday fandom can get back to appreciating that people of all ages can be the fandom type, and that everyone brings something different to the community.

(Posted by Lilydale on December 1, 2020)

[astreetcarnamedwynn]

q&a

I was tagged by @dixiedolittle. Thank you for thinking of me!

Do you like pickles? I do. Sweet pickles and bread & butter are my favorites.

Where do you fall on the BBQ spectrum (eg, Memphis sweet, Carolina vinegar, Bama white sauce, etc.)? As someone who has lived in the American south basically my entire life, I should have a preference, but I don’t.

What are you having for dinner? Leftover meatloaf and rice.

Do you have a pet? If so, tell us all about them :) I did have a cat, but he unfortunately passed away earlier this year. 2020 has been a REAL fun time.

What is your favorite beverage? London Fog Tea Lattes from Starbucks.

What fics have you re-read to the point of memorization? None come to mind. I am not fandom monogamous, you might say. I flit from fandom to fandom devouring all in my path, and then I move on. Just the last two weeks, I’ve read fic for Howl’s Moving Castle, Bungou Stray Dogs, Final Fantasy XV, Ouran High School Host Club, and Fullmetal Alchemist. I do occasionally go back, but it’s usually after a significant period of time so the fics feel new again.

What fandoms are you in? See above re: my fandom promiscuity. The last complete fic I wrote was for Bungou Stray Dogs (finally finished in April). I was asked to participate in a zine for Yuri on Ice, so my interest has been piqued in the show again. I finished my zine piece and am now trying to finish my long abandoned YoI novel. 

How did you find fanfiction? Probably from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer forum waaaaaay back in the day. I am a fandom old. Like for a time I had my own Angelfire website to host my fanfic before I started posting on FF.net and LJ.

What would you really like to read? Like, what tropes, pairings, etc. would make you happy right now? I’m not quite sure. The last fic reading deep dive I did was in Haikyuu fic a while ago. I finally burned through most of the major pairings (and there’s a TON for the show) and have been drifting even more since then. Maybe some good Link x Zelda from Breath of the Wild. I’m about to finish the game, but most of the fic I’ve found is Link x Sidon and most of that is explicit. Give me some good old fashioned mutual pining character driven adventure. 

Are you looking forward to coming up with 10 questions of your own? Not particularly. ;) My brain barely wants to function on a Friday night.

10 questions of my own:

What TV show would you recommend for someone to watch?

Do you have a preferred music streaming service (Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, etc.)?

If you read fanfic, what’s the last good fic you read?

Are you a cat or a dog person?

What is your favorite season of the year?

What’s more frightening: deep space or deep in the ocean?

What’s the first fandom you were ever a part of?

How do you feel about people who don’t use their turn signal while driving?

Do you have a favorite meme? If so, what is it?

What's your favorite book? 

And for the 10 tagged people, I chose the 10 most recent who’ve liked or reblogged something from me. Forgive my tired brain for not coming up with a better method of selection: @puppet2041, @counting-dollars-counting-stars, @booklovertrash, @only-happy-when-its-raine, @meody90, @blinkinink, @sweethufflepuff, @mygeekcorner, @ladyinkspot, @clairemassey.

[sophia-helix]

Fic Writer Tag Game

tagged by @lodessa

AO3 name: sophiahelix

Fandoms: split because I have a lot

Major

Baseball RPF (33)

Figure Skating RPF (26)

Men’s Hockey RPF (24)

Yuri!!! On Ice (20)

The Office (US) (19)

Mid-level

The X-Files (10)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (9)

Harry Potter (7)

Sherlock (4)

Angel (4)

A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin (4)

One Offs

The Royal Tenenbaums (3)

Doctor Who (2)

Bones (2)

Killing Eve (2)

The Sandman (comics) (2)

Dracula, Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom, Yentl, Farscape, Wreckers (movie), Black Books, Ugly Betty, Lost, Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles, Beauty and the Beast, Lost, It’s a Wonderful Life, Music RPF, Peter Pan, Castle (1)

Number of fics: 178

Fic I spent the most time on: The Dragon Prince and the Winter Swan (YoI, Victor/Yuuri) must have taken the most amount of actual writing time, since it’s my longest, though I think it was only 7-8 months of writing time total.

Fic I spent the least time on: Disregarding prompt ficlets, has to be Get Real, Get Right (Fuckin Right) (Rivenyonce Cuoknowles/Music RPF) since I jammed it out as a treat in less than an hour before the Yuletide archive opened.

Longest fic: The Dragon Prince and the Winter Swan, 121,228

Shortest fic: sew wings to your pigeon toes (Royal Tenenbaums, Richie/Margot), 200 exactly because I’m old school and “double drabble” means something

Most hits: Nobody Raise Your Voices (Sherlock, John/Sherlock), 26,345 (2012 was a good time for that pairing, which hadn’t even been renamed Johnlock yet)

Most kudos: Vox (The Office, Jim/Pam) is apparently up to 1188 and the top of the pairing tag (wtf! I think everyone has discovered the show through Netflix and phone sex is a popular trope)

Most comment threads: Dragon Prince and Winter Swan again, at 148 (the only chaptered WIP I’ve written in a big fandom)

Most bookmarks: Vox, 323 (!!)

Total word count: 1,059,225 words (minus about 18k for a co-written work)

Favourite fic I wrote: Oh, I always hate this question because I’ve been writing fic for literally 20 years now (first story went up when I was 18) and they’re all so different and I like different ones for different reasons. Today I will say And all around us people slept alone with their dreams (It’s a Wonderful Life) because I link it out in RL situations sometimes since it has more universal appeal than most fanfic. (I realized the movie lends itself really well to writing various what-if scenarios for George’s life, like a 5 things.)

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on:

I swear I really, really want to write a Dragon Prince sequel with what happened to Otabek and Yuri (and a look in on Victor and Yuuri too), I just know I will never have the time.

I would also like to rewrite Waves High As Mountains (Hockey RPF/HP fusion, Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome endgame) because the ending is a little rough, and I genuinely do mean to rewrite Where the memory lingers (Baseball RPF) because it doesn’t fully line up with the rest of the ensuing series.

Share a bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on:

yeahhhh I have a quarantine fic going on, shh

Javi washes up the dishes while Yuzu finishes his phone call, for lack of anything better to do. They haven’t even been under quarantine for twenty-four hours yet and he already feels the restless itch of inactivity. Staying occupied inside these four walls is going to be a challenge for someone used to physical exertion, even if it’s just a long walk or kicking a ball around, and it doesn’t help that there’s two of them.

It really doesn’t help when he looks up from the sink to see Yuzu moving into a series of stretches, one arm over his head and his legs spread wide. Yuzu’s facing away from him, towards the windows that overlook downtown Toronto, a series of snow-covered rooftops with the harbor just a faint shining smear on the horizon, and it lets Javi look for longer than he should, lingering. As usual, Yuzu’s clothes are simple and practical and a little baggy, not clinging to him like his warmup gear, but apparently Javi’s brain has been working overtime in the background since last fall because he can’t stop following the lines of Yuzu’s body as he moves through his stretches — side bends, wide squats, toe touches — and settles into jogging in place. It makes his hair bounce, dark and ruffled after his night of sleep but still glossy, and Javi can’t help watching the movement of his shoulders, his gaze like a caress.

He’s still got a dish and towel in his hand when Yuzu reaches down and grabs the hem of his shirt, and they fall to the counter with a clatter when Yuzu starts stripping it over his head.

Tagging @someitems @itstartledme @ghostcat3000 and anyone else who’s up for it.

[ravenvsfox]

I check your blog obsessively and ive just realised I don't actually know a lot about you ? Like, what are your hobbies, what do you look forward to at the end of the day, what shows do you watch, do you support any sports teams, what food would you kill a man for, what's your favourite animal(s) , what music do you listen to, any inside jokes with your friends, what's your family like, what's a normal day like for you , do you have any nicknames, what are you attracted to in a person ? xx

wow if you want me to instantly fall in love with you ask me strange and wonderful personal questions and also compliment my blog like... uh..... 😍

I guess I’ll take this one question at a time?? I hope that’s okay? what’s the protocol for talking about myself is this thing on

hobbies: lots of artsy obnoxious stuff I love writing & reading & playing piano/flute/guitar/uke/singing & painting & acting I basically only use one side of my brain tbh

I look forward to: putting my hair up which seems weird but I have so much of it and my favourite moment in the day is tying it back and feeling like my brain is free?? I also look forward to cracking a coke zero and checking my notes on tumblr.com and uhhh napping

shows: holy shit...... all. of them. recently I’ve been catching up on sense8, the get down, skam s4, brooklyn 99, voltron. plus I always adore x-files and buffy. I’ve had the obligatory teen wolf phase, doctor who phase, shameless US phase... got dumped headfirst into haikyuu and yoi last year, etc etc 

sports teams: i don’t know anything!!!! literally nothing!!! I respect their right to have that ball and do that running but i.. super don’t care. also here in saskatchewan everyone’s like football!!! hockey!!! football!!! hockey!!!! and im honestly just here to watch a guy get punched on ice

food to kill for: fresh homemade bread my guy....... better than anything on this earth..... also some really good nachos?? yeah. cheesecake?? ye S. thai food? YES

favourite animal: okay don’t laugh....... it’s a fox it’s been a fox since I was eight years old

music: it’s very um eclectic. tame impala & panic! & altj & decemberists & lorde & top & arcade fire & sufjan stevens & mother mother & the mountain goats & frank ocean & the front bottoms & mac demarco & hayley kiyoko bc I am gay and punk and trying too hard but ALSO so many soundtracks! httyd & cloud atlas & sinbad are some of the best scores ever devised by man. so many musicals. lately more bts than you would........... believe

Inside jokes: idk where to begin w the shit me and ben talk about but I’ll tell you that my group chat was called ‘omega too god’ for a while bc my friend misspelled ‘omg too good’

family: just very good. I’m so ludicrously lucky. my parents are accepting and silly and delightful -- doctors & part-time musicians & full-time good people. Both my brothers are big weirdos and I love & fear them. James writes music and talks way too much about sci-fi or board games or astronomy or w/e & his mouth gets him into sooo much trouble. Stubborn as FUCK & won’t hecking listen to me but he means so well. Chris is a real certified genius I’m not joking his IQ is well above 160 and he just turned down the opportunity to go to Oxford or Cambridge for his masters in physics bc he’s focusing on research?? i guess? He’s good at everything but he’s also humble and sweet and strange and fumbling (I’m so proud of him I can’t see straight)

A normal day for me: right now it’s summer and I haven’t landed a job yet so it goes: get up LATE, go for coffee with a friend or my mom, have a lil walk, do some writing, sometimes I go volunteer at the LGBT2+ community centre where my buddy works & look after some youth, make some food, run some errands, learn lots. maybe go out in the evening, maybe retreat to my cave and write some more until it gets dark and I remember to eat. collapse into sleep at 3 am

nicknames: my family calls me Meg or Megs! dad used to call me Meggie Muffin but we don’t gotta talk about that. my name is boring and difficult to adapt wcyd

attracted to: good talkers. sweethearts who are free w affection and good vibes. sense of humour is critical bc I like to be surprised & heard & laugh. people who are accepting and genuinely kind are definitely the hottest people. if they’re smart musicians w curly hair or smth that’s a bonus 😎

[dwimmerlaiks]

Tagged by @feanope! THANK U I LOVE BEING TAGGED IN STUFF!!

Relationship Status: technically single but with a whole lot of IT’S COMPLICATED and I’m exhausted lol

Lipstick or Chapstick: atm my favourite lipsticks are (all super affordable drugstore brands) a bright orange one by P2 (this one), Artdeco Art Couture in Crimson Queen (lol) and one of those liquid mattes in a taupe shade. I mean lipstick lasts like 5 minutes after I put it on no matter how much I prep lol but tbh the putting it on part is more fun than wearing it lol

Last Song I Listened to:  my spotify says it’s ‘dissolve me’ by alt-j (I’ll always love this song tbh... lyrics notwithstanding, and not to be cheesy but, this track sounds like what it feels like to fall in love) Although my actual most played tracks atm are History Maker (SAVE ME), the four seasons and jelly by tcts. my playlist is 7 different music tastes wearing a trenchcoat

Last Movie I Watched: Rogue One!! I’m still not over it

Top 3 shows: comfort shows and all time faves? x-files, btvs and 90s star trek (voy/tng/ds9, the holy trinity of comfort trek. my taste is very vintage as I am also .. vintage). more recently - halt and catch fire, dirk gently’s holistic detective agency and over the garden wall. special heartfelt shoutout to YOI!!! for being a bright light in dark places (aka this cruel winter)

Top 3 Characters: IMPOSSIBLE!!! just pick three??? let’s try: Buffy Summers, Fingon, Steve Rogers! No - but have some more: Idril, Natasha Romanova, Kara Thrace (BSG), Sera (DA:I), Lyra Belacqua (HDM)

Top 3 Ships: Again with the miniscule selection size!! Ok well, I try. Maedhros/Fingon, Buffy/Faith, Sera/female Lavellan (also, because I know no shame, my Inquisitor is named Idril :)))) I cried a bit when they got married). also steve/bucky and buckynat. despite marvel doing its best to sour my enthusiasm with everything they have recently done, I must remember that I do love and appreciate these characters deeply, at their core. not to be dramatic, but....!

I tag, if you’re up for it: @vefanyar @ohelrond @hereff @alackofghosts @feanore @mickleburger @crocordile @internationalspacehobo @kanafinwhy @havisham and anyone else who wants to do this!

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for the ask box meme: 6, 9, 40 and 41!

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Ooh this will be fun (and lengthy). Some of these are old so don’t judge! 😂

X-Files: Mulder/Scully

Buffy: Buffy/Spike

Angel: none

Farscape: John/Aeryn

Harry Potter: Lupin/Snape

The Office: Jim/Pam

ASOIAF: Jaime/Brienne

Sherlock: John/Sherlock

Baseball RPF: Lincecum/Posey

Hockey RPF: Kane/Toews, Eichel/McDavid, Strome/McDavid (dudes kept being really shitty and I had to shift focus; never trust a major league athlete)

Yuri On Ice: Yuuri/Victor

Figure Skating RPF: Fernandez/Hanyu

From which you can conclude I tend to go for main characters/pairings, with a few exceptions (I never liked Remus/Sirius and wasn’t fannish about any of the kid pairings; at the time I was into ASOIAF, everyone liked Jaime/Brienne and no one was writing it, including me!) For fictional works, if I don’t like the main characters then I generally don’t like the source, and with RPF I tend to get pulled in by successful, personable athletes who are inevitably the stars of the fandom as well, though I’ll side ship rarepairs too (Toews with Ben Smith, Lincecum with Jake Peavy, etc.) RPF fandoms, I’m usually willing to read about anyone if the trope or kink is interesting, because athletes are easy to understand quickly, but I still have my favorites.

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Skating is awesome! I loved watching it as a kid/teen, and I’m forever thankful that YOI got me back into watching it and getting into skating RPF made me finally learn the technical details to really appreciate it (“an axel jump is when they’re really straight up and down, right? And I love when Michelle Kwan does that gliding thing where she opens her arms and is like ‘ahhhh’”) After 5 years in the extremely dudebro worlds of baseball and hockey fandom, it’s been awesome to get back to watching female athletes as well, and to follow men that are slightly less likely to, I don’t know, get investigated for sexual assault? I also love the international aspect of the sport and the fandom, which has encouraged me to improve my language skills and learn a lot about new cultures.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

I answered this before, but in addition to “dealing with the fact I can never meet my own expectations” a new problem for me has been not stepping on my own toes. I’ve written enough now that I know I reuse imagery and concepts, and when I write repeatedly for the same pairing I worry about recycling phrases, plots, emotional dynamics, etc. I’m starting to feel like I need an “originality” beta who’s just in charge of pointing out when I’m plagiarizing myself.

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

I don’t really read much these days (offline or on, it seems like I’m just in a fiction rut), but the last two things I read according to my history were a life of hellos and a life of goodbyes (someitems, Yuzuvier) and See Through Me (Ace of Smut, Chopin/Liszt)(I had Reasons ok?)

Ask a question

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Fanfiction Questions: 7, 8, 26, 31

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

Hm, let’s see. I don’t have them for every fandom, and I’m embarrassed to say that often it boiled down to “guy I like is with the wrong person!!” which is what the show intended me to feel.

X-Files: Mulder/Diana

Buffy, Angel, Farscape: None

Harry Potter: Maybe Harry/Ginny? There were so many dang pairings

The Office: Jim/Karen (though I heavily side-shipped Pam/Karen)

ASOIAF: Sansa/Sandor

Sherlock, baseball, hockey: None I can think of, except the athletes that fandom should have canceled entirely

YOI: Endgame Victor/Yuri (though I bet a good story could sell it)

Skating: I like Shoma as a person but can’t really ship him with anybody

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

I watched Worlds 2017 purely for YOI research (“I guess I should actually see what men’s skating is like these days”) and fell in love with Javi’s quad salchow. When I googled him, I found that Yuzu’s name popped up with it, and also an AO3 tag, and once I started reading articles it felt like they were a pairing made for me, given my years in sports RPF and the last six months of being into YOI.

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

95% song lyrics. Often a song I listened to a lot while writing, occasionally something I found in desperation. I am much happier when I had a title all along because it influences the tone of the story and gets worked into it, but it doesn’t always turn out that way.

31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

Thank you to anyone who’s ever said they’d read published work by me as well! And I would have to go looking for specific instances, but the times when people have told me how much a certain story meant to them, that it either spoke to them personally or reflected something from their life or changed the way they thought, have meant so much to me. I obviously dig down pretty emotionally when I write and I love hearing that people have come along with me.

Ask a question

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Once you get this it would be cool if you posted ten facts about yourself and then passed this along to ten of your favorite followers 💕

Tagged by @lodessa

1. I found fandom in 1998, when I was 17, by searching “the x-files” on a school library computer. (It was so long ago I can’t even say “googled”; it was probably AltaVista or something.) In the next year I read a TON of smutty fanfic either on that school library computer or my hand-me-down laptop, because they were all text files I’d download onto a floppy* disc.

*the hard kind of floppy disc, I’m not actually that old

2. About a year after that, I started dating my now-husband, who I met in college and liked half because he was from Europe, half because he also loved X-Files. (Also sf/f generally; our first date was to a Ray Bradbury reading.)

3. I have a kid! He’s 4 and too smart for his own good and also an extrovert; I have no idea how he came from us. Currently he likes pretending he’s skating around and doing jumps; this summer he would play baseball and pretend he was “Buss-tah Posey.” I said I wouldn’t deliberately raise a fannish kid but it turns out they like what you like.

4. I also have a law degree, which I currently have mounted over the changing table for maximum irony.

5. My fandoms past include: X-Files, Buffy, Angel, Farscape, Harry Potter, The Office, ASOIAF, Sherlock, baseball RPF, and hockey RPF, with lots of one-offs and also lots of things I watched and never wrote for, like Lost and BSG. If it was a big nerdy thing in the 00s, I was probably into it.

6. I’m mostly a serial monogamist when it comes to fandoms but I feel pretty equally in YOI and figure skating RPF right now, in that I’m mostly writing and privately yelling about them with friends. I’m also not really out of baseball RPF because I’ve promised to write one. last. story. for like a year-plus now.

7. I live in the SF Bay Area and identify as a Californian before any other location.

8. In the last couple years I leaned in hard to my “domestic engineer” role and really got into cooking and baking, which turn out to be a lot easier with internet recipes and helpful user comments. I made a sourdough starter last year named Emperor Norton that I still use to make bread weekly.

9. Despite all these sports RPF fandoms and my athletic son, I am really really bad at sports.

10. I’m a Libra (Oct 16) and as part of my general NorCal hippieness I read tarot over at Fig Tree Tarot Reading. I read more from a Jungian perspective (all the cards are archetypes and any of them could be helpful), so it’s a nice combo of my psych background and my interest in people.

Tagging @forochel @cafecliche @pearlo @handsomefeelings @liz-the-lemur @singelisilverslippers @fadeastride @telesilla @kaqueershi @shdwsilk