zoemillinwrites

[zoemillinwrites]

I love your writing! I feel like the angst/abuse/violence is really well-earned within the narrative and actually serves a purpose for the story and character development instead of being trauma porn

thank you so much anon! this is so great to hear because I'm really conscious of not wanting to dip into trauma porn territory, especially with sirius' home life

[zoemillinwrites]

horseshoe crab teabags

[zoemillinwrites]

"i don't comment on ao3 because i don't wanna be annoying or weird" skill issue + you greatly underestimate the power dynamic here, writing multi paragraph comments is like feeding a bunch of deeply insane and possibly starved ducks at the park and watch them go completely mad over having received a piece of bread

[zoemillinwrites]

just got around to reading regulus POV and oh dear, my poor baby boy. born second to sirius AND an unrequited crush on remus lupin (same tbh)... at least he has dorcas (who i always imagine having wooden beads at the end of her braids so YAY!). she's so well written, i can't wait to see more of her (and am scared also, she knows way too much!)

great chapter as alwayss, looking forward to the next one 💗 i keep on seeing your fic mentioned on reddit, so happy you are getting the recognition you deserve!!

ah, thank you so much for this dear! you always have the kindest feedback💗 honestly, ur right. reg is so real for his unrequited crush lolol. ohhhh remus, the most oblivious, awk boy on earth.

dorcas! ah! so so glad you like her she is That Girl and will be in the fic much much more as the war approaches! she really does know way too much omg!

i hope you enjoy the next chapter & ahhh the recognition is sorta scary (whhhhat do you meaaaannnnn I'm being perceived) but I appreciate it so very much! ty!

[zoemillinwrites]

((OOC: My hand slipped….. and I drew Sirius and Remus in 70s clothes…. ialsodrewjamesbutheeeeedidn’tmakethecut  ALSO LOOK AT THIS REF PIC I FOUND IT IS SIRIUS ))

[zoemillinwrites]

visiting my parent's house as an adult is a very odd experience. like, mom, it's half 9 in the morning why are u blasting taylor swift and drinking a mimosa rn i have to work

[zoemillinwrites]

[zoemillinwrites]

Remus who tells anyone who'll listen that his bf is the sweetest, kindest, most lovely adorable person on earth

And then people meet Sirius and he's the scariest and most intimidating individual they've ever met

[zoemillinwrites]

Before I get my heart broken, is Brave Face gonna be a happy ending? Or canon compliant? Because I see major character death tagged

hi! BF will have a happy ending

spoilers below the cut

but a POV character will die, hence the MCD tag

[zoemillinwrites]

For the explicit sexual content tag - is it going to be super gendered/strict?

Its not a problem exclusive to Wolfstar but some writers slip into racist gendered norms when writing about gay men. Like always making the darker skinned character more aggressive or masc

Im not saying your doing this (You arent!) but I notice some female writers consciously or unconsciously (Which I have been guilty of before) project their feelings onto one character and thus make that character more feminine or the "girl" when it comes to sex

(unless they just writing porn which in that case, its just porn)

okay. i have a lot of things to say about this, so here goes.

i understand where this ask is coming from and i'm very aware of the discourse surrounding this topic. i'm sure this ask was meant with no ill will, but i'm going to start by saying that this ask kinda hurt my feelings because it begins by asking me if my writing is going to be "a problem" or if I'm going to "consciously or unconsciously project my feelings onto one character and make them the girl". to answer that very bluntly: no. i have no desire to see my own sex life mirrored in this fic or these characters to any degree. i'm not writing about my sex life in this fic. if i wanted to i could, i guess, but i'll spare you the sordid & extensive lore.

secondly, i wanted to touch on what you said about the sexual content in the fic being gendered. i am wondering if you've read the fic/far enough into it to get to the scenes where sirius begins to question his interests in the act of mlm sex itself. multiple times in this fic, he has explicitly stated that he would feel "uncomfortable being the girl" or something to that effect. this is not a mistake i made. this is not an unconscious bias peeking through. this is very considered statement that i am choosing to have him say/think for a reason. that reason being is that sirius' sex life/interaction with sex/thoughts about sex are currently shaped by his own gendered understandings of intimacy and the power dynamics that play into that. as a product of his environment, he expects certain things from himself, even without fully understanding the significance behind a statement like that or what it might mean for his partner. to be frank, gender roles in sex/intimacy will be something that sirius thinks about quite a bit once he begins to have a more active sex life. it will be something that wolfstar discusses (perhaps not using modern terms and all that, but you get my drift), and it will be part of a larger arc. if you've read thus far, i hope you trust my writing enough to know that I'll give their sex life as much consideration as I've given all other aspects of their characters.

anyway, i think that was a long-winded answer to a simple question, but i hope it gave you some insight :)

[zoemillinwrites]

Do you have a update release schedule (like once a week or once a month) or is it whenever you finish a chapter?

I just wanna know if i need to set a reminder to look for updates at certain times

hi anon! i update brave face once a week on sundays (unless I'm traveling or the world implodes or something)

[zoemillinwrites]

I feel like we really lost something when we started looking at writing as a reader-centric product meant to appeal to the desires of a specific audience rather than a writer-centric approach of someone writes whatever particular thing particular compels them/whatever weird thing the demons in their head want to talk about, and people out there who are also compelled, and/or relate, find that writing. A lot of discussions of writing really center around what readers want rather than a writer's exploration. Sometimes as a reader I don't know what I want. I click on a fic or pick up a book I'm not sure about but that looks interesting, and I love it. Reading what I expect to get is it's own joy, but we always need to expand our horizons and not get mad at creators for not always writing what we want/expect.

[zoemillinwrites]

Thank you so much for being so consistent with your uploads, brave face is the highlight of my week, can't remember the last time i was this immersed in a story, probably in 2020 when the last of us 2 was released! I miss this feeling so much, getting lost in a story where everyone is fucked up yet the love is always there. Thinking & theorizing about it before going to sleep. Discussing it with other fansPs: Im a sucker for tragedy so the mcd tag just made it more appealing to me lol.

😭😭😭😭oh thank you so much for this anon, i really needed to hear this because I've been feeling kinda down about writing recently so this is more motivating than you know <3

i think about this fic all the time before i got to sleep ngl so I'm honestly so touched to know that there's somebody out there doing the same thing!!! ah! and I'm right there with you for the MCD tag, i hope i can execute my plans as well as i hope to! thank you!

[zoemillinwrites]

kinda like this version better so I’d thought I’d share

[zoemillinwrites]

me because I have an unhealthy addiction to characters being evil

[zoemillinwrites]

looks like James, blind like James, quidditch crazy like James

[zoemillinwrites]

I’ve had such bad art block recently so idk how I created this but we’re here so yay