#i'll send them between replying to my drafts from 2023 lol

[helenaus]

like for memes?

[wetcatspellcaster]

20 Q's for Fic Writers

Thanks @redrocketpanda for tagging me ^_^

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

11! 9 completed, 2 WIPs.

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

:)))))))) 831,063 :)))))))))) I don't wanna talk about it.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I am a fantasy videogames girlie, with a brief foray into Darklina sickness. I have written for BG3, Dragon Age, and Shadow and Bone.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 

Party Favours at 1,804

The Stars Don't Shine They Burn at 1,196

A Bleeding Heart at 1,133

Pieces Still Stuck in Your Teeth at 1,026

Eye of the Storm at 645

Before this year I had no fics over 1,000 kudos, so that was a cool development in 2023!

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to reply to everything, unless I am crippled by depression (or crippled by illness)

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

That goes to!!! Sunblindness!!! The only time I've foregone 'I can fix him' for 'I can make him worse (and I deserve to, as a treat)'.

I was actually planning to end that fic with a major character death and then a close friend was like "jfc this is what people read for fun Emma, chill the fuck out"

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

The happiest ending is probably Party Favours? But I also think Stars Don't Shine They Burn with the 'I can't fix him I can make him fix himself, but at my end, I can also make us immortal soulmates' tied up pretty neatly, and I was very proud of it at the time.

(Also shout out to A Man's Word is His Bond for being the final chapter I'm happiest with.)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nope, not yet! I've had some entitled comments and a few mansplainers, and if anyone sends a WRITE MOAR comment when I have 9 completed fics and over 800k for people to read if they want to, I'll likely become pissed. But no hate!

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

Queen of the Fade to Black, the moment anyone touches anything racier than a waist when I'm the one behind the keyboard I start blushing :')))))))))

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

I have written one whole crossover, my darklina Shadow and Bone/Stardust AU, and tbh it sent me pretty feral at the time.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes :-) twice I think. it's fine.

12. There was no question 12 so I'll make one up myself: What's the longest you've ever spent working on one fic? And the shortest?

Screaming, crying, throwing up. I remember the Emma who used to only post fics once they were fully drafted. I remember writing a Zevran/Warden fic in a week in the height of living alone in lockdown. I also remember writing A Bleeding Heart in a worryingly brief 3-week period.

Then I got hit with the crippling depression. The longest I've spent working on a fic is 19 months for Sunblindness when I got the Big Sads.

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

Nope! Not a group projects girlie. I'm here to cater to me and me alone.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Lol. Of the ones I've written for, it's a tie between Zevran/Surana and Astarion/Tav, as their dynamics were the funnest (seems rogue/mage is my jam). Of all time, it's Spike/Buffy - I have no need to write for them bc I am already well fed.

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

I have a Darklina Wintersmith AU that I have 2 out of 3 chapters down for and then BG3 full release happened. But the depressing answer to this question is 'original fiction projects' - I want to try and write something original but my confidence always fails me. I'm trying to transfer the things I enjoy about fic to original stuff to combat it but I'm not there yet!

16. What are your writing strengths?

Idk man, who could say? I think I'm good at dialogue/banter bc that's the compliment I receive most often in comments. I also think that if I've got a plot-twist in mind from the very beginning, I usually land it? The rest of the plot might be squiggly and messy as fuck, but if a scene was there when the fic was dreamt up (the ending of Sunblindness, the stag scene in my Stardust!AU, the agoraphobia reveal in A Bleeding Heart, the study scene in Pieces, etc.) then it usually ends up being received well and being exactly the way I pictured it in my head.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Can't write smut!!! It's the only thing holding me back!!!

(also if I have the choice between describing something in a sentence or in 3 paragraphs, I usually pick 3 paragraphs. Sometimes this is good, sometimes this is a fucking travesty. See answer to question 2!)

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

Amazing and encouraged but not something I can do, as I am bad at languages so it would just end up being a colonial hate crime facilitated by google translate.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Dragon Age: Inquisition!

20. Favourite fic you've written?

Despite the way that Full Access recontextualises it, my favourite fic is absolutely A Bleeding Heart. It was so much fun to write, it was my first time doing unreliable narration, and I was really proud of the plot twist in the final chapter. Also for someone who doesn't write smut, the fact that I got a friend to walk out of their house with the hair-pulling scene made me very smug tbh.

Tagging anyone who wants to do this!! I have made a bunch of new friends and mutuals lately, so if you're a writer and you want to answer these qus please do this so I can see your answers.