#also Part 3 is What If!Dr Strange angst !! 🎶

[sinvulkt]

20 Questions For Writers

Wow, thank you so much for the tag @fanfictasia !! I've wanted to participate in something like this forever!! 🎶✨️✨️

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Right now? 66.

"Yes, as a star wars writer, I am very proud of that. No, I do not intend to change it anytime soon."

I really need to focus on (and finish) some of my WIPs, and that mean trying not to disperse my energy amidst one shots (no matter how much i love monthly challenges and fic exchange events). Also I'm very proud of that 66 count and want to appreciate it xd.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

321k words!!

(More or less 100k / year 🎶 little me would never believe that 0.0

My school exam results sure don't, with how they are dropping 🤣)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Star wars mostly (Vaderkin or my OC Sinvulkt), then Marvel (Dr Strange), Dream SMP (Dream), Le Visiteur du Future (Renard) and more recently Batman (Bruce Wayne) as well as Avatar: the last airbender (Zuko).

Plus the original stories I am supposed to write but almost never end up doing xd (the engagement in fandom compared to original stories make the switch hard xd).

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. Dreamt of a Never Ending Sky (Dream SMP)

669 kudos

2. To Fly Free Under The Morning Sun (Star Wars)

480 kudos

3. On the Edge of Twilight (Star Wars)

380 kudos

4. Scales of Embers (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

353 kudos

5. Crash Landing on Space Australia (Star Wars)

319 kudos

I'll never know how my Dream SMP fic got so much engagement. Good timing at a moment the fandom was in effervescence, I guess. Scales of Embers scoring so high is also a surprise 0.0. I discovered it had that many kudos today. It’s a shame the Dr Strange fandom is small because I think my Dr Strange WIP What If Doctor Strange Lost His Humanity ? would have deserved a place here. It definitely does in my heart.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to! As a reader, I always feel super happy when the author shows that they’ve read and appreciated my comments. I know that personality an author who answers make me more likely to want to drop a comment.

As an author, I absolutely want to show how much I love every single comments, so I try to answer them all. But I get a little overwhelmed sometimes, bcs lots of other stuff going on irl or another reason. As such, it can happen that I don't feel the energy to answer a comment on the spot. And if I don't answer it on the spot (using the power of the wiggy dizzy nice happy feeling of getting a comment), I don't necessarily have the energy to answer later on. I currently have something like 60 unanswered comments I think? TT.TT

But rest assured that whether I answered or not, I absolutely adore and cherish every single ones!! Comments are amazing! ✨️.✨️

(This kind of engagement is one of the only reason I managed to settle into such an active rythm of writing after years of trying then dropping the hobby~)

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Glance at my fics.

Uhhh... This is a hard question here... Many of them have angsty endings XD

Mostly the ones at the beginning (the worst written ones xd). I wonder why~

Also a lot of them don' have endings yet XD

I'll say amidst the 'old' fics from 2021, Day 8 - Screaming (Star Wars) would be the angstier one (or most horrible one ig xd).

But as far as recent fic go... While I haven't finished writing it bcs its wordcount exploded in my face, I already plotted / drafted it a few months ago and I know the ending, so I'll choose:

Batman’s Downfall (To Stand Alone) (Batman)

I noticed my kind of angst doesn’t have much success around these parts 🫠🤣. Oh well. I cherish it all the same :3.

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

Sometimes I think I wrote too many fics. It's hard to select one.

Uhhh... My fluffiest works are one shots in Of Feathers and Freedom serie, but they are part of the series so it’s not really an 'ending'.

...

I'll answer for the crackiest story rather than the happiest ending bcs all my finished fics ending are ominous open ending at best xd.

The Blob Adventures Of Excentrics Jedi (Star Wars)

Because it's cute blob drawings of our crazy team of OC in taaoej, and I love them (although we are all angst lovers in taaoej, so it's more crack-angst, and we don't know the ending bcs there isn't really one. Not yet at least. Hopefully never).

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

Just my own innervoice as far as I'm aware. But then I've always been rather clueless when people tried to 'hate on me'. The message usually just got lost somewhere in dreamspace immensity, never computing.

I've found the fandoms communities really welcoming at the very least!!

9. Do you write smut?

No.

I don't really enjoy reading smut. Nor romance for the matter. I don't think I'd enjoy writing it.

But maybe I'll try one day, for the sake of experimenting all genres.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I never did. I don't know why. Maybe I just never felt the need to mix characters and universes. There are amazing crossovers out there though, so who knows, maybe one day I'll try one.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of. In all honesty, I don't think my works are nearly popular enough to get stolen xd.

My writing style isn’t that good yet, and my dislike of romance when the majority of the fandom community is ship-powered means I end up in a corner quite niche. (A corner I love, that being said. Yay Crack, Angst and Gen~)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but maybe I'll translate some of mine in french someday. Be it only so that I do write fiction in my native language from time to time.

Anyone that wanna translate my fics, feel free to!!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes, To Fly Free Under The Morning Sun (Star Wars)!!

I’m still waiting for my co-author @purpleopossum to come back to me / get back in star wars mood to continue that one. 🫠

Can’t say my hopes are that high up after all this time, but it’s the redemption | healing part of the serie and I don’t really have fun writing alone redemption | healing part... i prefer doing the whole mayhem that create the injury in the first place. And with how long some of my fics hiatus are (and I got no excuse for those xd), it’s only fair for me to wait. (I did write more other works for the dragon Vader serie in the meantime xd).

I made an oath to myself to never leave a work unfinished though, so we’ll see. If in several years purple still doesn’t wish to continue it, or if she inform me she is dropping the story, I’ll try to make some kind of ending. It’s part of the game i guess.

Alternatively, the The Amazing Adventures Of Excentrics Jedi universe is a group of star wars OCs that we made together with @pat-the-togorian , @asteral-feileacan , @ct2002-rema and Xylian. I don’t know if that count as co-writing? We usually write our OCs pov.

But in all cases, co-writting is very fun and I’d definitely do it again if other opportunities arise in the future.

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

The absence of ship is my all-time favorite ship. Otherwise, "main character / digging their own grave" would be my 'favorite ship' since I tend to synch with idiots snarky jerks disasters.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

To Fly Free Under The Morning Sun (Star Wars) that I mentioned for question 13? 🤣

More seriously, I'll answer On the Edge of Twilight (Star Wars)

Because it's my vent fic. I know the main plot line, I vaguely know the current arc, but no one can predict where the next arc will go. It's all pure impulse and while I have a vague idea of 'ending', I refuse to plan a path towards it. This fic specifically, I want to keep pure impulse. So I'd love for it to become some kind of "The NeverEnding Story". :3

16. What’s your writing strengths?

I write.

No seriously, it's not something I did four years ago appart from vent poems here and there. Writing is in itself a huge writing strenght!

Otherwise I'm also a bottomless well of idea. It's pretty neat.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

... romance?

Or dialogues. Lastly I have a lot of frustration around the transition from dialogue / transition / dialogue. I feel like I'm crap at properly timing that.

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

It's fun. I do it for games sometimes. Since apparently writing normally is not chllenging enough for my brain sometimes. It did teach me bits of mando'a.

Recently for Sēċan (Star Wars) I decided last minute to put the whole droid dialogue in morse, and I regret none of it.

I'm usually only doing it for one shots though, and never 'official existing' languages until now.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star wars :p

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Now that's another hard question, how am I supposed to select one.

I'm gonna answer the whole Of Feathers And Freedom (Star Wars) serie. Bcs wings. :3

Tag time~ (if you wish to)

@purpleopossum @pat-the-togorian @cinderfeather @beguilewritesstuff @purple-iris @dreaminghour @ravenite-void @trickstress333 @bluntblade @doctorgeekery @stewardofningishzida @jenae-0 @trickstress333 @kittonafoxgirl @pastelcourage @salparadiselost @kefalion @charlottevader @ravenstakeflight @starr234 @aelaer @sarcasticfirefighter @mckiwi @linzerj @sonderwalker @exomal @tonhalszendvics @nephilimswitchlight @firejay112 @only-here-for-the-star-wars @ajedilikehisfather @makaronik @chickadeechickadoo @dirtkid123 @numerousbees1106 @akizumy @25centsoda @udekai @wendingways @silvereddaye @in-company-of-misery @wisechaosglitter @kuraiarcoiris @alright-anakin @wyvunn you're more than welcome to join on the interview fun!! (Or to ignore the tagging if not interested xd).

I know I tagged. I lot of people. Some of you may recognise my pseud, some may not. But I thought it would be interesting to hear the answer of the various authors with whom I interacted on ao3 over the years, so I went and digged up those with tumblr I could find from my inbox 🤣

(Hopefully I didn’t bother any of you >.< - otherwise I apologize. Same for if I accidentally tagged a non-writer.)

I'd love to hear your answers! 🎶

[sinvulkt]

Sanctum Sanctorum by englishable ( @englishable )

A timeline breaks and splits. Choices and actions fracture off into infinite possibilities. In one particular lifetime, at one particular moment, a man loses the woman he loves and then loses the whole world in his futile effort to get her back: and in the sacred timeline, meanwhile, Christine Palmer hears about it.

She's gotten accustomed to hearing weird, unbelievable things, having Doctor Strange as a friend - and having him back in her life again, after five years of everyone telling her he was dead - but this newest weird thing is different, and maybe her own past with Stephen Strange has a future as well. Finished, 35k words.

*** ** * ** ***

Part 2 - The Riddle

“There’s a man in a prison,” she begins. “It’s got four walls and a locked door.”

“As opposed to six walls and two locked doors, like any normal prison cell.”

“As opposed to anything — how does the man get free?”

Stephen squints. “Does he have his sling-ring?”

She rolls her eyes. “No. Let’s say he’s lost it.”

“Ah, so he’s an idiot — that’ll make escaping harder.” He grins; the beard lends it a certain touch of guile. “What’s the door made from?”

“Iron,” Christine says. “And the walls are made from rock.”

“As is the floor, I’m guessing.”

“You’d be guessing correctly.”

“He should look in his pockets for something to pick the lock with, then — or something he can alchemize the carbon from. Did you know gunpowder only has three ingredients?”

“No such luck, wizard. They took his old clothes from him before they put him in prison.”

“How many Saturday morning cartoons has he watched? He can go out through the window on one of those bedsheet ropes.”

“There’s no windows in the cell, either. Or bedsheets.”

“I’m fairly certain that’s against the Geneva Convention. Was Grandma Palmer a war criminal, by any chance?”

“No sling-rings, no lock picks, no windows, no bedsheets, no magic — and this was Grandma Reisert’s riddle, not Grandma Palmer. She’s the one who kept asking me why you don’t go by ‘Stevie.’” She shoves him lightly in the chest. “Try again, smart-ass.”

“Oh, I don’t know — the man lays his hands on the stones and commands that they be made into bread.”

“Does he?” [...]  “But then the stones would answer back that a man doesn’t live by bread alone, wouldn’t they?”

[...]. “Does the prison have a ceiling?”

She smiles. 

“It doesn’t,” she says, “and the man realizes he’s got wings.”

“Kind of a hard detail to miss, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not really. People do it all the time.”

[...]“That’s true,” he says, in a voice that sounds somewhat thicker than before. “There’s your answer, then — the prison has no ceiling and the guy’s got wings. Simple enough.”

“In a way. The hardest part is probably just getting him to look past the locked door.”

“But does he, eventually?”

Christine puts her hands onto the Cloak’s collar. 

Thanks for choosing him, she would like to tell it, in spite of the fact that it has neither the ears nor the temporal lobe to hear her with. Thanks for protecting him. Thanks for catching him when he falls, which I know he probably does a lot. 

“He does,” she says, “so he flies.”