#and doesn't have a big crossover with the dc comics fandom

[gerryrigged]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Thanks for the tag, @vellaphoria! ♥

How many works do you have on AO3?

14 total, 4 on my gerryrigged account.

What’s your total A03 word count?

27,558. A good number of my pieces are quite short ficlets. I don't have a big portfolio of work - I've been in fandom for quite a while, but almost entirely as a lurker. For a handful of years, almost all of my writing output was in RP.

What fandoms do you write for?

Right now? Just DC, mostly Bats for the time being. Previously, hockey rpf, Star Wars, K, X-Men: First Class, and One Piece.

What are your top five fics by kudos?

hgjkldsf, most of these are on my other account, but:

[redacted] - ~10k, ~1700 kudos, hockey rpf [redacted] - ~3.5k, ~900 kudos, hockey rpf [redacted] - ~600 words, ~600 kudos, hockey rpf Hold It Up To The Mirror - 2.3k, 347 kudos, DC Comics [redacted] - ~300 words, ~300 kudos, One Piece

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I want to, because commenters are lovely and I appreciate them so much! And I try to, I just...don't always succeed >_>💧 or, looking at it from another perspective, I'm just very behind on them!

I adore people's comments and re-read them with fair frequency, and I do love interacting - but I also tend to get over-excited/anxious and then end up just turning the comments over and over in my little paws admiringly like sparkly gems instead of replying. Or, for another example, I got a bunch of lovely comments on my timeloop dicktim fic, but haven't been able to psyche myself up to reply because I still haven't been able to get out the promised follow-up fic, ha 🙃

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

Oh, probably Hold It Up To The Mirror. I left poor Dick and Tim in a really fucked up situation there, and it would absolutely have to get worse before it got any better. I do envision it getting better, though - despite where I end fic sometimes, I'm a sucker for eventual happy endings, especially for my OTPs. so I'm usually imagining a future path where things improve, even if it would be a (very) rough road to get there.

freefall (and the aftermath thereof) also left off on a pretty angsty note, but I give the edge to Hold It Up To The Mirror because of how bleak it is.

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

I'm not sure how to quantify this, lol, I would say most of my happy endings are pretty happy. For fluff factor, maybe my latest, let your heart be light, because that one just revels in the shmoop.

Do you get hate on your fic?

Not so far - fingers crossed it stays that way!

Do you write smut?

Yes, sort of? Like. I have written it, and I would certainly like to write more. But I consider myself very amateurish/unskilled at it, so I'm embarrassed of it and mostly it doesn't see the light of day. Guess I need to spend more time practicing! 😅

Do you write crossovers?

Nope, not a huge fan of writing crossovers or fusions myself, though I'll read them occasionally. When it comes to fandoms, I tend to only have one hyperfixation at a time, and mixing two different ones doesn't really appeal, at least in terms of what I myself am driven to write.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of - fingers also crossed it stays that way.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so? It's been requested before, but I never saw the results XD

Have you ever co-written a fic?

Not so far, though I'd like to! The closest I've gotten would be writing out closely collaborated scenes in RP, which can in some cases read like a fic.

What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

Oh no, if I was forced to consider all of my fandoms at once, I'd have no idea. For DC, it's definitely DickTim. (It was Tim/Kon before this most recent immersion in the DC fandom, when I started to dig into Bat comics more holistically and DickTim reared its head up and swallowed me whole.)

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

Hm, I don't know that there are any in particular that I would firmly put on the shelf. The ones that I more generally doubt are all the ambitious long-fic ideas >_> because I suck at those. But they still exist as goals of mine, so I won't jinx any of them here!

What are your writing strengths?

.......Humor, maybe? Oh, I've been told I'm good at conveying tone and character voice through prose, and at putting together memorable or hard-hitting turns of phrase. Possibly structuring emotional arcs? 🤔

What are your writing weaknesses?

Elaborate run-on sentences. Descriptions, especially of setting details such as locations, clothing, etc. (hence why these things are often missing in my fics, lmfao). Purple prose. Over-editing. Overuse of implication/ambiguity/metaphor to the detriment of clarity. Stringing multiple scenes together, scene transitions in general, over-arching storyline plotting and all the other difficult parts of writing longer more plotty pieces. The 'stage'-blocking of physical movement, and how much/little of it needs to be described to be effective. Research - I am way too prone to just handwaving and going ehhhh, something something fill in the blank here, you know what I mean >.>

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've done this a couple times, but usually only short lines. Sometimes it's for effect - the POV character might not understand the language, so it's as impenetrable to them as to most readers. Or it's a line most English-speakers would be able to parse due to cognates/related languages, but it's just funnier or feels better in the other language. Or in like anime/manga fandoms, it might be a line in Japanese that most fans/readers would already be familiar with. Usually though I've just been Google translating, and have been kindly corrected on grammar etc. in the comments before, haha.

First fandom you wrote for?

well. that would be in like. middle school lol oh god. I think it was a Sailor Moon/Gundam Wing crossover hghkldjfskl. That or Dragonball Z. Thankfully my recollection of my FF.net account name has been lost to the sands of time.

Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

hm. I don't have strong feelings on this; I usually end up looking at my past fic with a critical eye. Maybe the little gen Dick & Tim ficlet I have on my other account? I wouldn't say it's my best, by any means, but that one kind of wrote itself in a fever state when I hadn't written anything in literal years, so I'm very fond of it for breaking through a creative block and being my first toe into writing for the DC fandom proper.

oh, and if you haven't been tagged yet and would care to play: @deepwithintheabyss, @annerp, and @the-alice-of-hearts?

[shadowsong26x]

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

Yes, all four. XD

Lol, fair enough XD

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

Hm. The main thing that comes to mind that isn't something Specific (or like a kink/smut thing which...I don't read a lot of smut fics anyway?) would probably be amnesia plotlines [she says, fully aware that that's a key part of one of her own original verses].

I guess it's not so much the idea of amnesia in and of itself, and more the way it tends to be used in fics, especially in a shipping context, it gets weird and uncomfortable and while I'm generally super into H/C tropes, something about the way amnesia storylines tend to play out just. Does Not Do It For Me.

Oh, omegaverse, I guess. Have never really understood the appeal of that.

Not a fandom trope, exactly, but the obligatory arc in team-based properties where everyone's fighting each other? Hate that. No thank you. Most of fandom also tends to hate those arcs though, lol, so it's mostly a thing I have to deal with in canon.

I'm also generally not into soulmate AUs, unless it's something baked into the structure of the fandom from the beginning (i.e., lifebonds in Valdemar) but there are exceptions to that (sometimes SW, particularly BSG).

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Lately I seem to be invested in surrogate parent/child dynamics a lot? Or actual parent/child dynamics but involving adoption or otherwise connecting later in life rather than Raised From Birth.

Also, most whump/H/C tropes, though I tend to be picky about who gets hurt.

I tend to get invested in characters with Complicated Loyalties and/or Alignments, as well.

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

Several people I follow seem to be very invested in some very aesthetically pleasing C-dramas/Chinese dramas, so I tend to reblog those even though I have No Idea what's going on.

OFMD and WWDITS pop up on my dash a lot--I'm not interested in watching them for genre reasons, but I enjoy the enthusiasm of the people on my dash for them.

Also Batfam/DC comics stuff.

Those are the big ones, I think? Especially in terms of things I probably won't ever get into directly.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

Lol, you left it so open-ended where do I even go from here XD

Uh, okay, a blitz through some of the things that have floated through my head lately:

I've been thinking a lot about Zarek lately, actually, for a variety of reasons (including a backstory/character profile fic that I swear will materialize someday). Watch him also take on a bigger role than I planned in The Other Battlestar, lol.

Also thinking about adaptations, and what makes a good one vs. a bad one; both because the Les Mis brainrot is still strong (I still need to do my rewatch of the 2012 movie, maybe this weekend), and in talking about the WoT TV series with my dad (he doesn't like it, thinks it takes things too far away from the source material; I agree that it's doing some Very different things to the point where it's borderline a different story at this point But the touchstones I like are still strong enough for me, even with the Heavy nostalgia goggles)

Crossovers! Crossovers are a lot of fun; there are still a handful of BSG/SW crossovers I want to write someday, plus the BSG1 crossover AU outline I started...like...two years ago, lol...

Always sort of in the background thinking about redemption arcs/morally grey characters and/or storylines (see above re: complicated loyalties and alignments being a Thing for me, lol). I haven't written anything on the subject in a while, but sometimes go back and reread old essays.

...there's more, I'm sure, but that's what's popping into my head as having been fairly Present lately XD

Ask me a question!

[jupitermelichios]

I had such high hopes for NaNo this year. I was going to finish What Does The Fox Say, work on the sequels to Pretty Boy, maybe make some real progress on my badwrong vampire!batboys AU, hell, I even thought I might finally get that second chapter of my five year old Daredevil fic written.

But no.

Instead, I have spent today writing 5,000 words of Spike buying Dawn Summers magic jewellry, as a preface for writing a crossover canon divergence fic where Spike rides off into the sunset with John Constantine. Because apparently my Buffy x Hellblazer ‘verse refuses to die.

If I’ve learned anything from fandom it’s that no matter how weird and esoteric, there’s always someone out there who wants to read it, but i’m fairly confident in saying the audience for this fic would be like 5 people. And yet, for some reason that’s all my brain wants me to work on.

[fanfiction-and-coffee]

So I saw that you like PJO and I do too!! I was wondering if you could do headcanons(or one-shot if u do those) where Bruce has a teen daughter that he doesn't know about that's the daughter of a Greek Goddess(maybe like Hecate?). And like how the batfam would react to it and all the dangerous stuff that happens to her like the war with Kronos and all that stuff? (Sry this is really long. Btw your work is amazing!!!!❤️❤️)

thanks babe!! hecate is the most underappreciated greek goddess tbh. I can’t remember if she actually came up in pjo (it’s been a while since I read the later books in the series) but I looked it up and she actually does exist as a character in the new 52??? (mostly wonder woman, for obvious reasons.) so that’s cool. thanks dc comics wiki. 

I’ve never done any kind of fandom crossover before so for these headcanons I’m just going to mash together bits and pieces of the percy jackson mythos, actual greek mythology, and dc lore and hope for the best lmao (also kept the reader gender-neutral if that’s okay!) 

I would… not be surprised if Bruce had hooked up with an Actual Goddess at some point tbh. It’s not even that much weirder than any of his canon love interests.

I’m laughing at the idea of him having another child that he didn’t know about though. The poor guy is going to develop a phobia of his girlfriends getting pregnant and hiding the kid from him to use as Leverage later. Help him.

Okay but being Hecate’s daughter would be?? Really really cool??? Like, imagine being raised by the goddess of magic and sorcery. (Plus, her animal symbol is the dog so that’s definitely an added bonus.) You’d grow up surrounded by spellbooks and charms, and your mom would be more than happy to teach you how to use them. (Plus, as previously mentioned, she’s associated with dogs, so there’s always a few puppies around her home.)

A lot of people would assume that the goddess of witchcraft would be all distant and cold, but actually in Ancient Greece Hecate was also associated with childbirth and was a protector of the home, so I think she’d be a great mom! She may be seen as mysterious by others, but with her child she’s very warm and nurturing.

She is a busy woman though. (Most of the gods are.) So you would grow up spending a lot of time alone with nothing better to do than practice your magic. This results in you becoming a very powerful sorcerer. (I’m definitely imagining you growing up to be kind of a cross between Raven from Teen Titans and Wonder Woman as far as powers and abilities go.)

If we’re going with Percy Jackson lore though, there is that whole rule about the gods not being allowed to have any contact with their mortal children. Hecate is a minor goddess so she’s not being watched as closely as the Olympians, but she still has to be careful to keep things quiet so no one finds out about your existence. (This is the main reason she never told Bruce about you.)

I imagine that after the events of The Last Olympian (aka after that rule is lifted) you get a lot more freedom, since you don’t have to hide anymore. This is the point where you decide to head to Gotham and finally catch up with your estranged father.

Bruce and Damian return to the Batcave one night and find you just chilling, waiting for them to get home. This A.) gives them both a minor heart attack, and B.) means that your first meeting with your dad and half-brother consists of both of them trying to subdue you and then being really confused when you use your magic to disarm them.

One loooooong explanation later, Damian is looking vaguely horrified by the idea of another sibling to put up with, and Bruce isn’t sure whether he wants to hug you or slap himself. (He probably gets Diana to help him confirm that you really are who you say you are, just because at this point he has good reason to be paranoid.) 

As far as the other batkids go, I think Cass probably accepts you the easiest. Baby girl has Seen Some Shit, so at this point finding out that her dad has a powerful demi-god child that no one knew about gets barely more than a blink out of her. She’s also really good at reading people, and she can tell you have good intentions. (She also introduces you to Stephanie, who is a literal ray of sunshine and warms up to you immediately.)

The boys are a little slower to come around. Dick is generally a pretty friendly guy, but he’s also been in the game long enough to develop a healthy sense of caution. Once he warms up to you, he pretty much treats you the same way he treats all the other baby bats. Big Brother of the Year™ right here.

Tim also takes a while to get used to you, but he’s pretty chill. He is very impressed and a little freaked out by your magic, but he’s a curious little bean and loves hearing your stories about the Greek gods and about all the Magical Adventures™ you’ve gotten up to.

Barbara and Jason pretty much don’t have any kind of relationship with you aside from “yeah I kind of know them,” and Damian, for his part, gives you just as much attitude as he gives everyone else. (Except maybe Tim.)