#bc i don't really like a bit of my writing style in the wip im working on NOW

[bird-likes-to-fandom]

im gonna post a zoya and harshaw fic soon i think

[simpjaes]

a foursome wip with guy on guy and ofc guy on girl?? u answered my prayers.

also a hoon bias (with jay as my bias wrecker im so sorry pookie) the new fic u just posted literally sent me into orbit.

ik u didnt write it for me lol but im in my head like yeah this was for MEEEE /j

i just really like ur writing style and how you made hoonie such a sweetheart in the fic. how gentle and caring he was with yn and even jay as well. it was really refreshing from all the fics where hoon is such a degrading hard ass (not that i dont love that but still)

oomf gave me the idea tbh, but i haven't been able to stop thinking about it basically so......yeah. you and jake in said wip are gonna be in it together, i can tell you that much. ANYWAY

,SDHFKSD the new revamp was for meeeeeeeee and meeeeeeee only bc who tf else gonna write for jay like that???? ME! ;o; no but fr, thank you for reading and enjoying it! I'll allow u to claim it's for u too as long as you stop looking at jay forever now <3

thank u for liking my writing style 🖤 im a huge fan of comfort smut and uh *cringes* love making. like that fic is nothing but reader getting fucking spoiled by two hotties who don't compete and even kinda...yknow...are into each other a teensy bit too.

i do love a degrading/rough sunghoon ngl, but he really fits the part of a lot of roles you put him in. me, personally? I like him as the heart broken neighbor who is afraid to fuck jay's wife even tho jay is like "pls fuck my wife"

[hualianisms]

✦ what was your easiest fic to write & your hardest?

☉ what do you do when you get stuck writing?

✄ what’s your editing process?

✎ how do you think readers would guess a fic was yours if you posted anonymously?

tysm for the ask!! 🩵🩵 be prepared for a lot of yapping

✦ what was your easiest fic to write & your hardest?

easiest fic: this is a bit of a hard qn bc ive written 58 fics so far through the years and i forgot half the things i wrote kfjjfj but id say, the easiest was probably my first ever real fic, i.e. this hualian hurt/comfort fic where hc has a nightmare of the 100 swords scene. it was the first thing i wrote right after finishing reading tgcf and i wrote it all in one go and the dialogue & actions & characterization flowed so easily, i could picture the scene so easily in my head (which doesn't always happen for me). and writing hualian felt like the easiest thing in the world bc back in 2020 every little detail about them as characters and as a ship was imprinted in my mind so vividly... i miss those days 😔 my memory abilities have deteriorated since then

otherwise, iirc my first ever fengqing fic and my fenglian poem were also very easy to write

hardest fic: 😭😭 this could be so many of my fics tbh, there's so many i struggle so much with.. especially the unfinished wips, bc everything i actually posted means it wasn't the hardest, since i actually managed to finish them

but among my posted wips, i definitely struggled with the earlier chapters of my hualian fake dating au very badly at the earlier chapters and almost gave up on it which was why there was a 1-2 year gap btwn updates 😭😭 i actually went into a 1-2 year long burnout right after posting chap 1. luckily though, the most recent chapters got much better for me, finally reached a part of the story that's much easier and more fun to write (except that i wrote myself into a bit of a corner so ive been brainstorming how to get out of it). i just struggle a lot with multichaps bc my executive dysfunction issues make it very overwhelming for me to plot things. but im very determined to see this fic through to the end and finish my first ever multichap!

there's a lot more i struggled with - usually longer fics, fics for a new fandom (especially visual media fandoms. book/text-based fandoms are much easier bc you already have a canon peek into their character voice and narration style), non-canon ships that need a lot of wrangling to be believable, fics where i worry a lot about being ooc, fics that need action scenes or a real plot

the rest of the qns answered under the cut:

☉ what do you do when you get stuck writing?:

😭 it depends on why im stuck. i might ask someone for help w characterization. sometimes i just go for a jog/walk to clear my head and it works, otherwise if im rly stuck, especially plot-wise, I'll procrastinate and put the fic off for weeks/months

✄ what’s your editing process?

just rereading my own draft and rewriting or filling in the blanks where i feel like it can be better or is missing smth. i don't cut scenes often unless they're really bad. sometimes i rearrange entire paragraphs around to make them flow better

✎ how do you think readers would guess a fic was yours if you posted anonymously?

this is an apt question bc i have 2 anon fics rn and had a few in the past that i took off anon a couple of years later.. i think the easiest way to tell is my authors' notes. in both start & end notes i tend to yap + i usually apologize a lot in the start notes

besides that maybe fic titles (mitski). i think the genres and writing tone/vibe through my 50+ fics have varied a lot so i don't think that would be distinctive.. id be interested to hear if my writing style is distinctive bc i have no idea myself 🤔 i know i have some phrases i reuse across fics though (trying to work on that issue), and a bad habit of having long sentences sometimes (ive really been working on reducing this issue)

(send me an ask from the fic ask game part 1 or the fic ask game part 2)

[marimbles]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks for the tag @jattendschaton<3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

29

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

283,369

3. What fandoms do you write for?

mostly miraculous ladybug and a bit of owl house! potentially a couple others in the future

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Why Are You Like This?

tell me something i don't know

lucky (we're in love in every way)

some truths are loyal (as the shadows we lead)

two idiots and a hamster

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

i try to! it means a lot to me that people would go out of their way to leave their thoughts. sometimes it's a bit hard to keep up on multichaps though if the updates are frequent enough so i really fell off the bandwagon and currently live in shame with an overflowing inbox;; trying to do better from now on!

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

tbh i don't really do angsty endings bc i want the ending to be happy lol

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

like i said, all my fics have a happy ending but i think lucky is probably the most like extra-fluffy happy ending. and then tell me something i don't know is probably the most cathartic happy ending purely for the dramatic 100k+ buildup lol.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really, no! maybe a sort of disappointed comment here and there

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

nope and i don't read it either haha

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

nah

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

haha i hope not!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

a few in russian and one in spanish (the beginning of it, at least)

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

yep! @botherkupo was my collab partner for two idiots and a hamster and i had a blast writing with her!! kim is such a good writer and sooo clever and funny so it was really fun to try to match her energy and bounce ideas off each other to make it as silly as possible

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

love square and in particular marichat is my weakness<3 also big shoutout to huntlow. and also zelink. and also recently tamaharu. aklsjf

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

at this point im not sure i will ever come back to i wanna tell you (but i don't know how) … it's an owl house fic that i started during season 3 but the direction i had planned doesn't feel very relevant anymore now that the show is over

16. What are your writing strengths?

i think dialogue bc i really enjoy writing it and it typically comes most easily to me! i would consider humor a strength too bc i have a very good time being silly

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

big one is speed. I'm just very slow 😔 the writing process is fairly painstaking for me, and it takes a lot of time and effort even to write things that are pretty short and simple! agonies

for the writing itself, i consider myself a pretty simple writer with a pretty simple writing style—which works well for me most of the time, especially since I tend to lean toward humor. but sometimes it feels like a weakness when i read a story with really rich, beautiful prose and i wish i could emulate that a bit more! when i'm trying for something with a more serious tone it takes a lot more effort for me to convey the appropriate level of depth I'm going for and i worry about going overboard and coming off as overwrought or cheesy sounding lol. along the same vein i feel sometimes that my characterization is a bit two-dimensional and i find myself wishing i could add more levels and depth to the characters. there's just a lot i try to balance in my writing and i don't feel like im quite striking that balance every time. which is fine because no one's perfect ofc! i hope this is all stuff i can learn to be better at.

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

i generally prefer keeping everything in english since im writing in english. it just feels a bit smoother for the POV if there would be no distinction for the character, and i don't want people to be pulled out of the story if they need to google something

19. First fandom you wrote for?

hunger games, i think

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

tell me something i don't know C:

tagging (if you want to!): @fairytales-and-folklore @lollytea @bahbahhh @sha-nwa @botherkupo @taliaxlatia (or whatever blog u wanna do it on lol)

[carpisuns]

For the artist meme -- 20 and 6! 🎨 if you like xx

20. how often do you get art block?

all the time 🥰 it's like clockwork lol sometimes i get sooo frustrated and cranky bc i hate all my art and i'm like "woe is me!! i've lost all my skills!! i'll never draw again!!" and then i'm like wait . i know what's happening here. i just gotta wait it out I'll be fine lol. it's nice that i also write bc then i can switch to writing for a while until the art block clears up 👍 i've found it's best for me to just take a break from drawing for a bit and not try to force it so my brain can like reset itself

6. tag your favorite artists/inspirations!

oh man there are so many!!!! i could name like 100 people lol but i'm gonna limit myself to the ones i think have had the most direct influence on my art style. hope u guys don't mind the tags<3

@ileniagennari was one of the first artists i latched onto stylewise. i used to study their work a lot because i am obsessed with the fluidity and softness of their linework and i just really like how they draw faces and bodies. their rendering is also amazing and feels sort of cinematic somehow? i've always wished my art could have a similar feel!

@anna-scribbles has also been a huge style influence for me and she's just also been a big inspiration in general as a close friend<3 i ADORE her work and have studied it specifically a ton. she draws the most blorby blorbos ever. blorbyness is her art trademark imo. and i want that for me too so i tried to steal it. i also think just sheer proximity to her and her art has made me pick up a lot of things from her automatically haha. in particular, i feel like the way she draws smiles is so perfect, and i always try to channel her when i draw smiles myself haha

@ladybeug inspires me so much and has taught me really valuable art skills! a while ago i came to a point in my art journey when i felt just really stuck and frustrated. like i could not for the life of me just DOODLE. i took everything too seriously, even if it was supposed to be simple and silly. i really needed to learn how to loosen up and enjoy drawing more. stephanie is like the most esteemed and delightful doodler i know so i came to her for advice and she DELIVERED. she gave me super helpful tips and invited me to make daily comics with her and it's been lifechanging! it's helped me focus on communication over perfection and feel more confident in my art, which i think had a visible difference in my style too. i learn SO much from just regularly enjoying stephanie's work, including her webcomic @datmcomic!!

@rileyclaw is a good buddy of mine and his work is so hugely inspiring to me! it's really educational to see his wips and learn from his process. and since he's an incredible animator as well as an illustrator, enjoying his work is part of what inspired me to finally take a leap and make my first animatic. i really love how he pushes/exaggerates body and facial expression to communicate emotion and how he makes such careful choices about comp and color and just Everything to tell a whole story with every piece of his art. i've learned a lot from riley on the storytelling aspects of art and that's something i continue to try to build on!

@knockknockknockingonhootysdoor's art is like an instant and intense shot of dopamine to my brain every time!!! i cant even tell you how HAPPY it makes me. i just stare at it and eat it all up and i'm always asking myself HOW does he do it?? how does he make me feel this way. and i think it's just like....how genuine it is?? i can just feel kryan's love for the story and characters in the way he draws and im not sure that is a stealable quality lol. but in particular something i really admire about his art is how SHAPE it is. i love how he builds each character with different shapes and how each design feels so unique and so fitting for them. i am trying to incorporate that more into my own art!

man i already have rambled so much and there are so many other artists i could go on and on about alskjdfjkla ok just real quick i have to shout out @picayunearts bc i intensely enjoy her work in both the ml and toh fandoms and her coloring and use of light and gradient always stands out to me so i kinda try to channel that sometimes! @smallpapers is another fav and i love how soft and simple her art feels! it's always inspiring to me. @raystel's work also inspires me a lot, whether it's fanwork or original stuff. she is so creative with character design and seeing the way she expresses her ideas in art is so cool!

and i would be remiss if i didn't shout out my sister @mozzys-studio who is the first person i came to when i wanted to learn how to draw and she taught me a lot! her art is beautiful<3

thanks for the questions! :D

artist asks

[eomma-jpeg]

Hi!! :D For the emoji asks! ^_^

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

🤯 What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

👀

Let's see if I have any wips veil doesn't already know about lol heres what I have in my brain

So currently I'm working on and off on a vashmeryl and millywood college au but im... I'm still a bit burnt and while I wanted to get the first chapter done by vashmeryl week (and my birthday) I don't know that I will which sucks

But this au is journalist Meryl and Xenobiology major/Cross country star Vash and he's already dating someone when they meet but she sucks so Meryl enters her "You Belong With Me" phase lol

This au also contains past tragic millynai and successful millywood bc i love to torture myself

I am also working on a mermaid/fantasy au inspired 100% by @noaafishfieldguide

Sea foam and another secret project have inspired me to write an alternate au of her secret project lolol where Milly and Vash are from 2 kingdoms and have an arranged marriage but uhh Nai falls for Milly in the process and it gets crazy

Featuring undine Nai and Vash and half elf Milly bc I Said So

🎉

Honestly comments really make me feel like a fic is a success. If I can get anyone to come out of their internet shell and weird circle of social norms to keysmash or type a comment about my silly lil fic, then that is a success to me. And it makes me kick my lil legs in excitement

🤯

I haven't really experimented too much but the two styles I want to get better at are writing more poetically and writing adventure

"The End" which is a post trimax fic is suuuuch a good adventure fic and I have yet to really get into that?

I've mentioned poetry before too but @tomboyyyaoi and @re-l are both so good at poetic styles and I just have yet to truly dedicate myself to trying it. I did a little bit with an in the meadow one shot I have hidden away but it was still pretty prose/narrative heavy

One writing genre i don't ever really intend to do is uh mystery. My brain doesn't really work that way ? I could certainly learn but I'm good.

[solar-halos]

20 Questions: Fic Author Edition

omg <3. thank you for tagging me @bodyelectric77<3 <3. ive never done this before so this is so exciting :o)

1) How many works do you have on ao3?

45. damn!

2) What's your total AO3 word count?

601,692

3) What fandoms do you write for?

the hunger games / ballad of songbirds and snakes mostly. sometimes total drama island lol

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

a deep dive into the mind of annie cresta

get a load of this monster

a collection of encanto what-ifs

eat my heart out with a spoon

u focus on the wrong thing and it shows

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

i love responding to comments! it blows my mind that there are people reading words i wrote and taking time out of their day to be so sweet! <3

6) What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

probs you hurt my head like cheap red wine

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

queen of crabs, it's the silly awkward first date antics odesta deserves <3

8) Do you get hate on fics?

no (thank god)

9) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

i tried writing E rated smut once but one thing about me is that intimacy makes me laugh out fucking loud (like i always try to do bits like im wearing the crown of clowns it can get very awkward) so whenever i write anything smut-adjacent im incapable of writing it sexy i just kinda feel silly the entire time. perhaps its the asexual in me

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

nah. but i think an umbrella academy and succession crossover would fuck

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

nope

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

13) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

nope

14) What's your all-time favorite ship?

percabeth <3 (sorry odesta but on my first read thru of the hunger games i hated annie for no fucking reason and developed a hc that johanna and finnick were having an affair.. but that is a convo for another day. LOVE them now tho obv, but ive been shipping percabeth since day 1 theyre so cute and in luv)

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

tbh prob the odesta greek au. i love the concept (siren!annie is very important to me) but im just not in a greek mythology mood anymore

16) What are your writing strengths?

sometimes when i write emotions i feel like as a reader you can look at it and go "oh okay. i know that feeling" which is awesome

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

i am in love with run on sentences. "no its just a stream of consciouness writing style" baby you just wrote something that's mostly just em dashes and semicolons and parenthesis. also i don't know how to describe stuff so thank god for the internet bc i link outfits like my life depends on it. ive always struggled w writing locations too. and ive been wanting to get better at writing bits

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

i tried doing this with a mags fanfic i wrote bc i hc that d4 spoke spanish before the first war. there is literally only one sentence in spanish though bc i knew for a fact the phrasing was correct (at least in a casual, conversational setting) but i do think it's really cool when people write d4 characters having entire convos in spanish even though im not confident enough in my langauge skills to do it myself. also i just don't think d4 would know how to speak spanish in canon times, prob just affectionate terms like mija/o or mano or chula. like stuff that doesn't rlly affect how the capitol understands them. i get into this in the fic, but i think even by mags’ generation spanish would stop being a common language in d4. like i love the sentiment of her carrying a piece of that w her but i don’t think the capitol would let them get away with that and it’s also Not Easy to remember how to speak a language you only learned as a child and then never used for the rest of ur life, which is what i imagined happened with her + her gen. like. me and my siblings only know english bc the moment my dad moved here he was like “okay. English Time” and that stemmed from the pressure to assimilate can you imagine if the actual law got involved. anyway this answer got long but i have a lot of thoughts about this sorta stuff, esp in d4

19) First fandom you wrote for?

percy jackson lol

20) Favorite fic you've ever written?

don't keep the devil waiting, old friend. tbh this answer changes all the time any fic im currently working on is automatically my fav lol

idk why i feel a bit silly about tagging people directly, so i am informally tagging anyone who wants to do this sorry i hope this isn't a cop out <3. ily

[mostlymaudlin]

Hi! For ao3 wrapped I’d love if you answered 5, 12, and 30 😊

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

this SHOULDN'T have surprised me, but bangable was my first outright smut piece for aftg, and i laughed when i woke up the next morning and my inbox was POPPIN. i feel like aftg fandom is usually p quiet in the comment section (or im just spoiled by the richness of simon snow fandom), but people were SO READY to talk about this blowjob hahahha.

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

oh man LOL. theres a short answer and a long answer and im gonna go for long bc maybe talking abt it all will hold me accountable for finishing stuff.

ok so like technically i have 1 million wips. jk. technically technically i have 41 aftg wips (and ENDLESS more simon snow wips), but most of those google docs are resting in peace in my "wip graveyard" folder. they may be resurrected one day but who knows.

so more accurately i am currently sitting on four wips! all aftg.

my hs au We Can Live Forever... which i actually completed the next chapter for! but i dont want to post it until i finish the one after bc i kind of leave it off on a mean note. i might post it anyway so that people get mad at me and motivate me to keep writing though...

what i have dubbed "slut au," in which our favorite resident ace neil explores sex. its sitting at 20k rn, about halfway thru the plot. very messy atm. about 60% smut.

my secret aftg winter exchange fic

my (NEW AS OF A FEW HOURS AGO) secret aftg mixtape exchange fic

im also p much always playing w flash fics, AAAAND i have been thinking abt revisiting this old au i was working on last spring where neil works at a froyo shop. i actually wrote an entire first draft for that -- i think its sitting at like 12k but its a complete mess. i think of her tho... the found family vibes were v good...

OH and i am seriously considering doing a magnum opus andrew POV fic. i need to move into my own apartment in order to accomplish this because i want to like. really go ham analyzing the books and scaffolding that plot bc if i do it im going to tell the same story but with a very different structure i think. and i cannot do this in my current living situation. so that would probs be my Fic of 2023 if true.

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

cheesy. but more than anything i think i've come to know myself as a fiction writer this year. ive always written fiction in bits and pieces, and ive done a shit ton of professional nonfiction writing. writing snowbaz last year felt good in that i was finally writing regularly, but switching fandoms upped my confidence because thats when i could finally prove to myself that i wasn't just copying rainbow rowell hahaha. WHICH LIKE she definitely continues to influence my writing but i think ive developed my style in a way where its more my own now -- i don't lean on the style of aftg the way i did for simon snow fics. and while andrew is undeniably NOT my character, ive done a lot of work around the way i write his POV that im proud of. and this makes me think that if i wanted to write original stories i could... even tho i havent rly come up with a story i want to tell on my own just yet!

from this ask meme!

[daggery]

Your tags on the Narnia post (about the Evie & Susan and Carlos & Edmund associations) have me thinking about Carvie finding a doorway to Narnia in Cruella's closet jkdjalgjklsgjk. I don't know what this AU is but it exists in my mind now. It's a thing and I must share it.

fun fact! when you sent me this ask i went and wrote an 800 word response in one sitting, and then i just. didn't post it which is exactly what i'm doing rn with your writing prompt sdjflksjdfl. i definitely will post it though. this is still long unfortunately so don't feel obligated to read this! i know you're not really invested in narnia, i'm just dumping these thoughts out at this ask's feet and letting the wind carry them away like dead leaves etc etc

narnia au!!! i love the moment when lucy discovers narnia, especially the look of wonder on her face when she steps out into the snow in the movies. but it made me think of the differences between lucy discovering narnia through the wardrobe and carlos discovering narnia through cruella's closet? the wardrobe is this grand old mysterious thing standing alone in some dusty room with a bunch of old coats. whereas cruella's closet is like.. very different. your rat fic is the definitive depiction of the setting of cruella's closet for me rn, i'm thinking about the nightmare scene specifically. so i guess i'm just talking about the image of carlos pushing through the darkness, through cruella's fur coats and into the closet until he finally steps out into Some Other Curious Unknown Place that's bright, open, beautiful and he has that soft wonder about him. it'd definitely hit different. (although it brings forward the question of why he'd walk through the furs in the first place. honestly my first thought is that he's looking for a place to hide.) anyways - yup he'd tell evie about narnia first

and personally for me what appeals to me about a narnia au is more the feel of narnia and not plot or anything. i love the way narnia feels Old and Full of Magic and Fairytale-like. that d2 quote where mal asks rhetorically "does an ogre like cheese puffs?" to tell ben how much she likes the motorcycle gift? the quote by itself is weird and hilarious, but for some reason what this made me think of like.. you know how winnie the pooh capitalizes certain words sometimes and it makes it Feel So Kindly? narnia only really capitalizes the names of talking species, such as Horses or Dryads or Fauns, but it still feels?? kindly to me?? to put it badly??? capitalization has that old children's tales vibe. basically the ogre quote made me think of mal hanging out and having a tea party with Giants or something lmfao

like actually it's just that straight up i would love to read a rotten four fic that's written in a style of a children's fantasy series. the core four are all like 12 and bffs and spend their days organizing a little feast for their friends and chatting with Creatures and playing chess with their solid gold chess set that this little old woman in the forest gifted them after they battled and chased away some monsters for her, and such - that they are kids and they are wielding swords and shit is never questioned bc this is a kids story. just fun fluffy things and all. this has nothing to do with a narnia au but alsdjfmgmsks anyways. there is actually a core four narnia au on ao3 but it's a very short wip from like 2018.

OH and also i once had this weird narnia-inspired idea where one of the core four goes into a closet to hide and ends up in auradon. i got nowhere beyond that idea

aand one last little thing, i mostly associate susan and evie bc they're kinda mom friends, their stories have a big thing to do with how they're perceived by others as really beautiful and ladylike and such, are smart and practical, better with people. but they're quite different in a lot of other ways, me using associate is probably a bit strong. im feeling the edmund and carlos thing though. constantly thinking type people. on the quieter side and sharp, witty, intelligent. bit bookish though that might be more of a hc idk. mean sometimes. i think they would be buds. like they'd just chitchat and talk shit and philosophy or smth