#brainshock askpha

[brainshock-alpha]

🌼~BEAUTIFUL PERSON AWARD! Once you are given this award you’re supposed to paste it in the asks of 8 people who deserve it. If you break the chain nothing happens, but it's sweet to know someone thinks you’re beautiful inside and out.~🌼

what!!!!!! thank u so nice velvet 🥺 well, i don't really do chain posts/messages but if i did i'd defs send one back to you!! peace and love 🌼

[brainshock-alpha]

For the fanfic writing asks: 7, 18, 26, 29, 78

7. Post a snippet from a wip.

so here's a short one that i haven't shown you before; after the readmore i'll add a longer one that you've already seen but i still wanna post lol

"Nice outfit." [Raihan turns and sees Piers coming around the corner.] "I didn't fool you for a second, did I?" [they say, grinning.] "You kiddin'? I'd clock those mako eyes of yours anywhere." [The reference gets a good chortle out of them.] "Hahaha! I'm a first-class SOLDIER, don't you know? Macro Cosmos enhanced me with Eternatus cells." "Oh my god, can you imagine?" [They share a good laugh together.]

(the brackets are supposed to indicate like, placeholder text or stage directions that i wanna edit later but in practice i end up bracketing most non-dialogue text on the first pass LOL,,,, it's fine,)

18. Do you enjoy research?  Which fic of yours required the most research?

most of the time i do! it's fun to learn new things, of course. but sometimes, man, i feel like i'm trying to roll a boulder up a mountain (labeled "executive dysfunction" like in a freaking political cartoon) and just not getting anywhere with it. as for which fics need the most research, uh, probably any of the ones where i have to write in a language i don't speak ^-^;;; which so far is just Merlin's Bairns and The Day To End All Days. and really the former was entirely in scots whereas the latter just has scots dialogue, so you might think the former unequivocally needed more research. but here's the thing... end all days has a single line of scottish gaelic... and having to come up with that seriously tipped the scales the other way i think. lmao

26. What’s your least favorite part of the writing process?

proooobably coming up with the first draft of anything... the process of putting ideas down on paper for the first time is always so strenuous for me. for some people, being able to just stream-of-conscious that shit into the text editor is a legitimate skill that needs to be developed, and i'm one of them 😔 not that doing the editing afterwards is always a breeze either... ahhhh

29. What’s something about your writing that you’re proud of?

i've gotten this question a couple times in the past, and let's see, i've already talked about my dialogue writing... and i think i've mentioned my fluff fics too... so how about something else? i like what i can come up with when i put a word limit on myself! i feel like i can convey a fair bit even when i don't have a lot of words to work with.

78. What motivates you during the writing process?

........... divine providence mostly LMAO. uhhh in general i have trouble staying motivated throughout a personal project, or any protracted endeavor. when it comes to creative works, though, i can usually get some fuel out of wanting to see something fairly-to-extremely specific come to life. if i wait for someone else to make things that cater to my niche interests i'll be waiting basically forever, so it's up to me to write about leon trapped in a time loop, or hop trying charcuterie with his new brother raihan, or an autistic grad student falling in love with an autistic himbo jock in a surreal post-post-apocalyptic world... well, you get the point! not to mention it's fun to see people's reactions to my fairly-to-extremely specific ideas :)

the longer wip excerpt that i said i'd post:

[context: gloria and victor just got their gym challenge uniforms, before the motostoke opening ceremony]

"Glo! Get a load'a this. Did you know that numbers with leading zeroes count as different to numbers without?" [he informs her, holding up the top to show off what's printed on the back: Victor 001.] "What!" is her first, honest reaction. But she recovers quick enough to jab at him, "That just makes you a discount Leon, y'know." "Shut up," Victor retorts cheerfully, taking the locker next to hers. "You're just mad you didn't think of it first." [It's a funny move, so she is a little jealous. But she's also pretty happy with her own number, 102, even if no one but Victor and Hop is allowed to know why she picked it.] "Positively fuming, aye. So is it pronounced 'zero-zero-one' or 'oh-oh-one'?" "Uhhh, it's just, 'one'. The zeroes are, uh, silent." He can't even finish his sentence without laughing. "Okay, sure. Whatever. You gonna catch a foongus and start saying 'let's have a champignon time' too?" [cackling] "No, you git! Hop's gonna think I'm a freak!!"

[brainshock-alpha]

⭐️ - Put this star in the inbox of your favorite blogs. It’s time to spread positivity! 🌻

ouuuhhhh...!!! how sweet 😊 thanks bro!!

[brainshock-alpha]

dude i read ur grant/siebold fic like months ago and it was the cutest ever i just found out it was you ur an amazing writer !!!!!!!

WOW thank u so much...!! i'm very happy to hear that about my griebold fic in particular lol it's so niche that any attention on it at all makes me jump for joy ^-^ thanks again for da lovely message, have a good one!

[brainshock-alpha]

EMMET and also piers!!!!! perhaps wayne hylics too if you're up for it!!

wahoo!! thanks fire :)

emmet my love!!! trans aroace autistic king :) i don't ever really pay attention to broader fandom activities and i barely even find the time to read much fanfic, but maaaannn... sometimes i hear about what's going on, and... well i think some people could stand down to calm down a little LOL

now this!!!! this is a guy! this is a real fella! despite everything i've written, somehow i never ended up crushing on him (unlike with leon where over the course of months i managed to trick myself into liking him LMAO), but that doesn't matter -- he's a great char who's close to my heart...

also i wavered on marking the headcanons space cuz i don't have as many as i do for, say, the submas boys... but i thought about it and realized i still have quite a few! i just never talk about them lol. for example i like to think he used to be a music tutor when he was a bit younger, to bring in some extra money for his family and also to try to give the kids in his community a creative outlet. several of the kids he taught would grow up and join team yell later :)

what can i say? it's wayne, the funny moon guy of every gender and also no gender! every day i thank god that he got a full pleather outfit for hylics 2

[brainshock-alpha]

for the mixtape ask- the two and three displaced?

not sure if i got this one to fully bake in the oven but here's what i got!

"The Eraser" - Thom Yorke The more you try to erase me, the more, the more, the more that I appear.

"Machine in the Walls" - mudeth

"In the Flame" - Darren Korb All are not the same, but three shall be as one. Freedom in the flame, the end has just begun.

"Annul" - Ed Harrison

"Exile Vilify" - The National Does it feel like a trial? Does it trouble your mind the way you trouble mine?

tried to find lyrics to cover all the elements, and for some reason i got fixated on a somber, mystical vibe for this so i added a couple instrumental tracks with that sort of feeling. i dunno if this is anything like what you might have imagined but i do like the mood of this mix! thanks for sending one in :)

[brainshock-alpha]

#36 for the fanfic asks!

36. What fic are you proudest of?

a surprisingly difficult question! i'm happy with a lot of my fics for a lot of different reasons and i also think a lot of my fics could be improved in a lot of different ways... there's no one work i'd hold up as my magnum opus. which i guess is good!

but to answer the question somewhat: i'm proud of The Day To End All Days because i think it has my most interesting character exploration yet; i'm proud of The Whole World Is A Blur, But You Are Standing because it paints a lovely picture in relatively few words; honestly i looked back at Earthshine recently and i still made myself laugh with some of the dialogue... buddy i could go on...

[brainshock-alpha]

🌿🎀🎙💋 for the REAL fic writer asks :)

🌿 how does creating make you feel?

y'know............ i'm not really sure LMAO... i tried to say something about like fulfillment or having a voice or w/e but none of it felt like it rang true to me. i've never really considered how i actually feel about it. i think that maybe i create just because... it's what i do. grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and brother... i make weird bullshit that makes me smile. (or frown, sometimes.)

🎀 give yourself a compliment about your own writing

the first thing i thought of is my dialogue writing, which while i'm still proud of, i've definitely talked about it before. so something else this time: i really like the way i write fluff! whether romantic or platonic or whatever. i think it's cute and genuine without being too saccharine -- and to pat myself on the back a little more, i've heard from someone who doesn't typically like fluff that they feel the same :)

🎙️ which one of your fics would you like someone to make a pod-fic of?

the concept of anyone doing a podfic for my works is so novel to me that i'd really be pleased as punch with just about anything, haha. (well... maybe not anything older than the hylics era; let's let sleeping cringe lie.) it might be fun to do moonstruck or something and play around with the different character voices!

💋 when you leave comments on a fic, do you want to hear back from the writer?

i don't necessarily expect to get replies (cuz i know we all got life's to deal with) but it's nice when it happens! what's especially fun is when i bring up a scene or detail i liked in the fic and they give a little more background or explain their process with it :)

[brainshock-alpha]

1, 9, 20, and 30 for the music ask game 🎵

1. A song you like with a color in the title

been going back to "If I was a Blackbird" by Silly Wizard a lot recently... what can i say, it's just a very good folk song :) listening to the same beautiful melodic structure repeated for seven and a half minutes? could be the autism talking but hell yeah brother

9. A song that makes you happy

one of my feel-good staples is "Graceless" by The National, which might be odd cuz the lyrics describe a pretty dramatic personal crisis, but the song has such a driving fast-paced energy that i truly cannot help grooving to. also the music video's fun

20. A song that has many meanings to you

i... am weirdly having a hell of a time coming up with a good answer to this LOL.......... i guess there's fucking. "Propane Nightmares" by Pendulum. i GUESS. like it's got its own story going on but the greater significance of the song, for me, is how it got memed on as overused background music for tf2 frag videos in the early 2010s lmfaoooo

30. A song that reminds you of yourself

maybe less of a reminder and more of an aspiration, but "What Do You Think Will Happen Now?" by Owen Pallett. lovely pensive little song about having hope and believing in the world and being part of the world, in spite of everything... well, i'll do my best

[brainshock-alpha]

For fanfic ask game: H and P?

H. How would you describe your style?

already answered! :)

P. Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

hmmmm...!! a bit of both, i figure! the absolute broadest strokes of a story are more or less set in stone from the start, along with a few specific scenes (or parts thereof) that are particularly clear in my mind, but everything else tends to be very up in the air. there certainly have been times where i have two characters start talking and i kinda just, see where it takes me lol.

the biggest exceptions are my earliest works (which makes sense). like, i don't think i had a clear idea of an endgame for black box open LOL. with trans pt, on the other hand, the final chapter was like the second thing i started working on. it took me a bit to settle on the structure of the intervening stuff, but once i did i had some preddy good bones on which to hang the meaty details. and, heck, even the way an early-formed scene unfolds can get drastically revised later on! it's all a part of da process...

[brainshock-alpha]

D (for any of your fics), H, I, and Q

D. Is there a song or a playlist to associate with [insert fic]?

you know... i think every time i had a specific song in mind for a fic, i just went ahead and made the title a lyric from that song and cited it in the notes LOL.......

well, i guess i didn't really do that for my hylics fics. but i probably listened to a shitload of Rostam while writing the deduswayne stuff

H. How would you describe your style?

blunt and unadorned. character- and relationship-focused. little windows into people's lives. straightforward in wording but meandering in topic. unshakable walking pace. warmly comforting or gently melancholic or sometimes both

I. Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

smiling serenely... reader-insert fics.............

here's the thing though. yes i'm not above imagining a smooch w/ my fictional bfs, but my standards for these fics are like unreasonably high lol. for one thing i don't want to read stuff with female reader, which uh, comprises A Lot of it. there's plenty of gender-neutral reader stuff, sure, but in my experience like 80-90% of that feels like it was intended to be female (and probably allo and probably cis and probably het) reader and had a veneer of gender neutrality glued over it. and honestly this wouldn't be nearly as frustrating if there weren't only like 10 people on the entire planet who write male reader-insert!!!

but fine. if there are 10 male reader-insert writers then i'm one of them. if there's 1 male reader-insert writer then i'm him. if there are 0 male reader-insert writers then i'm no longer alive. et cetera et cetera. i just need to... fucking... finish my emmet/reader fic one of these days.............. aogh

Q. How do you feel about collaborations?

i uhhhhhh, honestly, i don't? feel about them??? LMAO like i've literally never considered them until this moment ahhh... but i guess they could be fun! i do fear i might be difficult to work with wrt Actually Writing Together since i truly take my sweetass time with writing projects. but maybe brainstorming together might be easier!

[brainshock-alpha]

For the fanfic ask game: F, K, T!

[francis york morgan voice] FK in the Tea...!

F. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

just one, huh? well, i certainly could talk about sth from trans pt or my piersmet works or even hylics stuff, buuuut i've always kinda wanted to go over this short kingsm*n work, so :) it's not long wordcount-wise so i'll just paste the whole thing...

"Richy said you're a G-man," Roxy, in that solemn manner peculiar to children, informed her father. It was late in the afternoon, and Noel held her hand as they made their way out of the park. He said in his gentle baritone, "What is a G-man?" "A government man. But not just anyone working for the government. Someone who does shady stuff that they don't want anybody to know about." This was not necessarily cause for concern. For all that he viewed sociability as an eternally developing area of research, Noel conducted himself with the utmost discretion—more than could be said of some of his associates. Any suspicion of his actual occupation as Agent Percival was most assuredly borne of a child's imagination. He simply asked her, "And what did you say about that?" "I told him—and I told him nicely, even though I knew that he already knew—'Mr. Noel is a tailor. He makes clothes for gentlemen.' And he said..." She scrunched up her little face. "He said a very naughty word." "All right." So he released her hand and crouched low, and she approached him to whisper in his ear, "He said, 'That's bullshit.'" "I see." He straightened up and smoothed his jacket, Roxy patiently waiting before slotting her hand back into his. "Did your cousin explain why he believes such a thing?" "He did. He asked why do I think you're hardly around, and always wear fancy suits, and don't talk that much?" She hesitated, then admitted, "I wasn't sure so I didn't say anything." "Well, in order: I don't live nearby; I work at one of the world's finest tailor shops; and in general I prefer listening over speaking." She mulled over his words. At last she asked, "But are you a G-man, or not?" "No, Roxy. I am not employed by the government in any capacity," Noel answered, plain and direct. He checked his watch and looked to his daughter. "Twenty minutes till I return you to your mum. That's enough time for some ice cream, isn't it?" "Yes, it is," she agreed politely. A broad grin gave away her true enthusiasm.

it defs has several things that i'd refine further were i writing it today, especially since noel/percival was my first attempt at (intentionally) writing an autistic character. still, i like how much it implies about the characters in this short a space! roxy is able to speak pretty freely to her father, yet she calls him mr. noel to other people, hinting at a bit of distance between them (and of course, it's revealed ("revealed") at the end that he and her mother are separated in some way).

in turn noel engages in conversation with her instead of dismissing the subject as ridiculous or inappropriate or w/e. and the very ordinary framing of how he lets roxy whisper a bad word into his ear suggests this sorta thing is routine for them, doesn't it? but yeah overall i guess i just like how their words and actions show a lot of respect for each other :)

K. What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

honestly i think i've already told you LOL but sure i'll talk about it here. in recent memory, one is an undert*le sorta spin on swsh where leon had the power to save, which is how he was able to remain undefeated for so long, but then he lost it to the protagonist. and he goes through not just a load of self-doubt upon losing his safety net but also a load of existential horror when the protag turns out to be not as benevolent as he is...

it's a fun thought experiment (as au's often are) but not something i'm actually interested in creating A Work about. the angstiest idea that i've ever followed through on is, i think, the "because i could not stop for death" ingo comic.

T. Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

already answered! :)

[brainshock-alpha]

How about S and T?

hmm! i don't really think of fics in terms of tropes, sooo hopefully these answers will be coherent enough LOL

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

making a character i like trans is like, a 3x multiplier to the chance of me checking out a fic lmfao. hmmmm, what else... i like fluff, i like character explorations, i like people hanging out and enjoying each other's company (be it gen or shippy)... rarepairs can be a lot of fun but u gotta SELL me on 'em!!! i usually like both established and developing relationships but this is something where i really wanna see the chars warm up to each other.

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

i'm often quite loath to read angsty/tragic stuff, esp if it's hurt no comfort. i particularly don't like dark versions of kind chars. i may like trans chars but i don't care for genderbent chars. and other stuff. none are necessarily hard no's (so not really answering the question lol but w/e); if i'm confident enough the author will handle it in a way that won't make me completely miserable/uncomfortable without any payoff, then i'll take a chance.

[brainshock-alpha]

Desktop tumblr isn't letting me see that gif/emoji whatever it is for the song lyric ask thing, so let me just hand you the mic instead 🎤🎵

You've got sucker's luck Have you given up? Does it feel like a trial? Does it trouble your mind the way you trouble mine? Does it feel like a trial? Did you fall for the same empty answers again?

"Exile Vilify" - The National

over ten years since portal 2 and i'm still extremely [lies down] about this song... ah........

[brainshock-alpha]

"The Tall Kingdom I Surround" is a very intriguing title! Could you tell me a little of what it's going to be about? 👀

[TEARING UP] NO..................

SORRY but that's one of the two 18+ fics, which i know that you are but i don't wish to talk about such things on main lol. i guess i can at least explain the title: it's a line from The National's "Brainy", which really has some good lyrics across the board! another fave from it is "everywhere you go is swirling, everything you say has water under it"

[brainshock-alpha]

👀⏰♥️ for the fic asks

I GOT DISTRACTED AND FORGOT THIS but now i will answer. thank you velvet :)

👀 Do you have any words/phrases you use habitually?

not so much "habitually use" as "overuse" lol but i've noticed i tend to use words like just and only a lot, as well as words like but, though, and yet. i catch myself having to rewrite these pretty often during editing... i guess i am just fundamentally interested in the concepts of qualification and contrast??

⏰ What time of day do you prefer to write?

hmmm! i'll write whenever it strikes my fancy, but i think i most prefer mornings... probably just because i like mornings in general lol. ah, the eternal struggle... i love mornings but i HATE waking up...

❤️ Who is your favorite character to write for and why?

it is Impossible for me to ever pick a single favorite .

i think i've talked before that i really enjoy writing dedusmuln and wayne, and that's still true! they are both fun characters with many interesting facets. but thinking about it now... i did also like writing merlin from kingsm*n! looks scary, is kind of aloof, maybe even prickly sometimes, but he keeps his cool and he's got a secret heart of gold :3 not to mention it was a blast to write him and harry together!

honestly, i feel like the dynamics are really what make character writing fun. you can certainly get a lot of mileage out of writing single chars, but, i dunno, i guess relationships are what interest me the most! put two people together and see how they play off each other... they become something more than themselves :) (or, at least, something different. lol.) that's why even though i don't quite have a handle on emmet and ingo's characters in trans pt yet, i'm still having a good time writing them. young dumbass sibling dynamics will always be hilarious to me 0:)