#good thing no one reads the tags 👍🏽

[chen-chen-chen-again-chen]

15 Questions | 15 People

Rules: Answer these 15 Questions, then Tag 15 People 

Hello hello! Thank you for the tags, @cutestkilla, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @yellobb, @raenestee, @artsyunderstudy! I have loved reading what you've shared and getting these neat little glimpses into your lives (also taking notes for who I can ask when I have research questions about travel planning, designing clothes, swimming, etc... y'all are such a talented and interesting bunch!).

I'll skip on tagging this time, since I think most of the folks I would tag have been tagged already, LOL.

1. Are you named after anyone? Yes! My paternal grandfather is named Gregorio, as is my dad, and my both of my brothers' first names are Greg, so I wound up with "Gretchen."

My aunt tutted and said that people would think I was a blonde and blue-eyed Heidi of the Alps type, so my family and friends have always called me Chen, or Chen-Chen. I have a cousin who is named after me, and when I was holding her as a baby, I'd refer to us as "Chen Squared."

2. When was the last time you cried? Oh, yesterday. Writing poetry for a therapy assignment, LOL!

3. Do you have kids? Non. This was something my spouse and I debated for YEARS, and went back and forth on. We settled on not having kids, but being more involved with the little ones in our lives. The kids we are closest to are my spouse's half-brother and sister (they are nine and five), and my godchildren (who are nine and four). For Filipinos, the relationship between godparents and godchildren is really special, and I love being "Ninang" (godmother) to my beloveds.

(It will probably not be a surprise to anyone who has read "Jelly Babies" or "Baker boxer teacher grief" that my spouse's relationship with his younger sibs influenced my depiction of Baz with his sibs).

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? LOL, more so when I was younger and more barbed! I've embraced the joy of being more maudlin and earnest as I get older.

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people?  Clothes. I think it's a writer thing, where I like clocking what people are wearing so I can use the details as story fodder, haha. But as part of my job, I work with people face-to-face a lot, so I also try to gauge what mood people are in and how open they are to talking.

6. What’s your eye color? Dark brown!

7. Scary movies or happy ending? Happy endings! My best friend is a horror fiend, which is hilarious because I'm the biggest baby when it comes to scary movies.

8. Any special talents? Hmm... I can type around 100 WPM (Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was one of the first computer programs we had in my house). I've been told I have a nice phone voice, so I used to record all the voicemail messages for our office. I've also been told that I put together kickass care packages. 👍🏽

9. Where were you born? Winnipeg, Manitoba.

10. What are your hobbies? Gardening, cross-stitch, cooking, baking, painting (poorly), video games, reading, fountain pens, anime/manga. I think like others, my gardening sort of falls off in midsummer and I just try to grab every zucchini before they grow huge. 😆 I love to sing though I'm not very good at it ("Try the Worryin' Way" by the Fabulettes is a FANTASTIC song to belt in the shower).

Oh, I also find it very soothing to clean and fiddle around with my mechanical keyboard (I used a Das keyboard with Cherry Blues for a long time, and just switched to a Nuphy Halo 75, with delightfully clicky Gateron Blues).

11. Do you have any pets?  NO, SADLY! I'm allergic to cats and my spouse to cats and dogs (which is a shame, because animals adore him). I just cuddle other people's dogs and admire their cats from a distance. We have a neighbourhood cat that likes to roll in our catmint in the summer.

12. What sports do you play/have you played? Badminton, swimming, rollerblading. I am also asthmatic and uncoordinated, so organized sports were a trial growing up; in 8th grade, I skipped gym as much as possible by helping out my Art teacher after class.

13. How tall are you? 5'0" (I'm a shortie, it's just how Filipinos roll)

14. Favorite subject at school? In high school, English Lit, and in uni, Film Studies. I learned more about writing from Film Studies than I ever did in English.

15. Dream job? For the longest time, I wanted to be an English professor. Then I dropped out of grad school because of Depression, went back after a year, graduated, got a closer look at the job prospects and work culture for academics and said "No thank you."

Reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert really changed my expectations. Instead of wanting to make it as a professional writer, I switched to wanting a stable job where I would have the work-life balance and resources to pursue writing in my free time. And now I have that! So I am living the dream!

[consistentsquash]

squash!!! 1, 9, 10, 14, and 19 - ANGST, and (separately) HOT! gimme your sexiest smuttiest recs :D

hiya!!! <3 <3 ok this got long sorry! ALSO YOU NEED TO DO IT if you have time/if you want to. No pressure. But you are an amazing reccer and I get a lot of my new reads from your recs.

👍🏽 A fic you bookmarked recently

this barbie is getting lucky by narqueen - Gloria/Barbie. 900 words. It's 100% fluff!

👌🏼 A fic someone else recommended to you

The Janus Rose by dickgloucester. Snape/Pomona. 5200 words.

this one was a rec from @kellychambliss. It's actually an impossible fic to find with just tags because it doesn't tag the pairing. Highly recommend. It has some strong choices in writing esp about the ending which probably won't work for everybody but I feel like that's a good thing because it gives people something to think about/discuss.

👽 A fic that isn’t prose (poetry, text fic, etc.)

Lovers often do by gaisang. Harry/Voldemort. 1200 words. Poetry.

A beautiful, beautiful, haunting poetry collection which for me not only captures the characters of Harry and Voldemort and their dynamic but also has so many classical literature references woven with intertextual references to eldritcher's Four Chord/Unvollendete sets. It's an incredible poem that gets the raw, emotional power of those stories. Gaisang gets it.

🤩 A fic that made you SLAM that “subscribe” button

Lover Boy At Play by @danpuff-ao3. 4500 words. Snape/Harry.

SLAMMED that subscribe button. Best decision ever. No buyer's remorse. No regrets! Danni writes my fav dirtyhotbadwrong Snarries.

🤔 The first fic you think of when I say ANGST

Morior Animus by vain. Snarry. MCD. 15000 words.

Morior Animus has earned, convincing angst. Really precise writing. The build up is intense. Incredibly creative and beautiful fic. It's the angst fic for me.

Ok now my fav part :D SEXIEST SMUTTIEST FICS

Hot can be pretty subjective! so definitely ymmv. What I find hot falls into two categories.

The fic is dirtybadhotwrong and as a reader I get the vibe that the author is really, really shamelessly into it because that makes me as a reader get into it

The fic uses smut for exposition about emotional complication or emotional simplification. Like the smut makes a relationship get more fucked up or it helps them get to some emotional catharsis. I don't really find it hot when it's just one person in the relationship getting whumped/fixed.

If the fic hits one of those two for me it's really hot! Otherwise I normally skip the smut. It's really the emotions that make things hot for me. But ofc this is a super subjective thing. I don't really go for pure smut fics or fics where their roles in smut have a big impact on their characterization. Smut written by some authors have worked for me.

On the dirtybadhotwrong side, I am a big fan of fics written by DementorDelta, Snegurochka, Who_la_hoop, AbstractConcept, Thistlecat and Cruisedirector. DementorDelta and Cruisedirector are really brilliant authors but they also have this writing phase where they were into writing fics with spanking and golden showers like this Snarry The Safest Place. Who_la_hoop wrote group incest and made it hotter than Texas during a heat wave in The Evil Devil Child and the Perfect Gift. It's Draco/Harry/Albus Severus/Scorpius. Thistlecat made the Black family hot. Huge fan of Alphard's Favourite. It's Sirius/Peter and Sirius/Alphard. Snegurochka made infidelity hot but they took their fics down so no links :/ Their Narcissa/Rosmerta fic is my guilty pleasure except I don't really feel guilty about it. AbstractConcept made curtains hot with their Snarry fic Better Homes and Dungeons . I don't even know how. I love the total shamelessness and dirtybadhotwrong commitment of these authors' writing. I feel this is increasingly rare in our fandom. I also love @danpuff-ao3's fics for the same reason! Everything! But also special love for Draco/Sirius in Gray Eyes (Tell No Lies). I love folks who can write dirtybadhotwrong shamelessly without feeling conscious about it. Because as a reader sometimes I feel conscious if I get the vibe the author was feeling conscious? Idk if that makes sense. It's probably just a me thing. But it's a thing I feel when reading some fics.

On the emotional side, I generally need longfics to feel that vibe because of how my brain works. My goto is two three authors who have a 100% hit rate for me for this type of smut.

ripeteeth! but their fics are not public on AO3 right now so I didn't want to go into a lot of detail. Huge fan of Suspiria by them which pretty much hit everything I want to see in smut 100%.

perverse_idyll's fics where the smut complicates things more in terms of characterization/dynamics. PI's writing has a lot of intensity which 100% works for me in smut scenes. They are also in general longer fics so the emotions have a lot of build up which makes things hotter! Soft Touch is a brilliant oneshot to get a sense of that. Snape is technically a massage therapist but not really and Harry is technically a customer but it gets so dirtybadhotwrong. Their emotions and relationship get more complicated but it's also in a good sense? Like complicated doesn't mean destructive? Rimming and gloves are really hot when we get some spicy emotions salsa to go with those.

eldritcher's fics where the smut is catharsis in terms of personal baggage/relationship dynamics. Smut which unfucks things? Eldritcher's writing has a lot of precision and they are amazing at increasing the intensity organically which works 100% works for me in smut when it's about building dysfunctionally healthy relationships between two emotionally damaged characters without complicating things further. Epic of the Forgotten is a brilliant oneshot to get a sense of that. Voldemort gets Krum to have a one night stand with him after a Quidditch Match and it kind of snowballs into the healthiest relationship ever. They are really emotionally damaged but it works and we get to see that exposition through their smut scenes.

Also Kelly Chambliss doesn't technically write smut smut but I really feel the hotness in Sesquipedalia. Hermione/McGonagall. It's like intellectual hotness? Which works for this pairing brilliantly. Idk how to explain!

[oetter]

👍🏽🔁💘

i must admit that i've only recently started reading hrpf and i don't bookmark a lot so i'm having to go through my reading history. however some of these may inevitably end up being kpop fics because that's what i spent six years reading

👍🏽 A fic you bookmarked recently

on what ground i was founded by arzoensis. reading this was an absolute treat and i can't wait to read it again.

🔁 A fic you’ve re-read several times

Pond Ice and the In Between by luxover. the only hrpf i've actually reread so far, and for good reason.

but one that i'll always come back to, that has literally influenced my actual life in more ways than one, is Exodus by unniebee. i will forever and ever and ever sing this fic's praises. (but also anything under my 'all time favs' tag on my ao3 bookmarks is one i'll reread)

💘 A fic you couldn't stop reading once you started

...this is gonna sound weird. 2023 NHLPA CBA Article 19: Winners Room Practices by gretzky. listen, i'm autistic, okay? my autism thing is big official language. if i see something that looks official and important, i'm gonna read the whole thing.

[disappearinginq]

Fic Recs Ask Meme: 1, 2, 4, 8, and 18 assuming they've not already been asked?

👍🏽 A fic you bookmarked recently

Henry's Allegory of the Doghouse by Emachinescat I’ve been re-watching Psych because it’s been...probably since it aired that I watched most of it? And never a complete re-watch, so NATURALLY I have started looking for Shawn whump and ta daaaa! Emachinescat has it in SPADES. Also, conveniently a huge chunk are episode tags, so it’s like a little extra cherry on top during the rewatch. 

🔁 A fic you’ve re-read several times

It’s actually gone now - which I’m mad about, but the author pretty much up and vanished from her entire online presence overnight and the only reason why I have it is because I pulled it from the web several years prior, but it’s by an author called beamirang, “A Problem From Hell”. It’s about 2009 reboot Kirk’s Tarsus IV experience and the return of Kodos. Alllll the whump. Alllll the emotional turmoil. 

👀 A fic that you love a normal amount

The Lost Warlock by Loopstagirl (she might be on AO3, but I haven’t looked). It’s technically part of a series, but it’s an alternate beginning of Merlin where Merlin and Arthur meet when both of them are kids. Arthur gets kidnapped for ransom in  The Lost Prince and Merlin is the one who finds him. Lost Warlock - surprise, surprise - is where Merlin gets kidnapped by a bandit who knows how to bind magic for his own use, and Arthur is the one who comes and saves him. They’re fun, and despite the content, pretty mellow and light. Plus, I dig alternate meetings. 

👌🏼 A fic someone else recommended to you

I...don’t know? Wow. That sounds terrible. But weirdly enough, not a whole lot of people recommend me fics (feel free to change that :-D)

😭 A fic that ripped your heart out (but it hurt so good)

Hilariously, given what I write, I don’t actually read a whole lot of hurt without comfort because the world is already a dark, miserable place lately. So the closest thing I have is something I book marked waaay long ago on ffn.net in the Danny Phantom fandom:  Shadow of a Doubt by HaiJu. A very dark view of what would happen if Maddie ever got a hold of the Ghost Boy without knowing he was her son. There’s a sequel, but a lot of this story is dark, dark, dark.  

[fourteenfifteen]

🥰🔁👍🏻!!

🥰 A fic that gives you warm fuzzy feelings

presque vu by rageprufrock is an inception 2010 backstory/alt pov fic that is just. supremely cozy. like it hits it makes me feel things but it’s also the fic equivalent of curling up under a blanket

🔁 A fic you’ve re-read several times

the cat who got the whipped cream by bluecloak is entirely deserving of being the most kudosed thing in the fatt tag (btw can we talk about how wild that is. that the most kudosed thing in the fatt ao3 tag is a twilight mirage fic. what a world shdjfks anyway). this fic is hilarious and super well written and the prose is great it’s one of my faves to go back to

👍🏽 A fic you bookmarked recently

my most recent bookmark is where the light won’t find you by waveridden which is. i mean what the fuck right? blinkathan u do not need me to tell u how good at is but for the people at home like literally just trust me