#i can't write for shit tho (<- has three fics published on ao3)(<- people even liked them)

[aweisz]

me a couple days ago: oooooh i love this whumptober prompt for the 9th i'll do such an elaborate thing oooooh

me on the 9th: why does drawing involve drawing

[faebriel]

pretty new to fandom and never have heard of bluesky, what fandom is it from? or is it just its own thing published to ao3?

ohhhh anon. oh boy anon.

okay so blue sky is a portal fanfic written by wafflestories, originally on livejournal, also on ffnet. here's the ffnet link. no it's not on ao3 yeah wild right. it is set post-portal 2, so if you don't know the story to the game i don't wanna spoil you and am gonna put All That Synopsis under a cut here. no spoilers for the actual fic tho! yayers

Meteors, signals, apologies, and that tricky little thing called humanity - four years after the events of Portal II, Wheatley's been handed a second chance, but it's not going to be plain sailing…

the summary says it all, really - after returning to earth from his spacely rendezvous, wheatley gets another chance at Not being a terrible person and mending his relationship with chell.

yea also it's chelley (chell/wheatley for the unacquainted). i don't actually know what the vibe check is on chelley these days i think chelldos is more common now at least on tumblr. and i am not arguing with that because that big robot is gay and frankly good for her. but i can say when i played the portal games back in like 2014 chelley had a fucking vice grip on the fandom. the soccerball was a tumblr sexyman, for goodness' sake. and of the squillions of chelley fics around at the time (some of them probably quite questionable in hindsight but we don't gotta talk about it right now) blue sky was the crown jewel.

the thing is? blue sky 100% deserves that spot. shit, it's one of my favourite fanworks ever.

arguably because it's not really focusing on being a shipfic. i know half this recommendation is talking about shipping but i'm giving some context here alright to the nouveau portal fans who were Not there in 2014 and i feel the need to justify like No This Fic Is Actually A Really Good Take On It Trust Me. we are not here to kiss the metal ball we are here to grab him by the lapels and watch him struggle to go from an objectively terrible person to a deeply insecure person three steps from relapsing Back into that terrible person to someone who actually has their moral and ethical shit together. i think it does portay glados in a less sympathetic light than some other fics but also bro (gender neutral) i was reading portal fic in 2014 and 2014 alone i saw so much worse than "yeah glados is still on her i'm-in-denial-about-my-humanity-and-taking-it-out-on-everyone-else schtick"

i'm sick of writing paragraphs. reasons why blue sky is really cool, fic spoilers minimal:

a redemption arc where a character's flaws are not skipped over; in fact, they are dragged into the light and shown off at all angles to be appropriately judged by the reader and the characters in story. no woobification here. if anything the opposite - blue sky takes opportunities to remind the reader wheatley is very capable of being a shit person and the fact that he is doing this whole redemption arc thing is important

but still acknowledging the trauma that is apeture science. saying shit's fucked up without excusing everything else that people did because of it

blue sky is definitely a wheatley centric fic (i don't think this is a bad thing because Let's Redeem Wheatley is a concept that requires a lot of narrative attention and heavylifting tbh) but it doesn't overlook chell's feelings about apeture and also about this whole oh wheatley's back situation. she's strong and badass but she's also allowed to have those feelings and be worried and anxious but also angry. and that doesn't make her not a badass. wah i love her

the town of eaden!!! chell has found a home after portal 2 and they are lovely and she loves them and they love her. i was obsessed with some of these characters as a teenager and they are all ocs. but they are so well written and integrated into the story so well that you can't help but love them. it is so easy to see why chell loves them and especially as wheatley gets attached to them too. it just. ough. it all feels so real they're all wonderful

bro (gender neutral) the redemption arc hinges not on romance or whatever but on the love one gives and receives by contributing to their community and finding their place and taking the things they've been told they're shit for their entire existence and spinning it into something that helps others. tell me that is not the best shit ever

i like how it depicts the robotics and technology its fun :]

there are several scenes that are imprinted in my fucking brain. i swear. one the hallway scene. two the tower scene. three the nightlight scene. four the foxglove scene. if you know you know

[fencesandfrogs]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @yee-hawlw

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

208!

2. what's your total ao3 wordcount?

524,331

3. what fandoms do you write for?

top five would be warriors, moon knight, star trek, overwatch, and homestuck. i haven't posted anything for overwatch or homestuck in AGES tho, and i've got a good number of fic plans for fandoms i've never posted for. i just like to be complicated like that ig.

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

burned off the tapestry; drarry. written in high school.

ashes; squirrelflight/ashfur. in dear deserving of an update. i'll get there. eventually.

if i ever get the nerve to say hello; k/s accidentally secret relationship where uhura thinks she's dating spock.

better left unsaid; po3 slight-crack about everyone knowing the three aren't biologically squirrelflight's.

a cool summer night (and this sweet breeze); some hollywillow/kestreljay nonsense. can't believe this one is in my top 5. i don't even ship kestreljay. i don't even LIKE kestreljay. it's only in this fic because the premise required it.

5. do you respond to comments? why or why not?

i try, but not very often. honestly sometimes i forget, sometimes i'm busy, sometimes it's just too much. basically all my fics have moderated comments because i have had Issues with commentors in the past, but. i collect the comments in my inbox and love them very mcuh.

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

oof, tough question. i'm gonna go with "anything at all," which uh. ends with a mother finding her teenage daughter dead by drug overdose. i don't think it's my best work, i wrote it when i was like 15, but it's probably the worst ending.

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

oh shit i have to go thru all my fics again? damn. this is easier and harder than the previous one. i like to write happy endings! i prefer it! but i limited myself to only fics with happy endings, not, like. fluff pieces that are all happy. and with that, i'm gonna go with "i see the moonlight steal across your sheets." yes, it is the daddy kink tigerdove one, but it has a very happy ending with very little bittersweet.

runners up include: "a firefly is forever (you know my answer)", "a tree called life," and "it's mere assignment."

8. do you get hate on fic?

rarely. in my inbox is more common. i moderate comments for a reason tho LOL.

i think people on ao3 are much less likely to have problems with me because things are always tagged and warned for. you can't really go into a fic from me and not know what you're getting into.

9. do you write smut?

yes, but i haven't finished anything to publish. which is funny. because i write a lot of smut. [i do have one explicit fic, but. it's not smut.]

10. do you write crossovers?

my first ever fic (written and posted when i was ten) was a crossover. other than that...i write fusions, sometimes. i have a warriors & night circus crossover which is a proper crossover but doesn't really engage with the world as a crossover, if that makes sense. they're not really my thing tho.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i remember? i think i've had to address people over copied paragraphs, but i don't think i remember the details of that. it could've been me noticing someone else's work being copied.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! and it was very kind of the person who did so.

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

...it's complicated.

i'm working on a co-written fic rn tho.

14. what's your all-time favorite ship?

character named james who goes by something else X guy who is constantly getting into situations.

(not really a joke, three of my favorite tags on ao3 fit this description. house/wilson, k/s, steve/bucky.)

15. what's a WIP you want to finish but probably won't?

ohf, i'll admit it here ig. i have a shrewsquirrel piece, "waiting for me in some unholy sunlight," that i really adore. but uh the ending. it ends in a bittersweet way, and uh. well. the ending i had planned ended up more-or-less happening irl. so. i can't. i just can't.

16. what are your writing strengths?

tenacity. lol. uh, i think i'm good at description when i let myself get into it. and i think i'm good at like. the structural elements of writing.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

actually fucking finishing things. and. i've gotten a lot better at it, but i still struggle to keep a balance between narration and dialogue. sometimes it feels like there are pages between two sentences in a conversation.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

goddamn this is something i've done. i think i've mentioned most of the fics involving this here also. okay. so. i'm going to answer with what i do, because there's not, like, one right solution to this. what i prefer to do is keep everything in english, and use dialogue tags to specify what language is being spoken. however, if it's a single word, or a specific phrase, i might keep it in the original language, for flavor/"it's a concept that doesn't translate well."

i have written a fic with sentences in spanish, and i took a long time to make hover translations work, except it doesn't have accents because to this day i can't figure out how to make it work. sobbing and crying etc.

i don't think i would do that with a language i didn't know. in that case, the character being latina was important to how i wanted to angle the story, so it made sense. i'm not sure if i'd do that in a different situation?

basically i play things very by ear. if i was writing a physical book with pages, i would use footnotes fairly heavily, but it's not the same on ao3. you have to lose your place to check a footnote. like, even if it's linked back to the spot (which, y'know, i would do, now that i know how to make footnotes), it jars you a bit.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

i'll give you half the cross over, MLP:FIM

20. favorite fic you've written?

that would be telling ;3

tagging @kudossi, @creed-of-cats, and @secondyearpigeon, with no pressure. anyone else who wants to is welcome <3