#lastly i’ll Eventually have a new longfic in my series in the days after where we get some TWSITD action

[stergeon]

🌻💡💌

🌻 How often do you read your own fics?

uh well immediately after i post a fic, i re-read it like three times because, inevitably, i will find a zillion mistakes i somehow missed in my previous fifty rounds of editing. then i will be unable to look at the piece for a month or two. after that i’ll remember it exists and do another round of edits. usually this is the most extensive edit as i’ve had enough time away from the work to realize where and how i was talking out my ass. sorry to anyone who reads my stuff before this happens lmaoooo i hope it’s stomachable!!

after that, i can (usually) bear to look at the fic again and i’ll remember i wrote it for me and that’s why it contains all kinds of stuff i like lol. i’ll re-read and do nitpicky edits maybe once a month or so. more if i’m proud of it.

💡How many WIPs do you currently have?

ummmmm. let’s see. in no particular order, i’ve got a good chunk of progress goin’ on these right now:

the victors; the vestiges. chapter four is so close to being done but i have to keep touching it and touching it.

recognition chapter 3. this chapter is technically smut, but rather unsexy smut. twin character studies in a smut wrapper. apologies to anyone who’s subscribed to that as i have no idea if i’ll ever be brave enough to publish it.

yet-untitled edeleth smut that is purely about sex for sex’s sake. i’m having too much fun with this one

very angsty fic about byleth’s first days in enbarr

morrowind reincarnation-slash-modern au

a way too ambitious nerevoryn fic i’ll don’t think i will ever finish

that casphardt fic i promised you ten thousand years ago OOPS!!!!!

i’m also dreaming about doing a political drama set in fhirdiad just after the war but i’m not sure if i have the brain or historical chops to pull it off. maybe someday.

💌 Is there a favorite trope you like to write?

hmmm. i don’t think so? i really enjoy writing and exploring established relationships, but i wouldn’t say it’s necessarily my favorite as i enjoy writing non-romantic stuff, too. thematically, my favorite thing to write about is devotion. i’m pretty much always writing about devotion or grief (usually both).

[johaerys-writes]

Fic Writer Interview

I was tagged by beloved friendos @in-arlathan and @midnightprelude! Thank you so much <3 Tagging forward to @solas-disapproves, @pinkfadespirit, @pikapeppa, @serial-chillr, @faerieavalon, @tevivinter, @schattengerissen, @kittimau, @noire-pandora and anyone else who would like to answer these! As always, no pressure :)

Name: johaeryslavellan here on Tumblr, johaerys pretty much everywhere else, and you can call me jo for short 🙂 

Fandoms: At the moment it’s mostly Dragon Age with a side of The Song of Achilles and Castlevania. 

Where you post: Here and Ao3! 

Most Popular Oneshot: On Tumblr, it would be this fluffy ficlet I wrote for my dear friend @tessa1972 featuring her lovely David Trevelyan and Dorian. On Ao3, it’s Nothing But Himself, a fluffy/angsty piece with Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades from Castevania. 

Most Popular Multichap: A World With You, my ongoing Dorian/Trevelyan DAI longfic. It’s 33 chapters in at the moment and I recently hit the 200k word mark, which makes it the lengthiest thing I’ve ever written! It’s got angst, some fluff, much drama, banter, budding friendships, intrigue, politics, a whole lot of pining, and, most importantly, awkward boys being in love. I’ve also researched a lot of the lore surrounding the Orlesian Civil War, and have done my best to portray the devastation as well as the political complexities it would have caused and how that would affect the Inquisition, so if you’re into that, give it a try :) 

Favourite story you’ve written so far: Can I say that I love them all?? Lol, but really. I put a lot of work into each piece, and I usually don’t post unless I’m absolutely certain that I wouldn’t change a thing, so the works on my Ao3 are all things I’m really proud of. But if I had to choose just one, it would have to be A World With You. It’s the story I’ve been writing the longest and I’ve poured the most love/time/effort/sweat and tears into. Another story that was really enjoyable to write was Viper in Tall Grass, a Witcher!AU, again with Dorian and Tristan. Those two live rent free in my head pretty much at all times.   

Fic you were nervous to post: All of them!! Some more than others, but I do worry a fair bit about whether my stories will resonate with people and if my writing is good enough. But again, if I had to choose one, it would be A World With You, simply because it’s one of the more intricate fics I’ve written, and I’m always a little nervous/excited whenever I post a new chapter. Another work I was nervous to post because of its darker subject matter is the series I wrote for Carmilla and Hector from Castlevania, You Always Hurt The Ones You Love, but in the end I was pleasantly surprised by the positive response I received.

How do you choose your titles: For one shots and chapter titles, I usually take the easier route and pick a phrase or word from the chapter that stands out to me and that I find fitting and evocative of the mood of each chapter. As for multi-chaps, they will either come to me straight away or I’ll have to sleep on it for a few days, but I try to pick something that I feel fits the theme of the story overall.   

Do you outline: I find that outlines are really helpful and I write a lot faster when I do have one, but it is not always easy for me to come up with one, especially when I’m just starting out with a story. What I find helps me a lot is starting with a zero draft, which is essentially a draft before the first draft, if that makes sense? I’ll do a speed run and get as many words down as I can until I get a feel for the story, the characters, and what I want to say. After that, I create a sort of revision outline by jotting down the points I want to hit, the changes I want to make and where I need to fill in. It’s not the most time efficient process, I know, but it personally helps me a lot and I have a lot of fun exploring and letting the characters do their thing during that initial speed run! 

Complete: I have 17 works on Ao3, 13 of which are completed. 

In progress: A World With You, Playground Love (the modern AU I’ve been writing with @oftachancer featuring Tristan and her OC Aran), and High-Flying Birds, a collection of one shots based on The Song of Achilles that I started posting earlier this year. There is also a fic on AO3 where I keep most of my Dorian x Tristan ficlets that I post on Tumblr (A Moment Alone With You). 

Prompts: Yes! My inbox is always open for prompts, although it sometimes takes me a while to get around to filling them. I love it when people prompt me though, and it’s led to some one shots I’ve greatly enjoyed writing. 

Upcoming work you’re excited about: The as-yet-untitled sequel to Playground Love is very close to being finished, and I’m so excited to share because I’ve had a lot of fun writing it. I’ve also been working on a Patroclus x Achilles Victorian London/Royalty!AU, which is a continuation of this reincarnation!AU prompt I filled for a challenge a little while ago. It has been a delight to write and I just need to find time to revise it! Hopefully soon :) 

Worlds I would love to write for in the future: I’d love to write more works in the Witcher universe, whether with the canon characters or in a crossover. I’ve also been playing Horizon Zero Dawn and there are already a couple one shots brewing in my head! Lastly, I would eventually love to get the chance to return to my grimdark roots and write something for Berserk, my favourite anime/manga series.

[eloarei]

1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 13, 17, 23 (some of these are random and some aren't)

Thanks for the many questions, Socks! Sorry I didn’t answer them earlier; I decided answering asks on mobile sucks.  ALSO, this is going to be super long haha sorry.  1.  Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?       Well, my most current project is one I just started brainstorming. It’s (hopefully gonna be) a Fallout 3 series, with my latest fic being the starting point. LW/Fawkes is a ship I liked immediately when I played the series some years ago, but I never got around to writing for it, probably in part because there’s already a super good longfic about them, and I just didn’t think there was much else I could say. But my LW is different from Choco’s LW, and lately I wanted to start something self-indulgent. Although I have enough ideas for this to maybe be a single 30k fic, I’m choosing to do a series of shortfics instead, so that I’m not burdening myself with another long project. Fic series are great in that way, because it’s basically complete with every new fic.       On top of that, I have... probably 3 other things I want to make significant progress on this year. First is another Fallout fic: Same Heart. I’ve posted 8 chapters already and have almost 2 more done, but due to the slow-build nature of it (and my tagging) I don’t expect to have almost any readers until at least chapter 10 (when the ship characters finally meet). I’d like to at least get that far this year.       A project I’d love to finish by fall is the unreleased “The Wilderness”, a Venom zombie AU that I started for NaNoWriMo 2 years ago. It’s about 55% written, and my goal is to have as much of it done as possible before the sequel movie comes out. If it’s not done by then, I still plan to post whatever I have.       And lastly-ish, my novel... thing. Rogue. I’m in the process of editing it, although I’ve taken kind of a break lately. And as soon as I’m done with the edits and can get a couple of people to read it (just so they can tell me if certain parts are stupid and need changed) I plan to start the next book in the series... which will probably end up being book #1, actually, if I do them modern-era chronologically. It’s... gonna be a process. ^^;  2.  Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project.       In my upcoming FO3 fic series, I’m honestly just kind of weirdly looking forward to... how do I put this? Exploring my own vaguely-traumatic experiences through fic. I’ll always do a happy ending, if possible, but before we get there I really want to run these two through the ringer of... being given something they were led to believe was impossible, being judged for it, having it taken away, and then being told “well maybe it’s for the best”.       When it comes to future projects, I guess I’m really excited about writing the new Rogue book. “Reaper”, I guess, is its unimaginative working title. I’m anxious about it, because I thought Rogue had some really deeply emotional scenes, and I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to accomplish that as well with this new one, simply because the characters don’t have the same level of desperation about each other. I need to figure out what’s unique about their dynamic and push that. I guess I’m looking forward to the challenge.  3.  What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)       Hmm gosh. Technically there’s a scene in the later chapters of Mobius that I already wrote, but it wouldn’t take place until probably chapter 3 or later, and I just lost all steam on that fic, sadly. But every time I poke through my notes I make myself cry reading it. It’s a scene where one character knows it’s going to be the last time he sees the person he loves most, and he can’t explain his pain to anyone. I really just want to get there so I can see if it makes other people cry like babies haha.       But on a completely unrelated note, there’s also this ZADR fic I started writing in like 2009, and I absolutely didn’t want to do the work to get to the fun middle scenes, but basically it was an AU where young adult Dib went to live/work in the thriving multi-species space community, where he’s... I dunno, studying alien biology I think?, and he ends up with Zim as a roommate. The scenes I really wanted to write were about the two of them getting into like a bar fight with some tough types, and Zim gets his pak ripped off/damaged in the process, and Dib has to sort of take care of him through a horrible fever. But then it turns out that the pak was not a life-support system like they thought, but actually a growth inhibitor so they (the people in charge of the Irkens) could choose who became the Tallest (the leaders). (And also it hindered reproduction, etc.) So basically the two of them accidentally start to unravel a galactic conspiracy which also involves corruption in the Earth government, etc, and Zim gets taller but spoiler alert, he still doesn’t get tall enough to challenge the Tallest lol. Sadly, I doubt I’ll ever actually write that fic. Sounds like too much effort lol.  7.  What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?       That’s such a hard question. Ummm. How do I put any of that into words? ...I think one of the things about my writing is that a lot of the time nothing really happens in a scene, and the story mostly focuses on a character thinking. Like, enough happens so there’s something for them to think about, but I think I tend to put a lot of emphasis on POV character’s thoughts, to the point of sometimes seeming stream-of-consciousness. I’ve been told that this makes my stories feel alive though? So I think it appeals to some people, though I’m sure others would find such stories boring.       Oh also, somewhat along these lines, I like to add commentary that is only somewhat relevant, usually in parenthesis at the end of a sentence or paragraph. (Honestly, it’s not unusual to see one in every paragraph if I’m writing something slightly humorous.)  9.  Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other?      I would LOVE to write primarily longfics! However, I just don’t have the time or energy for it, and I don’t write fast enough. So I end up with a lot of oneshots under 10k. I had to challenge myself to learn to write short things though, and then it’s really about writing something short, not about writing a specific story.       Generally, I’m both pantster and plotter. I tend to write the first chapter/few scenes/maybe as much as 10k, just by the seat of my pants. After that, I look at what I’ve got and write out a plot to continue from there. Plotting everything out before I start just doesn’t work for me, but if I try “pantsing” anything longer than 15k I know I’m gonna have an absolute torturous hell of a time.  13.  Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?      Lol I think anyone who’s reading this knows I share my stuff online. Primarily on my AO3, though there’s some other stuff floating around here on tumblr too.  Most of the time if I keep something to myself it’s only because it’s not finish enough to share. So, sure, there’s plenty of that, but the goal is always to share it eventually. If I ever get around to finishing a novel, those will probably be the only things I don’t just post online. (Though I do post most of my OC stuff currently.)  17.  Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?       I think that inevitably my readers will always perceive me and my writing a bit differently than I do. That’s just... interacting with people. Nobody knows you entirely. However, I am as open and honest in my writing as possible, and I actually think that reading my fic is the best way to get to know me. I like to hope that I am an open book to anyone who has read many of my words. =] While you may not know the details of my life, I think you would have a good insight into my personality.    23.  What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?       Like... my oldest fic/story that I’ve never written or posted? Not counting stuff I’ve consciously abandoned (things from middle school, mostly), my original fic series, “Damsel and Company in Distress” aka DamselCo. is definitely my oldest story. I think I started fiddling with it in 2006-- which makes it pretty disappointing that it’s gotten next to nowhere. XD; But the story is my baby, and it’s been my baby for so long that anyone who’s followed me ever is probably at least vaguely familiar with a few of the characters.  Now maybe one day I’ll actually give it the attention it deserves, though I’m sure it’ll need significant revamping. After all, a lot has changed in 14+ years. Ideas that were new and subversive then are probably already stale.