#my ocs too honestly for years i've really always loved those sort of themes

[noxtivagus]

i love the sky so much

[shrinkthisviolet]

questions for fic writers #s 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 16, and 41 please :)

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

Ooh hard to say. If the person is open to OC fics...then the Morgan Wells AU and my Lucy Kenobi AU. Especially since those are being actively written, and have been for a while, so you can chart my growth as a writer through them 😅

If they're not...then maybe "the little things (give you away)". It's Iris-centric, explores her feelings, explores Savitar a little more deeply...all of which might as well be part of my brand at this point 😅

Ooh also "come in, the water is(n't) fine"—I feel like it introduces me as a writer who's not afraid to write out-there/niche fic concepts, which is true! (The OC fics introduce that too, but this is an alternative for people who don’t like OC fics)

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

Canon Compliant, Title from a Taylor Swift Song, Canon Divergence, Father-Daughter Relationship, and Brother-Sister Relationships

Well...canon and I have a love-hate relationship—I align with their themes above all, then characterization, then plot. Usually my fics end up "canon nudged to the left". If I use the canon compliant tag, it usually means it isn't contradicted by canon, like it could be canon, but it's technically not (and might slightly contradict plot points or elements of characterization but still sticks to the themes). Canon compatible, if you will.

My titles come from all sorts of songs tbh, Taylor Swift’s songs are just easier to recall and that tag being “canonical” means it pops up more often in filtering.

Father-Daughter Relationship...absolutely. 100%. Morgan & Thawne (derogatory), Daniel & Sam, Harry & Jesse (not yet but in the future)...I do love them 🥰

Brother-Sister Relationships...well do I even have to say it 😂 Barry & Morgan and Lucy & Luke, my beloveds!! My brand!!

10. How do you decide what to write?

Honestly? It's wherever the muse leads. I get so many ideas, but...ideas are a dime a dozen. I figure out what I want to write based on which one I keep thinking about...and which one makes the words flow easier. Not much of a technical answer, sorry to say 😅 I just kinda go with the flow. The worst thing is trying to force your way through writing a fic—no one wins in that case.

11. Are you partial to a certain character/pairing or are you more equal-opportunity? If you are partial to any character/pairing, why do you think that is?

Oooh I am very partial towards platonic pairings nowadays...mostly because my OC fics (which I'm currently writing) have those. So do most of my fics, really—gen takes center stage. I ofc do love writing Maiko when the muse strikes, and I've written a few ficlets for Westallen, Snowest, Barrisco, Thallen, Westhallen, etc. Though I hope to write a full fic for Westallen this year!

Honestly I think I drift to gen fic because that's why I came to AO3 😂 the filtering on other sites is horrendous, and gen fics are difficult to find categorized so neatly. I've always been more compelled by platonic relationships than romantic ones, even as I cling tightly to the ships I adore. There’s just so much there…and so much of deep platonic relationships gets them labeled romantic by fandom or is otherwise stripped away. Strong platonic relationships are my kryptonite 💞 I love them so much. Whether they’re loving, complicated…or whether they’re in some way unhealthy or tied to a corruption arc 👀

As for why I love the ships I love...well, Maiko is just very near and dear to my heart and always will be, Westallen is the amazing gold-standard couple of my dreams (and they make each other better!), and Snowest, Westhallen, and Barrisco are my non-canon sweethearts 🥰 Caitlin and Iris have so many interesting parallels (I started shipping them out of spite and then I got attached), Westhallen is the perfect ending to s1, and Barrisco...they're just sunshine personified, come on (and Cisco is practically Barry's second lightning rod anyway, lbr. Don't be surprised if I end up writing Barriscowest one day). And ofc the list of ships I love goes on—Percabeth might very well be written one day

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

Hmm...I don't know of any tropes I've ever disliked that I like now, but...I think I like villain redemption more than I used to. Partly because of Zuko's arc in ATLA being so well-done. The problem is that so many villain redemptions aren't done well—either the villain isn't fully redeemed but the story acts like they are, or the villain IS fully redeemed and their claws are filed down—they lose their edge. Both are bad iterations of this trope ✋ the best is Zuko's. He joins the team, atones by literally helping them take down his father...and he never loses his edge, he just softens a smidge toward them. Which is natural—they ARE his friends, but he's still HIM, he's still got his edge that makes the others think "man I'm glad he's on our side now"

16. What’s an AU you would love to read (or have read and loved)?

Killer Frost Barry! I've read a few fics with this trope (see this tag if you wanna read them too!), and they’re all wonderful, but I want more. I loosely teased the idea of writing one (and in that case, I'd probably have Iris as the Flash because she's always my first choice for when Barry isn't the Flash), and...who knows? Maybe one day.

Same for Iris as the Flash in general tbh. Out of both of these ideas, this is the one I’m more likely to write—speedster Iris, my beloved 🥰

41. Link a fic that made you think, “Wow, I want to write like that.”

Oh absolutely "Mind, Body, Soul" by palaces_out_of_paragraphs. Aside from it being a Barry-comforts-Iris-after-the-Mirrorverse fic, my favorite genre...it's also so lyrical in its writing:

"Iris counts their breaths in and out, his ribcage softly rising and falling over hers like a song. And she loses herself in the way he feels so warm, even all these stories up in the air, that lightning-like heat from him glowing between them, sparkling under the darkening sky, bathing her body in warmth."

Absolutely gorgeous. I can't recommend it highly enough

fanfic writer ask game!

[pretttydemonwrites]

Thoughts - June 4

Happy Pride Month Motherfuckers!

My writing has been pretty sporadic for the past couple of months. I'm not surprised really, I knew that setting a goal to write every day was going to ultimately wind up with missed days, but that was never really the point of this anyways. Whether I do it every day, every other day, or a couple times a week or whatever, I've already written way more this year than I think I've written in...let's just say it's been a while.

I'd like to expand on why that's happened, why I found myself falling out of love with the thing that I straight up decided to major in while I was in college. (Hint: college definitely had something to do with it)

I pinpoint the start of my love of writing around the age of eleven. At the time it was all My Chemical Romance self insert fanfiction and typical My Immortal style vampire stories. A little after that, I started branching out into doing text RP on Gaia Online and that's when I made my first real OC, Cassandra. Stuck her in a less than savory asylum themed roleplay and that particular group I would go on to do several different plots with. That was all through middle and high school, and those roleplays fueled my writing. I still wrote some MCR fanfiction during that time too, but I was branching out! Original stories, original characters, poetry, hell I did NaNoWriMo in like...2011 for the first time and fuckin crushed it.

I was pretty confident about my writing honestly. My friends and I liked it and that's kind of all I gave a shit about. When I started contemplating going to college and eventually decided to major in creative writing, that's when things started to take a bit of a turn.

For one thing, I don't particularly enjoy criticism! I also don't enjoy being told what format/genre/etc to write in, and when you get into advanced creative writing classes (at least at my college) then they usually focused on specific genres. For instance, I took a novella writing class, and a one-act playwriting class, and a....poetic playwriting class? Gun to my head I couldn't tell you what that one was officially called.

Now, obviously I recognize that the point of these classes was to allow you to branch into different formats, learn the conventions of them and use that knowledge to strengthen your skills. But I was a stubborn bastard and I only wanted to write my stuff.

That being said, my work often felt like it was undermined and looked down upon because my influences were very obviously YA/fanfiction/genre fiction based, whereas everyone else seemed focused on being as pretentious as possible, trying so desperately to be the next great white male author. I was resentful of that, and couldn't understand why my writing was seen as immature in comparison to my peers.

Long story short, I think those feelings kind of festered in me all through college so that, by the time I graduated, I had no intentions of ever turning my writing into any sort of career. I felt discouraged and pretty hopeless about my prospects, so once I was out, I was more concerned with figuring out how I was going to survive and pay rent, and I knew that my writing wasn't going to pay those bills. So I just...let it go for a while.

I'd write something here and there, sure. I think I might have even tried to submit a couple things. By and large though, what once consumed a vast majority of my free time was became something of a past life. "Back in the day I was a writer" and such.

And yet, it was still always one of the first things I would tell people if they asked me about my interests. ("Oh I'm a writer. What have I written lately? HAHAHAHA!") I couldn't let that part of my identity go. It had been a huge part of me for half my life, how could I abandon it?

So it was there, always, even if I didn't do anything with it. And then I got into DnD and other TTRPGs and I was doing text RP again and I realized that....I can still write? I'm still an actual writer? And I could write again if I really wanted to, if I could find a way to push past the discouraged feeling in my gut.

So that's what all this has been for, really. I could go on for a while about this complex relationship I have with writing, but it honestly feels so fucking good to be back in it, to be back working at something again. It's not perfect, I've definitely forgotten a lot of the useful shit I did learn in college, but I think that I could get there again.

If you read through this whole thing, I can only assume that you related to it in some way and if so, I hope you're coming out on the other side of things feeling hopeful for yourself too. Thank you, as always, for reading.

[allsassnoclass]

9 for the 1d at the cabin fic, 10 from the cashton orpheus songfic, 14, 18, 20, 22 hazel i feel like i always pick such weirdly deep cuts of your fics because i haven't read the Big Name fics of yours even though i'm pretty sure the main Big Fic of yours that i somehow still haven't read is puzzle pieces (SORRY) but i honestly just love your small stuff so much. anyway. love you xoxo

honestly babe i'd say my big fics are off-screen, too close to see, puzzle pieces, maybe vampire mashton, and then the mashton college au (which is actually a series of five fics and you've read one of them) so you're not missing much lol although i appreciate the deep cuts those are fun to talk about <3

9. If you had to assign a theme song to here's a hand my trusted friends, which would you assign? The Straight No Chaser version of "Auld Lang Syne" is what it's named after! I love that version of the song, it's the only version I've found that feels joyful? And I feel like it captures a hope for the future and a love of those around you that I wanted that fic to have. Otherwise, I would say "It's Been A Year" by Tom Rosenthal, which feels cheap because it's what I named the roylum fic after, but it's the song that always defines the end of the year for me and I think it fits this fic well.

10. What is the line you’re proudest of from find me here amidst the chaos? ooooo i'm actually quite proud of this fic as a whole but the stand out line is this one

He might not know how to give stitches, but he can keep applying band-aids until the wound scars over.

that's a great metaphor right there. I feel like it really captures how Calum is feeling, and I think it's important that he knows that he can't fix this for Ashton, but he's still going to try to do what he can

14. How do you feel about your older work? i feel like i peaked with my first three 5sos fics In general I feel pretty positive! all fics have little lines here and there that I would change and while I feel like my execution of fics has improved a little, I feel like my older ideas are my better ones tbh. idk they're just charming. It's actually really strange to me when people who know my writing don't know off-screen, too close to see, or puzzle pieces since for a long time i had it in my head that those were the only fics of mine that people liked, forgetting that the passage of time and me releasing new content naturally means that sometimes people know my newer stuff instead lol

18. Do you prefer editing as you write, or waiting until it’s finished? I actually really don't edit that much. For the most part I do it when it's finished, but sometimes I'll make little adjustments as I go if I'm re-skimming something I wrote so I remember what was happening/can get myself in the right mindset

20. What feedback makes you the happiest to hear? oooo this is difficult because i like all sorts of comments and positive feedback. right now I like hearing that my stuff elicited emotion in people because i've been feeling insecure about the emotional quality of my works lol but genuinely i'm happy with all sorts of stuff

22. Do you enjoy making OCs for your fanfics, or prefer sticking to canon characters? ooooooooOOOOOOOOO it sure depends!!!! I like incorporating existing people in the background because it feels really satisfying to me when I figure out how they best translate from the real world to the fic world in aus specifically, but I do love my OCs too! which i'm sure is apparent given that my first 5sos fic was from an oc's perspective. i feel like there are some roles that are best suited to OCs and some that are best suited to canon characters. for example: children are normally best as OCs. often for extended family members i use OCs because stalking their real families to figure out their sister in law or cousin or aunt is Bad. but if i needed to give my characters a neutral/positive roommate, I would use someone associated with 5sos (such as one of their actual roommates like matt, roy, or the girlfriends (platonic mode)). If i was giving them a roommate they hate it would be an oc because i'm not going to do a real person dirty like that.

that was a really long way to say that it depends on the fic but i find them both to be enjoyable!

ask me some fanfic writer questions