#this was fun ya'll

[slow-burn-sally]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you @totallysilvergirl for tagging me <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

171

2. What’s your total A03 word count?

2,559,305

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I live for the days when anyone asks me this question, because listing things I love is just so great. I don't actively write for all of these any longer, but I would go back to all of them if anyone threw me like, half a prompt.

BBC Sherlock

Good Omens

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

The Terror

Our Flag Means Death

What We Do In The Shadows

The Adventures of Tintin

The Hobbit

BBC and CBS Ghosts

Pacific Rim

Father Ted

Lord of The Rings

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Death In Paradise

Dalgliesh

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. Crowley's Game - Good Omens (Ineffable Husbands)

2. Return To Sender - Good Omens (Ineffable Husbands)

3. Silk All Around You - Our Flag Means Death (Ed/Stede)

4. Oh Good Lord - Good Omens (Ineffable Husbands)

5. Out Of Suffering Into Love - Good Omens (ineffable Husbands)

hmm. Guess GO fandom is where I've cashed in the biggest, kudos-wise *Raises a glass to Good Omens Fandom*

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to respond to as many as I can, and I want to respond to all of them, but ADHD and work and life keep me from doing it right away, and then ADHD and being off work and life make me forget. I will sometimes loop back around to read a new comment, then see that I never replied to another, far older comment, then go about replying to several, two years after they were left. I hope people don't mind. I promise everyone who's ever left me a positive comment, that I eat them all up like chocolate bonbons and count myself blessed for each and every one.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably that Childercelles fic where Henry dies in the end. I think maybe 10 people read it. If you're in JSAMN fandom, and you ship Childercelles, and you want a link, PM me, but I can't remember the name of the fic for the life of me. It was pretty angsty. Outside of that, I hate angsty endings. Everyone eats ice cream and cuddles at the end of my fics.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Gonna echo the wonderful @totallysilvergirl and say that I don't do unhappy endings. That Childercelles fic was the only one I think I ever wrote with an unhappy ending, and even that was more of a melancholy ending. Everything else is Häagen-Dazs and rainbows.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten a few harsh criticisms, and a few snarky comments, but never actual hate.

9. Do you write smut?

I sure do! I've written a whole lot of smut, and I really love it. Regardless, it can be challenging sometimes. I have to be in the right place, and have the right focus to write smut, and lately, it's been feeling more labor intensive. I've been taking a step back from the explicit stuff lately, and playing around in M rather than E, and less sexual waters for a change. Sometimes a gal needs a break. I'll always happily write it for others, but don't feel inspired to write it for myself right now.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I really see my Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell/BBC Sherlock crossover as my first and only crossover. It involves main characters from both fandoms meeting one another, and John and Sherlock live in a world where England's history is the same as the history in JS&MN. It's been a very fun experience, but I'm really writing it for @keirgreeneyes 's birthday, because we share a lot of stuff between those two fandoms, not because I love crossovers. I don't feel drawn to them at all usually.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope. Someone came to me a couple of years ago, saying they were being bullied over accusations that they were plagiarizing my good omens fic. They even showed me the fic people talked about, and after scanning it for a bit, I didn't see anything that looked like plagiarism. I posted on tumblr saying I'd rather people plagiarize me than cause one moment of suffering due to bullying, and left it at that. I was really just jazzed to have people *want* to plagiarize me, honestly. It was flattering.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! In Korean I think.

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

No, and I'm not sure I could. I also don't like cooking with other people or showering with other people. I just like having the reins on writing and cooking and showering fronts I guess.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Oh god please don't make me choose. My children, my precious children. After careful consideration though, I'm gonna have to go with Crozier/Jopson - Jopzier from The Terror. I mean. Come on. It's me.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I wrote many chapters of a really fun, but really complex and pain in the ass multi-chapter mystery fic for the rarest of rare pairs, Jack Mooney/Florence Cassell from Death In Paradise. So yeah, I would love to finish it, but I don't have the spoons, and it will have a readership of roughly four people.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I write good dialogue. I write good smut. I can make up stories at the drop of a hat, and then put them down very quickly, in large amounts of words. I'm a long distance runner when it comes to fic. I like my sense of humor in fics, and I'm always so happy when someone leaves me a comment telling me they laughed really hard at something I wrote. Ditto incoherent babbling about my fics making them horny. Those comments are so good.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Eh, my weakness is I'm just not an amazing writer? I do it because I love it, and it brings me so much joy, and people reading my fics brings me so much joy, and that's pretty much it. Also, I use a lot of run on sentences, and I have like six tropey things my characters always do, and I can't break out of it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I didn't understand this one. I would love to write dialogues in other languages if I spoke them fluently. Outside of speaking a bunch of Spanish, I'm not fluent in anything but English.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

eeeeeeeeee @keirgreeneyes @totallysilvergirl my first ever fanfiction was BBC Johnlock! I tried writing a fic, probably back in 2013 or something, and gave up after a handful of paragraphs. I just lacked the confidence. Then, it wasn't until 2019 when I went nuts for Good Omens and wrote a bunch of fic that I wanted to go back and write that one, first, Johnlock fic. And I did it! It's Homecoming. BBC Sherlock is my first fanfiction fandom, and my introduction to fanfiction.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Oh wow. That's a tough one. I really loved my one Father Ted fic, A Sweet, Hot, Sticky Romp, because I loved emulating the comedy style of the show and thought I did a good job.

I loved Out Of Time, my Jopzier time travel wackadoo fic for The Terror.

I guess I'll stop at two. I've written 171. I should get at least two favorites.

I tag @fol-de-lol @ilthit @yeswevegotavideo @keirgreeneyes @holycatsandrabbits

[hadesoftheabyss]

"We need more gay ships that include people of color!"

The Spiderverse Fandom: does that

"Actually no, don't do that. In fact stop touching people of color and forcing themselves into gay ships!"

[shadowy-suitcase-herring-neck]

(i am enjoying myself far to much :3)

Update on the Pygmy Nightmare gang :D

Good news Our Newly formed gang of pygmy sanses has chosen a home den

they should start building a nest soon.

[dasketcherz]

ok hear me out,, so i had a vision-

[allastoredeer]

*Turns on megaphone* Lucifer Morningstar is a Service Top! ...That is all.

THANK YOU!

Can we all readdress the fact that Lucifer is a canonical switch? I understand liking bottom!Lucifer, I really do, but let this man top. As a RadioApple fan, is it really too much to want Alastor to get properly railed 😩

I suppose I'll have to be the change I want to see in the world, but I still wanna read/see it.

I'm pretty sure this is why I've been consuming so much RadioStatic content lately. Their dynamic is amazing AND Alastor gets to bottom. It's perfect.

[beebopurr]

I'd leave if the hyperfixation wasn't so strong genuinely ppl are on my back about how I need to tag all my shit as if they fucking leave me alone even when it is tagged

I can't even just switch to drawing other ships bc even tho I like those ships I don't want anything to do with the ppl who were harassing me bc they preferred those ships when I do draw them it is for my moots I <3 ya'll

[graytaloty]

Dragon Party where we Appreciate Dragons and Play Video Games ft. @reallypheelingit, @neververy4, @dragonswordz, @fangypeach, @friendlyfangs, @vonkarn, and meee. Some of the dragons I like seeing on my dashboard :3

[sugarpasteltmnt]

realizing i never posted this here but whenever i see artists/writers with their unique AU Leos follow me please know it feels exactly like this

[x-gon-give-it]

🍐 your fics are simply a m a z i n g and I wish I had more spideypool published so I had an excuse to chat with you / run into you online / be mutuals!

I do have more planned though, so... maybe it's possible in the future :)

༼ つ ಥ_ಥ ༽つ This is so sweet T.T

I'm crying tears in the club tonight.

You don't need to write Spideypool as an excuse for us to chat or do anything else! Being Spideypool fans is more than enough ( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ ) That's fandom community, baby!

Although, I'll never say no to more fanfic.

Please accept this lil Spideypool pic as a token of my love <3

[factual-fantasy]

So I’ve been gone working on IRL projects for like.. what, 10 days now or something?? I was going to hold off on drawing anything until these projects were done.. but I just couldn’t help myself. ;--; I really missed drawing. So I took 2 days off and spent that time blowing all my pent up drawing energy on drawing Cookie Run characters!

Now mind you, I’m not apart of the fandom, nor do I play either game.. I’ve just always really liked the characters and thought they were super colorful and adorable. So in saying that, I don’t actually know any of these characters, or their personalities. Or how they are perceived in the fandom. Most of my guidance came from my discord server-- Point is, if somehow one of these character pairings is known as a ship? Please don’t tag it as ship-- 😅 I did not intend to draw it like that. .

So yeah anyway, this might be a one off thing where I just go crazy and put my heart and soul into these drawings just to get that energy out of my system. But who knows, maybe I’ll draw em again sometime :0

I actually tried really hard to make these look nice for once. And as you can probably tell by my paranoid “in your face watermarks”, I personally think I did a great job. What do ya’ll think?

[chirpsythismorning]

Why I Don’t Experience Byler Doubt

It’s simple. One of the most essential techniques in storytelling: Show, don’t tell.

Show, don't tell is a technique that allows the audience to experience the story through actions, words, subtext, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than exclusively through the creators' exposition, summarization, and description.

Even more importantly (assuming we want to enjoy ourselves bc this is supposed to be high quality entertainment), it adds drama. Rather than telling viewers what's happening, a filmmaker will use this technique to show drama unfold. 'Telling' is factual and avoids detail; while 'showing,' is detailed and places the human subject at the centre of the drama.

This technique is literally playing out in the narrative when it comes to Mike’s inability to tell El he loves her (or even simply write love Mike in his letters), which he never would have had to tell her (spell out) in the first place, if he had just shown her that he loved her.

It’s no fun having to spoon feed your audience. Instead, it's much more enjoyable for the storyteller to present the truth in the details, even sometimes contradicting very basic assumptions that are being outright told. Hence why, for example, when the Duffers were asked about the Vecna reveal, Ross used the opportunity to go on a mini tangent: 'the best twists are ones that you go, “Oh, I should have seen that coming.” As opposed to the twists that go, “Oh, well that just came out of nowhere.” So, “Oh, I missed these clues along the way.” But you get nervous when you’re writing it because you go, “Well, to me it seems obvious--'.

In fact, Show, don't tell is what largely allows surprise revelations to hide in plain sight. Because obviously, if a writer just tells their audience everything that's happening while it's happening, we would always see what's coming next.

And so the problem I have with downplaying or even completely refusing to acknowledge the importance of Show, don't tell, in the case of Stranger Things especially, is that, in order to comfortably subscribe to what is being told, I have to ignore what is being shown.

We see this play out all the time on Reddit in particular, which if I'm being honest is the only platform at this point that treats mere speculation about Will and Mike's relationship as if it is the end of the world. On the rare occasion the mods don't remove a byler related post, the post is either already negative towards byler or the comments are filled with fury over the poster simply thinking critically by speculating about byler. Even if you manage to get a fan over there in the comments to consider certain evidence pointing towards byler as incriminating, they'll still manage to end it by downplaying the Duffers and their abilities, because 'They're not that smart!'...

They'll ask for evidence, be presented with it, only to insist that it's all reaching because details mean nothing and everything about the show is actually just surface level, ie. it's not that deep.

Without even realizing it, they're low-key admitting that going the byler route would be smart, and yet here they are tirelessly defending a show that, according to them, has shit writers and no deeper purpose. All this does is prove that they are hoping this is the case. Because even despite being presented with strong evidence that the show might very well be epic, they would rather reject it altogether.

They would rather have one of their favorite shows suck and defend it religiously, then consider the possibility that it's good and gay...

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely fans on reddit that don't hate byler. I imagine out of the million in that sub, there's a silent majority that would be open to it. Keep in mind, most fans still active at this point in hiatus are hardcore fans, and so they're obviously opinionated, that goes for everyone on most platforms rn. And yet, I know there are very likely casual fans who are popping in there every now and then, the same people in the majority when after s4 dropped, saw that monologue and said What the actual fuck was that?

There’s a reason no other couple on the show has needed to hear the words I love you to believe it. Well, besides Steve and Nancy…

Because SHOW, DON'T TELL. That's why!

So, what do I mean when I say that Show, don't tell is why I no longer have byler doubt?

It's actually pretty ironic, but basically the moment Mike told El he loved her, that's the moment they showed us that he didn't.

I mean, for starters, how does one go about filming a romantic love confession? Because if we're being entirely serious right now, they made just about every artistic and creative choice possible to go against what a romantic love confession should look like to feel satisfying.

I mean, you'd probably want the atmosphere to be intimate, right? Make the audience feel like these two are the only two people in the room (world) for this moment?

Well, that's not the case for Mike and El, nor is it the case for literally any of their scenes in s4 (arguably a lot of their scenes in the series; Will the wise drawing in El's room, I'm looking at you). Almost all of the scenes with them together in s4 had Will in the background, often times in the literal frame between them. That is NOT how you film scenes for a romantic pairing that you want the audience to root for, from beginning to end.

You guys gotta understand, rewatch value is one of the most important aspects to this story for the Duffers. When talking about the prospects of s5, they mentioned that they rewatched all the Lord of the Rings, saying how important it was, despite what some fans might say about the ending being too long, or this or that, bc to them, it was necessary to watch it all, and to rewatch it and rewatch it, in order to appreciate the entire story as a whole, aka the way it was intended.

If you're a serious about Mike and El as a romantic pairing, but because of the way the show has set up their relationship over the seasons, you can't sit down and enjoy more than a quarter of each season bc they're either separated, broken up, or on the rare occasion they are together and happy, they're accompanied by a kicked puppy in every shot, maybe all of that's for a reason.

And that applies to the scene in Surfer Boy more than any other scene in the show, a scene that is supposed to be Mike's monologue to El... You mean a scene that directly parallels Mike's monologue to Will in s2?

When planning the end of s4, do we think the Duffers just decided they wanted this intimate moment between Mike and El to have Will in the frame behind Mike (visually piggybacking off of him, in an episode titled The Piggyback...) in almost every shot, including when he said I love you for the first time, for no reason at all? Or is it possible there was a reason for it? Just like there's been a greater reason for everything?

Like bro, I'm sorry, but even if what's being told in that scene is relevant, all of it still reads as either a lie, a partial lie, a lie of omission or a platonic truth hiding behind romantic phrasing: I don't know how to live without you = platonic (trauma bond), whereas I can't live without you/I don't want to live without you = romantic. The later is out of desire/want, the former is out of fear of the unknown.

The entire scene the lighting is blinking rapidly. And so the vibe they're going for here is uncertainty, which is quite odd for a love confession that's supposed to feel certain? Then we have El seeing all red the entire time. She's literally choking, hearing Mike struggle to muster up anything that could help her pull through, only to overhear Will calling Mike the heart, followed by Mike finally saying I love you????

And I guess according to the Duffers, nothing says true love like a love confession ending abruptly by a two day time jump...

Oh and how about, instead of them taking the time at the end of the season for El and Mike to have a private moment, where they could finally address their love for one another, let’s have them barely on speaking terms, and the one time they do talk, let’s have it be offscreen and mentioned in a private moment between Will and Mike, who in contrast to Mike and El, we're going to prioritize having a scene with them alone together at the end of this season...

In the last minutes, let’s have El look at Mike and Will, only to avoid them with visible annoyance. And THEN let’s show Mike visibly defeated by El's annoyance, instead prioritizing reassuring Will, aka his friend with whom he shares an I didn’t say it/ You didn’t have to bond...

I mean? Are we just not going to talk about it? The fact that I didn't say it/You didn't have to could pass off as a literal synonym for Show, don't tell...

It just kills me that even with all of that, the Duffers were like, You know what? Fuck it. Let's show them all the endgame couples lined up next to each other, with Will and Mike in the middle and El standing on her own in front of them. If by now they still refuse to consider it, after everything, this ending probably wont convince them anyways, but it makes for great rewatch value...

Seriously, if you're subscribing fully to the belief that what is being told is the whole truth and nothing but the truth (so help you god), then you're having to ignore all of that. And I can't ignore all of that, I just can't. Which makes it impossible for me to experience doubt anymore.

[wildflowercryptid]

the monster high instagram shared these photos of the fan-sea lagoona blue doll, which is an entertainment earth exclusive! she's currently up for pre-order and should ship out in august of this year.

[saturncoyote]

Daily reminder to take that little man inside your head telling you to be the perfect content machine and crush him beneath your shoe

[beebopurr]

Fuck I should probably make an April and Kraangpril side by side ref huh.....

[otiksimr]

A Sapphire Star

And a gentle, simple sailor