#ugh there are so many INCREDIBLE writers in this fandom I don't know why I'm wasting energy on the shabby charlatans

[bluecatwriter]

Writer asks

O ho HO heck yeah I love surveys! (Thanks for the tag, @mrpinniped!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

109 and counting! 

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

356,656

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Dracula, but I have racked up a fair number of Dorian Gray and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea fics, plus some Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein, and Moby Dick.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Doors Everywhere

I Too Can Love

In Every Sense

Angels Unawares

For Safety Reasons

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

I always try to respond— comments always make my day, so I want to let people know that I appreciate them (plus it's fun to chat about plot points or characterization details with readers!).

6. What's the fic you wrote that has the angstiest ending?

Probably The Breaking Point, where Jonathan dies before he even reaches Dracula's castle.

7. What's the fic you wrote that has the happiest ending?

A lot of my fics have very happy/sappy endings, but probably the most unabashedly happy one is Love Multiplying. 

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Fortunately I have gotten only a few snarky comments here and there; the comments are overwhelmingly positive.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Ugh, so much smut. One moment I'm minding my own business, the next moment I'm tearing my hair out trying to write yet another threesome without making it turn out confusing and/or incredibly goofy. My favorite smut is the kind that's the site for dealing with a lot of Big Feelings (even though those are the hardest to write), but I also write fluffy, not-very-serious scenes too.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I've written a few Dracula/Dorian Gray crossovers, which have been a lot of fun!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not yet.

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

Not for fanfiction, though I've done a fair amount of cowriting in the past on other kinds of writing projects.

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

I have a lot of favorites, but Jonathan/Mina has got to be the top! I absolutely adore them as a couple, and more than that, their relationship is a non-negotiable backdrop of every Dracula fic I write. I just can't imagine splitting them up!

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but don't think you ever will?

I haven't officially given up hope on any of the many (many) fics sitting in my drafts folder, but time will tell. ;)

16. What are your writing strengths?

I feel like I'm pretty good at characterization, especially expanding on what we can glean from a character in canon.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot! Plot is so hard for me— every time I write an even remotely plotty fic, I drive myself batty doing it.

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

I'll occasionally put in a word or phrase in a different language, but since I only speak one language, if there's an extended sequence in a different language I'll just italicize the words.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

On Ao3, Dracula, but my very first fic I ever wrote down was a Steven Universe fanfiction (that will never see the light of day). (If you count stories I made up but never wrote down, my first fandom was Disney's 1940 film Pinocchio— when I was a tiny child I remember making up a story about a girl who helped rescue all the boys-turned-donkeys from Pleasure Island. My first fix-it fic!)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I think my favorite overall is Love Multiplying, just because writing it was such a journey and I poured so much love and care into it.

Tagging @yallemagne, @see-arcane and @0nelittlebirdtoldme in the lowest-possible-pressure sort of way.  (You can also post it as an askbox meme if you don't want to answer all 20 questions.)

[hexiewrites]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 43!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 562,348, which is honestly insane

3. What fandoms do you write for? right now mostly stranger things. I've got most of a ted lasso fic written but who knows if that'll get posted?? and prev, harry potter.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 1. don't take this sinner (dramione, marriage law ish), 2. same as it ever was (steddie, two timelines, one of my first steddie fics!) 3. carve your name into my chest (steddie, the hockey au of my dreams) 4. come get your man (he got lost in my DMs) (steddie, social media, steve being a horny DM guy) 5. there'll be a riot (cause I know you) (steddie, the matty-healy-rat-man-Eddie-vibed mostly smut fic)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? ugh. I WISH!!!! I want to be better at this, I really do. I usually start strong but I end up with limited energy/time and I want to filter that into writing more. if you've ever commented: I FUCKING LOVE YOU and think you're SO cool! if you really WANT a reply, the best way to get that is to ask me questions haha. it starts to feel weird just "thank you!"ing everyone, ya know?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I am.... not an angsty ending person tbqh! I think the closest is probably you love the sea, which is a flintwood rarepair selkie fic that I deeply love. it ends happy, insofaras they end up TOGETHER, but if you think more about the implications and how fucking sad it's going to be for oliver... well. I'll leave that to you guys.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? god, I'm well known for having "endings so happy they border on absurd", according to one person online. so, pick your poison I guess! anyways the fic THAT person was referring to was same as it ever was, so, let's go with that!

8. Do you get hate on fics? I have been so lucky lately to not get much hate at all lately, which is a real privilege in the fandom world. remember that I cut my teeth in early days of harry potter, and people were BRUTAL. I definitely HAVE gotten hate - my aforementioned dramione fic has a bit of a weird twist that some people were PISSED about (and once I got an incredibly detailed comment about how badly I fucked up my representation of black Hermione because she... didn't talk that much about hating her hair? which I know is AN experience but not necessarily a universal one) but overall, at least this fandom go around, no hate. thank you, everyone, for that!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? yes. lots and lots and lots of it. mostly kinda kinky and pretty much all pretty gay. let's not talk about how many times I've had to tag dacryphilia and what that means. I just like when people fuck about things, yknow?

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? nope, never! and I likely never will. too much to keep track of.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? not that I know of, thank god for that.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I've had requests but... I would need a translator willing to work pretty closely with me because I want to make sure certain choices come across well, and I haven't found that yet.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? not officially, though I did write a buckingham companion piece to the amazing cowboy-bar fic @riality-check did!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? OH GOD don't make me choose! ALL TIME is still probably dramione, but steddie is a very close second. in terms of canon ships, I'm such a sucker for buffy/spike (leave me alone), and veronica mars/logan (AGAIN LEAVE ME ALONE) and rory/logan (BECAUSE RICH WHITE BOYS NAMED LOGAN ARE A WEAKNESS, APPARENTLY)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? pour one OUT for you can't take the sky from me, which is my firefly inspired harry potter au ft pansy/percy, mostly because I had so many big plans for it that I've completely forgotten AND I just can't write in that fandom at all anymore. sorry everyone, I do love what I put out and I wish there was more of it.

16. What are your writing strengths? prose, smut, tying things together with little bows, and spending way too much time in my characters heads

17. What are your writing weaknesses? dual POVs, getting so lost in one character I don't flesh out the others as much as I mean to, action sequences, and consistent motivation

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I've done it before (mostly in clean ice, cold hearts, can't lose) and my typical strategy is to indicate that the characters are speaking a diff language (in french, I use guillements and italics) but not to actually WRITE the french, unless it's very short and the POV character doesn't understand it on purpose like in carve.

19. First fandom you wrote for? harry potter baby! my oldest posted fic that I've found online was from 2002, when I was... too young to be interacting with the internet like that, that's for sure.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? carve your name into my chest and it's no contest. I love same as it ever was as well, which I think is a better WRITTEN fic technically speaking, but carve was a huge passion project that I had so much fun with, and the response to it had been one of my favourite things in the world. oh, and special shout out to make this inn our own, which is my second longest fic ever and was just an absolute joy to do. so, those three, I guess!

tagging with no pressure: @riality-check @hereforanepilogue @maxineholtzmann @stevespookington @stevethehairington @withacapitalp and whoever else wants in!

[royalwilmon]

Ok I’m gonna pick some random numbers. 5, 16, and 28! - ungaroyals

5. Share one of your strengths

oof this is weird to talk about haha. but ugh. i think i'm pretty good at dialogue? i don't know if that's a product of my first big Thing being a text fic? or, well... i don't know, i liked the dialogue in some of my old glee stuff, so maybe it's just very much my comfort zone. idk!!!

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

it Almost feels like a copout to answer wilmon but its genuine. the great thing about young royals is just how juicy meaty delicious the story and characters are. there is SO MUCH to explore that i COULD sit here writing for the rest of my life and still feel like their are aspects of the story i have yet to explore, y'know? blessed with the BEST fandom and the BEST material

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

so there is this user on ao3 called embracedthevoid, i dont know if youve heard of them but theyre amazing and prolific and so so sooooo talented

ok while that was definitely genuine, really the thing with the young royals fandom is that the fic writing community is SO incredible and so close knit. i consider so many of you my friends so there is no universe in which i could pic three, it's just. i couldn't.

so instead, here are three non-YR authors that have inspired me in some way:

iknowitainteasy - this one is obvious. the author of little numbers, which not only sparked my love of fanfiction well over a decade ago, but also inspired the fic that got me to enjoy writing really for the first time ever. a MASTERCLASS in immersive storytelling and combining humor with emotion, there is not a Day of my life where i don't think about this fic and how much it has done for me

cacophonylights - when someone asks me what my favorite fic of all time is, i have an Easy Answer that has remained unchanged for twelve years. a change in the weather permanently altered my brain chemistry. it is enemies to lovers executed with Masterful precision. so much of how i think about story structure i learned from this fic, too. i know it's perpetually incomplete, but the emotional arc the story set up was still so Well Constructed. i marvel about it All The Damn Time. my FAVORITE forever

finalizer - this is a VERY recent one and maybe it's recency bias but also maybe it's just that GOOD, but. i've read anyone else at least thirty times in the past three weeks. this author UNDERSTANDS pacat in a way that i find suspicious, almost. like, have we seen ao3 user finalizer and cs pacat in the same room????? this fic is singlehandedly tiding me over until we get dark rise book 3 and for that i am grateful

ok sorry that got so long!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHH i just love talking about fic stuff its so fun and good

(please ask more questions!!!! <333333)

[golden-aire-girl]

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[gaywatch]

I LOVE your reactions to WoH a lot <3 and I look forward to those eps purely for your reactions.

I'm on anon because I didn't want to draw the wrath of the WoH fandom but haha I kinda lost interest in the show after episode 6, a lot of the plot felt like writer's convenience to me. And while I love WKX to bits, I thought ZZ's performance was uneven on too many occasions. A lot of the characters, except the leads and maybe two others, felt lacking in development, many characters (including important ones) were very... background and their motivations were uninteresting and tired (or they were just too obvious for me, I called things way too quick, there was no mystery or nuance for me). I do have more to say about this but I don't want to give away spoilers. Maybe I won't be as nitpicky later, lol

Also, I do think WoH is bad at exposition, its plotting techniques are not very good at all. Which is why most memorable things from WoH for me are the fight scenes and the Gay. And 2 OTHER CHARACTERS I WILL DIE FOR. You will know who when you get there!

As for Untamed, the performances are so layered that I can forgive its clunky technicalities (in this case WoH does much better with its budget and also the gay). Nonetheless, Wangxian had chemistry that I could read from Neptune, so I don't mind the more implied form of it than in WoH (again, I appreciate the Gay in it, but the performances were very uneven for me and as a result the chemistry suffered a bit too). Also, the cast in Untamed... magnificent unique fantastic incredible glorious unparalleled beautiful chef's kiss

Maybe I will have a change of heart about WoH. Maybe not. I keep looking forward to your stuff. Can't wait for 2022. You will kill me with the MDZS Audio Drama & Donghua reaction T-T and I can't wait for my glorious end.

I love you so much ❤️

I've heard similar criticism from people (amidst all the hype and positivity) and I'm curious to see where I land on the spectrum when I finish the series. It's still so early! And I definitely made a point to not go in with exaggerated expectations so I've saved myself any undue disappointment.

I'm unbearably excited about the places the WoH relationship could go, though. There's so much potential in their love story. So. much. SO MUCH. Ugh.

[shinaus]

heya!! ive only just found your blog and i love it. are there any others you could recommend? im new to tumblr but i love anime so any would do :'D

oh my god YES!!! i am always here to gas up my favourite writers and people, so here’s a list of writing blogs based around what i write - bnha and haikyuu!

ps. every piece of writing i’ve chosen is in a sfw format, so once i get a sideblog up and running i’ll likely have other genres/blogs to recc as well 👀

SHINAUS WRITING RECCS

1. first off has always gotta be @bunnyywritings - she’s not only an incredibly talented writer but my dear friend who’s been here Literally since the beginning. she writes for both fandoms amongst many others, so i would definetely check her out!

recc: “dino to the rescue”

+ i am a tsukishima simp first, human second - so this genuinely sends me into orbit to this day. it’s just so soft and sweet, especially getting to see him showing his vulnerabilities. i would empty my bank account to comfort him after a long day and that's all i'll be saying on the matter.

2. next up we have my angel, miss @azucanela - literally one of the sweetest and most supportive people on this EARTH. her blog is seriously so well done and her writing matches that just as well, she also has amazing writing for avatar and legend of korra which i would highly reccommend too!

recc: “late nights”

+ y’all know how i feel about shinso so this is literally like a comfort fic for me at this point, it’s so beautifully written and just has such raw and genuine emotion to it. idk who i’d risk it all for first tbh - him or canela (the answer is canela, but don't tell toshi)

3. my sweet mutual @katsushimaa - yssa is so immensely talented as well as being such a kind person in general. she deserves every bit of appreciation she gets on her work, seriously. also her ongoing haikyuu smau!!! unmatched. there are just endless good things i could say i really just be loving her and her work from a distance cause i'm shy fkdk.

recc: “why are you always holding my hand?”

+ this just hits - truly. sero is such a great character and it makes me so happy seeing him have content, especially with what there is out there being this brilliantly written. i mean listen; this shy, affectionate boy who just wants to love on the reader? i would like this every day all the time from this point forward, it’s just so cute UGH i love it

4. another lovely mutual of mine, @softieshoto - haru is incredible as well as being an absolute sweetheart to bat. from posting just fantastic work to helping me make my banners not too long ago (which i love you her for to this day uwu), such a great person and i rate her work highly hehe.

recc: "bad boys" (a bnha masterlist)

+ god honestly it speaks for itself, just so well done and the consistency with the characters is incredible. plus the bad boy trope is just iconic, the way she depicts each boy in the masterlist is beyond great.

5. is a blog i've followed fairly recently, @cellotonin - honestly i had read the fic i'm about to recc and was completely and utterly sold. like i've already said i live for sero content so for there to be such an amazing piece of writing with well done characters amongst other things is just just *chefs kiss*

recc: “talk too much (until you forget how to breathe)”

+ god, this was just something else. ever since i finished it i think about rereading it constantly (and honestly do). it's so beautiful written, well laid out and the way sero is portrayed just has me downright simping for him. an absolute stellar piece of writing. 

and lastly 6. is another really great blog i follow, @shoutaaizawas - who in general has such great work that i love binging and rereading practically on a daily basis. and the way keigo is written is just... yes. everything about it. incredible. masterpieces.

recc: "preening"

+ nothing, and i mean nothing gets me softer than this. the writing is immaculate, the dialogue even more so if possible. keigo getting embarrassed about his bird tendencies is the cutest thing i have ever witnessed to the point my heart was fully soaring and will not come down from orbit. please, no matter how much you may trust my word, read this.

i could list so many more but i would end up spending forever on it, so i hope this helps you find some good content! and to all my mutuals ily <3