#which is why I have so few things published and tbh the only one I'm happy with is morning after melancholy

[torchickentacos]

So, I'm working on listing all of my wips, and I realized something. A bunch of what I consider 'wips' are actually finished but I just want to rework them because I know I can do better but I'm starting to wonder if the reason I never finish anything is because my standards for my work are higher than I (or most people) can feasibly reach. huh. anyways

[bonesbuckleup]

Hi, random q. I saw in your tags that you swear by Scrivener for original fic. I’m still plugging away in ye olde Word and now I’m intrigued to know what about Scrivener you like so much. I’ve def heard about it but never used it, so I’m curious :)

YES I would love to tell you about my lord and savior software Scrivener. I hope you don't mind I published this long, long answer publicly.

So. The main issue I have with Word and Google Docs is that you hit a certain length/word count, and it starts to lag and load kind of jerkily. You know? Also, navigating chapter to chapter or scene to scene is awkward for me--you either have to have a whole bunch of individual documents and multiple windows open, or you have to use headers and the table of contents...which is fine for quickly finding chapters but less so for scenes within those chapters.

Messy, basically. Does not spark joy for me.

Enter Scrivener.

Now, before I evangelize a bit, I will say that Windows Scrivener and Mac Scrivener are not 100% created equal. They are both better, I think, than Word or Google docs, but the Mac version is a bit slicker and a little nicer to look at. I only say that for if you're using Windows, because if so my screencaps below won't exactly match what you see if/when you download the program.

ONWARD.

So, the #1 thing that Scrivener has over Word is that it's a one time fee, not a subscription. So while it is a little pricey (Just went and looked, $59.99 USD), it's only the one payment. All updates and such are covered and available as free downloads. I will also say that Scrivener gives you a 30 day free trial. That's not 30 consecutive days, but 30 days of use--if you only use it every other day, you'll have the trial for 60 days. They make it really easy to figure out if it's for you or not.

This is also going to feel like a lot, but there are built in tutorials and it's actually pretty intuitive, depending on how your brain works. Anyway! The basic gist of Scrivener is that it's a digital binder. You can keep all your book stuff in one place:

As you can see, there's the manuscript (aka my book), notes, research, more. Tbh, I mostly just use notes and Manuscript, but if it floats your boat, you can store maps, place names, worldbuilding, playlist links, moodboards, a whole ton of stuff, all in one menu that's easy to access and in a single window. You can organize it however itches your brain the best way.

But like I said, for me, the best is that Manuscript part, which I'm going to go into now. I use a three act structure for books (but break the big ol' middle act into two pieces because it makes my brain happy), so each act gets a folder.

When I click and expand that act, each chapter has it's own folder. However, it also shows quick-reference index cards, so I can have an at-a-glance at what's going down in each chapter. (I'm using a outline system called Save the Cat for this book, which is why all my chapters have titles like 'Catalyst', feel free to ignore those...I also have a very compact timeline, so to help me stay organized, I labeled each chapter with when it happens.)

You can do the same with each individual chapter and the scenes, where when you click on the chapter folder, each scene gets a card. If you don't type in a summary, it'll just auto-populate the start of whatever content you were writing. You can see this in the 'Copper's Candids NEW' card.

And, of course, it is writing software. When you click on the individual scene, it opens the blank document, and you can get cracking.

So. This system is nice for a few reasons. My favorite is that it makes navigating, reorganizing, and/or rewriting scenes extremely easy. It's just point and click, drag and drop. You can also open two docs in the same window at once, like this:

Which is a nice feature for several reasons--you can work on a new version of a scene with the old one pulled up next to it, or if there's something you wrote earlier or that comes later that's important to what you're working on now, you can have them both up for quick referencing.

Another slick thing is each doc has a notes section off to the right side of the screen--which is optional! I use it for future revision notes/descriptions of how I want the scene to go:

My other favorite part of Scrivener is that it makes it very easy to hoard your deleted scenes like a deranged dragon in case you want them later. My garbage looks like this:

There are SO MANY FILES hanging out in my trash, and you know what? I so rarely actually need them, but my god am I glad they're there on the rare occasion that I do. Word, again, can make it more difficult. I always had a massive 'cut' document that was longer than the actual project and again, awful to navigate. This just makes it easier.

Scrivener also makes it easy to compile the manuscript into other doc types--pdf, doc, docx, etc--for easy printing and sharing.

ANYWAY. I'm sure there are approximately 1 million other things I'm missing, but basically Scrivener takes all your book/long project bits, puts them in one centralized file, and makes it super easy to navigate. I've also found that outlining is easier, because I can just make the folders and scenes and drag them around while I noodle through the plot.

10/10, would recommend to any long-form writer. If you have any other questions, please let me know! If anyone has read this far and has a thing about Scrivener to add, please do! I love Scrivener, and a lot of my writing buddies love Scrivener, and it really kinda has revolutionized the way I write original fiction. I'm always happy to yell about how great it is.

[sleepanonymous]

Hi! I hope you don't mind, but I would like to ask your input on something, since you post a lot of "lost media" stuff. Do you know what the general etiquette for talking about members' past bands/projects in public spaces?

Here's the thing: I only discovered Sleep Token a few months ago, and when I first listened, I was shocked to recognize Vessel's voice immediately. Apparently I've actually been listening to one of his old projects for like 8 years now 😭 It's lovely to know he's still making music and it's wonderful to see how he's progressed with his skills (his voice!! Oh my god, he's grown so much), but I can't help but feel a little sad because I'm worried I'll be shunned if I mention his old works around ST fans. What has your experience been with this sort of thing? I just don't want to start a fuss on accident.

Hi, Anon 🖤 I don't mind at all, thanks for the question. With the anonymity of Sleep Token, it's very tricky to talk about any of the band's past projects in fan spaces. Basic etiquette is to not mention them at all because of the names and faces associated with the projects. For that reason, the rest of this answer is going below a "keep reading" cut.

If you are a Sleep Token fan, and don't want to see past project names, do not click on "Keep Reading."

First off: Anon, I'm so jealous of you! Lol, I'm surprised you found Blacklit Canopy first, that's such a rarity in this fandom! You have no idea how many times I'm like "Where was I in 2012?! Why didn't I find this in 2014?!"

Secondly, my whole experience with this particular corner of the fandom has been lovely tbh. But I think I get away with posting "lost media" because I make sure to keep names/YouTube/anything identifying detached from the posts. I only ever refer to him as Ves (and not his full stage name) and I don't mention Sleep Token (or if I do I abbreviate to ST). I think the closest I ever got to mentioning Ves's past project actually was in this lost media post.

Another reason I think a lot of fans would consider it improper to mention Ves's old project is because the relationship he was in with the other half of Blacklit Canopy technically changes 70-80% of Sleep Token's songs. The intricate lore that fans have created is suddenly lost, and we're left with roughly three albums about "the girl that got away" and how Ves coped with it. That isn't inherently a bad thing, but I understand why it's not everyone's cup of tea. Since you're new to Sleep Token, I'm going to assume you haven't seen these interviews: about why the member's identities "don't matter" and what Sleep Token's goal is as a band.

I have seen people make posts about Blacklit Canopy here on Tumblr before without receiving backlash (at least outwardly), but that's only because it was in a similar manner to this post (the majority of it was under a "read more" cut), they kept the band names separate in the tags i.e. they didn't tag Sleep Token, and didn't mention Ves's name at all. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I've seen posts literally stating "It is disrespectful to listen to Ves's old music," which I don't agree with. One: there's an entire other person involved. Two: if Ves didn't want his fans to know, why are the Blacklit Canopy YouTube channel and Twitter accounts still up? And three: they literally released a deluxe EP on Spotify at the beginning of the year which Ves is 100% aware of and signed off on, if it wasn't him who published it in the first place. I'm not here to tell fans what they're feeling is wrong— on either end of the spectrum— because I understand where they are coming from and why they might feel that way.

All of the above said, there are safe fan spaces where it's perfectly acceptable to mention both Sleep Token and Blacklit Canopy in the same sentence; even identities. That goes for all Sleep Token members, past and present, and their other projects. So if you were wanting to keep them a mystery, then I'm sadly out of suggestions aside from DMs maybe. There are more people on this site Who Know™️ than you might think.

On Reddit you have both r/BlacklitCanopy and r/SleepTokenTheory

On Facebook you have the Blacklit Canopy Fans page

On Discord there's discord.gg/blacklitcanopy

I'm not so active on Reddit, and I don't have Facebook, so I'm very biased toward option three I'm also an admin there.

[authoralexharvey]

INTERVIEW WITH A WRITEBLR — @theglitchywriterboi

Who You Are:

Sparrow Aiden || He/xe

I'm Sparrow Aiden, I'm genderfluid/a trans guy & bi & mixed. My current favorite book is Flesh Eater by Travis Riddle

What You Write:

What genres do you write in? What age ranges do you write for?

Fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. Young adult.

What genre would you write in for the rest of your life, if you could? What about that genre appeals to you?

Probably like fantasy. I just think it's really fun & you can make your own rules for the whole universe [which you can do for others ofc but still-]

What genre/s will you not write unless you HAVE to? What about that genre turns you off?

Romance. I write romance in my stories, but I don't think I could do that as the main focus, especially not smut [I respect it though, just very much not for me writing wise-]

Who is your target audience? Do you think anyone outside of that would get anything out of your works?

Queer people & queer POC. I think people outside those groups would still enjoy it, at least I hope !!!

What kind of themes do you tend to focus on? What kinds of tropes? What about them appeals to you?

I don't really normally have a theme in mind - maybe death is inevitable & we can't prevent it no matter how much power we have. Also friendship & shit.

What themes or tropes can you not stand? What about them turn you off?

The one character that's always bullied for no reason ??? Like Meg from Family Guy or Jerry from Parks & Rec. It's just needlessly mean, & at least in Jerry's case he is simply trying to be nice & not doing anything :(

What are you currently working on? How long have you been working on it?

A lot of things, but mostly Deaths Diner. I've been working on it since like 8th grade [so like 7ish years ??] & I'm still not close to done 😮‍💨. Second main WIP is The River By The Hotel & a few years but idk how many exactly. Not near as long as Deaths Diner though.

Why do you write? What keeps you writing?

I really enjoy writing !!! & I've always wanted to be published - not for money or anything [though money would be nice] but because it's one thing to sew it in a document, but a whole different thing to be able to hold it & have it impact other people. Plus I've always wanted to give people joy & if people get that from my writing that'd be very cool - even if it's only one person

How long have you been writing? What do you think first drew you to it?

Since I was little. But the first time I knew I WANTED to be a writer was when I was watching Doctor Who w/ my family & after the intro it said "Written by [whoever wrote that episode]" & I thought that was so cool !! Like someone wrote that & my family & I are interacting w/ it & enjoy it !! [& being a screenwriter would be cool, but it wasn't really for me environment wise so I turned towards writing stories/books & I liked reading anyway so-]

Where do you get your inspiration from? Is that how you got your inspiration for your current project? If not, where did the inspiration come from?

It mostly comes randomly, but anything tbh. Sometimes its from a movie or show, sometimes it's from a book, sometimes it's just a "Hey, wouldn’t a story about [X] be interesting haha… Wait that's actually amazing-". The inspiration for Deaths Diner actually came about through the latter. My brother jokingly said "Haha, we should have our own show" & me being a dumb 8th grader was like "WE SHOULD !!!" So I started scripting it. Then I realized our lives aren't interesting enough to have a show based off us, so I added ghosts, then one thing lead to another & long story short it's absolutely nothing like our lives [But I think it's still really cool-]. The inspiration for The River By The Hotel is also [very loosely] based off my life too. Basically as a kid my brother & I WOULD go to hotels to visit our mom & at one there were two kids. My brother & I did go over to the river area w/ them. The stuff that didn't happen was all thr paranormal monster stuff. [But that was brought on because when we went home my little brother told me he almost fell in, so I was like "What if he did & the river was actually a portal to another world ?"]

What work of yours are you most proud of? Why?

Probably Deaths Diner. I'm still on the first draft & while it's nowhere near done, I've worked so hard & long on it, it's like my baby. I can't wait to be finished w/ it though so I can start the second book in the series

Have you published anything? Do you want to?

I haven't yet. But I really want to !! Hoping to publish something this year or next year

What part of the publishing process most appeals to you? What part least appeals to you?

Most appealing is being able to get a physical copy of my book, because it's like "Yooo I did it !! I actually did it !!!". Least appealing is probably the critics. I know even the best books & the books I love have people that don't like them, but still. It's daunting publishing something you spent so much time on because of the thought people might despise it.

What part of the writing process most appeals to you? What part is least appealing?

The actual writing is most appealing, because its fun to write, the editing is least appealing. Mostly because I get in my head about the quality & get stuck trying to fix everything - even when there's nothing to fix [or nothing major]

Do you have a writing process? Do you have an ideal setup? Do you write in pure chaos? Talk about your process a bit.

Kinda chaos. I just write when I feel like it & I'm a bit of a pantser [maybe more like a plantser though] sometimes, especially w/ a series, I know the majors stops [like we start here, then this happens in the middle, then the end happens. But how I get there I don't know & even w/ the stuff I do know its like a loose idea.] but w/ stand-alones I normally don't know that. I have some scenes planned, but other than that I have zero idea how the book will end

Your Thoughts on Writeblr:

How long have you been a writeblr? What inspired you to join the community?

A few years now. I wanted to join to have a place to share my writing & to make friends w/ other writers

Shout out some of your favorite writeblrs. How did you find them and what made you want to follow them?

Aaaa this is so hard I really like all my writeblr mutuals/friends it's hard to pick but Uuuuuuhhh- @jezifster, @daisywords, @writing-is-a-martial-art, @athena-anna-rose, @penspiration-writing, @caligraphyzev, @writingpotato07, @writewithfire, @pen-of-roses, @e-lisard, @ashen-crest, @the-finch-address, @cryptid-s-wips, @chrismerle, & so many others !!! I don't know how I stumbled onto all of them, but they're all cool people & cool writers

What is your favorite part about writeblr?

The community & event

What do you think writeblr could improve on? How do you think we can go about doing so?

I don't know tbh

How do you contribute to the writeblr community? Do you think you could be doing more?

I think I could interact more. I'm very forgetful so sometimes I forget to reply to stuff or post things. I try to share others writing & stuff

What kinds of posts do you most like to interact with?

All kinds, other people's writing & short stories, peoples replies to tag games, etc

What kind of posts do you most like to make?

Updates about progress

Finally, anywhere else online we may be able to find you?

On twitter: @WriterGlitch & on Instagram: @TheGlitchyWriter [though I'm most active on tumblr]

[katiefrog217]

10 Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks @eviebane for the tag!!

No pressure tagging: @bellisima-writes @knifeforkspooncup @thatskindarough @nik-knight @onceuponapuffin @quoththemaiden

1. How many works do you have on AO3? |

Currently two!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

8,934 if I added right. I've written well beyond that but it's not published or published to AO3.

3. What Fandoms do You Write For?

Currently Good Omens! Back about 10 ish years ago, I used to write a lot of Hetalia and Pokemon (if you were on DA/Quotev and read reader inserts in the 2010s, I'm sorry) and also had a short stint with Yuri on Ice. If we go for never published stuff, Inuyasha.

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

I do! I try my best to at least - I really like interacting with comments and seeing what people have to say!

5. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Actually yes - quite a few times! Tbh I wouldn't be surprised if they are still being stolen to this day by random Wattpad users (it was always fucking Wattpad). My fic "Just the Way You Are (BTT X Reader) [yes I was that songfic author - again I'm sorry] was stolen quite often, along with a few others. As a result I'm quite protective over my fics - used to do line editing so I could put my name extremely small in the text so when it was copy pasted my name showed up multiple times haha.

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

No! I haven't actually - did some creative writing prompts between people in discord before and am part of an ongoing project but as of this moment I haven't. Have helped my girlfriend with her own stuff but that's for the most part her own thing.

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

Fuck I have to pick ONE? Sweating rn uhhhh... I have two of equal measure I can think of off the top of my head: AziraCrow (Aziraphale x Crowley - Good Omens) and Hualian (Hua Cheng x Xie Lian - Heaven Official's Blessing).

8. What are your Writing Strengths?

If I go off what people tell me: heavily immersive and visual writing. And characterization. And short form story writing.

9. What are your Writing Weaknesses?

My inability to focus on a single project, along with my terrible habit of starting fics on a whim before abandoning it because I have no idea where the story was going in the first place. My ADHD makes my motivation come and go like the wind so I can go months without updating anything, and led to a lot of my old ones getting abandoned. I also have a terrible habit of dragging scenes out because I tend to want to explain a lot of things, which leads me to procrastinate a lot when I can't think of how to describe what I want. I'm trying to get better at it. Oh, and a personal pet peeve of mine is not being able to write a fic under 5k words, because I don't like publishing shorter fics, especially self contained ones. I admire people who are able to publish shorter stories a lot, I just personally get really anxious over putting out something that wasn't at least 5 word document pages long as a chapter.

10. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

If we count unpublished and never seen the light of day, it was Inuyasha. It was a fic called "The Golden Arrow", which was based off a dream I had somewhere in the early 2010's. The only one who saw anything for it was a school friend of mine, and while I generally remember the gist of it, it's been lost to time for the most part, as it was written on an app on an old phone I have but lost the cord to.

If we wanna talk actually published to the internet, I'm pretty sure it was Pokemon.

[just-antithings]

I'm not saying adults insisting they only need to read YA books and watch children's cartoons is leading to this culture wide phobia of sex which in turn is becoming a useful vector for the increasing spread of fascism except that is exactly what I'm saying.

Im not that anon but want to expand on their thought, if they're saying what I think they are.

I thought of this more when seeing an old post of someone saying their English teacher should have let them write a report on Divergent instead making them read 1984. Someone commented supporting the OP, saying that they never read Divergent, but 1984 is problematic. Iirc, the commenter referred to Winston (I think that's the protag in 1984; sorry I haven't reread it in years) as a creep. I can't remember is this specific commenter called Winston a misogynist, but that's a common complaint I hear when people say they don't like 1984.

The screenshot of that post also had other screenshots, including the twt posts of YA authors saying that the classics were problematic. It's a sentiment I keep seeing around book twt before I deactivated my account but still on booktube as well, and it's always booktubers who also read and rant about Colleen Hoover, because they know her name gets clicks. Or booktubers that do those videos titled "I read [old/popular/controversial] series so you don't have to".

Sorry, sliding off topic a bit. Going back to what anon said, YA books tend to be more sanitized. They're supposed to be written for a 15-19 audience, so sex and gore aren't supposed to be explicit. There are YA books with sex scenes. 2 I read recently have sex scenes, but they aren't explicit. One uses mostly poetic language and infers to what's happening, and the other essentially fades to black after they get into bed, as they're touching and then picks up the next morning. (One of these YA books had a big controversy on booktube a few years ago for being problematic, though. Gee, wonder why /s)

But for the most part, often for people who enjoy urban fantasy or romances but not steamy scenes, they may go for YA, since it's usually more "PG". Unfortunately, some people get it in their head that this makes YA inherently "better", that adult books that are being more explicit are only doing it to get more sales, when YA tbh has a tighter hold on it marketing-wise.

Okay, I'm not published (yet), but I've been studying it when I need to take a break from writing to see what course is best for me and what I want to write. YA is becoming oversaturated in the market, so it's not as big a "money making genre" for debut authors as it might have been once (and I'd argue that even in the past when YA was smaller, you still had to be lucky, known, or connected to get that 6-figure check for a debut YA novel). YA is more likely to get scrutinized, considering its supposed to he for a younger audience, so a YA author wanting to push boundaries is going to receive more push-back than an adult lit author.

Now pushback happens in adult lit, too, like Ava Reid saying her editor or publisher (I forget who) told her that Juniper&Thorn might be too dark. (I've read it. Yes, it's dark, but bad reviews I saw for the book blew it way out of proportion. If you (gen) like lyrical/poetic narration and gothic horror, I highly suggest it).

But it feels like there's more of a push to keep YA books "clean". You can find some outliers, but like the YA I mentioned above, those outliers in YA that push boundaries can get wrapped in controversy and called problematic.

And for whatever reason, some people on booktube say this is a good thing and say "think of the children!"

They will say censorship is bad but then advocate for sanitized YA to be read instead of classics, because the classics are "bad" and "teach bad things" and "should be left in the past". They advocate for censorship without realizing they are advocating for censorship. It's exhausting, and as someone who wants to be published and does enjoy a lot of YA, it makes me feel discouraged. I don't think I'm "pushing boundaries" at all in my writing or saying anything new, but I'm very sure it's not sanitized enough for most publishers, especially if I wanted to try for one of the beg houses in the US.

Tl;dr One of the major problems in this anti-intellectualism is capitalism.

.

[chayscribbles]

chayscribbles writing recap 2023!

i feel like tacky wordart kind of encapsulates how i've been feeling lately about my writing. if that makes any sense.

as you guys may or may not have noticed i've really been nonexistent around here lately. this past year has been really weird in terms of both my personal life and my creative life. i've been a lot more blocked than in the past few years and did not meet and at the point i am now it's easy to look at the past year and be disappointed. but i will force myself to see SOME positive, goddammit.

☆stats.

words written: 102 380

projects worked on: andromeda rogue, the gemini heist, and a few Secret Projects

accomplishments: finished the 2nd draft of andromeda rogue; sent said draft out for beta reading (which was fucking terrifying, btw); crocheted two sweaters (okay that's not writing but i'm really proud of them okay)

☆looking back on 2023 goals.

i dug out my recap post from last year and looked at the goals i had set at the beginning of the year (which i had completely forgot about tbh jkgfjksd), so let's see how they measured up:

to continue polishing up Andromeda Rogue (at least just the first book) with the goal of perhaps having some eyes on it by the end of the year👀 - well i certainly did get some eyes on it, so that was accomplished ✅

to continue working on The Gemini Heist, wherever that may lead me - okay so i didn't get nearly as far as i had hoped but i worked on it, didn't i? i'm checking it off ✅

to not pressure myself too much in my writing; to be kind to myself when i’m in a slump and to take regular breaks - LOL. still working on that.

to try new things and challenge myself - getting betas was challenging. not finding them but the actually making myself do it lol. let's go ahead and check that one off ✅

to have fun and be myself! 😀 - LMAO. yeah, sure, let's give that a check. ✅

☆setting new goals for 2024.

i'm gonna have only two goals but they're pretty big ones.

publish andromeda rogue by the end of the year, assuming editing through beta comments doesn't kill me first.

this isn't writing but i'd really like to open an online shop for my art, i think it would be an interesting venture. i got a cricut machine for christmas so there might be stickers in my future 👀

so that's all my rambling! hope you guys have a wonderful 2024!!! <3

general taglist:

@dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @onomatopiya @quilloftheclouds @ashen-crest @writeblrfantasy @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @extra-magichours @avi-why @lefttigerobservation @chazzawrites @bardolatrycore @innocentlymacabre

[asterrrrion]

Just saw someone on pinterest saying "idk is Verlaine french" and actually you know what this is the last straw. So, I'm french, I've studied both of those authors in middle and high school, and it's time to discuss what they were really like, because I see a lot of information on japanese authors going around in the bsd fandoms and the american authors generally don't need to be introduced.

So, first off, to start with the obvious, YES. Verlaine is french. So is Rimbaud. Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine are both very famous 19th century french poets. Actually, Rimbaud is arguably the most famous french poet ever, and usually the first author you ever study in poetry when you study french literature. Verlaine is, today, mostly known for his association to Rimbaud, although his poems are still read.

Starting off with the less mentally unstable of the two... Paul Verlaine. Which, if the only thing you know about those authors is bsd canon, is probably surprising to you. (But tbh, I have so many questions about WHY they were represented like that in BSD.....) Fair warning, though : the less mentally unstable of the two isn't saying much. Both of them were complete madmen.

Paul Verlaine is this guy :

Ironically, Paul Verlaine is his birth name. He was born in 1844, started to write in 1858 at the age of 14, and died in 1895 at the age of 51. His most known book is his first one, Saturnian Poems, published in 1866, so if we ever get an ability name, it'll probably be that. Saturnian, because at the time, Saturn was considered to be the planet of melancholy, which in the 19th century didn't mean a weird sort of nostalgia, but rather an undiagnosed depression. He's the archetype of the tortured poet - a concept he majorly theorised himself -, basically, and was either appreciated by his contemporaries as a genius poet or depreciated as a mad asshole (most of which is due to his story with Rimbaud).

He got along "well" with his mother, except for the part where he tried to murder her because he was sad the girl he loved married someone else and then died. More seriously, his parents loved him, and his father passed in 1865. His relationship with his mom was both very loving and very violent - as I said, murder attempt, but he lived with her also -, and he was in love with his cousin, Elisa, an orphan who was raised with him. He wanted to marry her but she settled for a rich guy and then died giving birth in 1867. Afterwards, he got very into alcohol and violence. He then finally married Mathilde Mauté, 17, for whom he wrote a few love poems. They had a son a few years later.

He wrote a shit ton of poems, I'm not kidding. He's mainly known for Saturnian Poems, but also a bit famous for his erotic poetry - which i'm not a big fan of,,, -, mainly because he wrote both about men and women.

His literary movement was the Parnassian movement, whose main point is to make art for art, for beauty, and to detach art from any notion of usefulness.

He was, as a whole, a piece of shit. He beat his wife and his son extremely violently, sometimes almost to death. His wife divorced him after four years of marriage, in 1874.

I'll do the next part introducing Rimbaud soon, I guess, and then probably a last one to talk about their relationship.

[shepherds-of-haven]

hii! i'm a new author working on my first if, and i'm really not doing great tbh. shepards of haven is (my current hyperfixation) sosososososo good and so expansive and just generally the best thing ever and i'm aware that you've been writing this story for years and that's probably why it's so amazing but i'm not having a fun time over here and i was wondering if you have any tips for worldbuilding or if you could share like a general overview of your process? thank you so much :))

Hi there, I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling great about your project at the moment! I think my #writing advice tag could be helpful to you, since that's where I stick all the posts and answers about writing tips and worldbuilding advice from this blog, as well as my @strangevoyages blog, which is exclusively focused on my authorial career and writing-related tips and tricks, so it might be easier to parse through for advice! This post I wrote last year, in particular, could be helpful for worldbuilding, as well! (As well as this post for my general tips for beginning writers of interactive fiction!)

On top of all that, though, I think the best piece of advice I can add on for you is to be patient with yourself! As you mentioned, I've been working on Shepherds for over 20 years now: it was basically the first story I ever wrote, and I still haven't published it in a complete form yet. My first novel, We Have Always Been Here, also took about four years to complete, and in that amount of time, I burned it completely to the ground and started it over from scratch FIVE TO EIGHT TIMES before I got so sick of looking at it I just had to submit it. And I thought I would start my second novel directly after that, starting a few months after WHABH's completion in 2019. It's been four years since then and I'm still figuring out the world and characters of that second novel, to the point that I've also started and completely scrapped the story three or four times... I didn't even settle on the main cast or their names until earlier this year, so that's like 3 years where I didn't even know their names, let alone how their world worked. 🥹 And in the last four years, I've still only gotten as far as about ten chapters on this series, and my most current draft is only at four! (And I'm about to scrap some of that and start over again... 🥹)

At some point, you finally iron things out and the story details settle and actually click, and then you might be off to the races--but you've got to give yourself the time, patience, and understanding to actually get there first! I know that things can feel frustrating when it feels like you've run up against a wall or you just aren't feeling inspired, but letting things simmer for a while just allows the flavors of your story to complexify and deepen. You're creating a whole new world in your head, so give yourself a break! It takes time. Like a good soup, sometimes you have to let it sit on the stove for a bit and bubble away without poking at it impatiently and wishing it would hurry up or dumping ingredients in it to make it cook faster. In the meantime, consuming media that inspires you or that you genuinely love and enjoy--without turning it into the work and chore of "research"--might uncork or illuminate something you didn't even know was brewing. That's what I most often do when I'm feeling uninspired! I just leave everything where it is, meander away, watch or read or play something that intrigues me, and that often naturally sparks inspiration when I'm not thinking too hard about it. A watched p(l)ot never boils, so to speak!

I hope that (and my other posts linked above) help you in some way. Good luck with your writing and again, try not to be too hard on yourself! You're not alone, every writer feels this way: it's just a part of the process, but one that we can mitigate by giving ourselves time and patience. :) And thank you for the kind words about Shepherds, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[wifiwuxians]

20 questions writer meme.

tagged by @heyholmesletsgo THANK YOUUU

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

not counting things i'd rather remained anonymous, 21!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

513,621 lol

3. What fandoms do you write for?

mdzs, vaguely tgcf, hotline miami (though mostly past tense) and we'll see about the future

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Wei Wuxian's Super Special Super Secret Book Club still reigns supreme with 1229 kudos, and will most likely be my legacy despite it being the second fic i ever wrote for the fandom (i think?)

If You're Reading This, It's Too Late with 513, one would think i'd still be messing around with this AU but i'm happy to leave it where it is and just keep messing around with the crackship

Dawn Chorus, my most precious baby, at 251 by some miracle despite being oc/canon. you guys spoiled me with the love for this one tbh. none of my other xue yang centric works got anywhere near this close and i'm at peace with that because he's bonking my oc in this one and they have a kid.

The Book Club Extras at 232, which is hilarious when compared to the original but at least new readers will see there's more and maybe in the year 2055 i will publish them for fun

Frozen Pond with 156 at the end of the list, written for my friend @petitjams and taking place in a silly AU we made together (wen chao stays winning on here which is very funny)

i'm attributing the popularity of the first two to mostly being centered around super popular characters, because my later stuff is naturally better yet struggling haha

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

always unless they're like just emoji, because i like conversation! though i may also reply with a little heart hehe

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i wouldn't call it angstiest ending, it's bittersweet, but the threads that bind us is my top pick. and it also needs more readers so go read it. your hands and mine has a bit of an 'angsty' ending but only for song lan. xue yang had it coming :p 💖

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

excluding the two above, so far they all have a happy ending, or at least neutral??? i'd say Book Club, though, because that's the massive 'everybody lives!!' silly fixit fic

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope. i hope i didn't just jinx it. i get hate on art and through anon though! woo! (not anymore on here tho thank god)

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

i do and i feel like it sucks so i almost always end up fading to black LMAO my actual explicit stuff remains private... it's like too embarrassing for me. i got judged for it as an 18 year old and 10 years later haven't gotten over it. i like bondage and bdsm though and that seems to crop up in private 😏

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i do on occasion! i love roleplaying them, but the only one i have out there is The Way To His Heart Is Through His Stomach (Oh God Please Don't Eat Me), which mixes mdzs and tgcf characters in a unique setting :3

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge, but i've had art stolen plenty so i wouldn't even be surprised

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, a few have been translated into russian!

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

NOT YET BUT IT'S IN THE CARDS

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

all time? jeez. somebody tell me why i always freeze up and go blank when asked these simple questions? it's like i forget who the fuck i am. i feel like i should also say songxiao? but they're relatively new so it doesn't seem correct. fuck it. my all time favorite ship is [DATA MISSING OR CORRUPTED-- PLEASE PROCEED TO NEXT QUESTION]

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

haha... (looks at my abandoned hlm fic with the seventh chapter halfway written) haha...

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'd definitely say dialog. it makes sense, since the stuff i'm most used to doing is drawing silly comics. i also like to ping-pong emotions around and feel like i'm pretty good at that too

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

using the same words over and over and feeling like i never write Enough, like everything is always light and never in depth. i don't like making scenes too heavy with padding but i also feel like i need to find a balance

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

i'll do it only if it's a language i speak!!! this doesn't apply to peppering words like gege and stuff just for funsies. i think the best way to go about it is to just tell the audience what language they're speaking in that moment

19. First fandom you wrote for?

we're gonna have to go back to when i was 10 years old here lol... i think it was tokyo mew mew in terms of stuff i put online (oh god)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

it's hard to pick favorites, but i once again must say the threads that bind us in terms of work i'm most proud of.

i tag whoever sees it, plus @sugarapplebaby because ily

[misscrawfords]

4, 7, 11

4. what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?

Hmmmmm. If we're going for longest longest, then I have a fantasy idea from when I was about 14 set in a full fantasy world based on sort of Ancient Rome called Cavatina. The hero is an awkward nerd who ends up having to chaperone his high school nemesis, a loud mouthed girl called Claira after she accidentally gets engaged to the prince. Also there are witches and Platonic allegories. I'm pretty rubbish with plot so it's never really been fully developed, but I love the city of Cavatina and the society there and Jasper and Claira were always very fun protagonists. I don't know if I'll ever write it but it would be nice to use some elements of it in something else sometime. So no existential dread, maybe just a bit of regret. A friend and I at university tried to consider how it could be turned into a computer game (he was really into game development) and that could have been really fun but again we never pursued it.

7. tell us about the plot of the first fanfic you ever wrote

The first fanfic I ever published on FFNet was called Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Link and it was a seventh year completed novel length Harry/Hermione gen fic written before OotP. In it, Harry and Hermione discover they have a telepathic bond which allows them to communicate with each other mentally, pass objects between each other and augments their spell power when used together. Hermione also discovers that she is Voldemort's daughter and they have to team up together to defeat Voldemort. JJ Abrams levels of plot ridiculousness to an unexpected degree but I was 13 - what's his excuse!? It's a cool fic tbh and I'm super proud of it. I was 13-14 when I wrote it. The next gen sequel is even cooler and still honestly one of my most favourite stories I've ever come up with - if only my writing had been better to cope with the scope of what I was trying to do! I often try to think of a way to reuse the building blocks and characters in that story because I still love it so much even all these years on, but no luck so far.

11. what’s something neat you’ve learned while doing research for something you were writing? also, how much do you worry about doing research in general?

I think how much I care about research depends on how seriously I take that fic. Is this a fic that I want to be accurate to some degree or is it not? As for what I've researched, I researched quite a few details about Edwardian Italy for Consolation Prize and in general I learned lots of stuff about the Edwardian period, WW1, post-WW1 society for writing Downton Abbey fics. One specific thing I do remember doing a deep dive for was when I was plotting first Mary and Violet's journey across Europe by train from London to Venice and then Matthew's much speedier race from Yorkshire to Naples, I did really look into timings and routes to get these as accurate as possible.

[mcalhenwrites]

Today is going so weird, and I want to celebrate half of it and cry about the other half. Things are either magnificent or terrible. The magnificent parts are all generally writing-related! One is that I got messaged from a friend that he bought my book! (THANK YOU IF YOU SEE THIS!)

Which, yesterday was funny? I overheard my roommate talking to someone in a chat about my book, so that might result in another sale...? Whoever it was, they seemed interested! (I couldn't hear their half, but they certainly kept asking questions my roommate had to answer, and I kept yelling into the room from the kitchen, "THE BOOK HAS A BLURB!") (Speaking of blurbs, the person who is a baker at the other location of the company I work for is a friend of my roommate's and that's how I heard about the job and ended up getting it, but she has heard my blurb and was interested in buying the book. Now we can't tell her the title/author bc it likely would be discovered by everyone I work with after that, and while I think my boss would not care if I wrote fic and erotica tbh, it's gonna be awkward when my coworkers find out all my goddamn interests and kinks. Most embarrassingly, it might be revealed I'm a massive KH fan... :P ) Anyhow. I also got another sub on Patreon, THANK YOU! And I realized just now I have 3 comments in my inbox on AO3. <3 So uh. Anyway, I checked my bank account before hitting the grocery store this morning, to see where I stand financially/how much to spend. (I need to also transfer some money out of checking and into my savings, like the royalty payments and a kofi donation.) I saw I had pending transactions, and I checked it, expecting it to be just my single work-related direct deposit. Only there was an extra amount of money - way more money - in a second transaction from my workplace. What? So I text my boss. At the grocery store, I find out that my boss tried to text me about covering today (someone at the other store is sick). Only I didn't get that text in the group chat! Weird. Anyway, it did get covered by someone else, but I'm on standby for tomorrow in the afternoon, will find out more later on if I need to cover. So I spend my morning scrambling to communicate rides, though my boss can pick me up if need be it sounds like. (May take her up on that if I go in tomorrow, and I got someone to pick me up Saturday too.) Then I find out why the weird pay thing... it is another employee's paycheck, gone into my account by accident. And since it's pretty much "my money"... it will now be counted as being paid ahead and taken out of future paychecks. So I had to make sure to budget for the next approximate 6 weeks until I start getting paid again. (With any hope, I'll have a few extra hours to add, and by the time the paycheck after next rolls around, I might actually have some money to add. Even if it is only a little.) It's just very stressful with my health right now, being what it is. I feel panicked at all times, I'm barely writing... I was supposed to start working on THC and Rascal to publish in the future, but now that just seems kind of like... a project for another month or year, at the rate things are going. I miss having time to do things. And while people might lecture me that I only work weekends and then some, the fact is that I'm spending a lot of days just recovering from my health. For all the posturing people do online about disabilities, they tend to not show that when they actually DEAL with disabilities. I'm lucky to have a few friends online and off who do understand, but so many people just go, "Well, as much as I talk about how stupid capitalism and the status quo are, and I care about disabilities and equality, you have no choice we all deal with this pull up them bootstraps!" Not worded that way, but too many people aren't very kind when confronted with a situation where they have to put their moral grandstanding to the test. :/ (Though a huge thank you to the ones who DO understand what I'm dealing with and who have been super kind about it.) Edit: Well, add "Patreon temporarily restricted my account until I verified my identity" to the fuckery of today. It is sorted, but uh. I didn't need that shit. WHAT IS MY FUCKING LUCK HONESTLY

[czolgosz]

vivian i have to ask: as a czolgosz enjoyer what do you think of this whole situation?

(this was sent shortly after the trump assassination attempt. i slacked severely... btw i am rambling in the below post; i don't feel like editing it. & maybe not everything i say about the more recent assassination is true idk)

my official opinion on the mckinley assassination is "well that (like all assassinations without an actual movement behind them) was pointless and therefore leon czolgosz shouldn't have done that However how can i be expected to sympathise with william mckinley." same sentiments toward this. except the motives of this recent assassin are unclear so maybe just the last part.

well another difference is that some anarchists at the time of the mckinley assassination said that it caused some people to look into anarchy seriously. i don't know if that's even true and if it is i don't think that outweighs the other negative (for anarchism in the usa) consequences. the circumstances here are quite different considering that both the perpetrator and victim are of the same political party, but there seems to have been almost no effects, not even a noticeable change in polls. the only thing i've really seen is that many people thought that an upcoming trump presidency was more likely.

so i guess the main conclusion to be made in regards to the two assassinations when set side by side is that the mckinley one had a larger impact, but that's unsurprising considering that that one was actually successful; the attempted assassination of theodore roosevelt didn't even get him a third term, after all, while he too tried to make a big moment out of it...

anyway now i'm just comparing because i don't really have any other opinions. in both cases the security was strongly criticised for not preventing it. and the reason why the guards at least initially ignored the assassin are similar. in the mckinley assassination the guards were basing their concerns on the "general appearance and looks" of the people in the line and therefore didn't pay attention to leon czolgosz because he was white and otherwise inoffensive-looking to them; in this assassination the guards didn't initially see the assassin as a significant threat because of his appearance (from what i've heard at least). the difference here is that the police apparently knew he was there and was considered suspicious, unlike with leon czolgosz; the few people who said that they noticed the handkerchief simply thought it was a bandage. also after that assassination the secret service, while it did already exist and was present at the event, was given more responsibility and basically became what it is today. obviously that didn't happen again...

another similarity: post- mckinley assassination, william randolph hearst was censured for publishing a poem the previous year that had called for the assassination; however, this poem was actually anti-assassination, and it was no coincidence that the leading decriers were from political & business rivals of hearst. and some time before the attempted trump assassination, joe biden said "it's time to put trump in a bullseye" which was very obviously not advocating for assassination, but some republicans said it was, though i honestly doubt they all believed that. however this is also different because the backlash against hearst was far worse & had relatively substantial consequences for him. <-also emma goldman &c. got a lot of backlash as well that was far far worse, but the comparison is less direct as they weren't having quotes misinterpreted. and i didn't think of them at first tbh.

i guess another similarity is widespread ardent condemnation of political violence, including by people you wouldn't expect it from, but that's pretty typical...

one last small thing because i can't think of any more: george w bush called the assassination attempt a "cowardly attack on [trump's] life" which i still do not understand. why is everyone always calling assassinations cowardly?.. how are they?!

now another thing that's off-topic so it doesn't count: apparently the trump assassin (can you tell i don't remember his name?) didn't seem to initially care between assassinating trump or biden which reminds me of giuseppe zangara and his ambivalence toward whether he should assassinate herbet hoover or franklin d roosevelt... maybe they had similar motives then...

[slavicviking]

20 questions for fic writers

thank you for the tag @oh-stars!! 💚

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

25, but one of them is an art piece i made for a holiday exchange ^^

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

181,334 but if i were to count my longest fic to date (which is in full only on ffnet) it would be around 250,000, I think

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Right now Stranger Things, though years ago I was all about httyd.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Inner Struggles - not kudos but the highest number of favs I'ver ever gotten (like i checked just now out of curiosity and it's 3 away from a 1000 what)

A Blip On Your Radar

stuck with you (I want to be)

The Idea

Long Odds

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

I used to and I'm sad I don't anymore but I keep feeling too overwhelmed(?). It's hard to explain. But I would like to let my readers know that I read each and every comment and they make my day, truly! I wish I could write up each of you a huge thank-you note and give you a big ol' hug.

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

On Time, definitely

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

Hmm, I don't usually do the happy ever after's but I think it would have to be the yet unpublished ending of Grey Matter I guess you'll have to wait and see >:)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really, no, and I am so very thankful for that.

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

No, not my cup of tea, personally.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nope. I do imagine them in my head sometimes and that's where they remain.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Does being low-key accused of plagirizing my own work count?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! A few times and I love y'all for it!

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

Nope!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

I don't think I have one, tbh. It's ever-changing. Such is the burden of a multifandom multishipper.

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

Ooh, tough question. I feel really stuck with the subtle art (of non-existing) but I really, really want to finish it.

Also my never-published steddie amnesia fic

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hmm. Dialogue? Characterization maybe? (I hope I'm not making a fool of myself by saying this)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Detailed descriptions and action.

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

I'd say, if there's a need, I'd rather do it in italics than try to google translate my way out of this. No shade to anyone of course, it's more amusing than anything, but I've seen so many non-real sounding sentences in Polish in fics (i'm looking at you, teen wolf fandom)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

HTTYD, my beloved

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Inner Struggles holds a special place in my heart as to how happy I felt writing it. But from the newer stuff, I think A Blip On Your Radar would be my favorite - it's silly, it's short and i had a blast writing it.

No-pressure tags! @sunflowerharrington, @oiveyzmir, @imfinereallyy, @patchworkgargoyle, @thefreakandthehair, @strangersteddierthings

[corvidcrybaby]

20 Author Questions

Shout-out to @the-frankenman-writes for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

4 - I actually only started publishing fics a little over a year ago and my main project has been a still-running longfic so I haven't been able to build up much of an archive thus far LOL.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

408,653. The longfic is a fucking TOME.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment, just Hellsing. I do intend to publish some Castlevania fanfiction soon, and I've got a couple of larger OC fics planned for Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Guess I'm listing all my fics in order with an empty bottom slot, oopsie!

formulas fatal to the flesh - Alucard (Hellsing)/Transfemme Jewish Reader fic that also serves as the "pilot" for my OC longfic. I originally started writing this as a means of exploring my sexuality in the wake of HRT changing a lot of things about my desires whilst also issuing a love letter to my favorite series. Then everything got intense.

2. Interview With the Impaler - Alucard (Hellsing)/Transfemme Reader. This was me trying out some new ideas with how I write Alucard as well as just trying to contribute to the transfemme reader insert pool. It's really nice when you don't have to mentally change the genitals of the reader insert you're reading about to put yourself in their shoes and enjoy the fantasy, so I like providing more of it.

3. lesions of a different kind - Alucard Hellsing/Transfemme Jewish OC. My longfic, my baby, my first foray into long-form storytelling. She's choppy, she's unhinged, she's full of bigger ideas than I know what to do with, but damn it all, I'm having fun with her. This is the main story of Zemira Shani Makhabi, my homebrewed blorbo and shameless self-critique. She started out as a reader insert before I decided to turn her into a golem allegory full of meta commentary on what it means to relate to a fictional character. That, and so much BDSM shit like oh man so FUCKING much.

4. Operation: GREENHOUSE - Pip Bernadotte (Hellsing)/Zemira Shani Makhabi. In dead last, a fic involving a character who is unfortunately not very popular to write about, but I happen to find incredibly hot in his own right. Technically AU of an AU fic too? IDK man I just wanted to write steamy smut about these two because I thought their dynamic was fun bwahahaha

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

Absolutely I do! They really motivate me to continue and I love connecting with people based on how they perceive my work.

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

MWEHEHEHEHE that'd be Interview With the Impaler. I used the Mean Alucard tag for a reason. I may continue this story yet tbh, because I could make it ever angstier.

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

Operation: GREENHOUSE. Just ends with those two snuggling and teasing each other. Easy shit.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I'm extremely lucky to have never gotten a mean comment and hope it never happens.

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

LITERALLY EVERYTHING I WRITE IS SMUT BWAHAHAHAHA I lean heavy on a few tropes - maledom/femsub shit, mind break/hypnosis/heat/etc, and a constant obsession with men's hands. Hands in general, tbh, I get really horny about hands.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I've never published a crossover but I like the idea of one. I would need to find two series which I REALLY wanted to compare and contrast.

11. Have you ever had a fiction stolen?

None that I know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

See above

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

Nothing that's published, but a pal of mine and I are cooking something cool up rn... You know who you are.

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

ALUTEGRA BAYBEEEEEEEEEEE my beloved genderfuck angst-fest full of questions about monstrosity vs. humanity and forbidden desires and old souls and and and and look do you know how hard it is to have an OTP that literally never touch in the original series

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I don't have any right now but I live in constant fear I'll wake up one day without the drive to finish Lesions. That would make me so sad.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I can write really visceral gore and snappy action scenes, I can construct a layered character like a motherfucker, and I'm pretty damn good at dialogue, I think.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

OOF. Plot. Fucking PACING. I feel like my stories can sometimes feel like super compelling personalities flopping about in a sandbox. Which can work, for some cases, but I try to deliver on the promise of a compelling plot.

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

It really depends. I've seen writers do it with tags for the translated words? It seems to work best for small, potent exchanges.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I think this honor actually goes to Pokemon. I was doing a Nuzlocke comic once upon a time!

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

Probably Lesions, thus far, lol

Tags: @neet0 @rotten-hearts-sharp-teeth @brunette-barbie42

[dandywonderous]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Tagged by @kiaxet

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

210, but about 110 of those have been copied over from my old FFN account (almost all of the One Piece fics, basically).

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

709,457

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently I'm mostly only writing for Rise of the TMNT, but I have written a lot for One Piece and Free!, as well as Twisted Wonderland, Persona 5, Fire Emblem 3 Houses, FFXV, KnB, and others.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. I May Be Invisible, But I Still Look Good (ROTTMNT) 2. Tight Fit (FFXV) 3. Tapping Out (ROTTMNT) 4. Lab Accident (ROTTMNT) 5. Things Overheard (Hiding Under the Bed of the King of Athens) (Hades)

5. Do you respond to comments?

No |'D I don't know why but it just gives me anxiety so I don't. I do appreciate the comments, I'm just bad at responding. I'm sorry!

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

Probably this old fic where Sanji just dies in the end, but I think I have fics that are angstier in the middle even if they end better. For something that's not just the character dying, probably Herbal Tea (ROTTMNT), or maybe Failures and Heroes (You and Me) (ROTTMNT)

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

Most of my fics have happy endings so this is hard! Probably a tie between Tight Fit and IMBI, since those have their central characters going through pure hell but getting all kinds of love in the end (including romantic love in Prompto's case).

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Once. This is the hazard of writing AkeShu (P5) lmao.

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

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOY I sure do. I write all kinds of smut, including a few gross kinks most people put in their hard nos. If you're poking around in my full fic list proceed with caution. Lately since I've been writing so much ROTTMNT I haven't been writing smut, though, since I'm more into the canon for the fluff and family feels. The last smut fic I wrote was The Appearance of Impropriety (FE3H), which is a Dimitri/Edelgard/Hubert threesome. And before that, it was a TWST AzuJami fic that, well, took advantage of Azul's octopus anatomy, if you get what I'm sayin'.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven't really written fandom crossovers since I was a teenager and tbh I don't remember much about them, I think they were more crackfics than anything serious. I have written several AUs that use other fandoms, though. Probably the weirdest one I've actually written is a Free! RinRei Dragon Age AU, where Rin is a templar and Rei is a mage (the forbidden love of it all). I also have waaaay too many ideas in my head for an ROTTMNT FFX AU where Mikey is a summoner.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I remember back in my FFN days I would occasionally search up my fics and find them c/ped to random clickbait sites, probably as a bot scrapping operation. But to my knowledge I've never actually had anyone take one of my fics and claim it as theirs. Even that bot reposting still had my username attached lol

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep! The fabulous @e-turn has translated several of my ROTTMNT fics into Russian! I've had other requests before, too, but I'm not sure how far those went. If anyone does want to translate my works, feel free! Just be sure you're crediting me, and if it's going on AO3 be sure to link the original!

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

I have done some co-writing and some fic round robin events but none of them ever got to the point where they actually got published, because someone would flake out or we would just lose steam. I might be up for it, if it were a project we were both really invested in, but I'd probably have to be friends with the co-writer first.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

MMM this is hard... probably RinRei from Free! I've never felt quite as intensely about a ship as I did that one.

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

Hold On To Me (KnB); I love it but I am so far out of KnB fandom at this point haha.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character voice, I think; it's what I usually get compliments on and what I feel the best writing. In a way, fanfiction (and fandom RP) has really helped me think about characterization. Something I was certainly guilty of in my younger days (and that a lot of amateur writers are guilty of) was having my characters act as vehicles for plot, doing or saying whatever I needed them to in the moment to move the plot where it needed to go. This meant none of my characters had any kind of consistent characterization and all of them were samey. We joke about "he wouldn't fucking say that," but in a funny way this kind of thinking really got me to think about characterization and character agency. Before I would say, "we need to get from point A to point B, so let's do that." After trying to get into the groove of writing already strongly characterized characters, and please an audience with certain expectations, I found myself thinking really hard about what would motivate a character from point A to point B, and if the circumstances I'd set up weren't enough to cause that, I'd need to tweak them, or better yet, explore what I think the character WOULD actually do in that scenario (which may be more fun anyway). This is a skill I think fanfiction is great for helping new writers develop.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I wish I had stronger word choice at times, and had stronger imagery. I'll read lines in other people's work that just blow me away haha. I could never write so poetically, I think.

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

If you are good at a language, or have someone fluent helping you out, then go for it. There's no reason any work needs to be written in only one language. I'm not a purist on this. That said I also think writing "he said in Spanish" or something like that is fine. If it serves your purposes better for your fic to all be in one language, or you aren't confident enough to write in a different language, then you can just make it clear to your audience that a different language is being spoken now. Especially because I come from a lot of anime fandoms, I'm used to there being a sort of unspoken understanding that the characters are not speaking English and what we're getting is just the English approximation/localization of what they're saying. So this doesn't bother me. And of course, throwing in random Japanese exclamations in an otherwise English language fic always comes off a bit campy. I do think it's fine for things like terms of address and nicknames, though. I've never really gotten the hubbub over not having honorifics like "-san" or "-chan" in fics because the same people who usually hate that are also fine with "Señor" or "Mademoiselle" in writing and, like, what's the difference? Idk if any of what I said answers the question. My thoughts are that it's variable, ig.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Technically it was for the book Alas, Babylon, and it was a class assignment in 9th grade English.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Ah this is hard... IMBI is my longest fic and I'm really proud of how it turned out, but I think I'll always have a soft spot for I Keep on Hopin' (We'll Eat Cake by the Ocean) (TWST) - warning that this fic is NSFW and has explicit smut.

Idk who to tag. @aria-faye @unpredictable-probabilities @daboyau ? Anyone else who wants to do it feel free!