Tagged by @ghost-maya to answer 20 questions for fic writers.
I was honestly tagged in this way too long ago, started answering a few questions, then forgot about it in my drafts forever until Maya just tagged me in ANOTHER fic tag game. So, now I have to post this one so THAT one can waste away in my drafts for a while instead, obviously.
Y'all get ready, I'm about to ramble more than necessary on some of these because I love to talk. May not seem like it from how little I post here, but oh boy I'm a talker.
how many works do you have on ao3?
41, which is too fucking many considering I only started in august 😂
what's your total ao3 word count?
what are your top five fics by kudos?
1. With Hearts in His Eyes (in progress ZoSan multi-chap)
2. Dressed Down (ZoSan)
3. What Happens in the Timeskip, Stays in the Timeskip (ZoSan)
4. A Different Sensation (ZoSanZo)
5. Incentive (SanZo)
What's really interesting to me is that my top by hits look the same, except A Different Sensation is replaced with Melt. Melt being in my top 5 hits has baffled me since it made it up there a while ago. I mean, I love that, but I'm shocked that a rarer pair beat out 14 zsz fics for the 4th spot. Shouts out to the CrocSan enjoyers I guess! Glad y'all enjoy it.
what fandoms do you write for?
One Piece. I write whatever I get ideas for, so I technically have some wips for other things, but I don't intend to post any of those and haven't worked on anything non-One Piece since I started posting... except a oneshot I just started recently... you might see that one day if I finish it, but maybe not. Don't worry about it.
do you respond to comments? why or why not?
Yup! No real "why." Sometimes a handful of them build up in my inbox before I get around to answering them, but I just like saying at least a thank you for every comment.
what's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
Was the All Blue Ever Real? probably.
I feel like a lot of my other dark or angsty fics have something that brings the angst up a little by the end, like All That's Left and Scum, since they end with a bit of comfort, and ones like Raw Deal DO end decidedly bad for at least one involved party, but I think of those as way more whump than angst, if that distinction matters here. You Stifle Me, I Suffocate might be up there, but it doesn't quite have a real ending. Since all of it is just Sanji remembering something from his childhood, the ending is just "and then One Piece happens". More... sour tasting ending than clear cut angst.
So, all that said, quantifying the angstiEST fic ending is a bit weird, but I'll go with Was the All Blue Ever Real? since it's just kinda bleak all the way around, haha. It's also a more... mundane angst, if that makes sense? No one's getting devil fruit tortured or anything, shit just sucks. Is Scum angstier though, despite the bit of comfort at the end? 🤷♂️ Idk, you tell me.
what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
😂😂😂 I don't really set out to write happy endings, at least not intentionally. Sometimes they do happen to me, but my plot based stuff usually isn't overwhelmingly happy, so the happiest ending so far is probably by default just something that's more smut focused. I guess... What Happens in the Timeskip, Stays in the Timeskip.
Not yet! The worst I've gotten is one or two comments that were just... a little hard to decipher. They could be, or could not be, lol 🤷♂️. There's one in particular that comes to mind that I genuinely can't tell if it was meant to be positive or negative, so in my mind, it's just neutral. 🤣
Nope. I'll never say never to just about anything, because who knows what I'll feel like writing in the future, but crossovers have never appealed to me much as a reader or writer. Technically, there's been a few times I've started just a little bit of one, but not seriously, more as just a fun little exercise to entertain myself for a single quick writing session, then immediately forget about.
have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not to my knowledge, and I sure hope not.
have you ever had a fic translated?
have you ever cowritten a fic before?
Not yet, but I'm not opposed to it! Never done any cowritting, so I don't know how well I do in that sort of situation, but there's a few fic writer friends I could picture myself trying it out with some day if we ever felt drawn to the right idea for it together.
what's your all time favorite ship?
I really don't know. There is no one favorite ship for me. I could tell you what ships I think about the most at any given time, but that changes so frequently that the answer would be different if you asked me again in a week.
Easy cop-out way to answer this: If I check my fic reading spreadsheet that I started at the beginning of January, DofCora is the ship I've read the most of so far this year. Make of that what you will 🤣
what's the wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
Considering I have probably around 300 things in my One Piece wip folder (not an exaggeration, I don't have an exact count rn, but it's for sure around there at this point in time), there's plenty of answers to this, but to pick something specific, any of my super long aus. I have several au ideas/wips that are basically "rewriting all of One Piece" type aus, and realistically I'm never posting ANY OF THEM. I know that. I only even let myself delusionally pretend i might ever get around to finishing ONE. A few of my faves are a strawhat role swap au, an au that changes all the strawhat's backstories pretty drastically, and the pro wrestling au. I wish all three of those could be epic length masterworks that retell all of One Piece, because that's how I initially envisioned them, but it's just never going to happen. There's a few of those big fic ideas that I might cut up into the more manageable or best parts and post isolated scenes of some day, but I know none of them will ever get written in their entirety and that's a bummer. The pro wrestling au is the one out of the aus I mentioned that I most want to make work, somehow, some way, some day, but we'll see if it ever shakes out.
what are your writing strengths?
Starting things. I have ideas constantly and I start new wips multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a day.
what are your writing weaknesses?
Finishing things. I have ideas constantly and I'm always starting new wips. I can't finish them all.
I know these last two questions probably mean more the writing itself, not the process of writing, but I honestly don't really know. It feels a bit lame and too broad to say that I feel like I'm good a dialogue and not as good at anything that comes between, but I don't even know if that's true of my writing on it's own, or just an indication of where my priorities lie and what I'm most focused on and interested in when doing the writing.
I've gotten a few comments on how I write characters, saying that they feel in character or very "human," and that certain scenarios or the way characters react to them (particularly on darker fics) are very real or realistic, and I think about those comments a lot. I really appreciate and treasure them. So if you believe those comments, I suppose that might be my strength, which isn't at odds with my feeling that dialogue is something that comes more naturally to me. I imagine they're probably connected.
thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?
I wouldn't do it. I'm not opposed to the idea of it, but I wouldn't do it myself because I'm only fluent in English and have no way of ensuring that I'd be writing something accurately or comprehensibly on my own. If I ever felt a fic absolutely needed it for some reason, I would ask someone fluent in that language to help or I just wouldn't do it at all.
first fandom you wrote for?
Something related to DC Comics, for sure.
favorite fic you've ever written?
Similarly to my answer on favorite ships, I really don't have just one favorite fic. It changes too often to say, and I tend to have a recency bias for newly posted fics or ones I've reread recently. I'd say that since the start of this year, my fave posted fic of mine has cycled most often between Every Time You Kiss Me, I Could Cry, Scum, and Raw Deal, but a good 1/2 to 2/3rds of my posted fics have been my favorite at one point or another, if only for a few days in some cases.
As always, I don't really know who to tag, so if you see this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged.
