#asks: misc

🎢 which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

uhhh by definition almost all of them are a Wild Ride, in terms of completed/published pieces it's probably gonna be this one (successor of the shaggy suffers link above)

💋 first kiss fics. love em or hate em?

completely indifferent, not something i'll seek out but if it's something that happens in the greater narrative then fine. i can get the ick a bit from fics purely about how clueless and inexperienced one partner is while their partner is incredibly skilled and experienced, not because that's not a possibly dynamic to write between two consenting parties in a way that isn't predatory or groomy, it's just that i find that, or a madonna complex, is often the Vibe, and that simply doesn't appeal to me, personally.

🎶 do you listen to music while you write? what song have you been playing on loop lately?

sometimes, generally just instrumentals on low volume for background noise. i like classical piano comps, oldies radio, or if i’m going for a specific album/feel my favs are jessica curry, flowers for body snatchers & peter gundry

🍆 do you write the spicy stuffs? if so, what's your most popular nsfw fic?

i write explicit content, but i wouldn’t say i write smut, and i don’t plan to start. my deepest darkest secret is that i simply don’t particularly enjoy it. there. you can throw me in unhorny jail now ig

💖 what made you start writing?

i have simply written all my life, and before i could write, i would tell or act out stories. i can’t remember a time that it hasn’t been both a major part of who i am and what i do. in terms of fandom, specifically, my first flirtation with it was the way i think it is for a lot of us — i had friends in shared fandoms who sparked the idea of also recording my own canon (the first was dragon age, for me, so. late in the game). that was in about 2016-17, i was inactive for a few years, and then rejoined fandom in the active platform participant/fic writing sense in late 2019 (moving over to this blog in early 2020) solely because of lyra. i felt a compulsion there, partly because she was a repurposed character from a discarded original project (and a completed short story that made the writers’ workshop rounds in uni, which still exists and i will not be posting here since it exists outside the fandom realm but would be happy to send to anyone who wishes to read it in doc form).

💌 how do you feel about comments and feedback?

always appreciated :’’)

💲 would you ever open commissions?

no, i’m not personally comfortable with it!

🧐 do you spend much time researching for your stories?

well my other open tabs are footage searches for the amalfi coast in the 80s so that’s that on that i guess 

the simply answer is not with everything. if it’s something that pertains to an existing culture or place which readers would recognize, yes. if it’s something more abstract that readers are unlikely to have experience with, i worry a bit less with the technicalities and take my creative liberties. haha. right fbi. right. i’m sorry that i searched for how to prolong life during disembowelment but i can explain i swear you have to believe me i really really thought i might have a reader who’d been disemb —

🏆 what's your most popular fic?

uhhhhh based on notes it’s looking like this one i linked in a previous ask, second is this prompt from the same series

🎃 do you write fics for certain holidays? which is your favorite holiday inspired fic?

i have not, but i wouldn’t be opposed to trying my hand at it. probably halloween for most of them, christmas for the fitzes, etc.

🎯 have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? care to share which?

i have literally never not just aired out all of my plot points on main at all times so. no. not much opportunity there when i won’t shut my mouth

🎨 how do you feel about fan art of your stories?

an HONOR

📈 how many fics do you have?

one main fic, one fic that precedes the main fic, many prompts scattered both in that universe and others. so. a mess, really.

🦅 do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

neither and both. i rarely have a formal outline that i rigidly follow because i like to allow myself flexibility, particularly in terms of structure, but i also have never opened a black document and had no idea where it’s headed. i suppose i’m a mental outliner, because i know everything that’s going to happen and how, and will often already have certain phrases associated with certain scenes, but i rarely commit them to a document (i’m too unorganized for this to be particularly useful, anyway). i guess that’s my answer; i know enough to allow myself the flexibility to play with chronology, i have all the information so that i can choose how and when to share it with the reader, but i’m more likely to commit the scene to paper and file it away than have an outline dictating that it’s going to be written. this is one of the reasons that i virtually never post longfic; i am never writing chronologically. never. the very first scene i wrote of lyra’s canon was the collapse, followed by the aftermath of john’s death, followed by her arrival in hope county from shaggy’s point of view, followed by harassing burke leading up to the arrest, followed by. you get it.

👀 tell me about an up and coming wip please!

italian woman marries american playboy, has regrets. may or may not have just brought a biblical eldritch horror in human skin into the world. has decided to sleep it off indefinitely.

🤗 what advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

going to second @roofgeese on this one. read. but read broadly, read widely. read books. read outside the genre you write. that’s the most important advice i can give any writer, fic or no; expand your horizons. of course there’s value in reading within your own genre to see what others have done, what works, what doesn’t, but the trouble with only reading within those parameters while seeking inspiration is that invariably it begins to cannibalize itself and become a rehash. the best way to expand your abilities, the way you think about characters, worldbuilding, plot, what have you, is to read outside your comfort zone, read stories you would never write, let those inspire and shape you. take things from other genres and implement them in your own work. that’s how things are made original and new. that’s how you learn new vocabulary, are exposed to different writing patterns, meet new character archetypes. horror taught me how to write family domestic dramas. high fantasy taught me how to write american gothic.

and, obviously, simply write. reading is all well and good, but you’re also not going to discover your own voice if you’re not getting words down. it doesn’t have to be typed out, it doesn’t have to be written down. you can daydream words as much as anything else. do that. sometimes it’s gonna be bad. great! you know what doesn’t work for you now. knowing what you enjoy reading and what you write well are, ultimately, two very different things; it’s simply about broad exposure to ideas. 

😬 which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

uh. none specifically, honestly. i do like to keep it separate because of the nature of my work, and i don’t really want to merge my writing-for-leisure with my writing-for-work audiences, but there’s no specific fic that instills terror in me at discovery. i wouldn’t post something that i wasn’t ultimately fine being tied back to me, honestly. i grew up with the internet too much for that.

🎉 what leads you to consider a fic a success?

this is going to sound like a non-answer, but. legitimately. if i’m enjoying it. this kind of ties back to some of my other answers, because here’s the thing, most of my writing is not fic, most of it is not just “for me,” most of it is voluntarily subjected to ruthless peer review, and i enjoy that, but if i’m writing fanfic, the great advantage is that there are no stakes. literally the only stake is that i’m unwinding, having fun, telling a story i want to tell. completion is, i guess, the best measurable answer i can give to this. i would still like to complete fic and become frustrated when i don’t have the time or energy or motivation to do so, like any other sort of writing. so. yes. a fic is a success if i wrote it successfully. aren’t you delighted i teach others to word good

✅ what's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

i already answered this in the “common incorporation” question, whoops!

📚 would you ever want to turn writing into a career?

reading, writing, analyzing, and helping others to do all three is quite literally my life’s work. in terms of being published, yes, that’s definitely a goal of mine. i don’t know that would ever be, or would ever want to be, commercial and prolific enough to have that be my sole day job in this economy, though (not because i’m allergic to success or pretentious, i’m just realistic about my turnover rate without torturing myself and losing my grip of reality, so no, i don’t necessarily want the pressure of writing to fend off starvation).

🤯 what's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

hm. i don’t believe i struggle with romance by my own definition of the word, but i suppose in terms of fic fluff is my worst nemesis. it’s challenging for me for me to fake that and get into that headspace in a way that i don’t experience with angst-related emotions.

💔 is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

not that’s published! i’ve already mentioned that the writing that did the greatest number on me emotionally mostly pertains to post-collapse lyra (ft. joe). 

💥 how do you feel about criticism?

i welcome it, but context matters; i’m used to it, but that’s because i intentionally enter spaces to gain and give constructive criticism. unsolicited criticism on the internet regarding the quality of work is often unhelpful and given in bad faith. (i specify quality because there are other types of commentary that can be classified as criticism/critical that i absolutely don’t feel that way about, such as generally encouraging fandom at large to analyze its reinforcement of racism, misogyny, queerphobia, etc., but i do not believe that’s what this question is asking).

🤭 do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

uhhhh i haven’t posted any work on ao3 so. no. it’s usually either wip tag/prompt tag.

🥰 how do you feel about reader interaction? are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

She thinks, I am not real; I am not material; I could step into the road and the cars would pass right through me. The women in this family, Isa. She does not want to die. She cannot imagine wanting to die. She wants to live. She wants, desperately, for something to happen. Something irreversible. Something, anything, like the day in Rome. It is for this reason she steps into the street. The car does not pass through her.

⌛ how long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?