#chromask

Heh-heh! Great ask ❤️

26. Would you rather write a fic that had no dialogue or one that was only dialogue? One with no dialogue, because I can always throw in reported speech and thought processes. Takes a particular skill to make a fic that is all dialogue authentic and interesting.

28. Does anyone read your fics before you post them? If so, who? Sometimes. I won't name 'em cos' I don't want to clutter up their notifications, but especially for exchanges, or if I've used someone's art (with permission) as inspiration, or for zines, etc.

37. Promote one of your own “deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it? Okay, I guess the most recent is valuta from the Corazine (aftersales almost finished, but that's just an aside). I thought I did a pretty good job on portraying what the Donquixote brothers went through, also Cora's relationship with Sengoku and Law, and then Law with Sengoku, but maybe it was too much for the word count. It got very little interaction in the way of comments, at least. I like the KidLaw fics I did for the 2022 exchange and for the OP secret santa that year, but they remain two of my least popular fics (in terms of hits).

I like valuta for story parallels (Cora and Doffy, Law and Lami, etc.). I like the KidLaw fics because they make me laugh.

38. Did any of your fics get surprisingly popular (whatever that means to you)? Which ones? Why do you think they were so successful? Yeah. I think I've answered this before, and it's not massively popular compared to some fandom behemoths, but the Usopp vs the Heart Pirates fic: Dark like the North Blue Sea (aka The Sea-Hill you Die On) . I think it grew in popularity because it's canon compliant (also, maybe funny). Once a fic gets a certain number of kudos or hits too, it feeds its popularity growth, because people sort by kudos and hits, so all those hidden gems remain hidden! I'm happy that people enjoy it though!

43. If you take/write prompts: what’s your favorite prompt fic that you’ve written? Probably the one that @afterdeck-ace gave me of: Chopper and Law talking about courage or Jolly Rogers. They're talking about both in softening the fall of snow. That's followed or on par with screen / shiki-e, which was inspired by a tsute doodle. You can see the doodle and links to tsute's art on the AO3 page.

47. If [taxi] was a pair of shoes, what kind would it be? Describe the shoes.

Her jeans cost more than his weekly pay, hell — monthly— and her sneakers were scuffed and used in a way that hid or emphasised their one-of-a-kind design. Pretty cool. A red tonbo — dragonfly — from what he could see, stretched from the toe, its thorax and segmented body running along one side of the shoe, a blue chrysanthemum and pond reeds rising from the heel and undulating in the air below the insect.

I used a ref for that, but can't remember where I sourced it from.

I changed a few things, and the maker's name is on the jpg, fortunately!

48. What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?

Yes! I recommend it: Ours lives like sand in the gears of the world by @afterdeck-ace (Lily_Amazon). A platonic Law & Robin ficlet that explores the parallels and differences between them so well.

Also, a quick but satisfying read (sounds like Borsalino's possible reflection on Akainu) with this fic, In The Dappled Sun. Lemon mentioned (tumblr's being silly with throwing out community settings left, right and centre, so sorry for the return to FFN vocab). Fic author @kookoofufu

Am continuing to read saltyrock's It Takes a Lot to Know a Man but haven't read the latest chapter yet. LawBin and CrocoBin. Endgame LawBin.

📝 a line or paragraph i’m really happy with 😡 a paragraph/section that gave me a lot of trouble

thought i'd give you both ends of the spectrum there XD ♥

I just answered the first one for @bnessz <3. But it's okay. I've got more than one story! Hope you're having a good holiday season, Gen!

📝 a line or paragraph i’m really happy with:

From the same fic, valuta:

Law's mother folded his fingers around the coin—a piece of copper, not worth much, except for the fortuitous square hole in the middle. "Keep hold of that," she said. He'd unfurled his fingers and she turned the coin in his palm. Streaks like whitebait flitting upstream hadn't marred his skin yet. "It'll help you focus." Lifting the coin and peering through the square, she blinked against the room's light.

I like the whitebait line. I debated including or cutting it so many times. I'm glad I kept it. That whole Law section isn't in the zine, btw, and maybe for the better. I dunno, story might be a bit busy with his scenes, but I like it.

😡 a paragraph/section that gave me a lot of trouble Also from the same fic (to tell the truth, I don't think I wrote so much last year! [that I can remember]):

Maybe all of this, but especially entering the hovel (although the image of extract the pouch with the coin in it from a splintered, rotted door frame was strong in my mind):

A beetle scuttled across the greenery away from the shadow of the small body falling to the lawn. Granules of dirt and blades of grass pushed into Rosinante's mouth as a human smashed a staff across his back. He needed one of those bubble helmets to help with breathing more than anything, but they'd left them all at home. They'd never used them anyway. But maybe if they had, his throat wouldn't be a mess of snot and bile and salt. A bone cracked, arm or skull, not his own. Doflamingo's howls and curses punctuated the dull lift and fall of a body kicked for sport. After they'd paid the price for stealing bread, the brothers limped home, Doflamingo's good arm slung around Rosinante's shoulder. Rosinante's hand slipped on the doorknob. Rancid air rushed to meet Doflamingo's angry breath, wet against his brother's neck, as they stepped inside their hovel. Shaking, Rosinante paused by the entrance to pull a moth-eaten pouch from a splintered recess. Sleep would ease his brother's bruises and tremors; turning the coin, would ease his own.

It still needs some work. Ahahahaha.

After sales for the zine still open, for anyone interested!

Hullo bnessz!

I hope you're having a good holiday season!

a line or paragraph i’m really happy with

Nice choice! Maybe this one from valuta (my piece for the Corazine: aftersales now on!)

Law sought out the irregular and misaligned the world over. Sought clumsy misshapen bits of brass, silver, copper and gold, destined for one path but warped and buckled into another. Travel with Cora would've been a drudge of extinguishing one feathered scrub fire after another, but Law would've taken it in a shot. Even to the next island. Would have worked side by side with his mother and father. Rejoiced as they found a cure for Lami and himself. Whether by luck or design, the crooked coins in his collection had escaped nations and expectations, sidestepped insularities of the heart. To be as free was enticing, terrifying.

They're so bright and pretty! Hello, lovely giraffe 🦒

🎈describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

Okay, I'll double-barrel here: I think that if you ever came across anything anon that I might have written, you'd pretty quickly know it was me, or have an inkling, because I don't do much to hide my style. Most I write past tense, but there are a few present tense stories among those I've uploaded, and that's always a different way of reading and writing. Gotta stay on your toes, and really keep your tenses all lined up with present tense. Bepo's got his own particular voice (he writes fanfiction), and I've written drabbles in first person before (can't remember whose 1st person though!). Writing Doffy is always a ball of fun, and very different from writing Law, etc. I like the News Coo reports in Overlooked and Underpaid (Chopper and Bepo strike for higher bounties), and I also used both a news report chapter, and an autopsy report in A few drops of holy cuckold (very dark fic, so no link), so it was fun to get the right tone. I've got a few outsider perspectives too, and the outsider is say a marine in G5, in Punk Hazrd, or the reporter in Cuckold, and I think I write them well enough to keep the attention on the canon characters without them seeming to be random narrative devices. I think I can be brutal, sweet, funny, etc. but I don't know that that involves a change in writing style. I hope that it changes to match the premise and people, and that I occasionally shake myself up (had a poem that somehow did okay in terms of interaction! That one was a total surprise).

💥find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it.

Aw, this is kinda unfair, cos I just uploaded the other day. However, it is an excerpt from a longer piece, and has Law, Aokiji, and Bleat the goat (Sengoku's goat) all going for a bicycle ride along an Aokiji-frozen river, so I don't think it's gonna have the readers charging in with their kudos and hits! So, here it is: Riding Along on my Pushbike, Honey (You Look so Pretty) 79 hits, 5 kudos, 1 bookmark 🐐 🚲 🐯

🎀give yourself a compliment about your own writing

I get the job done.

I like reading what I've written when I have the final, final, final (to infinity) draft.

Thank you for the ask!

Hey, I just read your fic! And, yeah, lots of true sibling energy between these two, or the best friend that punches your arm and doesn't realise how much it hurts, or they do. Nami, the strongest fighter on the seas when it all boils down to it.

I think I should have also highlighted that "they can fix each other" above too, though I think we only get hints of it in canon, but my memory's not sharp. And maybe the fluff box. I don't mind ZoNa either, but I don't read it much. Another trio here (the original trio) and it's a good one!

If y'all wanna play the game for yourselves, here's the original post.

Okay, I'm gonna have to run with Cavendish & Duval, cos, even though I love Johnny & Yosaku, I came to One Piece piecemeal, and don't really have a strong vibe with them!

Okay, this is a ship made in farcical hell, and even though either character feels that they have suffered more, it's a hell of their own making. If they were to be besties, rather than primps to lovers, then Cavendish might be able to help Duval with that wink thing, if he so desired. Probably out of ...

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

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

Hello!

I have to make my slides, so, y'know, let's answer some asks instead 😁 I hope you're having a fab day.

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

The word 'just' 🤪. I'm actually much better at it now, but I do a CTRL+F on the whole long document to (just) find out how many times I've used it. I've got better. BUT, if I'm a bit more serious, how about Law? I've got a few fics that don't feature him, but not many. Otherwise, I don't really know. I am a bit of a one trick pony in some themes, and I do reuse ideas at times, so I'm sure folks who read a lot of my work see them.

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?

Oh, that's a nice ask. Maybe Softening the Fall of Snow, where Chopper and Law talk about Jolly Rogers, courage and cherry blossoms. It's a bit of a gut-punch too though. Or maybe "screen / shiki-e" where Law makes cherry blossom viewing happen for Chopper, or maybe even the latest excerpt, Riding along on my pushbike, Honey, where Law takes care of himself, and Sengoku's goat, Bleat, and requests (with Ninja starry eyes) that Aokiji do aerial loop-de-loops, or the 2017 fic that that excerpt comes from, with another excerpt, Musicians of Bremen, which discusses Rosi and Bleat. I've got a Zoro and Chopper fic too!

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

Noo! Not that I recall. But I did traumatise them with a cliffhanger on a dark fic once. It was just as covid hit, so I was debating whether to post the resolution in the same chapter or not. I didn't. If I were braver, I would've left that chapter sit for a week, but, ahhh. It wasn't my intention to traumatise anyone, but I knew that the scene would pack a punch.

Thank you for the ask! ✅ 🍦😈 answered. And 🤭 🎉 to be answered.