Name the best book you've read this year:

For kidlit- Wayward Creatures by Dayna Lorentz- it shows an angry white boy make a huge mistake, then go through the Restorative Justice process and make restitution. An incredibly profound novel. Truly foundational for me.

For adult fiction- Say You'll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez. I read it three times this year. Just such a good story.

For non-fic- All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley. Beautiful prose, wonderful descriptions. I love a good memoir, and bringing NYC and the Met into it is the icing on the cake.

8. Favorite queer fiction book(s).

RN it's The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimmons. Trans-positive representation, soccer, young love- all wrapped up in a cute, YA package.

I love to reread Kate Fierro's Love Starved and Laura Stone's The Bones of You.

Ruby Barrett's The Romance Recipe is also great.

EL Massey's Like Real People Do is awesome (the whole series is. Read them ALLLLLL)

Sarina Bowen's The Last Guy on Earth is pretty fun, too.

35. Least favorite trope in your most favorite book genre.

Hello!!! Happy AO3 wrapped to all who celebrate!

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

The man, the myth, the legend himself: Matt Christopher Davis, the main character from my Snowbaz fic Just Some Guy. This fic is the canon of Simon and Baz's time at Watford, told from the perspective of someone who couldn't care less. I loved writing Matty's disinterest and how his priorities in life lie elsewhere.

19. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

I wrote two Class fics this year (or, I published one and the other is almost done, but still being written) and a) it reminded me that I love this show and more people should watch it and b) writing Charlie x Matteusz is a lot of fun, since they have an interesting dynamic. So maybe I will come back to them.

And I have been saying since 2019 that I wanna finish the Zimbits time travel fic. Maybe 2025 will be my year.

27. What do you listen to while writing?

I always want to have some background noise, but I am not too picky about it. Sometimes it's showtunes, sometimes it's game OST, sometimes it's whatever song is playing on Spotify. Only when I have a fic with a soundtrack, like River fic, I tend to listen to that. And now I have named Ever After after Into the Woods and I have listened to the NBC while writing because of it.

Thank you. Have a cat!

Thanks for the Ask :)

8. Have you received anon hate? What about?

I got a badly spelled, grammatically incorrect hate message about how my kid was going to turn out stupid if I homeschooled him. I rolled my eyes and deleted it.

I also got anon hate about a post I'd made where I said that I was surprised that I greatly enjoyed Glee's cover of "Love Shack" because I didn't like the original. Apparently, I am the worst person in the world for not liking the B-52's version. *shaking my evil monster head*

18. Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased?

Nope. People like what they like and don't like what they don't like. Hating on others for their opinions is exhausting. They're fictional characters. One's yuck is another's yum or neutral. There's nothing wrong with that.

23. Unpopular character you love?

Last time hub was visiting his dad in this hospital (for a 7th heart attack) was 2 years ago and they required him to use one of the hospital masks because of all the fake ones out there - to protect the patients.

Anyway, just venting about it and wondering why? I mean, why aside from what I read in the tumblr post about the politicization of masking (anti-maskers) during covid making folks not want to mask for anything, now it's not even being done around vulnerable patients and all the nasties in a hospital?

I just can't. Hub just can't.

@redheadgleek She was Sully from Monsters Inc.

@quizasvivamos @redheadgleek Mood.

I know for sure I was still blocked in February, because I am weak and still send him a birthday wish that never gets delivered. But now I was scrolling through my contacts and yeah. I immediately messaged Real Mercedes who is also wondering why now out of nowhere, after over 4.5 years.

I'm not going to lie, you will be at a disadvantage because we've seen several of the main characters in the animated shows and the plot basically picks up where Rebels season 4 ended. (It's not completely unfair to call this Rebels season 5.)

That being said, I think you could pick it up (at least the broad strokes) because it's really not that complicated. The basic plot is that everyone wants to find two people who went missing at the end of Rebels S4. One is a good guy and one is a bad guy, so everyone's invested.

Of course the most important thing is there are space cats!

Annoying you with my questions and agony! (And getting your replies. And then asking more questions/agonizing more.)

For a more expansive answer, I have loved doing research to the point that I internalize things enough makes the characters and story I'm writing feel authentic--like they are real people with real experiences that I understand and empathize with, even if those experiences don't match my life experiences exactly.