#but i like AUs specifically *because* i have a lot of fun trying to translate canon ideas into another setting or genre in general

[4lph4kidz]

i was thinking about your dirk and hal poll and i want to mention that i think your concept for ink and iron where dirk creates hal from his reflection by enchanting a mirror is so cool 😌

thank you! hal's predicament and purpose within the canon narrative is so fascinating and i felt it was really important to find a way to explore what i find most interesting with him. i can't take full credit for the concept though i took inspiration from a few placees (one of my friends pitched the idea of the mirror accidentally dumping him onto jake's doorstop for example) but overall i think the idea is very fun and i'm really excited to write more hal stuff!!! also i'm going to take the opportunity to share this oldish doodle i found:

the mispelling of angel as angle was NOT intentional (<- dyslexia haver) but it probably explains a lot. he's pointy

#obviously an AU is going to be different from canon #but i like AUs specifically *because* i have a lot of fun trying to translate canon ideas into another setting or genre in general #in this case its a riff on the fairy tale magic mirror #hal is still an experiment gone wrong/artificial being created to serve a purpose trapped in a non-physical form and denied personhood #as well as being an extension of dirk's selfhood and very literal expression of his self image #this time with extra gender problems as per my original intentions for the fic. which now feel more than a bit heavy handed but whatever #point is hal gets to play up the trapped demon/spirit/almost genie-esque angle isntead of the artificial intelligence schtick in canon #which i am having a lot of fun writing! #he is also a very important plot device. multitalented 💕 #for anyone wondering i&i is NOT an abandoned project its just huge and whipping it into shape is slow going #i've taken breaks to work on other stuff too #ink and iron #i guess that's a tag i should start using #even though i'm not too happy with the title still. lmao

[tossawary]

As I post about rereading SVSSS for lore and characterization, and about sometimes ignoring canonical details for the sake of whatever story I want to tell / explore in fanfiction for fun, I want to make it clear that I don't make these changes because I think it makes a "better story" or that I can write a "better story". I don't even like using the term "fix-it" for my canon divergence AUs that avert some in-universe tragedy, even if it is the "correct" fandom term in some cases, because I don't think that SVSSS is a story that needs to be "fixed".

(Honestly, a lot of my minor alterations to canon's details are because I can't remember what exactly canon is and can't always be bothered to hunt for one sentence (which I may or may not remember existing at all) across multiple volumes, especially when I don't always think strict faithfulness to canon is that crucial to the main concept of what I'm doing. I wrote PINTWILF and several other fics before the official English translations were fully released, when checking minor details was an even greater pain in the ass. Sometimes, I'm cooking without the recipe in front of me because I just want to eat.)

Like, I have criticisms of SVSSS, definitely. When I first started writing SVSSS fic, I was more frank about this (fond but less fond of the characters and world than I am now), and I've talked about things I wished the story expanded on more. I think it has flaws. I know those flaws are a dealbreaker for many people. But it's not my story. I can't tell MXTX's story better, because I believe that every author's story belongs to them and only they know what they're trying to achieve, even when I may personally think that the story might have been stronger if it had done something differently or I'm ignoring some minor detail specifically because I don't really like it.

It's awkward, sometimes, occasionally being told by someone that they enjoyed my fic more than the original story. It's very flattering (I can't pretend I don't have an ego) and I don't think anyone means any harm by this, people enjoy stories or don't for many different reasons (enjoyment is not necessarily an indication of quality and I think engaging with fandom can often be more fun than just reading a story on its own by yourself), but it is a little awkward, especially when SVSSS is not an English / western story. I have an advantage appealing to western readers. Reading a translation of the original story, I know there are details of SVSSS going over my heard, references I'm missing, nuances I don't recognize, even as I endeavor to keep learning. I personally enjoy some of my fics more than SVSSS itself because I associate them with good experiences and a lot of them appeal to me personally in some way or another (all of my favorite tropes! we all have favorite tropes!), but they are built on the back of someone else's original work on the other side of the world, and I want to be respectful of that.

I don't want to compete or fix. I'm not trying to compete or fix, I think I would fuck it up if anyone seriously set that task on me, and I don't think that's a good way to view anything. I want to explore and appreciate. I'll type up a lengthy post at some point as to why I'm generally not interested in concrit on my fics (honestly, mostly it's because I'm not interested in being told that a reader hates the present tense and wishes I would rewrite the entire story, which has happened to me before), but I hope that doesn't come off as disinterest in the original story or its cultural context, or as me thinking even a little bit that any of my stories are flawless and/or better than the original.

I want to make a "why would you put two bad bitches (compliment) against each other like this?" joke here, but I also want to be clear: I think MXTX is by far the badder bitch (compliment) in this situation.

(Turning off reblogs, btw, because this post skews more on the personal side.)

#tossawary svsss #tossawary fandom #long post

[osachiyo]

please for the love of god, read my rules before interacting/requesting.

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒

do not steal/copy/repost/translate ANY of my works. plagiarism is not cool.

I write and interact with nsfw stuff so minors (-18) please don't interact with my blog. I am not responsible for anything you consume on the internet.

this blog contains dark content. if you are uncomfortable with that, I suggest you click off and don't attack me. just because I think something is hot in fiction, that does not mean I condone such acts in real life. fiction is not reality, keep that in mind.

be patient while requesting. I have a life outside of tumblr and this is not my first priority. please remember this is just my hobby, not a full time job and don't rush me/demand things from me because I will most likely ignore your ask if you do.

be nice. I write for fun, please remember that. writers don't owe you anything, and I'm not being paid to do this, so have decent manners while requesting

please refrain from trauma-dumping in my askbox. While I do love talking to you guys, please refrain from sending me extreme stuff. I understand if you are going through something, but I am a stranger on the internet, not your therapist.

any anon hate, threats or bullshit like that will be ignored or I'll most likely clown on you.

don't bring any drama in my askbox, especially not about other creators. this is a writing blog and we're just here to be horny and read stuff, not partake in any drama's.

absolutely no kind of discourse. but I will speak up if I sense some bs going 'round and esp if it involves my moots.

refrain from giving me criticism unless it is asked for.

be specific but not too specific please, like paragraphs after paragraphs. only a few sentences should suffice.

don’t spam like me. if i spot that someone’s spam liking my work without a single reblog, it’s a block. if I spot you liking 5+ posts without a single reblog, you'll get blocked. remember, likes don't share my work, reblogs do :)

if you're gonna send me fanart that doesn't belong to you, please please PLEASE credit the artist in the ask, or just don't send it at all.

please don’t spam my inbox. i receive lots of asks and i try to answer as many. sending me constant asks makes things harder for me and doesn't increase the chance of me responding to you. i’ll delete them or just ignore them to avoid spam.

𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐀 𝐌𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐋

if you wanna break mutuals then hard block me. if you soft block i'll most likely think it's a glitch and follow you again. please DON'T just unfollow and have me still following you.

please don't feel offended or attacked if i block you.

if you have a problem with me, don't be shy to dm me about it. don't subpost about me, because i WILL see it. let's handle shit like adults, yeah?

tba

Stuff I don't write ↓

amab/male reader + etc, pseudo/step-cest/incest, necro, vore, character x character, age regression, lolicon/shotacon, ddlg, foot fetish, bukkake, gang bangs, pedophilia, Mori, breast feeding, watersports, piss kink, domestic abuse, brainwashing, scat, cbt, food play, snowballing, race play, m-preg, knotting, bestiality, eating disorders, wound fucking, heavy bleeding, milf! reader, shock play, shoe licking, high school au! setting (nsfw), panty sniffing, sounding, race/color specified reader, oc's, SUKUNA, aging up minors etc. — these are subjected to change.

any confusions? don't be afraid to throw me an ask !

↪ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐒

#𖤐 chiyoh → rules

[sensitiveheartless]

20 questions for fic writers!

Tagged by @feralrookie! :D Thank you for the tag!!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

10! (technically, kinda)

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

379,547

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Bungou Stray Dogs! It's also the first fandom I've written for, actually. :D

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

This is how it feels to take a fall (Dazai goes feral, time shenanigans)

Plate :( (Dazai breaks a plate, experiences emotions)

Dazai and the Moving Detective Agency (Howl's Moving Castle AU)

Chuunyaa's Pawsitively Catastrophic Day (Chuuya is turned into a cat, it's short and pretty much just shenanigans)

Wish in one hand (First fic I wrote, and the first one I posted — Dazai has emotions about handholding)

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

I try to, but I've been absolutely terrible at it lately — whenever I'm particularly stressed I start worrying that the negative emotions are going to leak through into what I'm writing and make my tone sound weird, so then I end up turtling in on myself and not saying anything at all, no matter how much I want to engage with people. It's a bad habit, and I want to work on it, so I'm gonna try to catch up on comments! (I treasure every single one of the ones I receive, so for anyone who has left a comment and hasn't gotten a response from me yet, thank you and I am very sorry about my inability to form words in a timely manner skdjfksd)

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

Probably An Unsent Letter, since it's pretty much just a short snippet of Dazai being sad while he's leaving the mafia. And even with that one, I have in my head that skk still get together after the four years apart, I just didn't write it. I am dreadful with sad endings — although the ending to "This is how it feels to take a fall" is a little bittersweet, perhaps.

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

Hmm...I'm gonna say Dazai and the Moving Detective Agency, because it's the one with the longest buildup, so I think it has the most catharsis, at least for me! But I tend to give all of my fics happy endings because, as established, I am a wimp when it comes to hardcore angst. I will say that Zut Alors I Have Missed One is probably a contender for happiest as well, just because that fic had no angst whatsoever and was just Unhinged

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Nope! Everyone's been lovely! I have gotten some for my art, but honestly it was pretty toothless and I couldn't take it seriously lol

9. Do you write smut?

...Yeh. :0 There was an attempt, at least — one fic, and I made it anonymous (so on the extreme off-chance that anyone notices a discrepancy between my total ao3 wordcount listed here and the summed up wordcounts of the fics viewable on my profile, that's why!) It's also another fic I need to finish, I hit my writing roadblock with that one at the same time as all my others, and it's almost doneeee I just need my brain to cooperate >:|

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not any proper crossovers, only things like the Howl AU and the Little Mermaid AU, where I took the settings/plots and put in BSD characters.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

...Possibly? I'm not actually sure, I've given a couple people permission, but I'm not sure if anything came of that, I haven't heard one way or another :0 I do have a tendency to use puns, which I realize might make things difficult for translations

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

No, not so far — and given how tempestuous my schedule has been, it'll probably be a while before I attempt anything like that! Sounds fun, though

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

...I mean, it's gotta be soukoku, because for all that I've enjoyed a lot of fictional pairings before (for example, Howl and Sophie specifically from the HMC books, Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing — I like bickering duos, what do you know — Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, currently falling down the Hualian rabbithole because I'm reading Heaven Official's Blessing with my friend, and there's lots of other ones), for as much as I like all those, I haven't really had much of an urge to write anything for them.

So, purely in terms of me wanting to mess around with two characters and write them over and over and over again, it's really only skk! They hit the exact right combination of braincells, I guess lololol

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but probably won't?

Hmmm...honestly, most of my WIPs I still intend to finish at some point or another — first priority being the ones I've already started posting, of course! Although...just due to time constraints, I might not get around to writing the thief!Chuuya/detective!Dazai one I was planning a while back. (and I mean a WHILE lol) I didn't write very much of it, and honestly most of the reason I wanted to write it was for comedy — so maybe I'll turn it into a short comic series instead, because I do think some of the bits were funny :0

16. What are your writing strengths?

That's a hard one; I tend to look more at the ways I want to improve my writing then at what I like about it, and I nitpick just about everything I create, art and writing alike. But if I had to pick something, I would probably say dialogue? That tends to be what I write easiest, at least. I still want to get better at that too, though.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions and action scenes. I've been making myself write them more, so I think I'm slowly improving (the Howl AU has been great for that! It pushed me to write all sorts of scenes I wouldn't have normally :D ), but those two things remain what I get bogged down by the most.

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

Depends on the circumstances, I think? I'd include translations if I did. I do tend to include Japanese honorifics when I'm writing in the canon universe, because there's not really english equivalents and it feels like I'm leaving something out when I just do their names straight — although I did take them out when I was doing the Howl AU and the Little Mermaid AU, just as a setting thing.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Bungou Stray Dogs — like I mentioned in the ship section, this is the first fandom where I've really felt the urge. Although I did write things when I was little that very blatantly yoinked in various creatures and concepts from the things I was reading and watching, which resulted in stories with pirates and weeping angels and Ringwraiths all running around in the same place. But I didn't usually bother with bringing in actual characters from those pieces of media, or even using the settings, I just made ocs and had them run around in my own made up world.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I like all of them for different reasons, but I think my favorite overall has to be Dazai and the Moving Detective Agency. It's the longest thing I've ever written, and when I started out I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it — so the fact that it's most of the way done (currently chipping away at the epilogue, it is getting to be a LOT of words) makes me really happy. And it's just been so much fun! Writing characters I hadn't before, piecing the world together, working out the magic system, writing Dazai being a mess and Chuuya being cool, it's all been a blast. And I seriously need to finish the epilogue, because the followups are living in my brain and they demand to be freed aksdfjksdjfk

But yeah! I'm not sure how many writers I know on here have already been tagged, so I'll just go open tags on this one! :D If any of y'all write and feel like doing this, then go for it!

#tag game #senhart rambles #senhart's writing #long post

[bonefall]

Ask Etiquette

HELLO sorry for the intimidating post lmao, I just need something to toss up on the masterpost because I feel bad deleting asks and then people will never really have an idea of why I never answered them

I get a ton of asks (usually anywhere from 10 - 20 a day!) and I'm not able to get to them all! I try to answer as many as possible but I'm still just one guy. So with that in mind, there are some sorts of asks I will simply not answer, and some 'requests' I have for people who send them in;

Please keep your asks short PLEASE try not to send me essays if you want a response; I still love reading them! But if you send me walls of text/analysis you are asking me to write a lot in response, which I'd rather spend on actually writing or designing cats. (On that note if you send a bunch of questions at once, the likelihood I respond goes down.)

Do not send me personal questions Listen... I'm a stranger on the internet. I'm overjoyed to see when my art connects with people and helps you realize things! But don't ask me sensitive questions like how to move out of your abusive parents' house!! PLEASE learn internet safety and get less comfortable with volunteering that kind of information to people you don't know!

Do not ask me personal questions you do not need to know what i study or where i work. get less comfortable asking these sorts of questions to queer people on the internet, especially when they talk openly about having previously been abused or stalked. (not that a person should even need to be as open about that as i am)

If I don't have a good response I won't answer Especially for suggestions I don't vibe with. I try to only say "No" if I have a particularly interesting "No" to talk about, if that makes sense! If I had to write a full explanation for every veto or idea I don't vibe with, this blog would be 90% what isn't in BB.

No AUs within the AU. "What if Hawkfrost survived his impalement? What if Firestar never joined? What if Tigerstar was never born?" Listen, buddy, you're creating an exponential distraction for possible ways the story could have gone and I'm not looking to write several essays for the literal hundreds of alternative ways Clan history could have been written. It takes you 5 words to ask "What if X never died" but it takes me paragraphs to answer. (This isn't about suggestions btw, I very specifically mean ppl asking hypotheticals for fun.)

Don't be rude. I feel like this should go without saying but please mind the parasocial gap. Especially if you're on anon, I don't know you, your backstory, or your cadence.

And, lastly, CLANMEW ASKS!!

I make a hard effort to get to everyone!! Those are published on Clanmew Day (WHICH IS NOW JUST GOING TO BE THE 30TH OF EVERY MONTH SO THAT IT'S LESS CONFUSING) but PLEASE understand I get a ton of them.

As I write this I have more than 26 tabs open of unanswered Clanmew asks, a lot more in my inbox, and 9 already in the queue. So that you understand the sheer volume of asks I have there.

If I didn't get to you that month, chances are that I'll get to you on the next, but please understand why I ask for folks to not re-send asks

So here's Clanmew-specific requests;

PLEASE just try a translation on your own first! Don't just send me raw lists of OCs to translate, give it a go first using the Lexicon, just so I can see you tried. I will happily and gladly make more specific words for you when I see you try!

When you send OCs you've translated, ask me for a new word at the end if you didn't already in your list. Just in case I can't think of a witty comment or a word suggestion, you will help me a lot

Please try to format with lists like this one Folks will send me double or triple-indented lists and it will take up my entire screen when they've only sent like, 5 names. Remember that posts you send to me go on people's dashes, be considerate please You can open a list like this by starting a new paragraph, typing -, and then an immediate space. Hold Shift + Enter to indent without adding another bullet.

If you could put "Clanmew" somewhere in your ask, like even if you open up with "Clanmew: Here is my question blah blah," it would help immensely I physically can't get to every ask I receive on Clanmew Day, so if you have "Clanmew" in your ask somewhere, it makes it a lot easier for me to find it when I can finally answer! I really wish Tumblr had ways to sort asks, but currently, I've just gotta make due with Cntrl + F.

#I currently have 900+ asks btw #Bone Babble #EDIT: See that 900+ number? It's now actually 1100+

[pokemon-ash-aus]

I absolutely ADORE your Teacher Assistant!au, do you have anymore art or hc's for it?

I dooo!!! God what did i write last time? I dint remember so here's a lil baby Eevee eventually evolving!!

Headcanons:

-Ash's Aura isnt something he can turn off EXCEPT when he's under extreme stress or duress that he can't handle. It's akin to a Sensory Overload for him, everything gets muted and it feels like he looses his ability to hear and see even though its still there.

- Pikachu is crazy expierenced and strong, he doesnt tell the Newbies that he's beat up legendaries because he wants them to see him as the fun- if slightly crazy- friend and partner!

- Ash actually has a lot of Eggs back at the farm because of his pokemon either, a) Populating or b)finding eggs at random.

-Because screw Gender evo's. Gender Specific pokemon have a branched evo that is either Nonbinary or including a Male line. The primary account being Bounsweet!

- Ash's Pokemon all know (at least) one move out of their Species normal repitoire. Bukbasaur with Dig and Gust, Charizard with all 3 Elemental Punches, Squirtle with Dragon Pulse. They're not overly good with it, its a lot of testing and mostly used as a last minute resort wih lots of build up.

-The kids recognize that Ash isnt that much older than them and they know he's barely considered their senior but they cant help but admire how he acts and talks and the stories and lessons he can teach. Its better when Ash fully admits he doesnt understand something and asks them questions about it, it makes them feel like he truly sees them as friends (he does)

-There's another student joining in that has yet to be seen (But they are a canon character) mostly for an even amount of students.

- Ash and Lusamine have major beef with eachother. Its hatred on first sight. They do not become friends, they don't become buddy buddy, Ash barely tolerates her and even that drops when she's good and grants the students Ultra Guardian status. *They're CHILDREN Lusamine!*

- Ash is very touch affectionate with his students. Pats of affirmation, small side hugs, shoulder nudging etc. He's not onto full on hugs of comfort, that gives him the heeby jeebies but its still more affection than most of the students are used to.

- Dont be fooled Ash may be expierenced and has stories to boot, But he's still an idiot. "That's an Oxymoron!" "Dont call the strategy a moron, they cant defend themselves!"

- Ash typically defaults to it for Pokemon until he knows them personally. He's especially vicious with correcting older folk on pronouns just to piss them off, most pokemon dont really care but at times its a sweet gesture, especially if the folks are particularly nasty.

- Ash has met Viren before and vice versa. It was a brief meeting on a boat and both of them left extremely bitter about it. Ash comoletely forgot about Viren but Viren remenbers Ash as that "15 year old Brat!" its extremely funny to have a one sided hatred when the other party barely remenbers you

- Ash is bad at matching names to faces, but its not malicious. If you dont see him everyday, he's bound to forget

- Ash and his pokemon speak a lot of languages, but only he and Pikachu can really read, and even then its still trial and error. He has a lot of moments of pausing and trying to translate on slower days.

- Pikachu has trained to be able to feel aura and see like his partner. Its no where near as strong as Ash's and it drains him fast, but he wants to know what Ash sees and feels.

That's all i got for now :D

#pokemon #teachers assistant au #Ask

[hils79]

Catching up on some of the things I've been tagged in. Some of these are very old. So sorry. I'm crap.

Fic author interview! I was tagged by the fantastic @lynne-monstr

No-pressure tagging: @pangzi @foxofninetales @merinnan @killerandhealerqueen @strandedchesspiece @thesilversun @silver-colour

How many works do you have on AO3?

266 as of now

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,467,370 words however some of those words are on collaborative fics. I don't know how to filter out the ones I wrote by myself but it's well over the 1,000,000 mark and that makes me happy

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Unleashed  (MCU, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers) - 801 kudos

Visible to All But Me - (DMBJ, Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling) - 666 kudos (ehehe 😈)

The Truth About Cats, Dogs and Penguins - (Men's Hockey RPF. Evgeni Malkin/Sidney Crosby) - 621 kudos

In which Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are surprisingly capable parents - (MCU, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers) - 530 kudos

Not The Russian Way- (The Man From UNCLE movie, Ilya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo/Gaby Teller) - 516 kudos

I find it fascinating that a DMBJ fic is in my top 5. The other fics are all pretty old and in large and popular fandoms. I think it was just good timing in that I posted when a lot of people who have since moved on to other fandoms were into DMBJ off the back of Ultimate Note airing.

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

I try! I think it's just polite to at least say thank you. Occasionally I do forget of miss one though.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don't really do sad or angsty endings

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Yeah, pretty much all of them.

7. Do you write crossovers?

Very rarely. I think all my crossovers have been co-written with other people.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not hate exactly, but somone once accused me of plagiarism because I posted a fic with vaguely similar themes to one of theirs. Luckily for me this was back in the LJ days where there was a comm specifically for reviewing accusations of plagiarism where independent people would review both fics. Of course they ruled in my favour but it was really fucking upsetting at the time.

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

I have, but I prefer not to.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware of.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! Someone translated one of my MCU fics into Chinese which made me very happy.

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

Yes, a bunch of times! It can be really fun if you get along well with the people you're writing with.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

That's like asking me what my favourite fandom is. My favourite ship is whatever ship I am into at the time.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

RIP my au for The Untamed where Lotus Pier was a hotel that famous musician Lan Wangji came to stay in while he was on tour.

15. What are your writing strengths?

Probably dialogue or soft domestic fluff

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Description. A beta reader recently commented that in one of my fics I hadn't actually described what anyone looks like. I just want them to talk and kiss, okay?

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Not full dialogue, no, but now that I've started writing in Chinese fandoms I think there are some words that can be used. Generally only terms of address, though. Like someone calling someone 'laoban'

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

I do still kind of want to write some Mysterious Lotus Casebook fic. At least one at any rate.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written

Juxtaposition (DMBJ, Wang Pangzi/Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling)

I don't generally write AUs, and I definitely have never written anything close to this long before. It took me a year to write it and I am very proud of it.

#tagged #lynne-monstr

[mydemonsdrivealimo]

Boys Don't Cry Answer the Web's Most Searched Questions

Book/Fandom: Open Heart,, adjacent?

Character(s): Jensen Valentine (MC), Aliyah Hudson (OC), Cyrus Young (OC)

Rating: Teen

Words: 2346

Summary: Band AU - Jensen, Aliyah, and Cy answer questions in a Wired Autocomplete Interview

A/N: yes this is literally the first band au post ive made so have fun w it

~~~~~

“Hi everyone, we’re Boys Don't Cry,” the three of them said, perfectly synchronized and only after half a million takes.

“And this is the Wired Autocomplete interview!” Liyah finished with a smile. “I’m Aliyah, and I use she/her pronouns.”

“Jensen, he/him.”

“And Cyrus, but you can call me Cy, and I use they/them pronouns!” 

Liyah took the first board after a beat, reading half of the first question suspensefully. “Does Boys Don't Cry…” she forcefully ripped off the paper, sticking it to Jensen’s shoulder, “sing in Spanish? Yes! We do.”

“I do,” Jensen corrected, casting her a glance. “Liyah’s Spanish is shit. Either I do it or have to give her the translation.”

“Shut up,” she said, ripping off the next paper. “Do Boys Don't Cry members have any tattoos?”

“Hell yes,” Cy answered, already brandishing their arms. 

“God, I can’t even imagine how many we have put together,” Liyah said, counting some on her legs through her fishnets and trying to mentally add the rest. Jensen just shrugged at the camera, letting the others try and come up with a number.

He took the board from Liyah as he waited, pulling off the next piece of paper. “Do Boys Don't Cry dye their hair?” He read. “Nope, this—” he gestured towards the purple streak in his hair “—all natural.”

“At least 50 between the two of us,” Liyah said, looking over to see that Jensen had already moved on. “Dick. Anyway, yeah we have little hair dye nights at Cy’s place.”

“Aka we’re cheap as fuck and do it in my bathroom instead of going to a decent salon,” Cy clarified with a sarcastic sort of smile.

“Yeah, it’s actually in our contract under the ‘Team Bonding’ clause.”

Liyah nodded in confirmation at Jensen’s comment, taking the paper off the last question. “Why is Boys Don't Cry called that?”

“Because boys don't cry, of course,” Cy answered and took the board to throw away.

Adding on, Jensen continued, “Yeah, and we just really like The Cure.”

Liyah rolled her eyes with a smile before giving a real answer. “If you even care,” she started sarcastically, knowing this was one of the most asked questions they got, “it’s actually supposed to be a joke on the saying ‘boys don't cry.’ A lot of the songs we make address bigger issues, like social stigmas and institutional problems, and Jensen specifically had more of a personal connection to that one. Not only did it fit us, but the name itself is easy to remember, too. Essentially, a lot of what we’re doing is going against things like that, so it worked.”

Jensen gave a jokingly awkward thumbs up, waiting a moment for the next board. In the meantime, Liyah took the stack of papers and set them on Jensen’s arm while Cy pulled off the piece of paper.

“Is Boys Don't Cry lgbt?”

Liyah’s head immediately snapped up, answering right into the camera. “If you think we’re not, you’re literally in denial. I mean, have you seen us?” she asked, gesturing vaguely with one hand to Cy, then doing the same to Jensen, before presenting herself with a flourish.

“Yeah, that is kinda on y’all if you didn’t notice,” Cy added, Jensen nodding in agreement.

“I’m aroace,” Liyah started before gesturing and looking towards Jensen. “Jensen’s…whatever the fuck he is, and Cy is nonbinary and bi.”

Cy nodded before reading the next question, tossing the paper onto the floor. “Is Boys Don't Cry American?”

Cy and Aliyah looked to Jensen. “Oh, uh, yeah, we are. I’m the only one not from the states; I was born in Colombia, moved here when I was like six.”

Reading the next with a smile, Cy asked, “Is Boys Don’t Cry problematic?”

“Of course we are. We’re queer and in an alt band, that’s basically the whole criteria,” Jensen answered in a flat tone.

Cy moved on without a beat. “Has Boys Don’t Cry broken up?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Liyah answered, the three of them giving a timed, synchronized look to the camera, then each other. 

“Maybe it’s time to come out with our plan to kick her out, huh?” Cy asked, leaning around Liyah to see Jensen.

“Yeah, I guess. We were just gonna keep doing the tour but pretend you don’t exist the whole time so eventually you’d just descend into madness and your fame would slowly dwindle.”

Liyah gave them both a look at the utterly blank expressions on their faces, Cy hiding a laugh after a long second of eye contact but Jensen still holding up strong. Aliyah just shook her head before slapping the board out of Cy’s hand as Jensen took the next one, Aliyah’s name in the search bar.

“Is Aliyah Hudson from Chicago?”

“Born and raised, yes. I grew up in an outer suburb but now we live in the city,” she said with a smile.

“Aliyah—” Jensen practically coughed out a laugh, taking a breath to recompose himself before finishing. “Aliyah Hudson paparazzi incident.”

“Fuck off! I knew they’d ask this.” She wiped her hands down her face, sighing. “Like, last year or something, we were coming out of a show through the back exit. We didn’t think paparazzi were allowed in the back since we were doing a little meet and greet, and I accidentally hit one of them in the face with the door.”

Cy was giggling already, continuing with, “And it wasn’t like a nice door, it was a huge metal industrial door and she absolutely smacked this poor guy. Literally knocked him on his ass. Jensen and I were too busy laughing to help him up.”

Liyah tried to push Cy off their chair while Jensen continued. “Does Aliyah Hudson write her music?”

“Sometimes!” she said, casually moving back to her spot as Cy tried to readjust to stay on their chair. “Most of the writing is actually Jensen and Cy, but I help here and there. A lot of what I do is production and the actual music part of it.”

“Last one,” Jensen said, struggling with the paper but crumpling it up and tossing it at her when he finally got it. “Aliyah Hudson guitar.”

“Oh my god, child mentioned!” she said excitedly, bouncing a little in her chair, “If you don’t know, I’ve been decorating my Fender with different stickers and designs from the different cities we’ve been to on tour. I cleaned it and started new for this tour, and I’ve been updating it every show on my Instagram.”

Jensen tossed the board away, Cy taking the next one from the other side. 

“Boys Don’t Cry style evolution.”

“Ooh, cute,” Liyah commented. “So, I’m taking this as fashion style because we are a glam rock band. I think we all started pretty lowkey, but now that we’ve kept going at it, I know I have definitely started to include more color in my looks.”

“Yeah, Jensen definitely still wears the most black, but I do appreciate seeing some sparkles every once in a while,” Cy said as Jensen watched the two of them converse. 

Aliyah continued, “I definitely have more of a grungy, kinda boho look outside of the band, and I’ve let that influence my style in the band.”

“Over time, we’ve moved away from the full emo vampire look, and more moved into the grunge, refined vampire look.” Jensen gave a nod of agreement to Cy before they read the next question.

“Boys Don’t Cry 2024 world tour”

“Happening right now,” Jensen said, not about to elaborate further until Aliyah did it for him. 

“We’re in California, LA specifically, and once we finish the rest of the west coast we’re going to Mexico, South America, Japan, a few other Asian countries, Oceania, and Europe.”

“I only remembered like three of those, so I’m glad you did it,” Cy said happily before moving onto the next one. “What are Boys Don’t Cry concerts like?”

“Amazing, fantastic, and wonderful, of course!” Aliyah answered.

“Depending on the crowds, there’s occasionally pits, but usually they’re pretty chill. Further towards the back is usually safer if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Yeah, and always wear ear protection!” Cy tacked onto the end. “We love doing heavy bass and it can be really loud, so make sure you’re prepared. Otherwise, it’s pretty standard, lots of flashing lights, super glittery—the normal stuff.”

Cy tossed out the board and Jensen took the next one.

“Oh yay look, it’s the love of my life,” Jensen said, the search bar displaying Cyrus’ name this time. “Is Cy Young…” he took off the paper, giving a tilt of his head that said he figured they’d be getting that question. “Is Cy Young deaf?”

“Hard of hearing, actually!” they answered cheerily but let their tone drop to more informational. “For interviews like this, I usually wear my hearing aid just because it’s easier production-wise,” they twisted their head, showing it off. “Usually, though, when I’m with Liyah and Jen, we just sign.”

Jensen ripped off the next one. “Who is Cy Boys Don’t Cry?”

“Wow, so detailed,” they commented with a sarcastic little smirk. “I’m in my twenties, I was born in California, and moved to Chicago when I was twelve. My parents immigrated from the Philippines, I’ve been playing the drums since I was seven, and now I’m here.” They smiled at the end before looking to Jensen for the next question.

Jensen pulled off the paper and smiled before even reading it. “Is Cy Young dating Jensen Valentine?”

Cy let out a short cackle of a laugh, quickly turning into mock disappointment. “No, unfortunately.”

“We will keep pretending just to piss people off, though.”

“It’s so fucking funny; we’ve had people asking forever, so we just keep feeding into it,” Cy finished after bouncing off Jensen, waiting for the last question. 

“Cyrus Young aesthetic.”

“Oh hell yeah, I got this. It’s actually just recovering middle school emo with a touch,” they said, adding a flourish with their hand, “of gay. But really, any middle school emo is already gay, so just take it up a little notch.”

“Realest shit I’ve ever heard,” Aliyah said.

Jensen nodded as Liyah took the board from him, throwing it behind herself. She took the next one, ripping off the first paper. “‘Which member of Boys Don't Cry has the highest net worth?’ Eh, I feel like talking about money is kinda tacky—”

“Oh fuck, Liyah, I think?” Jensen interrupted, clearly trying hard to think about it.

“Bitch,” she said, looking over at him judgmentally.

Jensen just gave her a look for a long second. “…I didn’t listen to you at all, if that’s what you’re yelling at me about.”

Liyah sighed out a curse under her breath before moving to the next one. “Are the members of Boys Don’t Cry—” Cyrus cut her off with a laugh, reading ahead. “—in a throuple?”

“Yes,” Jensen answered, expression entirely blank, and the others were perfectly satisfied with it.

“Can the members of Boys Don’t Cry play any other instruments? Yeppers, we can. I play guitar and piano.”

“I can play the drums and a little piano, too. Also trumpet,” Cy answered, looking to Jensen for the last one. 

“Yeah, I play bass, piano, and clarinet. Oh, and I do a lot of our synths and other cuts in our setlist between songs.”

“How did the Boys Don't Cry members meet?”

“This is such a gross question,” Cy said before Liyah could answer.

“We met in high school,” she said with a mock shudder. “Do you know how long I’ve known them? That’s a long time. They’re like parasites.”

“Says you,” Jensen commented. “Who’s the one who’s always at my house eating my fucking leftovers?”

“Cy, obviously,” Liyah answered guiltily before tossing it to the side. Finally, they reached the last question board, Jensen’s name at the top this time. “OOOH! Jenny this one’s all about you,” she said excitedly, pulling it onto her lap and out of Jensen’s hand.

“Aw, my favorite boyfriend,” Cy joked.

Liyah started reading as she struggled to get all the rips of paper off the rest of the question. “Is Jensen Valentine…nice?”

Jensen barely even opened his mouth before Cy leaned forward in their chair, accusationally answering, “Fuck no!”

“Real,” Liyah added on.

Jensen looked away from them, expression on his face saying enough. “And I’m the mean one,” he said into the camera.

Cy reached over and pulled off the next one, their bracelets jingling as they crumpled up the paper and threw it at Jensen. “Is Jensen Valentine dating?”

Liyah and Cy both whipped their heads towards him. “I—stop,” he said towards them before looking back to the camera, “not really, no. I don’t really date when we’re on tour.”

“Last one!” Liyah said, happily pulling the cover off. “Has Boys Don't Cry—” she interrupted herself with a cackle of a laugh, Cy turning the board towards themself to see then laughing too. 

“Oh my god,” Jensen said under his breath, rolling his eyes and even getting a little smile out. “‘Has Boys Don't Cry Jensen never really cried?’” he read before looking back up to Liyah and Cy, “My therapist ghost wrote that.”

“She probably Googles it after all your sessions,” Liyah said, still laughing. 

“Literally.” He turned back to look at the camera, “Anyway, no. Not once in my entire life have I cried,” he answered, tone utterly flat. “I’m actually an emotionless robot.”

“True and real, we picked him up from the lab,” Cy added with a smile towards the camera. 

Jensen reached over Liyah, throwing the board to the side. “Shit, sorry!” he said, smacking his hand over his mouth as it went farther than intended, flying like a frisbee far off screen. 

Cy rolled their eyes. “Clearly he’s defective, though.”

Jensen leaned in front of Liyah, shooting them a glare. They smiled at him and blew a quick kiss.

“Anyway,” Liyah said, starting the outro. “We’re Boys Don’t Cry, and thanks for watching!”

~~~~~

@jerzwriter @cariantha @kyra75 @gutsfics @inlocusmads @lilyoffandoms

#jensen valentine #aliyah #cyrus cy #band au #open heart mc

[benevolenterrancy]

Fic author interview!

Thanks for tagging me @morporkian-cryptid I'm taking a leaf out of your book and being a bit late responding, oops ;;; (also, like my last one, posting this on my art/writing blog despite getting tagged on my other blog :P)

@meso-mijali @rose-of-pollux @yarrayora @sorrel-scribbles @auxiliarydetective @pazithigallifreya

1 How many works do you have on AO3?

76!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

667,467 apparently, which feels like way more than I expected. Then again, I also didn't expect to have seventy six fics on there either...

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Lost In Translation (7,256 kudos) An Overwatch fic. I was baffled when it did as well as it did while I was actively posting it and frankly I'm not sure how to deal with the fact that it's still head and shoulders above every other fic I've written. I think it must be from people sorting by kudos and creating a weird positive feedback loop.

How To Torment Cats (And Witchers) (2,124 kudoes) A very light-hearted Witcher one-shot with Ciri and Dandelion

Standard-Issue (1,143 kudos) Another Overwatch fic, this one about McCree's recruitment into Overwatch

Sunlight and Sea Foam (1,102 kudos) A Witcher mermaid!au. This one I'm still pretty pleased with, it was a lot of fun to write.

Mark My Place (952 kudos) A post-canon MDZS fic in which I get to lavish love on Wei Wuxian! A pretty impressive kudo count given that it's only a few months old

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

Generally I try to! I really appreciate getting comments and I want to let people know that <3 Fandom is the most fun when it's a community and the only way to get that is to actually connect with people. Also I personally appreciate it when an author responds to comments when a new chapter drops because it helps me keep track of fic updates, so I often do that too for on-going stories :3

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don't really go in for anything without a happy ending ^^;; Maybe In My Hands I Held The World purely because I didn't finish it and stopped writing in the middle of the all the hurt and never made it to the comfort? Or Promises Misconstrued just by virtue of it.... well, being what it is.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

We only believe in happy endings here!! I really couldn't narrow it down, I like a happy ending... The Celestial Shell Game was a pretty recent one MDZS fic that was just pure post-canon fix-it and reconciliation and lightly bullying the juniors

7. Do you write crossovers?

I do from time to time, but most aren't ever cleaned up or completed to the point of posting -- they're just Fun For Me fics.

My only completed crossover is a Torchwood/MASH fic called An Officer's Guide to Surgery, Shelling & Pterosaurs. It was honestly just a wild ride to write. Very proud of how that one turned out

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

A bit, but not for years. The only one I specifically remember was someone who was very unhappy that I wasn't including individual chapter content warnings, I guess because they've never read a novel?

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

Not often, I am Very Ace, but it does happen occasionally. Bound and Held was my most recent one, which was really just 20k of pure kink exploration because Geralt and Dandelion just have the vibe

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so...

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

One! An old Les Mis fic got translated into Chinese years back :3 that was very flattering that someone would want to go to that amount of effort

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

Me and @meso-mijali will co-write stuff from time to time, but nothing that's ever made it to completion. I do use her relentlessly to help me solve plot dilemmas (or make new plot dilemmas, depending on how things are going)

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Could not tell you, 100% depends on sort of mood I'm in sorry xD I bounce all over the place. At the moment I am deeply into wangxian, to the surprise of no one following me on tumblr at the moment

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Well, any of my three current fics I'd love to make some progress on >:/ but I'm still hopeful about getting them finished, albeit slowly and painfully. I have a Hogan's Heroes dating sim that me and @meso-mijali have been working on but the longer it goes undone the more I suspect it never will be *sigh* it took so much planning but it's hard to pick up again in the middle. I also had a Lupin soulmate au called Mosiac that I feel bad about dropping. I still quite like the concept but I'm stuck on where to go next with it...

15. What are your writing strengths?

Uhh... I dunno, there must be something because people seem to enjoy my work well enough but I'll be damned if I know what it is. I think I write high intensity, sensory-based scenes pretty well? At least I like doing them a lot. And I get complimented on my character voices sometimes, so hopefully that!

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Pacing >:/ I will ramble and ramble and ramble and then need to go back and cull things until I have a fic that's even halfway readable. It's so hard to get good pacing down.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Big fan, I'm always here for a bilingual bonus. Either I understand it and get a little thrill out of it or else I just google translate it real quick. As for me writing it I generally don't because I don't want to fuck it up beyond reason... sometimes I might dabble with French if it's character appropriate.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Les Mis! I'm too terrified to reread anything from my Les Mis era because god only knows what my writing was like back then, but it was such a warm and welcoming fandom it's what finally gave me the nerve to starting engaging in fandom space as more than observer

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

...I'm not sure I have one, if I want to write about something I generally do, even if I don't get it to be "publishing" worthy... Maybe Hogan/Kinch? I really like that ship, but I've never written much Hogan's Heroes fic to begin with, I think I only have one published work, and I find it a hard one to write shippy things for

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Huh... I'm not sure. There a number of fics I've written that I still really really like and will reread (the author's amazing! she knows exactly what I like!) I'm really proud of my Torchwood/MASH crossover, it's my longest fic and took the highest level of technical skill to write. I also tend to reread A Poet Under Pressure fairly often because I do love tormenting Dandelion u.u

#i had these from ages back and kept forgetting about them orz #thank you for your patience kind mutuals who tagged me #so now dear followers you're getting spammed with them #as i desperately hope that this convinces my brain to make some progress on my actual wips that i want to actually work on #bene speaks

[hermesserpent-stuff]

Oooohhh, tell us about the httyd au!

So its been a little while since ive been able to watch the first HTTYD show, so the movies and race to the edge are my closest touch points of knowledge (and the books) so forgive the timelines a little.

Thanks for asking! Ideas under the cut!

The major things in this au is that Hiccup learned to speak dragonese through dragon watching and interactions after the fall of the Red Death. He spends a lot less time with the humans of Berk than in cannon, isolating a lot more. He would rather be amongst the dragons who are less confusing once he has had the time to interact with them than humans. 

Hiccup and Toothless took up the place of leader in the nest after that fight. A lot in the nest jokingly take to calling Hiccup a noise that roughly translates to little Queen and toothless something like Queens wings. They get called leader neutrally, but the nicknames stick more and Toothless is forever calling Hiccup that in front of wild dragons. 

There is a heavy element of scent based communication amongst dragons here, with hiccup smelling safe and like an adored leader because he spends so much of his time with the dragons of the nest. This makes other dragons quicker to trust him. So, hes a little op in the dragons loving him department. 

The other riders talk to him still but he is not as close with them as in the shows. He stays an outsider. 

Other tribes start to know that the Hooligans ride dragons but have a hard time doing anything similar. Hiccup often goes island to island to convince dragons to move and most wild dragons do. The whole archipelago experiences a sudden and noticeable drop in dragon raids because of this. 

Skipping a few things and pushing onwards, we find a year or two later, hiccup is eager to fly further, and so is Toothless, who likes exploring. It is what the nightfury had been doing before being drawn into the Red Death’s nest. They have lieutenants that handle watching the nest as they go further afield. Hiccup hears of further markets and gets a map to the ship graveyard that had the dragon eye in race to the edge. Which makes hiccup go further to try to seek out new dragons. 

He runs into dragon hunters and there are a few other changes and ideas rattling around. Dragon hunters think that he is a dragon! So thats all sorts of fun. 

Uuhhh…. This is getting long but one last thing Im attached to! Viggo had an encounter with a nightfury long ago when he was like 10. Not a real close encounter, but it was the last instance of the hunters interacting with a nightfury in decades. And so he is endlessly fascinated that there is still one out there. Alive! ^_^ Let me know if you have anything specific I could elaborate on or if there is any other things youre wondering about.

#httyd #httyd au #claws and calls au #how to train your dragon #hiccup haddock #toothless #ask hermes #hermes speaks

[twixitativi]

do you have any tips on writing an au? normal fics i can usually handle but i’m working on a kunichuu grease au and i’m finding it quite difficult.

hiya! thanks for asking :3 also good luck with that, that seems like so much fun omg; feel free to send when you start releasing, i'd love to check it out!

ill be using splinters as my example here purely because thats closer to what you're trying to do (movie/musical as reference)

this is going to be long as fuck because i tend to ramble and go into detail, so im adding a read-more. i sincerely hope this helps because i know its a LOT (potential spoilers for splinters included)

1. The Foundation

when i first started working on splinters, it started with a lot of idea bouncing. who would suit what role? why would that role work for them? originally, i had looked at dazai as jd and chuuya as veronica, or dazai as veronica with fyodor as his jd.

then, i also started thinking about story 'beats'. to be clear about what that means, i like to think of different parts/scenes that i need/want to hit, and kind of the order if possible. this usually intertwines with the original story-- in your case, grease.

all this starts falling into the next step:

2. Research

it may not be entirely apparent, but i did (and still do) a FUCK TON of research for splinters. by choosing to have multiple source materials to base your work off (both bsd AND grease), depending on how close/accurate you want to be, you're going to want to get in touch with the material.

you've mentioned grease-- i'm assuming you're doing this based off the movie (love the movie. need to rewatch). what i personally do with heathers the movie is that i watched it the entire way through first to refresh myself with the material. it might help you to take notes about different characters, ideas, plot lines. i found a copy of both scripts online in case i wanted to see about throwing an iconic line in during an important scene without diving through the whole movie to find it.

i dont know HOW historically accurate you want to go with your fic--you may be choosing to explore the concept of grease rather than the actual setting itself-- but grease takes place in the late 50s, TECHNICALLY early 60s (movie itself came out in the late 70s) (my mom LOVED it when it came out). so, you may want to do some basic research: fashions/trends of the time (this has gotten harder to search online, you may want to even run to the library and find some books if possible)? societal norms? what did normal teens do during that time? did they have arcades, did they go to restaurants, what was the average place they hung out at?

a lot of times, i have to double-check if some of the stuff in splinters is period accurate. each decade has different lingo, slang, and general information that was normal during it. hell, looking back at the 2010s versus 2020s, if you were to write a story during, saying, 2011, and have your characters saying "slay" and "yas queen" and "road work ahead, uh yeah i sure hope it does", i regret to inform you that that will NOT be accurate, as those phrases are more late 2010s + that vine came out in 2016. now, could you quote/potentially reference these things? absolutely! but you have to be more strategic about it.

ALSO. look up fun trivia about your source material! you know where i got my title from? its the english translation of the italian name for heathers. im not even kidding. also, mix and match material! hell, even throw references in to other material! i had my mean girls reference in there! because its bsd, i like to throw in authors i like from time to time where they fit!

another silly one: what music came out around that time, playing on the radio? HOW did they listen to music? i specifically listen to a 1989 top hits playlist when im trying to figure out what songs might be playing on the radio while my characters are driving-- and even THEN i still will look up specifically when that song came out, because i made the choice to be horribly specific with my timeline.

on that note:

3. If you can, DON'T SET A SPECIFIC MONTH/DAY/ETC.

i made my choices. do i regret them? YES. is it still fun to work with? absolutely, but also the heathers timeline is lowkey a mess and you could simultaneously claim it takes place in 2 months or several.

honestly, avoid specifics. having to keep track of a timeline is an absolute bitch, and it's going to make your life a lot harder, because then, you HAVE to make sure it all matches up. if i say that kunikida went and got his glasses in march, i cant say that his glasses are brand new in may (this is a hypothetical example).

timelines suck. unless you think you can dedicate the time and energy to keeping with one, don't do it.

4. OUTLINES.

i've been writing fanfics for years, which is wild to me. i was writing fanfics in single digits (didn't even know what fanfics were). one thing that i have especially found useful with splinters is to make outlines for where you want the story to go.

let me break it down for you:

you're gonna have MULTIPLE outlines, and they are NOT set in stone. they are guidelines for you to use so that you're not sitting there going "shit i don't know what to do next". they may be scenes you want to have in the fic. they may be important plot points. they may be absolutely stupid shit that youre like "if i dont get this in here i will cry" (diarrheazai is a threat that i intend to keep)

FIRSTLY. try making a general outline for your whole fic. you don't need super specifics, but think of what events occur during grease. in it, danny and sandy meet in the summer before their senior year. sandy meets and joins the pink ladies. there's a dance competition. danny and sandy fly off in a car into the sunset. etc. TO BE CLEAR, you don't have to keep all the details! it is your story, and what you want to do with it! having that structure can be helpful when you start though.

THEN. once you have that general outline? start trying to plan out chapters. you dont have to make outlines for them all at once. more often than not, i'll sit there before i start a new chapter just trying to outline what'll happen in it. this helps a LOT on multiple levels. i'll provide an example of what that can look like below (SPOILERS IF YOU'RE NOT UP-TO-DATE WITH SPLINTERS):

(the blacked out bit is spoilers, everything else should be clear to see)

a quick explanation: i dedicate a small document to outlines for each chapter. as you can see, with chapter beats, i have diff things i want to try to hit. the stuff highlighted in green is stuff that i come back post-chapter to confirm i hit. sometimes, if it's not EXACTLY in there, i'll leave a note in bold (ex: WAS MENTIONED).

but you can kind of see what im talking about here. i have some things that im trying to knock out per chapter.

other things in my doc to outline:

yes i talk to myself in my notes.

i highlight different scenes according to their relevance to certain characters sometimes; i add scenes in where i need to, and then ofc as you see ill go into detail about specific scenes. and AGAIN these are not set in stone. for example:

as you can see, shit changes over time. that boiler room make-out scene during the homecoming pep rally appeared in ch 11. i did not make this sequence fyodor's pov.

sometimes? i just dont have the time or energy to write shit/dont think its relevant to the plot. good bye, corn maze. you'll be remembered in my thoughts and my outline

also try to have fun while outlining. it doesnt need to be something serious. literally my outlines are a mix of dialogue, scenes, my own thoughts, etc. get silly with it. this is supposed to be fun and enjoyable!

ANOTHER THING:

5. LOOP SOMEONE INTO OBSESSING OVER THIS WITH YOU.

i was inspired by ardeidae to write splinters, and i have successfully trapped them in splinters world for almost an entire year now. by both of us loving it, we can keep ourselves focused on it.

what also helps is bouncing ideas off other people. me and lu have had conversation after conversation after conversation about different plot lines, scenes, etc. sometimes, i don't know what to do and i will ask lu (or other people) for advice about the progression.

you may have also heard of the engineering rubber duck method. if you're unfamiliar, engineers will sit there with a rubber ducky by them and talk to it about what they're working on until they figure out what they need to do. sometimes, just ranting about the fic is enough to help you spawn ideas about what to do next.

OH also

6. If you do end up making a timeline? Have a calendar on hand.

this is no longer 100% accurate to the progression of splinters and the chapters, but it helped a LOT. laying it out like this can make one hell of a difference. im a visual person, so doing this helped. also, can help you keep track of holidays and shit. if you want to give your characters a day off from classes, check a school calendar for holidays. be like "uhhhherrrr yeah they're taking, uhhhh veteran's day off" yk

7. Write, but don't force it.

splinters doesn't have an actual updating schedule because i work on it at my own pace, and update once i finish a chapter. now, i usually finish chapters after a month, but i don't say it updates on x day. don't box yourself in unless you truly think you can handle it. some people are very good about schedules. i am horrible at them, bc ykw? LIFE HAPPENS.

when im in the mood, i write. i will sit for HOURS and just write. grab some snacks, maybe pop on some music, get a buddy to sit with you, but just go for it. sometimes, i'll pull a 25-10 method-- 25 minutes of writing with ten minutes of relaxing and bullshitting--and that helps me not burn out as quickly. but honestly, you cant always brute force it.

have i had to brute force it sometimes? yes. you will get stuck. it naturally happens. sometimes, a scene fucking sucks and you're like "i hate this scene but it HAS to be in there" (if it doesnt fuck that shit. throw it out. blegh) sometimes, you need to mix things up to make it more appealing to you, because i am of the belief that the readers can tell when you're not invested in a scene. if im writing a scene and its going slowly and i just want to get it done? the quality's going to go down, and i KNOW it. so, i evaluate. what do i need to do for this scene to work? can i add something to help? do i need to just rewrite the bastard and call it a day?

and sometimes? you can just go ahead and put a little "<'scene'>" in and move on. depending on how much your fic relies on that scene, that won't always work, but sometimes, you just gotta leave it and come back to it. you can also do that with certain dialogue/details. if you're trying to get your characters from point A to point B, don't shove them there if they run out of gas. make a detour, and see what happens.

eerrrrrrr yeah, i THINK that's the majority of the advice i can give? sorry that that's a lot, but uhhh hope it helps! :')

#wild that people would want advice from me but hopefully itll help #good luck with your fic anon! it seems like fun!

[anitalianfrie]

i'm curious about any commentary you have about this is a love story 👀

beside the like,literal hours i spent trying to code that fucking thing, i realized after the first article and maybe, three posts that i needed a plot. or at least, a resemblance of a plot. a sequence of events that would happen and that then had to be filtered through the social media lens and through the eyes of the characters. I had to build the reconciliation organically, i couldn't just write ten posts on them and call it a day because then it wouldn't have worked.

Luckily our community was of great aid in this, and a lot of the posts i put in it, like reblogs or quotes, were directly taken from my dash around the days i wrote that specific section of the story. Like, when we where having the collective leatherboys breakdown, i decided to put it in the story. or the motogpconfession one, i think i wrote it the day after adora unearthed those posts.

i had a piece of paper on which i wrote down all the events i wanted to happen and then i assigned a race/time period to it. I ended up sending vale to like, eight or nine races in the process but i think i was able to cut it down to seven in the fic. Also i refused to check any of the wec races because it could have ruined everything (and it would have, because i'm pretty sure he will race the same weekend as sepang). i was already going crazy reworking the instagram skin, the wec schedule was not going to be my problem.

one of the most difficult things to write was the rockstar au (that now i love very dearly) because. i didn't know what to write about. I knew i needed to put an au in the story, simply because our community is so profilic in writing them, but i had literally zero ideas. i swear to god, i went on an alternate universe generator site and cliked generate about a thousand times before i got this idea.

the non-text most difficult thing i did was enea's gifs because i used my phone and the app sucked majorly. 0/10 do not recommend that's the reason he's the only one i giffed and then simply reblogged repsol-ariel.

also, all the posts i took from tumblr, so reblogs and such, are actually from the blog with the username i wrote in the fic. in some cases their pfp is also the one of their blogs (this ended pretty soon tho because i was about to kill myself so i simply got random pictures on pinterest)

the easiest article to write was gogue's, even if it was the longest and more complex, because i'll be honest i'm really not made for dry sport journalism. I'm quite proud of it, actually. Describing him talking about Valentino was one of my favourite things, but also I loved the possibility to write glimps of his relationship with Alex.

also: i wrote vale's interview for skyITA after marc and bez's incident in italian and then translated it. i started writing it in english, but then i realized it wouldn't have worked, because i was thinking with the english sentence structure. So i thought: what could valentino say? and wrote it as if he was talking, pauses and not-ended sentences. then i took that and translated it the same way i do when i translate proper interviews or videos, changing the phrasing as little as possible. It was quite fun to do.

(also: cuntress-supreme's username was actually inspired by your username :)) )

#this is a love story you'll forever be famous for making me go insane for two weeks #c'è posta per me #angst-crrnt

[bonesandthebees]

hey i was translating one of the tcfsv's chapters and got real curious about how you came up with names and/or superpowers of siren, jester, iceman/thanatos, arson (her powers), and 404 and why did you choose the name daedalus for sam and aurelion for foolish? i tried to split aurelion into aura and lion and it didnt make sense so i hope its fine to ask :D

oh man it's been a while since I've been asked this question. I'll just go in order of the characters you mentioned!

siren - I'd seen wilbur be given siren powers/the power to compel people with his voice in a few other fics before I came up with clinic, and in hush now specifically his villain name itself was also 'siren' so I straight up just took it from that lol

jester - because of how often quackity changes his minecraft skins for bits, I once saw a comic a longggg time ago about c!quackity on the dsmp being a shapeshifter. I always thought that was a really cool concept, so when I was trying to come up with his powers I thought shapeshifting would be really interesting! as far as the name I don't really know how I came up with that? quackity's just goofy and cracks a lot of jokes so I thought a clown/theatrical kind of name would be fitting, so I came up with jester and really liked it

iceman/thanatos and arson - I came up with iceman as jack's name after I came up with arson for niki's. I really liked the name arson for niki's initial villain name because I wanted to call back to c!niki burning down the l'mantree during doomsday, but I knew I wanted her to have water powers both bc of her merling origin on origins smp and also I just thought a waterbending kind of vibe fit her. so then I knew I wanted her and jack to be a duo, so I was struggling to come up with a name for jack until I thought "what if I made him and niki have opposite powers and I made a joke about iceland and greenland" and thus we got iceman lmao. then later on I decided I wanted both of them to switch their names after their near death experience (arson to nemesis and iceman to thanatos) so I thought thanatos fit jack because of how close he came to death, since thanatos is the personification of death in greek mythology. and I wanted him to have a greek mythology name because niki was changing to her syndicate name, nemesis, which is also from greek myth

404 - I'd seen 404 used for george before in other hero aus. it's a play on his user 'georgenotfound' bc 404 is a not found error you get with computers. I just thought it was fun. as far as his powers, I wanted them to be connected to sleep because of the running bit/eventual lore of him sleeping through everything on the dsmp, but I wanted it to be more creative than just him knocking people out. I've always been fascinated with dreams and the kind of fantasy powers you can do with them, so I decided dream manipulation could be really interesting to explore with him.

daedalus - in greek mythology daedalus is an inventor who is made to build the labyrinth by king minos to trap the minotaur, and is later imprisoned in the labyrinth by minos with his son icarus. during their escape with wings made of wax, icarus dies, leaving daedalus alone. I just thought the themes of being imprisoned by your own creation and losing the last thing you love during your escape matched a lot of c!sam's character on the dsmp especially with his warden role and how he's a redstone inventor. I wanted to tie it in a bit to his story in clinic, and overall I just thought it was an interesting connection to draw.

aurelion - yeah this is probably the most confusing name since it's not a real word technically. aurelion is a play on the name aurelia, and aurelia is derived from the word aurum which is the latin word for gold. c!foolish is often designed as being made of gold or close to it given his totem skin, so I just wanted to connect him to gold somehow because I thought it fit. so aurelia as a name means gold, and I just took that and made it sound more like a superhero name by changing it to aurelion

hope this helps!! good luck with the translation!

#ask #tommyinnit’s clinic for supervillains #spoiledlbleach

[chrononautintraining]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for the tag @lindirs-gaze!

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

78

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

1,216,174

3. what fandoms do you write for?

My current hyperfixation is The Untamed/Modao Zushi, but I write for whatever. I've got a lot of one shots for properties I think are neat like Welcome to Nightvale or Parks and Rec.

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

A Passion for Mushrooms, Mountain Flowers, The Seedling, Family's Just Another Word for Something Left To Lose, and In Town for the Wedding. Four in Hobbit/LotR fandom and one Naruto.

5. do you respond to comments? why or why not?

I really try to. I appreciate feedback so much. When I'm in a funk it really brightens my mood, so I want to respond and build community with readers not just drop a story. And sometimes I go months without checking my inbox which makes me feel awkward about replying. It's a mix.

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

Interestingly, Family's Just Another Word For Something Left To Lose, according to some readers. It's ambiguous at the end and *a lot* of people think Kakashi dies, which is not at all my intent. I was paralleling the same scene with Iruka in the anime, and Iruka survives. It did not occur to me that the ambiguity would be what so many people took away.

The one I wrote that's intentionally angsty at the end is all i hear is your gear, which has no happy intentions and is all just about Crowley being a demon in hell.

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

So much of my stuff is romance with a traditional HEA ending, but weirdly the ending I like most is A Spy in the Shire. It's a happy ending for this one oc dwarf, but in the broader context of the series I think it both emphasizes the Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies AU happiness as well as justifying the many sacrifices made in canon.

8. do you get hate on any fics?

yeah for sure. And I am sensitive about it. If it hits me when I'm already feeling low, I usually have to stay away from fandom spaces for a while and I often lose the motivation to write at all. It sucks. Some of it I can brush off more easily, like the Iruka/Kakashi shippers who come onto my fic to make fun of the way Mighty Guy looks and try to pick a fight. They are likely children and I just don't engage. But the people who criticize my writing or a specific story for reasons they are happy to detail can be harder to ignore.

This is of course a very different thing than the helpful folks who point out that I've once again mixed up desert and dessert. Y'all are lovely and I appreciate the help.

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

Yes, as the mood strikes. ...the kind I'm in the mood for? Almost always romantic stuff between a major pairing.

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Listen. Ron Swanson and Wolverine would be very good friends, actually. My Parks and Rec / X-men crossover is not crazy.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! One of my Naruto fics is available in Chinese and two of my Modao Zushi stories can be read in Russian. As I speak neither language, I can only assume the translators did an awesome job of making my writing smarter, funnier, and sexier than it is in English.

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

No, but I find the idea of collaborating interesting.

14. what’s your all time favorite ship?

This is not how my brain works. I pretty much constantly have a Current Obsession and then pairings I still enjoy. Right now, Wangxian invented love, but I'll always enjoy revisiting a certain romance involving Mister Spock or the Leverage Pretzels and Beer OT3.

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

I desperately want to finish my Zombie Criminal Minds series, particularly because being able to revisit it will mark the end of my pandemic / outbreak related brain gremlins.

16. what are your writing strengths?

speling

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

I'd like to do more with humor. I feel like I frequently manage to provoke a sensible chuckle, but I've read fics that make me crack up. Someday, I'd like to write a really Terry Pratchett style laugh-a-minute story.

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

Sometimes you gotta do it, because it's in keeping with the canon, but it's always best to do sparingly. If it's longer than a greeting or an honorific, I like to translate directly within the narrative or use a footnote.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

Slayers. Yes, I was that anime kid in high school.

20. favorite fic you’ve written?

My favorite child? Well, I've never really cared for Pit Stop...

I suppose, back against a wall, I enjoy the world building in None So Blind. We just don't spend enough time in dwarven spaces that aren't complete ruins in the canon. Coupled with thoughts on fantasy accessibility and the classic trope of tripping a romantic lead into a pile of literal pig shit, I just like it. Good work, 2018!me.

If you'd like to play, please pretend I tagged you! For the meme, I'll invite @youhideastar, @primtheamazing, and @sunshine304

[deathbydarkelves]

In your AU you talk about calling Common "Human" instead. Why is that? Also, wouldn't something like Stormwindian or Elwynnian make the most sense considering how other languages like Night Elf are Darnassian?

(Disclaimer: I am not a linguist.)

Short answer: I don’t find the semi-colonial implications of a “common language”/lingua franca in any fantasy setting very fun to think about (at least when they're literally not explored at all). I also feel it cheapens interactions between characters from wildly different places. I understand why a “Common” must exist in video games and RPGs. Your players need to be able to communicate. But in the context of writing and even specific RP scenarios, I think excluding a true lingua franca allows for more creativity in inter-character interactions as they try to navigate that. It also gives more weight to multilingual characters being multilingual.

Long answer:

I simply don’t like the idea of a global lingua franca in fantasy and… in general honestly lol. Again, I understand WHY they need to exist in video games and RPGs like D&D, but I find it much more interesting and realistic to exclude them. And again, this is certainly something more suited for writing than MMOs.

The EXISTENCE of a lingua franca on a global scale — by my non-linguist understanding — relies on some sort of colonial history and/or a global, instant communication system. Azeroth doesn’t have an internet, and I just… don’t like colonialism. Crazy take, I know.

My narratives recognize the Alliance as imperialists unlike Blizzard’s, so it’s not like I took that out of the picture. They are absolutely colonialists lol and that is absolutely something that must be dealt with in my AU. I just didn’t want their influence to be that far-reaching, because honestly, I find that sad and unfun to think about. I do use WoW and this AU for escapism, among other things, so some decisions are motivated in part by that.

SO, I made Common a non-universal language and renamed it to Human to subtly imply that. I went with “Human” because many other languages in similar fantasy settings are named after the races that natively speak them and not the country (see: Dwarvish, Orcish*). It fit in a lot better to just go with that. Worth mentioning though! It does have regional dialects, some of which are so different they could really be considered separate languages. But they all originated from a group of humans, so they’re put under that umbrella. I suppose it’s more like a family of languages in that case then, like I made Zandali…

((*on that note, Orcish also isn’t universally spoken within the Horde.))

So yes, there would be a Stormwindian/Elwynnian dialect and an Alteraci dialect, etc. The Stormwindian dialect is probably most common because of the existence of the Alliance and of Stormwind’s place as a major trade city. Many dwarves in Ironforge speak that dialect, but inversely, many Stormwindians also speak Dwarvish (which also has its own dialects. All the languages in my AU have dialects to some extent). Or at the very least they’ll use Dwarvish words and expressions even while speaking Human. Like I’m doing right now with Italian (“lingua franca”).

There are mages who make livings off knowing translation spells (and even those can only translate literally). Travelers and traders are by necessity going to know the trade languages, Stormwindian Human being one of them (if we’re talking about the Alliance). But the average, non-human person very well might not.

I’ll end that whole ramble with a specific example of an OC story that couldn’t have worked if I went with Common as a true lingua franca: Cathala was stranded on Pandaria for about fifty years pre-MoP, and she had to learn Pandaren to get by. Eventually she all but forgot how to speak Darnassian. It’s a major point in her story when she meets Tarinne and Tarinne helps her relearn Darnassian. If I went by the game’s logic, there would’ve been almost no need for Cathala to learn Pandaren, and no need for her to relearn Darnassian. Which just feels so flat to me, and would take away a huge part of the foundation of hers and Tarinne’s relationship. Additionally, Cathala’s character heavily focuses on finding identity, and that whole history with language is a large part of it.

So TL;DR I renamed Common to Human as part of reducing its presence as a global lingua franca, which is key to the stories I want to tell.

#ask box #au lore #''oh yeah this'll be a quick answer I don't need to ramble all that much'' #''...'' #thank you for the ask anon <3 I hope that answers your question

[sinelanguage]

20 questions for fic writers

taking from @fivedayslater who tagged anyone for this, i'll also pass around to 'anyone who wants to answer these questions is effectively tagged' but also @lostlegendaerie, @sharpenote specifically.....

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

36! not too shabby considering i'm not super consistent about writing.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

257,465! wow. jeez.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently One Piece, historically Voltron. 

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

predictably: this is almost entirely Keith/Lance.

Stormchasing: Keith/Lance handcuffed together fic i tried to pace like an actual episode! posting early in the fandom’s lifecycle gave it staying power, lol.

The Hustle: Keith/Lance espionage/heist-ish fic i cowrote with a friend. Really fun premise, and it was fun to co-write something!

Good Grief: Keith/Lance 5+1. i don’t remember anything about this.

Tallies: Keith/Lance 5+1. look… i wrote a lot of these.

Interstate 80: It’s not Klance! Jean/Marco, roadtrip modern day AU. i wrote this as a teenager, and i do not think this holds up whatsoever, but i made a lot of close friends through this fic and i'm fond of it solely due to that, haha.

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

i try! i have like, a half-life where if a fic is more than a year old i probably won’t respond because i’ve probably forgotten anything interesting to say. 

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

Haha i wrote a hunger games AU for Attack on Titan? i don’t know what possessed me to take Jean Kirstein out of one horribly depressing canon and into another horribly depressing canon. 

Outside of that, i tend to stick to relatively happy or neutral endings. Most recently, Time Turned Fragile probably has the angstiest ending but i’d classify it as bittersweet really, even though Sanji like. dies? look. don’t worry about it

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

Uhhh??? this is harder to answer … Inaba’s Self-Appointed Cat Adoption Agency is a fic that is probably the fluffiest thing i’ve ever written and as such has the most feel-good fluffy ending as a result.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really! i’ve gotten a-bit-too-bold concrit in bookmark notes, but i wouldn’t really consider that hate.

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

Nah lol. (gestures to weaknesses answer) it is not my forte, and i’m not super interested. 

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

not typically! I did write Turnabout Heart, which is a brief Persona 5 / Ace Attorney crossover, because I thought Sae being friends with Mia would be neat.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

ah, i found someone reposting my fic to wattpad once (username still attached). i just gently told them it was in bad form lol, it was wattpad in 2017 or so so I’m sure it was just some kid haha. they apologized and deleted it and their other stolen stuff so it’s all good.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! Someone offered once, but never got back around to me. 

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

Yes! The Hustle from above, and for better or for worst which was a fun last hurrah for Keith/Lance.

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

It’s really funny because i’ve never written for any of my all time ships lol. Ike/Soren is maybe my ship of all time. Keith/Lance i’m still stupidly fond of despite myself. i never even finished Voltron.

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

this has historically been time loop fics, but I wrote two this year!!!!! Congrats to me!!

Currently i’ve been working on a Robin-centric Robin and Sanji roleswap fic, and while i have a good grasp on the emotional/plot arcs involved it is not easy to write Robin POV lol. i can only write characters who are more emotionally stupid than me. i keep chugging away at it though.

for one I know I'll never finish: I have a brief outline/scenes written for a Professor Sada/Robot Professor Sada (haha. lol. sorry.) fic that would be titled Stochastic Parent as a play on the machine learning term 'stochastic parrot', i.e. the principle that AI does not truly understand language, merely parrots it back to the user. i could not figure out how to write this without being on the nose.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Bizarrely i really like writing action scenes hahahaahaha. It’s one of the few scenes in fic i really fully visualize, so translating that is fun. emotions in a fight are fun too, i like writing fear. 

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

The main one: romance! More specifically though, physical intimacy. hilarious to write mostly romance fic and be bad at it. i’ve been actively avoiding writing kissing scenes for the last 10 fic or so. at this point i’m trying to see how long i can go without one.

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

Think it’s incredibly neat to see but i don't think i'll ever do it. i feel like i need to return my linguist card for this answer....

19. First fandom you wrote for?

some different answers here: Fire Emblem (never finished or posted online), Harvest Moon (posted on deviantArt and deleted when i scorched my warrior cats username from the face of the earth), and Attack on Titan (first fic on ao3)

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

All time it’s Dead Horizon. i got to write a lot of fun environmental storytelling and horror in that one, and I liked the emotional arc overall. i really like environments/settings in terms of storytelling, and i don’t get the chance to write much of that since i stick with shorter one shots typically. Still very, very fond of it. 

Recent stuff it’s Same As It Ever Was. i’ve wanted to do a Once in a Lifetime themed timeloop for ages but I kept dropping the concept, until now! Finally I wrote a scene based off the ‘not my beautiful house, not my beautiful wife’ lyric! dream come true.

#ask game #personal