#i have too many languishing wips

[allatariel]

Secretary Laura Roslin swept down the buzzing corridors of the battlestar Galactica escorted by Mr. Doral on their way to meet with the commanding officer. As the public relations executive coordinating today’s ceremony, Mr. Doral had been aboard Galactica for weeks in preparation. The Ceremony was to commemorate the opening of the first of its kind living museum, a joint venture between the Colonial fleet and the Colonial government. The Galactica would remain in service as a training ship, under the jurisdiction of the Military Academy of the Colonial fleet, and be open to guided public tours, managed by the Ministry of Education of the Colonial government. As Secretary of Education, Laura already knew all of this, but Mr. Doral droned on either unaware or unbothered by that fact. Laura was used to dealing with men like him, men who underestimated her in every conceivable way.

As they rounded a corner, Laura half caught Mr. Doral suggesting that she advocate for Galactica to have a networked computerized system placed on board. Did he just say what I think he said?

Laura stopped short and turned toward him. “Excuse me,” she began, as he noticed her no longer next to him and hurried back. “Did you just ask me to convince the commanding officer of this battlestar to allow an integrated computer network to be placed on his ship?”

“Ma’am, as you well know, this would make it much easier for the teachers—”

“Mr. Doral, those issues have already been addressed without the need for a computerized network, as I am sure you are aware, having worked closely with Zachary Adama over the last few weeks,” Laura cut him off as politely as possible even as she internally bristled at the sheer audacity of him presuming to enlighten a doctor of education, former teacher, former superintendent of Caprica City schools, and current two term Secretary of Education on the needs of teachers.

He blustered on, as men like him often do, “The inconvenience and cost simply don’t justify it. You have to agree it’s a ridiculously antiquated attitude.”

“No, I don’t. I agree with the director of this project and the CO of this ship.” When Doral appeared ready to continue pushing the issue, Laura held up her hand. “I see this is important to you, Mr. Doral, but the decision has already been made and I won’t reconsider. This museum is supposed to be a living record of the technology and tactics necessary to fight the most devastating enemy humanity has ever faced. An enemy we did not defeat, despite the peace we have enjoyed since the armistice. An enemy who relied on networked computerized systems. The answer is no.” The steel in her voice conveyed the finality of this discussion even as Mr. Doral appeared to grope around for an appropriate way to backpedal. Laura didn’t give him the time. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am more than familiar with the location of the CO’s quarters and I’d rather like to greet my husband unaccompanied.”

Mildly gratified by his somewhat chastened expression and the surprise in his eyes at the word ‘husband,’ Laura continued on her way. Mercifully, Doral did not follow. She was practically there already, anyway. Turning down the next corridor, she spied the end of the last short corridor leading down to Bill’s quarters. Her pace increasing subconsciously in her eagerness, Laura came to the top of the stairs and saw Saul stepping out of the hatch. He left it ajar when he turned at the familiar clack of her heels on the stairs.

“Hello, Laura,” he greeted as he leaned in to kiss her cheek like the old friend he was.

“Saul, it’s good to see you,” she replied smoothly, willing herself not to recoil from the strong smell of alcohol on his breath. While she wasn’t opposed to drinking, since the deaths of her father and sisters at the hands of a drunk driver, Laura had no tolerance for careless drunkenness like Saul’s, especially at such an early hour. She’d already dealt with one inebriated Tigh today and her patience was wearing thin. Were it any other day, Laura wouldn't have held back, but she didn’t want to do anything that might mar the ceremony. And reuniting with her husband after three months apart was far more important to her at the moment.

“Bill’s been expecting you—giddy as a cadet all day. I’ll give you kids some privacy,” Saul winked and quipped cheekily in his gruff voice, with surprisingly little slurring, before nodding to her and walking away.

“See you at the ceremony,” Laura said, watching him wobble only once on the short flight of stairs out of the little corridor. She turned back to the hatch and found Bill in his tanks and dress uniform trousers, stocking feet visible just over the rim of the hatchway. He offered her an understanding and slightly apologetic look and she pressed her lips into a rueful smile that conveyed ‘thank you, but it’s not your fault.’

Saul was forgotten as he pulled her to him through the hatch and closed it.

Laura hummed contentedly as he held her to his chest, one of her hands over his heart as she rounded his waist with the other. Eventually she looked up and they gazed into each other’s eyes. Reaching a hand up to his face she confirmed he had freshly shaved, and intimated huskily, “I was hoping to find you like this.” He smiled warmly and slowly brought his lips to hers, kissing her senseless. 

After, when they’d both found a measure of equilibrium together again, Laura kicked her heels off and settled into one of the plush leather chairs adjacent to his rack to watch him put on his dress uniform.

“The gold braid of the Admiral’s piping really suits you, too bad your Dress Grays don’t have it,” she said as she noticed his duty uniform jacket lying on the rack next to him after he picked up the matching trousers.

“No, just the pips. It’s a little garish don’t you think?” She watched him hang up his blues, fingering the gold braid as he hooked the hanger above his rack.

“Not at all, I like you in gold.” She ran her thumb lovingly over her gold wedding band, regarding him intensely as he caught the gesture and smiled fondly, though he didn’t meet her gaze. Even after nearly twenty years of marriage, he still seemed at times to marvel at her honest attraction and regard for him. Bill may not have been the most effusive person, but he loved fiercely and he deserved to know he was loved just as fiercely in return.

#laura roslin #bill adama #laura x bill #bill x laura #spaceparents #battlestar galactica #battlestar galactica (2003) #bsg #canon divergence #my writing #i made this #wip #work in progress #i am yet again fast cycling fandoms #the plans for this story have been languishing in my writing folder for over 10 years #this is probably way too much to post here—but i'm inordinately proud of it #not bad for two days' work if i do say so myself #i have another 500 words written and plans to finish out their conversation before i move on to the other ripples through canon #my usual m.o.—save as many people as possible—especially the moms—and make things better for everyone while maintaining the drama #we'll see how far i get before the next obsession hits #i should be working on run between the shadows

[spotsandsocks]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @tizniz @diazsdimples @wikiangela @hippolotamus @bi-buckrights @exhuastedpigeon Thank you lovelies 💖

How many works do you have on ao3?

89 that’s not too shabby is it. Three years of writing this summer.

What's your total ao3 word count?

902,255 that is quite a few words isn’t it.

What fandoms do you write for?

911

Top five fics by kudos:

If You Break It 3.2k Chris overhears a something and gets upset, then he tells Buck who gets upset too.

They say the Truth will set you free 2.3K Buck get a dose of something at work and gets emotional and chatty

Could Have Should Have Would Have 3.2k an unexpected“I love you” but it’s too late. Isn’t it?

Just Ask 1.7K Eddie's having thoughts, he wants to touch. Buck's ok with that, all Eddie has to do is ask.

Looking from the outside 2.4K TWhat happens when everyone you meet thinks you’re married to your perfectly platonic best friend. Most of these are quite old now, I think I’ve written some just as good or even better but fics don’t seem to get as much kudos these days

Do you respond to comments?

yes everyone is really important to me

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

No fics really end angsty round here but this one’s pretty emotional along the way.

Alone With Your Thoughts Buck gets very badly hurt (for plot reasons) and trying hard to stay alive he realises he’s not as alone as he thought.

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

See above! All happy can’t choose the happiest.

Do you get hate on fics?

Not yet- think I’m too small to get noticed maybe!

Do you write smut?

Um yes I certainly do 😏 and quite well I like to think 😉 in fact an example will be popping along in FIF shortly

Craziest crossover:

Nope - now AUs is a different story

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of! Can’t imagine anyone noticing my fics enough to steal them

Have you ever had a fic translate

Someone asked to once but who knows!

Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Nope

All time favourite ship?

Gotta be buddie hasnt it. They just inspire me

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

All of my wips languish right now and are crying out for attention but I fully intend to finish them all. I do!

What are your writing strengths?

Not sure?! I think my more canon style fics are quite consistent with the characters in the show. Think that I’m pretty good with a complicated plot but you tell me?? I like the way I can wrap a bit of humor around the more tense bits too.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Long sentences? An over enthusiasm for the comma? Too long? Poor tagging?

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Maybe controversial but I’m not a huge fan of eddie using Spanish terms of endearment in fics. If he ever does it in show I’ll feel better about it, but it doesn’t actually feel very him, apart from that I don’t mind

First fandom you wrote in?

911

Favourite fic you've written?

How can I chose!! But these old chestnuts I’ve gone on about before but I, very proud of them actually

The Lost and The Found werewolf/shifter au

Good Knight Sweet Prince Prince/knight au

Tied To You From The Start smutty paranormal shenanigans

And obviously dragonriders au… see FIF post shortly

Thanks for tags you lovely lovely people you’re all so so talented I adore you you make my days so much brighter ☀️💜☀️

@rogerzsteven @hoodie-buck @thekristen999 @loserdiaz @weewootruck

@shipperqueen6 @stagefoureddiediaz @underwaterninja13 @steadfastsaturnsrings @daffi-990

@bidisasterevankinard @bekkachaos @elvensorceress @rainbow-nerdss @honestlydarkprincess

@saybiwithme @loveyouanyway @lover-of-mine @watchyourbuck @jesuisici33

@monsterrae1 @eddiebabygirldiaz @shortsighted-owl @fiona-fififi @the-likesofus

#buddie #buddie fic #fic writer game #911 abc #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 fic #911fic

[valyrfia]

40 q's: 8!! c:

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Cheating, I'm going to share something from a WIP that's been languishing in my drafts for a long time. I'm proud of it for many reasons: managing to make the dialogue sound true to character, good prose around the dialogue that also furthers the themes of the WIP, and a shift in discussion topic that I think felt quite natural. Snippet below the cut.

“I don’t get it,” Max says–Charles doesn’t really know when she appeared in her room. She’s developed a habit of doing so over the past couple of races, almost like a particularly persistent poltergeist. “Why are you beating yourself up about this?”

“I’m in the middle of a contract war,” Charles says, exhaling. Her head tips back, hits the lacquered wooden headboard with a light thud. The ceiling is ornamental–swirls of white plaster around the light fixture. She wonders whether Max’s is prettier, it probably is–only the best for the world champion after all.

Max snorts, her hand skittering up Charles’s side and poking her in the ribs, her fingers are bony and lukewarm against Charles’s ribcage through her thin-worn sleep shirt. “And they would be stupid to sign Carlos over you.”

Charles looks to her right, Max is splayed out next to her lazy, insolent, lying on her side with one hand tangled in her short golden hair, propping up her head.

 “I think you’re forgetting that Carlos is a man.”

“So?” Max rebuts, quick and sure, “You’re the better driver.”

A derisive snort leaves Charles’ throat,  “When Seb left, I asked to be named Ferrari’s first driver. Mattia started laughing. He thought it was a joke.”

Max scoffs, her eyebrows furrowing inwards. “Fuck him–

“He’s right,” Charles interrupts, catching Max’s fingers from where it has stilled on her ribs. “A woman leading Ferrari?” Charles snorts and shakes her head, laying Max’s hand back down to where they belong, her side of the hotel sheets. “That’s not how things work, not with Ferrari. I have to respect the tradition, the narrative, the story.”

“Write your own,” Max says, stretching out and flopping onto her back. Her blonde bob falls around her face, the dark blue of her Red Bull t-shirt riding up, devastatingly chiaroscuro against the white sliver of her stomach. Charles can’t help her eyes slipping down, down before she reigns them back to meet Max’s own. Max smiles, a self-satisfied smirk. “It’s what I did, and I’ve won three world championships since.”

Charles thinks back, the murky times when she was stuck down in the lower formulas, and Max was struggling with a car and a teammate that resented her. How Max would bare her teeth and snarl at everyone who came near her, the Red Bull PR campaigns of that time–Max in little red and blue dresses almost too indecent to mention. 

She suddenly remembers a rumour that circulated around the paddock during that time, shifting to sit upright next to Max’s torso she asks, “Did you ever sleep with Daniel?”

Max is an open book, it’s one of the things Charles finds herself liking about her. Every single twitch and blink and breath is so easily readable. Which is why when Max’s eyes widen in surprise, but her mouth presses into a thin line, Charles knows the answer before Max even says it. 

“Once,” Max huffs.

Charles tilts her head slightly, “I thought you said you only liked women?”

Max shakes her head, laughing. “I of course do. But I was young and-” Max hesitates, her hand coming up behind Charles’s back, her fingers warm as she lightly traces a pattern around, into the dip of Charles’s waist. Charles bites back the urge to shiver. 

“I thought, I had never tried it with a man, and the speculation at that time was not too nice and I thought it would be easier, really, if I could with a man.”

“But you couldn’t?” Charles asks. 

Max laughs, “I’m not like you, Charles,” she says. “I’m not imagining that your first time was a work of art either. But when I tried it just didn’t work, and the next thing I knew I was crying.” Max’s smile is wide, like she’s recalling a funny story, not something that makes the pit of Charles’ stomach snarl in something that feels a little too close to protection. “My body knew before I did–it’s always been the way I think.”

#lestappen #anon #asks

[laiqualaurelote]

for the wip ask meme: cover story!

Thank you for this ask (from this WIP game)! a couple of folks have asked about this one. It's the Ted/Trent spy-AU-in-a-Notting-Hill-bookshop-AU, which stalled because the premise got too unwieldy and the literary references got out of hand. (It did have a playlist I was quite fond of, with a number of Kinks songs including, presciently, A Well Respected Man). Because I am unlikely to ever finish it, I thought I'd just fic amnesty the whole thing here, so:

Cover Story

Trent is about to wind up stocktaking when the door to the bookshop bangs open. “We’re closed,” he calls irritably, and then he turns and sees who it is.

“I got something of a reading emergency,” says Ted Lasso.

Trent takes him in: breathing hard, collar askew, perspiration plastering a lick of hair against his forehead. In his hand is a gun. Trent recognises it as a Heckler & Koch P30L.

Trent ought to be going for his own weapon right about now. Instead he says: “So it is you.”

“Yep,” says Ted.

“I knew it,” hisses Trent. “I fucking knew it.”

“Boy, you sure do like to be right about stuff.” Ted pauses, then staggers. Trent sees that he is favouring his left side, and that the shirt beneath the puffer jacket is darkening with blood.

“Ted,” he begins, “wh – ”

“Like I said,” Ted grits out, “emergency.” And then he collapses in the middle of Trent’s bookshop.

Five weeks earlier

“You wouldn’t happen to have the latest John le Carré, would you?”

Trent has to climb a little ways down the ladder to see the man speaking to him. It’s one of the American tourists who wandered in after lunch. There are always Americans underfoot these days, trawling the aisles of the bookshop as if in hope of a meet-cute out of Notting Hill. Trent, as a rule, finds Americans tedious and does his level best to avoid them in all his lines of work; he achieves this in the bookshop by hiding in the stacks and leaving them to the tender mercies of his assistant. Unfortunately, this appears to be a particularly persistent specimen. Trent descends a few more rungs and braces himself.

“Is that the one with Brexit?”

“The one with the bookshop.” The American has a very distracting moustache. He looks almost exactly like a slide Trent once saw in Disguises 101: How Not To Overdo It. He is also wearing multiple layers beneath his puffer jacket, like some sort of Midwestern matryoshka, even though the shop’s heating is working perfectly well. Trent is automatically suspicious of customers with many layers, lest they are shoplifters. But a shoplifter would not go to such lengths to gain his attention.

“If you mean the posthumously published one, it’s not yet in stock. Shipping delays, I’m afraid.”

“Ain’t that a pity,” says the American. “I was sold on the premise. A bookshop that’s secretly a base for spy shenanigans? Tell me you don’t want to see how that turns out.”

Trent removes his glasses, keeping his expression bland. “You could put in an order, but if you’re not in town for long then I daresay there isn’t much point.”

“Oh, we’ll be here for a while. Long vacation. Thought we’d take it easy, like the Eagles would say. Though this ain’t Winslow, Arizona.”

“You can place an order with Miss Bowen at the counter,” says Trent, after he has cast about for a response to that string of gibberish and come up empty.

“You bet I will. If I could just – ” The American reaches out, and Trent almost breaks his wrist on instinct, but he simply brushes past Trent’s sleeve and pulls a secondhand copy of Call For The Dead off the shelf. “Maybe we ain’t see the last of le Carré, but at least it’s a first.”

“Ah, ha,” says Trent, to mask his surprise that they even have a copy of Call For The Dead in stock. It’s probably languished in here for years, unsold. “Good eye.”

“Well, I thank you for the consultation, Mr…”

“Crimm. Trent Crimm, The Independent.”

“Well, Trent, I appreciate you. Keep fighting the good fight.”

Trent blinks. “Against…?”

“Amazon,” says the American brightly. “Which, as an American, I apologise for.”

“Er, quite,” says Trent. “Sorry about Brexit, and all that.”

The American’s name on the order form is Ted Lasso, which makes him sound like a fictional character. He collects his bearded friend from the philosophy section and they depart, engaged in a discussion so animated that Lasso walks into the shop door, rebounds with no perceptible damage and continues his argument without missing a beat. Trent and Miss Bowen watch them go, mildly perplexed.

“Is he a subscriber? I don’t recognise either of them.”

“Just an ordinary customer, from the looks of it. He wanted to talk about books.”

“I suppose it must happen from time to time, in a bookshop,” says Miss Bowen dryly.

Trent crosses to her side of the counter, which is built in such a way that a customer, standing in line, would not be able to see what her hands might be doing. He leans down casually to check the automatic shotgun mounted under the countertop. 

“He was talking about the new le Carré. It’s about spies in a bookshop, apparently.”

“Oh,” says Miss Bowen, eyebrow raised. “Is it now?”

“Yes,” says Trent. “We ought to get hold of it quite quickly, I think. In case there’s been a breach.”

“Come now.” She turns to him sharply. “Le Carré couldn’t have written a novel about us. I mean, he’d never been in the shop. We’d know, wouldn’t we?”

“I daresay we would, Miss Bowen. But put in the order anyway.”

“Certainly, Mr Crimm. And did you want new grenades on top of that?”

“I did, yes, thank you for reminding me.”

“Of course.” A pause. “We are quite sure that man wasn’t a subscriber, are we?”

Trent scoffs. “What, that guy? Come on.”

*

Trent’s childhood dream was to own a bookshop. He thought of bookshops as places where you could read all day and avoid people, which seemed like paradise. However, his family being who they were, his skills being what they were, the job market for English degree-holders being what it was – he spent a year at odd ends, haphazardly weighing the pursuit of postgraduate studies against attempting to break into the publishing industry, until finally he gave up and took the path he knew had always been there, lying in wait for him. He became a spy.

It was another fifteen years before he revisited the idea of the bookshop, in the wake of his abrupt and unceremonious retirement from the Circus. Cleis was one and a half years old by then, and he knew he must find something, for her sake – he had promised –  even though he could not stomach the thought of going out in the cold again. He was mulling over his various options – heaven forfend he wind up in something horrible, like insurance – when his mother dropped by for tea and said peremptorily: “Mae is retiring, don’t you know?”

Mae – the only name anyone ever knew her by – was a veritable battleaxe who ran the Crown and Anchor, a pub that doubled up as the London station for agents of every stripe working in or passing through the city. The stations, by the unspoken rules that governed their universe, were neutral ground; they served every agency and freelancer without question and in turn brooked no conflict within their confines. To move against a station was to move against the combined powers of the rest of the agencies. Nobody had tried it in Trent’s lifetime.

“Oh?” said Trent. He was only partially listening to his mother; most of his attention was focused on trying to get Cleis to keep her yoghurt in her mouth. “Who’s taking over, then?”

His mother fixed him with the glare she had honed on some of the finest intelligencers this side of the Atlantic, as well as his teenage self. “I rather thought you might throw your hat in the ring, dear.”

Cleis mawed at her in surprise and dribbled watery yoghurt down her bib. Trent sighed. “I’ll talk to Mae.”

Mae thought it was a ridiculous notion to run a station as a bookshop. “You wouldn’t catch half that lot dead in a bookshop,” was her take on it. “Who has time for reading these days? And you’ll have to get in books! Actual books!”

“That’s rather the idea, yes,” said Trent. “It can’t be harder than maintaining a liquor licence.”

“Well, it’s not like I was going to hand the tender over to anyone else,” admits Mae. “What will you call it, love?”

Trent considered. “The Independent. Because that’s what it is.”

Even Mae had to admit, a few years in, that it was working out quite well. He’d even managed to sell some books.

*

“How’s the le Carré?” Miss Bowen asks, amid her reshelving. “Are we in trouble?”

“I don’t think so.” Trent is perusing Silverview at the counter, book in one hand, the other on the rifle. “The bookshop’s in East Anglia, and the protagonist hasn’t the first idea how to run it.”

“Oh, well then,” says Miss Bowen. “It will put nobody in mind of us at all. Is it any good? I’m always wary of these late discovery manuscripts. I don’t think I ever got over the disappointment of Go Set A Watchman.”

“It’s unevenly weighted. Makes you miss him at his best.” Trent turns a page. “Still, I’m glad he didn’t go gentle into that good night.”

He tenses as the shop bell rings, then sees that it is Keeley Jones, resplendent in a fluffy yellow coat. “What can we do for you, Miss Jones?”

“Trading in,” sings Keeley. “On Jamie’s behalf.”

Trent takes off his glasses and gives her a forbidding look. “What, has he gone and lost the lot again?”

Keeley winces. “Only some of it.”

Trent sighs. “Let’s get it processed in the back.”

Jamie Tartt is one of the stars of the agency known as the Dogtrack. He’s also aggravatingly cocky and spectacularly laissez-faire with his equipment; Keeley’s always in here, making apologies for him having thrown his Glock into a volcano, or something. Trent has no patience for the likes of Jamie Tartt. One already has so many people trying to kill one in this line of work, but there he is, giving even more people reasons to want him dead.

The back room is behind a reinforced steel door that can only be opened using either Trent’s or Miss Bowen’s fingerprints and a passcode that changes every day. The passcode is in fact a rolling alphanumerical series that progresses through the entirety of Hamlet, and if anyone ever cracks it, Trent will be very impressed by their grasp of Shakespeare. In the back room, Trent lays out the remnants of Jamie Tartt’s mission kit and purses his lips.

“To lose one dart gun, Miss Jones, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.”

“Oh, you needn’t have a go at me, I’m proper mad at him myself. You know what he did last week? Tried to murder Roy Kent. Roy Kent!”

“What, for work?”

“Not even that! Some kind of fucking…pissing contest.” Keeley makes a noise of exasperation. “Some days it’s like we gave a bunch of five-year-olds guns and let them loose on a jungle gym. You know what I mean?”

“I’ll just put it on his tab,” says Trent. “Which is astronomical, by the way.”

“I’ll chivvy the folks at the Dogtrack to send you a cover. Only they’re rushed off their feet this week – you must have heard.”

Trent has heard, but it always serves one in intelligence gathering to pretend to know less than one really does. “What’s happening over there?”

“The Mannions are going to war,” says Keeley, her voice lush with the juice of gossip - another reason why Trent likes having her in the shop. “The whole Dogtrack’s splitting up. Christ, but it’s a mess down there.”

“Who’s Jamie backing?”

“Hasn’t decided. Rupert’s putting it about that the whole agency’s going with him, but word on the street is that Rebecca Welton’s brought in someone from abroad to take him out. They’re saying it’s an American.” She sucks in an excited breath. 

“Why would you bring in an American for that?” demands Trent. 

“Beats me. It’s going to keep us all on our toes for a bit, to be sure. I reckon it’s some Tom Cruise type, all Mission Impossible Jack Reacher like. But nobody knows for certain.” 

“Surely not,” says Trent. “You at least must have some idea, Miss Jones.”

Keeley flutters her eyelashes at him. “Who, me? I’m just a humble secretary.”

“Of course you are,” says Trent. “And I’m just a poor bookseller.”

Keeley slants a sly look at him. “You haven’t seen any Americans around, have you?”

“We get Americans in the store all the time. Just this morning we had a Mrs Glenda Johnson from South Carolina complaining that we don’t have a café in the store.”

“Yeah,” says Keeley, “fairly sure it’s not Mrs Glenda Johnson. Isn’t there a Costa two doors down?”

“Precisely,” says Trent. “Americans.”

They return to the front of the store, the afternoon light streaming across the polished wood floors and touching the book covers. “It really is awful pretty, when the light’s good,” says Keeley, running a hand across a row of Sally Rooneys. “You know what you ought to do? You should do #BookTok.”

“That,” says Trent, “is the single worst suggestion I’ve ever heard.”

Keeley laughs. “Give me a pot of money and some Madeline Miller and I’ll do it for you. I’ll make you so famous, you’ll be beating influencers off with a stick.”

“Just tell the Dogtrack to pay for your boyfriend’s damage.”

Keeley sticks her tongue out as she swings out of the shop. “If you see the American, you’ll tell me first. Won’t you?”

*

“Tell me a story,” says Cleis. They’re curled up in her bed, her tiny frame pillowed against his side. 

“You’ve had two already.”

“But I want another.” Cleis looks up at him, her eyes clear and green as the sea. “Tell me about Maman.”

Trent stares up at the glow-in-the-dark stars that speckle her bedroom ceiling. Tell me about a complicated woman, he hears Coralie say in his head. She sounds slightly amused. This is an anachronism, of course. Coralie never lived to see the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey. She would have loved it.

“Where do I start with your mother?”

“Was she very beautiful?”

“Yes. She knew exactly how beautiful she was and what to do with it.”

“Do I look like her?”

“The spitting image.” Even at four, Cleis looks so much like her mother that Trent will sometimes look over at her, in the middle of something mundane like making dinner or brushing her hair, and the resemblance will strike him like a punch to the gut.

Cleis is pleased by this. “What else?”

“Well. She loved old poems, and she was a lot stronger than she looked, and she wasn’t scared of a thing. Never listened to anyone either.”

“Not even you?”

“I like to think she listened to me a bit more than most other people,” allows Trent, “but even that wasn’t very much.”

Cleis kneads her quilt between her small hands. “Why didn’t she come back?”

Trent swallows. “She couldn’t. She had to save everyone.” Including me, he doesn’t add. Instead he says: “She loved you more than anything in the world.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me so. It was the last thing she said, before – ” Trent stops. Cleis is silent.

“Go to sleep now, chouette.”

It’s another hour before she drifts off to sleep proper. He sits in the dark, her hand tucked in his, until she does.

*

“So that’s your subscriber number, which you should quote in all correspondence with us and over the phone when placing orders. Orders placed within less than twenty-four hours of pick-up will be subject to last-minute fee increments. Is that understood, Mr Rojas?”

The lush-haired young man beams at Trent across the counter. “Si, entiendo.”

“Book club notices are posted on the board to the right,” Trent goes on. “Those are for freelancers, I don’t vet them personally and you attend book club at your own risk. This is for your first assignment.” He hands over a copy of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. Dani Rojas makes to open it; Trent slams it shut. “Don’t open your books in the store.”

“Okay,” says Dani, wide-eyed. He hefts the book experimentally in his hand. “It is very heavy. Does it have a happy ending?”

Trent snorts. “It’s a Bolaño, what do you think?”

Dani nods cheerfully. “I thank you for this, señor. Literature is life.”

“I mean, it actually isn’t,” says Trent, “which is sort of the whole point – but never mind. All the best, Mr Rojas.”

Dani leaves, whistling. He passes Roy Kent on his way in. “He’s not the American, is he?” says Roy, not quite sotto voce to Trent.

“I rather think he’s Mexican,” says Trent. “Are you all still going on about that? I’d have thought you’d have worked it out by now.”

“Nah,” says Roy. “No idea who it is. Mrs Mannion – that is to say, Ms Welton – is keeping her cards close to her chest. Old Rupert’s foaming at the mouth. They say he’s got hold of some kind of leverage, but fucked if we know what.” He studies the noticeboard. “Anything good at book club?”

“What, are you freelancing now?”

“Reckon I might as well, since it’s all going to shit at the Dogtrack.” Roy frowns at A Moveable Feast, Wednesday 8pm; A Gentleman In Moscow, Thursday 7pm; and Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, Thursday 9pm. He points at the last. “Where’s that one again?”

“East Java. I hear Indonesia’s nice this time of year.”

“Right, let’s give it a go then.”

Trent scribbles down a number on a Post-It and hands it to Roy. “Call it and burn it. You know the drill.”

“Cheers.” Roy regards Trent, brows thickly furrowed. “You’ve seen the American, haven’t you?”

“No comment.” 

Roy grunts. “Bet you have. You’re just being a prick about it, as usual.”

“Whoever it is, they’re probably out in the community already,” says Trent. “Bravely or stupidly.”

“Stupidly,” decides Roy, stalking off.

*

The problem with The Independent is that, despite Trent’s best efforts and the imminently prophesied demise of brick-and-mortar bookselling, it still continues to be a fairly popular bookshop. Trent has no idea why this is. He puts zero effort into the window displays. He shelves the books in no discernible order, so it is virtually impossible for a customer to locate anything. Sometimes he even leaves terrible TripAdvisor reviews for himself, to discourage casual browsers and tourists. And yet the shop continues to see customers – not subscribers, actual book-loving civilians. People keep popping in to have opinions on how Trent should run his bookshop, to complain that he doesn’t sell stationery or upbraid him for not carrying the latest Stephenie Meyer or insinuate that he should hold poetry readings (of their poems) in the store. It’s a marvel that Trent has gone all these years without shooting anyone in the face.

Still, the shop has regulars somehow. There are the subscribers, and then there are normal people who just show up and spend ages browsing, even though Trent has made sure there is nowhere comfortable for them to sit. There is the elderly gent who pops in nearly every morning to thumb through books and point out printing errors to anyone unfortunate enough to be in proximity. There is the teenage girl who spends afternoons seated cross-legged in an aisle, reading The Sandman in instalments. And then there’s Ted Lasso.

“Why’d you call it The Independent?” Ted wants to know. He’s come back to pick up his copy of Silverview, and despite having achieved this with little incident, has nevertheless once more sought out Trent where he is dusting the shelves.

“Because it is an independent bookstore,” says Trent, who is in fact sweeping for bugs. He finds one planted atop a birding guide and surreptitiously crushes and pockets it. “Can I help you with anything else, Mr Lasso?”

“I was wondering where I might find your Graham Greene.”

“I believe we have The Quiet American somewhere in the shop, if you can bear to wait while I excavate it. Though,” adds Trent, “you are a distinctly unquiet American.”

“You can say that again,” says Ted cheerfully. “You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of The Third Man, would you?”

Most people haven’t even seen The Third Man, let alone are aware that it was based on a Graham Greene novella. “You know your spy fiction, Mr Lasso.”

“Call me Ted, won’t you?”

Trent drags the ladder around the corner and retrieves The Third Man from a high shelf near where the ceiling dips. He looks down, head tilted, at the man beaming up at him from the foot of the ladder. You’ve seen the American, haven’t you? Ted Lasso does not look like the kind of American called in to bring down the head of an agency. He looks like a caricature of an American. He has worn the same pair of khakis every time he has set foot in this shop and it is likely he does so without irony. Yet Trent has the feeling that something is off, the way that shots in The Third Man are framed at a slight angle so that the city looks like a painting knocked askew. 

Ted clears his throat. “Kinda staring there, Trent. Makes a fella wonder if he ain’t got toothpaste in his moustache.”

Trent hands over the book. “Why are you here, Ted? Really?”

“First thing I always do when I land in a new place is find a local bookstore,” says Ted brightly. “Tells you a lot about the town, your local bookstore.”

Trent takes off his glasses. “And what, pray, have you learnt from this one?”

“That nothing is where you think it’ll be,” says Ted. “But it sure helps if you ask for directions.” 

“Perhaps you should ask him if he wants to get coffee,” says Miss Bowen after Ted has left. “Isn’t that why you hired me? So you could have more of a social life?”

Trent pinches the bridge of his nose. “I hired you so that in the event of a terrorist attack on the shop, we wouldn’t be short-handed.”

“I’m glad you did. It was this or go back to teaching kindergarten.” She raises her voice sharply as a man in a denim jacket emerges from behind a shelf and shuffles towards the door. “Stop right there!”

“Uh,” says the man intelligently. “What’s this about?”

“We have CCTV in the shop, you know,” says Miss Bowen. “So we’d appreciate it if you didn’t leave the shop with Jonathan Franzen stuffed down your trousers.”

The man leers. “Like to come over and check on it yourself, love?”

Miss Bowen meditatively flicks open the boxcutter she was using to trim plastic wrap. “You know, I just might.”

The man hastily removes the Franzen. “All right, no need to get all shirty about it. I’ll just put it back then.”

“The fuck you will, we’re not touching that again,” says Miss Bowen. “You’re going to leave twenty quid on the counter – with your other hand, mind – and then you’re going to back out the door and never come back.”

“Can’t do that in kindergarten, can you,” remarks Trent after their errant customer has complied and made himself scarce.

“There’s something to be said about the job satisfaction in this place,” agrees Miss Bowen.

*

Trent arrives at his parents’ just in time to see his daughter stabbing his father in the front garden.

“Ah! Ah! Alas!” cries his father, sinking dramatically into the grass as Cleis bashes him joyously with a foam sword. “You’ve got me, dread pirate!”

“Did you kill grandpa, chouette?” says Trent as she greets him by thwacking him on the shins with her sword. 

“Three times,” says Cleis modestly as she is scooped up.

“She’s a bloodthirsty one.” His father is rising ponderously to his feet, brushing grass stains off his knees. He dotes on Cleis in a fashion that was distinctly lacking in Trent’s own childhood. Trent still cannot get over the incongruity of it – the legendary Chester Crimm, scourge of the Stasi Circle, playing pirates on the lawn with a four-year-old. He does have the eyepatch for it, Trent reflects.

His father turns his good eye towards Trent. “Sell a lot of books today, son?”

“Hilarious,” says Trent shortly. “Where’s mum?”

“Getting her hair done.” They head back into the house. “What’s this I’m hearing about an American at the Dogtrack?”

“Christ, I’m sick of hearing about the American. How’d that even get to you?”

“I was at poker night with the old guard. It’s all everyone’s talking about, the Mannion split.” His father pulls a beer from the fridge and hands it to Trent as Cleis makes for the living room television. “Never liked Mannion. Did you know he tried to get off with your mother, back in the day?”

“Ugh,” says Trent faintly.

“That was before he got mixed up with the Welton girl, of course,” says his father with the alacrity of the generation who can get away with calling Rebecca “the Welton girl”. “The agencies are such a shitshow these days. You know, back in my day – ”

“By all means,” says Trent mordantly, “reminisce about the Cold War, dad. What a splendid time that was.”

“You know what I mean,” his father grumbles. “People just got divorced and got on with things. Didn’t go about involving Americans. You’ve not seen the American, have you? Why are you laughing?”

“I’m just thinking of the rhyme,” says Trent. “From The Scarlet Pimpernel.” At his father’s blank look, he recites: “They seek him here, they seek him there, those people seek him everywhere! Is he in heaven or in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel.”

“Damned!” exclaims Cleis from the doorway. “Damned, damned, damned!”

Trent stares at her, aghast. “Now look what you’ve done,” says his father.

*

Ted isn’t in the shop today, though his bearded friend has put in an appearance. He has only ever been referred to as Beard, and Trent is coming round to the idea that it might actually be the man’s Christian name, because who even knows with Americans? He’s browsing in the back, which is fine, and has been engaged for the past fifteen minutes in a conversation with Jane Payne, which is not so fine.

“Should we say something?” Miss Bowen wonders.

“We are The Independent,” says Trent. “We have a policy of non-interference.”

“I mean, she’s literally toxic. Did you see the photos from her Dubai job?”

“No. Jesus. Why are there even photos?”

Miss Bowen shrugs. “No idea. Everyone’s been sending them around in the group chats. Did not know you could get blood that colour.”

“Miss Payne can do what she likes, provided she does it outside the shop.” Trent pauses. “Though you could ask him if he wants to get coffee.”

“No thank you,” says Miss Bowen. “I have no wish to be stabbed in the pancreas by Jane Payne.”

They are distracted by the shop bell. Trent is surprised and slightly disconcerted to see none other than Rebecca Welton bearing down upon the counter in all her glory. The agency heads rarely visit the shop in person; Trent typically corresponds with Mr Higgins for the Dogtrack’s interests.

“Ms Welton. What can we do for you?”

“I’d like to see your Canterbury Tales special edition,” says Rebecca without preamble. 

Trent blinks. “Certainly. This way.”

In the back room, he opens the case where the Chaucer collection is stored. Rebecca begins looking it over critically. She hefts a rocket launcher experimentally, testing its weight. “Which one is this?”

“The Wife of Bath. Gives you five shots.”

“Hm,” says Rebecca approvingly. “I rather like the sound of that.” She inspects the double-barrelled shotgun dubbed the Man of Law and the poison darts of the Pardoner. “I’ll take the lot for the rest of the month.”

“That’s a lot of firepower,” says Trent bluntly. “You’re not trying to kill your husband, are you?”

“I don’t know why you’d say that, Mr Crimm. Though I suspect he might be trying to kill me.”

“Is it all for you? Or is any of it for the American?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Rebecca, expression immaculate. “Do invoice Mr Higgins.”

*

“Darling,” says Trent in long-suffering tones, “please get out of the tree.”

Cleis responds by clambering to a higher branch. She’ll be a while. Trent sighs and puts his hands on his hips, gazing out across the green. It’s a pleasant Sunday morning in the park, though it doesn’t stop him from tracking every jogger and picnicking couple in the vicinity, combing the milieu for hands in pockets and inside coats, calculating distances and trajectories. 

His gaze moves across and catches on a lone jogger making his way up the path in their direction. That’s Ted Lasso, he’s sure of it: head down, shoulders hunched against the bite of wind off the water, but there’s no mistaking that moustache. As Trent watches, he raises his head and their eyes meet. He does a very convincing double-take. He’s either genuinely surprised to see Trent here, or his acting skills are commendable. That Trent can’t tell says a lot. Then his face splits into a broad grin.

“Hey there, Trent Crimm, The Independent!”

“Hello, Ted Lasso from America.” Trent eyes Ted as he jogs over, beaming affably. He waves his hand awkwardly. “You…live around here?”

“Oh yeah, Beard and I have digs around here. Like to come out for a run on the weekends.”

“Your vacation is stretching on rather,” Trent informs him.

“Oh, we picked up some work,” says Ted evasively. “Thought we’d stick around, make hay while the sun shines. Though you ain’t got a whole lot of hay around these parts. Not like what I’m used to, at any rate.”

“What sort of work do you do, Ted?”

“Human resources,” says Ted blandly.

Trent removes his glasses and fixes Ted with a searching look. Ted meets his gaze, perfectly amiable. Trent narrows his eyes. Ted doesn’t blink. The whole effect is ruined when Cleis leaps out of the tree unannounced and tumbles onto him.

“Oh for f – ” Trent bites off invective as he staggers. “For the last time, my love, climb down.”

“But this is faster,” says Cleis innocently. She appears to notice Ted, and peers at him curiously as Trent sets her down.

“Well hey there, sweetheart,” says Ted. “What’s your name?”

“Cleis.”

“Fais attention,” says Trent, more sharply than is his wont. Cleis stiffens and tucks herself behind his knee. She always takes her cues from him, and he realises too late his body language has been telescoping an ease with Ted that he should not have brooked. She has never introduced herself to a stranger before.

Ted must pick up on some of that, because he stops short of coming over, instead maintaining the distance between them and crouching down till he is at Cleis’s eye level. “That’s a real pretty name,” he tells her. “It’s from a poem, ain’t it?”

“Sappho.” Trent’s throat feels tight.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” says Ted. “Like a small golden flower. Did you name her?”

“No,” says Trent. “That was her mother. She's – she liked the classics.”

On Trent’s first mission to Morocco, he was paired with a young agent with a French accent and a Classics degree. The former was nearly imperceptible except when she was under pressure; the latter was of no use whatsoever on the mission, any more than Trent’s own English degree was.

“You’re gay, aren’t you?” she said after they had spent four minutes making out pointedly in an alcove to distract the security guards of the Casablanca mansion they were breaking into.

“I’m afraid so,” said Trent, picking a lock.

“That’s a relief. I was worried I was losing my touch.” The lock clicked open, and she whistled appreciatively. “Sing to me, Muse, of the man of twists and turns.” 

“The Odyssey? Really?” Trent was secretly delighted that he was no longer the only one pretentious enough to quote classics during a field op. Or Casablanca in Casablanca, even.

She winked at him. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Her name was Coralie Chénier, though they called her “the Owl”. Trent used to envy her this; everyone, despite his best efforts, referred to him as “Chester’s boy”. Then came the Cuba incident, which was such a bloodbath that it earned Trent the moniker “the Jackal”. After that he decided monikers were overrated. At least they matched: the Owl and the Jackal.

Coralie was an orphan – the service preferred either orphans, or those to the manor born, like Trent – and so for the ten years they spent in the field, he was the closest thing she had to next of kin. It was him she told first about Cleis.

“The father?”

She waved a hand dismissively – not in the picture, then. She did not say who it was. Trent knew it to be a crowded field.

“Are you keeping it?”

“I shouldn’t, should I? It’ll take me out of the field for a good stretch.” But he already knew, from the way she rested her hand over her still-flat stomach, that she would.

“I could marry you, if you liked,” he offered.

She laughed. “That’s the sweetest thing any man has ever said to me, darling. But I think I’ll be just fine.”

The last thing she said to him, before she pulled out her comm and charged back into a building rigged with explosives, was: “Promise me you’ll look after her.”

“There must be another way – ”

“I’ve got to do this, Trent,” she said, too gently. “Make sure she knows how much I loved her. All Croesus’ kingdom.”

“I promise – ” but by then she was already gone. 

“I’m sorry,” says Ted, bringing Trent back to the present. His hand tightens on the shoulder of Coralie’s daughter. 

“Thank you,” he says, for lack of anything better.

“Heck of a poem,” Ted adds. 

“Oh yes,” says Trent. I wouldn’t take all Croesus’ kingdom with love thrown in, for her.

#wip ask game #ted lasso #trent crimm #ted x trent #ted lasso/trent crimm #tedependent #rebecca welton #coach beard #keeley jones #roy kent #dani rojas #miss bowen #long post

[hillerskalibrary]

Event poll results!

(summary version)

So last week I opened a poll to check what kind of YR fandom events you guys wanted to see and the respondents were... how shall I put it... "very excited" is most applicable I think? ;)

Because I'm a nerd who likes to analyze the results but also doesn't want to chase her entire following away, I'm going to make two result posts:

This post, where I will summarize the results as succint as I can, and address some of the remarks and suggestions that I received. I'll also make a conclusion on what I would suggest to do - feedback on that is certainly welcome!

A second post (which I'll link when I finish it, most likely tomorrow or even after cause I'm slow as fuck) with some more graphs, percentages, observations, cause I don't know shit about statistics but that won't stop me from having fun with it!

Fair warning - it's pretty long. I just find it easier to explain a little about the decisions I'm (not) taking, both to invite discussion and because I don't want this to be a black box blog that does whatever and you never know why. That being said...

Ready? Let's go!

RESULTS

I received 72 responses, 36 writers and 36 readers.

The top 3 most wanted events by READERS is: Big Bang (89%), Theme Week (86%), and Weekly Challenges (83%). The event they were least excited about is Author Interviews (56%).

The top 3 events writers most want to PARTICIPATE in is, in order: Author Interviews (69%), Theme Week (64%), and Fic Exchange (61%). The events they DO NOT want to participate in are Author Interviews (25%), very closely followed by Big Bang and Advent (both 22%).

READERS were (very) slightly more excited about a Wilmon theme week rather than a general YR week. WRITERS clearly preferred a general YR week. For both groups, a YR women week comes in third, and rarepair week is fourth.

All types of weekly writing challenges suggested scored similarly.

(I know some of these seem contradictory, which I why I'll make the second post explaining how I calculated these rankings and why -for example- Author Interviews are both the most AND the least popular event for writers ;) )

SUGGESTIONS

A lot of people wrote in suggestions, which I was SUPER happy about (I closed the form now but if you have any more, please just hit my inbox or DM me at @hilliska). A few people also offered to help, which I'm definitely gonna hold you to when decisions are starting to get made! ;)

Many people were excited about possible collabs between writers and artists.

"What about a "finish your draft/wip" or "write a new chapter on a wip". I have so many languishing WIPs…" I think this is an EXCELLENT idea tbh - though we could incorporate it in the big bang by allowing wips as well. Also, as an FYI, there is also a (non-fandom-specific) Finish Your Shit-Big Bang that takes place every year (though this year's round is close to posting already) ;).

"I’d also love to see more Podfic in this fandom, but I don’t know how that could be an event." I have zero experience with podfic but this does sound (ha!) like it could be fun. Maybe someone has experience with this from a different fandom? (honestly I'd love to experiment with this so hmu)

"Authors sign up to take one shot requests or readers get to write a prompt. Or if readers could submit or vote on prompts or something? Or readers submit a song and author writes a one shot based on a song. Something like that where readers can be involved too :)" We could also easily incoporate this in a big bang - do a prompt bang or a reverse bang (fic based on art) for example? Or maybe involve readers in the weekly challenges, by suggesting tropes/words/... ?

"Write a comment on a fic-week!" Yessss!!!! I am like... 95% sure there is a tumblr-wide event for this already but I can't for the life of me find it. So I could signal boost that or yeah, we could just pin a day ourselves :).

"Group chat/watch" I'm afraid I'm not the right person to organize this kind of thing, but if you've been thinking of doing this and you were afraid no one would be interested - this is your sign!! ;)

"live writing event" Same as above - though I do think there's some discords where this happens already?

"Some sort of collab, where authors get to write a fic together." This could definitely be fun! There is currently one that originated on Twitter called Unlabeled - I don't know all the writers but I recognize at least @yourdemiurge, @skydragon05, @1-life-to-give, and @in-amor-veritas. Which obviously doesn't help if you're a writer wanting to collab, but at least there's people with experience in this fandom ;).

"Maybe a poetry week?" I don't even write poetry but I'm obsessed with this suggestion. Could also be a writing challenge? Not sure about a whole week either, but there's World Poetry Day in March so maybe that can be a mini-event?

"Something not fic centered? Like fanart, edits, cosplay etc." This is one of those things that I'm throwing out there for other people to run with, maybe, because. Well, I'm a writer and I know fic, but I really don't know much about the rest... Which is not to say I don't want to (help) run anything like this because it definitely could be fun, but it's a little out of my wheelhouse. But maybe @youngroyalsfanartarchive can help or knows people who would?

And now what??

Consider the below not as a definitive list but as a stream-of-consciousness conversation starters, so don't hesitate to send me your thoughts.

I will definitely do a Big Bang. Prompt-based or art-based or wip-based or something else remains to be decided, but this will happen. It will not happen NOW, however, because we don't know when season 3 will air. Big Bangs are big events, they ask a lot from writers, and if the s3 premiers at any time between signups and publications, it's going to make everything more difficult. But there was sufficient interest by writers to participate, so once we got a s3 date I want to put a timeline on this.

I'm talking with people about a possible YR women's week. The general/Wilmon week scored higher in the polls, but since we already had that in spring I'd like to switch it up a little.

I would like to do *something* for the anniversary of s2. Don't want to go regular theme week for this because of the above possibility, but maybe the not-fic-centered event could be good for this - we could do favorite episode/favorite non-wilmon character/... which are things that non-content-creators can also participate in by writing a short paragraph, reblogging gifsets/art of that episode/character, ... "Finish your wip" would also be a good one for this though :)

The people behind the 2023 Secret Santa will not organize one this year, but I don't really want to jump in that, necessarily, because there's enough other possibilities and they might be back. But a Valentine fic exchange could maybe work?

The advent calendar idea drew mixed reactions (maybe because it's less well known?) and while I do think it could be fun, there's enough other things that people are excited about, so I'm putting it in the freezer for now.

The weekly challenges also drew mixed reactions - both readers and writers were excited to see them happen, but only a third of writers said they would definitely/probably participate. Then again, half of them said they would POSSIBLY participate. Maybe because it's an ongoing thing, so they don't want to promise they'd participate EACH WEEK but only sometimes? So I'm not sure about this (also because it would significantly up the time required to maintain the blog). So I'd love more feedback on this to see which shape or form you guys would like this to take.

Fic recs scored solidly in the middle of the possibilities for both reader and writers. I wanted to include it because I was curious, but I'm a little hesitant to really do something with it, mostly because it often ends up being a popularity contest and. Well. We already know how to sort by kudos/comments on AO3. So I'm curious to hear other people's experiences on how to maybe circumvent that.

The Author Interviews were the most contested event - even (or rather *especially* among writers (and I secretly think it's hilarious the most wanted event by writers is the one that doesn't require them to write at all :D). I do think it could be fun (though I admit this is a format mostly geared towards writers) to help other writers to find other people to collaborate with, find betas, learn about different writing processes, ... And a self-rec feature would allow for fic recs without the popularity factor. So I'll most likely run this as a (bi-)weekly feature alongside the other events.

#young royals #library managment #this took me way too long jc #I promise there will be graphs but it'll be later. okay? ;) #and again this is a conversation starter #please let me know what you think

[thetimemoves]

20 questions for fic writers

I was tagged by @raina-at @discordantwords and @totallysilvergirl, thank you!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

20

2. What's your total A03 word count?

57, 682. Not a lot for 20 works, but 10 of them are 221b ficlets. I only have one fic over 10k (it's just over 11.3k).

3. What fandoms do you write for?

BBC Sherlock

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Never Trust to General Impressions

Abditory

Feel My Heart Banging Like a Gun

Out of Every Nowhere

Forth They Went Together

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

Yes, I do. I'm so thrilled to get them and appreciate it when someone takes the time to leave a comment. It makes me giddy, it does!

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

I like to end on a happy, or at least hopeful, note but occasionally angst comes out on top. I think it's probably a tie between these two: Paperweight, which is Sherlock's POV when Molly gives him John's letter at the end of TST; and With Regrets, which is John's POV as he says goodbye to Sherlock in the hospital after the beating in TLD.

Both are 221b ficlets, so at least it's a sharp punch of angst and not an extended bout? Not kidding about that punch, though (sorry not sorry).

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

This is a tough one, but I think these are probably the happiest:

bitter, sweet

Feel My Heart Banging Like a Gun

Abditory

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, thankfully. Hopefully that continues.

9. Do you write smut?

I love me some good smut, but I don't write it (yet). Certain bits in Feel My Heart Banging Like a Gun and Steady as They Go are the closest I've come so far, but they're not smutty.

10. Do you write crossovers?

No. I don't. One of my WIPs is a Stand By Me/The Body (Stephen King) fusion, but I'm not interested in writing any crossovers right now.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, which amazes me! Two have been translated into Russian.

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

@splix71 and I began to plot out a Sherlock bounty hunter AU I had initially come up with back in 2019. We had so much fun coming up with names and theories and plot points, so much fun. Unfortunately, she had to step back due to health reasons (FUCK CANCER) and afterwards I couldn't bring myself to go back to it. I doubt I ever will, as clever as I think some of the things we came up with were. I don't know that there is a place anymore for Baker Street Bonds, Yarders Bail Service, or Reichenbach Bail, but I will always treasure the time we spent on it together (that she, a most amazing writer, wanted to write something with me, still blows my mind).

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

Mulder/Scully and Sherlock/John.

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

I have a Sherlock/John hunt the Bogeyman fic I've been poking at for YEARS. I love a lot of what I've written, but I wrote myself into a corner and haven't quite figured out how to get out. At this point I despair of ever finishing it, but never say never.

16. What are your writing strengths?

221b ficlets. I think I've done well with these in conveying lots of emotion in little moments.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Clever case fic and complicated plots. I can also get a bit wordy in my beginnings sometimes (ironic, considering my ability to write a strong 221b ficlet) and need a gentle nudge to cut to the action.

Also, if I'm going to be brutally honest, I tend to walk away too quickly when I get stuck and don't make myself work out the problem right then. Hence my many languishing WIPs.

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

I've not done it yet and don't see it happening down the road either.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

For published fic, BBC Sherlock. There might be some self-insert stories with River Phoenix in my very distant past.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Ooof, this is a hard one because every finished fic is a victory for me. That said, I'll always have a soft spot for Abditory. I had been in love with Sherlock since 2011 and devoured fic at an unholy rate, but was never dared write my own until 2017, after the last series. Better late than never, right? I also really loved writing Never Trust to General Impressions, with its slice-of-life looks at Sherlock and John's evolving relationship in relation to canon (with a not-so-canon twist on TRF). Funnily enough, both are 5+1 fics.

This was fun! I have loved reading all of these from everyone too. I'm going to be That Person and tag everyone who wants to do this but hasn't been tagged yet. Please do share!

#writing #writing meme #fic writer asks #my fic

[alexis-royce]

WIP game, (aka proof that I certainly don't finish everything that I start!)

I was tagged by: @the-dye-stained-socialite

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Please don't get too attached to any of these. Each one is equally likely to languish in draft purgatory or get made into a fully-fledged-whatever-it-is.

Grounds for Termination (Chrome and Prism)

Mostly text below the cut:

No Spoilers (Fallen London)

The third member of the book club had been uncharacteristically quiet. His pencil had been scribbling away for weeks now. Occasionally, Pages would demand to see what the man had been writing, wary of some kind of treacherous spy notation. But each time, his notebook was spun around, revealing a veritable sportsman’s notation of the conversation, complete with tally marks, denoting points. The Jovial Contrarian would flash an expression charitably known as “punchable,” before returning to his note-taking. Great rhetorical zugzwang did not come without effort and study, and if a man wanted to keep his edge, it was frightfully important to find and study such excellent examples.  Cards, at a glance, found themself exceptionally leery of the notation system employed by the contrarian, but before they were ever quite able to question it, some little spark of conversational fluff would waft by, reigniting their squabble with Pages, and more pressing matters would take prescience.

Mastery and the Marvellous (Fallen London)

“Stop that. Why are you rubbing your eye?” “I’m. Rubbing my eye?” She stammered. “I suppose-“ “Hypothetical. I know why you are doing this. Your hand. It vexes you.” “If my hand hurt, why would I rub-“ “Your hand of CARDS, Human.” “That hand’s fine, too-“ The movement was sudden, but there was no harshness in its tone. It stole the cards from The Disgraced Academic’s grip, and spread them out on the table. “Oi!” The Academic reached for them, but Pages shooed her away. “Do you want an afternoon’s amustraction, or do you want victory?”

Hiding an injury / betrayal / lying (Fallen London)

There was a long-running argument as to the exact shade violant most resembled. As a light, it was redder than blood. As a pigment, it was nearly indigo. But everyone who saw it agreed that the effect was much the same as spotting a running rivulet of blood from the stomach of a loved one. It commanded attention, to the distraction of all other things. The Ex-Disgraced Academic’s fingers trembled as they scraped violant eyeshadow from their compact, dragging it across their upper eyelid, and into the creek behind the bridge of their nose. They fanned it out, under their brow, nearly to their temple. It was a daring use of rouge, and frankly scandalous.  But it was exactly the sort of hue that would distract from the blossoming crimson stain oozing from their abdomen.

Dissociation (Deadly Premonition, HUGE spoilers)

First off, Zach could come to the front whenever he wanted, so it wasn’t a problem or anything. The white room was only a room in their dreams. When they were awake, it was more of the feeling of white, then anything else. A pull at the back of his skull, as though gravity shifted at the edge of his brain. But he didn’t have to stay back there or anything. When nobody was talking to them, he liked to strum on their base, or stitch new patches onto their jacket. He liked to get fancy with the stitches, and York was pretty encouraging about it. But the other guys made one crack about embroidery, and it took Zach four months to even pick up a needle again. Sure, he sometimes bumped into things while walking. But Zach was fine. He wasn’t trapped at all.

Experimentation / Muzzle / transformation (Jekyll & Hyde)

Pain hurts worse the more damage it does to you. For Henry John Albert Jekyll, transformation was excruciating. There simply wasn’t a way to reframe it as beneficial. Alchemy followed a process, and one of the first steps was the stripping of vice.  This position wasn’t meant to be anything beyond a simple Nigredo stage. The sloughing and burning of vice. It would have hurt, but it would have been a pain of catharsis. The bitter medicine fed to him in bed by a nurse. A scalding bath. The screaming voice of his father, correcting a shameful behavior. The mortification of flesh. But what was good and noble was being ripped from him. His patience, above all other things. Everything was louder as Hyde, everything was loud and impossible to abide, beer was richer and gin sweeter, the thighs of a woman were soft and the moans of men buttery.

The Outside, Chapter 4 (The Stanley Parable)

He went instead to the encyclopedias, pulled one down from the shelf, and then three more. Volumes 23-26. He opened two of them to random pages and left them open on the ground, then opened the other two, quickly turning pages one at a time. Lots of text, lots of images… THERE.  Two of the volumes were displaying identical page layouts. Two sets of articles on mangroves, not a single difference between the words and images. Volumes 24 and 26 had repeated content.  But when he flipped the books closed, both covers listed “Volume 25.” No…he’d been certain that he’d pulled four differently numbered books off the shelf. He checked the row again, and there, plain as day, was the untouched copy of Volume 26. If Stanley had attempted to relay this fact to another person, they’d likely tell him that he’d made a mistake. The library simply happened to have two copies of Volume 25. It was odd, sure, and bad luck that he’d managed to grab the one book that would trip him up. But those coincidences were more likely than…what? He was dreaming? His senses were handling input incorrectly ? The world around him was a poorly designed fabrication, scrambling to patch itself with limited content and memory allocation? Stanley’s fingers twitched.

Ash and Herbert Comic (Evil Dead, Re-Animator)

Panel 1 Ash, taking his pants off Ash: Hey short stuff I gotta thank you for doin’ me this solid Panel 2 Slumps down in a chair, boxers and hairy legs, kicks his feet up: Ash: I ran outta pharmacies after the S-Mart in Kalamazoo refused me service. Panel 3 Foreground, a syringe flicks bubbles, Ash prattles on in bg, full of a staggeringly self-assured confidence They say it was “because a horde of giggling demons ate the receptionist,” but I know transphobia when I see it.”

Charles Augustus Milverton Adaptation (Sherlock Holmes)

Watson later apologizes. “The very minute which my own blood cooled, I realized that I had committed upon you the same crime of which I had accused you. I was the cold one, not you. And I fear that it was not the young lady’s feelings which I’d been attempting to protect.”

Otto's Mind Design Docs (Psychonauts 2 Spoilers)

Lead Into Gold Roughs (Serialized Killer Spoilers)

Harold “Weird…is this some kind of accountability that isn’t based off fear?” — Maggie: Arrrrrgh Harry’s buzzing around in here telling me what to do.{w} Shut up I don’t take orders from ANYONE! Maggie: GRRAAAAAAHHHH! with vpunch Maggie: huff huff pause Maggie: Hawley, tell me what to do. — Harry "Well, DeLus was ACTUALLY locked in her basement by her father. There wasn't a lock on MY basement door. Show hawley sarcastic Hawley "Yeah, that's completely different." #Harry does not pick up on the sarcasm Harry "I've led a very fortunate and privileged life."

Hojojutsu (Lupin III)

Page 1 Zenigata is walking past a line of recruits, who are saluting. Narration: Inspector Zenigata Koichi is diligent, Zenigata continues to walk by, the word balloons follow him Narration: and hardworking, Zenigata continues to walk past the line of recruits Narration: And Tireless, One of the recruits, under his salute, grins. It’s Lupin. Narration: And A FOOL. Jigen Curse Comic Page Le Salle is a room that dwarfs the Mona Lisa, and how small it is in real life frequently disappoints people. Similarly, the man removing it is dwarfed by the space he fails to magnificently occupy. Rolling up the painting is Jigen Daisuke. Zenigata keeps his gun leveled. Balloon: Jeez, Pops, put that away before you hurt someone! The room is big, and there are only two men in it. Zenigata: Lupin? Come on out, and I’ll swap the gun for cuffs! Jigen, Mona Lisa in hand, brushes back his jacket, reaching for his gun. Jigen: You want me to take care of this? Page Zenigata’s confusion is making him upset. Balloon: Are you nuts? I’m already very mad you capped one guy, don’t push your luck! Under the brim of his hat, Jigen grins. He abandons his draw. Jigen: Whatever you say, Boss. Zenigata finally loses it. Balloon: Hmph, you only call me “Boss” when you’re upset- Zenigata: What the HELL’S goin’ on, here?! His grip is tight on the gun. Zenigata: Where the hell is Lupin? He bellows, in quite the action shot. Zenigata: Because that voice… ...ain’t him! Page Jigen stops for a moment, putting the Mona Lisa into a canvas tube. He slings it over his shoulder. Jigen: Well, that’s rude. Jigen begins to walk away. This conversation is built of linked speech bubbles. It’ll be a little confusing to read, but that’s okay. Zenigata is also confused. Jigen: You’d think he’d be happy to see his reason for living! I know, it’s been what, six months? Six months without a good chase! Must’ve been goin’ stir-crazy. Page The brim of Jigen’s hat tilts up, and a ray of moonlight passes over his face. He’s not doing well. The smile on his face is very Lupin-esque, wide eyed and energetic. But it sits poorly on this gunman. It doesn’t suit him, and with good reason. Jigen: That’s okay! I was itching for a heist, too!

High Protocol (NonPlatonic Forms)

“I can’t believe I shaved for this.” “Shut up, Liam.” Lee found it exceptionally rude that, almost as soon as he’d been able to speak again, he wasn’t allowed to use his voice anymore. “Yes, yes,” Niles worried at the cuffs of his jacket, and straightened his lapels, “an utter shame that the world won’t be graced with your croaky voice. However, the point is for you to be perceived as little as possible. If you draw attention to yourself, it will soundly defeat the point. Lee didn’t think that he was dressed to blend in. The suitjacket was immaculately tailored, and cut from a black-on-black brocade. He’d managed to slick his hair back into place, and he could see his face in his shoes. There was something satisfying about being dressed so elegantly. If you could pull off a look, it made you into a walking piece of art. Neat! But the collar was tight, the layers had already made him begin to sweat, and the shoes pinched at his toes and heels. Lee looked great, but it was a trade-off he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make for long. Niles began to fuss with Lee’s tie, now. Initially, he held tie after tie up to his neck, debating between endless shades of black, wrapping them around his collar in half and full Windsors. As his fingers brushed against Lee’s neck and chest, the sensation was more than enough to distract Lee from the pain in his heels. But the analogue method was too cumbersome for Niles, who quickly reverted to cheating. A snap of his fingers, and a new tie sprang about Lee’s collar. Another snap, another tie. Snap, snap, snap.

Gray Jacket Chapter 20 (Lupin III, and I do actually plan on finishing this one)

It wasn’t unheard of for them to bump into the same opponent once or twice, but over the past couple years, a young swordsman had kept popping up. A genuine, 20th-century samurai, hakama and katana in tow. Lupin had squarely beat him on all fronts, of course. Nobody was ever really any match for his own dazzling brilliance. But the Samurai had survived both encounters, and after a particularly lengthy little job plundering a pair of scrolls the samurai had been ordered to guard, the samurai had tried a new tactic. He’d shown up, barging straight into Lupin’s hideout, shoulders piled high with all his worldly possessions, determined to study, with Lupin as his new master. After all, Lupin had bested the samurai and his master, multiple times over. If he wanted to learn from ‘The Best,’ then it would be Lupin, and nobody else. At that moment, however, ‘The Best’ was plowing straight [OH NO THIS PART IS EXPLICIT], and the samurai’s declaration of intent to dedicate himself to Lupin’s tutelage was drowned out by an overcome moan of [YEAH YOU CAN'T SAY THAT IN CHURCH] and Lupin wasn’t in the habit of making artisan, single-sourced love if he had a looky-loo breathing down his neck. Across the room, Jigen turned the page of his newspaper. “The boss is busy. Come back later.”

Off the Cuff 2 (It's in the title)

"Ahhhhhh, {i}Christ.{/i}" "It’s my ex." "You ever been in one of those relationships that just consumes you from the inside?{w} You really, really know it’s a terrible idea, but that hardly helps.{w} You draw a line super early: clear, definite boundaries." "And then you realize that you’re both insanely fucked up, and neither of you has the same definition for what you’ve defined." "Why do I always find myself in these sorts of scenarios?{w} All I can do is sigh." "Nobody tells you that a 5\’2\" spitfire is going to be utterly irresistible to so many people. Hey, I try to warn them." "Too many folks out there touch-starved, I guess.{w} You pat them on the head once, and they think you’ve got an immortal, irreplaceable bond,{w} and then they drag you away to their laboratory where they just can't stop raising the dead, and you’ve got a whole 'nother issue to deal with." "Oh, well.{w} It do be like that sometimes."

Mecha Pilot Lee AU (NonPlatonic Forms)

The screen illuminated Lee's face. “Huh. That’s weird.” “What’s weird?” If she hadn't been a 15-meter mech, she could’ve been arching an eyebrow, for all her timbre implied. “Diagnostics were checking to see if you’d suffered data loss in the attack, but it’s the opposite. There’s new data in here.” Lee preemptively logged the finding analog-style, pulling out a notebook and copying down the file name.   “Oh, uh. Don’t open that.” She coughed. “That’s private.” Lee smirked. “Julia is not supposed to be saving personal files to your hardware, Channery. It’s a security issue.” “Where else is she supposed to save them? Come on, Lee! The enemy built me with barely any memory as it was! I know that I’m not supposed to be developing a history or memories, but you know better than I that I can’t accurately cross-reference them against any moral codes besides treasuring Julia!” “Oh. So it’s. Uh. Personal?” “Extremely.” Channery glowered. She couldn’t really fire her pulse charges at an ally, but her tone didn’t exactly encourage Lee to test it. “Channery, you know that I’m going to have to double-check this, right? I have to extract this and run it on a limited server. If it’s malicious…” “It’s not malicious! But it is, you know…” she hissed through her not-teeth, “…off-book pilot/apparatus bonding techniques.” “Any events that take place inside a cockpit are subject to government surveillance,” but Lee groaned as he said it. Julia and Channery weren’t the first pair to commit ‘off-book activities,’ and they wouldn’t be the last. It wasn’t even an illegal activity, so long as you were the only pilot assigned to the mech in question. But some pilots looked at the memory reserves in the mech’s hard drive, and figured that, so long as the AI was going to be adding the occasional movie, song or mission footage to its memory banks, there was space in there for their own precious memories of hanky-panky.  Fucking the mech wasn’t illegal. But saving your own unapproved files to the hard drive was.

And last but not least, from the 51k nanowrimo version of Lead Into Gold:

20th of Mid-Autumn, 1905 My one and only, You are quite right. I meant to write you a love letter, but instead, wound myself up in fears and concerns for myself. This next letter must scoop you up into my arms, and submerge us both into the warm comfort of my adoration. I miss you dreadfully; during the days there is my research to keep me company, but it is a cruel friend that runs me ragged and leaves me empty. I’ve grown accustomed to welcoming you to dinner every night, and have been considering hiring a cook, if research continues to go well. It is not fashionable to have servants, as the aristos in other cities do, but the hiring of a weekly maid is quite normal, and has worked well for me. I have kept her from touching the guest room- which is quickly taking place in my mind as ‘Hawley’s Room’- but I cannot say the same for myself. I have slept in there twice already, and worn your sweater while I slept and while I but these hints of you are not the same as your presence and words. You know, as much as I may consider the opinions of others, their presence is extraordinarily draining. I have had three dinners since you left, all of them supposedly university functions, but all also including a number of businessmen. I knew that this was a common occurrence in the chemical and engineering departments; the end goal for most research is to patent and sell to the highest bidder. But as you mentioned, I am quite well off enough that to sell would be quite unethical of me. So it is obnoxious to continually wish for a dinner discussing university business, and to get this other sort of business, instead. Were you here, I wonder what you might have said. And yes, I am sure that that must be an odd thing to hear from me, who is constantly tutting and pooh-poohing you for your lack of manners. But what seems irksome in abundance can be precious in absentia. And your forthrightness is a blast of cool air in these stuffy meetings. The lot of us stuffed-shorts spend hours and hours carefully twisting our words around, into pretty shapes, hoping to avoid offense. But all that that really seems to accomplish is to raise the standard. And thus, words that are not pretty enough become an offense. A missed complement becomes a slight. It is enough to make me long for you to insult me. I am no masochist, but the sense of security one gets by being insulted in good faith? It is endless. To know that one’s faults are perceived, and still accepted, is more flattering than a hundred compliments. That is part of the charm of you, one that is not easily seen by those deluded enough to expect empty flattery. You do not insult out of some desire to exercise power, or to harm the person with whom you speak. You do so out of the simple, innocent desire to speak what is true, or to assist another in correcting a flaw. And thus, when you speak praise, it holds a value to me which is deeply precious. And all the moreso because your opinions and insight are excellent! When we differ in perspective, it is not long before you are able to sway me to your side of the matter, and I feel all the richer for it. I miss them deeply, and remain, Ever Yours, Harry P.S. I am enclosing some additional notes on the new detection device, and I hope that they are of value.

25th of Mid-Autumn, 1905 My Failing Wordsmith, It confuses me to no end, how a man who spins the most poetic words of love in person, cannot manage to do the same on paper. I do not feel submerged in affection yet, you must open the tap further. I apologize, I am in a lackluster mood. I’ve seen neither hair nor hide of the demon, though the readings are exceptionally strong. I end each day in mounting frustration. One of Rakove’s damndable wasps escaped from its carrier the other day, and when I swung at it, the horrible things was impertinent enough to sting me. That was, in effect, the end to my entire day. Unlike you, I do not handle pain well, and the swelling in my arms was enough to command my thoughts, and I took to bed. I tried writing to you, but it was as though the blinding light at sea, searing my eyes, were all concentrated on that one spot on my arm. All I accomplished was to ruin two sheets of paper with curses, and they are illegibly mediocre ones. Professor Rakove did his best to assist, but his research in the matter is still lacking, and the salve which he applied to the sting only made the situation worse. He asked me questions, attempting to ascertain my status, but, delirious with pain, I cannot tell if I was any help. He stayed by my side for the rest of the day and night, and I appreciate his diligence, giving up valuable research time to care for me. I am still weak, and he supposes that I might have been allergic to the sting. I have told him that while I may grumble about it, he is forgiven in my heart, so long as he fixes the latch on his bee carrier. I shall continue to convalesce, but I won’t improve without affection. Yours. I demand it, so that I may remain, Ever Yours, Hawley

#That being said if you'd like to encourage me to make more of any of these #Then go ahead and comment or send an ask #I am committed to NPF and Lead Into Gold and Gentlemens Club at the moment #But enthusiasm and support can steer my brain in the Actually Making Stuff direction #WIPs #Fics #The Stanley Parable #Psychonauts 2 #Deadly Premonition #Exit #NonPlatonic Forms #Scribbles #I know that there's more rattling around but I'm not going looking for them

[lavellenchanted]

wip wednesday

I was tagged by the lovely @beachy--head!

Here are a few snippets from some of the very many wips I have languishing in my docs, which you are all very welcome to kick me about should you wish.

Dr Cho coughs gently, and Steve starts a little in surprise. He had forgotten for a moment where they are, and realises abruptly that he has, in fact, started leaning in towards Peggy without realising. He jerks back, face warm, but Dr Cho is smiling gently, looking between them with curious eyes. “Well,” she says, “I can certainly see why you had trouble resisting each other. But did the fact that you were cohabiting give you any hesitation about beginning a relationship?” “Uh - yeah,” Steve coughs, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. This is where the line between truth and lie begins to blur, and he can’t quite bring himself to look her in the eye. “I mean, I knew I had feelings for her long before I acted on them. But I thought it might be a bad idea . . . what if it didn’t work and living together suddenly became much more awkward? What if being in each other’s space all the time is too much pressure on a new relationship? What if it screwed up a friendship that’s really important to me?” “And how did you deal with that? What was it that made you decide to act on your feelings despite your concerns?” “W- well . . .” Briefly Steve falters, because of course the truth is that he hasn’t dealt with them. Those concerns have kept his mouth shut for a year, even as his feelings for Peggy grew and became more intense with each passing day.  But then Peggy cuts across him, saying wryly, “Dutch courage.”

--

“Can you honestly say I’m wrong?”  Edwina takes a long sip of her lemonade - not particularly tasteful, but still appropriately sour - as she considers her answer. Last year she would have made some vague, conciliatory remark intended to smooth Eloise’s ruffled feathers and keep the peace, that revealed nothing of her true thoughts. Perhaps last year she would not have known what her true thoughts really were. Today she lowers her glass, and looks Eloise in the eye as she says, “No, I do not think you are wrong, per se, but I think you don’t recognise your own privilege in being able to say so.” Eloise snorts. “My privilege? You mean the privilege of having a brain?” A flash of irritation gives bite to Edwina’s reply, “No, I mean the privilege of having a wealthy, powerful and loving family that can support you.” 

--

In that spirit he makes his way down to the river. He bathed properly at the Grove, eager to be rid of the stench and muck of the goblins, but who knows when there might be another chance even for a brief wash? And there is something meditative about splashing cool water on his face and feeling the drops trail down his neck and shoulders.  It's as he raises his head, shaking some of the excess water from his hair, that Halsin realises he is not the only one awake as he had thought. The one who seems to be leading this group, the drow woman who freed him from his cage, sits atop one of the rocky outcrops by the river, head tilted back and eyes closed as she apparently enjoys the early morning sunlight.

--

“Hey.” He was sitting at his desk but got to his feet as she climbed inside, eyes raking over her like he might be able to discern what was wrong just from looking at her. “What’s going on?”  “That . . . is a long story.” Maya gave a wry smile, shoving her hands into her pockets and looking around his room to avoid looking directly at him.  He had redecorated since the last time she was here, the walls now the shade of red she knew was his favourite apart from one brick feature wall. A poster of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hung on one wall, while on another was a pinboard covered in photos of his friends in both Texas and New York, ticket stubs and flyers from concerts and ball games he’d been to.  A bookcase was filled half with books, half with video games, and in pride of place on one shelf was a signed baseball that Maya remembered him bragging about catching at a game he and Zay had been at last year. The hand he’d caught it with had been bruised for a good couple of weeks, but Lucas had insisted it was worth it. There was also a Luke Skywalker action figure, and next to it was a small, burlap sack with a label that read Sack O’ Gold. And hanging off the edge, she realised with delight, was a cowboy hat

I'm tagging @emilykaldwen, @wheremermaidsdwell, @roboticonography and as always, my meme buddy @theawkwardterrier, if you guys want to play!

#wip wednesday #my fic #tag game

[shantismurf]

WiP Tag Game

Thanks to @lordoftherazzles for tagging me! I would normally be too ashamed to even attempt one of these because of how long I've left my poor lovelies to languish, but I have been infused with new vigor today, and I feel like it's a real shift entirely in how I think about writing in general. I'm focusing on the "slow dopamine" hit of producing a work from my heart that I am so proud to share, getting the same (or better!) kind of satisfaction I'd get from reading a really long, engrossing fic. It's really lit a fire in my heart for tackling my WIPs!

Rules: In a new post, post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Dear Your Majasty Mister Oakensheild

Marks and Sparks

Faegolain, Cuilgolain, Melgolain (Soul Bond, Life Bond, Love Bond)

What's Cooking

Anger Management

The Longing

Taking Root

Tangled crossover

Dwarrow choir

Quest for New Arnor (Round Robin)

I'm leaving off plot bunnies that haven't actually been developed, and an old old hpdm Practical Magic wip i want to someday get back to. Umm, oh goodness I have to tag ten people? Okay here goes! @tickles-ivory @mordellestories @hobbityalse @skywewe @chipsbarista @xxsircharlesxx @cloverboii @porphyriosao3 @chrononautintraining @the-pen-pot

#bagginshield #the hobbit #thorin x bilbo #fanfic #thilbo #the hobbit fanfiction #tolkien #tag game #wip

[iamstartraveller776]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Stole this from @curator-on-ao3. (Thank you for the open tag!)

1. how many works do you have on Ao3?

111, not including the dozens of ficlets and short one-shots I've posted as separate chapters in fic collections.

2. what's your total Ao3 word count?

614,875 and counting.

3. what fandoms do you write for?

I've written for: Star Trek (TOS/AOS/DISC), Star Trek: Enterprise, Labyrinth (1986), Marvel, Once Upon a Time, Shadow and Bone, and LOTR: The Rings of Power.

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

The Princess and the King (Labyrinth, Jareth/Adult Sarah) A little girl wanders into the Underground and Jareth's life is forever changed. [3,467 words]

Text Alert (MCU, Loki/Jane Foster) Late one night, Jane found herself in an online chat room for Harvard alums. She and the user youweremadetoberuled hit it off and began a strange, anonymous friendship. [16,129 words]

Intoxicated (Star Trek TOS/AOS/DISC, Sarek/Amanda Grayson) Amanda Grayson sets out to make nice with Sarek, the infuriating Vulcan ambassador to Earth. Her future career prospects are on the line, after all. There's only one problem: the ambassador isn't quite himself. [9,034 words]

Drunk Dial (Labyrinth, Jareth/Adult Sarah) Five times Sarah drunk-called the Goblin King. One time he sobered her up. [7,138 words]

Touch (MCU, Loki/Jane Foster) The first touch was her fist to his jaw, and she thought the last was when he pushed her out of the way of a Dark Elf bomb—until he showed up years later with a proposition she had trouble turning down. [4,014 words]

5. do you respond to comments?

Yes, absolutely. That's my favorite part about writing fic—being able to interact with readers. Sometimes I'm slow in replying, but I promise I always will.

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

I have a few stories with unhappy endings, but I think this one is the most gut-wrenching read: Just a Dream (Labyrinth, Jareth/Adult Sarah) He can have her in their shared dreams, but is it enough? Obsession can be a dangerous thing. [1,644 words]

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

I tend to mostly write happy endings—at least for stories that have a proper ending. I think there would be too many to list here.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

It's happened infrequently. I just delete the comments. I'm too old and tired for that kind of manufactured drama.

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

No, not really. I mean I have a few—very few—M-rated stories, but it's pretty much all feelings with pretty words and metaphors. The tension is my favorite part. When it comes to resolving it, I tend to be a "pan to the sky" writer.

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

I have written a couple. The zaniest? When Fairy Tale Meets Mythology (OUAT, Captain Swan; MCU, Loki/Jane Foster) While searching for Henry, Emma and Hook happen upon a strange couple in Neverland. [1,209 words]

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I was asked once, but I don't know if they followed through. I have had someone turn one of my stories into a podfic, though.

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

Yep. I'm a fandom old. I hail from the days of doing fic Round Robins and fandom Big Bangs.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

The USS Enterprise NCC 1701 D, though the Jolly Roger comes in as a close second.

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

The companion fic to Three Months on Vulcan where we follow the escapades of Soval and Amanda Cole as she works as his assistant. I was going to call it Lost in Translation. But my drive to write it has fizzled out over the years. I just don't have it in me.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Fleshed out characters, humor, pretty prose, banter.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

F I N I S H I N G. Seriously, that's my goal for 2024: to finish at least 3 of my languishing multi-chapter fics. Also, I want to improve my longfic game. I tend to rush through the plot.

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

I've done it, though I try not to overdo it. And I try to make it easy for the reader to understand from context so they don't have to constantly jump to end notes for the translations. I've been super fortunate to have a native-speaking fandom friend help me with Norwegian for some of my MCU stories. I've used Google Translate for Icelandic, and the Vulcan Language Database. Trying to write in Quenya is the worst, though. Never again! *gives Tolkien a side-eye*

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Trek: Enterprise

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

That's like asking me to choose a favorite child. How about one for each fandom:

Through the Dark Mirror Series (Star Trek: Enterprise, Trip/T'Pol) Stories that take place before, during, and after the events of the "In a Mirror, Darkly" episodes. [14,633 words and counting]

Pertinacious Wills (Labyrinth, Jareth/Adult Sarah) Regency AU Sarah Williams’s life is turned upside down when her widowed father remarries. At the same time, a new lord has taken over the Labyrinth who may be the most insufferable man Sarah has ever known. But as she is thrown in, quite against her will, with him and his kind, she discovers mysteries that call to question everything she thought she knew. [46,963 words and counting]

Blood for Blood (MCU, Loki/Jane Foster) He missed his chance by a heartbeat—the difference between life and death. Now, the mantle of savior rests on Loki’s shoulders. Will the mercurial God of Mayhem rise to the challenge of rescuing the nine realm from eternal darkness? [4,330 words]

The Worth of a Broken Soul (OUAT, Outlaw Queen) As a Keeper of the Watch, Robin hasn't been a mortal's personal guardian in centuries, but he's been tasked with a special case. Regina Mills is full of hate and anger, her aura so black it's difficult to find any hope left inside of her. Robin is determined to succeed in his assignment, even if it requires unconventional methods, but drawing her closer to Redemption is changing him as well. Will he pay any price for her salvation? For the salvation, too, of the lost souls he's unwittingly collected along the way? [14,407 words and counting]

The Nightwalker Chronicles Series (OUAT, Captain Swan) Emma Swan is an expert private investigator, but recently she's witnessed things that even she cannot explain. The only one willing to help her safely navigate the underbelly of the city in search of answers is the man who saved her life, a mysterious artist with secrets of his own. [6,448 and counting]

I haven't written much for either Shadow and Bone or The Rings of Power, and I don't feel like I have proper favorites for them.

Yes, I know I'm not listing any of my comedies, dear friend who knows who they are. That's because they aren't *my* favorites.

Tagging: Are you a fic writer? Consider yourself tagged by me—if you want to play, that is.

#tag game #questions for fic writers #this was fun

[rmd-writes]

hi rae i love your fics 🌟⭐️❤️ do you have any must follow blogs or writers on ao3?

hi nonnie!

Thank you so much, I'm really glad you've liked my fics and I always appreciate hearing that so, so much💖

As to your question, I did try to confirm which fandom you were asking about but you mustn't have seen my posts! So, I'm going to assume you're asking about LS fandom because that's what I've been posting the most about here and in terms of fics lately and hopefully I'm not way off track 😅

I do want to preface this by saying that there are a lot of very talented creators in this fandom, so I know I'm going to be missing people off this list and I'm sorry for that! But I'm doing this off the top of my head and there's just no way I'm going to be able to include everyone.

So, a list of blogs that I rec:

@welcometololaland first and always 💖💖 she is my ride or die, we share a brain and I love her to bits because she's a superb human being, but objectively, she is funny as hell and one of the best writers around, and if you don't read her fics you're missing out

Blogs for cast content, bts content, promos, stills etc:

most of the cast/characters have source blog type blogs, and there are a bunch of tarlos/show ones as well! these are the ones I tend to check for content most often

@911lsbts @rafaelsilvasource @ronenrubinsteinsource

Blogs for gifsets and edits (either because they make them or share a lot of good content, or both!)

@strandtk @maxbegone @danieljradcliffe @reyescarlos @guardian-angle22 @lutavero @tailoredshirt @angeltk @velvet-ink

Blogs for meta posts that will make you think, laugh or cry (or all of the above)

@doublel27 @goodways @guardian-angle22 @reyesstrand @strandnreyes @beautifulhigh

be sure to check the tags, sometimes the things that make me feel the most are in the tags and not the posts!

Blogs for fics

this is the one I'm most scared I'll forget someone for, but I'll do my best and also preface this by saying that as someone who reads fic in three fandoms, I know there are a lot of great fics out there that I miss because a) I just don't have time b) I don't actually check the ao3 tag very often and c) I don’t tend to read whump or very angsty fics which there is a lot of in this fandom. To find fics, I tend to rely on ao3 subscriptions, seeing fics on my dash (this is why it's important to reblog fic we like!) and recommendations from friends.

Having said that, here are some blogs/writers I definitely recommend, (and you'll find links to their ao3 on their blogs):

@welcometololaland @liminalmemories21 @iboatedhere @strandnreyes @reyescarlos @reyesstrand @goodways @doublel27 @maxbegone @sunshinestrand @heartstringsduet @lovesgalores

There are many other writers whose fics are languishing in my open tabs or whose wip snippets I’m enjoying and I've generally reblogged those snippets so if you have a scroll through my page on wip wednesday/snippet sunday you'll see those too!

God, I know I'm missing people off this list (I'm sorry, I've done my best late on a Sunday night!) but it's worth checking the blogs I've linked out and seeing whose creations and thoughts they're sharing too!

Nonnie, if I've done this and you were actually asking about one of my other fandoms, I hope you enjoyed this anyway and please let me know if you wanted recs for another fandom! 💖💖

#rmd answers #please don't take it personally if you aren't here #i have probably forgotten people and will kick myself for it later #deja queue

[cuubism]

WIP word search game!

tagged by @dsudis :)

fun! the words were blue, deep, walk, sky, down, heal

blue -- from a currently orphaned snippet

Hob had never been to this part of the Dreaming before, which, admittedly, wasn’t saying much when the Dreaming was effectively infinite. Dream had brought them to an expansive field of yellow grasses and rowdy wildflowers of green and teal and mauve and a hundred other colors one would never see in the waking world. It wasn’t Fiddler’s Green; it was wilder than that: rock bluffs dotting the fields in the distance, an endless grey-blue sky that was clear for now but threatened to tip towards rain at any moment, sweet warm wind that tugged on Hob’s hair with grabbing hands. A fierce, untamed landscape holding itself gently, for now.

deep -- from Hope/Morpheus reverse verse fic

The words bury deep, jagged and painful, hooked barbs in Morpheus’s chest. Friend? Friend? What kind of friend is he to the personification of hope? One who disdains his office, one who disproves the point of him entirely? Morpheus, friends with Hope?

walk -- from deja vu deja connu

“Hmm.” Dream licks the lingering honey from his fingertips, simply because he likes the weight of Hob’s eyes on him. He realizes, quite suddenly, that he’s having fun. They’re playing, and it’s fun, and though he’s loath to admit it, he’s understanding more and more why Desire behaves the way they do, when they walk in the mortal realm. “You will certainly catch more flies with honey than the alternative.”

sky -- from a post-canon fic

“I know why it is worthwhile. Why it is necessary. But even when I think of the Dreaming as it was, as it could be again, I still feel… empty.” His gaze then, too, was empty, night sky darkness reflecting nothing back. 

down -- fic titled "ooh, kinky" XD

“The level of horny wafting off this flat is revolting, I simply had to come see what you were getting up to.” Desire leans in the doorway, head in their hand, and looks the two of them up and down, face falling in what looks like genuine disappointment. “Are you fucking… cuddling? Are you— are you petting his disgusting hair?”

heal -- from ritual sex fic

The first time Hob actually longed for his stranger, his dream, was in the mid-1600s. Broken, filthy, lying in a gutter somewhere starving, he would think of his mysterious stranger swooping in to rescue him. Materializing from the very shadows Hob languished in, sweeping his imperial coat from his shoulders and draping it over Hob’s rags. Coming to him as some awesome beast, a great black unicorn, perhaps, for their touch was said to heal – and resting the tip of his horn on Hob’s head like a strange knighting, banishing the many bruises from his skin. Appearing, even, as the night itself, and softening the sharp edges of the darkness. Whisking him away, maybe, to some faraway land. Just for a little while.

some new words: eat, world, run, blood, glass

tagging, @issylra, @pellaaearien, @im-not-corrupted, if you want :)

#tag games #my writing

[theluckywizard]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you for the tags @rowanisawriter and @nirikeehan

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

32

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

359,445 (since February lawdy)

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Only Dragon Age

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

In the Shattering of Things (Cullen x Rose Trevelyan, Hawke x Trevelyan long fic)

The Boy Who Talked too Much (Alistair x Cousland fluff smut one shot)

Some Kind of Witchcraft (Cullen x Rose Trevelyan fluff smut one shot)

The Protestations of the Commander's Bed (Cullen x Rose Trevelyan fluff smut one shot... sensing a theme here? LMAO)

Unvarnished (Blackwall x Rose Trevelyan Smuuuut)

5. do you respond to comments?

Yes, always! Someone is going to take the time say something nice about my writing? I'm going to like awkwardly hug them with words.

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably toss up between

Fractures (Cullen x Rose Trevelyan whump smut)

and

Well Did You Miss Me? (Hawke x Rose Trevelyan angst)

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

Oh this is tough. I end a lot of short fics on a very hopeful note where two people are teetering on the precipice of Looooooove.

But actually maybe a short Bethany Hawke drabble where she learns her brother Garrett is still alive in the Fade.

Contact

8. do you get hate on fics?

The closest I've gotten to hate, which wasn't really hate, just kind of funny is a few different commenters messaging me after I introduced Hawke in my long fic (the other clearly labeled Love Interest, 250k words in mind you) asking whether it was going to be Cullen in the end because they aren't interested in Hawke x Trevelyan and they don't want to read it unless it's Cullen in the end.

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

Yes. I try to write really characterful, joyful/emotional smuts generally-- the kind where it's just 'totally THEM'. I think smut is only as good as the set up and characters expressing themselves, because clinical/gratuitous descriptions of sex acts without those things doesn't interest me.

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

Nope!

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

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

I have not but I would loooove to!

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

God I can't risk showing my whole ass here because a bunch of long fic readers follow me but suffice to say the race for my love is real tight between the two separate ships in my long fic - Rose Trevelyan x Cullen and Rose Trevelyan x Garrett Hawke.

Also Dick Grayson x Barbara Gordon in DC 😍

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

Probably The Bequest which is my oc/oc/oc/oc/oc/oc spooky murder mystery fic. I want to believe I will but I would have to learn how to write a damn good mystery and I'm not sure I can. But will at least write some more chapters minimum!

16. what are your writing strengths?

-- snappy, authentic sounding dialogue and banter that captures the characters

-- joyful, ridiculous smut

-- setting descriptions when I really put my back into it

-- being inside a character's POV and capturing their narrative voice uniquely

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

PLOT. GAH. I only got into Fanfic in January and that's because I languished in Original Fiction Hell for two decades where I wrote and wrote aimlessly. I am a shit plotter and a shit planner. Stories come to me in scenes and feelings. So you can imagine that getting to write something that is fully plotted and world built for me is like THE BEST FUCKING THING EVER. It is so satisfying.

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

I have written in French a little bit for effect in the Winter Palace, but generally I don't do it, no.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

I wrote a sequel to the book The Witch of Blackbird Pond when I was thirteen maybe because the main ship gets together in the last pages and then it just ENDS and it was written in the 50s and the author was dead. I HAD TO RESOLVE THIS FOR MYSELF.

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Aside from my long fic which is my ongoing baby and I am very proud (I am in the midst of Act 2 and still loving it), it would probably be --

The Commander, the Tevinter and a Bottle of Lightning which is Dorian getting Cullen drunk on fussy Tevinter booze and Rose showing up after he's sauced. (Fluff, Cullen POV)

or

Good Old Garbolg which is Rose and Hawke getting into the storage room to try a bottle of mystery booze (one of the Bottles of Thedas) and it having some unexpected consequences (Fluffsmut, Rose POV)

I have read both of these A LOT.

Tagging @crackinglamb, @greypetrel, @bluewren, @kiastirling, @melisusthewee, @rakshadow, @ar-lath-ma-cully, @ir0n-angel, @smutnug, @monocytogenes, @skyeventide and @ammoniteflesh

#tag game #dragon age fan fiction #theluckywizard #shameless self promotion #cullen x trevelyan #hawke x trevelyan

[stargaterevival]

20 questions for writers! Thanks @sga-owns-my-soul @frostysfrenzy

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

5 works

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

116,241, mostly between the two novels.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Stargate SG1 and Atlantis, MCU Avengers Steve Rogers, (unpublished: Saving Hope, Daredevil, Supernatural).

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The there are only 5 on Ao3 so far 😅

You and Me (Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson x gn reader, 🔞)

What was Lost (Marvel, Steve Rogers x OFC 🔞)

Fetish (Captain America, Steve x Peggy)

Worlds Colliding (Stargate SG-1, Sam x Martouf)

Capturing Samantha (Stargate SG-1, Sam x Martouf)

5. Do you respond to comments?

YESSS!! I live for comments, and reblogs, all the interactions!!!

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

You and me is the angstiest in general. It gets very emotionally dark.

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

What was Lost has the happiest ending so far... but it may be overtaken by You and Me, we'll have to wait and see 😉

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I was once told my mystery was too mysterious 🤣

9. Do you write smut?

Sort of, I write romance 😘 so it's bound to happen 😏

Okay, yes. Yes, I do.

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

Not yet, never say never.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

We all have, everyone who's been on Ao3 for a while. Don't steal my shit 🤬 I'm pretty mad about chatGPT scraping everyone's works. Disgusting bunch of thieves!!!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! I think most writing loses its essence in translation.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes! It was so much fun!!!

14. What's your all time favourite ship?

Probably Daniel/Sha're, or Daniel/Vala (Stargate) but also partial to Steve/Nat (MCU), and Matt/Elektra (Daredevil). But X reader fics are the most fun you can have 💘

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

I have a dirty Daredevil X reader languishing in my wips. Might get around to it when I watch the new season.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character voices and attentions to detail. People usually comment on those things. I'm also good at bringing the Drama™️. There may be some screaming, crying and throwing up 😂

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Keeping it short and sweet, my slow burns really are slow burns. I have to pay specific attention to pacing and linking scenes well. I do way too much Research™️ .

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

I would if I had a native language speaker to proof read it for me.

As a reader I find it annoying if I have to keep moving back to the chapter notes to check translations. It interrupts the flow.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The X-files but I was a kid, does that count? Supernatural is probably more relevant.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Honestly, I love my two novels, I'm pretty attached to them 🥰 they've been such a journey, personally and in terms of developing my writing skills.

tagging @i-am-morrigans-apprentice @jgem87 @darsynia @figsandfandoms @rightbrainboredom @riverageleis @sarcasticsciencefictionwriter @cuillere @courtforshort15 and anyone else who's interested!

-- Ellie 💗 (@ellie--eille)

questions under the cut

20 questions for writers!

Thanks @

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments?

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

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

8. Do you get hate on fics?

9. Do you write smut?

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

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

14. What's your all time favourite ship?

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

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

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

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

#tag games #writing #stargate fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #daniel jackson #steve rogers #samantha carter #sam carter x martouf lantash #romance fiction

[you-remind-me-of-the-babe]

20 Questions for fic writers!

Thanks for the tags @artsyunderstudy @wellbelesbian @prettygoododds and @bookish-bogwitch! It was fun reading your answers 💜

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

22! 3 are collabs, and some of mine are quite short but I am still proud of that number.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

315,168. (That number is crazy) but again, some of that is collabs, including Birthday Man which is 39k and written by several people, and my part was very short. I would guess the real number is around 265k, which…damn. That’s still a lot.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Carry On! That’s it.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Plus One

Rose-Colored Glasses

Shield Me

How to Avoid a Scandal

Archery 101

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

Always! I love getting comments. We have such a rich comment culture in our fandom and it’s something I really enjoy participating in. I feel like I’m doing my part to keep that comment culture robust when I engage with other commenters.

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

I was about to say I don’t do angsty endings, but then I remembered my mafia fic Button Man and, fuck. Yeah, that one’s real angsty.

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

Most of them are happy I think. Beastly is a fairytale with a traditional happy ending, but honestly most of them are, especially the longer ones. I even left Button Man as ambiguous because I’m a wimp 😂

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nope! This fandom is so nice, we rarely see hate and I hope we can keep it that way.

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

I do! Mostly super tender and full of emotion. Sappy porn.

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

Nope. A few AUs but none with any actual character crossovers.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of! Is that a thing? Beside AI scrapping I hadn’t ever heard of that.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No

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

A few! Plus One with @fatalfangirl and Archery 101 with @whatevertheweather, plus contributing to Birthday Man. Co-writing can be challenging at times but mostly it’s been good fun.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Snowbaz. Always and forever

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

I have some things languishing in my docs but the only WIP that’s published is Depth of Reason and I fully intend to finish it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Probably emotions and inner thoughts. I like the plots and premises that drive my stories as well. I think I’ve got some creative ones in there.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

When I read other works I can always find things i appreciate that others do well that I wish I could do better. I wish I was funnier. I wish I could write banter or witty dialogue or crack. I wish I could be more poetic. I wish my writing was sexier or more visceral. Maybe I’ll get better at these things. And maybe I’ll never write in styles I appreciate. Which is okay. We can’t do it all.

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

Besame mucho 😘 No, idk my language skills are crap so I doubt I’d do this in a fic unless I saw a need for it in a story and I had someone’s help with it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Carry On is the only fandom I’ve written for. And the only creative writing I’ve done, too!

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Probably Depth of Reason. It isn’t finished but it’s my baby.

This was fun! No pressure tagging @fatalfangirl @whatevertheweather @cutestkilla @aristocratic-otter @facewithoutheart @hushed-chorus

[moorishflower]

WIP word search game!

Okay! I was tagged by @dsudis!

My words are: blue, deep, walk, sky, down, heal

blue: (from the unnamed Hallmark-Adjacent sequel)

If Morpheus is honest with himself – and he has been attempting, within the last three months, to be more honest with himself – the moment that he considered Robert Gadling a viable husband was the very instant he had seen him bathed in the lights of Trafalgar Square, in a dozen different shades of blue and white and soft golden from the surrounding buildings and with his hair pulled back into a bun, as though he had done so out of habit just before he had left his flat.

deep: (from an unnamed vampire!Dream WIP that's been languishing until I get into vampires again)

His stranger turns to look at him, and it pulls his face into deep shadow. Hob can only see the white curve of his throat, a tempting peek of collarbone. His face is obscured in darkness, with only those two bright points of witchlight to mark where his gaze falls. “I have had many names,” he says. Each word is slow and purposeful, as if it is being pulled from a sleeptalker. “Morpheus. Oneiros. Draculea. More, still. I was called the shaper of forms, once. Voivode, and Lord, and King. My true name is older.”

heal: (from an Edgin/Xenk canon divergence AU set 4 years prior to the movie)

"I can heal myself," the paladin says placidly, and then makes absolutely no effort to do so while Ed pours a thin stream of icy water over the slash on his cheek. It's not as bad once all the blood's cleared away -- he can't see clear through to teeth at least -- and that only leaves him with addressing the actual problem, which is the shoulder injury. Ed stares at the guy's pauldrons, wondering where in the Nine Hells he even starts.

walk: (from a yet-unposted bit of Little Histories)

"I am ambivalent about the nature of food served from a truck," Dream says. He still feels somewhat slow and muddled, but the walk is pleasant. Humans need movement, Hob has informed him. It is part of the development of their infants, and most enjoy it well after their childhood, as well. There is something pleasant about utilising his muscles; in the moment, he wonders why it had been so hard to rouse himself yesterday.

sky: (from the same Edgin/Xenk fic)

The opportunity comes just as the sun is beginning to get dangerously low in the sky and the nightlife of Luskan -- skullduggery, alleyway knifing, pickpocketing and the like -- is kicking into high gear, when a man on a horse as white as the driven snow turns away from the Southern Gate and keeps right on riding towards Mirabar.

down: (unnamed Johanna/Lucifer fic)

The demon darts forward, too bloody fast for a woman who's spent most of the evening getting fantastically drunk after ousting a fucking poltergeist from an attic, and knocks the crucifix from her hands. Jo responds by yanking out the vial of holy water she keeps in her bra and dumping it directly down the demon's cleavage. She suspects she only manages this because the demon was too distracted by trying to figure out why she was fumbling in her bra to begin with, but that's to her benefit, so she counts it as a win.

And I will taaaaag... @avelera (show me the secret drafts of Joke's On You!!!), @landwriter, @softest-punk, @beatnikfreakiswriting and anyone else who'd like to play <3

Your words are: invite, bleed, lonely, glance, small, curve

#wip ask meme