#chocoholicbec

[jackfuckingtwist]

For the AO3 Wrapped ask game:

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

6. Favorite title you used

9. Favorite pairing you wrote for this year?

29. Favorite line/passage you write this year?

thank you!! i've been looking forward to answering these >:3

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? oooo....i think it's torn between violent delights and four walls...those are both pet projects of mine that hold special places in my heart

6. Favorite title you used the only people who would appreciate this are fellow bastille fans so i must explain: i think i really went off with the full title of four walls which is "four walls (the ballad of morven hellwain)" which is a play on the song title "four walls (the ballad of perry smith)" which is the song that inspired the fic and is about the ethics of the death penalty. pretty much all of my titles are song titles/lyrics, with a couple exceptions

9. Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? this will surprise nobody but honestly lug/robin really took me on a wild ride this year and i love writing them so much. i also really like writing edvard/barnaby but i havent finished or published those yet.

29. Favorite line/passage you write this year? ooooooo this was a difficult one. but like i said i am fond of "violent delights" so here is the part where lug realizes he is allowed to love things for himself

thank you again!!

ao3 wrapped!!

[wurzelbertzwerg]

For the five sentence ask game:

Catherine/Henry

Outside the drawing-room windows, the apple trees had at last started to bloom.

Aww, thank you so much!

This was a lot of fun, even if I did not manage to actually adhere to the rules of the challenge. (On brand for me though ^-^ At this point, does anyone actually expect me to? 🤣)

I hope you enjoy the result!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[slightlyhopefulromantic]

For the outfits meme—Happen, A3.

Additional context: I saw the meme, immediately had a mental flash of Happen in a maid's dress, and said "oh no" out loud. My wife was all like "what's wrong?", so I handed her my laptop and said, "I bet you can't tell which character I immediately saw in which outfit." She squinted at the picture for like ten seconds and was like "...Happen, A3." So either I'm very predictable or, like, praise Cadence, I guess.

you never need to justify picturing a twink in a maid dress, not in my askbox XD i was gonna apologize for his ass being out but no. i stand by this decision actually. his pasty off-putting sex appeal.....

[stickthisbig]

For the fic title ask game:

that old cliché

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

11: What do you like best about this fic?

This is my favorite bit of narration, because it's my meme and I don't have to make it just one line if I don't feel like it:

Robin takes Willowfine's hand by the fingers, pulling it gently towards him. Willowfine lets him, and Robin brings it to his face. He gently licks the honey from her hand, his tongue soft against her skin. It tickles a little, but Willowfine can't look away, can't get over the worship conveyed in every gesture. This was a mistake, because now she can't unknow what it looks like. She's just going to have to remember the way Robin's eyelashes rested on his cheek as he sucked her skin clean, the sublime joy that every movement betrayed. The owner of this bakery has definitely noticed the two of them; he and his assistant are still pretending to wipe the same shelves they were five minutes ago.

I love the idea of the owner and the assistant like fuckin Disney movie side characters like openly staring while they blindly clean this shelf that they've already knocked everything off of.

This is my favorite dialogue, because I can hear Andy saying it in Robin's voice, the way that Robin says it straight but Andy is being sarcastic:

"You don't think this is an aphrodisiac, do you?" "If it is, it's the best aphrodisiac ever made," he says. "I was ready to go long before I ever opened the jar."

As for what I like about it, here's a Sabine lore dump about honey:

You may or may not know this about me, but one of my special interests is honey. My uncle has run bees as long as I can remember, and my cousin has picked up the tradition. It's just so interesting, and it is one of the few things in the world that is win-win. You get delicious food, the bees get safety and resources.* I'm also fascinated by how the taste of the flowers that the bees run on changes how the honey changes as well. If you buy honey in a store (in the US anyway), you usually can only get, lightest to darkest, least complex taste to most, orange blossom, clover, and wildflower. The fewer and more delicately scented flowers you run the bees on, the lighter and more subtle the flavor is. My state is known for its wildflower honey, since it's known for its wildflowers, and definitely the best honeys you can get here are wildflower honeys. Since wildflower honey is made of many different kinds of pollen, in a pattern that is generally known but ultimately unpredictable, it gives a rich, complex flavor with a dark color, and no two runs are identical.

I prefer a darker honey in general? But my uncle had a deal for a while to run his bees on a strawberry field, trading part of his yield for rent of the boxes, and it made the most delicious honey I've ever tasted- enough body to hold its own without the bitterness you get off of wildflower, absolutely perfect on a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Then during COVID, after the strawberry arrangement was over, there was nowhere to run the bees, so he, and I assume many other small beekeepers, made what we called "backyard honey", though you might well call it suburban honey, house honey, neighborhood honey, etc. It was like wildflower honey on fucking steroids? Because as you might have surmised, the bees just... stayed in the backyard, and whatever they found to gather, they gathered. What resulted was dark, dark brown, almost black. I think it's entirely possible that in another setting it just would have been spoiled? But this was Georgia, so it was fine. It was incredibly complex, weird, and bitter, I didn't hate it, and I ate a bunch of it anyway, because I'm committed to the cause, which is getting entire jugs of free honey from my relatives.

Anyway. Fuckin love honey. I really only eat honey from the United States, preferably from the Southern United States? I care so much about the terroir that like, I'm not gonna pay $30 for fuckin viral honey from New Zealand that comes to me completely out of context. Jim Bob is selling last year's dogwood honey out of the back of his truck on 49 right past the Magee exit? Get me my keys, if you've got a twenty on you I can get us there in an hour. 

Anyway so if you can't tell, this line is me using Robin as a mouthpiece:

"Honey tastes of where you run the bees, like it can keep the memory of the land inside it," he says. "Hundreds of creatures have to cooperate to make it, and they make so much that they can share. We should all be so blessed."

I have a lot of feelings about how the members of the team, except Lug, represent the good? (Willowfine), bad (Robin, Morven, Cressida), and bad...? (Happen) aspects of communal living, much like said bees. The idea that Robin, the consummate peasant, could be denied the consummate peasant food, honey, is so crazy that it begs unpacking. Robin's life is funny in the "Robin lives in the world of medieval marginalia" way, but fuck me Robin had a shitty life before this, I'm pretty sure it would have been a blessing if the world did up and end.

So many feelings for a short story!

Unrelatedly I'm fascinated and amused by the sex moves that everyone agrees are so common as sex moves that they're cliche but at the same time, if you tried to find someone who'd actually done it, you'd be out here fuckin looking with your lantern in the daylight like you were trying to find an honest man. I've known one (1) person who wanted to try whipped cream and he hadn't even managed to do it.

*And I'll say it with my whole ass: please don't buy grocery store honey if you don't want adulterated food, people who tell you ethical beekeeping is wrong and that honey is murder are themselves monsters who support exploitative industries over productive animal partnerships, and that agave nectar that you're still gaslighting yourself into believing tastes good is absolutely horrible for the environment. Look it up.

Fic questions meme!

[wurzelbertzwerg]

For the writing year in review asks:

🎀 what's your FAVORITE thing you wrote/posted this year?

🔮 what are you hoping to write in the coming year?

🏅 what are you most proud of accomplishing?

Thank you! :)

🎀 what's your FAVORITE thing you wrote/posted this year? I think, the favourite thing I wrote is actually not posted yet. Just, without having looked at everything I wrote/posted this year, the first thing that came to mind (and I can't tell whether it deserves it) is what I've written for Cotton&Hemp so far.

I think.

I'm terrible at picking favourites :D (But fear not, I have a feeling that I get to exercise that some more, at least once, looking at my inbox, and probably, my answer will be a different one each time)

Though overall, I can say one thing: I think I prefer the notes that I write to various people via messenger whenever an idea pops into my mind to any actually written fic. I feel less self conscious about those, there's less... "I'm ESL and it shows and I'll never be as proficient as a native speaker and I should try more but I don't want to because this is supposed to be fun" and... Okay I think I'm having a day today, yes. No more favourites, clearly that's a path leading to bad thoughts.

🔮 what are you hoping to write in the coming year? ... So much. 🥲

I'd love to finish Cotton&Hemp (and hey, that one at least is realistic). There are several other smutty notes/WIPs I'd love to share...

Then there's the Northanger Abbey canon divergence "What if Isabella was the one to get cheated on instead", which will be a lot fluffier than this line made it sound just now. Also, the post canon James/Frederick fic because sorry not sorry this ship has me in a chokehold, I will never shut up about it.

And, of course, just like last year, I'd realllllyy love to work on/finish the forced marriage/arranged marriage/political marriage low fantasy royalty AU for Northanger Abbey, because every now and then I guess I should focus on Henry and Catherine again, huh?

Here's to hoping, I guess.

🏅 what are you most proud of accomplishing? ... Can I come back to this later?

As mentioned above, I think I'm having a day today and, right now, I don't feel proud of anything, and I certainly don't feel like having accomplished anything.

But I guess, even though it's not finished yet, Inkvent is something to be proud of. There are other things I think I should feel proud of, like having finished Between the Lines in a way that feels satisfactory to me... And probably more, I just can't choose right now. Right now, nothing feels like an achievement, it's all just like... barest minimum, I guess.

Perhaps I should've delayed replying to the asks and waited for a better day, I'm sorry.

[wurzelbertzwerg]

Top 5 video games?

Oooh, this is a difficult one! There are so many aspects I could rank the games on, like, there are some games I have a lot of hours in, but as far as story, or visuals or music go they aren't much to write home about, whereas others I have played only once and they were short at that but oh, I doubt I'll ever forget them...

So, this is very much off the top of my head:

Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

The Binding of Isaac (the original and Rebirth)

The Sims Series (I've played all 4 main entries and then some, if I had to name a favourite it'd be TS4, but... I love them all)

The Book of Unwritten Tales (The humour of this game is RIGHT up my alley, it's lovingly poking fun at the fantasy genre as a whole and at role playing games, at point and click adventures, and... I do love things lovingly poking fun while proudly part of them ^-^)

Honourable mention: Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna), because this game is one of the main reasons for the above paragraph. I only ever played it once, but the visuals, the story, the background, the music... Heck yeah! Warm recommendation! (I 100%-ed it and still wish there had been more)

Oh, and Webbed, because that game is lovely too, and it helped me with my arachnophobia a bit. Comrade Spider! :D It's impossible not to love that little gem.

[wurzelbertzwerg]

For the fic writer ask game:

3 ⧽. what's something you like about your writing?

9 ⧽. tell us about a wip/idea that you're excited about!

18 ⧽. how do you want your writing to feel to your readers?

20 ⧽. answer any one of the other questions that you want to!

Hi and thank you for asking! <3

3 ⧽. what's something you like about your writing? Ooof, that's currently a hard one... I mean, it always is, but currently harder than usual.

And I don't know; I know that I like my writing, at least when I'm reading it and not someone else's because then, usually, my own writing seems like trash to me :D But yeah, when I do read my own writing I tend to like it.

Maybe it's that I'm usually fairly close to the characters, closer to them than to the world they move in, certainly. Ooor...

Perhaps it's even a step further. I think, maybe, what I like the most about my writing is the respect which with I treat "my" protagonists. Like, perhaps it's silly, but if we take John Thorpe for example, it's easy to make him nothing more than a laughing stock, the butt of every cheap joke, without giving much thought to him as a character and why he might or might not do something.

I try to take even him (and his sister...) serious, especially when writing from their POV and terrible as they are, I still treat them with respect, and yeah, I think that's something I really do like about my writing because I think it shows; it shows that I gave each character I write about a lot of thought and that I want to really let them be the protagonist of their story. Or well, at least I hope it does :D

9 ⧽. tell us about a wip/idea that you're excited about! <.< So many.

And I have no clue when I'll actually manage to write any of them and I have already talked about so many of them...

So let's go with a smaller one.

Hot Chocolate :D

It's part of the modern James/Frederick Au, obviously, the name did give that away, though it won't really be much about James and Frederick and more about... Well...

Hot Chocolate is basically going to be the morning...okay more like afternoon... After Beer, with James back at home, trying to come to terms with ... a lot of things, really. Newfound sexual preferences, a whole new sexual orientation, a new boyfriend... Yeah. And that's not even going into any of the details of it :D And while he's still trying to sort the mess in his own head, Catherine comes by.

Because at the end of the day, I think Charles and Richard would've worried, at least once James wouldn't pick up any calls, and it's not too far off that he's massively pissed off (it'd be for a good reason and he should be, but eh... He's too good, too pure, and actually things turned out great)

So, they'd send Catherine to test the waters (and check whether James is actually okay) and I just love the idea of these two having a heart to heart. It's one thing that I think would've solved a lot of problems in the first half of Northanger Abbey and it would've made both their lives so much easier, and I think under different circumstances they probably would've had one. (I'm also sitting on a WIP with precisely that, a slight canon divergent heart to heart between them after the failed first Clifton trip)

Yeah, it'd be just them being cute, Catherine being supportive, James getting to actually talk through his feelings and everything and yeah... Sweet sibling fluff.

18 ⧽. how do you want your writing to feel to your readers? This one I've answered HERE

20 ⧽. answer any one of the other questions that you want to! Whee, freebie!

So, let's see...1 ⧽. if you could sit down and finish any one of your wips without anything stopping you (time, tiredness, etc), which fic would you choose? tell us about it if you want!

Because I really really want to be able to work on Lie in Lavender again. There's still so much I have planned, so many seeds I've already sown.

General Tilney still needs to show up and cause problems, Bill Oliver needs to become a more important cast member ;), there's the story to tell how Frederick went from cop to private investigator, there's a certain Morland we need to meet in this universe, with all the trouble he'll bring along, and boy, he has suffered and will suffer a lot more... And of course, there's still the question of WHO murdered Catherine, and why?

(Also, will we ever meet with Mr Holly again? Will, maybe, his jewellery store have some importance for later parts of the story? Who knows 😉)

I have little stories plotted out for all of this, I have plans for so many more "episodes", there's even a cute beach episode that I'm still debating on whether I keep or cut it from the plan as a whole (currently it's cut it, because some of it managed to get into the current ren faire episode... Catherine and Henry really are down bad for each other and moving too fast for my planned plot!). It really isn't a lack of ideas.

Or a lack of direction, because from the first chapter I knew precisely where I wanted to go with this, and the last few chapters were basically plotted the same time the first few were. And I do love what I still have in store... If only I could write it.

But every time I sit down to work on LiL it's like... suddenly I forgot how to speak English. Or how to write the characters. There's only pain and a deep, profound feeling of inadequacy. Like I fucked everything up and now nobody enjoys the story anymore and all I'll do will ruin it further.

That's probably not true and who knows, maybe I'll get over it, now that I've hinted at some of the plans I still have in store for it :)

[wurzelbertzwerg]

Fic writer ask game!

5, 12, 17, 19, 23

Thank you <3

5: Quote one of your fics out of context

„That's the wrong hole!“

(This line was MADE for out of context quotes xD)

12: What fandom do you want to write for more often?

Currently? None. I'm quite happy obsessing over Northanger Abbey; and also, there's a ship-tag I have to populate 😉

17: What trope is your favorite to write?

That's a hard question, because I really don't know. Idiots to Lovers, maybe?

19: What headcanon do you always include in your stories?

There are several :D

Like, usually in my stories Frederick is bi, the third eldest Morland is called Charles, Richard is between Charles and James and also has a mild one-sided rivalry with Catherine because Catherine is James's favourite sibling, a feeling that is mutual.

There are probably more that show up regularly, but yeah, those are the ones I don't even think about anymore, unless I explicitly go against them (for example by switching up the order of the Morland children to get everyone's age a bit closer together)

23:Where do you usually write?

Either in my corner of the living room where I have my computer or, when the weather permits it, in our garden, surrounded by plants and birds, sitting in my hammock chair. (Though the problem with that is having to copy the handwritten stuff into a text document, later. Oooh how I do not enjoy that 😆)