#five loaves of bread

[aimmyarrowshigh]

🌈 upside down cake!

🌈 What inspired you to write [Upside-Down Cake]?

I was writing five alternate-dystopia AUs for the help_japan auction (and I only finished three. So far. SO FAR. Someday I will write the other two. I will). And this is just a very obvious AU variant -- swapping the roles that Katniss and Peeta play in THG. Who is Katniss, in particular, without having been hardened by the Seam, her father's death, and starvation? What other aspects of her personality would come out more? Her loyalty, probably, and the way that she so actively shows love (like Volunteering for Prim and jumping in front of the whip for Gale). Likewise, a Peeta whose manipulative intelligence WAS hardened by the Seam and starvation and having to make deals in the Hob was an interesting prospect.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

Fanfic Overview Review

Tagged by @rhubarbdreams​ :)

Tagging: @dracosollicitus​ @bebeocho​ @fille-lioncelle​ @werebearbearbar​ @deputychairman​

How many works do you have on AO3?

...1875

What’s your total AO3 word count?

2,772,621

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

HAHAHAHAHA. To find out the number, I copypasta’d into an Excel spreadsheet... 241 fandoms. The top ten by number of fics are: 1. Star Wars - All Media Types (417) 2. Marvel Cinematic Universe (317) 3. The Old Guard (Movie 2020) (215) 4. Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (197) 5. Star Wars Original Trilogy (152) 6. Captain America (Movies) (142) 7. Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (98) 8. Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins (85) 9. The Avengers (Marvel Movies) (77) 10. One Direction (Band) (77)

Are there any new fandoms you want to write for?

I mean, I pretty much get to/do write for All The Fandoms. Once I like a thing, I put it on the ship list or start posting about it, and people are kind and request it! I guess the only fandom that I would like to write that no one’s requested (or will request) is Purple Moon, but I’m one of like four people MAX who remembers that fandom existed, so.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. How Rue Became the Mockingjay (Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins) - Kudos: 4,302

2. Landslide (One Direction (Band)) - Kudos: 2,559

3. May You Enjoy Your New Life (One Direction (Band)) - Kudos: 1,988

4. Twenty-Four Victors, Twenty-Four Tributes: Meet Your Quarter Quell Contestants (Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins) - Kudos: 1,179

5. I Built A Home for You, for Me (One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF) - Kudos: 857

Which of your fics do you want more attention for?

Two series, actually: Five Places Cinna Came From and Since Feeling Is First. I’m still proud of the Cinnafics 10 years/11 years later, which is RARE for me vis-a-vis my writing, and I’m proud that I actually finished the gotdang thing. And I loved writing SFIF with @nichestars and I think the fics all turned out really lovely.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes. I just answered an Ask about this recently! :)

What sorts of things do you normally write?

Character studies! I don’t think I’ve ever really written anything else.

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

Capitol Pastries, for sure.

What’s a fic that pushed you out of your comfort zone?

Everything I write that’s longer than a drabble does, in some way, push me out of my comfort zone, but I think Genesis has been the work that I’ve had the most emotional ~turmoil about writing.

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

Yes! I love a good crossover. Probably objectively the silliest/craziest has been the Continuing Adventures of Cap & Molly (copyright @therebeccaw) but I also think the Princess Diaries/His Dark Materials daemon!fusion fic was very silly (on purpose).

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No. :\ I’ve had people ask but they always want to put it on a different platform, and I don’t want my stuff on Wattpad or sites with paid memberships because... yuck.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! A lot! Most of my finished longfic is co-written because I Am Not A Finisher but I WILL LEARN TO BE.

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

LOOK, I KNOW I LEFT GENESIS WITH LITERALLY ONE CHAPTER LEFT EIGHT YEARS AGO, I --

What are you currently working on?

Lent From Tomorrow (Today Was Too Small For Us), a shrinkyclinks A/B/O set in the codebreaking, espionage world of WWII.

What are your writing strengths?

Food imagery and attributing colors to emotions. And worldbuilding, I think, if I toot my own horn.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot pacing and conflict. I never want to write conflict. I will go 10 miles out of the way to avoid writing meaningful conflict.

What was the first fandom you wrote for? Most recent?

Technically? Under the Umbrella Tree. On the internet in a fanfiction space? Dream Street. My most recent fandom is “whatever people are requesting at the moment” but practically speaking, the MCU.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I will always have a real soft spot for Never Never Never Stop for Anyone (Sheylinsonverse) because it was my all-time most productive writing experience and I just had a lot of fun with it, but I honestly think Lent From Tomorrow is/will be FAR AND AWAY the best thing I’ve ever written, including shit for my MFA.

What fic are you most proud of?

Probably Cinnafic, 24V24T, or Ruefic. Or, again, Lent From Tomorrow, which I WILL FINISH BECAUSE I’M GOING TO BE A FINISHER.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

I know its been seven (?) years but I reread all 3 of your thg five loaves of bread fic this weekend and I am still shook, they are all so good!!!!! Thank you for writing them!! Did you have ideas/premises in mind for other 5lob fics before you left thg fandom? I've always wondered, b/c the 3 you wrote were so original & unique idk how you could come up with more ideas!

Thank you so much! Gosh, wow, it really has been SEVEN YEARS, that’s crazy… yeesh. I keep thinking, “I should go back and write those last two at some point,” but um. I. It’s been a while, hasn’t it.

I did have ideas for them, but I can’t quite remember what they were now. I think one of them was challah bread, and I had an idea for something with four strands or four stories weaving together – Peeta, Katniss, Gale, and Madge, I think, but I don’t remember what the AU aspect of it was going to be that made their individual POVs important to separate and then bring together. ???

The fifth I don’t think I’d ever really decided on, but I was leaning towards something like a cornbread or a johnnycakes or something so that they could be traveling across Panem, almost like a dystopian Oregon Trail kind of thing? I was inspired by Matched by Ally Condie and Legend by Marie Lu, both of which make really interesting use of HOW BIG the United States is, and how fractional it is – but I don’t want to spoil either trilogy by saying more? I hadn’t figured out the Katniss/Peeta part of it at all, though, and that’s the fic part of fic, so. Meh.

That said, THG and both of those series, and 5LoB, all are pre-2016 Election, so writing dystopia Feels Different Now and I feel like it’d just have to be approached super differently, and WILL have to be approached differently from now on by Real Writers who write dystopian and post-apocalyptic scifi (and any other scifi or futuristic fiction). /sigh

[viragfold]

IL PANE

[aimmyarrowshigh]

hi! for fannish ask, how did you decide on the aus you wrote for five loaves of bread?

Whew, that's throwing it ALL the way back!

Honestly, I think I was going for AUs that felt like they did something interesting with Katniss- and Peeta's characterizations, and also fit with the themes of THG that weren't super explored by the actual books. I know for Dark Toast I was also inspired by the Matched trilogy, in that it was not nearly as horrifying as that particular dystopia actually would be (like, if you're gonna be The Handmaid's Tale Lite, then you still have to commit to the horror, yk?). The roleswap AU was probably inspired by a fandom trend at the time, but I don't totally remember. And Peeta being a Mentor was inspired by how manipulative and good at lying Peeta is in canon -- like that's a HUGE PART OF HIS CHARACTER, but people always gloss over it because he's also very kind. I wanted to bring that manipulative quality to the forefront and put him in situations where he could not afford to be kind.

Thank you for asking!

[aimmyarrowshigh]

For the FanFic Ask Game, C, I, K, S, T, and X

C: What member do you identify with most?

Ha! This is definitely a questionnaire for kpop RPF, isn't it? I mean, if we're talking what CHARACTER I identify with most... honestly Tina Belcher is the only realistic, relatable character I've ever encountered. Tina is my girl. I hate that I'm probably actually Aunt Gayle by default of not actually being 13 anymore, but I want to think I'm a Tina.

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

Not really! I'm pretty un-guilty about liking pretty much anything that I like. I guess the amount that I prefer A/B/O slash to regular slash is a "guilty pleasure" insofar as it's a niche preference, but I don't feel WEIRD about it so I'm not sure it counts. And I guess I like some pairings that other people would consider guilty pleasures -- Wanda/Pietro because, well, or even Poe/Rey because of their age gap. But I was raised on GeoCities and Angelfire and LiveJournal fic, where those things just weren't... considered to make someone a Bad Person because everyone understood it was being written because it was a character exploration (or that Rey is a goddamn adult). I don't ship things out of wanting characters to actually be together in canon (usually; Stucky and kind of Poe/Rey notwithstanding), I ship them out of "I want to write/read how these character dynamics would play out and change the characters." So. IDK.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

Valor, Valeria. Or maybe Capitol Pastries. Really any of my THG fic is dark as hell, especially if it's about Finnick.

S I just answered, so:

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

::hides:: ...soulmateAUs. I don't know why I hate them when I like A/B/O, which is just a soulmate AU with fancy genitals! I don't know! I just the whole "your first words are tattooed on their body" soulmate AU thing is just... I've never read one that I felt like did something really transformative with the characters OR the trope, which is what I tend to be looking for in reading fic. And I'm not a big darkfic person even though I wrote a lot of it for The Hunger Games. Like, The Hunger Games HAS to be dark. It's literally about children murdering other children in state-sponsored gladiatorial games to earn food. And then the winners are sex trafficked. Like. It's dark inherently. Ooh, I also almost always dislike Modern AUs. The interesting part of genre fiction is the worldbuilding! Why are you getting rid of the cool thing!!!

X: A character you enjoy making suffer.

I mean, I don't really -- like, I get the thing that fanfiction is for making blorbos suffer because they're just scrunkly wet pathetic meow-meows, but I guess that's never been my main motivation in writing. Again, with THG, I suppose I was more explicit in the torture that Finnick and/or Peeta was put through than canon was because I wasn't writing for a middle-grade audience, but it wasn't out of Wanting Them To Suffer, it was out of Wanting To Take Canon Seriously. Generally I write out of wanting to give suffering characters a nice meal of nice soup and maybe a boyfriend.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

Your Hunger Games fic – Upside-Down Cake – lived rent-free in my head during high school. I remember trying to discreetly read it during a class 🤣

Aww! Oh gosh, that makes me feel old -- that fic was such a long time ago but it doesn't FEEL like that long ago! D:

[aimmyarrowshigh]

Can we have another Upside-Down Cake verse fic? It’s one of my all-time favorites, and I’d love to see a reappearance!

Wow, this is a deep-cut! I won’t rule it out, and it’s tentatively something I might work on at some point in 2022 -- it’s on my “Maybe Write This?” list! -- but it’s not at the TOP of the Maybe Write This list for 2022. But I do consider the series unfinished and it does bug me that I never went back and added the last two fics to it. I have to really dig around and find my notes for what the last two AUs were even supposed to be, but it’s certainly a possibility! I’m glad that you still like them after all this time. :)

EDIT: Ohhhh, did you mean specifically a fic within the Upside-Down Cake ‘verse? That is complete. But another Five Loaves Of Bread fic is a possibility.