#twisted-pride

[thegeminisage]

58 for the Spotify wrapped game?

hiii ty for sending one <3

58:

the opening of this is so chill and good. killed a lot of hours on this one <3

[nebulations]

5, 28, and 29 for the ao3 unwrapped?

5: What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

dream sweet of me is one of my favorite orv fics I've written so far, but doksoo is a fairly niche fic within the fandom (SOMEHOW), so I didn't expect too many hits-- but it got tons, and I received so many lovely comments on it! Also, ahem, I posted something anonymously and it got a lot of positive feedback as well, which I'm very thankful for!!!

28: Favorite work you wrote this year?

Oh, how am I meant to choose... poppies in summer makes me really, really happy to reread, and Ribs was a lot of fun to write and craft Vash's voice for, and-- yet again, Lucid Dreams was such a triumph to finish!

29: Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

HMMM. What a fucking question. I honestly scrolled through a few of my fics trying to find an example I was especially proud of, and eventually settled on this paragraph from Ribs!

Wolfwood makes a sound Jesus on the cross would be ashamed of. “I hate you so much, do you know that?” The jagged, brittle edge to his voice makes a sheath of Vash, plunges sawtoothed into the hole in his chest and nestles there. Doesn’t Wolfwood know that Vash is always fine, whether he wants to be or not?

[freddiegoesmetal]

15, 19 and 30 for the ao3 wrapped

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

i don’t have any WIPs at the moment actually…. i will be taking my chess exchange fic into next year but i haven’t started it yet….

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

those three (walter/freddie/florence)…. i want to try and figure out their whole thing because it’s soooo messy

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

just How Much i wrote…. i wrote more this year than in the prior 3 years combined…. chess did insane things to my brain

[freddiegoesmetal]

Trick or treat!

here you go

[thegeminisage]

17, 22, 23, and 35 for the fic writer ask game?

17. What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

oh man i hate to get stuck on wording, but i don't really believe in writer's block!! i wrote a whole post about it here but the short version is that i believe when you are having trouble writing, summing up the general trouble as "writer's block" just makes the problem harder to solve. it's always down to something specific: do i not know where to go next? am i lacking joy in the craft? is there a big intimidating restructure in my future? (there is literally one of these on both my wips currently. kill me) so, to actually answer the question instead of being pedantic, step number one is ALWAYS to figure out EXACTLY why i'm not feeling it. when you figure out what the problem is it's a LOT easier to come up with solutions.

the other thing i do is manage my soundscape. this includes music - i have adhd, so the "right" music, preferably songs i can loop 1000000 times without getting tired of them, will make or break my productivity to a ridiculous degree - but it also includes ambient sounds. i really like this website because you can make your own mixes, and they have a whole section dedicated to fandom-based ones folks have made: inside the tardis, driving the impala, inside the jedi temple, whatever. (they have similar fandom-related atmospheres for video games on youtube. here's one of my favorites.) making one sometimes veers into productive procrastination, but when i'm having trouble getting started (often the hardest part) it usually does the trick. fellow insomniacs - they're also great for falling asleep, lol.

22. Are there certain types of writing you won’t do? (style, pov, genre, tropes, etc)

not really. i don't have the same problem with first-person, for example, that a lot of other people seem to, and i like an excuse to do a different style or whatever. even things i don't normally read for, like non-con, is something i have written about happening in the past (not onscreen) when the situation calls for it. i have only two hard limits: omegaverse and aus. you won't catch me dead doing either one. i think the first is self-explanatory, but as to the latter: i think so much of characters is who they are and their history. when you write an au from the ground up - like, a flowershop au or whatever, as opposed to an au that just veers away from canon at some point - you are taking and rewriting that entire history, and those characters become different people, and my investment almost instantly tanks to zero. i know those people, i don't care about them, and i don't want to write them. i don't even read aus unless it's from an author whose fic i absolute die over...right now, i could count those authors on one hand, lol. fusion aus are a bit of a gray area if i like both properties in question. i did once outline a titanic au for [redacted fandom] and also an anastasia au for bbc merlin*. but that's because i like both the movie anastasia and the characters from merlin. and even then, it's only a tumblr post to exorcise it from my brain - it's never something i'd turn into an actual fic.

23. Best writing advice for other writers?

YOU MUST HAVE FUN. you must you must you MUST have fun. do not do the thing if you do not love to do it. if you do not feel joy when creating then it will come through in the work, like a cranky cook burning their food. if you are writing only for comments: don't. if you are writing because you think you will let down friends/readers/etc otherwise: don't. "write for yourself" doesn't mean don't share work it means write because it makes you happier, or because you'll die if you don't. DON'T DO IT if it doesn't bring you joy!!!!!

35. What is one essential thing to remember when writing a villain?

two things. i'm cheating a little sorry. the first thing is pretty simple and common villain advice: remember that in your villain's pov they are the hero, or at the very least are justified. very few good, well-rounded villains are out here twirling their mustaches and being evil for the sake of evil.

the second thing is DO NOT make your protagonists less competent in order to make your villain seem more scary. this will backfire on you every fucking time. if you want your villain to seem smarter and stronger you cannot simply just make your protagonists dumber and weaker. otherwise they look like out-of-character idiots. consider the character of theo in teen wolf's fifth season...regardless of how you feel about the character, especially in other seasons, it's hard to argue his introductory arc was well-structured. in just a few short episodes, he managed to break years-long bonds between established characters...because the writers decided to make those characters mistrustful and misunderstanding of each other for no reason. instead of ANY of these characters using their brains or believing their good friends, they all acted exactly as theo predicted BECAUSE the writers wanted theo to seem smart and good at manipulating people. but it's definitely NOT how those guys would have acted if they were real people, and theo certainly didn't manage to trick us, the audience - so they just look like morons, instead. (this is why season 5 is the worst season by the way.) never do this. figure out what your characters would do first and THEN use your godlike powers to come up with a way to manipulate them. you're in charge of this thing after all!!!

[ASK MEME]

*i looked really, really hard for this, for over an HOUR, but i can't find it :( essentially arthur plays the anya, merlin the dmitri, morgana the grandmama, and gwen the vlad. it's not a unique concept bc i found other people spinning the idea in less detail on tumblr when i googled it, but i can't find MY DETAILED WRITEUP and i'm mad about it lol. if anyone writes one link me to it. if anyone finds it on my blog on god i'll write you a less than 1k merlin drabble of your choice. hold me to it.

[dauntlessdiva]

Marianas Trench's Ever After for the album ask?

I hate this. This is torture. The whole album slaps from start to finish.

That being said, I'd have to pick, in no particular order;

Ever After

No Place Like Home

Toy Soldiers

Porcelain

Haven't Had Enough

[thegeminisage]

12 and 30 for the behind the scenes ask meme?

HI thank u for sending

12. Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to?

actually yes!!! i have two answers for this. first: playing 12 minutes (derogatory) made me remember but i've always really wanted to do a timeloop story and never have. part of my problem is i tend to shy away from writing things i know other people have written and written well, and great timeloop fics are plentiful. so i feel like i don't have anything to add...but it would be fun!

second: if you can believe it, i've never written an amnesia story, even though it's one of my favorite plot devices. i've written little short fics including characters who suffer from amnesia in canon (i used to post microfills on the da kink meme lol and i'll give you three guesses which amnesiac dragon age ii character i'm obsessed with...and we won't EVEN get into the nec17 debacle) but those fics weren't ABOUT the amnesia. so someday i'd love to sink my teeth into either of those.

30. Tell us an idea for a longfic you want to write in the future.

this one is so hard actually! my first thought is of the undisclosed one i am writing right now and the potential. POTENTIAL. sequel to it. which i can't talk about until at least the first one is done, if i get to talk abut it ever. then there's the finale to cambionverse which i also can't talk about. i have 12:42pm but that's not going to be a longfic, i hope...(famous last words) i don't know!!! i've had my plate full of future wips for awhile now that i haven't had much space for new ideas. i guess technically i have an original project i think about sometimes involving a human who gets not-so-accidentally trapped in an underground monster fight ring and meets an amnesiac werewolf but that entire sentence is really unfortunately all i want to say about that, and i highly doubt anything will ever come of it bc i much prefer writing fanfic.

[behind the scenes fic meme]

[thegeminisage]

17 and 29 for the ao3 wrapped?

HI THANK YOU

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

i did this one here!!

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

oh man, this one is really hard because i don't like my prose very much...i'm actually gonna use a transition in and out of a flashback from envesseled:

normally we would use italics for something like this, but in this fic the italics are reserved for grace pieces only, so this gives this memory a much more abrupt and immediate feel, which is i'm sure how it is for claire.

[ao3 wrapped ask meme]