Writer Tag Game
Aug. 28th, 2021 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI was tagged by tree/ ![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
hoidn but I'd been vaguely pondering doing what I think is the same meme after seeing it a bunch on dreamwidth. So I'm not tagging anyone because I can't remember who's done it already but have enjoyed seeing everyone's responses and would enjoy seeing some more!
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
211: 106 Fanart, 93 Fanfiction, 2 games
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
909,323
That's a lot closer to a million than I'd have expected wtf??
WAIT...is that including draft fics I have saved to the Unrevealed Drafts collection? Because those are just earlier versions of other fic I haven't gotten around to deleting yet.
*deletes one of those works*
AH YEP THERE WE GO. Ok I can't be bothered clearing them all out but I'd estimate there's 50-100K in those drafts so the real answer is more like 800K
3. What are you top 5 fics by kudos?
My top works of any kind, which are mostly fic:
Practical Applications of the Turing Test: Portal2, Chell/Glados, f/f Enemies to Lovers romcom fic. Because femslashers love a good romcom, and I did an ok job of capturing and extrapolating the dark shippy humour of canon.
The Life and Death of Setsuka Heel: Skip Beat!, Kyoyo Ren, m/f getting together romcom fic. I wrote this out of frustration at how long the manga was dragging out the UST (and it's still not done EIGHT YEARS LATER), so this fic is popular with people who share that frustration.
Art: The Sound of Gears Turning: My Next Life As A Villainess, Maria/Katerina, f/f, art of a cute and funny kiss. SPEAKING OF MANGA THAT DRAG OUT THE UST. This is one of those pairings where it's pretty popular but doesn't get a lot of fanworks, even over on Pixiv, so this art has been quite popular in general.
Into Darker Water: Heaven Official's Blessing, He Xuan/Shi Qingxuan, m/nb, enemies to friends to lovers fic. This is a popular pairing with a lot of conflict to work through, and most writers either lean into the angst or gloss over the conflict. Which left me having to write the enemies to lovers fic I wanted myself, and I guess other people wanted it too!
The Scent of Honeysuckle: Dragon Age Inquisition, Josephine/Cassandra, f/f fake dating fic. Femslashers love a good romcom! Unlike the others, this isn't really filling an underexplored niche, there's quite a few tropey Josephine/Cassandra romcom fics, but it's probably the closest I've come to the platonic ideal of a tropey femslash romcom.
Wedding is Destiny, and Hanging Likewise: Pride and Prejudice, Anne/Mary, f/f getting together romcom fic. For quite a while this was basically the only long Pride and Prejudice femslash on the AO3, and there's still not much competition. Like, it's not a bad fic, but it's also my first, and there's other better fics I've written since that aren't as popular.
I do write things that aren't romcoms but they tend not to do as well, at least on the AO3. It's probably less that femslashers love a good romcom and more that everyone loves a good romcom, enough to make up for femslash's relative unpopularity, since femslash is the category where I've written romcoms the most.
4. Do you respond to comments; why or why not?
Yes, I try to reply to all of them, but often with nothing more in-depth than "thanks". If I ever got more popular I'd probably have to let some go.
5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
Hmm! *pokes my less popular, non-romcom works*
Depending on how you count angsty, it's one of:
At the crossroads: Durarara!!, Kida Masaomi/Ryuugamine Mikado/Sonohara Anri, a moody character piece.
Five times Anders tried to get people to read his manifesto (including one time he succeeded) Dragon Age 2, gen. Which has a happy, hopeful ending...unless you're familiar with canon and know what happens next.
Honestly neither of these are very good, I'm not great at angst. But it's good to stretch myself from time to time!
6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
Most of my fics have pretty happy endings, but To Love And To Cherish is literally a thousand words of pure happy ending, being a scene I cut from the end of 'Wedding is Destiny, and Hanging Likewise' for being too implausibly fluffy.
7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the most ridiculous one you’ve ever written?
Very occasionally and they're all pretty ridiculous. The art ones tend to be the most over the top, since then I just have to create a single image and not do any world-building. The most ridiculous fic is very short for similar reasons: By the Rhine: Gilmore Girls/German Mythology, gen. Lorelei meets a lorelei.
8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
On a fic? Not that I remember, just the occasional annoying but seemingly well-intentioned unsolicited concrit. But on art, yes, all about 10 years ago.
For drawing a cis female character as a femme looking cis dude in a similar outfit: The commenter said "I don't like homosexuals" in Russian at the end of a mildly disparaging comment in English, presumably forgetting about the existence of Google translate.
For making a photo manip of Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender as East Asian: the whitewashed live action movie was coming out soon and the controversy had really brought the racists out of the woodwork.
For making a photo manipulation of a 19th century painting: they insisted this was morally if not legally wrong on principle, despite me having been clear about the usage in my notes and the art being in the public domain.
I find it a bit darkly amusing whenever I see people say that making diverse fanworks is 'too dangerous these days' because you'll get hate from 'oversensitive POC/trans people etc'. In my (admittedly limited) experience there was more danger ten years ago from bigots. And people who hate photo manips, lol.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
The closest I've come is Wedding Night, which is one long but not very explicit sex scene with consensual non-consent, because when I got to the end of the Kazama path of Hakuoki I thought "Oh wow their sex would sure be something" and felt inspired to write it. And even that is not really intended as porn so much as a character/ship study, though I was aiming for it to be at least a little sexy.
Writing sex tends to make me squicked and writers-blocked so I need a strong character/plot inspiration that can only be explored via sex, or I'm happier just leaving it fade to black. I don't think I have it in me to write porn for porn's sake.
10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not as far as I am aware! Not art or anything else, either.
11. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes! Comics too. Into French, Polish, and Russian, that I can remember. It's always super flattering and the experience has always been very positive. The Russian translation of Five times Sara Crispino tried to get a boyfriend, and one time she didn't has really nice embedded fanart, and since the love interest is Russian it was nice to know actual Russians were happy with the story.
(Aw, oh no I just checked and the image links are broken ;_; It was very nice art!)
12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
No, the chance has never come up, but I'm open to the idea!
13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?
HMMM TOUGH QUESTION.tree and anghraine both mentioned Elizabeth/Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and...yeah I can't think of anything else I've shipped as hard for as long.
14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
Mistress of Pemberley is the only posted WIP I have where I am quite sure I'll never write another word and feel a little bad about it, I got the main couple (Elizabeth/Darcy, as it happens) together and then totally ran out of momentum for tying up all the loose ends. But the current ending isn't TOO Bad, if a bit abrupt.
I have other WIPs I worry I won't finish, but like to think I will, one day.
15. What are your writing strengths?
Humour, dialogue, and character voice. Also, writing happy stories with a little bit of bite to them.
16. What are your writing weaknesses?
Everything except dialogue, especially any sense of place or physicality. I'm also pretty bad at coming up with original plots. As above, pure angst or seriousness, and porn. I used to be bad at letting stories breathe and sit with emotions instead of barelling on, but am getting better at that.
17. What are you thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
Generally best avoided unless you're fluent in that language, and these days I'm not fluent in anything but English.
I've quoted characters in other languages once or twice where the sound of the words was important, generally for a pun, but for the most part feel it's better to write a translation or "something [they] didn't understand in what sounded like [language]" etc. I leave some individual words untranslated but in that case am basically treating them as loan words.
I used other languages once or twice in comics and got people saying it was wrong every time, so am not doing that again!
18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
Pride and Prejudice. I wrote 750 words of Anne/Mary for a lark to test out the AO3 beta, and then those 750 words grew over several years to a novel length story and I have never looked back :)
19. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?
HMMM. Practical Applications of the Turing Test is probably the objectively best thing I've written, and is my most popular work for a reason: it's darkly funny but also romantic, does an ok job of capturing the unique tone of canon, and has more world-building and plot than I usually manage. Also it was written in that sweet spot where my stories were no longer way too succinct, but I hadn't started adding all the long meandering philosophising on the nature of gender that has haunted everything I've written since I realised I'm trans.
But my personal favourite is A Braid of Bamboo and Steel, which is WALL TO WALL long meandering philosophising on the nature of gender, and also everyone is some combo of trans, samurai, demon, or vampire, and I DON'T CARE it's GREAT and I'm VERY PROUD OF IT.
The questions:
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
3. What are you top 5 fics by kudos?
4. Do you respond to comments; why or why not?
5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the most ridiculous one you’ve ever written?
8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
11. Have you ever had a fic translated?
12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?
14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
15. What are your writing strengths?
16. What are your writing weaknesses?
17. What are you thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
19. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?
tree/ 1. How many works do you have on AO3?
211: 106 Fanart, 93 Fanfiction, 2 games
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
909,323
That's a lot closer to a million than I'd have expected wtf??
WAIT...is that including draft fics I have saved to the Unrevealed Drafts collection? Because those are just earlier versions of other fic I haven't gotten around to deleting yet.
*deletes one of those works*
AH YEP THERE WE GO. Ok I can't be bothered clearing them all out but I'd estimate there's 50-100K in those drafts so the real answer is more like 800K
3. What are you top 5 fics by kudos?
My top works of any kind, which are mostly fic:
Practical Applications of the Turing Test: Portal2, Chell/Glados, f/f Enemies to Lovers romcom fic. Because femslashers love a good romcom, and I did an ok job of capturing and extrapolating the dark shippy humour of canon.
The Life and Death of Setsuka Heel: Skip Beat!, Kyoyo Ren, m/f getting together romcom fic. I wrote this out of frustration at how long the manga was dragging out the UST (and it's still not done EIGHT YEARS LATER), so this fic is popular with people who share that frustration.
Art: The Sound of Gears Turning: My Next Life As A Villainess, Maria/Katerina, f/f, art of a cute and funny kiss. SPEAKING OF MANGA THAT DRAG OUT THE UST. This is one of those pairings where it's pretty popular but doesn't get a lot of fanworks, even over on Pixiv, so this art has been quite popular in general.
Into Darker Water: Heaven Official's Blessing, He Xuan/Shi Qingxuan, m/nb, enemies to friends to lovers fic. This is a popular pairing with a lot of conflict to work through, and most writers either lean into the angst or gloss over the conflict. Which left me having to write the enemies to lovers fic I wanted myself, and I guess other people wanted it too!
The Scent of Honeysuckle: Dragon Age Inquisition, Josephine/Cassandra, f/f fake dating fic. Femslashers love a good romcom! Unlike the others, this isn't really filling an underexplored niche, there's quite a few tropey Josephine/Cassandra romcom fics, but it's probably the closest I've come to the platonic ideal of a tropey femslash romcom.
Wedding is Destiny, and Hanging Likewise: Pride and Prejudice, Anne/Mary, f/f getting together romcom fic. For quite a while this was basically the only long Pride and Prejudice femslash on the AO3, and there's still not much competition. Like, it's not a bad fic, but it's also my first, and there's other better fics I've written since that aren't as popular.
I do write things that aren't romcoms but they tend not to do as well, at least on the AO3. It's probably less that femslashers love a good romcom and more that everyone loves a good romcom, enough to make up for femslash's relative unpopularity, since femslash is the category where I've written romcoms the most.
4. Do you respond to comments; why or why not?
Yes, I try to reply to all of them, but often with nothing more in-depth than "thanks". If I ever got more popular I'd probably have to let some go.
5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
Hmm! *pokes my less popular, non-romcom works*
Depending on how you count angsty, it's one of:
At the crossroads: Durarara!!, Kida Masaomi/Ryuugamine Mikado/Sonohara Anri, a moody character piece.
Five times Anders tried to get people to read his manifesto (including one time he succeeded) Dragon Age 2, gen. Which has a happy, hopeful ending...unless you're familiar with canon and know what happens next.
Honestly neither of these are very good, I'm not great at angst. But it's good to stretch myself from time to time!
6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
Most of my fics have pretty happy endings, but To Love And To Cherish is literally a thousand words of pure happy ending, being a scene I cut from the end of 'Wedding is Destiny, and Hanging Likewise' for being too implausibly fluffy.
7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the most ridiculous one you’ve ever written?
Very occasionally and they're all pretty ridiculous. The art ones tend to be the most over the top, since then I just have to create a single image and not do any world-building. The most ridiculous fic is very short for similar reasons: By the Rhine: Gilmore Girls/German Mythology, gen. Lorelei meets a lorelei.
8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
On a fic? Not that I remember, just the occasional annoying but seemingly well-intentioned unsolicited concrit. But on art, yes, all about 10 years ago.
For drawing a cis female character as a femme looking cis dude in a similar outfit: The commenter said "I don't like homosexuals" in Russian at the end of a mildly disparaging comment in English, presumably forgetting about the existence of Google translate.
For making a photo manip of Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender as East Asian: the whitewashed live action movie was coming out soon and the controversy had really brought the racists out of the woodwork.
For making a photo manipulation of a 19th century painting: they insisted this was morally if not legally wrong on principle, despite me having been clear about the usage in my notes and the art being in the public domain.
I find it a bit darkly amusing whenever I see people say that making diverse fanworks is 'too dangerous these days' because you'll get hate from 'oversensitive POC/trans people etc'. In my (admittedly limited) experience there was more danger ten years ago from bigots. And people who hate photo manips, lol.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
The closest I've come is Wedding Night, which is one long but not very explicit sex scene with consensual non-consent, because when I got to the end of the Kazama path of Hakuoki I thought "Oh wow their sex would sure be something" and felt inspired to write it. And even that is not really intended as porn so much as a character/ship study, though I was aiming for it to be at least a little sexy.
Writing sex tends to make me squicked and writers-blocked so I need a strong character/plot inspiration that can only be explored via sex, or I'm happier just leaving it fade to black. I don't think I have it in me to write porn for porn's sake.
10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not as far as I am aware! Not art or anything else, either.
11. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes! Comics too. Into French, Polish, and Russian, that I can remember. It's always super flattering and the experience has always been very positive. The Russian translation of Five times Sara Crispino tried to get a boyfriend, and one time she didn't has really nice embedded fanart, and since the love interest is Russian it was nice to know actual Russians were happy with the story.
(Aw, oh no I just checked and the image links are broken ;_; It was very nice art!)
12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
No, the chance has never come up, but I'm open to the idea!
13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?
HMMM TOUGH QUESTION.
tree and anghraine both mentioned Elizabeth/Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and...yeah I can't think of anything else I've shipped as hard for as long. 14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
Mistress of Pemberley is the only posted WIP I have where I am quite sure I'll never write another word and feel a little bad about it, I got the main couple (Elizabeth/Darcy, as it happens) together and then totally ran out of momentum for tying up all the loose ends. But the current ending isn't TOO Bad, if a bit abrupt.
I have other WIPs I worry I won't finish, but like to think I will, one day.
15. What are your writing strengths?
Humour, dialogue, and character voice. Also, writing happy stories with a little bit of bite to them.
16. What are your writing weaknesses?
Everything except dialogue, especially any sense of place or physicality. I'm also pretty bad at coming up with original plots. As above, pure angst or seriousness, and porn. I used to be bad at letting stories breathe and sit with emotions instead of barelling on, but am getting better at that.
17. What are you thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
Generally best avoided unless you're fluent in that language, and these days I'm not fluent in anything but English.
I've quoted characters in other languages once or twice where the sound of the words was important, generally for a pun, but for the most part feel it's better to write a translation or "something [they] didn't understand in what sounded like [language]" etc. I leave some individual words untranslated but in that case am basically treating them as loan words.
I used other languages once or twice in comics and got people saying it was wrong every time, so am not doing that again!
18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
Pride and Prejudice. I wrote 750 words of Anne/Mary for a lark to test out the AO3 beta, and then those 750 words grew over several years to a novel length story and I have never looked back :)
19. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?
HMMM. Practical Applications of the Turing Test is probably the objectively best thing I've written, and is my most popular work for a reason: it's darkly funny but also romantic, does an ok job of capturing the unique tone of canon, and has more world-building and plot than I usually manage. Also it was written in that sweet spot where my stories were no longer way too succinct, but I hadn't started adding all the long meandering philosophising on the nature of gender that has haunted everything I've written since I realised I'm trans.
But my personal favourite is A Braid of Bamboo and Steel, which is WALL TO WALL long meandering philosophising on the nature of gender, and also everyone is some combo of trans, samurai, demon, or vampire, and I DON'T CARE it's GREAT and I'm VERY PROUD OF IT.
The questions:
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
3. What are you top 5 fics by kudos?
4. Do you respond to comments; why or why not?
5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the most ridiculous one you’ve ever written?
8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
11. Have you ever had a fic translated?
12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?
14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
15. What are your writing strengths?
16. What are your writing weaknesses?
17. What are you thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
19. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?
no subject
Date: 2021-08-29 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-08-31 12:30 pm (UTC)Thank you, it's nice to know.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-05 11:22 pm (UTC)It's always a delight to witness a writer's thought process.
I'm completely ignorant of Portal2 in particular and gaming in general. Is there somewhere you could point me to for essential knowledge in order to appreciate your Turing fic?
no subject
Date: 2021-09-20 03:07 pm (UTC)The wikipedia summary captures the main plot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_2#Plot You just need the backstory and single player campaign story.
But a summary focussing on the parts you need for the fic: Portal 1: The main character, an unvoiced young woman named Chell, finds herself in the Apeture Science Center. A disembodied female computer voice, belonging to the AI GlaDOS, instructs her through various puzzles designed to test Apteture products, especially a portal gun. These start out fairly simple and benign but become increasingly bizarre and deadly, and GlaDOS's 'helpful' advice and instructions become increasingly tinged with passive aggression and cruelty. It becomes clear that Chell is just the latest of a series of test subjects GlaDOS has tested until they die, including all the now dead human employees of the centre. Chell escapes the puzzle rooms and seemingly destroys GlaDOS...only to be recaptured, with an ending song about how GlaDOS is still alive.
Portal 2: Chell is woken from cryogenic sleep by a cheerful male AI called Wheatley. They travel through a now decaying Apeture Science Center, and we see evidence that the day GlaDOS became murderous, Chell was there as a child taking part in a "take your kids to work" day, implying her parents worked at the centre and thus were killed by GlaDOS. It's not clear what Chell did in the years between then and now. There's also implications that this is set in the same universe as the Half Life games, where the Earth was taken over by aliens.
Chell and Wheatley defeat GlaDOS and he is given control of the centre, while GlaDOS's brain/core is transferred to a potato battery Chell made as a child. Wheatly immediately become murderous and forces Chell and GlaDOS to start performing tests, except he is much less competent than GlaDOS so the tests make no sense and he accidentally destroys a bunch of stuff, including all the remaining cryogenically stored humans.
It is revealed that even before GlaDOS took charge, the centre had been getting people to do nonsensical and deadly science tests since the 1960s, on the instructions of it's founder, Cave Johnson. When he realised he was dying he decided to create an AI to keep up the work. He did this by creating an AI with the personality of his assistant Caroline (against her will) and added a compulsion to perform scientific tests built into the building.
Now finally freed from this compulsion to perform tests, we see Caroline/GlaDOS's real personality: much less murderous and unbalanced, but still passive aggressive and full of her own intelligence. Chell has no dialogue, but is passive aggressive in her own quiet way. The two of them have a cute dynamic as they work together to solve Wheatley's bizarre tests and bring him down, in an enemies-to-tentative-friends-with-grudging-respect kinda way. GlaDOS's potato is nearly eaten by a bird and she has a deep grudge/fear towards birds afterwards.
Once Wheatley is defeated GlaDOS ends up back in charge of the centre, with the intention of using robots instead of humans for the tests. Instead of immediately becoming murderous again, GlaDOS describes Chell as her best friend, and says she had a surge of emotion rescuing her. She then says she has now deleted the Caroline parts of her brain causing these emotions, but 'killing Chell is too difficult' so she sets her free, and as Chell is sent to the surface GlaDOS and her gun turrets sing her a melancholy song.
Here's the relevant part of the end: https://youtu.be/hHPwmzbpaAU?t=406