fanfic ask meme

[amovingtarget]

I posted four whole fics this year so far! I think that calls for a writing meme!

Cribbed from runicmagitek

A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]?
B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?
C: What member do you identify with most?
D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with [insert fic]?
E: If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it be about?
F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
G: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?
H: How would you describe your style?
I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?
J: Write or describe an alternative ending to [insert fic].
K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?
L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?
M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?
N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?
O: How do you begin a story–with the plot, or the characters?
P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)
Q: How do you feel about collaborations?
R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?
S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?
T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?
U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.
V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?
W: Do you like more general prompts, or more specific ones?
X: A character you enjoy making suffer.
Y: A character you want to protect.
Z: Major character death–do you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate?

Comments

[enemyofperfect]

E: If you wrote a sequel to my soul too a fountain, what would it be about?
F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
J: Write or describe an alternative ending to in and out of darkness and light.

[runicmagitek]

C, L, and M :D

[amovingtarget]

C: What character do you identify with most?

That's pretty tough. Can I have more than one? I'm gonna put down more than one. I think I'd have to go with FF15's Gladio -- written one fic for him here: in this desperate, fleeting time or Dragon Age's Cullen -- written two fics and one in progress, but the big character study is here: afraid of all that i've built. I think honourable mention should go to Cloud, although I haven't written any fic for him yet.

The three of them all have very different pasts and personalities, but I think the core of their stories come down too... trying to move on, to move forward, to get better. That's something I still haven't really been able to do, so to be able to give that to the characters I relate and love the most? For them to be able to grieve and hurt and struggle, and survive it all, and find themselves again? Yeah.

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

I usually allow for at least one major revision pass, and one personal read through where I tweak words here and there but usually just see that I'm happy with it and enjoy it. Although, in practice, I don't usually do the major revision pass except for big works and I can't remember the last time I did, so they've kind of merged into one revision?

So I guess the current process is that I do one revision, and enemyofperfect will do one, and that's been enough for me, in recent memory.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

Oh man, so many... maybe I should make a whole post for that? I've been toying with the idea of making one for all my ideas, ancient and recent, just so I can have it in one place....

I'll give you one right now, though. I mentioned Cloud, so I will tell you that there's a fic I've been dying to write for him. I've titled it blue shoulders instead of feathers (from this poem by Richard Siken) and it's kind of a diptych of a fic. One part takes place before Advent Children, where Tifa and everyone else is trying to move on and Cloud is trying to keep up, but between his head being a mess and Sephiroth toying with him through the developing geostigma, he just can't. The second part is after, where he finally gets to move on himself, and it's largely based on the post credit scene where we see the Buster Sword restored and put up in the church -- that was what Cloud did to finally get some closure for himself, so he can finally let himself be happy with Tifa.

[amovingtarget]

Why do you have to ask the hardest questions ;___;

E: If you wrote a sequel to my soul too a fountain, what would it be about?

I really wanted to have an idea for this after I wrote it. I have the vague notion of them working together and navigating their fledgling triad, but I'm not sure what they would do. Nadine is more attracted to Chloe but she becomes pretty fond of Sam. Sam is more attracted to Chloe but he'd eventually get less skittish of Nadine, and even gets a little cute and romantic towards her. Chloe is 100% down for both of them and will pull them both into bed at any opportunity -- she is totally the main driver of this relationship, so where Nadine and Sam and there own relationship is concerned they have a lot of ground to cover. I guess it would be fun if it was some kind of really lengthy, complex job, and they would have different styles of trying to get it done -- especially military minded Nadine. How everything comes together, though, and how they manage to get along, and all the sex they no doubt have, I don't know anything about.

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

After much hellish torment heavy drinking deliberation, I have settled on this bit of the efflux of the soul is happiness because I'm ridiculously proud of how much it sounds like them, so easy it feels to read, how much is said respectively about how they feel about Noct -- Luna's quiet hope! Gladio's familiar teasing! and it feels really lighthearted in a way most of my writing isn't?

“Gladiolus—”

“You keep using my full name like that, I’m going to think you’re mad at me,” Gladio chided but, he smiled too. “You okay?”

“Well,” Luna paused, considering her words. “I wondered if you had any ideas of things Noctis likes to do, that maybe we could do together?”

Gladio cocked his head at her a little. “What Noct likes? Guess it depends what you’re willing to put up with.”

“I want to get to know him,” Luna said. She didn’t say that she was willing to put up with anything, because that sounded wrong, given that she didn’t see it as ‘putting up with’ in the first place.

There was that little smile again, and Luna was fast beginning to see in him as much of an older brother as Ravus, only perhaps more approachable. “Can you fish?” She shook her head. “Alright, we’re gonna get you to a nice little spot, then you’ll ask him to teach you.”

“He’s good at it?”

“It’s one of his only gifts.”

“That’s not true,” Luna said automatically.

Gladio turned to smile knowingly at her then, eyebrows lifted, and she had to blush, caught.
“You’ll see,” he said then, and Luna didn’t think she was imagining that he sounded proud, although which of the three of them he was proud of in that moment, she couldn’t guess.


J: Write or describe an alternative ending to in and out of darkness and light.

I should have known you'd ask for this one! What makes you think an alternative ending would have Adam surviving?! Well, suppose that he does, suppose that maybe Miranda reacts in time to pull him out of the way of the shot and wounds Rasa. Adam is still going to want to empty his clip into her, but alright, he's not dead. He's not too happy about it either, although he can't really articulate it -- he didn't want to die until the opportunity was presented to him, and now living, as Shepard's shadow, seems doubly cruel. Miranda can drag him to a medcentre and patch him up, but of course, his ability to heal is still damaged. It's tough going, trying to get and keep him stable, and of course he's always trying to browbeat her into just letting him die, but he's not close enough to death that she can feel like that's an option. She doesn't know if he will survive the trip to Earth, where there are people she can trust to help, so she takes him to Minuteman station, and tries to piece the project back together, piece him back together. Shepard comes of course, because he feels at least a little responsible for this clone, and for her too. He brings Kaidan and Liara, of course, and Chakwas too -- they probably feel Mordin's loss pretty keenly at this time.

So they manage to fix him, over weeks and months. He's still not happy about being alive but he's a little resigned to it, and he's less happy about the attention and the help and the fussing and he makes sure everyone knows it. He chafes at having Shepard here until he exhausts himself. He gets to hate looking in a mirror -- good news, his scars are healing properly now, bad news, his original is right there to remind him what he is. At his behest they alter his genetic code to make his hair grown in blond, and to change his eye colour, which seems to help a little. What happens after that I can't say... I think he probably parts ways with Miranda for some time, at least, but maybe he comes back by the end, feeling a little more stable, a little more his own person.

[enemyofperfect]

Maybe I ask the hardest questions because I know you will give the best answers! :'D Hearing you talk about your writing is always so great. I love what you love about that scene with Gladio and Luna!

And I love that everyone loves Chloe, but Nadine and Sam eventually get more attached to each other too. (I feel like Sam is going to show it way more, too.) I would read the hell out of a long complicated job with them slowly figuring out their relationship!

I should have known you'd ask for this one! What makes you think an alternative ending would have Adam surviving?!

I'm such a fiend, but you've given me such a gorgeous Adam lives AU anyway! Finding a way to fix what's slowly killing him! Even though he hates everyone fussing over him! Adam getting a chance to feel more like his own person!!!! It's everything I could have asked for, thank youuuuu. ♥

[amovingtarget]

<3

[runicmagitek]

I do love how when we reflect on our faves and the ones we relate to, there's always a common theme amongst them. I know for me it's usually the ice queens trying to taking on the world without asking for help and learning to open to others. I love that we can find ourselves in fiction like that :) thank you so much for sharing that!

OOOOOOO I am in love with this fic idea for Cloud! And that's so fitting for him, too. I was always frustrated that he was never allowed time to heal post-canon. Even if Advent Children, he hadn't really moved on, so to speak. I wanted him to recover in a health manner and have the life he was deprived of. I would love to read something like this, so I fully support it :D

[amovingtarget]

<3