3. Lots of people who knew me were shocked when I got my first tattoo, although granted, that was many years ago. I have three tattoos, but for work reasons, the first two are very easily hidden. To the point that sometimes I forget that most of the time they're not visible. The third one is in a more obvious location, but it's also smaller, relatively tame, and (for lack of a better word) girly.

Got some interesting asks. Definitely working on them, for tonight or tomorrow.

For this character meme.

For this character meme.

For this meme.

🌍 What is your dream AU?

I feel like people who follow me on Tumblr must know this already, but I would be delighted if for every Omegaverse fic there was another AU that just went absolutely ham on misinterpreting and sexualizing non-wolf animal behavior. It doesn't even have to be a queen bee AU. Just a million fics that are nothing but thinly veiled excuses to blather about weird animal reproduction facts.

🏆 What do you wish more authors in your fandom would write about?

Right now I'm only actively writing in two fandoms, 7KPP and Skyrim. Skyrim fandom has literally thousands of fics and has reached an "everything has been done" stage where people either write the same things over or get really weird with it. I like the weird stage because unpredictable things happen. I wish for every writer to feel comfortable getting as weird as their little hearts desire.

On a more mundane note, sometimes I feel like the way people write about the civil war is strongly influenced by the obnoxious debates about it in the fandom. I always like it when people write about the factions from a perspective that doesn't seek to defend or justify them. "Make your faces look bad", basically.

For 7KPP, it's a tiny fandom, so I'm ecstatic every time I see a fic that revolves around the NPCs and not the MC.

💡 Tell me a headcanon (and who you wish would write it)?

I had to think about this hard because I tend to get so involved in my (major) headcanons that I forget they're not properly canon. Like, when I integrate my perception of out-of-universe factors, I legit forget that it hasn't been confirmed anywhere that the Empire is about to fall apart. It's just that all the clues point to it, and it's thematically consistent, and it has such high potential for storytelling chaos, and setting ESO during the interregnum almost feels like foreshadowing, and...

Anyway, I'd love to see some of the fandom writers who gravitate towards "big picture" stories take on a radical redrawing of Tamriel's political map. Provinces getting broken down and new borders forming. New political powers rising to fill the power vacuum. Independence of the Reach. A new Empire, not centered on Cyrodiil. Argonian ascendancy. A new world order, reshuffled completely from previous expectations.

Print out a B&W map of Tamriel, break out your crayons, and go absolutely hog wild.

The Happy Fic Writer Ask Game

Describe what you do and your feelings after posting a chapter. (For example: When do you usually post a fic/chapter update? How do you celebrate a posting? Are you the type to refresh constantly?, etc.)

It depends on the story, really. Usually, I will copy over the text of the chapter from whatever text editor I was using, and then hit preview and do a quick proofread, for formatting as well as typos. If I'm posting anonymously, e.g. to a DW meme, that's usually it. And then I try to distract myself from the nervous F5 dance. If I'm posting to AO3, I'll save as a draft and do at least one more read-through for small errors. Sometimes on my phone, which helps me catch more mistakes.

WIP-Centric Ask the Writer!

6) What is the most frequent emotion in this story?

Ah, for the readers or for the characters? I'll answer for BFS.

I think for readers I'd like the dominant emotion to be curiosity, and that seems to be working well for me. For the characters… tenderness, I suppose. Tenderess ahead of trust, because the relationship in BFS works in reverse. First comes marriage, then comes getting to know each other, heh.

Gemstone themed Writeblr asks

Emerald: Which of your characters is hardest to write?

I would say that I struggle more with characters that I write rarely, like Christabel and Periwinkle, both 7KPP OCs. Partly because I haven't written them as much, and so their backgrounds and their families aren't as well developed, and so that creates a kind of cycle. And partly because the narration of the game gives their backgrounds a very strong, very decided voice, which does not entirely agree with my vision of them. Christabel especially was written a little against type.

Fanfic Ask Game (the movie, the sequel)

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?

Yikes. Well. Hmm.

I have daydreams about alternate universes for some of my OCs, ones that I don't intend to put to paper. And I have a folder of unfinished stories that won't ever reach posting status, like D&F stories that I wrote to flesh out certain background details, but which don't themselves make for very good reading.

I also have a little self-indulgent fic for someone else's work in progress, lol. But It doesn't really agree with what would eventually be "canon", and I don't think anyone would enjoy reading it but me. I do enjoy it a lot, though.

💖 What do you like most about your own writing?

Ohhh. You know, if you'd asked five years ago, I would have said descriptions, hands-down. I used to draw as a kid, and when I started getting into writing, my favorite thing was the ability to paint a picture with words. Something that I still love doing, but I'm much more mindful these days of not weighing down the narrative and alienating readers.

But given both Blood from Stone and Decline and Fall… I'm really proud of my plotting, now. Most especially, I'm proud of the ability I've developed to spin out subplots and supporting characters, and interweave them with the story's main themes. Those two stories, more than anything, have convinced me that I'm proficient at generating a strong, compelling supporting cast.

📝 What is one growth area you have for your writing?

Organization and outlining. It's not as much of a problem with prose, but when I'm writing games, it's a major stumbling point. I also, let's be honest, have no clue how to design skills.

🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to?

TES lore is full of all sorts of juicy historical characters that I think would be super fun to dive into, but I don't yet feel confident enough of my grasp of the lore. But, all of those legendary historical figures! It's hard to even choose. Probably I would choose someone who encompasses that feeling of living through history and not fully realizing the significance of the events around them.

So, Barenziah.

Send me an ask for any meme I posted in the last year, I'm so fucking bored.

[For this meme.]

My favorite theme for fanfic specifically is consequences for canon events, especially events that didn't IMO get enough fallout, and especially fallout of the social variety.

In other words: "no one will like you if you do that."

This is part of why I'm drawn to "bad end" stories, specifically in game fandoms. A bad end in a game is by definition optional, and yet, for the character experiencing it, it may well feel inevitable. There's something darkly tragic about that that appeals to me, while at the same time speaking to the exculpatory fatalism that people are prone to, especially when they've been making bad decisions.

I think "Poison in the Blood" is probably my favorite fic on that theme, but also, from another perspective, "Dolorous Violet". Even "Blood from Stone" deals with this idea, although it's just one of many themes, so it's not as obvious. Still, it crops up, now and then, in some of Corinne's more negative interactions.

[For this meme.]

Meant to answer this yesterday, got distracted.

Also of note, I just discovered that Draftin has a global search feature, and I really wish I'd used it on Tuesday. Alas, most of the search results were for posted fics.

1. Down in the lower city, she could see patches of dark between the lights, like the shadow of a crescent moon in a starry sky.

[This line appeared once before for this meme, bless Verity and her dramatic scenery descriptions.]

2. Clad from top to toe in steel plate, the strange knight's pristinely black tabard bore a silver design like a crescent moon, its beams angling downward.

I could've sworn I had more than these two, but apparently not.