40 Questions -- Meme For Fic Writers (continued)
1) Describe your comfort zone-a typical you-fic.
2) Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?
3) Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?
4) How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
5) Share one of your strengths.
6) Share one of your weaknesses.
7) Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
8) Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
9) Which fic has been the hardest to write?
10) Which fic has been the easiest to write?
11) Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?
12) Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?
13) What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?
14) What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?
15) If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?
16) If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?
17) Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?
18) Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?
19) Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?
20) Describe your perfect writing conditions.
21) How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?
22) Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style.
23) If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?
24) Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?
25) What do you look for in a beta?
26) Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?
27) How do you feel about collaborations?
28) Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.
29) If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?
30) Do you accept prompts?
31) Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?
32) How do you feel about smut?
33) How do you feel about crack?
34) What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?
35) Would you ever kill off a canon character?
36) Which is your favorite site to post fic?
37) Talk about your current wips.
38) Talk about a review that made your day.
39) Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?
40) Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).
Initial disclaimer: I'm on a bit of TVD tear right now...just in angst over Nina leaving the show and a little more than halfway through a spontaneous S1 rewatch. Needless to say my Elena feels are at an all time high, so the piece I selected for this part was written before S4 started and was all speculation as to how Vampire!Elena would act and feel and be. I still think it's fairly accurate depictions of both Damon and Elena even with current canon way beyond those early S4 moments. And I have a lot of D/E prose to choose from, but this has long been one of my favorite Elena POV pieces.
She doesn't really remember the first time. A blur of compelled memories and anger (hers), smirks and shots of bourbon (his), and heat and sweat (theirs), it happens at vampire speed, at least in her mind. It's only later that he takes his time, that he finds every spot on her body that makes her gasp or moan or curse.
(He loves it when she curses.)
After a while it feels like it's always been this way, them against walls in the basement, on top of the freezer full of blood, in Stefan's room when he's not home. There's the time on the piano, when Damon's hands seem to mesmerize her and she just wants them to move over her body the way they do the black and white keys. Sure and quick, steady and rhythmic, slow and lingering. She wants them in all the ways, all the time. On her face, against her lips, teasing her nipples, inside her; damp as they fumble over her clitoris, suddenly not as precise, or careful, but trembling and needy.
Maybe she feels guilty the first time, the first twenty times. Maybe she thinks it was never like this with Stefan. Maybe she doesn't love Damon, and that's why. Maybe, if you take love out of it, life is easier to live.
(Maybe she should have figured that out when she was still alive.)
Now, she only feels real and there are only glimpses of truth in those moments with him. When her conscience rages under his lips, he shushes it. When self-reproach would be her normal path, he redirects her; her fingers against the soft hair below his navel, her mouth around his cock, her eyes on his as he shoves himself inside her.
(Damon has always been good at choosing to believe whatever he wants to, so he shows her how.)
She tells herself it's just with her heightened eyesight, he seems so much more lovely. Now his eyes seem bluer, and they seem to ooze love in a way that all she can do is sop it up as quickly as possible. No one else will ever look at her that way again. Only Damon, always Damon, the only one who will love her no matter what she does, or who she kills, or whether she fucks him blind. Her ears can hear sounds they never did before, the sigh of her name on his lips, the grunt of his release, deep in her bones, the way he longs for her...yes, she can even hear that now, though it's a soundless ache that radiates out of him.
She tells herself that when she was human, it was all there and she could ignore it, but now, now it's impossible to escape.
(The truth is, he loves her more now that she's like him, now that she can't hide that she's like him, now that she can't hide that she wants him, now, more than ever because she has to have him even though it will destroy the carefully crafted world around her.)
She cries his name as he shoves her up against the glass wall in his shower, as his hand parts her legs, slipping over her ass to lift her up so he can slide in behind her, slide into her. He is huge, always, filling her beyond what she can take, always giving her more than she needs, more than she deserves, more than she wants.
She can see them both in the mirror; she looks like the submissive one because he's got her pinned down, but she knows she holds all the power.
She always did. (Human.)
She always will. (Vampire.)
(It's the one thing that stayed the same. Her transition didn't change that fact at all. So she can never let it go.)
For this one, I could select any number of Damon-esque lines that I've had the pleasure of creating over thousands of words written...but I decided to go with the conversation that Felicity and Oliver have about Beth and Daryl, because it was super fun to imagine one of my favorite characters on TV loving another of my favorite characters on TV and talking about them like they're real. It's the Fourth Wall at it's best, and it's a summary of Daryl on The Walking Dead for anyone who doesn't know anything about him.
"I was watching a show--I got very involved in it, very quickly--you know, there's nothing to do around here lately! And so I watched this show, like marathoned the whole thing--well, I have like three episodes left, but I don't know if I want to keep watching it because, ugh, but I have to, right? I mean, I have to find out what happens!"
Oliver's eyes stray from her face to the computer screen, that is now blank, and back again. "You were watching a show, here?"
Felicity nods. "I started watching it on Netflix, but then for the fourth season that's not out yet, I had to download it from a site--don't worry, it was a good site, and with all the firewalls I put in, our system is safe anyway."
Oliver can feel his lips quirking upward, something they did because of Felicity more often than not. "And you were crying, because of the show?" he asks, just to make sure he followed what she said.
She sniffs. "It was sad, okay?"
"What show?"
Her cheeks flush and she turns away from him, but Oliver uses his foot to stop the swing of her chair, pulling her back to face him. "What show?" he asks again.
"The Walking Dead," she says, her lips barely moving.
"The what?" he asks, even though he heard her just fine.
"The Walking Dead!" she cries. "It's a zombie show, okay? I was bored one day, so I Googled Famous Archers, because, I don't even know, and there was this list, and this character was on it from that show, and the comments on the message board were crazy about him, so I thought, what's the big deal, you know?" She shrugs, and Oliver can't stop the smile that keeps growing wider on his face.
She was looking up famous archers? Seriously, how is she even real?
"Anyway, it turns out, they were right. He's an amazing character. Like, he has this back story of abuse and ignorance, and it's just sad, but the Zombie Apocalypse actually gave him purpose and direction and people who truly cared for him. But even with all that, he still has this wall up, you know? Just keeping people at arms' length, first probably because of how he feels about himself, but then they keep losing people, because, you know, Zombies eat them. But then this horrible thing--like something more horrible than all the other horrible things--happens and he and this one girl get separated from the group. So they have to rely on each other, and she's like, the pure one. She's just goodness and light and she brings that to him, helps him see something good in all the bad..." She trails off and Oliver realizes he hasn't taken a breath as she's been explaining the whole thing. Her bottom lip quivers, and fresh tears appear in her eyes. "He starts to hope, you see," she continues, her voice choked, and Oliver feels emotion prick him, too, as she gets emotional. "But then, he loses her....and it's just the saddest thing I've ever seen."
She breathes out a deep sigh, and shakes her head. "I..." she starts, but then she just presses her fingers to her lips and remains quiet.
"So, what? A Zombie got her?" Oliver asks.
"No! Somebody kidnapped her! And in a way, that's worse, because you don't know where she is! But you don't want Daryl to lose his hope. And you sort of want them to hook up, even though he's a lot older than her, but does that even matter at the end of the world? I mean, come on."
Oliver has never been more amused by or enamored of Felicity than he is right now. Because she means every word. She's invested. He's pretty sure he's never seen her be more adorable.
All for a fictional archer named Daryl. Which reminds him, "So, how does archery play into this again?"
She sniffs once more, rubbing her hand under her nose briefly. "Oh, right. He uses a crossbow to kill the Zombies. And there's this one part, where he taught Beth how to use the crossbow, and how to track, and..." She sadly shakes her head some more.
"But you said there's more episodes to watch? Maybe he finds her?" Oliver suggests.
Felicity snorts. "I don't think so. I read something online that spoiled me before I'd even watched everything." She glances up at him. "I mean, of course I'll still watch it. And the next season starts in the fall. But having to wait to watch it once a week will be a killer."
He can't help it; he finally lets the laughter that's been building up flow freely. "Poor Felicity," he says teasingly.
"You hush," she snaps. Then she points a finger at him. "Or I'll make you watch it, too."
She's smiling now, too; her tears of sympathy have all dried up. "Well, regardless, you know I'm the better archer, right?" he says, and she flushes again. This is the crux of it--how it's somehow all about him without it being about him at all.