FOtPoD spoilers but there's absolutely no context

6, 8, 12 from the fanfic asks

thank you viking! tagging @itzpapalotl since they also asked for #6.

6. Which yet-to-be-started fic is first on your list?

This may change as I come up with more things for other wips but I have a short one that may be spicy...or it might be soft. We'll see. It's all because I did that ship meme and decided Cala steals Hien's clothes sometimes.

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

Hmm the stuff I'm afraid to write is mostly original, since a) no one else knows about it but me and I'm not sure who I'd even share it with, and b) there's a lot of world building involved, which I feel like I need to figure out perfectly before I start. I do want to work on developing things this year, but I don't know if I'll actually write the story, and it may end up being more of a comic than prose. It's fantasy with a magic system that's kind of like ATLA/mistborn-ish? (And a tiny bit like FFXIV although I made it before I played the game.) It's based on elements and balance, and people who can't use magic have physical objects they can use for each element. I have about 4-5 characters in mind that will be important. They all have to save/restore the world, of course, but how they work together determines their own individual fates too.

I think I'm also afraid to write more hc stuff in fandom. I feel like I have to do in-depth research for every new character I write aksdjhf and I want to write more ffxiv characters! But it'll take awhile to figure out stuff for them (I do want to write more of Cala's platonic relationships, since some of them are still undefined and I'd love to explore them)

12. Will you change anything about the way you edit or rewrite this year?

I'm going to try to take more time with it and be more intentional. I only just started writing again in late 2022 after a long break where I wrote nothing but comic dialogue, so I still feel rusty with prose. I think now that I've gotten more comfortable with actually writing again I can be more analytical about it, and fill things out more. Last year editing consisted of a few passes to make sure things sounded adequate and made sense, but I want to work on having nicer prose.

OOOH! Definitely interested in your wips. Would love to hear more about these in particular (whichever one(s) you feel like sharing)

(also yes definitely still happily stuck inside this fandom bubble)

will indulge!!! (This is long but it's good to organize my thoughts lol)

I straight up forgot to put the name of this one lol. Meliodas doing dangerous antics is part of my Through the Wall sequel fic, called "Stakeout" which is the one where I have him cooking. I tried to mix in some humor with the angst here. It's basically Stigma Meliodas if Nakaba didn't nerf his intellegence. This one, I'll be feeding you guys soon!! Because I plan to try to finish Through the Wall this Thanksgiving Break, since I started it last thanksgiving break (ambitious I know, but imagine the poetism if I pull it off!) and Stakeout is farther along in its completion than that one. Stakeout is about Meliodas looking out for the TC and his brother from the opposite of the war. The first part is him deciding to try to get them dinner after seeing how worn-down they are, and the second . . . well, he can't exactly leave Zeldris to watch over both the Vampire and Demon Realms all by his lonesome, right? I'm actually really excited for you and @7-ratsinatrenchcoat to see this one in particular when it's finished because I tried to channel the melizabeth energy I liked in your work

This one is named such not cause I wanna name it something bulky (it has a better name! that's the exclusive lore lol) but I'm commited not to spoiling the plot twists in this one. This is gonna be my main gift to this fandom, a spiced up psychological horror rewrite of the whole show with original elizabeths and original adventures for the first and second season (that one is a backstory with Liz!) Plot point collaboration welcome. A bunch of season one, and the plot tiwsts, I made with my good friend zeldriszezinho, and I'm pretty antsy and excited to finally get around to it and present him with the result of our hard work, haha. I actually have a lot of senarios planned both in detail and loosely, just not written down. I'm currently procrastinating on Season 1 Pt. 2 because it's literally 5 or so arcs of content, one for all the sins, and uh. mental energy. So I'm trying to finish up a lot of small projects first just so my mind isn't everywhere. I can't remember if you've seen what I've posted on it so far but here's the masterpost and season one part one! It's on tumblr too! but I went ahead and pressed the space bar like 4 times every indent so it would be normally formatted on A03 sooooo https://archiveofourown.org/works/48567730 https://archiveofourown.org/works/48611485/chapters/122618557

3. Ironically, think Rings was another one inspired by you - it's old, almost 8 months by now, and the only reason I haven't published it yet is the second ellie spiraled out of control into her own adventure and I haven't had the time because I've been word vomiting so many other projects into existence. it's half meme format, half usual writing. The second ellie's meme story is complete and the third's just needs its wrapping up of its actual plot, which is simple: an arrogant man thinks his bride is secretly a nutcase, but feels pressured into marrying her because medival times, because she's a sweet and intellegent woman running an orphanage all by herself, and technically he can't do better, and because it would look disasterously on the both of them and destroy his carefully crafted persona if they somehow couldn't make this community-arranged marriage work. So he's "putting up with her quirks." Including the ancient what-looks-like-wedding-rings she wears around her neck, and the fact she genuinely thinks her one-that-got-away lover sold a prized possession to demons. (the significance of these rings is in the stories of the previous two elizabeths). Well. Actually. He steals them while she's distracted with wedding planning. It doesn't go well for him from there.

Let me know your opinion: should I try finishing the third ellie and then publishing it? I can always go back and make a full story out of "purple ring" ellie + friends later.

Basically, the purple ring's story is as thus: Meliodas decides he needs to rest, "REALLY rest", since his emotional stress is beginning to affect his demon biology in a bad way, and voluntarily coma-tizes himself for a while. He wakes some time later only to find out Elizabeth and her new 'family' have been considering him as their good luck charm. (Maybe even more than one Elizabeth has passed by now. Probably the apothecary he visits figures out what Meliodas meant to do and goes to fetch him, too late, and looks after him . . . see, that could be a whole OTHER story in itself. anyway.) He's a "good luck charm" because his demon aura has been disgusing the magical signature of her druid family, not that they've figured this out. Meliodas tries to get up and run away with an injured Ellie but surprise surprise he hasn't quite recovered from what his body and mind has been through, and the combination of that and the drugs has left him critcially weakened. He actually collapses falls down a small cliff with her. Ellie assures him they've gotten far enough to shake off the people who are searching for her, that it's okay. Moreover, she understands more or less what he's going through, since she lost her leg a while back. They reuinte with Ellie's little "siblings," druid children the family has rescued along their journey.

Later ~ the main organizers of their group are shocked to return to their isolated cabin to find that not only have all the children survived the winter, and possible clashes with whoever's been hunting them for decades, but there's one extra child! And a talking cow. (I haven't decided whether some of these people are semi-antagonsists.) Meliodas's condition never improves (angst angst <3) but he takes up the task of looking after the kids alongside Elizabeth anyway- especially when she and the others are gone, working or otherwise. Oftentimes he and the spunky talking cow go on adventures in the forest or in town, collecting herbs or materials for crafts and toys. She carries him, Hawk-style. I can't remember her name but it was a silly one, and he saves her life once with his wings. He's also fought away intruders once while the 'adults' weren't home with Full Counter, being able to stand for long enough to use it before collapsing.

In this iteration, Meliodas recieves his ring from his new 'siblings' as they say that "it's the same color as the magic you used to protect us." Referring to the times he's used his demon magic around the house, and, unknowingly, to the fact his very presence has been the only thing keeping them safe from raiders on more than one occasion. Throughout it all Meliodas struggles with having to be the one cared for for once, and not being able to be the muscle of this group that so clearly would benefit from him being his 'usual' self. While his siblings think he's a genuine gift from God, and are more than happy to look after him as he does them, trading stories between them and cuddling up like he truly belongs, adult members of the family never take a shine to him and resent him somewhat, even perrfering when he was comatose. There's more (and more angst) but I should probably say less.

4. (TW: this one gets DARK with the demon brothers angst) modern fantasy ireland boarding school au" is actually another gift for @gh0stofyesterday, who can't escape me, from back in like feburary or something lol. It's an angsty modern-day genderqueer demon brothers and genderqueer elizabeth. Basically Meliodas tricks his snooty father into letting him and his brother (who's not technically old enough but academically girlboss yourself outta that condundrum zeldris) go to boarding school in his deceased mother's home country, where Meliodas plans to study interior design (he's gonna design the boar hat himself <3) and, against his father's wishes, join the gymnastic team. Little does he know that his online friends in his tween gymnastics discord server or whatever (The TC) are also going to end up there. ( I have the scene where they realize he's not the snooty daughter of the DK ceo and actually their Captain planned out already actually. they realize it when he beats the snot out of some guy that chases zeldris through the gymnasium lol).

Other plot points include! Elizabeth and Meliodas have a secret online romance as "Study buddies" and plan to perform a ceremony to use whatever their magic is unsealed to share a bit of that magic with each other, as a kind of marriage ceremony (peak 14 year old romance lol). Meliodas and Zeldris learn (originally Irish) sign language in order to communicate without their father snooping. Cusack and Chandler deal with being technical slaves to the Demon King and attempt to parent their protegees in more important ways than teaching them fencing, keeping their secrets, and buying them things. Gelda explains she never cuddles with her sisters for emotional support, Zel and Mel feel sorry for her . . . then figure out they are touch-starved and probably need therapy for that too. Hot springs date. Zel discovers Mel has been cuddling him while laying on his side specifically because there are fresh child abuse wounds across his back. Meliodas commandeers his gymnastics coach's coaching authority and starts an underground fencing ring upon being told he can't do that (we go to school in a castle! c'mon!). Zeldris tries to deal with a ginger-haired kid who seems equally hellbent on being his friend as he is his school rival. Depending on how dark I'm gonna make this, you might even get to see a prolouge where Zeldris forgoes a plan to murder - suicide his brother following his mother's funeral after meeting a small Gelda at the playground. Oh, and the DK having to fidgit uncomfortably in court. This one is basically a for-fun daydream, but a pal volunteed to beta it for me so it will eventually get written up for you all!

🍛🍠🍣🥮🍡!!!!

🍠 How long does it take you to write one of your fics or a chapter/part?

This varies so much depending on the length of the fic or chapter, if it's a longfic or one shot, plot or pwp, etc. I can usually crack out a ~4k word oneshot that's either a pwp or not too plot-heavy in a weekend (2 writing sessions between 3-6hrs each) then usually another hour for editing after sleeping on it. For my very long fics that are plot heavy I try to trend more toward 5k words per part which usually take 1-2 weeks to write (anywhere from 10-24hrs total writing & editing time) just because I have to triple check lore, make sure I'm keeping all my plot threads in sync, and layering in the echoes and callbacks appropriately.

Also I just tend to write very, very slowly because I'm always rewriting sentences/dialogue/etc and researching miscellaneous details on the fly as I go. For example, I spent a good hour lost researching information about the pain and process for resetting a dislocated shoulder for the last UtFF chapter to write like 2 paragraphs "accurately".

🍣 What helps you focus or get in the mood to write?

I have to set time aside and make sure I have as few distractions as possible which is why I write mostly in the dead of night or on weekends. And then personally I have to have a playlist that matches the mood of what I'm writing, if the music vibes aren't right, nothing is getting written. I have some fic-specific playlists and some mood-specific playlists I rotate through. Also, art! I hoard art I enjoy for ships I write because just looking at certain art pieces help reignite the inspiration or even provide the inspiration for what I'm writing.

🥮 Do you have any writing milestones you're working toward?

Not particularly. I do have two books I'm passively working on that I'd like to finish but both are at very tough points in the creative process so I've been ignoring them. I should pick them up again though.

🍡 Which of your fics was the most emotionally difficult to write?

This is a fascinating question because my approach to writing fics is in a very detached manner. Even if the characters are going through emotional turmoil or it's covering a very difficult/squeamish topic, I don't necessarily personally connect with those emotions while going through the writing process. When I write it's more like that meme that when an artist is drawing a character with a specific expression, they mimic that expression on their own face - I sort of "project" those emotions to tap into them for what I'm writing then put them away again.

From that aspect, I'd have to say the ficlet "Guilt" was probably the most challenging to write from an emotional perspective.

🍛 Answered in another ask!

for the fic meme: 5, 11, 29 if you please!

@mia-cooper thank you oh so much for this reprieve from the day I am having 😅

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

Approx. one million fic ideas come to mind. But specifically, I had a Timeless AU outlined that I probably won't write now that I've done a time travel-esque fic, and I also have an Endgame rewrite where they don't go home* and the Department of Temporal Investigations enters the chat, but as it stands it would be, like, really long, and I'm not sure I have it in me.

*BECAUSE: "In my time no human being would dream of endangering the future to gain advantage in the present" my beloved.

11. Do you have specific playlists for writing fics?

I doooo and I listen to them nonstop when I'm in the middle of a fic, but, I can't listen to music while I'm writing. So I'll be in the car vibing to my fic playlist and my spouse will try to talk to me and I'll be like can you not, I'm writing in my head, but not out loud because I don't want my preschooler to tell her friends that her mama is a Writer of Fan Fictions.

I usually make a new playlist for each fic, but there are some I come back to over and over, so I also have an all-purpose j/p playlist as all normal people do, I assume.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

Oh man. Okay. This is from a longer oneshot rough draft that I decided to distill into a drabble instead of finishing (and I think I stole some lines for other fics, too). The basic premise was to keep everything canon up to a point, including P/T, but with a J/P backstory. Tom intervenes post-Human Error in the name of a J/C Eventual Happy Ending. Did I mention it's rough? It's rough. Here's a chunk of it anyway.

(And before I cut - thank you so much for the asks! 🤍)

So when Seven of Nine abandons her post in the middle of an emergency, Kathryn has a feeling she can’t quite name, but locates in the pit of her stomach. From the way Chakotay hurls his suggestion that she go ask Seven where she’s been, she gathers that he holds her responsible for whatever’s going on, but she’s not so sure, herself. She does confront Seven, who, she’s pretty sure, lies to her face. And when she asks the Doctor if there are any medical reasons for Seven’s sudden erratic behavior and he lies to her as well, her feeling of unease grows.  

Kathryn throws a glance at Tom, hovering in a corner of the Med Lab and trying to look for all the world like he is not interested in this conversation. He meets her gaze and she reads the look in his eyes as something like worry. Worry for whom?, she wonders. But it is difficult for her to connect with Tom in this way, anymore, so she looks back at the Doctor, thanks him insincerely, strides out of Sickbay. A headache blooming behind her eyes. 

* 

They try to keep a lid on it, but Tom’s on duty when Seven comms from Holodeck Two with her medical emergency. The Doctor has total authority, of course, to tell Tom to mind his own damn business, and that is in fact what he does. But days later Tom can see something weighs heavily on the Doc, is not so stupid as to think these two things are unrelated. Is also not so stupid as to rifle through the PADDs on the Doctor’s desk when he leaves to speak with Seven privately, though this is admittedly the first option that comes to mind.  

When Janeway inevitably arrives to look into the Seven situation and the Doctor pleads total ignorance, Tom can see in the set of her jaw that she knows as well as he does the Doctor is not only withholding information, but is actively lying to his commanding officer. This is a choice Tom cannot even begin to comprehend coming from the Doctor, of all people, who merely needs to cite doctor-patient confidentiality to end the conversation. 

So: Seven and the Doctor are covering something up. Something important, something relevant to the Captain, otherwise what would be the point? When Janeway, frustrated, finally looks his way, he does not even try to keep his emotions off his face. She deserves honesty from someone in this room. 

The Doctor does not meet Tom’s eyes as Janeway leaves. When his shift ends, Tom heads straight to Holodeck Two. 

The first thing he tries is the least offensive of his options: he calls up the last program initiated by Seven of Nine. It’s got a generic name and is, predictably, locked up tight. He’s not about to hack into a private holoprogram in the middle of the hallway, so he makes his way to the Hololab and seals the doors behind him. 

He can’t really justify his interest in this mystery—he should leave well enough alone—except that for better or worse Seven of Nine’s maintenance has never been kept private, not from the medical staff, and certainly not from the Captain. Tom can admit to himself that he is protective of Janeway in a way that she would not—does not—welcome. He doesn’t appreciate watching the Doctor lie to her, like having witnessed it he’s now an accomplice, though of what he can’t imagine. But he knows how close Janeway is to Seven, how it would hurt her to know even what little he knows—that there was a medical emergency, that it was kept out of the logs, that they are hiding it from her in particular. 

He hesitates for just a moment, decides if what he’s planning next doesn’t work out, he’ll let the matter drop. He won’t push it. 

But it does work. 

The program may be locked from the front door, but he’s perfectly able to access its components from here in the lab. Seven should know better, but Tom’s pretty sure that most people who aren’t used to designing holoprograms don’t think to block access from this end. He calls up the last active character, and finds himself face to face with… Chakotay. He’s wearing civilian clothes that Tom doesn’t recognize, a jacket that looks a bit like the carpet on Neelix’s old ship, a vest, another shirt. Buttoned up tight—well, that’s realistic enough.  

Tom’s got a bad feeling about where this is headed. 

---

fic writer asks

Hi tacky! 8, 11, and 12 for the fanfic asks if you’d like! thanks for being such a bright presence in this space, I hope your upcoming year is kind to you 💕

Dear Emma, thank you so much for this lovely ask and please know I feel exactly the same about you - wishing you so much joy for the year ahead.

11 I answered here

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

WELL sort of yes actually - ages ago a lovely anon sent me an ask which you can see with my reply here and then i expand on it here. I haven't delved into this one because I have never written Drarry in their 40s or 50s before and I wasn't sure I was ready. It's one of those topics that I really, really want to get right. It would also want to be a long fic I think and a big part of it would be writing adult Teddy - he has been done so brilliantly in some long fics (i love him so much in Meet Me at Midnight by @the-starryknight and By the Grace by @letteredlettered, for instance) and I would want to make sure I was hitting the mark as much as possible. And I always take a while to fall into the right voice for a new-to-me character. But actually I don't tend to be nervous of ideas before I start - for me the horrible bit always kicks in when I'm nearly done with a story and I am too immersed in it so I've lost all perspective and then I start to think about how rubbish it is. Luckily for me at that point I am usually too far in to give up!

12. Will you change anything about the way you edit or rewrite this year?

I would love to become more streamlined about my process but I doubt I'll ever change tbh. At the moment I write quite slowly and even though I don't edit as I go, I am quite reflective even as I write and then my editing doesn't tend to be as onerous (which is good as I hate editing, I always feel like the fic is DONE and I shouldn't have to do any more to it and then I am looking at this unedited heap of shite like WHHYYYYY). However I will say writing original (and getting published) this year has really helped. I am very very ruthless with my orig work and tend to pick it apart, whereas I'm much more indulgent with my fics. I don't want to stop being indulgent - like, where else can you write three paragraphs about a silk shirt, or a 10k blowjob scene, or whatever - but I do think being a bit tighter with my writing is never a bad thing for me as I do tend to go on (insert fake shocked Kirk meme here). So I shall try to just keep it tight 😏as I do try to let my fic writing and my orig writing influence and help each other.

5, 8, 9 and 12!

5.) Share one of your strengths.

My imagination. My brain is always going 'what if this' and 'what if that'. So I'm just constantly coming up with new ideas. Some of which I even manage to finish writing. :D

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

"Mark Mardon attacked the station today.  He went after Joe and put Captain Singh in the hospital.  Joe's fine, but he's gone looking for Mardon," Barry said, leaning against Eddie's car.  "He's afraid that Mardon is going to go after one of us."

"Because he shot Clyde to protect me," Eddie said, sounding a bit distraught himself.

"To protect both of us," Barry corrected quietly.

~ From Hurricane

I'm a sucker for fix fics for the Out of Time/Rogue Time episodes and this one featured pre-Westhallen with Barry choosing to out himself as the Flash to Iris and Eddie - twice over thanks to time travel. This is from the first time he tells them right before Mark makes trouble with the hurricane and tsunami over the lake. (I think the trouble Mark causes on the lake in those episodes is what convinced me that Central City and Keystone had to be located on either side of a river feeding into one of the Great Lakes despite where it's traditionally located in the comics.)

I particularly like this fic in part because it was unexpected. I hadn't intended to write any fics from PoVs other than Cisco and Hartley in this series, but once I finished Hartley and Cisco's take on the two episodes I felt compelled to write an accompanying fic from Barry's PoV.

But I especially liked having the chance to explore Iris and Eddie's reactions to Barry voluntarily telling them he's the Flash. The first time around, Barry has the realization that not telling Iris the truth from the start was a mistake and so was continuing to hide it from Eddie too. And when he has to repeat the day, he chooses to tell them again, this time less impulsively... in part because the first time around went well.

Iris is upset over Barry hiding it from her so long but she loves Barry so all she really wants is to be there to support him. And Eddie knows he was basically a stranger to Barry in September, so that Barry values Eddie enough to trust him now?

I do see Barry's actions in canon as seriously damaging his friendship with Eddie after these two episodes - so I wanted to show Barry making the opposite decision here. Twice over. He chooses to strengthen his ties to both Iris and Eddie and it starts here with admitting he was there the night Clyde Mardon died.

9.) Which fic has been the hardest to write?

The Day After the World Ended (It Continued Spinning On It's Axis Just Fine)

I started writing this and then part way through both wrote myself into a corner I've been struggling to write my way out of and screwed up my knee tripping over a vacuum cleaner. I've tried finishing it, I've tried starting over with a rewrite and... it's just not working.

I'm determined to finish it eventually, but I just don't know when it'll happen.

12.) Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

Since I'm such a Hartley fan, probably The Sound and The Fury/Crazy For You. Not a single episode, I know, but the two episodes carry Hartley's S1 plot line and I've definitely gotten a lot of mileage out of them when it comes to writing Hartley focused AUs.

I think the next runner up would be S2's Welcome to Earth-2/Escape From Earth-2 which have inspired things like my character study/AU fics for E2 Killer Frost and Reverb and the E2 Coldwestallen fic where E2 Barry is precious and Harry has guessed more about their love lives than he likes.

ask meme - 18 and/or 24!

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they? I never specifically set out to emulate anyone in particular, but I can definitely see some influences on my work. When I'm writing descriptions, I see a lot of Tolkein and Jacqueline Carey surfacing. I am always one for plush over-describing, and while I dial it back occasionally for pacing, it doesn't happen often. I've been told my writing is indulgent and that is a compliment in my book. I also sense a lot of Laurell K. Hamilton in my writing. My dialogue is very pithy and sharp, especially if there's ever an internal monologue going. I tend to have a very dry sense of humor generally. Also, Chuck Palahniuk's style creeps in sometimes too. He can turn a phrase like a top but only use half the words anyone else does. It's great. 24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

Oh, it's definitely happened a few times. Probably the biggest standout is my Chernobyl fic "Intercalation" where I literally had a physics professor teach me nuclear physics because there were lectures on the same in the fic that were basically intricate and protracted metaphors. And like... I write MCU fanfic so I know all about handwaving science, but this involved a real event with real science going very wrong, so I needed to actually get it right. I read books on the Chernobyl disaster (partly for personal interest but also for the fic), and my physics professor friend (who teaches a section of physics specifically for liberal arts majors that focuses more on the philosophy and art of physics than all the math) would literally give me lectures on things like Cherenkov radiation, ionization of gases, radiation effects, and so on. Some of those lectures are even in the fic almost word for word. Other than that... it's happened here and there. Maybe not to that level, but I've definitely had to do some long Wikipedia trawls to make a fic go. My cooking game has definitely upped from writing all that Hannibal fic. My fic "Room for Rent in the Fourth Estate" required me to basically do investigative journalism into predatory recruitment tactics of the US military in poor school districts because Darcy needed data. I've had a few comments where people have said they had no idea those kinds of recruitment tactics were happening (I cited my sources) and did their own research! So hey... win-win there! Right now I'm deep diving into the history of computer viruses and hacking for a -possible- Matrix fic I'm rewriting/writing from back in 2003. I make no promises that it'll ever see the light of day, but I definitely know more about the Love Bug Virus than I ever did before. Thank you for the asks, lovely!

22 from the writing meme thing.

I know it can be weird going back to old writing and changing it so feel free to give it a miss, but I've been reading your older stuff again lately and I'm curious if there's something you would do differently now that you have more experience.

first of all, thank you so much for the ask! sadly, I think I'm gonna have to pass, because I'm the worst rewriter in the history of ever lol. once something is done, my brain labels it finished and it's really, really hard to get back to it again.

depends on how old stuff we're talking about? I do feel like my style has shifted, during the years, but it's been a slow, slow process. nowadays I'm wordier than I used to be, and I'm kind of sad that I've lost the ability to keep things short in the way I used to. sometimes reading older works makes me melancholy because I sorta wanna go back to that style again. and I used to write more ... difficult relationships? nowadays I'm more about the fluff :'D

but then again, in some ways I do think I've gotten better? I think my grasp on the language has gotten better, and I've found the kind of flow that I want to have in my writing. I know what I like, and at least in that sense things have progressed because I can give me what I want :'D

lmao I remember the first time I tried to write smut, it was so ridiculous, I barely got them out of their shirts and by then I was blushing so hard I had to take a break and walk around my room before I could try to proceed. things have come a long way since then :'D

it's really hard to say, objectively, how I've changed because I'm too close to the subject. writing has always been a flow of subconscious kind of thing for me? I just start, and then I see how it turns out lol.

but yeah, if I'd take the same premise and write one of the older fics now, I definitely would do some things differently. but it's hard to say what exactly I'd change. sometimes when I reread old stuff I think of some wordings and how they could maybe be improved, but usually only in vague terms instead of actually knowing how I'd do it.

sorry this is an incredibly rambly non-answer :'D but thank you for asking, anyway!