stonepicnicking_okapi

I will be curious if this brings any surprises. Taken from smallhobbit and many others.

1. Most Hits:

Cheers is a collection of three hundred, explicit-rated, stand-alone 500-word ficlets in the BBC Sherlock fandom, each titled with a different cocktail, which I added to on from 2016 to 2023.

2. Second Most Kudos:

The Fucking Machine is an explicit BBC Johnlock fic which began as a fill for the kinktober prompt 'fucking machine.' It's an Alpha-for-heat-hire fic with Sherlock as Alpha and John as Omega.

3. Third Most Comments:

Tinkerty-Tonks is a 114-chapter, gen-rated Jeeves & Wooster ficlet collection which I added to from 2018 to 2022.

4. Fourth Most Bookmarks:

Straying from the Path is a PWP explicit Little Red Riding Hood bestiality (human/wolf) fic.

5. Fifth Most Words:

Bunny, how does your garden grow? is a 48,000 words. It's a mature-rated BTS animal hybrid AU. Namkook. With Namjoon as a dragon hybrid and Jungkook as a rabbit hybrid.

6. Fic With Second Fewest Words (That's Not a Drabble):

two poems about a bath is 294 words. Sherlock Holmes (ACD). Remixes of two ficlets by tweedisgood for Wits on Tap 2018 (which was poetry remixes of fic).

7. Seventh Most Common Relationship:

Bertie/Jeeves - 17 fics

8. Eighth Drabble Posted: too tedious to figure out

9. Ninth Most Common Character:

Kim Namjoon/RM of BTS

10. Tenth Mature and/or Explicit Fic:

Night Ferry is a PWP of genderswapped BBC Johnlock having sex on a train from 2014.

11. Eleventh Most Recent Completed Fic:

A Recipe for Roasted Squash is a gen-rated Sherlock Holmes (ACD) fic with supernatural elements about an evil cookbook written for last year's Spook Me ficathon.

12. Twelfth Most Recent Story in Your Sixth Most Common Tag:

My sixth most common tage is 'Hurt/Comfort.' The twelfth fic is When it's dark an explicit BBC Sherlock AU where Sherlock is a vampire, John is a werewolf, and they have an open relationship.

13. Favorite Title That Isn't from a Poem or Song or Shakespeare or The West Wing:

oh, there are a lot. I like puns and nice quotes from the source material

enamored of the Night for her own sake is a Dupin/narrator PWP. Title from "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."

Catch a Flying Memory and Call it God is a Chthulu-mythos ficlet. Title is the Algernon Blackwood quote Lovecraft uses in The Call of Cthulu

Whose Booty? is Bunter/Lord Peter/Inspector Parker PWP. Title is a pun on Whose Body?

Xenophilia is a Strange Way (to say I'm falling in love). Venom/Eddie PWP.

Wonder Bred a BBC Johnlock AU PWP with pregnancy/fertility/lactation kink fills for Kinktober 2021.

I don't think I've found out anything especially revelatory, but it was an interesting exercise.

From kitarella_imagines. I changed the original 3 of everything to 5 because it was a bit more telling about where I am now.

1. What rating do you write most fics under?

Explicit (197) of 413

2. What are your top 5 fandoms?

Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms (198)
Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle (90)
Sherlock (TV) (49)

방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS (40)

The Old Guard (Movie 2020) (30)

3. What is your top (5) character(s) you write about?

Sherlock Holmes (226)
John Watson (221)
Mycroft Holmes (79)
Lestrade (Sherlock Holmes) (69)
Original Characters (59)

4. What are the 5 top pairings?

Sherlock Holmes/John Watson (197)
Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade (37)
Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova (25)
Sebastian Moran/Jim Moriarty (19)
Mycroft Holmes/John Watson (17)

5. What are the top 5 additional tags?

Oral Sex (90)
Anal Sex (73)
Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot (69)
Fluff (61)
Hurt/Comfort (61)

6. Did any of this surprise you? e.g. what turned out to be your top tag.

It was nice to remember Joe/Nicky from The Old Guard which I don't write anymore. And given the top answer to #1 you'd expect (something like) the top 3 answers to #5, I mean, if you write porn you have to tell readers what kind of porn they're getting.

So Sherlock (TV) is BBC Sherlock (my first fandom) and my tagging for it and the umbrella term 'Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms' is haphazard, not uniform, messy.

Edited to Add: Ah, and you might say there are no women, but be advised I wrote nothing but genderswapped Sherlock & John (& Mycroft & Lestrade) for the first two years of my ficcing many, many of those fics are genderswapped. But canon female characters don't figure at all really, except Mrs. Hudson and, much more rarely, Molly, Irene, Sally, Kate, and Stella Hopkins of BBC Sherlock. I also have written Carmilla (of le Fanu's novella) and Antiope of Wonder Woman.

1. What's your favorite candle scent?
I like the smell of freshly blown out candles. In general, I like citrus scents. I haven't seen any eucalyptus-scented candles but I like eucalyptus scent, too. Sometimes, candles labeled 'ocean' or something similar are nice. Usually, candles are too powerfully scented so I tend to opt for unscented to play it safe.

2. Do you have an artistic or crafty hobby? What is it?

I have done cross stitch in the past. I have a cross stitch pattern for Kandinsky's Concentric Circles, and one day, I'd like that. I do jigsaw puzzles. I've done paint-by-number. And I do collage journalling. This is spread I did last night.



3. What's one weird way you save money on food?

I hate cooking so I don't experiment. Ever.

4. Do you collect anything weird or unusual?

I only have one, but I like tea catalogs, catalogs from tea companies (like Mariage Freres). I've had it forever and I like to look at it every now and then.

5. Do you fear the deep ocean, or does its unknown depths excite you?

No fear, but I prefer snorkeling in shallow waters. Tropical fish and turtles and coral. It would be fun to see a live octopus.

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

Some of my stories would work as films (My Good Omens' detective noir Yours in Black Lace, I think, is one that comes to mind). Not webcomics or animated series because I am not a fan of that kind of art. But maybe radio plays, too, as I tend to hear the story as I write.

22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them? Yes. Some of them are not bad! Some of them are cringe-worthy. I am embarrassed a bit by my attitudes and emotions in the early days with regard to fandom and other fic writers, but the longer I stay in fandom, the more mellow and mature I get about things. And there are some things that only I and a few other write, so if I want to read fem!Mycroft, there isn't a whole lot of options.

( The entire list )

misbegotten asked for #62.

Y'all are hitting all my The Old Guard songs! It's kind of amazing. This is another one! I do love this kind of string instrumental. For those familiar with The Old Guard there is even a very good fic that follows the development Joe & Nicky's relationship through the history of the guitar/oud (ETA: it appears to be an abandoned WIP but I remember enjoying the first chapters).

kingtoken asked for #16 and it is an Middle Eastern instrumental song, Babylonian Gardens by Ahmed Muktar.


This is very cool because the fandom kingstoken and I share is The Old Guard, and this is definitely THE song I play when I am writing Joe from The Old Guard.

So when I am writing fic, I CANNOT listen to songs with lyrics. There can only be the words of my brain in my head I also have a noisy household so sometimes I drown out the sounds around me with music while I am ficcing.

So last night bethctg and I and about 500,000 other people enjoyed a BTS concert live stream from California. It was the last of four concerts BTS is doing in the US, and it has been a 2 year hiatus because of COVID since they have performed for a crowd. They did a great job, and I enjoyed it.

bethctg picked #7 (there are 7 members of BTS), and I was surprised that it wasn't BTS, but, no, it is Under Pressure by David Bowie and Queen. It's definitely a song I use to get myself moving. It's a warm-up song. And the opening beats are difficult to resist. And it's a hopeful song that acknowledges the stress and hardships of life.

1) Who is your favorite relative?

The only one I speak to is my sister. The rest are dead or voted for Trump.

2) What's the farthest you've traveled for a family gathering?

I used to drive the trek from Washington DC to Jackson Mississippi regularly. It's about 1000 miles and takes about 14 and a half hours. I used to do in a straight stretch (only stops for gas/petrol). I think I was a trucker in a past life.

3) Will you/when will you put up decorations for December holidays?

I will get the Christmas box out tomorrow (27 Nov) and put them up. I think I'm unusual in that I pack things up very quickly after Christmas (usually 26 or 27 Dec). Once it's over, it's over. And I grew up thinking it was bad luck to leave them up after New Year's.

4) What were you thankful for this week?

I had parent-teacher conferences this week with Minisculus' and Minor's teachers and I was thankful for how many nice things Minisculus' teacher had to say about him. She really loves my kid!

I was also thankful I finished the 5k upright and in a reasonable time (for me) without pain.

5) What is your hometown known for?

An annual festival celebrating okra (the vegetable)

14. At what point in writing do you come up with a title?

Usually fairly early in the process. If it's a very short thing and composed for a specific prompt, I often use the prompt as the title. For longer fics, I like titles with 1. puns or other word play 2. poetry/song lyrics 3. one word.

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

I don't find any of it especially difficult. The difficult part is the writing itself not the accessories. I made some mistakes in tagging in the early days and incurred some wrath so I try to tag better. I also usually include a statement in the beginning notes about the issues (e.g., consent issues, poly situations, unrealistic kink negotiations or whatever it is), so readers can know exactly what's going to happen and opt out if they chose. If I know some of my readers are sensitive to certain things, I will mention it (i.e., if you like Joe/Nicky exclusive, this isn't the fic for you or Mycroft makes a sex tape without Lestrade's consent, opt out if you might find this squicking or triggering or this contains false pregnancy, please don't read if you think it might upset you, etc.) I err on the side of spoiling by putting it all up front. Once in a while, I will click the 'choose not to warn,' mainly for suspense purposes and then I try to explain my choice in the front notes.

16. Tried anything new with your writing lately? (style, POV, genre, fandom?)

I usually try to do something new with my Spook Me Halloween fics, and this year I am doing an original work based on the science of fungus and carpenter ants, so look for Zombie Ants on 26 Oct. My BTS fic is my first RPF fic (apart from a couple of digs at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle :) ).

( The entire list )

11. What do you envy in other writers?

The ability to plot (case fic). The ability to tell stories in verse (epics/narrative verse). The ability to make things super hawt (porn!). The stamina to write long fic. The ability to write good kissing scenes (much harder than you'd imagine, for those who've never tried).

12. Do you want your writing to be famous? No. I've never submitted a work for commercial publication and have no desire to do so.

13. Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?

Almost all of my works are on AO3 (username: okapi). The very few that aren't are drabbles or double drabbles on DW comms where I have no established collection on AO3 to archive them.

No, I don't keep projects 'for myself.' For me, that would be the opposite and anathema, even, to why I fic. I fic to share and instigate conversations with other people, end stop.

( The entire list )