averytree

Hello podficcer! I'm so excited to be doing this exchange again, my 9th year! And glad that this fest is surviving the slow collapse of the site formerly known as twitter... I'm averytree8 over there but I've taken to only logging in when I have a message to check. I'm averytree on AO3 and tumblr.

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I saw 4xaroundthesun respond to this fic writing asks meme from tumblr so I also decided to answer the questions that I found most interesting!

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On twitter, tullycat was asking people questions about co-writing fanfiction. I think around a third of all the fic I've written has been co-written so I decided to answer the questions in longer format here.

How do you broach the idea of a co-write with someone?
Usually, I co-write with friends I know pretty well, so the topic generally comes up a few times before we actually get started. An exception to this was when I asked shinysherlock kind of out of the blue if she wanted to do podtogether with me; this is a challenge where a writer and podficcer collaborate to create something uniquely suited to audio. We’d known each other in fandom for many years, but had never talked about working together before. But we were both kind of new to BTS fandom and didn’t know that many other BTS people yet. She said yes and we made a Podtogether project I am really proud of; and then we started writing a fic together that we are still working on 2.5 years and 140K later…

What ways have you cowritten/how does it differ with each fic?
With my main co-written project, The Same Sky with Shiny, we divided up the cast. Shiny writes the older 5 members, and I write the younger two plus an OC. It’s a BIG story, a sci-fi set in the Firefly universe which spans about 8 years and multiple planets, and it took a long time for all the characters to meet. So for a long time we were writing plots that were converging but relatively slowly. Very recently all of the characters finally ended up in the same location for the very first time so now we are working more closely together and writing alternating scenes.

For a shorter co-written project, Anyway Here’s (Animate) Wonderwall written with Stifledlaughter, we also picked two different characters and wrote alternating scenes in each of our character’s POVs.

I also co-wrote a long fic that I orphaned. I don’t want to talk about the story, but I will say I am still very good friends with the author. I wrote the majority of the story but my friend filled in all of the sex scenes for me because I didn’t feel comfortable writing them at the time, lol. And I have co-written on original fiction as well.

Do you plan everything out beforehand or do you plot as you go?
For a long project, I need a plan. Shiny and I made a huge chronological document of everything that happened, so we could keep the timelines straight. But the project I did with Stifledlaughter was only 7K, so we barely planned. She added a scene to the doc, I would read what she wrote and add more, and so on back and forth.

What do you enjoy about cowriting?
It’s really fun to have someone else as excited about the story as you are! It’s really helpful to brainstorm with someone else. It’s nice that you have kind of a built in beta, as the other person will surely read over your sections. It’s really fun to write with friends!

How do you work out disagreements/mismatch?
I’ve been really lucky with my writing partners, and never had any really big conflicts. The hardest section Shiny and I ran into was when I got farther ahead in the plot than her, and so I started to write some scenes with her characters– but I wasn’t doing the characterization quite the same so those sections ended up needing pretty heavy edits/rewrites. I felt bad because I had written ahead hoping to save her some work, and instead probably made more work for her. But it was a useful learning experience, and I haven’t written ahead like that since then.

What is your strength or weakness?
I am good at action and plot. I like writing fight scenes, chases, scuffles, and humor. I tend to see a scene very clearly in my head and I’m able to describe the blocking and movement well. I love writing detailed settings. I am much less good at describing emotions, and the rich internal life of a character. I often have to go through a draft and add in things about what the character is FEELING to what they are DOING. Even two years ago, I was also pretty bad at writing a really distinctive character voice, but I think I’ve improved a lot after writing over 100K of fic in like 18 months.

What is your partners strength or weakness?
Shiny is so much better at writing emotion than I am! Her characters are very rich internally. I’ve learned a lot from working on a big story with her for years. She’s also way better at writing flirting, attraction, and sexy scenes. Thank god, because she took care of most of those for our big story! She’s such an experienced writer I don’t think she has any major weaknesses, though I will say I am better at remembering the timeline and random consistency details off the top of my head. But double-checking that kind of stuff is very easy. She also writes a very good heist.

How do you edit?
In Same Sky we each read over each other’s sections and add comments and suggestions, and so far we’ve had all the chapters read by a beta as well.

How do you work with different timezones/and hours of availability?
Luckily, we are in the same timezone and actually live close enough we can visit in person! But we started our story during covid, so we did most of all our early work together over the internet. We are in a writing discord together which has dedicated writing times on Wednesday and Sunday mornings, and we commit to showing up to at least one of those, if not both, every week. We also will write other times as well, but those are the times we are both consistently online every week to chat, edit together, make decisions, and be writing at the same time.

When I was working with Stifledlaughter on the shorter project, we just let each other know via discord when we’d finished another new scene in the doc, and the other person would take a look and write when they had time. We were writing that story as a gift and on a deadline, so we had incentive to keep the story moving.

What technology do you use?
Shiny and I write in google docs, so we can both edit. We are mutuals on pretty much every social media. But we do most of our “story talking” in gchat.

Final thoughts?
Co-writing is great! I highly recommend everyone try it at least once. Even if a story doesn’t get finished for whatever reason, I learn so much from everyone I’ve ever written with. It’s helped me get less precious over my words and ideas, and better at quickly folding another person’s ideas into my own. I’ve been really lucky with writing partners, and I hope if you try it you are too <3

I’ve been slowly collecting kpop RPF fics with characters written as trans for the past two years, and after sending batches of these links to friends at various times, I thought I should take an evening to type them up into a full rec list.

I am trans and nonbinary and for me all of these stories resonated with some piece of the trans experience in a really genuine way. But, everyone is different, so something that worked for me may not work for you, and vice versa. Take care of yourself around sensitive topics!

I decided to exclude stories that use A/B/O as a metaphor for trans identities, even though there are some stories that do that extremely effectively; that felt like content for another rec list, which I could make, if there’s interest. I also want to add that of course this is a very small sample, I know there are many many more out there, and if I have left off one you think is exceptionally good please do let me know in the comments! Stories are organized from lowest to highest rating, and as always, check the tags before you read <3

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Hello Yuletide author! This is my very first time participating in this exchange, so I am still learning the ropes. However, I have participated in podfic winter holiday exchanges for nearly a decade so I'm hoping this one is just as joyful and creatively inspiring. If you want to find me elsewhere I am also averytree on tumblr and averytree8 on twitter. I have am open to treats, I have gifts enabled :3

Here are some general things I like in fic:
I love stories that make me laugh, but also make me ache a little. Humor mixed with big feelings.
I love a wacky hijink, a heist, a stupid or clever plot with high or low stakes.
Idiots-to-lovers or enemies-to-allies-to-friends-to-lovers trope.
Also love gen stories, where what is explored primarily is a friendship or group dynamic.
Also love established relationships.
I'm open to open endings, or ambiguous/bittersweet endings, especially if the story is very short.
Fake dating and mutual pining are fun.
I love sci-fi AUs, from one AU element to generic space to literally a Star Trek setting.
Happy to get a story with a poly trio (or more!)
Bisexual characters, pansexual characters, trans characters, nonbinary characters, aro and ace characters.
I like when it's obvious the fic writer has a ton of niche knowledge about something and decided to put it ALL into the story.
A lot of what I nominated was Kpop music videos; if you choose to write for one of them, I prefer when the characters are written as culturally Korean, and in my reading I try to prioritize stories set in Korea, or if they live in another country, it is explained why/how the whole Korean friend group ended up there. I don't want an American high school or college AU where the characters could easily be replaced by white characters.

Do Not Want/Hard No:
Omegaverse.
Rule 63.
Pregnancy- any gender.
Characters parenting biological children.
Character death and/or very serious medical emergencies.
Love triangles in which one person is doomed to be unhappy/alone/excluded.
Non-con or dub-con.
Serious BDSM, extreme kink (scat, watersports, vore, etc)
Underage.
Zombie based apocalypse AUs.
Excessive pain/torture/abuse (PG-13 level violence is okay)
Derogatory or demeaning language between lovers.

A bit more clarification for the gender stuff- if a character's gender is going to be changed from the canon, I want that character to be written as trans or nonbinary or agender and for the story to explore that. I don't want a Rule 63 story that's plain cis-swap.

Onto some fandom specific stuff!

Teixcalaan Series - Arkady Martine
I just read this series this year and loved it! There isn't very much fic for these characters yet, so honestly I'll probably be happy with anything you want to explore. I'd take a canonverse Three Seagrass/Mahit story; I'd also be happy with them in an AU; I'd take a gen story about Eight Antidote; a gen story about Mahit & Yskandr; a friendship exploration of Nine Hibiscus & Twenty Cicada; a glimpse into whatever was going on with Yskandr, Nineteen Adze and/or Six Direction... I think with those three characters I would be more interested in a story set in canon. But I'd also read a friendship story about Hibiscus and Cicada in an AU setting. If the story has a F/M ship, I'd prefer it be rated no higher than teen. If the ship is not F/M, any rating is good.

HOT MV - Seventeen
In this MV in particular, Jeonghan, Seungcheol, and Minghao's costume design intrigue me the most, but again, I like all of the members of this group, so I won't be unhappy with anything you write! My favorite SVT ships are Seungkwan/Vernon, Jeonghan/Seungcheol, Jeonghan/Mingyu, Seungcheol/Mingyu, Mingyu/Jihoon, Mingyu/Minghao, but please don't feel limited by this list, or the need to write a ship story necessarily. I also love Hoshi and Jun because they are such funny oddball guys. Also very open to poly ships. There are so many possibilities! Don't hold back! Any rating is good.

Various MVs - Stray Kids
I am so mesmerized by the hinted at plots in the Maniac MV, Christmas Evel MV, and Thunderous Trailer. Feel free to combine multiple of them if you so choose. I also signed up to write for all three, so I might be working on a parallel story! I love all the Stray Kids, but my three favorite characters to read about are Jisung, Minho, and Hyunjin, so I would love if the story was centered around one or more of them, and if there is a ship, for one or more of them to be involved in it. However, I do not want to stifle your creativity if you have a different fav ship. My one ask is that if Jeongin is involved in a ship, that the story be rated no higher than teen because I prefer to read him as an aro or ace spec character. With other ships, any rating is good.

Hello podficcer! I'm so excited to be doing this exchange again, my 8th year! Here are all the fandoms and ships I'm most interested in:

-Seventeen (Kpop RPF): There are so many potential pairings among these 13 members! wow! I've read and liked Jeonghan/Seungcheol, Jeonghan/Mingyu, Mingyu/Jihoon, Mingyu/Minghao and Seungkwan/Vernon and I would also probably like any story that has Seungkwan, Mingyu or Jeonghan as a main character. I also love stories with Vernon in awkward platonic friendship with people lolol. I'd be happy with a story rated anywhere between gen-explicit.

-Stray Kids (Kpop RPF): I adore Han/Lee Know. Han/Hyunjin gives me brain worms. Han/Changbin is such a win. Honestly, I'd read Han shipped with anyone at this point (except maybe IN because I like headcannoning him as aroace). I also love reading Han as a trans male character. I'd be happy with a story rated anywhere between gen-explicit.

-EXO (Kpop RPF): My main ships are Kai/Sehun or Kai/DO. I like them both equally. I'd be happy with a story rated anywhere between gen-explicit.

-Ateez (Kpop RPF): I love a Wooyoung/San or a Wooyoung/San/Yeosang ot3 especially when they are chaos gremlins! The only other ships I have read for this group are Hongjoong/Seonghwa and Hongjoong/Mingi. For this group I'd prefer gen or teen stories.

-Monsta X (Kpop RPF): My favorite ship is Kihyun/IM. I like stories were Kihyun is very bossy and IM is very into it :D I'd be happy with a story rated anywhere between gen-explicit.

-Mamamoo (Kpop RPF): There aren't that many stories to chose from and I've probably looked at almost all the ones with BP already, but I really like gen stories or stories rated teen (specifically AUs) about Moonbyul, any ship or no ship.

Secondary fandoms:

-BTS (Kpop RPF): My favorite ships are RM/Jin, RM/Yoongi, Yoongi/Jin or Jin/JK. I'm not really interested in any other ships at this time. I'd be happy with a story rated anywhere between gen-explicit. For any of these pairings, no matter the POV, I like both pining/"there's no way he likes me" stories but also already-established domestic relationship fluff.

-Merlin! I know the show ended ages ago, but Merlin/Arthur is the OTP of my heart. They are my boys forever. I much prefer modern AUs to stories set in the canon of the show, especially college AUs or ones where they have interesting jobs. Modern royalty stories make my heart melt with happiness <3 Also I like Morgana/Gwen as a side ship. Or Gwen/Lance. Or Morgana/Morgause. Or Morgana/Gwaine. Or Morgana/Leon. (Basically I just love Morgana, or any story which includes a wide secondary character cast.) I also love Gwen, and always enjoy character-study type stories which focus on her, whether romantic or not. For this fandom, I am happy with stories of any rating from gen to explicit.

-Transformers, specifically, stories set in Astolat's semi-AU world.... So okay, I actually know nothing about the canon of Transformers, any version. But I got completely sucked into Astolat's Transformers fic series and read all of it. I literally have to google what the characters look like because I have no idea, but I don't care. My main ship in Optimus Prime/Megatron, give me that good good enemies to lovers stuff. For this fandom, I am happy with stories of any rating from gen to explicit.


Things I like in fic in general:
I love stories that make me laugh.
Pranks, banter, shenanigans, ill-advised ideas (that turn out to be great ideas!)
Idiots-to-lovers or enemies-to-allies-to-friends-to-lovers trope.
"Can our love end the war?" trope.
Happy endings.
AUs in other canons- for example, Kpop group is now a Star Trek space crew.
Fake-to-real.
Cross-dressing/drag.
Boys in lingerie, girls in suits, nonbinary people finding their perfect look.
Genderplay/gender exploration/gender fluidity.
Bisexual characters, pansexual characters, trans characters, aro and ace characters.
Side-ships. I love it when I've got two teams to root for!
OT3, OT4, etc only if EVERYONE IS VERY HAPPY by the end and jealousy is not a major theme.
I like when it's obvious the fic writer has a ton of niche knowledge about something and decided to put it ALL into the story.
For Kpop RPF, I like when the characters are written as culturally Korean, and in my reading I try to prioritize stories set in Korea, or if they live in another country, it is explained why/how the whole Korean friend group ended up there. I don't want an American high school or college AU where the characters could easily be replaced by white characters.

Things I'm not into:
Omega verse.
Rule 63.
Pregnancy- male or female.
Characters parenting biological children.
Character death and/or very serious medical emergencies.
Love triangles in which one person is doomed to be unhappy/alone/excluded.
Non-con or dub-con.
Serious BDSM.
Underage.
Apocalypses AUs, especially zombies.
Excessive pain/torture/abuse.
Derogatory or demeaning language between lovers.

A bit more clarification for the gender stuff- if a character's gender is going to be changed from the canon, I want that character to be written as trans or nonbinary or agender and for the story to explore that. I don't want a Rule 63 story that's just "with no interrogation, this character is just a different gender now". That is- everything I can think of right now. YAY! I can't wait to hear your podfic :D

To the MODS: I sign up additionally to give Buzzfeed Unsolved RPF (Ryan/Shane) and NCT (Kpop RPF). I'm averytree8 on twitter and averytree on tumblr and ao3.

The first fic I have ever written for a fic fest has just gone up! I’m very proud of it. Written for the BTS Interstellar fest, a whole series of BTS Space AUs- aka MY JAM! You also also find the fest here on twitter.

Carry Me In Out Of The Cold, rated T, gen, 9k words, complete. Link!

Summary: Yoongi had hoped his first mutual aid mission with Namjoon in their newly purchased spaceship, the Bangtan Bomnal, would go smoothly. It doesn’t.

Additional tags include: Alternate Universe– Firefly setting, Action/Adventure, Crew as Family, minor threat of gun violence, platonic life partners, space pirates

Notes: This story takes place between chapters 1 and 2 of the much longer fic The Same Sky written by ShinySherlock aka NamjoonProblem and myself, but it is also a complete stand alone story :)

If you read it, I hope you enjoy!

I'm realizing now that I never made a Voiceteam wrap up post here! How remiss of me. Well, since I am very late, I will just link to the tumblr posts I made here and here, as well as the two Ao3 collections of works by Team Cerulean Sea, all works, and ocean themed works.

My personal challenge to myself this round was to record primarily in fandoms I have never recorded in before, or for ships I'd never recorded in. I was very successful and it lead to an interesting challenge of finding stories to record in fandoms I'm less familiar with!

I am now contemplating signing up for several more fests- a BTS space AU writing one and Yuletide, as well as ITPE as usual. Maybe podfic big bang too? Is that too much? Guess I'll find out soon!

Hello, this is Averytree, formerly Akikotree. I’ve been sitting on this name change for months, and my initial plan had been to wait and change it on my birthday. However, I saw multiple tweets from Asian fans (after the recent murders in Atlanta) that expressed extreme discomfort with white fans using Asian usernames in fandom spaces. Seeing these tweets confirmed what I’d already been thinking, which was that I wanted to change my username sooner rather than later.

I am white, and “Akikotree” is a username I made up at age 14 in 2003, when I was a high schooler obsessed with manga. “Akiko” was a name I had seen in several series and liked, and I added tree to the end because I love trees... it’s not deep. I carried this username over when I made a livejournal account in 2009, an Ao3 account in 2013, a twitter account in 2015 and so on.... I’m embarrassed to say that I only started to think this username was a problem in 2020, when I rejoined fandom after a few years hiatus.

If I’ve made any Asian fans, or anyone, uncomfortable by having this username all these years, I’m extremely sorry. It was chosen thoughtlessly and I hung onto it for convenience's sake for too long. I hope I don’t make any similar mistakes in the future, but I know it could happen, because I am human and I make many mistakes. But I am committed to learning from them and doing better in the future.

On a lighter note, I’m actually really excited to have a new username! It feels very lovely to not be stuck with a name I picked as a teenager. I’m pleased to set forth into part two of my podficcing career as Averytree. Thanks for reading :)

(Pronouns are still they/them or e/em/eir, no changes on that front) <3

I was very happy to contribute 5 short stories to the first ever Chromatic Characters Podfic Podfic Anthology! This dreamwidth link includes a podbook of all the anthology stories edited together, Awesome Ladies Anthology style, into one 9.5 hour audio file! Alternately, you can find many of the individual stories posted here in the AO3 collection.

All my stories range from 6-9 minutes and are rated teen or below- I recorded three stories Gwen from BBC Merlin (all featuring Gwen/Morgana), one gen story about Justin "Ransom" Oluransi from Check Please! And a short superhero AU with Kim Seokjin and Min Yoongi from BTS :D