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clevercatchphrase · 1 year ago

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2023 Year In Review~

at the time of me writing this, it is 8:11pm on tuesday night, january second. Let's see how long it takes me to type this entire thing. I expect no less than two hours. This is gonna be a long one, so I'm gonna put it under a read-more. Proceed only if you dare!

So! Another year down, another begun, and this is my.... 5th? time looking back on my year and assessing what I accomplished and what I did. Lots of changes and new things happened to me this year! Not nearly as many good things as bad! But first I'm gonna dig up my old resolutions list and see how well I did on them. Let's see... for 2023 I had 9 goals, six of which were serious and 3 of which were more casual. those goals were;

Read 12 new books in a year (one book a month)

Finish the Snowdin Arc before Ghost Switch's 5th birthday

Rewrite the 3rd draft of my Nanowrimo project from 2021/22

Write 4 one-shots for BSaPT

Solidify the details of the waterfall arc

The one secret goal

Finish writing the last 4 chapters of Clemency and finally post the dang thing

build a comic buffer of 8 pages, and finally,

write the crack fic

Of these nine goals, I achived... 4 of them, those being reading 12 books, finishing the snowdin arc before june 18th, rewriting my 2021 nanowrimo project, and finalizing the waterfall arc for Ghost Switch. All of these were serious goals, which I am proud of! but it was still less than half, which was a little disappointing. As in past years, I'll go into more detail below:

Read 12 books I BLEW THIS ONE OUT OF THE WATER! the grand total of books I read this year was THIRTY-SIX! three times as many! In fact, I forced myself to stop in order to have more books to read for 2024! Most of the books I listened to this year were through librivox, and mostly on my commute to work. Great way to pass the time! I wrote short little notes about the books I read on a personal discord with only me in it, so let me see if I can just copy and paste all of that here... (all of my original notes will be italicized, while additional thoughts on it now will not be)

1) Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Short, cute! Inspirational. About self actualization. Read by richard Harris. People call this a demonic book?? Apparently a fourth part added in 2014. Look it up later. (Edit; I never did look it up later. there's an audiobook for this on youtube, and while the voice is nice, there is, like, a solid 10 minute segment with a single violin note playing in the background and it is GRATING) 2) fire bed and bone. Ok. Middle of the road. Too focused on people and not the dog, but I get that's the point. it's ~symbolic~. Like the use of no dialogue and no name for the main dog 3) dogs of the spires book 1: reads like fan fiction (derogatory). Sentences go on for 4 or 5 words too long. Used the word orbs for eyes 3 times. Duke is ALWAYS FUCKING GRINNING. Half-brother reveal makes no sense and comes out of nowhere. How… Big/old is Step? Talks waaay too mature for a kid. What happened to Twig? Very tell and not show. Pink foam pink foam pink foam. Why are dogs separated? Hoe do the packs work? Why training? Not given enough to care for characters. Feels like a warrior cat reskin. Too rushed and yet nothing happens at the same time. (I was very curious about post-apocolyptic xenofiction this year, and this was one of the books I could find on the matter, but it's very childishly written and just... bad. Surprisingly, there seems to be a very tiny but dedicated fandom for it on youtube? the series has a fandom wiki anyway...)

4) old granny fox. Very cute! A little repetitive, but passable for a children's novel. Great introduction to xenofiction for kids. Wonderful audio book. 5)the adventures of Sammy Jay. Short sweet also a lot of fun. Both books are Definitely of their time with their usage of the word "queer" as a synonym for "strange/odd"

Now, this is a little known fact about me, but I'm secretly a massive furry. yeah, who could've guessed, right? Anyway, i'm always on the look out for good xenofiction, and when I searched through the "animals" playlist of the librivox youtube channel and stumbled across the books by Thornton W Burgess, I was INSTANTLY enamored. Old Granny Fox, and The Adventures of Sammy Jay were the first two I read/listened to, and was immediately captivated. I MUST give extra props to the narrators of these audiobooks, with some of the more frequent readers for this series doing unique voices for each character, which really added to the charm (Jude Somers and John Lieder particularly come to mind). I WISH I had these books as a kid. I love the way they describe animal behavior and reasoning. While it is anthropomorphized, it never crosses a line into "too" human, if that makes sense. There's another book on this list that is very similar to Burgess' work, with talking animals, but in that book, the animals make and read signs on the doors of their houses, and go to animal tailors to get their clothes fit. this doesn't happen in Burgess' work. Sure, they talk about their homes and the coats they wear, but it's all very intentionally conveying their natural states and habitats in a slightly more human way for us to picture them. Sure, the art on the covers of the books may say otherwise, but it's never depicted that way in the actual text. All their behavior is very animalistic, too, explaining their thoughts and actions in a way that would make sense for a wild forest creature. These books are a little gentle when it comes to the cycle of life. While the predator characters do need to hunt, they are always juuuust out of luck when they are the main character, and the prey characters juuuust manage to escape each time they're the focus. I will definitely be reading more of Burgess' books this year (the man wrote over 170 of them!), but expect quite a few more titles of his to pop up on this list.

6) adventures of jimmy skunk 7)adventures of paddy beaver (not much to say on these two. both were charming, but I feared I would have sounded repetitive if I just kept writing "cute!" in my notes) 8) my father's dragon Short, cute and silly. Listened to the audiobook. Does the physical have pictures? Not really so much about the dragon. Wish there was more after the ending, like what became of the dragon? (I also watched the netflix movie adaptation of this book. I.... could not stand the dragon in the movie. I'm sorry, he's annoying as hell) 9)adventures of buster bear

10)adventures of old mister toad.Favorite one so far. Puts toads in a positive light and describes them as beautiful instead of ugly or gross. [Burgess] Really appreciates all animals and their unique abilities and traits

11) The tale of freddie firefly. Ehh, okay. Not as great as Thorton Burgess' books, but still enjoyable. Not the same 'voice'. (this book was written by Scott Bailey) 12) The adventures of Chatterer the red squirrel. Fine~ Fun. 13) The Fox That Wanted Nine Golden Tales. Funny, short. Would make a good 22 minute short film 14)tale of master meadow mouse. Alright~ why do the animals know what groundhogs day and February are? How does mouse know how to write, and fox to read? Do they wear clothes? Mention a tailor frog. Oars for a raft. Don't like the animals being described as "(color) person". Feels like it's missing an adjective, ie "feathered" or "furred". (This is what I was talking about above. Scott Bailey wrote very similar stories to Burgess, but something was just... off about is writing style. ) 15) the adventures of reddy fox. Okay. Feels like an earlier book. Not as kind as the other ones. (I later looked it up and confirmed this was one of the earlier books in his series, and this one was, like, his tenth ever published one)

16) the adventures of jerry muskrat

17) the tale of doctor Doolittle. Fun! Kiiiiiinda racist in the africa parts, but an overall good time! (I'm more familiar with the Doolittle movies, but was surprised to learn that Doolittle's ability to speak to animals was something he learned with effort and practice, and not a magic power or weird innate ability of his. It was an interesting read!) 18) Nomads of the North. Fun animal romp. I Flinched at the use of "fat" "tar baby" "half breed" and "Indians". First half is mostly about the bear, then a sudden sharp turn to mostly about the dog. Kinda meanders, has no over-arching through-line, conflict or plot. (Apparently a movie was based off of this book, but focused more on the humans than the animals. Eh, it was the 1920s. what can you do) 19)falcons of nerabedla; short sci-fi novella about a bodyswap time traveler. Its… Fine. Not the greatest. A little too confusing and kind of wish they explained things more earlier on. Not really about the falcons. Even for a sci-fi, still pretty sexist in the future.(honestly I don't even know if I should count this as it's own book. I'm pretty sure it was a short story inside a bigger magazine?) 20) south American jungle tales. Enjoyable! Very strong jungle book vibes with a South American flare. The story with the racoon was pretty dark, though. 21) a gryphon's journey. Too fast pace. Characters have a habit of spilling their entire backstories onto arias without prompting. Not enough show, not enough explanation of how the gryphons work. Some aspects completely pushed to the sides, like the satyrs and naugi until the end. Very rushed. The skyhaven arc could have been its own book, the stygagryph arc could have been it's own book. The heron gryph arc could have been it's own book. Not enough time to get to know the characters or care about them. Arias speaks far too maturely for his age, I feel. (Still on a gryphon kick from the last... two years now? Mostly I'm waiting for the fourth book in the Griffin Ranger Series to come out before I read the third. The author said it would come out before the end of 2023, but that date came and went and it still isn't on amazon at the time of writing (which is now 9:26pm, jeez...) I want to read isthmus so bad, but I don't want to wait on a cliffhanger) 22) myths and legends from Alaska. Okay. Feels very white washed and overly simplified. missing nuance. Reader is so deadpan and monotone that the audio book was a slog to get through (One thing I was determined to do for my own enrichment this year was to read more legends and mythologies from other cultures. There are SO MANY cool creatures and monsters and ideas out there, and I just feel so LIMITED by the small amount I know. We humans come up with some of the craziest shit imaginable!) 23) the white czar; a story of a polar bear. Bad, boring, incredibly racist. Barely about the bear at all! 24) the twins of buster bear. Another thornton w. Burges book. Its middle of the road. Certainly not bad, but my least favorite so far. Just kinda dull, and the audio book was horrendous. (honestly if the audiobook wasn't so bad, I wouldn't have disliked it so much, but it was a CHORE to listen to this one. I mean, thank you librivox for doing all this work for free, but is it too much to ask for some sort of vetting process for your volunteer readers??) 25) the wishing stone stories; BEST thornton w burges book so far! I would have been obsessed with this book as a child. Transforming into animals to learn about their ways. Not super PG like the others. The animals hunt and kill and get killed. 10/10

26) lightfoot the leaping goat 27) Toto the bustling beaver. Both alright. Nowhere near as charming as thornton Burgess, but endearing none the less. A little more 4th wall breaking. Toto audio book fun with silly voices, but I don't like the description of "tramps". A little too humanized for me. Lightfoot audio book fucking trash. Almost gave up. (Both of these books were written by Richard Barnum, another children's xenofiction writer of the time, but I quickly came to realize that his writing style is just not for me. I listened to a handful of his books too, this year, but they left me feeling uncomfortable more often than not because common attitudes of the time period reeeeeally show through his work.) 28) the adventures of poor misses quack. How do these qualify as adventures. She lands in a pond, dumps her backstory for 60 percent of the book, finds her mate and lives happily ever after. Not very strong, not very adventurous. 29) Mother West Wind "When" Stories; a lot of fun, charming, Aesop fable-esque. Fun mythology for children. A little too much peter rabbit, but I understand why he's there 30) the adventures of tamba the tame tiger. Yeahhhh, this series isnt my thing. A little too humanized, and the audio book is fuck GARBAE. (Pretty sure I meant to say "fucking garbage" there, but "fuck garbae" is funnier)

31) joust 32) alta 33) sanctuary All really good! All revolve around dragons and their usage and care. The books are a liiiiiitle too serendipitous, with the right thing always happening at the right time. Vetch/kuron doesn't "fail" enough. Second book is the best so far because the magi are a legitimate threat and it feels like time is running out so they must always stay one step ahead. (All written by Mercedes Lackey, all about dragon husbandry with a nice Egyptian flare! Check them out! But... maybe skip Aerie, the last in the series. It's not really worth it.) 34)aerie weakest one. Ahketen was absolutely unbearable and I didn't like the literal deus ex machina at the end with the actual gods coming down to help. Final ranking in order from best to worst; 2)alta, 1)joust, 3)sanctuary and 4)aerie. 35) the adventures of johnny chuck. Fun, average. Simple but doesn't need to be complicated. First of the thornton books ive read where the main character forms a family with children as the main focus 36) blacky the crow. Fun and charming as always. Feels a little simpler than the others with only 3 main mini stories, two of which involve stealing eggs. I wonder if I can find a box set of these books. (Aaaand that wraps up all the books I read this year! 15 of them were from thornton w burgess, and I hope to read even more from him this year! If you know of Burgess' books, tell me your favorites! I'd love to discuss them with someone~)

2.WHOO! the time is now 9:50, and I am just starting on talking about my second goal, which was to finish the snowdin arc of Ghost Switch before its 5th birthday. I did this! I did this exactly on june 18th! (for public readers, anyway. Anyone on my patreon got the page early, but a one week difference isn't much in the grand scheme of things.) I also get to say that I passed the Snowdin Test this year! "What is the Snowdin Test," you might ask? well, it's something a mutual acquaintance of mine, from the Fan Fic Paradise discord I lurk in, made aaaaall the way back in 2018, right when I was just startin' out with Ghost Switch. (Hi, Vikingaspoke, I don't know if you follow me on tumblr, or even have a tumblr for that matter, but I want you to know I thought about your thesis every single day since you first posted it, and have been determined (har har) to succeed where so many other undertale stories have failed. I did it once with my Epic-long fan fic, You Monster, but to do the same in comic form was a new and unique challenge. it took me almost 5 years, but I got there in the end! Cutting out the memories, I've officially concluded snowdin and started waterfall just this year!) I've also got to mention that I think my estimation on how long it will take me to finish Ghost Switch is slowly unfolding to be oddly accurate. I've never made a comic this long, but back in 2019, when I made an anniversary comic for Ghost Switch's 1st birthday, I guestimated that it would take me roughly 11 more years to finish the story, meaning it would take me 12 in total from start to finish. Well, we are rapidly approaching the half-way point of the comic, and if I haul ass it get to 312 pages out by the 6th birthday, we very well might actually hit it. I haven't drawn up to page 312 yet, but it's strangely close. Granted, my guess didn't account for the length of the flashback segments, which may push it back, but the sheer Idea that the "vibes" I got on how long each arc would take just by roughly judging the time it took me to finish ruins as a baseline to compare... it's just weird, man. I just "felt" that snowdin would be 1.5 times as long as the ruins, waterfall 2 times as long as the ruins, and hotland+New Home also 1.5 times that of the ruins. I have no metric for this since the final scenes were not written out yet. It just... feels like it should be that, and I'm kinda scared at how on track it's been.

3. Third goal was to Rewrite my Nanowrimo project from 2021/22. I did this as well! It's still no where near a final draft ready for beta readers or anything, and towards the end of the year I got distracted writing the second book in the trilogy because this is an epic fantasy story so it just HAS to have three books. Maybe I'll self-publish these stories one day. it sure is the most passionate I've ever been about something original i've ever written, but I want to make sure the entire rough draft of all three stories is done first so I can easily go back and add hints in previous parts without having to retcon anything later down the line. I've already had to do it once, so no doubt in my mind I'll have to do it again when I start trying to wrap things up in the final book. Speaking of the sequel, that was my nano project for this year! I won, but much like 2021 and 22, I didn't finish the book. my 21/22 project ended up being roughly 80k words, and I still expect to add about 10k more when I add some missing scenes and flesh out some description. I don't think that will happen with the second book. If anything, I expect it to barely stick around 50k in total because I just know I wrote a lot of filler and junk and repetitive stuff in the first draft this year because I was STRUGGLING with nanowrimo this year. Idk yet if I'm going to make a rewrite of book 2 my nano project for 2024. we'll have to wait and see how I'm feeling once september/october rolls around.

4. My fourth goal was to write 4 one-shots for my fic collection of Blankets, Socks, and Pillow Talk, over on AO3. I didn't do this, mostly because I was too distracted with my original fiction this year. i DID write one one-shot, hilariously during nanowrimo when I was suffering from writers block. Hopefully this year will be different. I would like this fic collection to at least hit 50k words so it could be a full novel of short stories all on its own. I think I can do it, I just need the time and inspiration.

5. My fifth goal, and last one I achieved this year was to finalize the details of the waterfall arc. I'm sure I've said it before in the past, but all the major story beats for Ghost Switch were planned out well before I even drew the first page, but the scenes connecting them were filled in more as I went. Rest assured, I make sure the entire arc is scripted before I start it, but my dirty little secret is that the snowdin arc wasn't completely written until I nearly finished drawing the ruins arc, and I was well into the snowdin arc before the final scenes of the waterfall arc were written down. It is now, and has been for at least 10 months. This was a goal I always knew I would achieve. Sometimes the resolutions I make are things I know are gonna happen whether I want them to or not. Sometimes you just gotta give yourself a guaranteed win to boost your self-confidence, you know? (now I just need to do the same for the Hotland arc. I think it's gonna take me 3 years minimum to finish waterfall, just like it did snowdin, so I got time, but the sooner I figure out the dialogue, the better. Will I make that a goal for this year? Ehh, probably not. I just wanna focus on building a buffer first)

6. The one secret goal was not achieved. If it was, this post wouldn't nearly be as long and you all would have heard about it as soon as it happened. Idk if it will happen this year, or anytime soon. A vicious combination of anxiety, the economy, and the uncertain state of the world make me hesitant to even attempt this goal.

aaand those were all my serious goals for this year! the time is now 10:37, I am tired and dizzy. I'm gonna save this as a draft and get back to it tomorrow~ nighty night~

OKAY! IT'S JANUARY 3RD NOW, 8:34AM! LET"S CONTINUE!

my three casual goals, none of which I accomplished, were;

7) Finish writing clemency. While I didn't do this, I did think about the story a lot. If you've been around since late 2022, You'll know that when AI writing generators started gaining popularity, news broke that the internet was scraped for data sets, including fan fiction websites like AO3. This extremely pissed me off because Fan Fiction is... well, I guess there's no better word than "sacred" to me. The unadulterated desire to write, create, share and expand on media that has touched us, inspired us, (hell, even angered us!) and to do this all purely because we can and we want to, just to make connections with other people who were fans of the same media, people we may never meet, thousands of miles apart from us, who we can touch and inspire in turn... Fan fiction is a gift. it means so much to me, from the professional writer who writes ficlets as an exercise, to tweens just starting their creative writing journey by imagining themselves hanging out with their favorite characters, to the hobbyists who wanted to imagine how things would change if just one thing happened differently, to those who feel underrepresented in media, and want to see themselves be the hero. People working through shit, people who are just bored, people who love a story so much they will retell it a hundred times over so it never has to end. Young, old, girl, boy, fluent writers, to writers in fandom where english is not their first language. It's an amazing, nearly incomprehensible melting pot that can connect us all... and some CEO jerkoffs just wanted to steal all this heart-felt work and feed it to a machine to make a quick buck. I was so enraged, so violated that works of passion could be abused this way that I locked down all my fics on AO3, and you now need to be logged in to read any of them, and I didn't write a word of fan fic in over a year. Every time I thought my anger had cooled off, more news would come up about "AI" generated stories appearing in the kindle app, or authors having works published under their name without their consent because thieves are trying to make a quick buck with their identity to trick fans, or hear that tv show and movie writers being told they are worthless and replacable, and I would get mad all over again. I'm still mad just remembering it, and until actual laws are in place regarding the use of "AI" in art and writing, I'll stay mad, and my stories will be under lock and key. If some good has come out of it, I focused a lot more on original fiction this year, which I haven't shared online at all, so no fear of that being stolen, but I do miss writing fan fic more regularly, yet I can't stand the thought of something I make for fun being taken and used by someone else to line their pockets. It's like... the antithesis of the purpose of storytelling to begin with and makes me sick to my stomach.

WOW! That sure was a rant! Let's move on! My 8th goal and second casual one was to make a comic page buffer of 8 pages. I almost did this one! At one point, (like, the second week of december) I had a buffer of 5 pages because I was finishing up Memory 5 of ghost switch, but then I realized I could line up the end of the memory with the end of the year, and I ended up posting all of my reserve pages in, like, a week! During those weeks, though, instead of making more pages to keep the buffer supplied, I played a lot of video games instead, which I hadn't done since... october? because I didn't touch my PS4 at all during november while I was writing for nanowrimo, and I missed playing Horizon Foridden West and wanted to get back to it. Maybe this year, though? I'm dead set on trying to get to 312 pages before Ghost Switch's 6th birthday, which is, like, 30 pages away, so I gotta improve my output process regardless.

And the 9th goal of mine and the last of the casual ones, was to write that crack fic. This goal has been on my resolutions for a couple years now, but I still haven't done it. I'm gonna blame my AI hatred grudge for this, since it made me not to want to write any fan fic at all this year. I'll get to this someday, but maybe now I should put it on the back burner for some newer goals and projects~

Okay! The time is now 8:57! if you're still reading this stream-of-conscious ramble of mine, it's time for me to list off my goals for this year!

IN 2024 I WOULD LIKE TO...

Read 12 new books this year (one book a month)

Reach 312 pages of Ghost Switch by June 18th (the 6th birthday)

Build (and maintain!) a comic buffer of 8 pages

Go walking on 3 new greenways around my neighborhood

Go camping by myself

Make at least one new song comic

Finish 4 video games to as close to 100% as I can (currently looking at Horizon Forbidden West, the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Blue, Carto, Alba, Stray, Journey, Unraveled and The Talos Principle 2, as these games currently entice me the most, but I still want flexibility and options if one game ends up not clicking)

Finish the first rewrite of my 2023 nanoproject (this will probably end up being my nano24 project, if i'm being honest with myself)

Write 4 one-shots for BSapT

-- These 9 goals I want to be serious about, but like last year, I have some casual goals i want to do as well. They include...

10. Get reacquainted with Neocities and make a personal website

11. Learn to code to improve said website/learn to make games

12.Listen to the entire royalty free youtube library for reasons

13. Research every d.o.n.g. ever featured on VSauce, for neocities reasons.

I feel like I had a couple more off-handed things I wanted to do this year, but these 4 casual things are the only ones I can remember at the moment. Maybe I'll come back and add to this list later.

Alright! The time is now 9:37AM, and I have to go run some errands/do some house chores! Saving this again as a draft to come back to this later!

Okay! Done with errands, and it is 11:30am on the nose! Time to resume my inane ramblings and hopefully finish this thing within the next two hours.

One thing I mentioned in my recap/review of 2022 was that I never actually felt like I was looking back on the year in depth. So much was forgotten or blurred together with other years because I didn't keep track of it. Well, this year I kept a monthly diary, again in my personal discord of 1, and wrote in it whenever I felt anything of note or significance happened to me, or whenever I had reoccurring thoughts or feelings. i managed to write in it at least once a month, often times twice, that being every two weeks. I found the whole experience quite therapeutic, frankly, and I'll share snippets of it now, though I will cut out the more personal entries. Be forwarned! A lot of the following text is straight up copied and pasted from my diary entries, so there is a lot of misspellings and short hand. I'll try to fix some of the more obvious ones, but these paragraphs are just as stream-of-concious writing as the rest of this massive post. Anything in parentheses with A/N is me adding context right now on the present day!

january 5th, two very close coworkers of mine quit due to upper management being petty. These two employees had worked here for nearly two decades. They were married to each other and were the mom and dad of the work base, with everyone else relying on them, looking up to them, and going to them for their problems. Them walking out scared everyone lower on the pecking order, because we felt that we were no longer protected from manager bullshit with them gone. I was off the day they walked out and didn't get to say goodbye. the grief I felt upon learning they left caused me to have my first ever anxiety attack that night. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in my life. I try to keep in touch, but we don't talk much due to our age gaps and busy work lives.

in January I also had a body-horror nightmare that still makes me squirm just thinking about it. I dreamt no one in the world wore pants, but we were all cool with it because we had pockets built into our legs. Not like... fabric sewn into skin, mind you, I mean naturally evolved extra flaps of flesh over our thighs like the pouch of a cartoon kangaroo. flesh pockets. even in my dream I could feel them. the insides were surprisingly dry and smooth- no sweat or hair in there, but the sensation was uncomfortably irritating, like when you rub your knuckles too much and it feels sore. worst part of this dream was, I woke up, thought "thank god I'll for get this in a few hours", but then watched cartoons later that day and saw a... tom and jerry(?) short where tom also had built in pockets on his body which made me remember everything, and now I can't forget.

February 8th. Watched The Flight if Dragons. Good, campy 80s feel. Drags in some parts, rushed in others. Some aspects feel like they have 0 explanation. (How did peter separate from gorbash? Did peter know that denouncing magic would vanish him from the safe haven? What happened to the princess's parents? EVERYTHING with the wolf and whatever was going on between the huntress and knight. I also Watched 1996 dragonheart. Slow start, but good fun. Pretty decent cgi. Acting is downright TERRIBLE in places, but it was good campy fantasy fun in the end.

On february 14th, I dreamed of a haunted house, but the house wasnt malicious. It felt like a friend that worried for your safety when you left, because it was rooted to the spot and could not come to you when you were in trouble. I did not stay long, and felt melancholic when I had to leave. Once outside, I turned around and said "goodbye house" and waved it farewell. Then, in all the curtains and windows, dozens and dozens of shadowy human arms waved goodbye to me in return, wishing me well and safe travels. It would miss me, but not keep me prisoner, because a house is only a home if you had the freedom to leave and return when you wished.

March 18. I got recommended a video on YouTube about screen savers, and it reminded me of one that our family computer had in the early 00s. After searching for a while, I rediscovered it; the createacard screensaver pack. So many buried memories unearthed. The sense of wanderlust and inspiration and not over such beautiful art came rushing back to me; https://youtu.be/zFPKmnegK0c

I was generally tired for all of march, not having much energy for any project outside of my comic, and even that was starting to wear me down.

I played a lot of kingdom hearts 1 in late February/early march. Synthesized the Ultima weapon for the first time. Cried farming sniper wilds and stealth soldiers because they unsettle me. I'm trying to grind to level 100 before the game is over. Debated on doing a kh song comic this year (A/N: This did not happen)

I want to redo my personal website. Wix added an image file size limit, and my whole site currently surpasses that twice over. The wix site editor is slow and finicky any way. Looked into blogspot and WordPress. I want to start a xenofiction book review podcast. Are solo podcasts popular? I Looked into neocities. Felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and child-like wonder. Made my own account/basic website, but haven't edited anything yet.

I got hit with the seasonal depression late February/early march, watched some home gardening videos on youtube and got inspired. The videos I watched were about people building actual massive scale pond and lakes, but I just went to home depot and Lowe's and Wal-Mart, bought, like, 12 different kinds of vegetable and flower seeds, 3 long rectangular planters and 2 massive bags of dirt. I also bought some peat seed starters, a plant heating pad (which I might just give to my cat) and a plant light. I spent over 150$ total.

My cat turned 5 years old on the 15th this march as well!

In late april I got really into analog/digital horror args and unfiction realities. Been watching a lot of Night Mind and similar analysis videos (I'm too lazy and dumb to try and solve them myself).

April 28th. Maternal grandfather might be passing soon. He's been in and out of hospitals since late January, needs around the clock assisted living, and my mom and her sister are constantly having to take time out of their lives to help him. I hate it. It's stressful and aggravating to mom, the assisted living people are incompetent, and my mom is stretching herself thin, running ragged trying to do everything at once. It's not fair to her. It's not fair to anyone.

May 11th. Mom's computer has a solitaire program with hundreds of versions of solitaire, most of which have gone unplayed. Ive been trying new games and learning them through trial and error (the "rules" tab doesnt work because it accesses a file that is no longer installed on this computer). Ive found new favorites in "twenty" and in "carpet". It makes life just a little bit more interesting.

June 4th. Been really into watching blind lets plays of undertale from 2022/3 lately, as well as dissection/discussion of undertale's music. Also into shayy's undertale mods. Glad the fandom is still having fun with this game. Got interested in pokemon infinite fusion. Downloaded it, but havent played yet. Getting back into PMD, though I have to grind now for leveling and evolving mons I cant recruit. Took a break from listening to librivox books, but might pick it up again. Same with checking in on flight rising. This year will be it's 10th birthday iirc

Looked at my ao3 recently and noticed I havent written anything in over 6 months. Still mad about the AI data scraping. I didn't stop writing entirely though. I spent all of October, November, January and February writing an original story, and still really proud/excited about it. Finished typing the rough draft on Wednesday, taking a break before I start edits.

All my flowers I planted in February are dying. Has a lot of rain this year. I think they're getting over watered.

June 6th. Been thinking a lot about Hawaii recently. I miss my old school and house. Went to Google earth to look at it again. I think our old neighborhood of [REDACTED] was razed and rebuilt becuase the streets dont look the same. This makes me feel… Not quite sad or bitter, but hurt none the less. I knew ever since we moved here chances of going back would be slim, but knowing my most nostalgic childhood home is gone forever…

Saturday June 17th fucking sucked for everyone. Two coworkers got seriously injured at work. My car battery completely died and couldn't be jump started. Had to call for a tow and wait 2+ hours for it to arrive. Wanted to cancel but they told me I would be charged even if the tow never arrived. Got charged 80 extra dollars for a "wench fee" I didn't need, but they talked to fast for me to think about it. Massive accident on the 4-lane highway home put all traffic down to 1 lane, and we were stuck there an extra hour. Dairy Queen's lobby closed early, going to drive through only, sonic was OUT OF ICE CREAM, and the local grocery store was almost sold out too. Did not get home until almost 10pm. Both my car AC and my mom's car a.c. don't work. I FUCKING LOVE OWNING A CAR. IT'S SO MUCH FUN AND SO FREEING.

June 28. Been playing a new video game recently; horizon forbidden west. Price dropped by 50% on Amazon and I had a 10$ gift card so I got the game for 1/3 the launch price. It's okay so far. Been slowly exploring and uncovering the map, ignoring the main story and discovering secrets. There is definitely A LOT more to do in this game than in the first. Dont really like a lot of Aloy's line deliveries. Some of the controls are different which throws me off. Robo enemies cool as ever, though noticeably fewer dinosaur ones.

Mom continues to take care of her dad. Aunt does too. All of mom's free time and energy this summer has been stolen by him. She keeps insisting she won't have to look after him as much when he gets better. I don't think he's ever getting better.

All my flowers I planted back in March have died. It's just too damn hot for them. It's too hot for everyone. We have just hit ten straight days with weather in the triple digits. I'm miserable.

Might have to replace my laptop soon. It's almost 12 years old, the battery doesn't work anymore, it overheats, and it's super slow. Looking into gaming laptops.

June 29; grandfather passed away last night. All I feel is relief.

July 11th. I got gifted my grandfather's bed, but had to switch it back out with my old bed because it was too soft and fucking up my back. No lumbar support.

July wrap up: month went by sooo fast I can hardly believe it. Its too fucking hot. Texas is stuck in a heat cyclone. Havent played solitare in a while, or listened to audio books. I managed to do 7 jigsaw puzzles this summer, and hope to do one more. each one has been 1000 pieces minimum, with two being 2000 pieces, and 1 being 3000. I should have taken more pictures of them finished, but it's fun to know we finished one puzzle per week this whole summer.

August 5th; Wish I recorded some smaller details throughout the year, not realizing id want to recall the last time I did something. When was the last time I intentionally watched a movie or listened to a specific song? (but then again, how will I know I'm going to think the exact thought; "when was the last time I did X specific thing?") I rewatched wolf children 2 months back for the first time in years, same with relistening to HeyHiHello songs. Been having a lot of lower back pain lately. Stretching helps, but I can no longer sit or sleep in my favorite position without cramping up. I need to be perfectly straight and i hate it. (A/N: The very next night I pulled a muscle in my back so bad I thought I was paralyzed. for the first time in years, I had to call in sick to work because I could not physically move from my bed)

August 19th. Went to a chiropractor. No pinched nerves or slipped disc, just a pulled muscle. Stretching helps and have been wearing a back brace. Finally had grandpa's memorial on the tenth. It was nice to learn he made friends at his community center. I'll try to be out going when I'm old too. Doctors would not sign his death certificate for 7 weeks because they just didn't give a shit, and we finally threatened to call a lawyer. He finally got cremated.

August 30th- recently had to go to pepboys to get my car fixed again. It was "stuck" in neutral. Grandma came and picked me up to let me go home. She said she doesnt plan to be driving much longer and intends to give her car to me. I dont know how to feel about this. Grateful for the future gift? Sad that she is getting older? I had to have my car towed and had to leave work early, which I hate doing because it makes me feel like I'm leaving everyone else to do my work, but I did not want another repeat with the towing situation that happened in june.

September 19th. I finally put on my brave face and ordered a new laptop for myself earlier this month (the 5th to be precise) and today it finally arrived. I bought myself an HP omen gaming laptop. It's so nice, but also different and a little scary trying to adjust to all this new interface. I went from using windows 7 for the last 11 years to jumping into windows 11. It'll be an adjustment. Gotta re-download all my old programs and transfer my files. Hope my drawing tablet will still work on this laptop. Might have to buy a new one of those as well. I already hate the subscription model being used if you want to do ANYTHING with the tech YOU BOUGHT nowadays. Goodbye microsoft office! It was fun while I knew you! I got libreoffice now! Fuck off adobe! OpenShot and Shotcut are my video editing programs now! I still need to learn my way around OBS, opentoonz, and pencil2d, but I gotta say there's something.... rustic? homey? about having a desktop full of opensource programs made by people who want to help other creatives free of charge. I miss the days where you buying something meant you own it forever, but free homegrown programs updated by community feels friendlier than just owning a shiny "offical" big named piece of software, I gotta admit.

The new laptop is wonderfully fast and silent. It cost me 2 grand so I hope it lasts just as long as my old one. There is no removable battery from what I can tell, which is sad. Also no disc drive. The keys light up rainbow which is cool (but I had to turn that feature off to improve battery life). I customized the desktop background to some concept art of the videogame RiME. (I thought I had saved the default bg pic from my old laptop to my external hard drive, but I guess I hadn't?) Funny to me that in the 10+ years of owning my second ever laptop, I never changed the wallpaper because I liked the default art so much. Might add more art to a file and have the wallpaper rotate. I want to replay RiME again too. Love the simple gameplay and strong colors of that game.

October 4th. So much has happened in 2 weeks, it feels much longer than that. I pretty much completely switched to using my new lap top ad my main computer, transferred all the files, downloaded a bunch of open source software for writing documents, video editing, streaming and animation. Fuck you Microsoft. I shouldn't need an account to use basic microsoft word. Hope to bring back page making streams next year for patrons~ ive even been playing some steam games that my old laptop just couldn't run, and quite a few new ones as well. Candleman, carto, so many fun and charming titles~ replaying snakebird because all my progress was lost 🥲I'm not mad. I love snake bird.

I have so much desire to do so many things, but not enough time to do them. I need to queue up my november posts for tumblr before I go on break. I need to get my oil changed soon. I want to go back on steam and play more humongous entertainment games. I want to write, I want to draw, I want to animate, I want to learn how to quilt and crochet and garden. I want to do it all right now all at the same time. I want to go on a nature walk. I want to see my friends.

Its finally starting to cool off. We still get in the 90s easily, but it rained last night for the first time in weeks, and we havent hit 100 degrees in a couple of days. Been reading a lot of webtoons lately. Been having the urge to start my own with my original storylines, or at least use webtoons as a backup/mirror for my fan comic. So many unique stories there all ready. So many fun art style and worlds to get lost in. I love stories and the people that tell them. The joy of creating a tale and sharing it with the world is humanity in its purest form.

November 1st: youtube is cracking down on adblockers. Havent had any problems yet on desktop, but on this day, my default youtube app on my lg smart phone started showing me ads for the first time in the 8+ years I've had it. I was so mad that i forced stopped the app, and logged into youtube through an ad block browser app instead. Some of the app's features will be missed, like being able to watch a video and search at the same time, but these little annoyances are nothing compared to the fury I felt at being shown ads. I didn't write nearly as much as I wanted to for nanowrimo today because of this.

November 6th: I turned 31! Both my friends forgot my birthday, and I wasn't able to reserve a camping site for the April 8th eclipse next year! 🙃 ive been writing like mad for nanowrimo, but I'm still falling behind.

December 17. Has it really been a whole month since i last made a diary update? Thanksgiving came and went. No drama at our house but my mom and I watched an argument unfold in the yard of our neighbors. The one mobile game I play, dragon's world, officially shut down for me 4 days ago. I'm a little sad I could never 100% it, but glad I got as far as I did, and even managed to buy some dergs so it didnt feel all my hard earned gems went to waste. Havent uninstalled the app yet out of nostalgia, even though I only played this game for a year and a half. I made the mistake of reinstalling the google play store to look for a new dragon raising game, but none had the same appeal, and the reinstall caused my discord app to update and hate it ):< I kinda want to learn how to make a mobile game of my own like dragons world, but with gryphons instead and a focus on rescue/rehabilitation and zoology angle. (I mostly just dont like how common fighting is in these kind of games.) Finally been playing horizon forbidden west after a few months away. I'm not progressing the story, just trying to max upgrade all my gear. It's a fun challenge~

December 26, 2023. Got bit by a dog at work on Christmas. Right on the nail of my middle finger. He broke my nail but not my skin. Its odd. Thankfully I can still draw without much issue. I got a tetanus shot and flu shot just to be safe. Mom got me a tent for Christmas because I plan to go camping by myself next year, even though I wont get to see the eclipse on my outing.

The fan game undertale yellow came out on the 9th… Which was before my last journal update? I've been enjoying the game play but the story is just a little... eh. the sprite work is phenominal, though, no complaints there. I hate that it's making me want to write my own AU version of it already to "improve" it, since I think the story loses its way pretty much once you leave the ruins. (maybe I can try to shove it into Clemency in stead since i still haven't finished that either).

I watched a documentary on kangaroos on netflix this month. I had to play it at 1.25 speed because I swear they slowed down every single clip for the film to get it to a certain length. I also watched "dog gone trouble" which had terrible voice work and awful character design, and then "back to the outback" which was surprisingly well made even if the characters stumbled sometimes, but I'd easily recommend it. I want to watch more Christmas movies before the year is through. (A/N: this also did not happen).

Finally uninstalled dragons world today. My phone's been acting up. Hope I don't have to replace it soon. I don't like how, nowadays, the technology I pay for, I don't actually own, and features are being removed left and right. I'm afraid any "new" phone on the market offered now won't nearly last as long as my current one has.

Aaand that was a brief glimpse into my year! The time is now 1:10pm! I already have one other post going up today, so I'll queue this one to go up on thursday instead~ if you managed to read this far, thank you so much, i guess! I hope my ramblings don't make you see me differently as a person. It's odd reflecting on where I was in my life over these past 12 months, remembering my state of mind and the feelings I felt as I wrote these entries. I'll be sure to do it again this year.

Overall, did I learn anything?...no, I don't think so? I did come to the realization that at the end of every year, in multiple youtube videos and tumblr posts, people mentioned how hard the year was for them, but like... after june, for me, everything improved quite a lot. it doesn't feel right to say that 2023 was hard for me. It was unbearably sad for me at the beinging. annoying and (physcially) painful half way through, but once august hit... everything slowly started to get better, despite the small petty things I complained about in my journal entries above. youtube ads, car troubles and discontinued apps of games I enjoyed still feel like small potatoes when compared to what I accomplished. Finished writing a draft of personal fiction, finished a major arc of a fan comic, got a new laptop to stream and share art with others, played a bunch of new video games, and generally enjoyed life for the latter half of this year.

And it almost feels selfish to say that... I'm happy.

I hope I can stay happy in 2024 as well.

Thanks for reading~

Have a safe and joyous 2024~

#long post #year in review #new year's resolutions #2023 review

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delicatelie89 · 1 year ago

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20 questions for fic writers

tagged by the lovely @starrybouquet 💜

1. how many works do you have on Ao3? twenty-three (counting the tiny ones)

2. what's your total Ao3 word count? i almost never look at the stats page. it says 101,051. there's more on my gdrive... definitely more... there has to be.

3. what fandoms do you write for? stargate sg1 sam/jack ... and some unpublish rpf that we won't get into... 👀

4. what are your top five fics by kudos? they're all pretty close tbh.

Losing Touch WIP (M, Stargate, S/J, 35k) 690 kudos

Closing the Distance (E, Stargate, S/J, 4k) 568 kudos

Better or Right (E, Stargate, S/J, 20k) - 567 kudos

Setting the Mood (E, Stargate, S/J, 6k) - 432 kudos

Desire (E, Stargate, S/J, 4k) - 407 kudos (which beats out Perfectly Explainable by a whole 2 kudos 😆)

5. do you respond to comments? yes, eventually i do! they always make me smile. of course if you're enough of a dickhead with a bad attitude you might even get a particularly snarky reply if you catch me on an unforgiving day. 🙃

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? that's got to be Grief and Loss/Loss and Regret (E, Stargate, S/J, 4k) which has ALL the feels bad content. 😬

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? i think most of them have a happy ending... (that's what she said). maybe Better or Right or Better Than Ice Cream.

8. Do you get hate on fics? no, most people are pretty nice and reasonable. there's maybe a handful of entitled "update!" comments that have rubbed me the wrong way.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? lol. yes. LISTEN. if AT says "i called him sir... i think he liked it" then in that train of thought is practically cannon amirite? 😅

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? no, but if i did it would be in the same cannon of the show (sg atlantis or sg universe).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? no. i don't think so. sounds awful.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? not that i know of... 🤷‍♀️

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? nope. i think the closest to that would be a group trope challenge.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? sam/jack stargate sg1 is my opt forever and always.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? um how even dare you. the level of sheer audacit--losing touch. sigh. it's just so long is this thing. and so sad too. i don't have it in me to put my brain into that level of sadness for so long. also i feel grossly incapable of long form fics, they are just such a marathon. i am a one shot girl through and through. but I do hope i finish it! that's still the goal. 🤞

16. What are your writing strengths? funny. or funny-sexy.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? ... longform fics. or action. action sequences are HARD.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? i'd be so impressed with myself if i pulled that off.

19. First fandom you wrote for? stargate sg1 sam/jack.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? that's hard. losing touch has chapters and parts that i really love. although Perfectly Explainable still makes me laugh. i might have smiled the most writing that one.

I am so very out of touch with tumblr fandom, sorry fam, so i'll tag @sharim28 and @formerdetective and literally anyone who finds this across their dash. thanks for thinking of me @starrybouquet!

#tag games #fic writing

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isleofair · 1 year ago

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Twenty Questions for Fic Writers!

I was tagged by @nicoroni (and I am also tagging them back 💙) (Trust us, it works. )

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

12 as of a couple of days ago! 🥰 2 are from last year and 10 are my progress so far in the 2023 - Year of the OTP Challenge (my beloved 💖)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

212,706 (that's about a Moby Dick's worth of words! 😦)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Tiger & Bunny, and just FireSky as a pairing, at that! (Who knows if I'll ever branch out... for now I'm very happy in my little corner of the fanfic world 🥰)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The best cure for free fall (3,295 words) Kudos: 87

Stereoscopy (The Hero's Shoulders) (72,000 words) Kudos: 74

Three Dates (8,854 words) Kudos: 40

Snowdrift (3,050 words) Kudos: 37

Love, Counted along the Fibonacci Sequence (7,123 words) Kudos: 28

(These numbers may not look like much, and perhaps they are not, but considering I write a side ship in a small fandom, I am honestly incredibly grateful for literally every single one of these 🙏💕)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I probably respond too much to comments, if anything 😅 I cherish them immensely, so I tend to get a little carried away, and I try to answer every single thing that people say in them 🥺💙

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh. Uhm. I only really do happy endings, so... let me think.

Technically, the story that leaves the most angst still on the table by the end is Stereoscopy (The Hero's Shoulders), because there are some not-totally-solved things left in the background.

The one where the angst lingers closest to the end as a feeling, though, possibly enough to leave a tiny taste-memory of it in your mouth, might be To a Steadfast Heart, or possibly Second Song.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh, gosh. I suppose it depends on how you define happiest...

The most triumphant and satisfying ending I've done plot-wise, in my opinion, is hands-down Intertidal's.

If you're going more by something like "how much pink glitter and marshmallows is the final scene conjuring in my brain", though, it might be Love, Counted along the Fibonacci Sequence, or maybe An Honest Mistake, or Asterism (I write a lot of pink-glitter-and-marshmallows endings, sorry.)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

The haters would have to know little old me exists for me to get hate, lol. But more seriously, no, I get nothing but sweetness and I'm so grateful 💖💖💖

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Welll... I never quite mean to, but sometimes the story (and characters) ends up asking for it/needing it, and I'm so bad at saying no 😅

As for what kind... the kind that can have a 10k, E-rated chapter solely dedicated to the characters having sex, without me ever having to pick a word for "dick", lol (No, there's no trashy euphemisms, either; it's just me, my deep embarrassment, Keith Goodman's Very Polite POV, and synecdoche, my beloved, against the world 😂)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I haven't, and I don't think I'm terribly interested in trying (never say never, of course, but for now I can't think of any that I'd want to write). AUs and/or fusions, on the other hand, are very interesting and I'm farily sure at some point I'll end up writing one.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Again, they'd have to notice the fic to steal it 😅 (Of course, it might have happened without my knowledge, but I don't see why anyone would steal unpopular fics. And besides, it would have to either be posted on a website I don't look at, or modified to be other characters, because "my" ship tag on ao3 is far too small to hide anything in there, lol)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No. (I'd make a joke about them being translated from the Italian in my head to the English on the page, but I think them up in English in the first place, so it wouldn't really apply 😅)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I've "co-written" a lot of concepts/headcanons in chats and I always have an absolute blast doing that! (I'm not entirely sure I could ever co-write a fic, honestly, because I'm a bit of a control freak about my creations, and I'd probably get insufferable during the process)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

The only one I write, lol: FireSky!!! ❤️💜 AKA Keith Goodman/Nathan Seymour, or Sky High/Fire Emblem from Tiger & Bunny (... their hero names ship name looks like a pretty crazy crossover, lol)

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Ooof. I only have two real wips on my hands; the one I have more doubts about ever finishing is the one I was trying to write for the September leg of the 2023 YOTP Challenge (for which I ended up writing a different story altogether). It has very unconvincing logistics, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to fix that to my satisfaction.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Mmmh. I've gotten a fair bit of compliments about my characterization, so that's one, I suppose. I've also been very good so far at only writing one fic at once and actually finishing almost all of them (which is not nothing!) I also really like my metaphors/similes/analogies/symbolism a lot, especially in dream sequences, but I don't know if that's objectively a strength or just something I do well (mostly) only to my personal satisfaction.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I used to be good at not having run-on sentences, but I've gotten so much worse about it lately?!? I really need to check myself on that. And I think I'm not very good at coming up with complex plots (one initial premise to kick things off, and then following the flow from there? Doable. Several significant events actually shaping the story from more than one side? SAVE ME.)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Well, if the characters were speaking another language for some reason I suppose I might, but I'm only fluent in two languages, so unless I could find someone who could help me, I would probably try to avoid the issue altogether somehow.

I also think it's not an easy thing to handle, because if the reader is not supposed to understand, a few words and phrases here and there, that maybe get explained/translated in-story at the moment or later, are okay; but huge chunks that the reader can't understand would just be annoying, and if they're supposed to understand, you need to fit a translation in along with the foreign dialogue, and it might not always be easy to do so in an efficient / not cumbersome manner.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Mh. If we want to be really precise about this, I think somewhere in my parents' house is a tiny notebook with a lilac (or possibly pale pink) cover, where a strange, short scene set after the Season 1 finale of Smallville is written in pencil. But that was a one-off thing.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Stereoscopy (The Hero's Shoulders) will always and forever be my baby; it's the one I poured the most time and soul and effort into, and the one that I consider, in a way, the definitive fic I could write for that pairing.

I do feel like I have to mention Intertidal, as well, though: it's by far my favorite of the rest my fics, and I think it has a lot to offer.

This was a lot of fun! 😃 My dear fellow writers, if you see this and you want to do it, too, I am officially tagging you! 💚

#writing #tag game #my fic #tiger & bunny #firesky #nathan seymour #keith goodman

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brick-a-doodle-do · 2 years ago

Note

For the ask game,

1-22 24-39

I am sorry

-Small brain anon

you're forgiven, it's in the past :)

okay before i get into these,,,, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 35, and 36, 38, have been answered!

that leaves....still quite a few. god damn.

2 : if you had to give up your keyboard and write your stories exclusively by hand, could you do it? if you already write everything by hand, a) are you a wizard and b) pen or pencil?

i would try, i probably could it just wouldn't be a very long time, even longer than usual. my hand cramps a LOT when i write (which is a new thing idk why) but my stories are still important :D

7 : what is your deepest joy about writing?

i have a few actually! honestly, starting with the most basic joy, it's really rewarding to remind myself that i have the ability to make a world. i can create cool versions of people i absolutely adore and make totally new people too! and i often forget that if i try hard enough i can make people cry with my writing or make one joke have people go feral,,,

another one is the reminder that god damn. almost eight billion people and i had this idea. i have complete freedom over this. i have claimed the coolest idea EVER out of almost eight billion people.

and i guess just the fact that i can write what people want me to write or what people enjoy. i love taking input from others because i know it'll make one person enjoy something! little details that i remember about someone? throw it into a fic and hope they see it and smile

8 : if you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go?

bye bye fucking dialogue. i would love to write something wordless and see how it works out, it just sounds awesome tbh, very moody. one of my non g/t wips is like that for a lot of it and it's just really calm to write! i don't have to worry about balancing things or making accurate dialogue, it's just one person in the universe and the vibe of that can easily get through to me. and in my experience, it'll go pretty good!

13 : what is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? what is easy?

ehhh i really hate writing combat or anything fast paced. moving scenes along and changing settings has never been a strong suit of mine imo,,,, like it always feels either really rushed or really choppy imo

and i think mental health is pretty easy for me to write. like that hazy, unhappy mind. it's extremely slow and easy to make long and extravagant descriptions with,,,,

14 : do you lend your books to people? are people scared to borrow books from you? do you know exactly where all your “lost” books are and which specific friend from school you haven’t seen in twelve years still possesses them? will you ever get them back?

i don't have a large collection of books. i'm never really immersed into actually reading a book which i know is awful as a writer and honestly just a terrible attribute of mine but i'm not a big reader. fanfic tho is my bitch, and in which case i have no experience with any of this :'D

16 : what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

a piece of lined paper i found in the book, so essentially someone else's makeshift bookmark

i am respectfully gonna skip 17 & 18 because i don't have the energy to really explain any of that and all of my wips are so like not worthy of those questions. the best ur gonna get is the minutiae of tiny workers i'll post tomorrow lmao

19 : tell me a story about your writing journey. when did you start? why did you start? were there bumps along the way? where are you now and where are you going?

it's nothing too dramatic, i started when i was in third grade and wrote a nine page story by hand and my teacher mentioned i was a strong writer for my age. i wrote all the time in school, picked up fanfic in like early 2019 (which also conveniently was my first g/t writing)

and uhh i started just because the feeling of writing was really rewarding and freeing. i loved roleplaying on roblox all the time too i would love making long descriptions of things n such :DD

i think i'm on a good track, i have 42 full-fledged wips that i have some ideas for, 3 book ideas and a cool and supportive community to share my growth with :]

21 : could you ever quit writing? do you ever wish you could? why or why not?

honestly, no, i don't think i ever could. even if i change my mind about pursuing it as a career i could never stop it being my hobby. it's so freeing and a great way to unwind, i love the thought of writing all of my life and the thought of what my writing will be like in a few years if i'm writing like this now (which is such an improvement from 6 months ago, let me say. and yeah i'm complimenting my work for once)

i never do wish i could, because i know that regardless of if i take a break or not i'm never going to completely abandon it. i have ideas that i'm too in to be out of,,,

22 : how organized are you with your writing? describe to me your organization method, if it exists. what tools do you use? notebooks? binders? apps? the cloud?

it depends on my wips, but for the sake of convenience i'll just go off of my aus on here: it is so messy. there is no organization, and if it is there are so many wips of my organization ideas, it's so sad. i have tried so many different ways to organize my thoughts because doing lists and making things look neat and tidy is my favorite, but on the opposite end i get bored countlessly listing out information i already know, so uhh yeah no organization. occasionally i'll jot down like "make sure to add this!" in my notes app or at the end of wtv im working on

24 : how much prep work do you put into your stories? what does that look like for you? do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

i love the thought of prep work, hate actually doing it. i go in head first, usually with a mental map of whatever i want to happen. a lot of the time though i let the story write itself cuz i'm lazy like that :'D

i dislike trying to actually sit myself down to make things all laid out and ready to be written cause..........gagghghhsadskdj

29 : where do you draw your inspiration? dhat do you do when the inspiration well runs dry?

it depends! some of my ideas are directly from a movie or show i watch, usually taking the idea of an "au" not from the fandom but from that show specifically if that makes sense,, other times my head'll give me some three am ideas or random ideas.

i also really like picking a color and making an inspiration board off of it! it gives me some cool ideas cause imagery can tell a big story sometimes imo

when the well is try i usually either work on other stuff or just wait for it to rain again so there's water to run off of.

31 : write a short love letter to your readers.

idk about a love letter but honestly y'all are literally so cool. i know my community isn't remotely close to any big publishers' fanbases but damn it feels so overwhelming in the best way possible to get showered with love by the people i can easily recognize whenever i post something! to have over 100 notes on some of my fics and know that every like on my work is an individual person is just baffling. to know i have almost 200 followers in my corner, even if some of them are bots or following me for other content, it's fucking amazing. sweet comments and questions about my work is just fucking exhilarating!! it's so motivating to hear "write more of this" because damn. demanding. people demand i write more. it's SO COOL. joining social media was probably the worst decision i've ever made but tumblr has singlehandedly fixed every doubt i've had about being on the internet :) <3

32 : what is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? how did you find it? what does it mean to you?

ee passerine & rooftops spoilersss down below :]

i will do fanfic bc. yeah wtv. anyway there are a few, i think that if i'm being actually serious and not doing joke ones, i absolutely love the ending off passerine, it's so perfect. i am tearing up thinking abt it ngl which sounds dumb but damn. "he had a life before this, a mother, a father, a home, sisters and brothers, but what he had now was alright too. he stood alone in his bedroom mirror, combing his hair back from his face to braid it for the day, tucking it behind an ear where a sapphire earing hung, catching sunlight. he paused when he saw it, leaning in close to make sure it wasn't a trick of the light, or the lingering traces of a dream. he blinked once, twice, his mortal heart caught in his throat. there, nestled amongst the pink strands, delicate as a bird's wing, was a single, grey hair. if he listened closely, he could hear his brother coming down the hallway, looking for him. but this moment was his alone, half-sobbing, half-laughing, he fell against his chair and closed his eyes against the sudden sting of tears. he could see in his mind, a field of flowers under an open sky, a place for waiting, where all the finished stories went. where he too would go someday. a knock came at his door, and technoblade began to smile." LIKE DUDE. I AM SUCH A SUCKER FOR ENDINGS TO STORIES. it's so dramatic and so domesicated and passerine is such a short story all in all but it's so perfectly written and captures relationships so well. it shows technoblade's acceptance of death so well, and although he'd been wanting of death for a while it still kind of shows how he is eager to pursue the rest of a mortal life.

also from passerine i like "this is what it feels," someone gasped, "to lose everything" I LOVE IT. tommy is their everything and losing him made the story turn so dull,, it went from silver to grey easily. love it.

ALSO. FUCKING ROOFTOPS. it is such an old fic, but it's the second fic i've ever read in the fandom. “youuu aren’t real. nope! noo, no you aren’t. youu’re not reeaal, you'ree inn my head. my head! geoorge is in my head again!” it's just so sad. i love it. the atmosphere of this scene despite it being out of context here is still just so perfect. the vibes of rooftops have never left my head.

and also this absolutely doesn't count but there's a comment on rooftops that said "this is the same story where they went camping" and i have never gone a day without thinking about that LMAO

33 : do you practice any other art besides writing? does that art ever tie into your writing, or is it entirely separate?

hghghhhhh not really, no other art. cooking and baking sometimes but i wouldn't call my skill level art LMAO

but it did start a gbbo au and has helped a lot with terminology and stuff!!

34 : thoughts on the oxford comma, go:

i love it in practice but the second i get reminded to use it i go bonkers and start hitting things

37 : if you were to be remembered only by the words you’ve put on the page, what would future historians think of you?

they would think i am weird as hell bro i keep writing about these people SWALLOWING EACH OTHER ALIVE 😭😭😭

i wanted to do a real response to that but a. its 3 am and b. this was funnier <3

39 : what keeps you writing when you feel like giving up?

the atmosphere of the thing i am writing. i can be in the most unmotivated mood but the second i start thinking about how a scene or an au feels i am immediately lightened up and want to write it!

god damn it only took about half an hour but i did it!! thanks for these questions, even if they took like 2 weeks to finish and cut me short of what i wanted to do tonight /lh/nmay

#brickquiries #brickquiries games #small brain brickling #sb my beloved :]#cw vore implication/mention #breif but still

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oniondip420 · 19 days ago

Text

Yarn Log - Blank Space Coaster

Background

I did a couple amigurumi kit projects at the beginning of 2024 (while The Blanket™ was still in deep freeze) and enjoyed the process of crochet, which I had never done before. That was when I decided I’d want to do more crochet stuff once The Blanket™ was finally finished (post still incoming this week!). Since that’s finally casted off and I’m just waiting to wash/block, weave in ends, and fill out the already-drafted post with images, yesterday I just had the impromptu desire to bang out a tiny little project to ease back into crochet.

I’m including an image of this tiny test swatch that I did too, in order to remind myself how to do chain stitches/single crochet stitches. It’s just 10 stitches wide, ~12 rows, nothing fancy. I had originally planned to make ones to practice half-double, double, and triple crochet stitches as well, but I got bored and abandoned those in favor of the coaster lol.

My main takeaway from this swatch though, only emerged after the blocking process. As you can clearly see, the piece still curls in on itself, and I’m unsure what exactly is causing it. At first I thought maybe it was like a stockinette stitch for knitting, where the tension is unevenly distributed and curling is expected, but further googling makes it seem this is not the case. It’s probably either my foundation chain being too tight, or some other yarn tension issue. Since I have historically had issues with tension during knitting (see upcoming post on The Blanket™ for more details), it does seem likely that’s what’s going on. I suppose it’ll have to be worked out in the future just by practice.

Analysis

In terms of the actual coaster, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I used a random yarn in my bag that was a hand-me-down from my friend’s mom (who was the one who taught me how to knit) and a 4.25mm crochet hook (which merely by eyeballing, seemed well sized for the yarn weight).

The funkiest maneuvers that this pattern had in store for me included: learning how to do a magic ring, doing multiple double crochet stitches in a single hole for increases as you go around, and the joining of each row to the next (which is what I struggled with the most).

You can see in this picture exactly where the rounds are joined up. I thought the noticeably larger holes were my own fault, but it seems from looking at pics on Ravelry, it’s just kind of a feature/bug of the pattern. Each row starts with a ch3 that you pretend is like a double crochet stitch, and I think that’s exactly what’s causing it, which is understandable.

Like I mentioned before, I struggled a lot though with figuring out how exactly to be doing the sl1 at the end of each row to join it up in the round. I kept doing it into the first of the 3 chains, only in the top loop, and it looked so weird that I had to undo the whole thing and start from scratch again (a total of like 3-4 times). Some googling finally brought me clarity, when (I think on some Quora page) I realized I was supposed to do it for the THIRD chain stitch of that set, under BOTH parts of the loop, but NOT into the hole underneath (so like, into the chain stitch itself). Once I got that part down, it was a lot easier for me to get through the remainder of the pattern.

I think the only “mistakes” I made were accidentally catching separated yarn ply’s in unintended stitches, which I think is forgivable; I’m still figuring out the muscle memory for crochet movements, and I also just kind of grabbed the first yarn that seemed well sized. I’m pretty sure it’s cotton, with which I’ve had other yarn ply separation issues in the past. But overall it turned out pretty nicely I think, especially for something I rushed out in a single day!

Major lessons learned:

I need to work on my yarn tension, especially when doing a foundation chain. This was less noticeable with the magic ring, but I’m sure it’s still in there.

Basic experience reading crochet patterns, which requires slightly different interpretation than knitting patterns.

I’m better at reading the current state of the project in regards to counting stitches and making sure I’m following the pattern properly for the row in question.

Pattern

#crochet #yarnblr #yarn log #knitblr #yarn crafts

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tunespeakapp · 3 months ago

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Dierks Bentley: 9/14/24 “It was my second time seeing Grammy nominated, ACM, CMA, CMT winner and Opry member Frederick Dierks Bentley 48 from Phoenix Arizona LIVE. The first was at the Blind Horse Saloon during the ‘Beers On Me Tour’ in 2021 toward the tail end of the pandemic where Bentley packed 2,000 maskless fans into the tiny Greenville venue. The weather was perfect for an evening featuring full sets by three Country Music artists, Hurricane Francine having since past with its remnants remaining stalled over Memphis. I had entered a contest on Bentley’s Facebook Page back in June granting one winner a pair of tickets. On August 30th I received an email that I was the solo winner out of 167,180 entries and to claim my seats at will call under the artist’s guest list. The 31-stop ‘Gravel And Gold Tour’ which began in Fort Worth and ends in Milwaukee made its 28th stop at Simpsonville’s outdoor amphitheater. The tour is Bentley’s 16th major tour and brings with it all the bells and whistles with a 6-man band and 55 crew members. With 10 albums in his 23-year career with 41 charted singles including 18 #1s, the headliner’s set list was bound to deliver all the favorites. Arriving early I stood just outside the gates to hear the VIP Pre-Show acoustic mini-set. Upon entry and claiming my 10th row center seat I walked up to take in a close-up of the stage. The stage featured an E-shaped rear riser featuring a center ramp and two end ramps ending in sets of stairs. A small pit separated the reserve seating from the stage. 100+ lights enclosed the stage on the top and sides. The drumhead featured the tour logo ‘DIERKS BENTLEY GRAVEL & GOLD 2024 TOUR’ as well as the translucent video wall in the forefront. At 6:56 p.m. the stage lights illuminated as the first opener Tanner Usrey and his 4-man band took to the stage to the recorded sounds of Guns N’ Roses ‘Welcome To The Jungle’. It was my second time in 8 days seeing Tanner perform LIVE, the first was in Columbia with Koe Wetzel. Beginning with ‘Blackberry Wine’ from the Twisters Movie Soundtrack the Country/Southern Rock/Americana singer from Prosper Texas was off to a 30 minute / 6 song set. ‘My name’s Tanner Usrey from Texas, thanks for being here.’ Usrey drew the majority of his material from his lone studio album ‘Crossing Lines’ 2023 released on Atlantic Records. The set unlike Columbia’s which featured a cover of Rod Stewart’s Faces ’Stay With Me’ ended with a rousing version of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’. Tanner quit his job in 2019 starting off all on his own pounding the pavement for gigs and put 100K on his van in the first year and a half. He’s certainly paid his dues and has proven to be a worthy opener for the likes of Dierks and Koe! After a rather quick stage turn the lights went down to the recorded sounds of Ed Sheeran’s ‘BLOW’. A LB logo designed to look like a Lee jeans back pocket patch appeared on the video wall and two smaller screens to the left and the right illuminated to follow the LIVE action footage. ACM and CMA award winning Singer/Songwriter Kenneth Mobley Brice Jr 45 from Sumter South Carolina with 5 studio albums with 21 singles including 8 #1s took the stage for a 1 hour / 10 song set. Besides his own material, he has also co-written singles for artists like Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw and the Eli Young Band. His ‘More Than a Memory’ recorded by Brooks became the first song ever to debut at number one. Beginning with ‘Soul’ a top 20 hit from 2021 we were off to an evening of all-charted singles. Lee wearing a WAYLON cap and guitar strap which read ‘Words Fail Music Speaks’ quickly won over his home State crowd. ‘It is so hood to be back in my home state!’ The set featured a total of 6 number ones including ‘I Don't Dance’ ‘Hard To Love’, ‘I Drive Your Truck’ dedicated to our military and first responders, ‘Rumor’, and ‘One Of Them Girls’. The sixth was ‘I Hope You're Happy Now’ a number one for Carly Pearce which she invited him to sing with her. ‘If y’all know it I’m gonna need you girls to maybe take care of her part cause I can’t exactly fold her up and put her in my back pocket and take her around the country with me.’ Brice was both tough and tender. One of the more tender moments were when he utilized the video screens to backlight his silhouette looking toward the audience as the amphitheater illuminated with cell phone lights. Another was his solo piano work on ‘I Don’t Dance’ exclaiming, ‘What a beautiful night y’all, come on.’ Mid-set Brice switched guitars, his strap in Clemson orange and purple revealing his football number ’55’. Lee attended Clemson University on a football scholarship. He played special teams there as the long snapper, but after an arm injury, he decided to focus on a country music career. Brice has come full circle playing a full set of all hits in his home state, a great evening for the local performer achieving stardom status. A half hour stage turn uncluttered the stage set leaving only Bentley’s equipment and amps in the forefront. At 9:11 p.m. the lights went dark as the lights lit up all red, the sounds of a plucking banjo made the mood complete. The center of the video wall opened up in all white light as Dierks made his appearance slowly walking down the ramp and taking his rightful place front and center. Beginning with ‘Gold’ the only song from the latest release bearing the tour’s name Dierks was off and running to an hour and thirty-five minute / 18 song set. It’s lyrics ‘I got some rust on my Chevy but it's ready to roll’ sent a clear message that the artist was speaking of himself metaphorically. The next song ‘Lot Of Leavin Left To Do’ with a dueling acoustic guitar match with Ben Helson continued the irony. ‘How we doin tonight Greenville? Simpsonville, I guess is the new hot spot in Greenville.’ In ‘I Hold On’ Bentley held up and kissed ‘this here flat top guitar’. He swapped out the lyrics, ‘singing every country song’ to ‘singing every Lee Brice song’ and challenged the audience to sing their loudest to the song’s chorus. He paused to honor his VIPS in attendance, his Aunt Barbie, his friend George, and his banjo player’s daughter Sidney. ‘I got family in the front row, it’s a big show.’. ’To get this party up to the next level, I’m gonna have to trade this instrument for my preferred instrument where I do my best work.’ “Nobody plays the red solo cup like I do.’ The song was ‘Am I The Only One’ with a mash of Toby Keith’s ‘Red Solo Cup’. 16 keg shaped mini-video screens made the song come alive. Bentley called for a beer shot-gunning contest choosing a representative from each side of the audience, one male and one female. Turning over the discarded cans, the man was the clear winner as he drained the remaining contents of each to the floor of the stage. ‘It’s 2024 everybody gets a medal’ he determined! The hits rolled on, ‘Living’ and ‘Say You Do’ a pair of number ones, and ‘Burning Man’ and ‘Gone’ a pair of number twos. ‘Do you guys like the blue-grassy more country stuff?’ Bentley asked as he positioned banjo and fiddle to his left and guitar and bass to his right. His cover of Tom Petty’s ‘American Girl’ which he recently recorded for the country tribute album ‘Petty Country’ would determine the answer to the question. The sole answer only spoke to who the American Girl was, not the style of music, ’I’m pretty sure she’s a South Carolina Girl!’ ‘Black’ was performed behind a special effect video wall, and ‘Up On The Ridge’ mashed in New Grass Revival’s ‘Callin' Baton Rouge’. Charlie Worsham (former Old Crow Medicine Show) took the lead, and the band took over the spotlight leaving Dierks in the dark. Dirks called for a humbs up or thumbs down vote between him and the band, then introduced them one by one. Likening the all-Nashville band to the 6 players of a hockey team there was Charlie Worsham on guitar and mandolin; CMA Fiddle Player Of The Year Dan Hochhalter on guitar and fiddle; Tim Sergent on 5-string banjo, pedal steel, lap steel, and dobro; team goalie Steve Misamore on drums; and Cassady Feasby on bass. Bentley introduced himself as the obvious team’s center. A trio of number ones ended the regular set, ‘5-1-5-0’, ‘Somewhere On A Beach’ and ‘What Was I Thinkin’ his first #1 released back in 2003. A mash-up of ‘Beers On Me’ was interwoven. As road attendants tossed cans of Bud Lites from the wings Dierks caught them all one-handed without dropping a single one and tossed them out to folks in the front row of the pit for a toast. Thanking the crowd, he exited the stage leaving the lights dimmed obviously for an encore. The stage lights brightened to all blue as Bentley reappeared dressed in an airline captain’s hat and jacket with aviator glasses. Taking his place a top a on a scissor-riser center stage with a backdrop of an airplane’s cockpit and instrument panel he performed ‘Drunk On A Plane’ tossing out Mardi Gras beads into the audience. Exiting the stage the second time the band reappeared entering from the center of the video wall resembling the side door of a van as their alter egos ‘Hot Country Knights’. Dressed in colorful 90’s clothing, tight jeans and wearing wigs, dancing about with a headless bass and keytar as instruments they performed a medley of all 90’s covers [.T-R-O-U-B-L-E / I Like It, I Love It / Meet In the Middle / Little Rock / Heads Carolina, Tails California / Achy Breaky Heart / Man I Feel Like a Woman / Friends in Low Places]. The over-the top ending brought down the house leaving folks in all smiles and laughter as we exited the venue back to the future with a renewed sense of hope drawn from our past!” Review and photo by DAve (Concerts #928-930)

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lokidotir · 10 months ago

Text

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

I actually write on Qoutev, and I have 8 published (so many that are not)

2. Whats your total Ao3 Qoutev word count?

The site doesn't tell you that unless you're on the editing page of each story. And I don't really want to go through them one by one, sorry

3. What Fandoms do you write for?

I used to write for LOTR, Marvel and Tmnt 2012. But I also have 4 original works.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Don't Leave (tmnt 2012 xreader oneshot)

Rockabye Baby (marvel)

Another View of the Story (LOTR)

The Train (original paranormal horror)

Don't Leave (the same as the first, but it's becoming a longer story)

(Please don't read the marvel or lotr :,) they were started years ago and I haven't finished)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I do! I mostly respond to ones that have an actual question, but I also thank those who love the story!

6. Which fic is yours has the angstiest ending?

I'm still not sure what 'angst' encompasses, but I think The Train would fit best.

But if we're talking fanfic... Another View of the Story. It probably won't ever being finished in the writing form, but I have finished it in my head, and I think it's a bit bittersweet.

7. Which of your fics has the happiest ending?

Oh, that would be my original work The Tiny Turtle for sure. It's made to sound like a fairy tale a mother might tell to her kids.

Fanfic tho... I suppose Don't Leave (one shot version)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No. Everyone who has seen them have only been supportive. Those that don't I guess just haven't said anything.

9. Do you write smut?

Uh, I don't really know what all that entails, but if your talking of naughty scenes, no. If it's about romance in general, I have a few unfinished fics. But it's mostly slow burn, or that sort.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not really.

11. Have you had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

13. Have you ever written a co-fic?

No.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I would say a kayak. They're such an amazing little craft.

Kidding!

I think I'm going to leave that to myself, if you don't mind :)

15. Do you have any WIPS you'd like to finish but probably never will?

Most of the marvel or lotr ones I have. My longer version of Don't Leave is just going to take a while. I do have another rottmnt one, but I only have a few concept art and story for it that needs to be comic form, but I don't think I'll ever be able to set the time down for it.

16. What are your writing strength?

I'm pretty good at coming up with ideas and scenarios (if I have to say so myself)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I add to much detail while writing scenes which makes me unsure how to write the rest of the story. I have a hard time connecting scenes or breaking them off.

I also just get depressed and give up on an idea or writing when someone tells me there's something wrong with it.

18. Thoughts on bilingual dialog?

They can be fun, but I personally couldn't pull one off.

19. First Fandom you wrote for?

LOTR. Which will probably never be finished.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Don't Leave. I've been going through some stuff, and it was something to help me vent. It's also the most well received, which also helped in that. It does cover some self harm, so there's TWs on it, and the longer version will be covering even more. But I am completely satisfied with the one shot version.

I appreciate you tagging me @fanatess. I won't be tagging anyone else for this.

I have also written a physical Poetry book! The publishers I went through totally failed at the editing, but I'm still proud that it's real.

20 Questions for fic writers

Saw @acewithapaintbrush post this on her page and I figured that I join in on the fun

How many works do you have on Ao3?

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

400,938 (woah...dang and that number is going to continue to rise as I am in the process of working on two fics and got more coming down the pipeline)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has taken over my life right now, but I have also written for Ducktales 2017 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

"I didn't mean to hurt you" - Rise of the TMNT

"I'm Nothing Without Them (well we are nothing without you) - Rise of the TMNT

"Expressing Love Through Tech" - Rise of the TMNT

"Taken Together" - Rise of the TMNT

"You Are Not Alone" - Rise of the TMNT

5. Do you respond to comments?

Sometimes I do. I love getting comments

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm not one for angsty endings but the two that come to mind for me are "This Sickness is Destroying My(Our) Life" from Ducktales 2017 and "You Are My Hero, You Are My Sunshine" from Rise of the TMNT

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

It would probably be "Taken Together" (Ducktales 2017). I put my main characters through so much pain and suffering. They deserved the happy ending that they got

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I used to get a lot of hate on my Ducktales 2017 fics, but I think that was just trolls trying to put negativity on my work. I haven't really experienced that when writing my Rise of the TMNT fics, which is another reason why I love that fandom so much

9. Do you write smut?

No and I never will

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you have written?

Not really. I hope to one day do a Rise of the TMNT x Tmnt 2012 crossover or maybe a Rise of the TMNT x Ducktales 2017 crossover

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

I'm not much of a shipper. I'm actually much much more interested in platonic relationships! Especially with the TMNT brothers being the best brothers. Platonic is my one true love!

15. What is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

There is a Ducktales 2017 and a Darkwing Duck somewhat crossover fic that I started back in 2022 but that I never got to finish because I just simply lost the motivation to do it and will probably never get back to it. There is also one more Ducktales 2017 that I have two more chapters to complete, but writer's block has hit me for real on that and I don't know when I will get around to completing it

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I write emotions and internal stuff a character is going through quite well. I have also been told quite a few times that my characterizations are spot on which is always nice to hear cause that's the most important thing for me

17. What are you writing weaknesses?

I really do not like writing fight scenes. I am so-so when it comes to dialogue; the trick is just finding the right words to say and how to make it all flow together, and I am not the best at that it would seem

18. Thoughts of writing dialogue in another language in fics?

I've used a little bit of Spanish in my Rise of the TMNT fics becasue of Leonardo and Senor Hueso, so only when it is necessary

19. First Fandom you wrote for?

Ducktales 2017

20. Favorite fic you have written?

For Ducktales 2017, it would have to be "Taken Together". Rise of the TMNT is a bit tricker as I have a ton of favorties, so I just narrow it down to any Disaster Twins fic that I have written, with my top two being "My Twin, My Hero" and "A Twin's Heartbeat"

******************

Not gonna tag anyone, everyone who wants to take a trip down memory lane, be my guest!

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buckysnumberonegirl · 4 years ago

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My little girl

Bucky Barnes Fluffy Drabble

Written for an anon sent in to @the-ss-horniest-book-club

Warnings- fluff with fluff on top, will hit you in the feels maybe

Written on mobile so any mistakes are my own, comments and reblogs appreciated 💕

For the first time in 80 years Bucky was safe. A roof over his head, friends… no, family all around him, a place he could call home. But for whatever the reason, he couldn’t sleep. He was going on probably 4 days now. He had moved his bed, changed his sheets, tried the tea and meditation Wanda recommended, nothing. After and hour tossing and turning he grabbed a blank and walked out to the common room. Tony spared no expense on making sure the compound was perfects the common room was no exception, i huge flatscreen that could be in a small movie theater somewhere, couches that felt like a cloud ,anything someone could need.

Throwing the blanket down on the couch he put on Netflix something random the spider kid had recommended, and layed down.

He closed his eyes and drifted off, reminding himself before dozing off to ask Tony where he got this couch.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been when he heard footsteps approaching . He shot up hand going to his hip where he usually holstered a weapon only to find he had nothing…. and was face to face with a child.

The girl couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 "msowwy." She sounded so tiny, and she was. Her huge brown eyes looked up at him before digging into the pocket of her overalls. “Can you wanna cowwer?” She grinned and held up a large pack of Crayons.

“Uh sure” Bucky looked around, not knowing there were kids on the compound other than Morgan and Peter.

He crossed his legs as he sat on the floor by the coffee table, the girl pulling out several coloring pages from the single overall pocket*. Bucky unfolded one of a cat and began coloring. The little girl began to speak. “I want a kitty” her eyes not leaving her paper as she turned an animated bullfrog pink. “So you should get one” he picked up the brown crayon and colored in the tail of the cat, feeling an odd sense of calm wash over him. “I wanna, but mommy says I can’t until I’m this many” the child held up all ten fingerstgen counted out loud “I like your arm, it’s pretty” the child smiled and continued on. The frog was now pink with blue spots. “Well thank you, where is your mom by the way” Figuring he’d ask before the subject changed, he was to late. “If I had an arm like that I would put stickers on it, do you like stickers? I have at least 10 million that are all different kinds, wanna see?”

Bucky smiled feeling more relaxed than he ever had. “I do like stickers, and I would love to see…” before he could finish a beautiful sticker a Disney princess was pulled from the child’s overalls and carefully placed on his forearm. “That’s Moana, she’s my favorite, mommy knows all the songs. Wow! I like your kitty!” The little girl picked up the page and hugged it. “Thank you for the sticker kiddo, how about I make a hot chocolate for you then we find your mom okay? You can have hot chocolate right?”

The little girl nodded excitedly taking his hand and the pictures they had worked on and tugging him to the kitchen.

Bucky had just finished adding extra marshmallows to hot cocoa, when he heard a voice "babe what did I tell you about running off without me?" the voice is meant to be scolding the girl but it's soft. He looked over to see the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. The kid was cute, but she was breathtaking. “Oh mommy, this is my new best friend see?” The girl led her mother over to him. He held out his hand showing off his fancy sticker “Hi, I’m James Barnes, sorry if she can’t have hot chocolate I just figured… uh she said it was fine, but she’s a kid so, I’m sorry”

The woman laughed “it’s totally fine, she can have hot chocolate, I see she gave you a sticker” she smiled. “You should consider yourself lucky James, she doesn’t give stickers away easily.”

“Oh yeah? I’m sure she must have given you at least a few of her 10 million.” The little girl smiled up at him.

“Oh yeah my phone had 5 on the case and I believe our fridge at home has several.. along with someone wall…” the woman looked down at her daughter who decided it was a perfect time to look anywhere else. “Oh my gosh I haven’t even told you my name, I’m Y/N and this tiny trouble maker is Milena”

Bucky smiled at the name “Ah Milena, Loved by the people, gracious, dear one”

Y/N smiled “I didn’t peg you for a Russian mr.Barnes”

“Nor I, you doll, but I’m not Russian I just have a history there I suppose” he smirked and stuck his tongue out at Milena who was doing the same to him.

“Well,” Y/N smiles, placing her hand on her daughter's head “I could use some breakfast, how about you?” She looked at Bucky who nodded, though the little girl answered “only if we can bring my friend” she ran over grabbing his hand

The three walking out of the kitchen together smiling.

—————-

It was Bucky's birthday, he wasn’t really sure how old he was but he knew that this was the eleventh year he was celebrating it.

Y/N and Milena had spent the whole day making it special.

He was so grateful for the little girl who helped him put his life back together. 2 years after meeting Y/N they started dating and after 4 they were married. He treated Milena like his own little girl, showering her with toys and love and anything she could possibly want.

As they all sat down for dinner he looked at the girl he considered his daughter, bouncing with anticipation. Milena looked between Bucky and her mother over and over before blurting out “can I please give it to him now”

Y/N smiled “go ahead honey”

Milena ran out of the dining room returning with a bag and a box. Placing it in front of him “you have to open the bag first”

Bucky smiled, carefully pulling out the tissue paper, inside the bag was a small wooden frame. Inside was a picture from years ago, he was sitting on the floor with his eyes closed and a face full of makeup. His hair was poorly braided and Milena was standing proudly placing a crown on his head.

The frame had a quote on it

Family isn’t defined by last names and blood

It’s defined by commitment and Love

That alone almost brought Bucky to tears but before he could say anything Milena spoke up again “open the box dad, please”

He signed and opened the box, on top was a letter.

For 10 years you’ve been my father. And now if you want to mom and I agree we should make it official. Love you dad ~Milly

Bucky moved the letter and found adoption papers. Already signed by Y/N, all he had to do was sign a few lines.

“I figured it was a good gift before you get to old” Milena hugged Him, tears rolled down his face.

When he had fallen off that train he had lost everything, and for the first time since finding Steve again, Bucky had found his family.

*Authors note if you have ever been around children or have children you know that they can fit so many things in their pockets, this is not a stretch.

#marvel #bucky barnes #bucky fanfic #bucky imagine #bucky fluff #bucky fic #james barnes #james buchanan barnes #txt fluff #bucky #drabble

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actiaslunaris · 2 years ago

Text

2022 Fic in Review

Rules: filter to 2022 on your AO3 stat page and answer some questions/link some fics for everyone to enjoy! (Some of these questions were taken from a wrapup meme on Twitter and some from one seen on Dreamwidth. Twenty-five in all.)

1. Your yearly word count:

23,196 words. This is a lot to post. I actually wrote much more into works in progress, however.

2. Fave fic you wrote this year:

"over the water, over the sea (with you)" [https://archiveofourown.org/works/40664607]

I keep returning to this, because it encapsulates a depth of feeling I find hard to express in anything other than fanfic. I love writing these characters and getting inside their heads; I keep saying that and it keeps being true.

3. Fave fic you read this year:

"As You Like It" by RiverFragrance; it's so perfectly tropey. [https://archiveofourown.org/works/42446331]

4. Fave ship you wrote for:

Obvs, Yukawa/Utsumi. This was the only ship I wrote this year.

5. Fave character POV to write:

Yukawa Manabu's. This was on purpose, since I have a work in progress that's from his perspective, but has so far proven difficult to write. I've had to stay in the headspace for it. The easiest way to accomplish that was write most stories from his perspective.

6. Fave line you wrote:

"Past and present merge like colliding wavelengths, the pattern of interference now visible for what it is." (open the door, don't let it sting) [https://archiveofourown.org/works/41077578]

The way holograms are made is amazing and fascinating. Yukawa applying his knowledge of physics to his emotional state to achieve realization, gathering all the clues at last.

7. WIP you finally finished:

"the frequency you're giving off" [https://archiveofourown.org/works/41335740, explicit]

I was assembling research items for this as far back as four years ago, when I came across a gif of a couple on the beach in front of a fire. At that point in time, I wasn't sure what it was meant for; I kept thinking about it and building understanding with research, until I arrived at this story.

8. WIP you've yet to finish:

"your chain tied to me tight"

A story about boundaries, communication, and ties that bind, set a few months after the conclusion of the first season of Galileo, for my personal project of a Kink Bingo card.

9. Your most read fic this year:

"open the door, don't let it sting" [https://archiveofourown.org/works/41077578]

This, at the time of writing, has 72 hits, beating out "the frequency you're giving off".

10. Your longest fic this year:

Posted, it's "open the door, don't let it sting" at 7,993 words. Unposted, it's "'til they sparked" currently at 18,268 words. It's slow burn; actual literal slow burn for the first dang time in my life. I only hope I can stick the landing.

11. Your shortest fic this year:

"all you see is red" at 298 words. A tiny scene of Utsumi and Yukawa on a date in a museum. [https://archiveofourown.org/works/40300701]

12. Fave fic title you used:

"the frequency you're giving off" borrowed from a song by Alessi's Ark. I just love the way it wraps up all the themes in the story and I was also hoping I'd be the first to use this lyric as a title and I think I was? Though it doesn't matter if I wasn't.

13. Biggest surprise while writing this year:

Being able to stick to writing a story or scene for every one of the Sunshine Challenge's prompts for this year. Also, because of that, I was able to write a continuation to "Ready to Hope" which I truly thought would not happen.

14. Fave comment you received this year:

Probably cosmictuesdays's response to a snippet of a story I'm writing. I've thought about it at numerous times throughout the year and it pleases me each time.

15. Fave fic author to read this year:

RiverFragrance. Although I'm only just dipping my toe into all the Chinese fanfic that exists, RiverFragrance has such a good understanding of Yukawa and Utsumi and consistently delivers good plot.

16. Total fics/chapters uploaded this year:

Eight. This is very good for me and also seems to be what I can expect most years.

17. What are you looking forward to next year?

Finishing -- hopefully -- "your chain tied to me tight" in time for my birthday. After that? Just more works in progress over the summer; hopefully also writing the remaining four works of my 30Kisses project.

18. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

"drop through your likenesses" [https://archiveofourown.org/works/40300710]

This was written for Sunshine Challenge and 30Kisses, and I'm proud of it because it took a prompt I thought was going to be difficult, but by means of intense brain-storming I was able to write something I had only half-formed ideas for and make it exactly what I wanted. Additionally, it also is one of the best examples of my writing style. I've worked hard to clean my prose, while making it poetic, and this does that.

19. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

All the kudos on "wholly to be a fool" are rather a surprise. [https://archiveofourown.org/works/41987514]

20. What work was the quickest to write?

"all you see is red" Written in about two hours, into the box at Dreamwidth.

21. What work took you the longest to write?

"the frequency you're giving off" Started at the end of 2020 or beginning of 2021. I don't know because my first backed-up draft had many words in it, already and I can't recall when I started. *shrug*

22. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

Four documents started, ten in total planned.

23. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

Everything unfinished, of course. "'til they sparked" is proving to be the one that got out of hand, and it's just the third in a series of... possibly five stories. I don't even know at this point because my ideas for what I want to include are well-formed but impossible to place at the moment.

24. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

Maybe, possibly, mulling it over: Loid/Yor.

I also have an idea for a Kishitani & Kuribayashi fic that I like thinking about but would take a lot of planning.

25. What do you listen to while writing?

Mostly synthwave, lo-fi, chillwave, and barberbeats. Barberbeats is the best find I made this year to unlock my writing brain.

Sometimes I listen to the songs that inspire the titles; like for "open the door, don't let it sting" I listened to "Rule #1 - Magic" by Fish in a Birdcage and "Read My Mind" by The Killers on repeat for a few writing sessions.

#2022 wrap up

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dreaming-of-assclass · 4 years ago

Note

Group 4 Adult hc’s please 😭 they’re all precious! Thank you for loving Group 4

YES OMG! I love this! And you’re so right 😭 They are so precious and I adore them 💜

WAIT. I wasn’t sure if you meant individual hc’s or ones of them all together 😭 If I messed this up, lmk and I’ll do new hc’s!!

Karma Akabane

He’s a distinguished bureaucrat by day, a compete fucking disaster by night

No who am I kidding

He brings chaos no matter what time

Lives to drive his co-workers insane, even if he gets along with them. It’s just a habit of him being around anyone lmao

His apartment is really expensive and nice...except it’s also a fucking mess.

See when he was a kid and lived alone, there was still a maid around. He didn’t live like a slob.

But as an adult with no supervision whatsoever....well, he kinda lets loose. A lot.

Drops his $500 suits right onto his floor, has piles of clothing around, his official government papers are laying everywhere, like Karma, isn’t that illegal??? Lmao

Invites his co-workers out for drinks, or he happily goes along if someone else invites him. Actually makes more of an effort to be social as an adult, surprisingly.

Irritates Terasaka whenever he gets to see him...which is fairly often hehe

Also likes to barge into Group 4’s lives...literally. Like he’ll randomly show up to Nagisa’s classroom, sneak onto Kayano’s film set, invite himself into the nursing home Kanzaki is at and befriend elderly people, etc.

No matter what though, you can’t change Karma lmao. He will go to ridiculous and edgy methods in his job, even snoop on government officials outside of work

You DO NOT want him as an enemy. If any politician crosses him, Terasaka tears up on their behalf. “Just try to survive, man.” “Uh, what?” “You’ll see.”

Competent adult rating: 5/10

Manami Okuda

It’s not surprising of course, but she’s totally dedicated to her work and research. Her loved ones have to remind her to take breaks often.

Her apartment is generally tidy because she’s barely there.

Her work desk space on the other hand...is hella messy lol. She tends to throw papers around in the middle of stuff, and there are a few old food containers or takeout boxes from late night work.

She likes to tie her hair up in a braided bun often, to keep it out of the way. That’s mandatory for lab work anyways.

Dresses in a lot of casual but comfy attire, like blouses, jeans, skirts and boots, etc.

Gets along well with her colleagues, but she still has that habit of being a little reserved. Like she won’t jump right into hanging out with them, only if she’s invited to.

Her communication skills have improved so much omg, let’s all be proud of her <3

She has a pet chameleon!! It’s name is Rutherford, after the chemist lol

Tomohito Sugino

He actually lives by the strictest guidelines out of all of them

Since he’s a professional athlete, he really has to take care of his body and maintain his physique.

So like...a diet focusing on proteins, vitamins, nutrients, lean meats, vegetables, etc. All that good stuff.

And he works out twice a day. Once in the morning, he goes out for a jog as cardio. Then in the evening, he’ll do a more strength-based workout for his core and biceps.

As usual, he is very social and makes friends super easily UwU. When he’s not focusing on work (this is rare) he likes to make plans with people often.

Can’t handle being alone for too long

Gets confused/annoyed by finance matters a lot lmao. Hates filing taxes and doing paperwork, treats it like a chore rather a necessity for adulting

He has a really popular Instagram page actually, given that he’s a well-known baseball player. He posts mostly selfies, pics with friends, workout mirror selfie’s lmao, and of course pics of his dog

She’s a golden Labrador named Kimi, and he adores her so much. She’s a puppy still but she’s very active and loving.

He becomes a really popular meme for his very tired facial expression during a particularly rough game. Sugino takes great pride in this lmao

Credit to @assclass-dump for this amazing idea: Sugino being like Tony Hawke, and literally no one recognizes him outside of his baseball uniform lmaooooo. I love that.

Kaede Kayano

She has her shit together...for the most part

Kayano’s fame as an actress only grows more and more as she gets older. She has a ton of awesome big roles, even internationally.

This is canon: she does her own stunts and she always amazes the entire crew, especially if her co-star is new to meeting her and had no idea.

Kayano tends to not always take care of herself that well though. She exercises and maintains a strong physique daily, but her meals tend to consist of like...a flimsy salad and a pudding cup and that’s it.

Her apartment is pretty taken care of for the most part, especially when she’s filming and only comes back for sleep.

On her off-months though, best believe this girl tries to chill at home for as much as she can lol. She needs that well-deserved rest.

Kayano visits Aguri’s grave once every month. She brings her favorite flowers and gives kind of a life update on everything. She cries every time.

During her lowest moments, she’ll open up the yearbook that Korosensei left for her. She’ll read all his encouraging notes, laugh at the goofy memories they made...

She stays in contact with Kanzaki and Sugino the most. It’s harder with Karma and Okuda who have very demanding jobs too...and Nagisa who is hyper-focused on teaching

Gets involved in a couple dating scandals and such because the media is bored and nosy. But she shuts that shit down so fast and ruthlessly.

Yukiko Kanzaki

Adulting definitely comes the easiest for her, out of all of them

At the residence care facility she works at, she’s known for being the chillest and prettiest nurse

Bonds with most of her patients very easily. She especially has a sweet spot for elderly women, since they remind her of her beloved grandmother

She also had learned to be more open and comfortable with expressing herself. Unlike her junior high self, she isn’t envied or disliked or treated as an idol.

She actively communicates with her co-workers and has become better at making connections.

In true Kanzaki fashion, she absolutely will speak out if an injustice happens near her, and this sadly can be common in elderly care homes.

She doesn’t tolerate mistreatment at all. She voices her concerns and objections in her usual classy way, but if nothing changes, she’ll be persistent and more aggressive.

Kanzaki lives in a fairly modest apartment not too far from work. She walks every morning to get fresh air and enjoy being outside. She also stops by a cafe for breakfast and brings something for a co-worker she’s especially close to.

Even though her family could afford to get something way nicer and more expensive, Kanzaki insisted they don’t. She wants to work hard and achieve things through effort.

Besides she’s always been curious about a more humble lifestyle. She finds that she actually enjoys it immensely.

Nagisa Shiota

Hey hey hey, it’s our favorite new teacher <3

Seriously Nagisa is super dedicated to his job. He spends a good portion of his free time making more plans and ideas for future lessons.

He’s also just...such a spectacular teacher.

No matter how difficult his students may be, he never treats them like they’re problems. He always gives them a lot of kindness and respect, which sadly they don’t get a lot from others.

Disciplines in a really good way, like he’ll correct them but won’t sound condescending. He doesn’t sugarcoat, he’ll be honest but absolutely will give new chances.

Also can be totally fun and goofy if the time calls for it. Doesn’t want his students to ever fear him or feel like he’s unapproachable.

Makes learning to be fun and creative, also connects with each student one-on-one for sure.

He lives in a super tiny apartment. That teacher salary bro 😔

Takes a train everyday for a short commute to get to work.

His apartment also is prone to being littered around with a bunch of teaching stuff until he gets to organizing it.

Is generally very liked by his colleagues! Some of them don’t really agree with his teaching style and think he’s too lenient, Nagisa doesn’t pay them mind.

Can cook really well but is prone to buying convenience store meals often, because of his schedule.

Keeps a photo of 3-E on his nightstand.

#assclass #ansatsu kyoushitsu #assassination classsroom #headcanons #group 4 #karma akabane #kaede kayano #tomohito sugino #manami okuda #yukiko kanzaki #nagisa shiota #audhshsjjd I could’ve just made a whole post for karma 😂

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beyscape · 5 years ago

Text

The Intern - 1

Andy Barber x Reader

Summary: Being Andy’s intern meant you got to spend more time by his side more than anyone. This was fine, however, until feelings got in the way and made things complicated

Warnings: Age gap, technically cheating, swearing and stuff

Word Count: 2.9k

A/N Spoilers as it progresses! I’ve not read the book and only saw the first two episodes so if you haven’t seen episodes 1 and 2, what are you waiting for go watch them! I’m putting the reader around 26 and Andy around 40.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

02:37 am

You sighed at the clock, slightly feeling cheated that only 9 minutes had passed since you last checked it, when it felt like it should have been hours. Sipping at the now cold coffee you bought from the vending machine down the hall, you leaned back in your chair. You had been staring at the mountain of paper scattered around your desk for hours now, yet it didn’t seem like you were able to make a dent into it. It sat there, almost mocking you; you scowled at it.

The office was dark and empty, it had been for some time now as the last person had left sometime after the clock stroke 10 pm. Without the occasional whistling of the night guard patrolling the building, you seemed totally alone. Not just physically too, you felt like you had no one with you, supporting you. Your gaze drifted to the big desk left unoccupied behind the glass wall. Andy Barber, the plaque on the desk read, right next to the messy pen holder and another mountain of paperwork, almost identical to the one you had on your desk. Great, you thought, they could mock you both. Even the pile of paper had someone. You rubbed your eyes as even your thoughts stopped making much sense.

You were tired.

It had been two weeks now that Andy was forced to take a paid leave, following the arrest warrant for his son. Fourteen days. Then why the hell did it feel like fourteen months?

Being Andy’s intern was something you simply loved. You were excited and eager to do your job, straight out of a prestigious law school you had gotten such a good job, so of course you were fresh and happy to please your bosses and wanting to make a great career for yourself by learning from some of the very best. At least, that’s how it started almost a year ago. You had heard of Andy’s name, followed some of his cases as he was one of the best district attorney’s of the whole East Coast. The job wasn’t easy by any means, even though he was a kind man he would never go easy on you about your job. You liked that air of professionalism he carried around him though, it seemed as if he was good at everything he did.

He was incredibly smart, funny, kind, not to mention downright gorgeous, and he would always look at you with such emotion in his eyes that you couldn’t help but feel your heart jump a little every time he gave you one of his deep looks. So, it was an understatement to say you had a crush on him. It was impossible not to! That’s how you tried to comfort yourself in those late-night hours when you were up from tossing and turning and all you could think of was how his lips would taste on yours. It was just a simple, tiny crush that you couldn’t do anything about. Aside from obstacles such as the age gap between you and him technically being your boss there was also the matter of him being married. You had met his family on a couple of occasions, they had seemed like the perfect little American family. No matter how deep your feelings ran, you knew you couldn’t possibly be the reason for breaking apart a family.

It was just a tiny crush anyways.

Your mind drifted to Andy, how his once bright and sharp eyes now seemed tired and the bags forming under his eyes made him look older than he was. It was funny how two weeks can change a man’s life so drastically.

Defending Jacob wasn’t an easy job, what with so many in the office believing that he was responsible with the murder of Ben. You thought of Jacob, images of him visiting Andy in the office sometimes after school flashed in your mind, and how he would shyly smile at you when you offered him some candy or asked about his classes. You just didn’t think that a boy like him could be the murderer. You wanted to catch the actual murderer and put an end to this whole ordeal so that maybe, hopefully things would go back to normal. You had forgotten what normal even was in those two frantic weeks.

You didn’t need to pull such long hours at the office, in fact if Neil found out he would probably make a sly remark about it, but you wanted to. You wanted to catch a murderer and make sure a teenage boy didn’t go to prison over a crime he didn’t commit, but more than those you wanted to help Andy.

You thought of the times he would smile at you, thanking you for your hard work. “I have no idea what I would do without you, Y/N,” he had once said, the words still burning bright in your memory, “I can’t even remember how things were before you came in and started your internship.” His gaze was so intense at that point, his blue eyes so deep you thought you would drown in them if you stared for too long, his smile so relaxed and curved to the one side, his hands playing with the end of his tie he had loosened moments ago, he was everything you had ever wanted and some more. You had lowered your gaze back then, a bashful smile appearing on your heated face. Oh, how you wished you were back at that diner he had taken you out to celebrate after a long and tiresome case.

A sad smile played on your face as you reflected on the many memories you had made in the passing year, all of them equally leaving you flustered. You were so wrapped up in your thoughts however, you didn’t hear the footsteps approaching your part of the floor. Your head snapped as movement entered your peripheral vision, sending a dull ache down your neck sore from slumping over your desk for hours. It was too dark for you to see the face of the person approaching, but you knew him well enough to recognize him just from his silhouette.

Your mouth fell open ever so slightly, your heart picking up its speed as he made his way towards you. What was he doing here at three in the morning on a Tuesday night? He wasn’t even supposed to be allowed in the building! Despite these thoughts and many more swirling through your head, there was one main thought blaring in your mind: you missed him very much. You had seen him around town of course, but it was only here and there and in the passing. Neil had made it very clear that you weren’t to see Andy as “it would create a conflict of interest” he had claimed. You knew though deep down it was because Neil hated Andy’s guts and was probably happy to have him out of the office.

He finally walked close enough that the light of your desk lamp washed over his tired features, you noted the way his hair was a mess spiking up in different directions as if he had been tossing and turning restlessly in bed. He wasn’t wearing his usual work attire, those suits you loved seeing him in, and instead was in a pair of grey sweatpants and a simple hoodie on top. Your gaze shifted back to his face where surprise now gleamed in his eyes along with something else you couldn’t quite place.

“Y/N?” He said and momentarily all you could think of was how much you loved the way your name rolled off of his tongue.

“What are you doing here so late?” He asked as he stopped right in front of your desk, hands casually in his pockets. He didn’t need an answer however as his laid on the paperwork you had sitting in front of you, going page after page about him and more specifically his son’s involvement with the murder case.

“I see. That asshole Neal keeping you here all night? You look like you need some rest.” He remarked with a darkened, displeased look in his eyes. You shook your head, wanting to explain, to say so much, yet never finding the right words.

“I’m here because I want to, Neal has nothing to do with it. I wanna figure out a way to prove Jake’s innocence, to see if we maybe missed something. I don’t believe he did it.” You replied with a fierce passion, your words breaking the silence engulfing the whole building.

“That makes the two of us.” He smiled at that for a briefly, then seemed to catch himself. He frowned, almost feeling guilty for smiling. Your heart panged.

“How about you Mr. Barber? You really are not supposed to be here.”

“How many times have I told you to call me Andy? Kingston was at night shift, told him I forgot to grab some of my personal stuff I needed. And he let me in.” He scratched the back of his neck, slightly swaying on his heels.

“No offense but if Kingston’s just letting people in maybe he needs a little talk.” You teased him, wishing to see him smile once again. He didn’t, but you could easily read the amusement in his eyes. You had spent too long by his side, watching him, to miss those little things.

“You wanna take a walk? Clear your head a little. I know I need that.” He asked in response, surprising both you and himself.

“What about those personal stuff you needed to grab?” You shuffled on your feet to pull on your coat, hoping it would be enough to brace you against the chill of the night.

“Nah, I honestly didn’t know what to do or where to go, one thing I knew was I needed to get out of that house. Next thing I know, I’m in front of the building. Figured I’d try my chance at getting inside. But now that I’ve ran into you, my night’s a bit better.” He motioned towards the door with his head, his hair swaying slightly in the same direction, “Let’s go.”

The elevator ride and the couple of minutes it took to walk through the building was spent in silence aside from Kingston wishing you both a good night at the front security desk, as if you both didn’t know what to say or how to start a conversation. In that same silence you walked towards the park close to the tall grey building you had left moments ago, shivering against the cold of three a.m.

“So,” you started after minutes of silence, not being able to take it any longer, “do you wanna talk about it?” You hugged your arms around your body, tucking your already cold hands.

“It’s just,” he sighed and rolled his shoulders, almost as if trying to drop some of the weight he was carrying, “it’s crazy how fast everything went to shit. He didn’t do it, Y/N, I know my son. And they are ruining his life just like that. I can’t believe all of this and there is nothing I can do as I watch them ruin my son’s future so easily, just like that.” He rubbed his forehead, wishing for things to go back to normal, just as you. You both knew that normal was a long memory now, things could never go back to the way they were. Not entirely.

“I’m so sorry you are going through all this, Mr. Barber. Neither you nor Jake deserve this.” You let out a sigh matching his, desperately wanting to comfort the man who haunted every waking thought you had, yet finding yourself unable to as you glanced at the ring shining on his finger under the orange-ish street lights.

“How many times have I told you to call me Andy?” He turned his gaze to you now, you swallowed.

“More than I can remember the number of, Mr. Barber.” You gave him a cautious smile, unable to hold it in. Your heart swell with happiness as he snorted at your last remark, a soft look on his face as he took you in. You bit your lip before speaking again.

“How is Laurie?” You had to know. Damn your hands which ached to hold him, damn whatever may stand between you, you wanted to take action and do something as the urge, the need to close the distance between you got stronger and stronger. To do that, however, you had to know.

Andy flinched slightly at the mention of his wife, as if he didn’t expect for you to bring her up. Or like he even forgot that he had a wife. A bitter, short laugh escaped his lips as he ruefully examined the sliver band on his finger.

“Laurie is… Laurie. We are fighting again.” He raised his gaze to meet your eyes. You were caught off guard, you raised an eyebrow at the word ‘again’. He continued when you said nothing.

“We have been having some problems, we even had counselling a while ago. Laurie was always so keen about wanting to keep it quiet and locked away, and we tried it for Jake’s sake. Coming from a broken home type of situation, I wanted to try for Jake. These two weeks however, things have been really bad, on top of everything. This whole thing brought back a ton of unresolved bitterness from years ago. I never told anyone that.” He looked at you as if he was seeing you under a new light, his shoulders stood higher and more relaxed. A warm feeling spread in you as he confided in you things he never muttered to another soul, you smiled at him softly, his eyes drawing you in and spinning your head.

“I’m so sorry, Andy.” Was all you needed to say as you lay a delicate hand on his arm, the gentleness in your eyes surprising him and make him feel things he got the taste of so long ago.

One look at the hand you lay on his arm and another at your face, and Andy found himself to be in trouble. He already was, don’t get him wrong, his life seemed to be a magnet for all things bad and problematic at the moment. This, however, was a new kind of trouble as he looked at his intern, this young girl who had diligently followed him for a whole year and always seemed to know exactly what he needed. Before he knew what he was doing, he closed the distance between you with two small steps, and now was so close that you were too afraid to breathe, scared that even the smallest of moves would fully erase the very little gap left between your lips.

Despite your whole body feeling as if you were thrown into a scorching flame and every inch of your skin itching to get even closer, you waited, staring into his eyes with slightly raised eyebrows and hooded eyes. Your mouth was barely open and so was his, you were so close that every time he ruggedly breathed you felt his hot breath caress your lips.

“Fuck,” he whispered before giving in and closing the distance after a painful minute, placing those soft lips you had spent hours fantasizing about on yours. There was nothing gentle with his kiss, getting more and more heated and frantic as if he was a man needing cold water after spending his whole life walking around the desert.

You whimpered against his kiss as Andy’s one hand wrapped around your waist and the other finding your neck, pulling you towards him with no more distance to cover. You were so entangled with each other in the dark, it was hard to tell where one body ended and the other started. Placing one last, this time gentler kiss on your lips, he rested his head against your forehead, his eyes for closed as he breathed a deep breath.

“Oh Y/N,” he said, his voice strained and barely above a whisper, “what are we going to do, baby girl?”

You had no answer for him, a mess of emotions after the kiss that you felt your knees wouldn’t be able to hold you for much longer. So, you clung on Andy, his tense and broad shoulders feeling like they could carry you for as long as you needed, just as Andy’s hands clung on your waist, holding you close to his chest, his forehead still laying against yours.

In the park next to the towering building you both belonged to, you stood together some time after three. The chilly wind making its way into your lungs did nothing against the heat you felt all over your body, not cooling down one bit. In that park, in the safety of the shadows and the quiet of the town, you were safe. Not a defense attorney and his intern, just two people desperately needing to hold each other, too frightened to let go and face the world.

As the clock showed a little past 3 in the morning, you and Andy were safe in the dimly lit park, unaware how much that would change so very soon.

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There you have it folks! I’m so so whipped for this man. Make sure to follow me so you don’t miss the other chapters! My inbox is open for requests, feedback or just to scream about Chris Evans! :P

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