#Honestly it can be either it’s up to the peeps who fill the prompt lol

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 189

“Hey Danny,” Tucker’s voice came from the other side of the couch, echoing slightly in their developing Lair. “Do you remember our third grade hamster?” 

Danny raised his head from Sam’s leg, blinking green-blue eyes. “Yess…?” 

Tucker was looking down at him, hands on the cushions. “Alright so you know how Cujo came back and practically every other animal in Amity?” 

“Yeah?” Sam was the one to answer that time, pausing in playing with Danny’s hair. 

“We should totally see if Mr. Nibbles the III also came back.”

“So what you’re saying is we need to go on a roadtrip to find our childhood hamster and not explain to anyone why?” 

“I mean, I’m in, but why not explain?” 

“Because think about the chaos Sam. Besides, vacation time is supposed to be fun!”

[tottwritesfanfic]

Fanfic Authors Tag Game

Thankee for tagging @moramewhq​

AO3 name(s): Tottwriter, [REDACTED] Fandoms: Haikyuu!!, Digimon (a little lapsed, but I still tinker with my WIPs!), sliiiightly BNHA, and I have a TUA wip which I will someday resume. I try not to venture into new fandoms but, you know...I fail. Number of fics: I have 56 posted works, but also, uh... a few which I haven’t gotten to posting yet.

1. Fic I spent the most time on:

Um. Oh jeez. I mean, I guess nothing has overtaken Hope’s Fire just yet, because that’s the monster. Hopefully nothing else will? XD

2. Fic I spent the least time on:

Well this is genuinely a toss-up, because I have a few which I wrote for 20 minute prompt game fills, and then hardly even bothered to edit before they were thrown up on Ao3 without a backward glance.

Annoyingly, some of them are among my most popular works.

3. Longest fic:

Hope’s Fire! As I said, it’s the monster, currently clocking in at ~144k. My longest completed fic is The Ocean’s Curse though, which is 62.4k!

4. Shortest fic:

Okay so my shortest fic is actually a bit of weird experimental stuff I wrote for Starbound, which you will note I did not list in the fandoms above, lol. It’s old and weird and 351 words long... I don’t think anyone wants to read it. You don’t want to read it.

5. Most hits:

Hope’s Fire! It’s not really surprising tbh, given how long ago I started it and how many chapters it has. 

6. Most kudos:

Hope’s Fire wins this one too! I bet you’re all really shocked to learn this.

7. Most comment threads:

...imma give you lot one guess. 

8. Favorite fic I wrote:

fuck. Er. I dunno? I mean I write because I like writing them, you know? But honestly if I have to narrow it down... Parallel for the ‘serious’ fics, and either Press Play or (Not) Moving On for my more lighthearted stuff. It’s hard to pick when I swing between such tone extremes!

9. Fic you want to re-write:

I mean this is probably gonna sound really dumb but...kinda also Hope’s Fire??

Hear me out tho, because it’s complicated (and also I sorta already am). This fic started in 2015. I love it wholeheartedly, and I keep coming back to tinker and I wish life would stop throwing so much shit in my way and let me devote a bit more time to fic-writing so I continue it properly. 

But the periodic and spaced-out returns have meant that every time I knuckle down I end up re-reading the whole fic for continuity and tone reasons. You can probably see where this is going. Each time I read my old opening I cringe. It’s just not up to the standards of my writing today and it bugs me.

If I’m being brutally honest, part of the reason I haven’t updated it in so long is that I keep getting distracted going back and tweaking/fixing old chapters rather than focusing on new ones. It’s a bad habit but one I just can’t seem to kick.

10. Share bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on:

You know, I’m actually gonna give two. I’ll drop them below a cut because this got long, but I know I have both Digimon and HQ peeps here and it’s sucky to be in the fandom that doesn’t get the love. I can’t promise when I’ll manage to get either of these posted (I’m trying to avoid adding more works to my Ao3 until they’re actually, you know, finished) but...they exist!

First up, we have Fun and Games at the Adventure Cafe

Yes, this is exactly what you think it is:

The notice on the door said “HELP WANTED” in large, sensible font.

The addendum “Enquire Within” sat below it, equally formal.

Scribbled underneath in scruffy handwriting was just one more addition:

     ‘as in we’re hiring. dw we know what we’re doing.’

   The notice on the door the following morning was back to plain old:

     HELP WANTED      Enquire Within

…It lasted half a day or so, at least.

As Sora remarked later, it was a wonder they got any applicants at all. Then again, as Taichi remarked, it wasn’t as though a lot of places were taking on extra staff—which was something of an oddity as the summer approached.

“It’s that swanky place round the corner,” he said with disgust, peering out of the window. “Bastards are driving everyone out of business.”

“But not you guys, right!” piped up their current interviewee. “You’re doing great! Honestly, as soon as I saw the sign I knew I had to apply. I’ve always wanted to start my own ramen business, and I figure I ought to start out with a popular place like this and get some real experience in the industry, you know?”

“Er, yes. Right,” Sora remarked, looking over his application. “Well, Daisuke, I will have to warn you that as a new hire you’d be working front-of-house rather in the kitchen, but if you’re okay with that—”

“Eh, just tell him he’s hired already,” Taichi replied, turning back to face them with a grin. “Yamato could definitely use a hand in the kitchen sometimes, so taking on a future all-rounder makes total sense.”

From the look Sora shot him, it perhaps didn’t, but Daisuke was already practically leaping to his feet with a grin, exclaiming that they could totally rely on him, and he absolutely would not let them down and could start the next day if they needed him to.

Next up, for my HQ peeps, here’s a little snippet from Connection Problems, my longtime langushing halfway chatfic. I’m not sharing the chatfic stuff because formatting tumblr is hell, though. 

Kenma always suspected that being a third year would turn out to be a pain, but he’d rather hoped his fears wouldn’t be realised within the first few weeks of the school year. Really, it’s bad enough that Kuro, Yaku and Kai have left, and that everyone else nominated him for the role of Captain (he’d talked them down to being Vice Captain instead, but that, apparently, was as low as they were prepared to go). He does not need Taketora constantly pestering him about—of all things—a chat group as well.

“Come on, I thought you and Kuroo were like, joined at the hip or something! Don’t try and act like you don’t miss him now he’s at university.���

He shrugs. “I have a phone. We’re keeping in touch.” Because, really. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Why does everyone have to complicate things so much?

“Yeah, but, it’s not the same, right? Besides, what the hell! You spend all that time on your phone as it is. And even Fukunaga joined, right?”

Kenma glances over at Shouhei, who nods, grinning sheepishly. Drat.

“Still, I don’t have that chat app you all use,” he says. “It’s too much trouble setting it up, when I can message Kuro just fine.”

That should have been the end of it. Any rational person would have seen that it was no good, and left him in peace. Kuro would have, certainly. Not pushing—never pushing, actually. Just nudging him along a little, and even then, only when it comes to volleyball. He’s learnt all of Kenma’s limits over the years.

But the thing is, Kuro isn’t there any more. It’s just himself, Taketora and Shouhei, and okay, Shouhei never pushes—he hardly ever says anything, for that matter. But Taketora is clearly some sort of demon and he, Kenma, is being punished. Maybe he really pissed someone off in a previous life. Maybe this is a penance so he can piss someone off in his next life with a free pass. Either way, the badgering doesn’t let up.

Kenma holds out until the 27th of May. Seven weeks of hassling is more than enough for anyone.

Aaaand for tagging how about: @ahiddenpath, @humandisasterbuckybarnes, @mooifyourecows

[ren-c-leyn]

QnA tag game

I was tagged by @hyba​ to play this. Thank you very much.

rules: post your answers, and tag some pals.

1. When did you first learn you enjoyed writing?

Honestly, I used to hate writing. It wasn’t fun, it was boring school essays and annoying prompts on exams. That being said, I had always enjoyed storytelling, and had been telling stories since before I could remember.

How I reconciled that gap between the written and the spoken was I went through a really shitty period of time in my life and I took up poetry to help vent. And it was so freeing and fun that I kept with it.

I had been doing that for a while when I decided to try writing some fantasy story that popped into my head, though I can’t quite recall why I bothered to try. It wasn’t a very good story, but I filled up like an entire notebook with it and started writing it on another, and I discovered ‘hey, writing can be fun... if it isn’t about something boring.’

And over the years, fantasy has over taken poetry. I still write poems from time to time, but not like I used to.

2. Tell us about the first project you ever wrote.

It was one that tried cramming way too much into one story, but there’s elements of it that I still use a lot of. I can’t remember the exact plot I had in mind for it, because it was all over the place, but I remember there being some sci-fi, a lot of fantasy weirdness, and a chosen one who was both angry and horrified that her world ended when she had the power to save it, because no one knew what she was or that their world was in danger. It never got finished, but I had fun with it while I was working on it.

3. How does your favorite media shape who you are as a writer?

In ways I don’t even realize it did, I’m sure. Particularly since I binge read without really analyzing the writing techniques of people. My writer brain turns off and reader brain takes over. Which many people say is bad, but it works for me. That being said, I can draw some obvious parallels between things I’ve read and my own works.

I know that Tolkien was a big influence for my ‘this string pulls on this person’s string, which does that, which leads to a poor hobbit having to lose his finger to throw a cursed ring into a volcano and save the world’ kinda plots. I also enjoyed his world building, but, and this is just my opinion, it slowed the Lord of the Rings triology down a lot and made it a little clunky to read. So it taught me both what I kinda wanted to see in my world building, but also how I didn’t want it to come out in the story. Plus, The Hobbit is the book for me. It is one of the first ones I got when I finally learned ‘oh, reading can be fun’ (because child me hated reading like she also hated writing boring essays), and it’s the one that got me stuck on fantasy.

Douglas Adams, there are many who will probably consider it a crime I have not read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and yet still list his name in this, but my favorite book of all time is probably The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, and it was the way the characters existed and the hidden easter eggs that I’m still finding like 7 read throughs later and the pacing and red herrings. I learned from and loved a lot about that book alone.

There was also J.A. Jance, the author of many of the murder mysteries my grandmother loaned me, and it was from her and other mystery authors that I finally, finally figured out how to set up suspense and tension. They were also really good studies in character motivations and how a character’s mindset can change the way they perceive the world and the things they notice and miss.

Video games is another thing I know has influenced me. I like story and lore rich games. Dungeons and Dragons is another thing I play a lot of and has followed me through my writings. The stories that get told can be every bit as awesome as a book, and the mechanics are also part of what helped me learn to structure my magic systems. Because if the wizards didn’t have rules, who would play a fighter who does? The same idea got translated into my writing very early on, ‘if I don’t give my wizards rules, why would warriors exist?’

And I can keep rambling, but I think I’ll leave it at this for now ^^

4. What’s something you’ve wanted to write, but aren’t sure you could? (A tv show, a genre, a style, a time period, a video game, etc)

I had an idea for a fantasy world inspired by various Asian myths, and even had a basic map drawn out in my head and some ideas for a magic system, but I’ve been too terrified to actually do anything with it, and it’s been so long since then that I don’t remember anything about it. Plus, I had no plot to use for it at the time.

I also wanted to write a mystery, but when I tried I found that while I has suspects and everything, I couldn’t think of the crime or how the heck anyone would just kinda figure it out from a bunch of random things normal people could just play off or not notice XD

5. What is the thing that keeps you from writing the most?

Procrastination is sometimes a problem, and I do occasionally need to kick myself in the shin. But there’s also life and plot snags and just days when a story isn’t working for me.

6. How do you deal with an inner editor?

That depends. Sometimes the inner editor saves me a lot of headaches later, and sometimes a tiny mistake can break the flow of writing. I normally don’t have an issue with fixing things on the spot, but on nights I need to focus on writing I just keep myself from reading back.

7. How long have you been writing?

I mean, they make kids write really young for school, so begrudgingly that long. Creatively and for fun? I’m not sure. I can’t quite recall how old I was when I started with the poetry. But considering the notebook I have the earliest pieces in is falling apart, I think it’s been a long time. lol

8. What is your general writing process? Do you write chronologically? Do you do a lot of planning?

I normally get this idea that shows up out of the blue as a daydream or a random thought. Then, there’s at least a month. If it’s still there, it gets considered. If it’s grown and expanded into something resembling either a world or a plot by then, it’s probably getting written.

After the idea finally bugs me enough, I’ll start world building and building a bare-bones plot, complete with bare-boned characters. I never flesh anything out completely, since I do most of that while I write and having strict outlines suffocates my story.

If the world building, characters, and whatever I have of a plot are interesting, I’ll start chronologically and keep moving from there.

9. Assign a scent to your writing style.

A scent for my style? Um... that’s kind of a weird question and I have no idea how I would even begin to think of an answer for that. Like, how do you translate comma usage and word choice into a smell? I mean, I use roses a lot in my stories, so maybe that would work?

10. One book you hope everyone reads?

I have to agree with hyba that I hope everyone just finds their version of the book. The one that gets them through a hard time, the one they really need, and that that book won’t be the same for everyone.

11. What is it about your least favorite genre that makes it your least favorite–and how might you change that to better appeal to you?

Oh that’s simple, it’s because horror does it’s job. That’s it. It’s nothing particularly about the style or anything besides that the genre is what it is.

12. Design a “collector’s edition” for your first novel. Include items that might be of interest to your audience.

Never thought about it, but I guess I could throw in the world map I drew for The Plight of a Sparrow into it.

13. If one thing was real from your project, what would you want it to be?

Nothing in particular? I can’t think of anything that would make sense to transfer from my projects to the real world, because I don’t want magic to be real, because my magic systems tend to be brutal, but also, we have stuff like or better than a lot of what doesn’t run off magic. Maybe some of the creatures would be cool, but I don’t know how that would affect ecosystems.... probably not for the better.

14. What’s something you always include in your work? Do you have any other Easter eggs?

As far as easter eggs, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. If I do, it probably wasn’t intentional.

15. What is your favorite passage from your own work?

I still am not really comfortable with sharing things out of my WIPs on here. As far as things I’ve written for the blog itself go, there are quite a few pieces and passages that turned out really good. I think one of my favorites is from a really old piece I did back before I was doing fusion stories. It’s from this one specifically, if anyone would like to read the full tale, it is a grim one, though.

The very edge of the forest was about as welcoming as a gallows. Crows watched us hungrily, like we were dead men about to sway. None of them made so much as a peep as their dead eyes followed our trek through the knotted mess of brambles, ivy, knotted shrubs, and gnarled trees. We hacked at the plants, and they hacked right back at us. We traded blows like it was a war. hatchet and sword blows countered with sharp thorns and parried with thick branches.

I’m going to leave this an open tag, jump in if you’d like to. =D