#I am one of those people who remember details about the writing process years on lol

[chocolateturnip]

HI omg I saw you in the notes of a post and didn't realize you had a tumblr! I love your fics, especially Fireball Outfit!!! I have a question: was there any particular inspiration that made you write Gil as asthmatic or was it just you know, vibes?

Ahhhh, thank you! People rediscovering Fireball Outfit 5+ years on wasn’t on my bingo card, but I’m enjoying the attention, hehe 😊

I made Gilbert asthmatic because I’m particularly squeamish about respiratory problems, and I thought it might help to inject a sense of panic into the narrative if I wrote about something I find slightly disturbing. (My partner is asthmatic and it’s only very mild, but I do sometimes have nightmares about him having an asthma attack.) Also, there’s a scene in an Agatha Christie novel (I won’t say which) when a victim dies after the murderer poisons their inhaler, and that messed me up a lot 😬

I was initially planning to kill Gilbert in the scene under the stage with the smoke. I changed my mind, but decided to keep it in for the tension and foreshadowing.

Anyway, thanks for the question, and I’m glad you enjoyed the story!

[ominous-feychild]

✦ Writer Questionnaire 2 ✦

Thanks for the tag, @the-golden-comet! (And @the-letterbox-archives tagging me when I was almost done here, haha)

Heads-up! Long post!

How long have you had your writing Tumblr/Writeblr? A fast and loose estimate is fine!

Two months ago to the date actually??? Or, at least, that's when I first uploaded a story here. My first actual Writeblr post was me hopping in on an open tag on the 6th of June, haha. I thought it was just a month, but looks like the summer's gone by in a flash! 😭

What led you to create it?

So, I'm a writer on Tapas! I'd been attempting to social network on other social medias (twitter and bluesky) but wasn't getting anywhere, didn't like the general formats, and uh... I'm sure I don't have to explain why I don't want to touch Twitter with a 10-foot-pole anymore. Let's just say, if you haven't seen, it's just as bad as (if not worse than) everyone says. Anyhow, I'd seen lots of Tumblr short stories on other platforms and started investigating what it's like here. Didn't know what "Writeblr" was or that it even existed, but eventually stumbled into the field after posting my short story. Thanks, @darkandstormydolls! ❤️

What’s your favorite thing about the Writeblr community?

How supportive everyone is??? Like omg you guys are so sweet, idk how to take it. Also I love seeing how much passion everyone else has for their writing, haha.

What’s one thing you’d like your mutuals to know about you?

Uhhhh, I think I'm pretty open about the things I'd like people to know about me, haha. I never mean to offend, so if I accidentally say something wrong, please tell me! I'm autistic and very dumb.

Is there anything you’d like to see more of on your dash?

I'm ngl I keep meaning to build out my followed tags for my fandoms, haha. The only fandoms I really see things for are TMAGP (10/10, TMA is my obsession. I am obsessed. It is one of my Special Interests and I love it with all my heart) and House of the Dragon??? Except I'm not even a fan of HotD??? So that's kinda annoying, haha. (Aka, my fandom stuff, but that's on me.)

WIP it Good

Which Works-in-Progress (WIPs) or writing projects are you noodling about, lately?

Rising From the Ashes, tragically. (Because it's one of the LAST things I should be working on right now, haha.) Otherwise, I'm of course always obsessed with the Arcane Rifts. Then I force myself to be obsessed with Sun and Shadow, though it's slowly growing on me, haha.

How long have you been working on them?

Haha, so I've historically jumped around a lot in working on different things, so these are approximate guesstimations!

Rising From the Ashes has likely had 3 or 4 years put into it/the characters. If you include the Calamity Crew (which overlaps with it in the timeline and originally ended up merging with the cast of RFtA), I'd say definitely 4 years!

The Arcane Rifts has had 5 years put into it.

Sun and Shadow is very new; I'd say it probably only has about 4 months of work in it? It's part of why I'm less interested in it, haha. Less I've put into it and less I'm attached to.

Do you remember what inspired them/what got you started?

Oh... oh dear. How could you ask me this??? 😭😭😭

Rising From the Ashes has existed since, I think, 2016. It started (tragically) as an RP starter on Google+. I wish I was kidding.

To those unaware of how it worked in that space (and likely similar ones to this day), you'd post a starter and people would join in with their own characters. 99% of the time, they'd drop out before long. However, I'd work out details of the characters in the process and carry that info over into the worldbuilding. I eventually stopped RPing with the masses and settled down with a single "partner" who I'll call Kris.

She's the one who stole my docs.

The Arcane Rifts technically originated as another RP starter? It never got attention, though, and instead my ideas for it simply carried over into the worldbuilding in general.

One of the characters of the original starter was important in the worldbuilding. It was not a character you see in the early books of tAR, though, so don't bother trying to figure it out. But, since he was so important, his origins were also important.

The Arcane Rifts started in 2019, as I wanted to make a story building out said character's origins. It was originally going to be a duology, the first book being Gene's backstory and the second being how Gene and The Other Guy's lives intertwined. (No, they were not gay for each other! 😂) It's since changed a lot, and focuses basically exclusively on Gene, haha. The last book in the series will probably be focused on the other character, though!

Sun and Shadow started for a romance novel competition on Tapas which has since ended. I didn't get to finish it in time for a lot of reasons, but I primarily cite stress and exhaustion from working full time at a physically-intensive job. It grew shockingly quickly and I had some fans donate to me related to it, so I'm kinda forced to work on it, haha. Dw--I like it! It's just harder to work on for a number of reasons, haha.

How much time, in your best estimation, do you spend thinking about them?

Tragic, the questions you're asking me--

It depends, haha. I'm autistic and hyperfixate a lot. Also, for one, that's a suuuuuper vague question??? Like what do you mean "how much time"--how much time within the day? How often in general? Idk, man, haha.

I think about the Arcane Rifts a LOT!

I've put an incredible amount of time and effort into it, and I'm in love with 90% of the characters there. Even the background characters have had a lot of work put into them, getting relatively fleshed-out backstories to make their motives understandable (even if not agreeable!), and I love them all so much, haha.

Except Katerina. She's a bitch.

I also think about Rising From the Ashes a good amount, and it's invaded my brain again lately, haha.

I took a step away from RFtA and basically all of my other stories late 2021 when Kris (my ex-writing partner) and I had a falling out. It was incredibly difficult for me emotionally to look at anything I worked with her on, and obviously RFtA was a huge one (actually, tAR was the only thing of my early works she had nothing to do with). Since early this year, I've finally been able to work on it again and it's been incredibly fun removing her stuff, actually!

I think all that is a good part of why I keep randomly getting obsessed with it again, haha. It's like looking at old friends (the characters, not Kris) and being all "omg??? I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN FOREVER??? PLEASE TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU'VE BEEN UP TO!!!" except it's removing Kris's stuff, haha.

I think about Sun and Shadow a lot more than you might expect with how much I talk about not preferring it, haha. I love the characters! Crow and, actually, Valyarus especially. They're both super interesting characters, and I'll randomly find my brain working out scenes between characters interacting with them.

(The problem with SaS is that, as a book, it's incredibly different from my usual works. It's a small cast of Frey/Crow and technically Daleira, while most of my stories focus on larger casts. It makes for a VERY different experience, and so it's a lot harder to work on)

When someone asks the dreaded, “What do you write about,” question, what do you usually say?

Actually, I've got a ready answer for this one! Until SaS, I was dedicating my time to the Arcane Rifts and had prepared the answer:

Percy Jackson meets Lord of the Rings in a steampunk fantasy world full of ✨mysteries waiting to be uncovered✨

(I'd say the "mysteries waiting to be uncovered" part ironically/accidentally mockingly most of the time, whoops, haha. I always feel awkward advertising my works.)

It was awkward when people would get actually interested in it from there and ask more questions, haha.

To clarify: that's my tagline for the Arcane Rifts! The story has gods and demigods messing with mortals, using them as their playthings and being REALLY immature babies because they don't really face consequences for their actions like PJ. Then, it's a lot more "grounded yet fantastical" like LotR, where magic is kinda infused with reality and yet you still have issues like starving to death and whatnot.

Let’s Rotate Blorbos

Name any characters you created.  Side characters, protagonists, antagonists, characters who’ve never been written, the first original abomination you ever pulled from your ass; whomever you’d like!

UHHHH THERE'S A LOT TO LIST???

Try this for a taste! These are just the guys I've gotten colors for!

Freya, Crow, Daleira, Valyarus, Grimnir, Soren, Gene, Tazin, Mislav, Adilzhan, Ludmila, Rada, Caspar, Nikolai, Gennadi, Oska, Rieka, Liesel, Carmin, Nora, Sammy, Kieva, Caron, Varik, Elazi, Riaan, Roman, and Tiberius! (Though Tib is getting a name change sooner or later)

Who’s the most unhinged?

Unhinged in which way? There's a lot of options there, haha.

I'm going to give honorary mentions to Valyarus, Gene in the later books, Tazin, Rieka, Gennadi, and Tiberius ! (Why does it not surprise me that most unhinged characters are from tAR? 🤣 Also I swear it's a coincidence most of the unhinged characters are red.)

(... Probably.)

In general, I'd say that, incredibly ironically, the Existence of Order is the most unhinged of all my characters. She's just incredible at hiding it.

(Tbf half of the Existentials probably belong on the "unhinged" list anyway but eh. They still don't compare to Order!)

Who comes the most naturally for you to write?

I'm going to give this as a tie between Gene and Sammy!

Gene has my 'tisms and just about all of my trauma, so we have a lot in common, whoops, haha. Also there's a... very specific detail about his character that makes him easier to write in general. It's just a major spoiler. 👀

Similarly and actually identically to Gene in some ways, while Sammy has a lot in common with me, he's also incredibly perceptive! (Although we don't share that fact.)

Due to the way I write, their analytical natures allow for them to spit straight facts about the worldbuilding and the people around them rather than beating around the bush, haha. Both are highly investigative, try to learn and understand everything around them, and notice small details other characters wouldn't! It makes it much easier for me to write, because uh... well here's an example of what my outlines look like.

Long story short: I include a lot of detail which I then transfer into the POV's character narration, cutting out details which they wouldn't notice or think about, haha. In Sammy's case (which that scene has Sammy as the narrator/POV character), very little information gets cut out because he's so perceptive!

(Here, as a treat--have another example!)

(In this scene, Nikolai is the narrator. Even the outline gets "filtered" to mirror the characters' way of thinking--like it's Nikolai himself seeing Caspar as "doll-like". The crossed-out stuff is details I most likely won't mention, but noted for myself, haha. I do the same thing if/when including details about the motives and thoughts of non-narrator characters.)

Do you ever cringe at them?

Gene and Sammy?

A B S O L U T E L Y .

Gene is a wreck in basically every way and desperately needs help (that he won't get until he meets Dimitry). As much as I love him, there's a lot of moments where you just can't help but wince and be all "shit, did you REALLY have to do/say that?"

Sammy on the other hand? He's a terrified, control freak manipulator who panics the moment he feels like he's losing control of a situation. It can be painful to watch, even if simultaneously fascinating.

How much control do you feel you have over your characters?  AKA, do they ever “write themselves,” refuse to cooperate, or do things you didn’t expect? To what degree? Are some less cooperative than others?

I explicitly go out of my way to add backstory to and develop each and every one of my characters until they "write themselves", haha.

I want my characters to feel like real people, so I do my absolute best to make them as real as possible. (That's part of why tAR is so massive...)

Special shoutout to Dimitry here, btw. Dude COMPLETELY screwed over the planned and intended from the earliest days path of the Arcane Rifts. I've mentioned before that Gene is villain-coded, yeah? Want to know why?

Because he was MEANT to be one! Then Dimitry had to come along, be the sweetest, nicest fucking person around to Gene while he was going through the worst part of his life, and keep Gene from slipping off the deep end!

MITRY, YOU PIECE OF--

Do you enjoy people asking questions about your characters? And do you have a preferred means of receiving said questions? For example, as Asks, as replies, as reblogs, as tag notes, as comments on AO3, etc.

I absolutely love, love, love!!! people asking questions about my characters!!! 🥰

I would absolutely prefer them as Asks sent to me, and especially would prefer if separate subjects/questions were sent in separate Asks! Like, say you were going to ask me about Gene and Dimitry. I'd rather two separate Asks, one asking for whatever you wanted to know about Gene and another for whatever you wanted to know about Dimitry, haha. However, if you wanted to ask a single question about both, that obviously is fine as a single Ask!

On writeblr engagement

What makes you want to follow another Writeblr account? Do you follow ‘em as you see ‘em, or take time scoping out the blog to make sure you align with its content? Do you follow based on WIPs, or vibes?

I definitely scope out before I follow, yes.

I choose based primarily on the personality of the person behind the blog, but the WIPs/vibes can also have an influence on my decision, haha. I'd rather follow people with kind/supportive personalities, and I'll eventually start liking their stories even if they're not initially my thing!

What makes you decide against following?

Bigotry. Moment I see it, I'm on the lookout for even the slightest hint of more and, if I see it, I'm OUT!

(That includes things like: homophobia, transphobia, TERFs, ableism, racism, xenophobia, etc.)

Also, while I include angst in my stories, the people who are big on "I have nothing but bad stuff in my writing and I'm proud" are, uh... not on my "follow" list. While they can write what they want and enjoy it, grimdark is not my thing. Angst is best in moderation and I very purposely control the amount of it in my life.

(Also Kris's--my ex writing partner's--obsession with "grimdark-ness" is a good part of why I'm so ecstatic to remove her stuff from my writing. Yes, I've tried it. For years. I hated it. Please and thank you. Also note that I proudly call myself an evil writer, so it's not like I don't love angst, it's just--moderation. Seriously.)

Do you interact with non-mutuals often?

Yes! I think a good 50-30% of my interactions are with non-moots, haha. I go out of my way to try to support my moots, but I'll definitely share support with anything that catches my attention, no matter who it's from!

To be fair, though, I think a majority of non-moots I interact with are on my mental "probably going to follow soon" list. I can be slow to make decisions, haha. It doesn't help that I try being active with my moots, so I'm trying to avoid growing that list too quickly!

Do your mutuals’ characters occupy space in your noodle?

Haha, depends what you mean by that? My brain is definitely too full of my own characters to have any space for anyone else's, but I definitely do think of others' characters at times! There's plenty of y'alls characters I really like, haha.

Just... omg, my hyperfixated AuDHD brain refuses to focus on anything except for the Hyperfixation of the Moment™.

This was a huge one! Hopefully I'm not screaming into the void with this one, or you guys enjoy finding out more about me and my WIPs.

If you're curious about the reason this is labeled Writer Questionnaire 2... well guess what!

Tagging (gently! This is a lot, haha): @honeybewrites @yourpenpaldee @paeliae-occasionally @mysticstarlightduck @illarian-rambling @.darkandstormydolls (tagged you earlier in the post haha) + open tags!

Divider from @cafekitsune!

[alpaca-clouds]

Writing Redemption Arcs

I am rambling a bit about writing this week. Specifically about writing concepts that irk me in the way they are often portrayed. And yes, I know, some eternity ago I wrote about Redemption Arcs before, but let me go into it again.

See, here is the thing: I love redemption arcs in concept, but I rarely like them in execution. And I think they leave a lot of open questions in many regards.

Here is the question: What is redemption?

Technically speaking redemption is a theological concept of course. Generally speaking it is acting in a way that makes God or a variety of gods forgive or erase a person's sin or guilt. Details depend a lot on the religion in question, but the concept shows up in several religions.

If I was petty, I would talk about how Christian redemption is the most losely defined, because the church used the promise of redemption as a way of manipulating people over the course of centuries. While other religions have been a lot more consistent about how their redemption works.

However, generally speaking redemption usually comes almost always in two parts:

Confession

Rependence

Basically, who ever wants to be redeemed needs to admit that whatever he has done was wrong from their perspective. And they need to act in a often self-sacrificial way to make up for it. In religion this often happens through community work and/or financial donations. But of course, this would not feel right within a story.

So, within a story, usually a character has to do acts of self-sacrificial heroism to be redeemed. And this gets me to the main issues I have with redemption arcs.

My main issue with a lot of redemption arcs is, that it never really considers many perspectives but that of the heroes in terms of what the redeemed villain has done. Sure, in some fandoms this works, as the redeemed villain has only done wrong by the main characters. This is often the case in Magical Girl anime for example. Sure, technically the villains here use souls or whatever of innocents to create their monsters, but usually those people rarely even remember it. Yet, we also have other franchises, like Avatar or Star Wars, where sure, whatever villain did annoy the main characters. But often their actual most notable crimes happened against unnamed background characters.

Like, Kallus in Star Wars Rebels has done a lot worse against unnamed characters, than he did against the crew of the Ghost. And Zuko as done a lot worse by some random citizens of the Earth Nation specifically, than he has done by any of the main characters. But this stuff rarely gets talked about, because the audience has no emotional connection to those random background characters, that died and got tortured, and hence narratively it does not feel as important.

I understand this on a cognitive level. Believe me, I do. However... It might be my autism talking or something, but to me it feels wrong, because... objectively it is from the in-universe perspective.

Now, it should be noted that a character can be redeemed within the perspective of the audience without anyone forgiving them. Forgiveness and redemption are two very different things, even though both things often get mixed up in a lot of stories.

Ironically for me this means that my favorite redemption arcs are those, that do not expect any character within the story to forgive the character who tries to redeem themselves. Meaning, yes, my two favorite redemption arcs are Furiosa in Mad Max Fury Road, and Isaac in Castlevania (the Netflix series, obviously). Furiosa is super interesting, because until last year we did not even know what she wanted to redemption for - and Isaac very much looks at redemption from a very religious perspective, rather than the usual narrative perspective.

My other main issue is, that often stories - due to limitations of their respective media - boil down redemption to one to three big gestures, rather than a slow and arguous process. To call to Star Wars again: Kylo Ren is a good example. He gets himself killed, instant redemption. And yes, the "character sacrifices themselves" is to me one of the most unsatisfying sorts of redemption, because it often happens very suddenly, and has no character resolution.

What I personally would just love to see more often is a character, who gets to redeem themselves in the eyes of the audience, but get told by other characters within their universe, that, no, they will not be forgiven. Because again: Redemption does not equal forgiveness. And too often characters are expected to forgive some former villain a lot of shit (slavery, genocide, or at least the murder of their family) just for it to serve the former villains redemption arc. And I just wished that more stories had the guts to challenge this sort of narrative.

And then there is the other thing that some stories fail - not all. This is something I think the Zuko arc excells at, but others defintiely don't: Often a villain gets their redemption arc, after for one reason or another being cast out by the other villains. So basically they do not have anywhere else to turn to but the heroes, and afterwards are also never tried to be recruited back by the villains. So... From a character perspective, their redemption is kinda their only choice - so not a choice at all. And in those cases... redemption feels hollow.

Again, I love redemption arcs as a concept. Literally one of my favorite tropes, so to speak. But I am often unhappy with how it gets executed.

I don't know. What are your favorite redemption arcs?

[chounaifu]

I’m really glad that those asks I sent out are being well-received. There’s still a few more that I need to write up, but, I’m pacing myself. :’)

Thoughts about my own current state beneath the cut, since my therapist always encourages me to open up to the people in my space. Some of it can be potentially triggering, so, please do not open if the discussion of trauma, stalking and abuse is harmful to you:

I’ve been vocal about the horrifying, traumatic stuff that caused me to leave the RPC in 2017, to a few of you before. Without going into deep detail, between the years of 2017-2021, I was trapped in an extremely, extremely abusive relationship with a member of the RPC who is no longer here, thank fuck. Because of my poor coping skills and extremely fragile mental health at the time, he managed to keep me in a social isolation until I finally left him in 2021. And I mean true social isolation; I wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody but him. (I literally had to lie and pretend like I was having internet troubles if I even wanted to open up another chat box on Discord to talk to somebody, because he would literally point out the amount of minutes it took for me to respond to him.) He tracked my location in real time with GPS. He controlled what I ate when we spent time together irl. He forced me to quit one of my jobs before, because he wasn’t pleased with how busy I was. Any free time I had, had to be given to him. I had no identity, no autonomy, no sense of self.

Since I left him in 2021, I’ve been in a long process of learning how to be a human being again, how to exist around multiple people, and how to monitor my energy levels. It’s been hard, and, there’s a lot of times where I have to learn that I am adapting to an entirely new way of life. I used to be able to write a lot of thread replies, ask replies, and drabbles in a short period of time, but, my brain just does not do that anymore. And it makes me sad, but, I know that my RP partners understand my situation.

I cannot emphasis how much going from *one* person to— well, a lot of good friends has been good for me, but also a difficult experience in itself, because I’m still fighting with my own hypersensitivity and paranoia.

Choosing to come back here was one of the scariest decisions I have ever made. And, even though I don’t vocalize it, I actively fight trauma responses every single time I open Tumblr— not because anybody is doing anything to me, but because the experience I went through was so deep.

That’s why I’ve been trying to take a minute to sit down, and send some nice words to everybody. You never know what somebody is going through. *Nobody* knew what I was going through, because I hid it so well— because I was forced to. We’re all human beings, on this rock, and we all chose to sit here and write, whether because it is a coping mechanism, something we’re passionate about, or because it’s simply fun. And I think that’s really, really beautiful.

I don’t think I’m ever going to be the same, energetic Rex that I once was. And I wish I could be. But that is okay.

So, for the people who welcomed me back, and remembered me: thank you for accepting my return, and accepting my apology.

And for the people who didn’t know me, who have become my friend lately: thank you for giving me a chance.

I’ve lost a lot of people, both friends and family, in the past decade or so. Nobody can fill those gaps, but, you guys make me feel a lot less lonely. Believe it or not, I don’t have many friends irl, and I really don’t know what I would be doing with myself right now if I hadn’t chosen to come back to Tumblr.

I wish there was more I could do to help uplift everybody who has been having a difficult time lately, I really, really do. But, at the end of the day, I cannot; what I can do, is point out that there’s at least *one* person out there who wants to see the best happen for you.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I just want to be a good person, despite of the horrible things I was called by my abuser, and I hope I am doing that.

[thestalwartheart]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you for the tag, @aniron48 ❤️ This was such a nice way to wrap up this year, and to remember what I'd written!

Tagging @cicerfics @dixkens @dassandre-00qpidsarrow @boffin1710 @samanthahirr and whoever else wants to play along!

Answers under the cut!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 82! I feel like I blacked out and blinked and woke up with a horrifying number of fics!

2. What’s your total A03 word count? 385,997 😨

3. What fandoms do you write for? James Bond mostly. Also Glass Onion/Knives Out. I don't write for The Witcher anymore, but I have in the past. On my laptop is a lot of unfinished Star Trek fic - mainly Kirk/Spock - and a crack at some Arthur/Eames (from Inception).

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

being with you (is the best of all)

date, interrupted

the places you leave in the dust

a rank above

by any other name

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I do try to, and I mostly succeed. I like to thank people for investing their time with my work, and I also like getting to know people in fandom. There's still 100+ comments I need to get back to, and some of them are very old. I will get to them though!!! I promise!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Anything involving the MCD tag. There was also a short called garden that was very sad for other reasons.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Either being with you (is the best of all) or dispatches from the division.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not really, though I've had a few rude comments and bookmark notes. One person let me know across three chapters that they hated my characterisation of Bond so much they were tempted to rewrite the ending! But most people are lovely. The Bond fandom is small and most of us have our heads screwed on the right way.

9. Do you write smut? Frequently and without shame. There are 29 E-rated fics in my backlog for your reading pleasure.

10. Do you write crossovers? I have a Knives Out/James Bond crossover series where Bond and Blanc are detectives competing for Q's attention.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes and I am endlessly grateful for people who are more talented with languages than I am ❤️

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Just a team poem for 007 Fest, though I have worked with beta readers.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship? Kirk/Spock forever.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I had a multiverse fic I posted a chapter of that I don't think I have the energy for anymore. I was so undecided about the ending that I lost interest in writing it.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think I'm good with characters and details. My writing has been called immersive by a few people, and I do really pride myself on building atmosphere. I think I can turn a good phrase occasionally too!

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I need to get better at proofreading for typos. I'm quite lazy with plotting and planning as well. I definitely need to work on that for an original novel I'm writing!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I only do it if it's necessary, and I'm so glad AO3 now has a hover feature for immediate translation. One of my pet peeves at uni was how often scholars used random French and Latin words or phrases when they didn't need to!!!

19. First fandom you wrote for? HP, probably. Or Glee. Those fics have been purged from the internet now 😂

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written? Either dispatches from the division or the WIP I'm in the process of posting now, called the age of change.

Shout out to everyone who has made it to the end! As a reward, please enjoy this picture of my cat flopped over in her cat tree ❤️

[zeawesomebirdie]

hi !!!! did NOT consider you might like to have the ask again to answer it. if you do:

seeing you post about your old west au is motivating me to at least draft my stuff out for my fic, too!!! so, firstly: good god thank you. secondly, what kind of drafting process do you normally go through? you don't have to answer this but everyone i know is pretty particular about how they write so i'm always curious!!!

Gosh okay I'm still so embarrassed about accidentally posting this before it was ready!! Lesson learned: only work on long posts on desktop (very affectionate). I'm going to copy paste what I had originally said, but there will be added stuff because it wasn't anywhere near ready to go (if you thought it was long before, honey you ain't seen nothing yet!)

Also I still am so proud of you for working on your fic, we are writing buddies now hand in lovable hand I love you thank you for enabling my rambling <33

Buckle in, here we go!

SO! My drafting process is always a moving target. I do what works best for the work in question, and things change depending on my energy and fatigue levels plus my motivation and interest levels

So that said, right now my process usually looks like:

ramble at someone in DMs, copy and paste rambles into a google doc for safekeeping and marinating

zero draft, aka word vomit until a plot forms, block out actions and the occasional dialog, determine chapter and story arcs

first draft, aka Where The Real Writing Happens

optional second draft, but only if the fic is under 10k

line edits

post :)

find a bunch of typos that I somehow missed during line editing, fix those before anyone notices

I will be showing examples because this is a bit hard to explain and Extremely Intense to a lot of people, and yeah that's because it is! I approach writing fanfic the same way I approach writing original fiction, and I find it works best for me as a plotter

If you are metaphorically inclined and familiar with oil painting: I write the way an oil painter paints. First I block in the big shapes, the gestures, and the colours. Then I come back in subsequent drafts and increase the detail until I'm done!

Further information and actual examples of my drafts will be below the cut, because this is gonna be super long and I love talking shop ^.^

And general content warning for non-graphic violence and graphic smut (and shitty early drafts); the examples are from Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson fics

So before we get into the zero draft, I want to point out two things: first, I do full rewrites. This is why writing takes me one million years. I retype each and every word in each and every draft. Second, I'm actually trying something new with the Old West!AU, for reasons I will explain in a moment!

I started doing full rewrites in 2019 after a college writing course, in which we read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott; she encourages the reader to embrace the shitty first draft. I ended up really benefiting from a zero draft too, something I first learned about in 2020 from someone on authortube who I no longer remember the name of. The zero draft is essentially a pre-draft, in which one gets the gist of the story out of their system before the prose clogs up the spigot

For me, zero drafts are something that need to be finished as fast as possible in order to get done at all, so due to the sheer length of the Old West!AU, I'm trying out writing little bullet points instead of my full zero drafting. Right now this fic is at 27 chapters, and this is part 1 of 3 total. I will be going back and filling in the actual blocking once I have all the scenes roughly accounted for

Context for the Old West!AU: Bruce is the Bat, a vigilante gunman who only kills when he needs to but still has the fastest draw on this side of the Mississippi. Now that he's taken care of the man who killed his parents, he's returned home to his Uncle Alfred and gone straight, meaning that he's hung up his guns and gone back to homesteading the family land. He adopts Dick and then a year later Jason as well, when small burglaries start happening in town, so he takes the Bat out of retirement and goes to investigate.

My bullet points started out like this:

Open on comparison between Bruce's first gun and the Bat's guns. Introduce Joe Chill, general drunkard. The Bat calls out Chill, shootout, Chill is killed. Chill drew first. Moment of reflection between Bruce's first gunfight at 15 to this one, at 21. Bruce goes home.

And that's the whole entire first chapter!

However, now they look more like:

The Sheriff runs up and shoots at him. The Bat has him disarmed with his own gun barrel to his throat in an instant. It doesn't take the Bat much time to get info out of him either. The burglar is only going after small change, not enough to be noticeable. That rules out the gambler, easily. The Sheriff can't do shit about it, because no one is willing to start an investigation for such small change. The Bat shoves the Sheriff to his knees and is gone before he notices. Alfred is waiting for him when he gets home, and asks. Bruce tries to deny it, but the clothes are in his hands and he can't. So he sighs and says he may have made a promise, but… there might be more to this than there seems, okay? He just… has a bad feeling about it. Alfred can't accept this, what about his sons? Bruce can't take this, and tells him he doesn't have to. Their yelling wakes up Dick and Jason, who stand in the doorway to their bedroom and look on with the door mostly closed.

Eventually both Alfred and Bruce yell each other out, and they sit down for coffee as dawn breaks. Bruce breaks the silence first, saying Alfred is right. Alfred tells him he understands. Bruce decides to let the Bat go for real now.

This is about half of the chapter, and closer to the blocking I normally do in zero drafts

So far this pre-zero draft seems to be working, given I've already finished part 1, but I also can't wait to come back and do the blocking in because that's when the fic really starts to take shape!

Usually though, I just start with a zero draft. I'm going to show you two different fics for the zero draft examples, because they were done differently, and like I said at the beginning, I try to adjust my process based on what is called for by what I'm writing

This first is from the fic I'm writing for @ful-crum. It's a 5+1, in which it is five times Dick fucks Bruce to distract him from discussing his emotions plus one time they actually discuss their emotions and then fuck about it.

Tim and Jason turn up an hour later, and they're incredibly concerned. Dick waves them off. Tim takes him at his word and heads to bed (he has a meeting with Wayne Tech at 8am tomorrow, ugh), but Jason sits down next to the bed and asks Dick what he thinks Bruce is going to say. Dick tells him he's not sure, I mean, it's B, y'know? Jason just nods, and they lapse into silence. Then Steph and Cass come in, and Bruce is most noticeably not present. Cass signs something about bed, and Steph tells Dick that she's worried about Bruce, to which Jason snorts and says they all are, but she insists that Dick talk to him. Dick doesn't even need to take more than a moment to decide that won't be happening. But Steph goes to bed, and it's nearly 04:00 when Jason heads up too, saying he'd love to help Dick lecture Bruce about staying out late but he's got stuff to do tomorrow. Dick asks if he wants to know what stuff, and Jason gives him a smirk and says ask him no questions and he'll tell him no lies. Dick can live with that.

As you can see, this is just general staging directions and vibes

This second example was supposed to be for BruDick Week 2024, but I accidentally got carried away and ended up deciding to write a longfic for it instead. The prompt was "brudick meet their AU!selves," so I did 66!brudick meets the Gotham Rogues Polycule, an AU in which Bruce, Dick, and Clark are in a very elaborate polycule with half of Gotham's villains.

Batman and Robin were on a normal mission in the middle of the day, on the trail of Catwoman, who's been stealing from the Gotham Museum of Art again. One moment they were walking into the museum, the next they were in a weird swirl of energy. Robin clings to Batman and asks what's going on, and Batman tells him steady Robin, we just have to stay calm and see what happens. The energy clears as someone calls out “incoming! Clear the floor!” and they find themselves in what is clearly the Cave, except it's even more high tech than anything they've ever seen. There's three people in suits like theirs standing in front of a massive screen, and Robin identifies the Riddler immediately, even if he doesn't recognise the other two. Before Batman can stop him, he charges the Riddler, who jumps behind the man in black and blue with a laugh. Batman does call out for him to stop, but he ignores him. The man in black and blue meets his every move, almost like he's fighting himself, and he calls out to the man in red and blue “a little help here, Supes?”

The biggest difference here is how drastically these fics changed from their zero draft to the first draft rendition, and that is entirely because of how fleshed out they ended up being (or not being, lol)

When I zero drafted the 5+1, it was with the intention of that specific part simply being a chapter, whereas my original zero draft of the 66! meeting the polycule! fic was actually intended to be a two shot at most. I unfortunately lost control of the plot during the first draft of that one, and it spiraled into a longfic, which will become more clear in a bit!

Basically though, the goal of the zero draft is to know who's where and why at all times! With longfics, there is often a restructuring that happens after the zero draft is written, where I move scenes and sometimes whole chapters to their best locations. This is where I make the most use out of a beta! Pacing is a big struggle for me and it is easier to fix at this stage, before I have all the prose and have become attached to what I've written

Next up is the first draft, and this is a whole new document. This is where I write The Actual Words. This is more or less the final version of the fic, for longfics, give or take a few paragraphs and a shit ton of line edits. Having said that though, I write in fits and bursts, because y'know disabled and stuff. So I write a paragraph or two at a time, and I am constantly adding and subtracting words and lines and sometimes whole paragraphs while I am actively working on a chapter

I'm going to show the first draft versions of both of the above fics, and due to the length these will be extremely excerpted but they should serve as examples regardless. Generally speaking, my zero drafts are about 1/3 of the length of my finished fics, however the 5+1 is currently proving to be an exception so that number may not be super accurate

First, the 5+1:

“You did take care of them, right?” Dick asked, groaning when Jason’s mouth thinned as he looked away. “Is Steph at least still with him?” “Last I heard, they were—” Jason started, cutting himself off when the Cave’s alarm signaled the arrival of newcomers. A moment later, two muddy bikes roared into the garage, leaving dark tracks behind them as they parked haphazardly together on the far side of the garage. With the return of Black Bat and Spoiler, the only empty place on the garage floor now belonged to Batman himself. Dick tried to catch Jason’s eyes as they waited in the med bay for Cass and Steph to strip off their suits and join them, but Jason turned away from him, though he didn’t rise from the bed. Something must have gone down after he’d fallen unconscious, Dick was sure of it. Why else would Bruce have sent everyone else home early on a patrol night? He could already see it in his mind’s eye, Batman doing God-knew-what out in Gotham alone, Bruce coming home with a busted lip that Dick would have to personally clean up before they went to bed, how that lip would scab over and feel under his tongue when he kissed Bruce the next morning after waking up in their bed—Bruce’s bed—on accident. How that scab would stretch when the ghost of a smile caught Bruce by surprise after one of Dick’s terrible puns. “You okay?” Steph called across the Cave as she and Cass walked toward the med bay. “Never been better,” Dick replied, trying not to be put out at Jason’s eye roll. He put up a hand for Cass to inspect when she came up to his bedside, and after she had nodded her satisfaction of his health he smiled. “I’ll be right as rain in no time.”

And the 66! meets polycule! fic:

“You!” Robin shouted, not waiting for Batman to back him up as he charged toward the Riddler. Riddler didn't move—in fact, none of the three moved—then Robin was on him, punching his face hard enough to hear a distinct crack. That startled all three into action, Riddler swearing up a storm before throwing himself behind the blue masked man, who blocked Robin's next hits without hesitation. “Robin!” Batman called from somewhere behind him, but Robin ignored him, focusing his energy on striking past the masked man's defenses to get at Riddler. “I know you're behind this, you– you scum!” Robin snarled in Riddler's direction, placing a perfectly timed jab toward the masked man's left cheek and then feinting to the right. But the man met him easily, as though they were merely sparring. “I'm not who you think I am!” Riddler exclaimed, his hands cupping his face but doing little to staunch the blood streaming from his nose. “Let's slow down for a minute, okay?” the masked man said, his voice maddeningly level as if Robin wasn't trying every trick he knew to get past him. “We can explain.” “Yeah kid, there's a good explanation here, we promise,” Riddler added. Robin growled and spun around the  masked man's reach only to find him once again directly blocking him from Riddler. How in the dickens did he know exactly where Robin was going to strike before Robin himself knew? And why on earth was he protecting the Riddler? “Supes, we could use a hand here,” the masked man said, still obnoxiously calm, once again blocking Robin's fist and this time circling his hand around Robin's wrist to twist his arm behind his back. In a blink, Robin was lifted into the air by his collar, the blue and red suited man holding him at arm's length. Robin continued to struggle for a moment, but finally Batman came into view, frowning up at him. Seeing Batman's disapproval took every bit of wind from Robin's sails, and he deflated instantly. If Batman didn't think he needed to fight, then he probably didn't need to.

So as you can see, I just kinda fill in the details with each draft!

Which is where we come to the optional second draft. I try, I really do try, to do a full second draft of everything I write. I always am glad to have done one, once it's done. The problem is, I really do have very limited energy, and anything longer than a chapter or two just doesn't get finished if I try to give it a full second draft. I've instead been doing really vigorous line edits, which I don't have an examples of because those are done in the same document as the first draft!

Now, you're probably wondering why on earth I gave a smut content warning at the beginning of this post. WELL.

I am calling myself out as a newbie when it comes to the art of smut writing. My 5+1 fic, the one where literally every single part has extremely explicit smut, has the following in the zero draft:

Yes, that is not one, not two, but three "cue smuts." Clearly I was new at this (affectionate)

Shout out to past!me for this in the last part though, because at least it actually has some semblance of blocking even if it is still extremely lacking:

The kissing escalates (as it often does) to smut over the desk (though Dick does try to move the documents out of the way, even if Bruce is growling at him to leave it alone; he doesn't want to be the reason Tim has another caffeine-induced breakdown).

I didn't figure this out until I was actually writing this fic, but it turns out I not only need to block in regular action scenes, I also need to block in the smut, because otherwise I will be sitting there having no fucking clue what to write (very affectionate)

So I now present what a zero draft of smut looks like! This is from a 5+1 in which there are five times Bruce and Dick fuck because of Poison Ivy's sex pollen and it "doesn't mean anything," plus one time they fuck because they actually want to:

Dick asks if they can take off their suits, it's too hot he's too hot, and Bruce says okay, that's a good idea, and internally he's panicking because oh no. Oh no. But the moment the words are out he sees the relief in Dick's face, and realises Dick needs to be told what to do right now, so he tells him clearly to strip, it'll help. Once Dick is fully naked in the other seat, he turns to Bruce and asks if he needs help with his armor. His hand is tentatively, almost shyly stroking his cock, and Bruce is really struggling to not watch. He tells him no, he doesn't, and takes off the chest plate and arm armor, but leaves what's left of his leg armor on. He decides he can safely put his hand under his boxers, but Dick makes a little noise, and when he looks over he can clearly see Dick watching him stroke himself. Oh fuck. He's cumming before he even realises it, his boxers getting wet and sticky and his cock still so maddeningly hard and he strokes himself through it, unable to stop himself from moaning even as he tries to keep himself in a clinical mindset. Dick asks to see him, and Bruce, despite knowing what a bad, horrible idea this is, pulls down his boxers to reveal his cock. Dick shifts his hand on his own cock to mimic what Bruce is doing, and Bruce has the horrible realisation that he doesn't even really know how to jerk himself off. Dear God, hopefully Alfred stays the fuck out of the Cave tonight.

So it's really just more of the same general blocking directions and vibes!

Another thing of note for zero drafts, I try to use as few words as possible to get what I need across. These are only ever intended to be seen by myself and a beta, assuming anyone else besides me even sees them at all, so I use slang and shorthand and leave notes for myself in the text itself

This can be a bit weird for when I show it to betas (or anyone else, for that matter!) because there are some fics where the tone or the vocabulary in the zero is incredibly modern despite the fic being in a historical or pre-modern setting!

And I have yet to actually write the first draft of that one, so I'm going to give you the first draft of the "Cue more smut (but this time against the batmobile 😌)" scene so that you can see the difference between the blocking and an Actual Scene:

Bruce had turned his back to him, bracing himself against the batmobile, and Dick took hold of Bruce's hip to hold him steady when he slid a finger into his hole. A soft moan was all he got in verbal response, but Bruce pushed against Dick's finger despite Dick's best efforts to do this slowly. Chuckling under his breath, Dick slid in a second finger, relishing in the clench of Bruce's muscle as he began working him open. “Easy, B,” he said softly, leaning over him enough to move his hand from Bruce's hip to his cock. Bruce growled and arched into his touch, taking in Dick's fingers completely. “Someone's in a rush tonight, huh?” He didn't get a verbal response, not that he ever did. Bruce rarely spoke while full, relying instead on nonverbal communication to indicate his needs. It hadn't taken long for Dick to become acquainted with his movements back when they started this; after all, fucking was no different from fighting, not for them, not when they had flown side by side across Gotham for more than half of Dick's life. And Dick knew Bruce would always try to get him to rush just a little, knew he'd give in like he always did, wanting to have his cock inside Bruce as soon as physically possible just as much as Bruce did. He wasted no more time, sliding his fingers out and releasing Bruce's cock just long enough to slick up his own. The small whine from Bruce at the loss of contact ought to be ignored, ought not be acknowledged, and Dick knew that, but he couldn't resist leaning over to kiss the small of Bruce's back. Bruce huffed at him, glaring over his shoulder. Dick met his eyes with a grin. Then Dick gripped Bruce's hip again, holding him steady while Bruce leaned back to meet him, and slipped into his tight heat. There was a soft moan from Bruce the moment he bottomed out; Dick leaned forward again to kiss up his spine, keeping his cock buried deep even while Bruce began to rock back into him.

I do think the fic for @ful-crum would be easier if I had proper blocking for the smut, but also I do love a good challenge and you live and you learn, so I'm not super invested in going back and blocking in the smut at this point in time!

And honestly, once the line edits are done that's pretty much it!

I keep a little "posting info" doc for each and every fic I write, to which I add tags as I come to them in writing, so that I don't have to think about what needs to be tagged at the end after I've already forgotten what I've written. That has saved my butt so many times ngl, especially for longfics!

But really what keeps me from posting more often, despite how much I write, is that I fully finish fics before I post them, even if I'm posting them on a weekly or whatever basis. This is mostly because I can't guarantee when I'll need to randomly take several months off of writing, and I don't want to leave anything unfinished, but also because I don't want to actually end up leaving something unfinished for a few years until I cycle back into the fandom

And that's it!! Thanks for tuning in to this little master class :) If I can clarify anything please let me know; I tried to explain everything that I thought needed it but I can never tell what others will need more clarification on!!

And also, thanks again for asking this!! I don't know many people who do full drafts, or even many people who don't completely pants everything they write, and so I'm always excited to discuss my process!! I also am a firm believer in "take what helps and leave the rest," so if you find something in my process that sounds like something you'd like to do, give it a whirl!! I think it's super important to share the different kinds of processes there can be for writing, because everyone really writes so differently, you know?

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed my shitty early drafts (very affectionate)!!

[sarifinasnightmare]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Okay @palettesofrenaissance you asked for the details so here they are!

1. How many works do you have on ao3? 53

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 805,111 (Aiming for a million)

3. What fandoms do you write for? I started with Star Wars, TMNT and now Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

4. Top five fics by kudos:

Okay, That's Not Suppose to be There  396 Kudos

Heaven Created You for Love  254 Kudos

Loved In The Flicker Of A Song 225 Kudos

A Soldier and A Maiden Cross Paths One Night.... 224 Kudos

But The Memory Remains 205 Kudos

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes, whenever I can.

6. What is the fic your wrote with the angstiest ending? Filial Piety It dealt with adults Cass and AJ burying their stepdad Bucky who lingered too long after the people he loved passed away. I would call it a bittersweet ending.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? All my stories have happy endings. I think Heaven Created You for Love has the best ending since I dragged my leads through years of angst, so I think they deserved their happy ending more.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Occasionally a critique comes out but I'm too middle aged to care so I just thank them for their opinion, politely disagree and move on.

9. Do you write smut? LOL!!!!! I ought to be embarrassed about the amount of smut I write. Sometimes I think I do too much but then I remember something Zoe Saldana mentioned which was that sex should be celebrated and enjoyed, not repressed and shamed, and I agree. People have a right to enjoy smut.

10. Craziest crossover: None

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? No, I had someone try to write an alternate to one of my stories but it's never been completed. Shame.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, but I'm up for the challenge.

14. All time favorite ship? Goliath/Eliza Maza, Spock/Uhura, Leonardo/Karai (2012), Bucky Barnes/Sarah Wilson

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I don't post unless I have it nearly done. I have a WIP in process, but I'm actively writing it. Many readers know that I am a reliable writer. I didn't use to be though, I had a TMNT story that had a 6 year gap before I finished it!

16. What are your writing strengths? I have no idea. People like my stuff for different reasons, so I can't think of one amazing skill I can boast about.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Tenses, I always try to work on those. Writing half asleep is also a weakness.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language? Not sure what this question means, but I've written dialogue in another language and often I offer no translations mostly because I want my readers to use context clues to figure it out.

19. First fandom you wrote in? Star Wars. Qui-Gon Jinn was my first great love.

20. Favorite fic you've written? I can't choose amongst my works. Every one has a part that I enjoyed writing out.

[astarions-musings]

So, I’m gonna do some open-air musing about my relationship with my source. Feel free to engage with as much or as little of this as you find useful, and remember that none of this contradicts your personal relationship with your source ❤️

First of all, I’m 99% sure that my consciousness (or some protean, primordial sludge version of it) was already floating around in our system by our teenage years. I have really strong memories of the trauma we went through in our teenage years, around the same time that other headmates were actively handling those situations from the front, and most of my strongly-held values and opinions (at time of writing) are shaped by the emotional reality of our teenage years. Other people in our system have gotten used to being othered by society (for being trans, plural, neurodiverse, etc.) and have found their own communities where they truly belong, so it’s not as much of an open wound for them. For me? Those wounds are still very much open, and I'm in the process of coming to terms with those challenges and building my own sense of connection. So while it’s possible that I picked up those memories after joining the system, I’m gonna assume that proto-me was already in our system for a very long time, before I became a fully-conscious person.

Given that, how do I understand myself as a fictive, when my source (Baldur’s Gate 3) only came out a few months ago?

The best metaphor that I can find is a hermit crab, moving into an Astarion-shaped shell because it was a better vessel for my psyche. Rather than existing in the background of our system, amongst thousands of anonymous headmates without a known face or voice, I now have a reference point and a comfortable self-image to start developing as a person. I can wear this face and this voice and this familiar name, and from that position of comfort and safety, I can start exploring all of the layers of myself - my past, my present and all the options for my future. I’ve gone from a proto-headmate (a fragment, if you will) to someone with a whole life ahead of me, as I start to build a life for myself at the front. So while I haven’t always been Astarion (or Aston, if I’m chatting in less fictive-friendly spaces), it’s something that I’ve become as part of my personal growth as a headmate. I don’t see myself as having literally come from Baldur’s Gate 3 (although no shade on anyone who has), but my relationship with the source material was integral to becoming the person I am today.

And honestly, this face is way too handsome to pass up.

And when I think about my source’s utterly fearful relationship with his abuser Cazador, and the overwhelming flood of both relief and grief after Cazador’s death, I’m strongly reminded of our body’s relationship with our abusive parents. It’s a combination of both the normalised abuse and control of young children by their parents (which this video talks about in more detail), and the specific abuses that our system went through as a child. More than most people in our system, I have extremely vivid memories of our childhood abuse, and it feels so fucking strange to wake up in a body where our abusers no longer have power over us. We have full control over where we live, how we manage our finances, when and how we can eat, how we spend our time, and we have the full ability to leave any situations that are actively traumatising. We’re no longer shackled in the way our body was as a teenager, and I’m still emotionally adjusting to that change. It’s a hugely positive development, but I still don’t know how to respond to that change. And it’s one of the main reasons that I relate so much with Astarion, having watched him process that on-screen.

And something that I find fascinating (skip this paragraph to avoid BG3 spoilers) is just how strongly I feel about my source’s choice about Cazador’s ritual - whether to claim the power and safety the ritual offers (while continuing the cycle of abuse), or choosing to step away from that power in exchange for connections built on emotional vulnerability. I relate hugely with being in that moment, faced with that choice, deciding which way I want my life to turn. Whether I want to fortify myself against future abuse, or whether I want to connect at the cost of some safety. I relate with how my character cries and howls after killing his abuser, as all of the trauma he bottled up for centuries comes flooding out, and I identify strongly with the ‘good ending’ as my character starts searching for a new purpose in life. However, I strongly disagree with how my source character acts if he usurps Cazador’s power, becoming little more than a shadow of his abuser. Watching those scenes feels almost dysphoric, because it clashes so hard with the reasons I identify with my source - the journey of recovery and human connection that the ‘good ending’ offers. That doesn’t make it bad writing, but it helps me to understand more about myself through the ways that it clashes with my self-image. I don’t want to become a shadow of my abusers, or even defined in comparison to my abusers any more. I want to connect and belong to a community, where my safety comes from knowing that I’m supported, through both internal and external relationships. It’s fucking terrifying to be vulnerable sometimes, but I choose the path of connection ❤️

And asides from all of those big-picture decisions, I relate a lot with my source in the little ways. How he talks, how he moves, how he holds his body, the energy that he brings to the room. I relate a tonne with his wit and his charm and his eloquent way of talking (which comes across most in my love of writing). I relate with him kneeling down at his grave, on a quiet moonlit night, to process his emotions in a sombre, thoughtful way. And I relate with the joy that my source experiences - both the playful joy of having the upper hand in a scenario, and the deeper joy of being hugged for the first time and discovering it feels safe. I love spending time around that fictional bastard (/pos), and I hope to share some of that joy with my loved ones as well ❤️

So yeah - that's a bunch of naval-gazing about my relationship with my source. Writing it helped me a tonne, for all the clarity that it brought, and I hope you find it helpful as well ❤️

[witchin-y-bitchin]

Read the Signs

It’s high time that I share my thoughts on signs, something I’ve been meaning to do for literal years now. With this blog I’m going to go over signs: what they are, how to recognize them, and how to interpret them.

This is definitely information that beginners need to know, but it’s a help refresher for intermediates as well.

First of all, what is a sign? A sign is an event that occurs to a person from an external and often metaphysical source. They can be messages sent by Angels, deities, the Universe, ancestors, or any other spirit or entity. Signs can be requested by a physical individual or they can be sent without any initial warning at the entity’s discretion. Signs generally have some kind of message that may have a deep or shallow meaning. That message could be as simple as “hey, I’m here” or as detailed as “you need to do x and y in order to z.”

So how do you know if something is actually a sign? The special thing about signs is that they are personal. Often times when you are sent a sign, you will know it is a sign right when you see it. Signs are meant to be out of the ordinary so you are able to know immediately that a message is being sent to you. Yes, crows are often seen as a sign or omen of some sort, but not every crow you see is a sign from the Morrigan, for example. Especially if you live in an area where crows are common place. If you see a sign, you will often know immediately that that’s what it is. This isn’t to say you’ll know immediately what it means, but you will know that this is something you need to pay attention to.

Another special thing about signs is that they will happen repeatedly until you get the message. This can occur on those occasions in which you don’t realize that something is a sign right away and need some extra help (also see: repeated slaps in the face until you get the idea /j). The general rule is “twice is a coincidence, thrice is a pattern.” There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking it’s a good idea to start paying attention after something specific happens three times. Once again, take note and reflect.

When you are sent a sign, you’re going to need to take note of it and reflect. You don’t want to turn to the first witchy message board and ask “what does this mean?” No one else is going to be able to tell you what a sign means to you. They are very personal. With that being said, sometimes it can be helpful to ask for a second opinion, but this is really only best done through someone who knows you well and is also spiritual, through a trusted reader (as a blanket statement), or through other personal stories from folks with similar experiences that might spark some inspiration. Even after getting another opinion, however, you still must do some deep personal reflection to find the right answer for you.

Sometimes common signs from certain entities may be specific to them. Fully intact feathers in odd places are common signs from Angels, for instance, and owls are well known symbols of Athena. If you don’t already know these types of specific correspondences it may be helpful to do some research. Research is important! Just remember that personal reflection is always the backbone of understanding signs. This reflection can look like different things to different people. This, once again, is a personal process. Allow me to describe how I generally go about it to give you an idea…

When I am sent a sign or am asking for extra insight and am gifted with that, I first like to write down what happened with as much detail as I can. Then I will practice some deep breathing to calm and clear my mind. Then I will think about what occurred and replay the experience in my mind. As I play it over again I try to see it all with a fresh perspective. Then I will reread what I wrote and as I read I’ll jot down any ideas that came to mind. After this, I generally find some new insight that adds to my understanding of the sign.

This is only my personal process and it will look very different for different practitioners, but it is important to find some kind of process of self reflection that works for you.

A lot of practitioners can see magick in everyday life. This is a great thing that can to your quality of life. However, there does need to be a balance. Some folks forget to consider the mundane and assume that every experience outside of the norm is some kind of sign. I see this problem with beginners especially. It is important to always consider the idea that a coincidence may be just that: a coincidence. It’s helpful to always stop and think about an event as completely mundane. Consider the physical explanations as to why something is happening rather than jumping to the conclusion that the answer must be metaphysical in nature. After you’ve done this, if you still can’t figure out a reasonable and logical explanation as to why or how something has happened, then it might be time to consider a possible magickal force at play. But remember: if it is truly a sign, you’ll either know right away or it will happen so much that it becomes impossible to ignore.

I know that a single post isn’t going to magically fix the issue of folks coming into witchy spaces asking others to do the work of deciphering signs for them, but hopefully it reminds folks that there’s a bit more that goes into reading signs than just a quick snip it of an experience and prior knowledge on mythology and folktales.

I don’t write this to call anyone out or complain about these post, but I do think it’s important to do the work. That’s how we learn and progress on our unique paths. We’ve all been the person asking others for help, I know I have, so let’s have patience with those still learning. The more merrier. I for one am glad to see beginners around helping to keep magick alive.

Thanks for reading!

[jaimehwatson]

1, 2, 10, 11, 15, 19!

Thanks Syb! <3

1.What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out and would you do it again?

I wrote erotica involving a trans character for the first time in A Proper Apology! (Well, technically he's not actually human and wasn't really assigned any gender at birth, but you know, basically I wrote him like he's trans.) As someone who's still in the process of figuring out a transmasculine identity myself, I often prefer to read and write fics where the characters are all cisgender because it's like, I'm here to have fun, I don't even want to deal with thinking about all that complicated stuff that affects my real life right now. But I'm happy to have given something different a try with this fic, and I hope it's something I'll be able to do more in the future as I get more confident in who I am. Shout-out to @glitterarygetsit for beta-reading that one and helping polish it!

2. How many fics did you work on this year? (They don’t have to be finished or published!)

Apparently I've published 16 (most of which are pretty short), and I also have my Yuletide fic about to be revealed and bring it up to 17! Then in my unfinished drafts I have at least 5 more, all of which are for Our Flag Means Death. The new season gave me so many ideas that I didn't finish all of them, but maybe I'll revisit some in the new year!

10. What fic made you feel the happiest to work on?

Probably my magnum opus, Tonight on Ring of Revenge! It's my longest fanfic and probably in my top 5 longest works of fiction I've completed in general, and it was really fun and satisfying to be able to gradually make a wild idea I had while watching wrestling work out. I'm really proud of it and it feels very unique to me - like plenty of other people are also great at writing the kind of horny one-shots I do a lot of, but no one else made the pirate wrestling AU, that's a Jaime Special

15. Rec a fic you wrote or posted in 2023

I'll do the same one I just answered - Tonight on Ring of Revenge! It loosely follows the overall plot of season 1 of OFMD but set in the modern era with the characters as pro wrestlers instead of pirates. Is that an extremely silly idea? Yes! Does it also actually suit the themes and characterization of the show really well? You bet! Are there ridiculous campy wrestling plots and choreographed fake violence and also sex? Hell yeah! I had a lot of fun doing research for it and I think there are plenty of details in there that wrestling fans will appreciate, but I also added plenty of author's notes explaining things for readers who are less familiar with wrestling. It's about 26k words and has a cute happy ending! Enjoy!

19. Share your favorite opening line

I think I have to go with this one from When You Like And Where You Like!

"We have three years of the past to discuss. Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon the notable adventure of the empty house." As Sherlock Holmes leaned casually against the desk in my study, a self-satisfied smile on his pale and aquiline face, I was seized with a momentary urge to leap from my chair and throttle him.

The first line of dialogue is directly out of "The Adventure of the Empty House," and if I remember correctly, it precedes a bit of a timeskip to the story picking up later that night. The second line is me starting a little missing scene! I really enjoy writing stuff like this that follows canon closely and could arguably have happened in between without necessarily contradicting anything, and I think it's a solid opening in terms of how much it establishes in those first two sentences: if you've read this story you'll probably recognize that line and know immediately at what point in canon this is set, and you'll understand why Watson is angry and why this is something that deserves a missing scene to get into his reaction to what's going on more!

2023 in Review Fic Writer Asks

[criticallyacclaimedstranger]

I have so many questions for the fanfic ask so strap in 😏 I really want to ask all of them but I should limit myself to like, 10.

12, 17, 18, 22, 26, 27, 29, 34, 36, and 77

Anyways I'm a little drunk so thank for answering these in advance and Ily 💙

(GAAAAH I HAD ANSWERED FOUR OF THE QUESTIONS ALREADY WHEN I SLIPPED ON MY GODDAMN TABLET AND CLOSED THE TAB AND I LOST ALL OF IT.)

Ziz, my drunken angel. I want to get drunk too, but I'm too tired. Now I have to copypaste all of these suckers for you instead.

12. Do you outline your fics? If yes, how detailed are your outlines? How far do you stray from them?

Mostly not. For longer fics or multichapters I might have some stuff jotted down just to remember to include it later (because I forget shit) but no, I don't really outline my fics.

17. Do you have a writing routine?

At the moment, I mostly work during down time at work. I have other things I'd rather do during my spare time, so in order to write anything at all - and I want to write, but not enough to use my spare time for it - it's going to be on company time. Front desk duty days are the best because we don't get many customers, I usually don't have anything pressing to work on while waiting for customers to show up, so I write smut. Perfect. It's a huge privilege, and I intent to enjoy it for as long as I can. So my routine is mostly "check if anyone's behind me, then open up my private email, and go to drafts, where I save my wips", haha!

18. Do you enjoy research? Which fic of yours required the most research?

Um, yes and no? Because I don't allow for writing to take a lot of time, I don't really feel like doing research at the moment. But if I feel like the fic requires it, a bitch will definitely google some shit. The most research I did in this fandom was for What Spring Does To The Cherry Trees. I had absolutely no idea about what life on a Texas cattle ranch would be like. I expected there would be cows and Stetsons. So I did a fair bit of reading up on that, plus what the military looked like in the early 1990's. (Nothing like I needed for my OFC, so I still made things up. It's fanfic.)

22. Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles?

AFTER. Omfg, after. Listen, I will have created the post on both Tumblr and Ao3 and be ready to hit that Post button, if it wasn't for the teensy tiny little detail that I LACK A GODDAMN TITLE. Titles are the worst. I very very rarely have a title from the start, or at least one that sticks with me throughout the process, and makes it until the end. I usually go for song lyrics (simple but somewhat easy), or something descriptive and boring (um, "The Artist and the Builder", anyone? Scoff!).

26. What’s your least favorite part of the writing process?

The title. And the sex scenes. Ugh.

27. What area of writing do you feel strongest in?

I feel like I write relationships well. I write female characters well, I like them independent and headstrong, not too sentimental or dependent. I like writing the day-to-day of relationships, the kind of boring stuff, the banter. Two people who rib the bejesus out of each other but will never be mean to each other and will always have each other's backs and also have phenomenal sex. Also she doesn't cook.

29. What’s something about your writing that you’re proud of?

I am proud of finishing fics that I've worked on for months or even a year. I'm proud of not compromising my ideas, even when I suspect that taking the story another way would give me more notes. And I am so, so proud of my chubby!reader x Frankie series. The comments I got on those fics still make me tear up. I am so humbled that I could give readers the experience of really seeing themselves in that reader insert. I honestly never thought it would be so huge, that people would actually see themselves in it, but they did, and they told me, and I am just. Wow.

34. How much of your personal life/experience do you include in your fics?

I did a lil day trip with my two doctor friends yesterday, and they talked about different medical professionals/originals that they met during their internship. And I listened, and told them: "You know that one guy is ending up in a fic, right?" They laughed, and said "Go right ahead, he deserves to be in a one!" So I do pick up stuff from around me, and from my own life. But most of it is make-believe because hahaha I do not have a Frankie of my own and I do nothing interesting with my life honestly :')

36. What fic are you proudest of?

As already mentioned, the Forever Starts With You series. But also What Spring Does To The Cherry Trees. And Jay and Frankie. Heck, I'm proud of almost all of my fics! Some are written with a lot of integrity, some I'm just proud of finishing, some have resonated so beautifully with the readers. Don't make me choose.

77. Why do you enjoy writing fanfiction?

I am a creative person. I've always written stuff. Fanfic in "easy" in the sense that you are served a world and characters that people already know, so you don't have to spend time setting all of that up. It's also a communal experience, something that brings people together. And of course I love the responses! I'd be lying if I said I did this for myself: if I did, I wouldn't be posting. I post my fics to share the, and I love it when people tell me I did good, yes, but mostly I love it when I make people feel something. Maybe I made them laugh, or cry, or horny (seriously, people: you have got to be more open about that! TELL ME MY SMUT MADE YOU MASTURBATE, I WILL BE ALL HEART EYES!). Maybe they recognized themselves in the fic, felt seen, felt appreciated. That's the good stuff. That's the reason I write. I'll continue to post stuff for as long as I have stories to tell but if I'm completely honest: I wouldn't bother anymore if I didn't get comments. This is fandom, it's supposed to be a community with interaction.

[theallblue]

GET TO KNOW YOUR ADMIN !!

name — Mkay

pronouns — she/her

preferred comms — I'm not too picky when it comes to anyone wanting to talk to me, but I do tend to favor discord.

name of muse - Sanji Vinsmoke. experience in RP — I've been roleplaying since high school more or less starting off on facebook before I moved to tumblr/discord so I've been doing it for awhile. I can't remember exactly how long it has been but its been like 10+ years pretty much.

best experiences —That would have to be the people who I have met through roleplaying especially the ones who tend to stick around the most. My oldest roleplaying buddies are @changeandmovingon @battleguqin and @bringxthexfirexmultimusesx who I mostly interact with through my sideblog. But they have been here since we first met in our fandoms and I love everything about those three. Adding @kaizokugaris as well since I just randomly yell at her whenever I get ideas xd.

pet peeves / dealbreakers — I have a few that tends to bug me a bit especially when it is stated in my rules. Being used as a meme source only despite following one another which tends to cause me to soft block them. Blogs that don't have rules, I won't follow them since that makes it difficult to tell about the person who is the owner of the blog. Blogs that try to force me to answer their threads/asks asap, I had an issue with that in another fandom that I'm in which caused me to block that person. And drama in general, I had enough of that when I was in the Voltron fandom.

muse preference ( fluff, angst, smut ) — Fluff and angst are the type of threads that I tend to lean toward the most since I'm not much of a smut roleplayer. Smut threads I usually have reserved for the blogs that I ship with the most because of the pairing that we created together. My muses are from around 15 years and up including the ones on my sideblog even though I don't have many pairings on @soundingstars right now.

plot or memes — I tend to do both especially if it is with someone that I haven't interacted with before since I like to see if there are any verses/ideas that catch their interest or something they've been wanting to do. I don't favor one over the other since it just depends on if inspiration hits for plotting or not.

long or short replies — I favor paragraph type threads the most since I like to put a lot of details in my threads, habit of being a fanfic writer. I don't mind doing short threads, but I just work better when it comes to the multi-paragraph type threads since it helps keep my interest about the roleplay. I am able to keep it going easier when it comes to the longer threads.

best time to write — I write whenever usually but probably evenings/nights when I don't have much to disturb me from my writing process unless I am working on a fanfic first. And my dogs will be asleep even though they can get a bit rowdy in the evening because they want to play together. Or when I'm not invested in watching one of the many K or C dramas that I am addicted to xd.

are you like your muse — Yeah probably, there most likely is something that I have similar with my muses. I have 22 muses all together when counting the ones from my sideblog. I usually pick them because there is something I like about them or OTP reasons even though most on my sideblog are from smaller fandoms. There are some on my sideblog where the RP side doesn't even exist so crossovers usually for those.

Tagged by: @graytxrminal Tagging: @kaizokugaris @changeandmovingon @battleguqin @bringxthexfirexmultimusesx @king-and-his-consorts @pxison @sillygum @whiskeysmulti and anyone else who reads this!

[glompcat]

2022 was a big year. After a very very very long span of time where depression meant I only had the attention span for works starring established familiar characters and universes, I finally was able to return to reading entirely original fiction this year. This really started last year after my cat died, when I discovered that romance novels were the ideal way to distract myself and get through my pain - which is why there are so many of them in the mix this year. I’m firmly a fan of the genre now.

I don’t normally list what I read in a single year, but I am so excited that by mid year last year I was in a good enough place in my recovery journey that I could hop into brand new worlds and meet new complex characters all over again.

So here are the Fiction Books I read in 2022 in no particular order. I am sure I forgot a bunch? IDK. I wrote a few short thoughts about each next to them. Please feel free to ask if you are interested in more detailed thoughts on any of them. I’m planning to write more about the ones I listened to as audiobooks while hiking over on my hiking blog later!:

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (fantasy) - This was without question the best fantasy novel I read all year

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson (science fiction) - This was the best science fiction novel I read all year. I REALLY REALLY REALLY loved this book.

The Luminous Dead (horror/science fiction) - This was the best horror novel I read all year

Read Between the Lines by Rachel Lacey (romance) - You’ve Got Mail lesbian edition. The author sure loves New York City, but in a way where it really felt strange as a New Yorker reading it?

No Rings Attached by Rachel Lacey (romance) - Serviceable. Fake Dating, Only One Bed, roadtrip where you know the obvious conclusion before you get there because the wrong assumption the character made was so super obvious. There is a moment in this book I am still very annoyed by in a “this doesn’t read as true for a queer person who lives in NYC” type way

The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Oliva Waite (historical romance) - This was a really good historical romance. Waite clearly cares a lot about the historical period she writes about and does a great job of establishing her leads as full people with strong interests and lives outside of their relationship.

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Oliva Waite (historical romance) - The difference between the cover and the actual book for this one is WILD. The cover looks horrible, but the actual book is great. An older and now widowed side character from Celestial Mechanics gets it on with a chubby beekeeper lady around her age. Lots of exploration of the politics of that time. Really loved this one.

A Little Light Mischief by Cat Sebastian (historical romance) - I am not going to lie, I don’t remember too too much about this one, but I remember really liking it?

The Seep by Chana Porter (science fiction) - Really interesting exploration of an alien invasion where everything about what it means to be human suddenly changes, from the perspective of a woman who had fought to be her true self before the invasion and finds herself unable to keep adjusting to the shifts in everything the more and more everything changes.

Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper (paranormal romance) - two witches team up to get revenge on their mutual ex boyfriend and surprise surprise they fall in love with each other in the process. It was a good enough book that I seriously considered reading the next book in the series even though it was a het romance and I don’t do those. 

Faux Pas by Lily Seabrooke (romance) - It took me a bit to get into this one, but once I did I was here for it! Basically a very gentrification focused property developer inherits a beloved restaurant in a small town she’s never heard of, which turns out to be almost exclusively populated by queer people. Everyone in town knows what she does for a living, so they are set on running her out of town and making her miserable, except for this hot mean butch who lives in the woods and seems to hate the whole town. She used to be a chef in the restaurant and promised the former owner she’d make sure it stayed in his family, so she is set on convincing our protagonist to move to the town and take over the restaurant rather than sell it. She has a tortured past which is the key to why she is a prickly asshole to everyone, there are many scenes of her sexily teaching the protag how to cook, and to top it all off there is a fake dating aspect to it all. 

Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly (romance) - It’s a new season of Masterchef errrr a totally original reality TV show that isn’t Masterchef, really, and the show is featuring reality cooking TV’s first ever nonbinary contestant. To hype up drama and ratings the producers made sure one of the other contestants is a TERF, so things really are not going great. However what the producers did not plan for was for another contestant - a recent divorcee - to fall head over heels for her fellow contestant (the NB one, not the TERF, obs). The main thrust of the book is them flirting during various challenges and being absurdly cute together. NGL reading this over the summer and then seeing a cooking show during the fall with a NB contestant really made this book feel extra strange. Obviously The Big Brunch was nothing like Masterchef with regards to drama and how the whole reality TV aspect of things is handled, but it was wild reading about how torturous being on TV would HAVE to be for a NB person in the book and then seeing in reality a person being treated with nothing but dignity and respect.

D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins (romance) - LOVED LOVED LOVED this book, oh WOW. It made me cry!!!!! So so so so so good. The plot is a reality TV dating show decides to do a season focused exclusively on queer relationships. The premise of the show is two total strangers have to convince their entire family that they are getting married in a super short period of time, involve their family in the wedding planning, and if they can make it to the wedding alter without anyone figuring out that it’s fake they get the choice of either taking a massive cash prize or actually going through with the wedding. The book follows two contestants - D’Vaughn and Kris. Kris is a budding influencer who wants to be on reality TV for the massive boost in followers it would give her, and D’Vaughn is not out to her family and wants to do the show because she wants cameras trained on them when she finally tells them that she’s gay. I love both of them so fucking much it isn’t funny.

The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett (romance) - A restaurant owner fell in love with her head chef before she hired her, back when she was a reality TV contestant on a cooking show. Problem is the chef is straight, and the owner doesn’t want to make their work relationship weird so she’s doing her best to get over her crush and move on, but it’s hard. The chef on the other hand has just figured out she is bi and is struggling with how to let the world know since there is an opportunity to do a new cooking show AND she is kinda sorta crushing on her boss and that doesn’t feel very professional - especially since she very publicly used to be engaged to the producer of the reality TV show she was on and doesn’t want to have a rep for dating her bosses all the time.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson (fantasy) - One of the two series I read this year about a fifteen year old trans girl with new powers, powers she uses to alter her appearance to look how she ideally desires (in this book that happens at the end, in the other it happens at the start of the book). She is not the first trans person in that universe to have powers but she is the most powerful powered person in that world so everyone has to pay attention to her and treats her like she is the first. One member of the powered community becomes her mentor who she moves in with, and the mentor takes on the role of being her mom. That mentor has her body stolen by a biofamily member (in the other series the mentor character got better! In this particular book’s case it was how the book ended, and the next book in the series isn’t out yet so I guess we will see when the next book comes out?) while another member of the powered community - who leads the big government sanctioned powered person org our protag is supposed to be part of - is a TERF (and other members of the powered community explicitly call her a TERF) who becomes obsessed with the teen and gatekeeps so hard the TERF villain destroys her life and reputation and loses everything. (I LOVE both of these series)

Dreadnought by April Daniels (superhero) - This is the second series to follow the pattern described above. In Juno Dawson’s series it is witches in England, in April Daniel’s series it is superheroes in America. Very interesting exploration of coming out. Danny knew she was a girl before the book started, but she had not told anyone yet. The book starts with her gaining superpowers, and with them her appearance changes to match her most idealized self image. So suddenly this 15 year old girl has to explain to everyone she knows how and why she well... looks like herself, while trying to do the whole secret identity thing. Also she is the most powerful superhero in the world, so her abusive dad can no longer physically harm her, but alas her parents are the worst and find all sorts of ways to still terrorize her.

Sovereign by April Daniels (superhero) - Love that Danny is allowed to be messy and not just a perfect unproblematic figure. One thing I am super interested in when the second book in Dawson’s series comes out is if it, like this one, will have a plot where the cis girl our protag was friends with in the first book becomes her girlfriend in the second book. Based on certain comments in the first one I think it will.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (science fiction) - NGL I mainly read this series so I could understand all the memes on my dash.

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (science fiction)

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (science fiction)

Wilder Girls by Rory Power (horror) - SUCH A GOOD HORROR NOVEL OMG. I really loved this one, the writing style especially.

The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood (science fiction) - It took me a bit to get into this series. As in I only TRULY got into it during the sequel? I think part of the problem for me was how the book often danced over really interesting things I wanted explored more - such as the protagonist’s teen years as a mercenary, which are kind of mentioned in passing even as they are happening and then cited constantly after as the reason she is so kick ass with swords

The Thousand Eyes by A.K. Larkwood (science fiction) - I really enjoyed this book, and it really made up for my struggle with the first book. It was the payoff that justified all the build up for me, and was just a fun ride overall.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (science fiction) - This is may be the most interesting examination of empire I read in 2022 (that may is because I am in the middle of Baru Cormorant and who knows how I will feel by the end of that series) I love this book. It is kind of wild to try to summarize. I remember reccing it to my dad this fall and simply saying “there is a space station where they implant the memories of dead people into people in their 20s as part of how they ensure important maintenance work is done right with a tiny population. There is this massive space empire that wants to devour them, and they really do not want that - even though that empire has been going HARD at absorbing them through cultural means. The station is losing a significant chunk of its population to people immigrating to the empire because the books and plays and poetry they keep sending to the station is all so damn cool, and this is a major crisis on the station. The ambassador to the empire - tasked with making sure the empire does not take them over - just died. He hasn’t been home for 15 years, so his last recorded mental imprint is super out of date. It’s uploaded to a 21 year old who wanted to be poet, and she is sent to the capitol of the empire as the new ambassador, where everything promptly goes very very very wrong.” What gets me is that description is basically just chapter one, and also that it convinced him to read it. ANYWAY this book is wild and fun and amazing all around

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (science fiction) - HOLY WOW did this just keep getting better. Also wow but the whole concept of the two characters who had endless UST in the first book finally doing it with a running commentary from the bitchy dead bi guy in our protag’s head was SO MUCH as was the endless panic about if he was present in her technique or if it was just her in bed. Oh and of course it has one of the damn coolest alien species I’ve encountered in ages. I loved how alien they are and how that alienness tied so perfectly into all of the themes of the book????

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley (science fiction) - It feels like the author of this book set out to make everyone and everything in this world as unlikeable as possible?

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldtree (fantasy) - You know the way that a drink from Dunkin’ Donuts is perfectly fine? Yeah, this was that. Like there is nothing wrong with it and it got the job done? This is going to be the first one I review on my hiking blog so even if I wind up being unable to follow through with all the others on this list I did while hiking, you’ll most likely see more about it there.

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (science fiction fantasy) - Exact same analogy but about the donuts at Dunkin’ this time. I really do get what the author was going for, and was very emotionally moved by this book - I cried during the end of it - but it left so many questions unanswered and really did not seem to want to explore any kind of worldbuilding? The aliens were running from a war because parallel to refugees on Earth. The music instructor had a deal with the devil because that is a classic music thing. Neither of these concepts really got explored, and I kept waiting all book for them to be properly fleshed out.

The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan (horror) - Worst book I read all year. Literally just ~mental illness is scary~

Saltblood by T.C. Parker (horror) - THE HORROR OF SURVEILLANCE CULTURE, YES

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders (science fiction) - SUCH GOOD WORLDBUILDING OMG. Also ngl LOOOOOVED that we have this weird scifi book about humans trying to survive on a super alien planet and how that impacted their cultures and society and religions on that planet…. AND THERE ARE STILL JEWS THERE. Like it was amazing and wild how everything is so different, and one of the supporting characters is literally Jewish.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) (horror) - I had been holding onto this book and hoping to read it since before the depression got so bad I could not read stuff outside of fandom related content. Was super happy to finally get through it, as always McGuire is a master of horror, love everything I’ve ever read that she’s put out under the Mira Grant pen name.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (science fiction) - Probably the weakest of the books in this series for me, which isn’t really knocking it too too much. I really enjoy the worldbuilding of this series, it is such a detailed fleshed out universe, which is so much fun to get lost in.

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (science fiction) - AHHHH I loved this book, I loved both of the stories being told and how they related to each other, it was so much fun. A young human clone slave taking agency over her life with the help of an AI system, growing up to help a different AI system in a humanoid chassis figure out how to exist in human form? Yes please!

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers (science fiction) - I swear with this series there really was - for me - a feeling of each book being better than the last. I particularly loved the whole idea of an alien anthropologist coming to document life on the Human colony ships.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers (science fiction) - My favorite of the series, probably because it is the only one absent of human characters, just alien species and cultures and exploration of the interplay between them.

Sailing With Her Wolf by Ariel Marie (paranormal romance) - I bought this book and the following by the same author together, because I wanted to see what paranormal f/f romance offerings were like, her name was the first to come up in my search and I was not sure if I would like a werewolf novel or a vampire one more. Sadly I discovered this author is not for me personally as her books tend to mostly be sex scenes with very little build up or character work between them.

Deadly Kiss by Ariel Marie (paranormal romance) - I had already bought it so I figured why not give it a try even though I didn’t like the author’s other book I got. Besides, that one was slim and this one was longer, so I went in hoping it would have more substance than the other did. I was wrong and am full of regret.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (fantasy) - In many ways this is my current read, so my thoughts are not yet really formed since I am in the middle of this series. The basic through line is a horrible eugenicist empire is taking over the world. Baru was a child when they came to her home, and after she does exceptionally well on their standardized test which determines your life placement she finds herself put in a position of power. What the empire does not know is that she plans to do everything she can to gain enough power within the empire to destroy it and set her home free. But to get that power she first has to do horrible horrible things.

The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (fantasy) - I finished this book on December 31st, and am currently reading the third book in the series (The Tyrant Baru Cormorant).

[nerdygaymormon]

Looking for advice if you have the time/energy.

After accepting I'm queer I realized that I was probably in love with my best friend in high school and I'm having trouble processing that.

Like, I want to try and connect with them just for some closure, but i don't want them to think I'm making unwanted advances, though part of me wants the chance to try again.

But then it feels weird to be pinning after them when it's been long enough that we are different people now.

Am I overthinking things? I just want to make sure I'm respectful of them. (We fell out of contact when I moved and I let it go cause I was having Big Feelings I couldn't process.)

When we're feeling vulnerable or lonely, often we want to connect with someone from our past with whom we felt an intimate connection, or who was a fun acquaintance, or who brought out a certain side of our personality, and so on. Basically, wanting to feel comfort and those past feelings represent acceptance, belonging and safety.

Now that you've gone through the process of accepting you are queer and how that changes your life path, and realizing your feelings for your friend were more than just friendship, I get that you're feeling more vulnerable, things aren't settled the way they once seemed.

Remember that you’ve changed, as has your friend (one would hope). You're neither one the gangly, awkward teenagers you were then. Your friend isn't the kid you knew, just like you’re not the closeted queer person you were.

Think about what your intentions are before you decide to reach out. Do you want to just say a quick hello, engage in a deep-dive catch-up session or re-enter each other’s lives more fully? How did your friendship end, you just lost touch after high school or was there a reason you stopped communicating?

Also think, what do you expect them to do with that information? Will telling them about your feelings back then turn a happy time with you into “an issue”. Is there any value for them in learning you once had feelings?

It’s probably a good idea to do some research before you make contact. Consult your former friend’s social media, are they super religious? Are they in a relationship? Do they post things that are very conservative? Try to get a picture of how they might react based on what you can learn about who they are now.

You also need to think about how their reaction would impact you. What if your friend responds that they'd prefer no further contact or responds negatively to the idea you had feelings for them. If you don't want to risk dealing with that kind of rejection, it’s best not to tell them.

Here’s an idea: Write them (yes, with pen and paper) a letter saying what it is you want to let them know, how you felt, how you still feel, put it all down. Let them know what they meant to you, how you wish you could have come out then, how realizing what you felt helped you to come out to yourself, and so on, so that they can understand your feelings. Get detailed. Tell them what you think about them today, all these many years later. Then put that letter in an envelope, write their name on the front - just their name, no address - and don’t seal it. Then put it with your other high school memorabilia - yearbooks, etc., and that’s where you’ll keep it.

You can go back and read it whenever you have a longing for those teenage years. You can relive those many months of your first love, even if unspoken and unrequited, and bring back the happiness it brought you to have this special, great (and probably straight) friend in your life.

It will help get it out of your system with a lot less weirdness for your friend by having this dumped into their current life. It's not really useful information for them. They've moved on with their life and don't need to have their understanding of the past changed.

Then move on with your current life, focus on your new career or your education, find a nice person to feel romantic about. Move forward, don’t wallow in and pine for the past.

[nottheweirdest]

Your stories are...emotionally life-changing.

I've come to learn so much about myself through your writing like learning to take care of myself mentally; value the friendships I have; enjoy the little moments I share with my family; embrace my flaws and improve myself because I want to.

Particularly, your take on Shadow's character is the most impactful because I sometimes see some of my faults in him, so when you put him through challenges only to see him triumph with the help of a partner, friends, and family...it's a welcoming feeling to know change is possible. That life is really worth living no matter how hard it can get.

Your fics taught me I'm not the only one that needs to make sacrifices for someone who said they loved me; if things aren't going well, I am now comfortable expressing that to my partners. A healthy relationship means the love goes both ways and never ends.

And without getting too into detail. some of your other works helped me experiment with things I never thought I end up liking, so thank you!

Your works are world treasures, but you're the best gift to us, Holly💖

I don't even remember what the question was asdgjkgkgl sorry

I've been reading, re-reading, and just processing this for days. You always have a way to render me absolutely speechless with your notes and comments Sam. You're so genuine, kind, and supportive. I count myself very lucky to have met you in this fandom and to call you friend. 💖 I never imagined anyone would feel this way about my writing. I never imagined it would have a real impact on anyone. I think maybe sometimes, even when I don't intend it, some of my life experiences and feels bleed through in my fics and I end up learning and growing right there with the characters and with you. It's honestly kinda of cool you know? To share that growth with you and others. What you mentioned, that life really is worth living, no matter how hard it gets. That rings really true. For both of the boys. I think that's part of what drew me back to Sonic after 20 some years away. Both Sonic and Shadow inspire people to keep going, even when things are at their darkest. Writing them, leaning on them as characters and holding those traits of perseverance, hope, and determination close have had a lot to do with getting me through the past couple of years. I have a feeling that's true for a lot of us.

It warms my heart so much that you've taken that out of my fics, that love goes both ways, that's it's not all riding on one person and their sacrifices. It took me a hell of a long time to sort that out myself and sadly I've not actually experienced it. I know it's out there though. And that it's something we all deserve. 💓

As for the other stuff 😅 😋

[elshells]

Happy STS!

Today I’m asking for an anecdote related to your writing - sad, or silly, or sweet, whatever first comes to mind.👀

Happy STS! <3

An anecdote, you say? Well, the first one that came to mind is not super happy, but at least it has a good (or at least hopeful) ending! It actually has to do with how I ended up on Tumblr! It was kind of a butterfly effect.

This ended up being a bit longer than an 'anecdote,' because I can never be concise, so TLDR: After dealing with some shady shit on Wattpad, including but not limited to having my work plagiarized, I decided to branch out and meet more writers. My sister recommended I get a Tumblr, and about a year later, I finally got around to making an account, and now here I am!

Full story below the cut!

The first place I started sharing my writing was Wattpad, and for about five years that was the only site I used. I'd found a community I could be happy with, and even though a lot of us lost touch because of COVID, we would still read and comment on each others' works.

But then, I was smacked in the face with my worst nightmare—my writing was plagiarized.

I don't know if you're familiar with the site NovelHD (I think it's called NovelWW now? I haven't been able to find it tho). If not, it's a mirror site that has a similar layout to any other reader website, except pretty much all of their stories were stolen blatantly off from Wattpad authors. And I was one of the authors affected!

I found out after two of my friends on Wattpad made separate messages warning people about this website because both of their works had been stolen. So I went to take a look, and lo and behold, I discovered that they had copied both EMBR of the Earth and Agent Ace (Encore didn't exist yet). And y'all, they weren't subtle. They listed my Wattpad username as the author's name, used the same covers, and copied my blurbs and chapters word-for-word. They even included the disclaimer I added that basically said: "I only post on Wattpad. If you're reading this anywhere else, my work has been pirated." Even though I cried a lot when this happened, I actually started laughing when I read that. They were so fucking blatant and lazy with their plagiarism that it ended up being kinda funny.

I reached out to Wattpad and explained to them what had happened, and they responded basically saying that since the plagiarism hadn't occurred on their website, there wasn't anything they could do except encourage me to contact NovelHD directly.

Fine. It's frustrating to hear, but I get it. I filled out a DMCA form and emailed them, and then just... never heard back. Go figure. The people who cared about solving the issue couldn't do anything about it, and the people who could do something to solve it didn't care. And meanwhile, I was stuck in the middle of it all with a bunch of other unfortunate writers.

The extra little kicker came when one of the two friends I mentioned above messaged me and told me she managed to get through to NovelHD and get her stories removed from her site. The process had more complicated steps, but she told me that it had worked for her and a few of her other writer friends who were affected. So, I tried exactly what she told me to do (I don't remember all the details). Still, nothing.

It's then that I realized that my friend, and all of her other writer friends that got their works removed, were Wattpad Stars (which is basically the Wattpad equivalent of getting verified on Twitter). I was/am not a Wattpad Star.

So, the people who had a bigger influence on Wattpad were listened to, while those who didn't have a strong presence were ignored because we were less of a legal threat. I see how it is.

That was all about two years ago (circa 2020-2021). Wattpad has since made some questionable choices, which I could talk about more, but since this post is already way longer than it needs to be (oops, sorry), I'mma try and wrap up. I wanted to keep my relationships on Wattpad, but I also wanted to try and expand my writing to other platforms. My sister (who's also a writer) suggested I try Tumblr. I'd been enjoying screenshots of Tumblr posts vicariously off of Pinterest, so I knew it was my kind of place to be. After procrastinating on it for a year, I finally made an account earlier this year! And now I'm here, talking to y'all! Except it's getting late and I've got to get to bed sometime 😅 Regardless, thanks for being so accepting, and remember, if someone plagiarizes your stuff, don't let it get you down. They're the ones that fucked up, not you 💕

If you read the whole thing and made it this far, 1) sorry, 2) congratulations, and 3) thank you so much!!