#I haven't gotten very far I'm on like day 5. it's very fun though

[link-lonk]

I started playing Pikmin 4 today and that was a mistake because now all I want to do is play more pikmin

[a-little-bit-of-ravioli]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @the-real-azalea-scroggs! Had to wait until I was of my phone because doing these is a nightmare on mobile lmao

1. How many works do you have on A03?

18 as of a few days ago!

2. What's your total A03 word count?

157,937! Which is. Only a fraction of the word count in my Docs folder. Be prepared.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I mainly write for The Legend of Zelda; specifically Linked Universe! In fact, that's all that's posted on my Ao3 currently, since my fall into that fandom began with me uploading there! Pre-Ao3 I wrote for Black Cat (Anime/Manga), Megaman NT Warrior, various Pokémon things, Assassin's Creed, Yugioh, Final Fantasy XIV and Octopath Traveler! Some of these I still write privately, but I haven't gotten around to re-posting any.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Whistling on Deaf Ears - My longest fic on Ao3, focusing on Wild and Twilight's friendship and how good intentions can lead to disaster.

Iconoclasm - Warriors deals with the room full of portraits in Cia's palace. The Chain also deals with it, but with a bit more fire.

Deserving - Twilight finally tells Rusl that he was the wolf in the village during TP, but that also means dealing with some heavier topics. Colin half overhears them and forms his own conclusions.

Something Greater - The start of the "Hyrule can see magical auras" series! In this one we deal with Legend and his many rings.

Ocean Magic - Mermaid Legend and Zora Time have a race and then fight one of the Big Octos from WW! Fun times.

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

Every single one!! I love comments, they give me an excuse to ramble about my fic more!! I am always down to ramble about every single insignificant detail of any line and/or section. If you ever want more background info about one of my fics, look to the comments!

So please, I adore comments, I treat them like treasures, not responding to them would be a CRIME.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

There's no contest; Inevitable, my (so far) only MCD fic.

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

Hmmm, that's hard to quantify. I usually try to end fics on a hopeful note regardless. I'd say possibly either Deserving, where Twilight reconnects with his family, or Shimmering Blue, Striking White, where Time meets the Fierce Deity settled down on Satori Mountain and they both get closure.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully, no! I've been blessed with mostly amazing and patient readers, even when my upload schedule isn't the best.

9. Do you write smut?

No, not really. I've attempted it, but I'm too asexual for it lol

10. Do you write crossovers?

Very, very rarely. Mostly privately, and only very specific ones. Only a single one has had an actual plot, so far (more on that one in question 15!).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Also a nope! I tend to write for smaller fandoms, where these things don't tend to happen a lot!

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

I have! But it's been a while. Over a decade, in fact! I tried to find the fic to link it here, but it was on the German fanfic website fanfiktion.de, and my friend who posted it back then must have deactivated her account, because it's nowhere to be seen (I still have the Word file though!). It was a Multi-Crossover that started as an RP in a forum, and we took turns turning the RP into prose one chapter each. "If a Hero Turns to Dark" was its title. We were edgy teenagers.

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

Hissssss. Bad question. Shoo. They are all equally important!!

But it's probably TenRose from Doctor Who.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

One of the very few crossovers I've ever worked on; a crossover fic between Assassin's Creed and Doctor Who, that I have mapped out in both chronological and timeline order, and yes, those are different. I only ever wrote about a quarter of it, since my primary audience of it disappeared when we graduated. I doubt I'll ever pick it back up properly, and if I do it'll probably go through heavy rewrites first since it's so old. Finishing it is a nice thought, but realistically, after 9 years it'll never be high priority enough for it to actually happen.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, especially arguments, and emotional impact. I've been told I do really well making characters feel alive and believable! Also I like to believe I'm decent at setting a scene and giving it the vibe I want it to have!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle with dialogue tags when nothing much is happening besides the talking. I always feel it's too bland, and fall back on the same phrases. My scene transitions could use some work too.

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

I've done this with Japanese phrases, because I was a massive weeb. Usually I followed them up with their own translations, though; I'm not the biggest fan of footnote translations, unless they are properly linked to. Simple dialogue tags are my favourite way of indicating a language switch.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Black Cat the Manga/Anime! It's a series about an assassin turned bounty hunter trying to live a life separate from his murdery past, but getting dragged back into things by still wanting to avenge his best friend's death. The series has a special place in my heart and my bookshelf, it left an imprint on 13-year-old me that will never leave.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Probably Jailbreak, uncharacteristically enough! It's one of the only fics I never got stuck in once. Writing it was a great feeling from start to finish. I love writing all of my fics, but that was a special few days.

Tagging @ahrva @nowhere-to-go-but-down @silvercaptain24 and @aeghina! And anyone who wants to do it, really, go wild

[pocket-elf]

New Years questionnaire for 2024/25

(I used to this this back during the LJ days, and a few times here as well, including last year. So let's keep going)

1. What did you do in 2024 that you’d never done before?  Proper hiking in the mountains! No tent, but day trips from a cabin. It might also be the first time I went north of the arctic circle (not sure if my childhood friend's cabin was just north of it?) Definitely haven't been that far north before.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't tend to do resolutions, not even fun ones. And I don't think I did crafting goals this year either. I did succeed with my main reading challenge early and changed it twice. For next year I will set another reading challenge, and in general just wish I keep pushing to do more creative things in my spare time.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Nope.

4. Did anyone close to you die? We weren't close anymore, but my childhood best friend died in May. Despite her living just across the street from me the past few years we never hung out. Had drifted apart long ago. But I kept thinking I'd contact her again and ask her over but never got around to it. They still don't know what happened. She just collapsed on her balcony. Autopsy showed nothing, and when I last talked to her mum (I wanna say beginning of October?) they still hadn't gotten the results from all the tests done.

5. What countries did you visit? France! Finally got to see a friend of mine in person for the first time. We must've known each other for... at least 15 years. I've been to France before but it's been more than 20 years.

6. What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024? As always... a girlfriend. Hit me up ladies and enbees! I'd also like some more energy and definitely would like some sewjo. It was DEAD all year. I crafted in other ways though thankfully. And MCR5...

7. What date from 2024 will remain etched upon your memory? I am very very bad with dates. And I don't think there's a single date this year that I remember.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I think the whole hiking trip. The fact that I could do it physically and didn't complain and it remained fun. And I didn't hate dad afterwards haha (it was just me and dad that whole week). Creatively my cross stitches should probably be seen as achievements. I just keep trucking along with them but my parents are hyping them so hard, telling me I don't understand how brilliant it is. And well, my very first one; the Gerard Way Black Parade one, has over 2000 notes and I am living for the tags people give it.

9. What was your biggest failure? I don't know... I feel a bit stagnant maybe? But at the same time that just feels like normal life when you have a stable job? I don't love my job though so I guess that helps in making life feel a bit meh. Not sewing any clothes feels like a failure compared to my past, but I just need to reframe it and think about the cross stitches I've made instead! I'm still being creative with textiles and whatnot. It's just different. And I did end up knitting a sweater in December so.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? No injury. But worst timing, getting a fever the day Callie arrived for her visit and spending the first week she was here with I guess the flu? It sucked. But that's been the worst of it.

11. What was the best thing you bought? So I prepped this thing in my drafts a few months ago when I was bored and felt like not much will change until the end of the year and I'll edit the last small things... and I said that this was such a hard question cause I I forget what I buy and when. But maybe my record collection? WELL, no. Assuming everything turns out alright, the best thing I bought was a ticket to Long Live The Black Parade for July 2025.

12. Did you try any new crafts? Nope! Unless using contact vinyl to make a piece of ikea furniture look pretty counts? But in general my crafting has been mainly focused on cross stitch. Finish up Gerard and then just falling head first into portrait stitching. Ended up with three more portraits on my wall (Kellin Quinn and two Alex Gaskarth) and one of Bob Dylan as a christmas gift for dad. He requested it. Halfway done with another Gerard, but didn't have the right frame for it so didn't know what to do about the torso. I have now though. But half of november and all of december has been full on knitting instead. Nice to get back into that too tbh.

13. Did your home change in any way? I moved some stuff around on the wall of my bedroom that isn't a big gallery wall... so that I could start I guess a second gallery wall of just cross stitch. They all hang above my bed now. I also added a clothing rack to my bedroom for things that need to be ironed and on hangers, but that I use fairly frequently. My closet is too crowded so even hanging stuff might get a bit wrinkly. This was I see it too. Gods there's a big pile of ironing to do though.

14. Where did most of your money go? I know it's bad but Temu is a trap. I mainly get crafting supplies though. And honestly yeah, that probably is where most of my money has gone. Various crafting supplies and a few books etc. Or maybe it's been records? Yeah records are expensive!

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Music still. Not as much as last year though.

16. What song/album will always remind you of 2024? Hmmm... I guess something All Time Low? They've been the big ones this year I feel. Not sure which song will stick as a 2024 song though. Maybe the re-record of Remembering Sunday? Cause I remember listening to it for the first time on that vacation to the mountains.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: i. happier or sadder? Maybe the same? Just a bit more... blah. ii. thinner or fatter?  Slightly fatter I think iii. richer or poorer? Richer as I'm not a huge spender and I have had a full year of stable income and no extra big purchases.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Sewing for sure.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? The answer to that is always work. But we live under late state capitalism. I don't have a choice. Disregarding that though... napping? I mean I love napping but time disappears.

20. How will you be spending Christmas and New Years? Christmas was spent at my parents'. Very chill. A good dinner (not christmas food), some gifts, christmas sweets I brought while watching some tv... After parents went to bed I watched the second half of Fellowship of the Ring.

Tonight, New Years Eve, I plan on making salmon for dinner and then a classic Swedish 80s dessert (pears cooked in simple syrup and then quickly broiled in the oven with After Eight on top) I will end the year by crying to Return of the King.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with? Eron or Callie.

22. Did you fall in love in 2024? With more idiot boys who make music, but not love-love.

23. Did you try any new exciting food? I don't think so? Had some great pastries in France of course but nothing like new and revolutionary. I've had French baking before!

24. What was your favourite TV programme? At first I typed that I don't think I watched any proper tv, but when I scrolled down to things I look forward to next year and saw that a year ago I was looking forward to Doctor Who... well I did watch the new season of that! And enjoyed it.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Not really no.

26. What was the best book you read? For sure Geoff Rickly's half fictional biography Someone Who Isn't Me. I'm so happy Jacey managed to send it to me finally.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? All Time Low for sure. My sweet sweet idiot boys. I think Pierce the Veil and Sleeping With Sirens found their way to my heart towards the end of last year.

28. What did you want and get? To see the northern Swedish mountains. Or more precisely, to see Tjuonavagge (The Lapponian Gate) with my own eyes. Also Black Parade tickets.

29. What did you want and not get? We all know the answer to that, the same as last year: MCR5 and a girlfriend.

30. What was your favourite film of this year? I watched pretty shitty movies this year haha. But since I'm doing a LotR rewatch... that. Does that count though? It's like the 10th time. Movie watched for the first time this year though is tough. It's a lot of Hallmark. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice for the aesthetics? It didn't blow me away of anything but I didn't adore the first one either. Only one I've seen at the cinema (because the showing times for movies I've been interesting in towards the end of the year have been shit. Gonna try for Wicked next week though) Of the Hallmark movies I think maybe The 5 Year Christmas Party. This is ofc if we don't count the music documentaries that I do log on Letterboxd though, cause obviously ATL's It's Still Nothing Personal is a delight.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 37. I worked, and then I went to dinner at my parents' place. Very chill. The weekend after (I think? Or maybe before) me and Mandi went to an all you can eat berry buffet, and it was great.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Having more free time, while still having the same kind of economical situation (or better obviously)

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2024? Just kinda lazy with my workday uniform being skinny jeans and a band tee, or variations thereof. I did buy a couple of beautiful pieces from Disturbia though to change things up sometimes. But in general lots of black with printed tees.

33b. Any other changes to your looks this year? Nothing radical. By the end of last year I had buzzed the sides of my head already. But this year I did move towards a mullet hawk. And I did try green for the first time! And some more tattoos of course.

34. What kept you sane? Same as last year: music and talking to people online. And way more so this year, especially during summer and fall/winter: having a creative project going at work. I've even inspired my coworkers to start crafting! Has made the office environment so much nicer tbh.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I can't choose between my emo dads now can I?

36. What political issue stirred you the most? Same as last yeah: I am just so very tired. But gods, Palestine.

37. Who did you miss? Always friends.

38. Who was the best new person you met? I mean she isn't NEW but I did get to meet Sky in person for the first time

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2024. I don't know if I learned any specific life lessons? But once again the fact that making things for yourself is important. Just for the same of making them. Create beauty, even if it doesn't turn out the way you intended. You still <i>made something with your hands</i>. Having inspired my coworkers to start crocheting and knitting really showed that again for me. The energy at the office completely changed.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Well, the years start comin' and they don't stop comin'

41. What is the thing you most look forward to in 2025? <i>Long Live "The Black Parade"</i> of course.

42. What is the first thing you look forward to in 2025? Probably tattoo appointment as it's two weeks in to the new year. Nothing big or fancy but still a lil something.

43. Any upcoming releases make you excited? I will never stop hoping for MCR5. But I feel like 2023 was a big release year, with 2024 not so much. So maybe 2025 will have a bit more. I'm expecting a Sirens record, cause I know they've been working on it. Same with Kellin's side project. A bit curious about Dunes' new one that drops very soon, but not exactly hyped. The first few singles didn't do it for me, but <i>Paper Tigers</i> was pretty nice. And I'm sure ATL have shit brewing, they always do. The new season of Doctor Who might be fun? Oh and Wheel of Time season 3. And I am actually really interested in Mark Hoppus' memoir that comes out early April, despite not being a Blink fan whatsoever.

44. Do you have any big plans for the coming year? California in July with My Chem as the focal point, but of course then a couple of weeks of hanging out with Jenny and exploring and such. Sweating my ass off.

45. What is something you want to accomplish in 2025? So as I said earlier, the funny thing is I typed up a lot of the answers to this around Halloween I think, cause I was bored one evening. And for this I had typed "I said this last year but I will again: I would really like to go to a concert. Is that accomplishing something?" And now that is at least planned! Maybe some new cool cross stitch. Maybe trying some more embroidery techniques, branching out. Finish some knitting projects etc. Just get somewhere with my making hobbies.

And some stat ones (new additions last year):

46. Number of books read According to Goodreads, 77 That does include a few kids books, and a bunch of graphic novels.

47. Number of movies watched 44 at time of writing. Should be a yearly total of 45 with Return of the King tonight. I usually watch more than this. Interesting.

48. How was Spotify Wrapped? As we all know it sucked. But at least seemed decently correct in the basic Top 5 artists and songs. All my top songs were ATL, with the new Remembering Sunday at the top. Could've predicted all five of them tbh. Top bands were ATL, Sleeping with Sirens, Pierce the Veil, MCR, and Fall Out Boy. In that order. I didn't know if Simple Creatures would beat FOB this year, but apparently not according to the AI.

45. How many tattoos are we at now? Last year we closed out at 8. This year... 13. New additions: excited ghost with its hands up (we all know this is actually Gerard, I even made sure he got gloves on. Friendship tat with Callie), a needle and thread, a beetle (friendship tat with Therese), two bird of paradise flowers (the biggest one, and my very subtle nod to Farscape), and finally a few mountains with fires at two of the peaks (friendship tat with Jenny. The beacons are lit!) Number 14 is scheduled in a few weeks and will be a moth.

[lusthurts]

tina or marley for the character ask :)

omg yay im so excited to talk about these two, thank you !!

tina cohen-chang

how I feel about this character

I love her, and I honestly think she's one of my favs of the og new directions. I think she's a very realistic character that has some hilarious moments in the show (props?? revolution?? breaking down in tears whenever she starts singing at the beginning??), plus she has a great voice and is almost always there and supportive

all the people I ship romantically with this character

she and mike should've been endgame. of all the ships in this show, they were like the only one that was genuinely healthy. they constantly supported each other and I was actually really entertained by their storylines in season 3

I haven't really explored any other tina ships, but I do kinda like the idea of sapphic tina -- I've seen some really fun edits of quinntina (that so far away cover slapped !) though they rarely interacted in canon so idk where that came from, I just think it's fun in theory

my non-romantic otp for this character

definitely blamtina! I think their friendship felt very realistic and well-developed, especially for something that really only existed to that extent for one season. also, they are so that friend group that has no boundaries and is very incestuous and it feels so high school

also love it when she's a girl's girl with mercedes and occasionally rachel

my unpopular opinion about this character

I loved bitch tina in seasons 4 and 5 - this felt like a natural progression of her character following the end of season 3 and everyone immediately discounting her as a potential lead soloist to replace Rachel - she was right when she said Rachel herself thought it would be Tina's turn her senior year only for her to be completely disregarded once again. sure, sometimes it was too extreme, but it was very entertaining and imo pretty realistic

one thing I wish had happened with this character in canon

more solos! I think she had a cool taste in music that was very distinct from the other new directions - more performances like dog days are over & I follow rivers would've been awesome (hung up was also sooo good)

I would've much rather seen her in new york than Artie - imagine blamtina being roommates !! and I know the timeline doesn't line up, but can you imagine how fun it would've been if it was tina fueding with Rachel in season 5 over funny girl??

marley rose

how I feel about this character

I don't really have a strong opinion. I think I liked her overall, but she and the other season 4 newbies were done a huge disservice by being created as either carbon copies of the originals or being given zero personality or interesting storylines

I think she had a lot of potential as a character, and I'm obsessed with her voice - I could listen to new york state of mind & blow me one last kiss forever

all the people I ship romantically with this character

I think Jake is my favorite ship of hers? though the cheating was real ick. def prefer him for Marley over Ryder though

I think it would've been interesting to see something romantic between her and kitty as a sort of replacement to faberry which we never got - kinda wild faberry was that popular with the fans and yet they got a whole do-over in season 4 and still didn't give it to us

my non-romantic otp for this character

definitely unique! their friendship in the show is super underrated and very wholesome - I don't think they ever fought, and they were always total girl's girls for each other

I wish we'd gotten to see her and kitty's relationship develop into a real friendship - once again, could've been a faberry do-over, and I think it had even more potential than them, but it didn't happen

oh, and I really enjoyed her interactions with finn as a sort of mentor/student dynamic - don't dream it's over is very wholesome, and I think her little card she made him was very sweet. I think it was a much healthier depiction of a teacher/student relationship than mr. schue had with anyone

my unpopular opinion about this character

I kinda liked the eating disorder storyline, and I wish it wasn't half-assed. I think it made a lot of sense for the character and it fit in well with the show (especially after they'd hinted at these storylines with Santana, mercedes, Quinn, and Rachel then never acknowledged them again). It sucks this plot point literally never got resolved !

one thing I wish had happened with this character

omg where do I begin.

obviously I wish they'd kept the season 4 newbies around in season 5 & 6 - I actually enjoyed the McKinley stuff in season 4 & 5 more than I enjoyed the New York stuff, and I found it incredibly annoying that these characters just dropped off the face of the earth because the glee club disbanded. All of them had so much potential only for it to be thrown out in favor of introducing a bunch of totally new characters with only a few episodes left of the show

I wish they'd resolved her eating disorder storyline better - it felt very much like an afterthought, and the way it was handled by the other new directions, the staff at the school, and pretty much everyone around her was pretty fucked up. why was her mom the only person taking this seriously???

[cryptids-of-spielzeit]

Sundae

Part 2: One Scoop Chocolate

(A Sun Dog Story)

It had been a week since he had met the kit. Over that week, the two had formed an inseperable bond. They helped each other out, she would scout the area and alert him of any dangers. She was so good he couldn't count how many run ins with the little ones he had already avoided. In return, all she wanted was his love. And food, but mainly love.

"Hey guys, I think our new friend is lightening up a bit!"

That day, it had been awfully quiet. No birds singing, no crickets chirping, not even the buzzing of flies. All the two heard were the shuffling of leaves and twigs as he crawled around. He suddenly stopped, setting the kit down right in front of him. He looked in the distance, almost as though he was in a trance. When all of a sudden, he spoke.

"You know, it's a bit sad. You've been by my side for a bit, possibly will be there til we both reach our end. And I still haven't given you a name."

She tilted her head in confusion.

"Oh, you know, a name....who am I kidding, you wouldn't know, you"re just a pup. Have I even told you my name?"

They both stood in silence before she tilted her head the other way. He chuckled a bit.

"Well then, I'll give each other introductions then. My name is......Dogday. And you...hmm, let's see. You're small, you're red....Bobby? No, no, you aren't a bear, but you've got the smile down. Hmm...I'll have to think about tha-"

BANG!

A gunshot destroyed the silence, the fox and the hound were both startled. But he knew there shouldn't be any gunshots, not in these woods. Signs were plastered everywhere, "NO HUNTING." Someone was out there, and they weren't following the rules.

Suddenly, they heard a rustling in the distance. The little ones, yet again? No, this sounded bigger, faster. Closer. Closer. And there it was, running their way, a young deer, couldn't be anymore than 5 months old. It didn't notice the two canines as it ran past, hiding itself behind a tree, and they followed suit.

Not far behind it was the culprit. Older fellow, very well kept. But he had that look in his eyes, he wasn't all there. He kept giggling, like this was a game, like it was fun. But come on, he couldn't be that depraved, right?

"Come on out, you little coward! If I get you that'll make my count 13, and that's just today's tally!"

(Fun fact: narrators hate it when they're wrong)

Dogday could hear every psychotic thing this man had to say. He was making this forest a waking nightmare for every creature here. And he despised that.

"Stay here, please. I'm about to teach him a lesson."

He crawled as silently as he could, just until he could get right behind the hunter. And then, when the moment was right....YANK! He pulled him to the ground, right at his level. The hunter was shocked, what did that to him? His answer was right there, inches away from his face. He couldn't even muster a scream.

"Leave. Never come back. Or I will do to you...what was done to me."

The hunter sat there in a mixture of fear and confusion, even after the dog had gotten off of his lap. He took one quick glimpse at his torso. The buttons clicked.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

He ran off like a scared animal. Good.

He crawled his way over to the tree to see if the deer was still there. Lo and behold, there it was, laying next to the kit. Seeing as they were all stressed, he knew what he had to do. He took one deep breath in, and one, long, relaxing breath out. It was at that moment, in the vanilla clouds, that he had an epiphany.

"So, it looks like we have another one joining us, huh kid? Well, lucky for the both of you, I've figured out what I'm going to call the both of you!"

He picked up the kit, "I think Strawberry's a good name for you, you sweet, red little thing." She yipped and barked in glee.

He then crawled over to the deer, slowly and gently placing his hand on its head, "As for you, I'm calling you Chocolate." It put its head on his, its tail slowly wagging.

It was getting late, but where they were was comfortable as is. They all huddled together in front of a makeshift fire, and another night went by. A safe night, all together.

"Oh, hey you! Come on, there's always more than enough room for another friend!"

[oubliette-odette]

The Reluctance of Love Pt. 13

Guys, I really didn't expect this to turn into anything serious, but now this is turning into like a full blown novel. In fact, I've been having so much fun writing it, that it's gotten me to start NaNoWriMo this year - which I haven't done for a couple years. Regardless of whether or not this is actually a good story, I'm having fun practicing my writing and sharing it with you nice people, so wish me luck and thank you as always for your support! :)

Orc Male x Half-Elf Male, Fated Mates, Forbidden Love, Slow Burn Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Word Count: 3349 (average 25 min read) Content Warnings: mention of mating, homophobia, fantasy racisms. Steamy scenes will come to those who are patient. :) All orcish is from orcishdictionary.com, created by Matt Vancil.

I had never cried my whole life, as far as I could recall. Being raised in an orc commune doesn’t really create an environment for crying. You were expected to be tough…or die. I was used to shouldering through any hardship with grit and determination and keeping your chin up and proud throughout the challenge. 

However, I was unable to be strong watching Altan leave me again. 

I wasn’t sure what to do with all of the water leaking from my eyes and I stood stunned and gasping for air as I shuddered and shook.

How many times would I have to watch us do this? To be so close, so near, and then suddenly so far apart again? How many times would I have to see the back of him, leaving me?

Doxxah seemed to understand the whole of our situation without asking any questions and they were very patient with me the next few days as I struggled to stay focused on any basic task. I noticed how they would tell me to take breaks more frequently and conveniently dropped more cinnamon rolls on the floor - which meant they couldn’t be sold and I would have to eat them. They were caring for me like a coddling parent and even though I didn’t have the awareness to say anything then, I appreciated it more than they would ever know.

The day following Altan’s visit, there was a message delivered from the Duke’s Hall with a message that I was not allowed any contact with Altan, or there would be repercussions. There were no further details on what those repercussions would be.

“Why can you not just run away with him?” Doxxah asked.

I shook my head, “Altan is scared of his father. He pursued him across the continent to the Sword Coast when he ran away. I cannot imagine the consequences if he ran away with an orc like myself.”

“So now what? You wait for the Duke to die?” Doxxah asked. “It’s been almost a month since you’ve been here, what will you do?”

I shook my head, I didn’t really know. 

And Doxxah didn’t know either, but they promised me a place to stay for as long as I needed - forever if need be. I was grateful to them. So grateful to them and I promised to work hard to earn such generosity.

We agreed it would not be wise for me to go with Doxxah to make deliveries in the Hall, but Doxxah promised me that they would relay any messages to Altan if they were able.

What could I say in such short words that would quantify everything that I was feeling, everything I wanted to tell him? I wanted to tell him that I loved him in return. So much. I wanted to ask him to make sure he was eating enough, that he was staying out of trouble, that he was still making music. I wanted to ask if he missed me? Would he wait a long time for me? Or should I ask him to find someone else to love if our love was doomed from the beginning?

Instead, I gave Doxxah two word: djefham simpsad.

“What does it mean?” They asked.

“Light eternal.” I said. That was what Altan was to me, my eternal light. He was like the sun, wherever he was, I would bask in his light, burn in his gaze if he let me. 

Doxxah returned with Altan’s message on a slip of paper with Altan’s rushed handwriting; an Elven phrase that I spent the next few days tirelessly working to translate: “My light is yours eternally, my heart will be wherever you are, but I am most earnest to see you again.”

“You two are a bit disgusting.” Doxxah said, their voice endearing. “I’ve never seen such a sappy romance like the two of yours.”

I dismissed the teasing with a friendly smile and pocketed the note, it would stay close with me for however long I’d be away from him.

I worked through those days with a determination to earn a chance to be with him again. I took every day with the belief that if we were meant to be, an opportunity would reveal itself. Some god must have blessed us to be together if we were drawn to each other so randomly, I had to believe that they would bless us again. 

And the blessings came rather unexpectedly. 

It had been many weeks since Commander Gideon had visited, but he returned one quiet morning, dressed in common clothes. Doxxah greeted him with a flurry of hands reaching for all of the goods that they would be sending off with him.

“I have news.” Commander Gideon said quietly, but loud enough to catch my attention. I looked up from the back and caught his eyes on me. He gave a micro nod, and I wiped my hands on the apron I was wearing and came closer to the counter. 

Doxxah and I stood, expectant and curious.

Gideon reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. “I am reluctant to give this to you without providing some caution.”

“What is it?” Doxxah asked.

He continued to look at me intently, “It is an invitation to the Autumn Gala, addressed to Doxxah and those in your employ.”

Doxxah clapped their hands together. “Oh how delightful! I was wondering when my invitation would come! Drunrag this will be wonderful for you to see Altan!” They reached for the envelope, but Gideon snapped it just out of reach. 

“I believe the Duke is putting you,“ He nodded at me, “in a position to be caught with the young Hilmar. I promised the Young Lord that I would do my best to help you, and I have kept the Duke off your scent as much as possible, but I cannot protect you if you put yourself in the direct attention of the Duke. He is determined to find fault in you to remove you from this place. Do you understand?”

Doxxah looked over to me, their eyes narrowed, “Drunrag can control himself, right?”

I nodded, “I understand, Commander.”

He nodded and then put the envelope back in front of Doxxah. “I am relieved to hear you say this. I do not wish to see this end poorly for the two of you.” He glanced between us and bowed his head. “Del sends her love, good day.”

He turned and left and I stood in awe, the envelope still sealed in Doxxah’s hands.

“You will go?” I asked.

Doxxah nodded, “I must, I have a reputation to uphold.” With a deft slice of their claw, they unsealed the envelope and slid out the card that was pressed with gold foil script in big, curling letters. It was impossible for me to read. “And you? You will go?”

I nodded, “Even if it’s to see him from afar, I will go.”

Doxxah snorted then gasped, “Oh, but what will you wear? Darling I hate to break it to you, but you have no sense of taste.” 

I shook my head, “I…I don’t know.” I didn’t consider that this was in fact, a gala. That usually included posh people in clothes that were worth more than my forge.

“Leave that to me.” Doxxah said, “Trust me that I will make you stunning for your beloved.”

The gala was in two weeks, and they were probably the longest two weeks of my life. Now that I knew a chance to see Altan was coming, I was antsy for time to move faster. 

Doxxah delivered another message to him for me, containing the words, “Kupu, wakka dra natha.” Soon, I will see you. 

Altan’s reply: I yearn to be seen by you. 

Oh, Altan was maddening with his words. He was teasing me, pulling me into a state of want that I didn’t know I could feel for someone. 

I realized that this was the first time I had felt such strong feelings for anyone in my life. Ever. And to my own delight all of it was free from the rules of mating or lust. It was because of who Altan was. It was because of who I was. We were somehow just meant to meet, to be friends, and then naturally become…lovers?

The word still scared me. I realized that we had never really touched each other, except for in small fragile moments, but somehow he left me breathless, wanting, and yearning. I missed the nights that we used to be able to speak to each other through our dreams. It would have eased much of my worry and anxiety if I could just speak to him and comfort him. I worried what his father was doing to him. I worried that he was losing his light being confined there. He was meant to be free, to be roaming with the sun on his skin. He was not one to keep inside, locked up. 

I played with the vial around my neck. Possibly drinking it would return those dreams to us, but also everything else. It was a gamble to do that to ourselves, to Altan. The cost wasn’t worth it, but I still went to bed every night tempted to down the crimson liquid just so I could see him again. 

But the weeks eventually passed and the night of the Gala was upon us. My stomach was tight and Doxxah struggled to get me to do anything that day. I was completely useless, more a corpse than a body in the bakery and Doxxah finally banished me to my room to dress in the clothes they purchased for me and to stay out of the bakery. 

Doxxah had measured me and sent in an order for something tailored to fit me. I pulled from the box they handed me three articles of clothing. The first, a pair of black pants that fit loosely around my thighs, the inseam was low and gave the pants a baggy, loose look, but it narrowed on my shins and tucked neatly into the black boots that Doxxah had also purchased for me, they were a soft leather that was polished to a bright shine. The final piece was a black shirt with a low, almost plunging collar. My collarbone was nearly fully exposed, which Doxxah promised me it looked very enticing and would likely be to Altan’s taste. I trusted that they were right. The shirt had no sleeves, looking almost more like a vest, leaving my shoulders and arms exposed - also said to be enticing according to Doxxah. The buttons that run down the front were black pearl buttons and there was gold embroidery that was thin and subtle across the entirety of the fabric, it flashed and shimmered in only certain light, making Doxxah clap in delight. 

The night of the gala, Doxxah insisted that my hair be released from its topknot and be let free. I had come to learn that Doxxah having claws for hands did not stop them from being incredibly adept with them and they worked through my dark hair with experience, creating complicated braids that pulled the hair from my face. They told me that it helped accentuate my cheekbones and jaws - which were apparently also enticing. 

I didn’t realize so much about me could be described in such a way. Did Altan see these same things in me?

I was honestly a bit scared to find out. 

Doxxah hired a carriage to take us to the Duke’s Hall, even though it wasn’t far of a walk to get there. I learned in the last month that Doxxah also appreciated the finer things in life - I had learned much about hygiene, appearance and poise in that time that I had never learned in my lifetime.

My heart was beating wildly inside me. I had to be on my best behavior. I knew that the Duke was likely orchestrating all of this to meet my demise, but I would prove to him that I was worthy to love his son. And I had to see Altan again. It was a need I could not deny anymore.

The Great Hall was bursting with light, large chandeliers bouncing and refracting it into every corner and as we stepped into the room, I felt cold and my stomach tightened as I saw the crowds that swelled the space. I couldn’t make out faces, there were too many, and I didn’t want them looking at me in return. They were all human and they all were shorter, more slim, more smooth than either Doxxah or I. There were so many in large, voluminous gowns that sparkled and swished as they moved. Many people were dancing in the center of the hall as music rose and fell.

While Doxxah lifted their chin in pride and displayed their glistening violet scales and matching purple suit coat for all to see, I was caught frozen in that moment. I couldn’t be here. This is exactly where I didn’t belong. This is how people like me get hurt, get cornered into something dangerous.

Doxxah patiently pulled me back to their side and tried to remind myself to breathe as I stumbled into pace with them. My head felt dizzy as I brushed against more and more people and they all would turn and suddenly their eyes would widen at the sight of me. I couldn’t hide what I was to them. I couldn’t soften myself to fit them and I felt so wrong. 

“Doxxah, what a pleasant time to have you with us.” I turned to see the Duke approaching us, a wine glass in hand. “And I see you brought your newest employee.” I felt his stare on me, and how he took in everything that I’m sure he saw as wrong and distasteful.

Doxxah nodded, their grin was friendly but guarded. “He has joined as my apprentice.”

“And will he be staying long?”

Doxxah glanced at me and shrugged. “As long as he chooses.”

The Duke met my eyes and bowed before me. I felt the mockery in it and tensed as he extended his hand. “Duke Telaisin Hilmar, at your service. What may I call you?”

“Drunrag.” I answered, my hand hovered over his hand before Doxxah nudged my elbow and I took his hand in mine. “Drunrag Ulurat, Your Grace. It is an honour to meet you.” I had rehearsed the words again and again with Doxxah, but I still found them falling out of my mouth with heavy and webbed disdain. 

“You know my son, I hear.” he said, now standing at his full height, I saw that he was not much shorter than I and his upward gaze was only slight.

I answered with reluctance “I was able to help him when he was visiting the Sword Coast.”

“How lucky my son was to find such a close friendship with you.” The Duke said. “I must thank you for keeping him safe while he was away. And I’m grateful that you could be here to join us tonight, for I’ve made big plans for him tonight that will take him away from Berdusk, somewhere where he can’t be followed. His future is bright and I’m sure you understand how important it is that I send him where he won’t be distracted.”

I felt the heaviness of his words and I met his cold gaze, “I understand, Your Grace.”

“He takes on much of his mother’s traits, he loves easily and rushes into things rather rapidly.” He continued, my eyes darkened at his words, “I often find he goes through these phases that often hurt him in the end. I’m doing my best to protect him from such things, but he has remained willful and distracted since his return.” He regarded me, looking me up and down. “This change will do him good. I hope you don’t choose to follow him again. His future and yours do not align.” 

I didn’t answer, only stared back at him with my own cold, returning stare. 

“You understand?” His tone was becoming honey-sweet and cloying with charm. 

I felt Doxxah’s fixated stare on me, begging me to keep my mouth shut, but I felt my fists tighten and I raised my chin. “Altan is not a child. He does not need you to make his choices for him.”

“You will not be seeing him again after tonight, orc.” He said coolly. “You have tonight to say your goodbyes, and then you will leave and forget this place. If I ever find that you are seeking my son, I will see you suffer for it.”

He bowed towards Doxxah and turned away, not giving me a second glance.

[anunusers]

Hiya love!!

Saw your post and though I would ask! 😁

Can I ask all of them? 1-36 lmao

Last question is: what's your biggest fear?

Love u, byeeeeee🩷

OMG this made me so happy!!!!! I'm a nobody and you want to know about me?!?!? 😭means the world to me!!!❤️I love you !!!!!

I did try to answer all of the questions and I thought I posted it but I am new with posting so please forgive me! Also, I'm an over sharer so I'm sorry in advance for that too!

What is your nickname?

Lately, my colleagues have been calling me Jay. Other times I'm Jen or Jenni.

When is your birthday?

4/3 :)

What was your longest relationship?

I've only been in one serious relationship and those were the hardest 4 years of my lifeeeee! Seriously, barely made out alive. 😮‍💨

What is your favorite book?

I have so mannnnyyy! It's so hard to pick one but I'll share a few that actually caught my attention and still have resonated with me:

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Tony and Susan by Austin Wright

It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

I'm thinking of ending things by Iain Reid

I honestly have so many more, but these are the ones I have read recently and absolutely loved. Also, Fredrik Backman is currently my fav author so I definitely recommend checking him out !

What is something you're insecure about?

My appearance for sure. I don't feel confident in my looks whatsoever haha. I feel like I am fugly most of the time but that just what has been embedded in my brain since I was younger. Also, I've recently have gotten insecure with my voice. Which is so random but I kind of hate my voice LOL.

5 Male celebrity crushes

Jake Gyllenhaal (obvy LOL), Pedro Pescal, Jaime Camil, Tenoch Huerta, Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I honestly have many more and they are all from Novelas. That is all I grew up watching with my mom hehe.

5 Female celebrity crushes

Elizabeth Olsen, Emma D'arcy, Scarlett Johanssan, Ana de Armas, Anne Hathaway and again, I am many many moorreee.

What is your dream job?

I always wanted to do something in music or theatre. A singer or actor. I was a huge choir nerd in high school. I even did piano lessons for a few years. On my last year of high school, I ended up doing theatre and it was so much fun! I did plays and that experience really made me love theatre. Maybe one day in the future... 🙏

What do you consider your biggest accomplishment?

I haven't accomplished much in life to be honest so I don't know what I would consider an accomplishment. Maybe being able to learn different professions throughout the years. I am a Certified Patient Care Tech and all though I am not even that work field anymore, I still very much enjoyed learning about the healthcare process and what different titles mean when it comes to taking care of patient and getting the help that they need.

What is a fact about you that nobody would believe?

I have no clueeeeeeeee......maybe that I'm from MX ?? LOL My accent is completely gone now from the 12 years that I've lived in the States. Which is so sad cause not only do I suck at speaking English, my Spanish is going down hill too.. I'm slowly turning into a sabo kid!! 😭😭

What were your highs and lows for this last month?

Lately, my lows have been just feeling very lost and out of place. I feel like I should be at a certain point in my life but I am so far from reaching it or maybe I won't ever come close but yeah, its a very crappy feeling. My high this month is definitely receiving this ask from you. Made my day 100% better! ❤️

Where is somewhere you'd like to visit?

I have sooooooo many places I would like to visit!!! In States, I would love to visit New York, Florida for Universal Studios and World Disney. Out of States, I would love to visit Sweden, Italy, Japan, South Korea.

How do you de-stress?

I nap like my life depends on it. I'm stressed, NAP. Upset, NAP. Happy, NAP. Sad, Nap. I could rot happily in my bed if I could get paid for it.

What are your favorite apps besides tumblr?

I honestly only mainly use Tumblr and Tiktok LOL they control my life right now. I don't think I use any other apps. Maybe Amazon and Barnes & Nobles 😁

Describe yourself in one sentence.

Lover girl in a world where love no longer exists. 🫠

What do you think makes you attractive?

I don't know actually... I would like to say my personality perhaps? I think I'm pretty cool I think I'm quite hilarious actually haha. I had someone once say that my eyes and smile was the most attractive thing about me, but I think the opposite.

What is something you're really good at?

Procrastinating. I procrastinate so good that when the deadline of something is like 5 minutes away, I overwork and stress myself out so bad that my work just comes out beautifully. I work amazing under extreme and stressful situations. Not healthy at all so please don't try!!!!

What is something you're really bad at?

Math. Which is funny because I was doing accountant work for a Retail store as my first job and I was amazing. Maybe it was the power I felt while holding thousands of dollars a night while making minimum wage 🥲LOL

A time that you told a lie.

I never lie, I speak my truth all the time but while I was in my first serious relationship, I lied ALOT about being okay and happy. It was such unhealthy relationship for me and I wanted to keep the peace at all times that I lied a lot to my family. Trust me when I say, even if they are older, does not mean they are mature. Learned that the hard way.

What's a totally random and useless fact that you know?

Our brain doesn't know our eyeballs exist and if they did know, they would attack them. You can permanently go blind if our brain was like, "wait a min, where did they come from??" Freaking GNARLY!

Who knows you the best?

My mommy ❤️

What is your most prized possession?

I am in LOVE with V for Vendetta. From the moment I saw it back when my dad would let us rent random movies from Blockbusters, I just love it. I read the comics and love the theatrics of how V is and how beautifully he was portrayed by Hugh Weaving. I ended up buying a screenplay book that contains the directors notes and small changes that were made that didn't make it to the movie and that is my most prized possession. Definitely fueled my love for acting and everything that comes from just being able to shoot a movie.

What is your longest friendship?

9 years but unfortunately, life drifted us apart :(

When did you first feel like an adult?

When I did my taxes for the first time. I was not ready to adult, and I still can't adult correctly but surviving!

Do you/ Have you played any sports?

Yes, volleyball!!!! My family used to play it all time when we lived in MX. I turn into a competitive monster.

How are you feeling right now?

Tired and hungry. I've been surviving on Moster Energy drinks these last few days.

Are you an early bird or a night owl?

I'm honestly neither. I used to be able to stay up all night but now, I can barely wake up early and can barely stay awake lol I'm old now.

Do you believe in love at first sight?

I do, I'm a hopeless romantic.

Favorite song lyrics right now?

I've been listening to sad songs lately. Currently have I Can't Make You Love Me by Bon Iver on a constant loop. "I'll close my eyes, then I won't see. The love you don't feel when you're holding me. Morning will come and I'll do what's right. Give me 'til then to give up this fight." UGH gets me every time! 😭

What does self care look like for you?

Honestly, a nice hot bath in a candle lit bathroom, bright enough to be able to read a book and because I love in AZ, thunderstorm sounds in the background. My definition of self care ❤️

Describe yourself with 3 singers.

This is on hard! I don't know. Ummmmmm can I say 3 of my favorite singers? Amy Lee from Evanescence, RAYE, and Beyonce.

What makes you nervous?

Knowing that we have only explore 5% of the ocean and ocean nearly takes 70% of our planet. Not sure what phobia that is but thinking about that makes me nervous. Also meeting new people. I'm very shy so I get super nervous and anxious.

What’s a pet peeve you have?

When I am with someone and I am sharing something or just telling them something and they are on their phone, not listening at all. Then they have the audacity to say, "Huh?" Like no thank you. The excitement is over and now I'm hurt. 🥲

What will always make you cry?

Thinking about my life. Kidding! I am a huge crybaby so it doesn't take much to make me cry. Show me a sad video, I'll cry a river.

What kind of first impression do you think you make on people?

I don't know, I smile a lot so maybe they form some kind of opinion based on that. I hope it's all good first impressions though. 😊

Special Question: What's your biggest fear?

I have a lot of fears and some may seem so little. I am afraid of never being able to accomplish or become the person I dreamt of being. I'm afraid that I will never get back on track with how I envisioned I would be right now at 24. It's dumb little things that scare me. Never finding love and having a family of my own or not being able to be fully happy. Sometimes it feels like something is missing and maybe that's why I have been feeling lost lately. Those are biggest fears.

THANK YOU SO MUCH AGAIN!!! I really enjoyed answering these questions and would totally love to see you answering them too!!!!!! Love you!!!❤️❤️❤️

[jesncin]

5 days long anon again. Yeah, it took a while because I kept reworking and trying to find the right words. words are hard. Plus anxiety. Constantly worrying if it would be right or sound right. Right now I'm riding the high of "it WAS fine!!" so I'm feeling more confident in sending this.

The whole "oooh superhero lied to someone how bad" when it's about their identity? One thing I clipped from the previous ask was talking about how of course a hero should not disclose their civilian ID because that would put any family or friends in danger. A reporter SHOULD understand that! Or at least a kind one. Of course Clark wouldn't be going around telling people if only because he wants to keep his parents safe. Yet you can't look me in the face and tell me that the Kents wouldn't be leery about telling people their son's origins as an alien regardless of when the story is set because technically? Illegal immigrant baby. Illegal immigrant alien baby, whom any spooky group (military/research/???) might want to get their greasy mitts on. I can see that kind of worry leaving marks on him too, even though he is trying to be kind and good.

Maybe it was "too soon" but Kal-el is talking to someone he's grown to know as both Clark Kent and Superman. Who he feels he can take that risk with. And with something... not small, exactly, but not as harmful to his life as he lives it on Earth? It's not quite a test of trust because that would be too calculated for it but it is something more honest and raw and the little voice in the back of the head going "do you understand? do I understand?".

"I've had to justify fanon to canon" is... odd. Have you had to with the Martians or is it specifically your take on Lois? I admit I haven't been able to read all the comics and random sketches yet but everything I've seen has been built on the trend of compassion and care whether it is for it or in spite of it. ...and sexy abs. (Rudy.)

Run out of steam/focus so hope you have a good night again.

Hiya 5 days anon (Here I am responding now after the strike)! And no worries, I appreciate people taking their time thinking of what to say.

Right! Even without any Superhero-level fantasy stuff- irl journalists write under pseudonyms or protect the privacy of the people they're interviewing all the time (Lois did this in Girl Taking Over!!). This notion that reporters are Kantian "Lying Is Always Bad No Matter What" people is frankly a caricature. Fun for silver age shenanigans, but not if you want your story to have any sort of depth. And yeah! Clark is an illegal immigrant baby. It shouldn't take much imagination to see why he and the Kents would want to keep that a secret (alas some stories think otherwise- I can't help but call the emotional intelligence of the characters into question at that point).

Yeah! I don't imagine Superman telling Lois his Kryptonian name as something pre-meditated, it's very spur of the moment trust. The idea is that he's not ready to disclose his civilian identity yet, but he is trusting Liando with something far more personal.

It's mostly been my Superman stuff. I don't post my Martian art on twidder especially since well. I've always gotten one or two racist comments on my Clois comics but the Private Interview comic just unleashed the floodgate for racist comments. If I get that much heat for a cishet interracial couple, you can imagine how gross people would be to my Martian stuff. There's a portion of cape fandom that just doesn't understand fanon or interpretations and are vehemently against any sort of change. So I get silly comments asking me to justify the change ("Why is Lois Black??") or backhanded compliments hailing me as "the exception to racebends". It's annoying, but in the end the comic really wasn't for them. It's for people like y'all who get it! (like Rudy)

Thank you and good day/night!

[ghostintheheadset]

watchmojo's top five headphones_haver fics of 2023 (not clickbait)

I'm looking at my 2023 stats on ao3 and fandom disparities are really funny to me lmao, my main fandom at the moment is fe3h, and of the 22 fics I posted this year, 19 of them were fe3h.

All three of the non-fe3h fics are my top three most kudos'ed fics of the year:

It goes without saying ofc that these numbers don't really matter, if I was only doing this for the kudos I'd be writing m/m genshin fic, and it's not really surprising why the numbers are the way they are- both my Pokemon and Zelda fics were posted within a few months of the game coming, and gwitch is also relatively new and I was writing for far and away the most popular ship. Meanwhile, 3h is now past the 4 year mark, and largely m/m dominated while the majority of my fics are f/f. While I would certainly enjoy all my fics getting popular, seeing the numbers like this makes it easy to remember that engagement isn't a metric of quality.

(In that vein, Falling is probably the fic I spent the least amount of time on this year, being impulse-written in about 2 hours. Sometimes niche fics you pour your heart and soul into can't reach the same level of popularity as wider-appeal stories you wrote much more quickly, and that's okay)

That said, though, I am happy with the fics that made top 2. There's something satisfying about my first and last fics of the year being the most popular, and I am very happy with how the both of them turned out. They're both representative of the themes I like writing about and are both wholesome yuri, so I think they "belong" in the top 5 as much as any fic could be said to.

Numbers 4 and 5 are kind of a surprise to me- Pegasus Knight Dysphoria is a gen fic about a trans girl and Someday is an f/f rarepair. Of the 19 (wow) 3h fics I've written over 2023, these are not the two I'd expect to break into the top 5, but it's a pleasant surprise that they did!

Anyway, none of that actually matters beyond being mildly interesting to me specifically. Onward to 2024:

According to my stats page, I posted 126k words of fic in 2023, which averaged out to a little over 10k words a month or about 345 words a day. Not bad! Looking to get those numbers up next year though. If I don't, then that'll be okay, but 126k is the Word Count To Beat if possible.

I would also like to do some more fandom events! Apparently there's a FE rarepair week happening literally right now that I wasn't aware of until yesterday. Hoooopefully I'll be able to see more of that kind of thing now that I'm here, as they've always been a lot of fun when I could participate. I'm not leaving 3h just yet, but I would like to branch out a bit more- I definitely have more gwitch fics lined up, and I'd like to also branch out a bit and write for some other fandoms I haven't gotten around to yet.

Big writing goal is to finish Together We Ride, and also work on it more consistently. I was putting off starting it for a while because I wanted to "wait for a good time", but I realized if I kept that up it would never get started. Considering I started it in April and there's currently 7 chapters, it was in fact "not a good time", but! I am committed to seeing it through in the upcoming year.

That's about it I think. It's been lovely writing fic over the past year (and a great way to unwind from the Grad School Stress), and I'm very much looking forward to exploring more next year.

(might do a roundup later today of some fics from this year I really liked we'll see)

[thisapplepielife]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

I'm very belated for this, but thanks for the tag @hbyrde36!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

18! But a lot of those are in the Wildflowers series. (Maybe it should have been chaptered? I still don't know what the right answer was, lol.)

So, I basically have 3 things to read, if you count the two parts of the Jagged Little Pill series as one, and I always do. Wildflowers is for those that wanted more of Tuesday's, and not that many people wanted to read Tuesday's in the first place, haha. So it's a niche of a niche. But I hold it close to my heart, and it makes me happy that a few of you have been so on board with it, too. ❤️

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

487,289. Which is kind of crazy. I just looked, and I started writing You Oughta Know on July 30th, 2022. From then until today, that's 457 days. That's averaging over 1,000 words a day. That seems wild. (And I've got a lot of unpublished words still in the chamber, haha.)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Stranger Things right now, but I'm not opposed to branching out as the mood strikes. I think I'd love to take on David/Patrick of Schitt's Creek someday.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Take the Money and Run (by a country mile, lol)

You Oughta Know

I'm Brave, But I'm Chicken Shit

Tuesday's Gone With the Wind

You Don't Know How It Feels (I didn't realize it had overtaken the first part of Wildflowers, so that's fun! More readers must have enjoyed the look at the Corroded Coffin boys, and I dig it.)

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

Yes! I definitely try to respond to them all. Sometimes I'm a little slow about it though, sorry!

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

I like a happy ending. But Time to Move On, I guess? It's just a part of a series, so it's not like the ending is permanently sad, but that one does end at a sad point in their lives.

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

Most of them are pretty happy, but I'm partial to the epilogue ending of Take the Money and Run. That will always have my heart. ❤️

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten a very little, so I feel pretty lucky.

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

Yes, and I write what fits the larger story, I hope. I've written M/M and F/M, so far. I haven't done a full PWP, though some of the parts of Wildflowers were supposed to be that, but the dang plot kept getting in the way. Whoops.

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

Just little brief ones, so far. There's a couple in Take the Money and Run that I find fun, but if you don't get them, I don't think they detract from the story.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, and I'm not sure it'd work for most of my stuff, with all the mixed media.

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

No, I'm not sure how good I'd be at that. I write by jumping all over the place. That'd probably be annoying for someone else to deal with, lol!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

All time? Man, that's hard. I'm obviously deep in a Steddie hole at the moment. But I'll go with my first. Pacey and Joey of Dawson's Creek. They brought me into fandom, into fic, so they get the gold star. (For more current ships, definitely Steddie and David & Patrick of Schitt's Creek.)

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

I don't really post anything I'm not basically finished with. But from my private stash, I like the idea of Here You Come Again, but I just have been writing other stuff. I'm going to take on my other Steddie (Untitled, But Not Really) WIP during NaNoWriMo. I've never done that before, so I thought might be fun, since I saw you can go rogue and write 50,000 words on something that isn't brand spanking new. So, even if that fic doesn't need 50,000 words to finish (and I'm not sure it does) it might give me the push to try to finish it up. I've been sitting on my hands on it since I decided to sign up, which is fine, I needed to finish up Wildflowers. (And get ahead on my Steddie Holiday Drabbles: I've finished 8 of the 30 so far.)

16. What are your writing strengths?

From the comments, I'm going to go with that I can make readers laugh from time to time, which makes me so happy. I also like to dig into the research.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Um, also the research, lol. Sometimes I'll be researching until I'm just wasting time. Some things really don't matter in the big picture. (But they do to me!!) And I need to learn to let them go.

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

That's not something I've done, I don't think. But I have tried to respond to comments that were written in a different language using Google Translate.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Dawson's Creek. Many, many moons ago. At the turn of the millennium. (That's fun to say, ha!)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Unpopular opinion time! I know Take the Money and Run is more popular. By, well, a lot. And I do love it. It gave me the bug to write long fic again. But I have big feelings for Tuesday's Gone With the Wind. It was such an undertaking. All the mixed media. The endless research. And I fell in love with those characters in the process.

It wasn't as popular as TtMaR, but that's okay. It makes me very happy that it reached even as many people as it did. I know that author's note was enough to scare anyone away, haha. Add in the CNTW and it's amazing anyone read it at all. Thanks to those of you that did! You've made me so happy. ❤️

I'm so late for this, I'm not gonna tag, but if you haven't done it and want to, please do!!

[c7thetumbler]

Quick Game Reviews: August 2024

Continuing on with August! A few days late because I was neck deep in the last game on here. It's very platformer heavy this month as well, but I was on a roll.

image from Steam page

Earth Defense Force 6 (Steam)

EDF! EDF!

EDF is a series that knows what it's about. Having played 4 and 5 on Steam as well, this is just more of that. The game boasts half as many more missions as 5 had, which is astonishing because 5 had 100 and that felt like way too many. I'm playing with friends and still haven't beaten it, but I hope to sometime soon.

The main difference I would say between this and 5 would be the plot. It's still the same tacky, B-movie plot with funny stilted dialogue and crazy scenarios, but they introduced a new element to it that lets it get even crazier but also makes me interested in what's going on past "How are we going to win". Gameplay wise, there's new weapons and enemies of course, and some of those new enemies require much more specific ways of dealing with them, but it still usually boils down to "Shoot them all really fast, and if they have a weak point shoot that." It's good, near-mindless fun and I appreciate that.

If you've played an EDF game before, this is more of the same and definitely best with a group of friends. If you haven't, keep that in mind and maybe wait for a sale.

Screenshot from my switch

New Pokémon Snap (Switch)

I didn't own Pokémon Snap on it's original release; I believe the first time I played it was on Wii VC, if not WiiU VC, so I had gotten far past 1st-gen hype that carried it a lot. It's a fun game, but it's pretty short and the lack of variety on each individual course wasn't doing it any favors. That's not to say I disliked it, but when this new one was announced I wasn't really in any hurry to try it out.

To it's credit, it's done a great job of adding features in a way that solves those issues with the original. You can level up each area as you get more points in it, which unlocks alternate routes and events in each one, and a number of them allow you to go at night which is a completely different experience as well. Your Pokedex also store 4 different rankings of pictures which have their own scoreboard, so you're encouraged to take pictures of the same Pokémon over and over again to get the best you can. I'll say this is a huge improvement, and worth the price of the game in terms of length at least, and that's without me going too far into the "post-game" content.

The game is a lot prettier than its current generation at the time, Gen 8, which is really funny given how poorly that game is run. It does a good job of showing you how expressive, interesting, and deep world that the Pokémon games have built but never have been able to explore upon fully due to the scope of those games and Gamefreak's... development practices. Pokémon's a franchise with a lot of incredibly unique gaming potential and side games like this do a great job of exploring that.

I did however find myself getting frustrated at some points. The Challenge system they have where NPC's give you tasks to try and get unique photos is very finnicky. I've often done pictures that I thought would fulfill their requirements, only for them to not even acknowledge it. I didn't complete a vast majority of them because of this; this kind of game benefits from not having to look things up online because the wonder and discovery is the point, but this could've used some work or an additional hint system for dumdums like me. Some of these challenges can also only be completed after unlocking levels and features and using them correctly, so it's especially frustrating to see the challenge pop up and attempt to do it several times only to discover that it's not possible until you hit level 3 and unlock the special glowy orb.

Overall though, this is Pokémon Snap but much larger and with a lot of great additions to the formula. If you enjoyed the gameplay of the original and want more, this will scratch that itch, but be prepared for some moments where you're confused on what to do next with little guidance.

Image from Steam page

Kitsune Tails (Steam)

I 100%'d this!

This is an adorable, very well done game. It's very much a love letter to SMB3 with some smaller SMW elements thrown in, and they're not only aware of that they've fully embraced it. I'd recommend it for anyone that just loved those classic Mario platformers, as it'll check all those boxes you know and love.

Kitsune Tails also features its own support for importing custom levels or even minigames based off of Lua and its own internal assets, complete with documentation and examples inside the local files for the game. That's something you don't see a lot, and even though I never made anything for it it was fun to mess around with. I will say that they will do themselves some favors if they find a way to make that work with Steam Workshop just inherently so players don't have to hunt around for files or join a discord with no anonymous accessibility (like forums used to do), but I won't count that against them because I have no idea how complicated that is. Update after I wrote this, Steam Workshop is now supported! That's the third time time they've updated the game with design changes and fixes that I was counting against it, which is very rad.

My only real complaints with it come in some more specific issues. A few levels could use some work design-wise; a few vertical levels really enjoy having enemies off-screen jump down to the next available platform to the player which is never fun, and there are some jumps and challenges that just don't feel right. Some enemies have clearly been designed to exploit difficult jumps and player behaviors. Monkeys that throw down diagonally at unforgiving intervals, and then drop down at an unavoidable rate. Ninja raccoons throw 3 projectiles very quickly as opposed to the traditional single projectile from piranha plants, ghosts perpetually chase you rather than being more manageable about directions your facing. It can lead to a lot of frustrating, repetitive fails that don't feel as fair as they could be, but ultimately with enough practice and patience nothing is insurmountable. Midway through my last run to get the hardest achievement they updated some of the problem jumps to be a bit easier which is appreciated, but these enemy issues don't feel addressable in the same way.

The story is adorable and lovely and genuine. Don't let "SMB3 but with fox girl lesbians," while true, color your perception of how the game presents itself or should play. This is a labor of love from a group of speedrunners, Mario fans, and the community that has kept that alive and evergreen.

Screenshot from my Switch

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX (Switch)

I wanted to get a game I could chill with on the couch while listening to podcasts with a drink and my cat, so I picked this up again. I had played the original game on DS and remember liking it a lot, and I've played a number of Mystery Dungeon-esque games in various forms so I figured this would be a good fit. The amount of time between then and now of course (20ish years?) allowed me to forget most of the story beats and I'm not sure entirely of everything that changed, but I'll try and recollect as much as I can.

Visually the filter really works for it; the storybook aesthetic is a lot more interesting than just generic Pokémon cartoon looks, and they recreated everything in 3D very well. The inclusion of several Gen 4 Pokémon, something which at the time of the original release wasn't out yet, was fun to see again and made me nostalgic for when Gamefreak actually tried to do tie ins like that. In terms of changes, I wish they had kept in the Basic Attack that was in the base game, as without it PP management becomes a real chore. While it's cool to see some enemies Mega-evolve in the later dungeons as well, it's not really much of a feature because every Pokémon gets that stat bonus if the right conditions are met anyway.

So from my perspective, this is really just an HD port of the original game; if they added new Pokémon or dungeons to it then they're VERY late in the game and I never grinded enough to get to them. So now I have to jump back to my running bit with Switch remakes releasing at crazy prices. This is available for $59.99 digitally, full brand new Switch Game price, despite just being a rerelease of a GBA/DS game. That's criminal; something like this should release for $30 tops, and without any real new content to justify that price increase there's absolutely no reason it should be less. They really undercut my point here though because just after I picked this up, they released the GBA version of the game on NSO+, so like. Just play that. Or if you don't have NSO+, I'll fall back on my previous statement from last month that The value of these 20+ year old games is essentially free given that it's so easy to find them online, they've been iterated on so many times, and the original developers aren't getting a cent of that anyway. I'm not against remakes, but let's start being realistic about it: if pirating the original takes as much effort as buying it and gives you a near identical experience to the remake, then the remake wasn't needed.

Save your cash. If you want a great Pokémon Mystery Dungeon experience, Explorers of Sky for the DS is generally considered the best in series, and I'd like to see them actually make an effort to drastically improve on this side-series next time.

Image from Steam page

Penny's Big Breakaway (Steam)

I 100%'d this as well!

I was super-excited for this when it was first announced. It was developed by Christian Whitehead and the team behind Sonic Mania, which is hands-down the best 2D Sonic game even still, and they proved that they could figure out and distill the formula down to one the best it could be. So seeing them do a 3D platformer that looked like it would build off of 2D Sonic momentum mentality in a way that 3D Sonic never did was exciting.

I may have over-hyped it. That's not to say this is a bad game; far from it! I had a lot of fun with it and enjoyed a lot of the challenges it brought. It's movement is well crafted and a lot of thought clearly went into the different ways a player could move around the world. But the game is less "3D, momentum-Based Sonic" and more "Mario Odyssey with a Yo-yo instead of a cap." There are a few ways to quickly build or gain speed, but overall most of your movement is going to be rolling on your yo-yo until you get to precision platforming, and then you need to take it slower to do your normal jump, swing jump, double jump, forward dive, etc. to get where you need to go.

The game has a combo system that reminds me a lot of Pizza Tower's combo system mixed with a skateboarding game's points. You do combos by doing tricks (any movement that isn't just walking and a normal jump), and the game feels like you can carry a combo through the entire level if you play your moves very precisely. In my experience however, that's pretty close to impossible and it's a little unclear what specifically breaks your combo. Often times I'm left trying to ride my yo-yo back and forth to figure out how to land on ground without actually landing on ground, and it didn't feel great in those moments. When everything worked out though it felt really fun, and I could see how a mastery of the mechanics could really make everything feel good.

Aesthetically the game looks great. Very heavily stylized in a way that reminds me of Sonic 3D blast and well-selected palette's and themes to bring it all together. Character design is a little wacky, but it fits within it and it's a very well executed look overall; something a lot of indies struggle with so it's great to see that they were able to carry over that skillset from how well they handled Sonic Mania.

So in short, if Mario Odyssey-style movement in Mario 3D land type linear levels appeals to you, then this is a good pick-up! It will however take a little while to get used to the movement in order to properly understand how the game wants you to traverse it.

Image from Steam page

Haiku, the Robot (Steam)

I nearly 100%'d this game! There's an achievement for going through it without repairing yourself or getting chips that help with that (ie, only healing at checkpoints), and I ruined that pretty early. I might go back and do that someday though.

This game is the "prequel" to Rusty's Retirement, which I reviewed last post. It's more that Rusty's Retirement just uses the same characters and some of the aesthetics. But it caused me to be interested in it, and I had a good time with it! It's very much a Hollow-Knight inspired metroidvania, right down to the healing ability and "chips" working like badges. It doesn't hold your hand for exploring, but to the game's credit I never felt lost, which is a problem I had with Hollow Knight itself.

The aesthetic is post-apocalyptic, rusty metal underground entirely inhabited by robots under attack from a virus that causes them to attack each other. The color palette is very muted; You're going to see a lot of Oranges, greys, and browns to match the very rusty look. It works well for it and a few bosses make a point to throw in other accents, but I can see some people getting tired of it.

Gameplay wise it's pretty solid! Everything feels pretty good, some of the traversal abilities are fun to mess around with, there's a lot of build options without feeling like some are objectively better than the other. Honestly, it's just a really solid title. If you like Hollow Knight or tried it and were a bit put off by its difficulty, then this is a great pick-up or alternative.

Image from Steam page

Psychonauts 2 (Steam)

I also 100%'d this

I really, really liked Psychonauts when I first played it on steam over a decade ago. It had a few issues, but overall was a really fun and quirky 3D platformer at a time when those had fallen a bit out of favor. The story and visuals were wacky, it was funny, and had a lot of unique challenges. I did not back any Psychonauts 2 funding attempts though due to the things going around about double fine and Tim Schafer's inability to handle scope, so I was never expecting this to come out. When it did I bought it and it's been in my backlog ever since.

I do really want to like this game; the platforming is fun, the progression and exploration are like how I remember. But this game really seems like it doesn't want you to play it. It took half of my time with the game to start to feel like there's more gameplay than cutscenes. Over and Over again it'll remind you how incredibly linear it is as you get to a new obstacle, area, or just story beat and then just say "hey you need to stop right there and listen to the story." It feels like it inherently clashes with the collectathon genre it's a part of; you want time with yourself and the world to go and explore and find things, but you're not sure if you've fully explored an area before you're thrown out of it entirely and usually irreversibly for a long time.

The story itself is interesting. It too a while to get into due to its first half doing some poor setup of the previous game(s) that made me uninvested in the nuance it was trying to get me into. I shouldn't feel like I need to have played Rhombus of Ruin, the VR exclusive game that occurred between 1 and 2, to have an understanding of a lot of these characters, but I feel like I missed out on a lot having not played it. Eventually though it starts building it's own story with those building blocks, and that's when it gets really good.

After I unlocked the real hub world and done about 3-4 sub worlds related to it, it started to feel like what I remember. It'll still do cutscenes to contextualize the strange, psychedelic worlds and challenges you see, but then it will for the most part let you play in them without throwing you into a cutscene and then out of the level entirely again. As I approached the end the cutscenes interruption got a little more bare able as the story's various threads tied together into something that didn't feel like padding, but the rocky start is a big ask and I can see players who haven't even touched either of the original games not being able to get key elements.

Combat is still a little wonky. I find myself mostly sticking to ranged attacks and gimmick abilities that you need to counter with rather than using the melee abilities that much. The PSI abilities themselves really could've used an update in terms of how they're accessed; You can map them to any one of the 4 shoulder buttons, but you'll always want levitation and your hand abilities available because they're just incredibly useful in and out of combat. That leaves you constantly opening a poorly handled radial menu to swap between you fire, ranged attack, and more situational abilities they like to swap between frequently. Given the either contextual nature of the gimmick abilities vs the universal ones, it feels like they didn't need a swap menu at all and could've incorporated the movement ones more easily into a context-specific button. I'm only ever going to need to jump between thought bubbles when there are thought bubbles around, use clairvoyance when creatures are nearby, slow time when a platform nearby is moving too fast etc., and that would free up the remaining buttons for your way more present actions of jumping/rolling, grabbing things, and combat abilities. It would lower the amount of unaccounted for freedom in handling combat and traversing levels, granted, but the game doesn't feel like it has enough depth and isn't open enough for that to feel like a bad trade-off.

If you liked the original Psychonauts and don't mind your gameplay being interrupted, having to to go back to worlds way later to 100% them, and are interested more in story, this is for you. If you want a seamless 3D platforming collectathon experience, I'd stay clear.

Image from the Gamebanana page

Super Mario Eclipse (Super Mario Sunshine GC mod)

This one surprised me; I had heard of a number of great Sunshine hacks that expanded on the game a lot more, but this one combines elements of a lot of them into one to make basically the most definitive Super Mario Sunshine experience + features and worlds that really bring it together well.

For the basics, the game starts out introducing new movement options and changes from vanilla, which is great. The hover burst, basically a double jump that sacrifices the length of the hover for an added boost, and it makes the game play a lot better. The hover nozzle course shows off dive boosting so you can fly crazy distances, and the turbo nozzle no longer has a charge up and controls much easier. Yoshi has also been updated to hatch automatically without fruit, and in this state he can enter water without dying until he eats a fruit, in which case he changes back to normal behavior. It all adds to the controls Sunshine really struggles with, and while the base layer is still there they're vast improvements.

The game contains the entirety of the original Super Mario Sunshine, including the tedious blue coin hunt, but adds quite a few additional levels. The levels are now interconnected, with physical paths between them being separate mini-rooms that add a lot of character to the game and make the world feel cohesive. Delfino also has 4 new levels that tie directly into the game and link nicely as well, though you can clearly tell what is new content and what isn't just because of the way Level geometry works out. Still, it really brings the whole game together, and with additions such as not kicking you out when you get shines that don't require a reload and a pause-menu Shine/Blue coin counter you're not left struggling as much as the original Sunshine had you doing.

Once you beat Bowser, you unlock Daisy Cruiser and a bunch more levels that, while smaller than the Delfino levels, are still pretty fun in their own right. I would've liked it if they had kept with the tropical + interconnected themes with these levels personally, as I think the best one of these levels is Yoshi's Island which actually does, but still it's a great amount of new content. Daisy Cruiser and Peach Beach are brought in directly from double dash, so there's some scaling issues and problems with layout that could've used some work rather than a direct port, but again they're still pretty fun. There's 240 Shines in this game, with 420 Blue Coins, and even after that there's still a large chunk of game for the 100% completion bonus, so you'll be spending a LONG time with this if you really love sunshine.

If you've not revisited Sunshine in a long time or have the itch to pick it up again, this is definitely the best way to do it. Really rounds out what was otherwise a pretty incomplete feeling game into a cohesive world and fun experience.

[kitkatrix]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @jazwritesalot. Thank you! 🥹🫶

1. How many works do you have on A03? 120!!

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 497,454. I have over 25k I haven't posted on A03 though so tack that on and I'm looking at roughly 520k in total.

3. What fandoms do you write for? I currently write for BNHA/ MHA. I used to write for Durarara, HP, Fruits Basket but that was a looooong time ago when I was in my teens lol

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Fair warning: most of them are NSFW. 1) Take a Bite of Me, 2) Another Day, Another F*ck, 3) more than a learning curve, 4) Need Your Touch, 5) Wrong Size

5. Do you respond to comments? I try to, but I get extremely lazy after a bit and then months later, I respond.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? It would have to be my MCD KRBK fic that I never posted on AO3. It's on Twitter in full but both of them end up dying in the end, one earlier than the other.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Almost all my fics have a happy ending but the happiest one I have thus far is "more than a learning curve". It's completely self indulgent so I wanted it to end in a cute way 🥺

8. Do you get hate on fics? I've only thankfully gotten it once and it was on a collaboration fic. I don't let that stuff bother me though 💜

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Absolutely. Almost 3/4 of my fics on AO3 and Twitter are explicit. I have the most fun writing them.

10. Do you write crossovers? Nope. I don't watch/read enough or have enough creativity to do something like that.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Once. I was very young and found it when searching for my fic title online. It was under a different name and everything. I was so upset that I deleted the fic on my end and stopped completely.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nada. But I would be over the moon if it ever happened. I would need to give approval first before anything, though. I don't want to come across it one day and nothing was said to me, y'know?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! I've done several actually. Some haven't ever been posted publicly but I have a few on AO3 like "Challenge Accepted" and "Pain and Pleasure" that I did with some mutuals on Twitter. It was very fun and I adore doing it 🥰

14. What's your all time favorite ship? KiriBaku! They have my heart in a chokehold. I'm trying to get into others from different fandoms but this one is hard to top.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Hidden Behind a Whisper. I loved loved writing this one when I started and I do go and add some from time to time but I've lost half the motivation I had when I first began. It's sad 😭

16. What are your writing strengths? Dialogue and action scenes. The way I write is like imagining a movie scene, and I write each movement someone makes and go from there. In example, Kirishima putting a hand around Bakugou's waist, Izuku kissing Ochako's forehead, things like that.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Repetitiveness. I tend to say the same thing over and over and have to copy paste my document into a website to see which words are used more than they should. Half the time it's either "that", "just", or "but".

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? If you feel it would add more to your story, speak to someone that knows and is fluent in that language and can read over the dialogue to be sure it is correct. Do NOT use Google translate. It's hardly accurate and a terrible source for translation.

19. First fandom you wrote for? HP. It was a Dramione fic and I was I think 14? It's still up online to this day 💀

20. Favorite fic you've written? "more than a learning curve" if we're talking mildly mature. "Need Your Touch" for Explicit.

I tag whoever sees this and would like to participate! 🫶🫶

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Rejected Requests Pt. 16

Hello everyone! I am unfortunately back with another set of Rejected Requests (Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3, Pt 4, Pt 5, Pt 6 , Pt 7 , Pt 8 , Pt 9 , Pt 10, Pt 11, Pt 12, Pt 13, Pt 14, Pt 15)

I understand this is very disappointing for many of you. I promise it has nothing to do with you, and mostly it’s just because my brain has decided it doesn’t want to cooperate.

I will post the rejected fics below the cut. I want to give you the opportunity to ask another Writer (check the list of Writers seeking requests here!) For some of you, I've already heard back from someone who agreed to take over your request!

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of experience with schizophrenia, so I wouldn't feel comfortable writing this fic. I wish you luck, though, and I hope you can find someone who can write it for you.

As much as I love Spencer teasing a blushy Reader, I don't have any particular ideas for this.

I'm the furthest thing from a pro athlete, so I'm afraid I wouldn't have much of a reference point for writing something like this!

I've never been great at writing shy Readers, and it's only gotten harder as I've gotten older 😅

I haven't been able to motivate to write a non-CM fic lately, so I'll have to pass for now! I still love me some Chip Taylor, though. I get it.

Absolutely adorable visual. I am, however, currently wedding planning myself (surprise!) and the idea of having to deal with that stuff in my escapist fantasies is a bit too much for me right now!

Ah, this is so fun, but it doesn't seem like something I could write very much about. I wish I could watch it as a video, though!

With all my medical trauma, which is currently a problem in my daily life, I'm not sure I can struggle through a request. I already have a couple requests I'm still considering that are similar, so keep an eye out!

This is such a lovely idea. I haven’t been feeling angst lately, but I know a ton of people always do. I’d love to see this classic one done!

I’ve thought about this idea a lot since I got this request. I might eventually write it, but I don’t have any inspiration to write it down right now. It's also super general, so I could see multiple great pieces coming from it!

This is such a cute request but I don’t have any concrete ideas for it. I hope someone has the inspiration to do it justice!

I’m afraid to get burnt out on Hotch’s daughter fics (only a few people know this, but… I do have a potential series for a Hotchner!Reader…). This is a wonderful idea, though. Definitely funny.

Ah, this would definitely spiral into a massive series for me, lmao. I unfortunately just don’t have that in me right now… but someone else should write it so I can read it 🤭

NSFW REQUESTS, MINORS DNI

I'm not too big on voyeuristic/getting caught situations, so I'll leave these wonderful ideas to someone else!

This is such a fun, niche little kink request, but I'm just not inspired enough to write something like this lately. I hope someone can do it for you, though!

This is simply not one of my interests. I think it's too similar to those "getting caught" kind of situations for me. I know it's pretty popular, though, particularly for submissive men!

I always struggle with as-smart-as-Spencer Readers. I wish you luck, though!

Ah, hybristophilia... I think I'm too far away from Protege to be able to go back to those kinds of kinks. I haven't been in a Dead Dove mood for a long time. Godspeed, though, friend. I feel you.

I got so many very specific female oral receiving requests in a row 😅 I burned myself out on the blurbs. This would have to be a much longer piece, which I'm just not sure I'm up for. Who doesn't love a flirty Reader, though?

I’m personally not a big fan of as-smart-as-Spencer Readers. I’m also not the biggest fan of lawyer Readers because I do enough of it at my day job 😭 it sounds like a lovely idea, though! And thank you for all the kind words ❤️

Songfics are super hard for me, unfortunately 😓 Especially if I don’t know the songs, which I don’t know either of these.

Sorry, friend! My request guidelines say I don’t accept requests involving cheating. I hope you can find someone who can write it for you 🫶

Thank you everyone! Again, I'm so sorry I had to reject these requests. I hope you can find someone else to write them for you!

[star-spangled-bastard]

tagged by @phenanthreneblue and @wondrouswendy

Thank you both!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

7

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

51,300. probably about 53,000 by the time I finish uploading the last chapters of Sacred Geometry

3. What fandoms do you write for?

So far only Control currently, though sometimes I'll think of like one (1) line for a potential fic for other fandoms. I just haven't turned them into anything.

4. Top five fics by kudos

After Hours: Trench/Darling - sort of a "missing scene" from The Time Between

The Time Between: Trench/Darling - A look at the evolution of their friendship/relationship and its tragic trajectory

Anathema: A character study of Trench slowly learning to come to terms with his new paranatural abilities and learning how to resent them a little less in the process.

A Stolen Moment: Trench/Darling drabble from a prompt list

Point of Contention: A Marshall-centric fic set during Trench's final days as Director, with Marshall trying to navigate the complicated fallout of Trench and Darling's friendship on a personal and bureaucratic level

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes, always! I appreciate comments so much and that people take the time to write them!

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

It's probably between Point of Contention and The Time Between but- oh god here comes Sacred Geometry with a steel chair!

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

Anathema, I think. Though it is a little overshadowed by what we know ultimately happens later.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, thankfully

9. Do you write smut?

Very rarely and even then it has to be a character study

10. Craziest crossover?

I don't tend to like crossovers most of the time so I've never written one

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No

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

I haven't! I've done art collabs but never a writing collab

14. All time favourite ship?

Obviously I'm a fan of Trench/Darling but Ash/Northmoor has seized me in a vice grip lately

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

I currently don't have any solid wips like that, just scraps of one or two sentences. Two of them are two different Westworld ships that make me feel feral if I think about them longer than 5 seconds so I'd like to actually write something about either but. It hasn't happened yet!

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think dialogue is a strength, as far as getting the characters' voices right.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

This applies to original writing for my ocs more than fanfic but worldbuilding

worldbuilding worldbuilding worldbuilding world-

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I don't write it myself, because I don't trust that the translation will be correct. I don't mind it too much in other fics, especially if it's just common words that are likely known without the need to translate. I've also seen writers provide footnotes with translations at the end of works and that's always appreciated!

19. First fandom you wrote in?

Fallout, I think? I have a little bit of it posted here actually, because I didn't have an ao3 yet.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Sacred Geometry by far. I've never written anything multiple chapters before, and probably never written that much of a continuous plot before. (my original writing was very much skipping around through different parts of my plot outline so it never existed in a continuous structured form)

Writing this fic has gotten me way more invested in Ash and Northmoor as characters and I already want to write more about them. It was challenging to write something with so little material to work with in canon but it was also wide open for interpretation which was fun!

edit: forgot to tag anyone

tagging @disastrouscanasta and anyone else who wants to answer these! I think most other writers I know have been tagged already

[homestuckdailyweekly]

Homestuck Daily - Week 4/End of Month 1 - 5/11/2024

Today marks the end of the first month of my real time Homestuck reread. If my math is correct (and that is a big if), I have 83 months of reading Homestuck left. Based on some more math, I first read Homestuck roughly 50 months ago. I don't know what point I am making with this, except for the fact that time is long and strange.

If I am being honest, I am finding it a hard time to write this update, because it feels like basically nothing happened this entire week. It probably doesn't help that I've been playing Hades 2, an extremely fun and good game, all week. So everything I have to say about this week of Homestuck is colored by an implicit "And I read this instead of playing Hades 2 in that exact moment." Hell, I could be playing Hades 2 right now, but I am writing this instead.

In case you haven't noticed, dear reader that definitely exists, I don't exactly know what I'm doing with this one here. I know, after I worked so hard on developing a strict and rewarding format these past few weeks, I'm throwing it all away to ramble here and now. The thing you need to know about me, though, is that I make terrible decisions. Always have, always will. I promise I'll get to a point, but we'll get there on my own time.

Where was I. Oh right. 50 months ago. Valentines Day 2020. That was the day I began my first Homestuck read through. My girlfriend at the time- she would break up with me a few months later for non-Homestuck related reasons- was a Homestuck fan, and had tried and failed to convince me to read the comic before. We even spent a date night playing friend sim, which I tried my best not to be confused by. Well, Valentines day came, and I decided I would finally relent to my girlfriend's recommendation, and I spent the day reading Homestuck in my college dorm room. And when I started, I did not stop. Not for a long time. You see, it was a Friday, a Friday very early in the semester, in fact. I had nothing I needed to do and 3 whole days where I did not need to treat myself as a human being. I denied myself food, water, sleep, and human dignity as I read Homestuck, all the while texting my girlfriend my reactions. I think the only time I took a break that weekend was on Saturday, to play in a Vampire the Requiem game I had recently joined. I don't know exactly how far through Homestuck I had gotten when I attended the game- but it was further than a person should be less than 24 hours after starting the webcomic.

Which brings me to my point. How quickly into my binge did I get to the parts of this comic that has now taken me a month to reach? An hour? Less than that? I don't know and am unwilling to do the work to find that out. I don't think I had gone all-in on Homestuck at this point, but I do remember being entertained by the Sylladex fuckery that was going on. I found it intriguing, this little puzzle of mechanics, the audience and John struggling against an unintuitive game mechanic that refused to make things easy. That was 50 months ago. So far on my read through, all I really feel as I get to each new gag about Sylladexes is "Oh, today is just this, huh." A part of me is sad and disappointed these gags aren't landing for me in the way they once had. A part of me is worried what else in this comic will suffer with the addition of time. But then I got to the last page of this week's updates, page 137, a loading animation for SBURB set to Sburban Jungle by Michael Guy Bowman, and that worry melts away.

Sburban Jungle is a song that lights my imagination ablaze with visions of epic machinations. I am the kind of person who listens to music not just because I like a song, but because that song puts images in my head that I can't tear myself from exploring as fully as I can. Even back when I was a kid in highschool, I would spend my bus rides home listing to my ipod, imagining grand adventures and fantastic scenes set to whatever music I was listening to. Sburban Jungle brings me back to those days, I think. That feeling that I find so hard to describe right now is part of why I love Homestuck, I think. It is a story about 4 kids, friends, playing a game together. A game where anything can be possible. A game where music brings actions scenes of epic and mythical scale- like the kind I would think about on the bus ride home- to life. That game hasn't started yet, we are still playing a game I'd like to call "Inventory Management if the Inventory Management hated you". But we'll get there eventually.

I have read Homestuck in realtime for 1 month. I will continue this for 83 more months. There'll be many months where I read nothing, and I'll need to think up something to post during those weeks. There'll be months where I'll struggle to keep everything I want to discuss in individual coherent posts. Homestuck is a land of contrasts, and I am going to experience those contrasts in the fullness of time's length. This is a terrible idea, but those are my favorite kinds.

Now that this is written and done with, time to play some more Hades 2.

[farfromdaylight]

2023 writing meme

i don't usually do the fic writer meme because i don't usually write a lot of fic other than longfic. but this year was an outlier, so, here we are!

Number of fics written (posted) in 2023: 23. seriously, who am i? plus 3 finished and 2 unfinished, both unposted.

Total word count of posted fic: 57,515

Total word count of unposted fic: 66,701

Total word count overall: 124,216

Worth noting that some of my posted fic this year was written during Nanowrimo last year, so the numbers are a bit skewed.

Fandoms: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIV. I did write one FFXIV/Pacific Rim crossover.

all of my fic is on AO3.

Best title: I'm really biased towards heaven can wait (WoL/Exarch), my big bang fic. I also quite like before you're burned, become the sun (Alisaie) but that's just because I've always liked that lyric.

Worst title: to believe in you (i'll try) (Cloud/Tifa). I was going for a theme across all of my Cloti week fics but I don't like that title at all...

Best first line: From before you're burned, become the sun:

The sun never sets, because there is no sun.

Worst first line: From to believe in you (i'll try):

Cloud is so different.

Best last line: From heaven can wait:

"Welcome to the First, Warrior of Darkness," he says, lifting up his brother. "Let's get you inside. We've got a world to save."

Worst last line: From to believe in you (i'll try) (seriously, I am not happy with this fic LOL):

For now, they have a reactor to take down.

Looking back, did you write more than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

Less than I was supposed to, yet more than I expected. I had various health issues throughout the year that prevented me from writing a lot (have you ever tried to write when you can't sleep more than 3 hours at a time? Yeah) but also I managed to write for two fandom weeks and completed Nanowrimo. So, not bad!

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

I didn't think I'd write so many Cloti fics! I've loved the pairing for a long time but I really didn't think I would write so much. Really glad I did though. Also, I had no plans to write the Alisaie or Ashe fics and I'm glad I stretched myself and wrote them.

What’s your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

heaven can wait, no contest. I still go back and reread it sometimes and just have a blast. It's a story I very much wrote for myself, and I'm really glad it's gotten a good reception.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

By kudos: amber embrace (WoL/G'raha)

By hits: love grows (WoL/G'raha)

By comments and bookmarks: heaven can wait

Deeply funny to me that the NSFW fic is the most popular. The people want what they want.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

If we ignore the fic I posted an hour ago that has literally 1 hit so far: for you, i walk on (Tifa), which I wrote for the second volume of the Tifa zine. But that's only by hits and kudos; it got very lovely comments and I had a great time with the zine.

By comments, I have 5 fics without comments at all. :( One of them has 30 kudos! Please comment on fics, folks.

Story that could have been better?

Not to beat the dead horse, but to believe in you (i'll try). It's meant to be a Remake fic, but I haven't finished replaying Remake and I only half-remember the Cloti scenes. I'm working on replaying it now, so hopefully I can add to it soon.

Sexiest story?

I mean, according to the numbers, it's either amber embrace or love grows. But actually it's one of the fics I didn't post this year. I wrote a 16,000-word fic about my WoL's honeymoon with G'raha. It is very spicy and it will not be seeing the light of day because it belongs to a non-canon AU.

Saddest story?

I don't know that I have a good answer to this one. I mean, heaven can wait is angsty, but that's different.

Most fun?

Most silly is definitely shuffle or boogie (WoL/G'raha), which was just an excuse to write a fic about Triple Triad.

Story with single sweetest moment?

PROBABLY THE WEDDING FIC, LOL. Or the denouement of heaven can wait. Or the holiday fic I just posted.

Most fucked-up story?

I wrote some vanilla-ass fic this year, I ain't got nothing for this.

Hardest story to write?

Honestly, a lot of the Cloti fics were tough. I'm not really rusty on the canon (FFVII lives rent free in my brain) but I hadn't written the characters in a pairing for some years. The Ashe fic was also tough for similar reasons: I've never written FFXII fic before. The Endwalker fic (WIP) has been really hard because it's some tough content and I've been struggling with how much of the canon to cover and how much to make up whole cloth.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

heaven can wait, which I really just had a blast with. This was last year's Nanowrimo, though, so... Maybe the holiday fic? I wrote it in a couple hours last weekend.

Did any stories shift your perception of the characters?

Not really. I don't tend to write fics about characters I don't have a firm grasp of.

Most overdue story?

Beyond the Vault, the eternal albatross around my neck. Also the Endwalker fic, because it's taken me two years to even have a WIP...

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

This year was good at helping me fight off the perfectionist tendency! I posted a lot of the fandom week fics within a week (or shorter) of writing them, and it let me chill out considerably about polish. Sometimes you can just write a fic and you don't have to go over it with a fine-tooth comb, you can just post it.