#I started writing chapter one about 2-ish weeks before I first started posting

[senblades]

may i ask what inspired fftsr? is it the fact that there’s hardly any fics that focus on what the fic is about anyway, or did some other fic make you wanna try your own version? or is it a mix bag :)

kind of a mixed bag, i'd say!

I really love ng+ as a trope we have in the persona 5 fic scene- it fits really well, since there's so much you can do with it and get away with. (As opposed to p3, and especially p4, where ng+ scenarios are kind of harder to make interesting outright (not that it's impossible! It's just that the theme of "having prior knowledge" just kinda... either makes a solid chunk of the plot Not Happen, or something has to happen at the end of the story, or ends it in like a week, since, y'know, Murder Mystery. You gotta work harder to make the plot work))

tangent aside: time travel is fun. I really do love all the fics of it that I've read. But, before fftsr, I had never actually written fanfic before- if I were just rehashing things I've seen in fics so many times before (like, Ren ng+, or Akechi ng+), then I likely wouldn't have been motivated to do it. Not like those versions of ng+ stories have been bled dry or anything, (more cakes! there's always room for dessert) but since this was me trying something very new, I needed a push to interest myself and not feel overly intimidated.

Now, I'll be honest, my memory of my thought process is hazy, and I can't quite remember the order of events when it comes to when I came up with ideas. (you can probably just assume outright that any fic I've recced before I've also been inspired by at some point lmao) But, I do remember that it was a fic called Akechi Goro's love language by Ren_saxon that inspired the thought of "oh. Sumire doesn't know. that's hilarious" and then it all spiraled from there HAHAHA

ty for the ask! <3

[rennorthernlights]

The World We Knew

Chapter 1: Radioheart, Chapter 2, Chapter 3,

Trigger warnings; Zombies, mentions of death, very brief mention of suicide in the very beginning.

You can also go to AO3 for RenNorthenLights. I post more on there than here. If you go to my AO3 than PLEASE look at the tags for this fic! MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

——————————————————————————————

October-ish, 2023. Time??? Location???

It’s become almost routine now.

Waking up at the ass crack of dawn, checking her backpack, cleaning her rifle, making sure the ���room’ she’s in is safe. Over a year ago she wouldn’t be up this early. Over a year ago she wouldn’t even be touching her fathers rifle without permission. But life has a funny way of throwing curve balls. In this sense, life threw a massive curve ball at everyone and everything. The world as she knew it become sick with disease— No, not COVID-19, though many speculated that it was the reason, the beginning of it all. No it was the dead-come-back-to-life-and eat-your-face kinda disease. Normally people bring up that type of disease in conversations with speculations on the “what if” scenarios of what they’d do.

Many of her college friends all had plans and ideas and yet most of them now roam the streets looking for the next person to chomp on. Ironic isn’t it? She never believed she’d live this long hell many times the conversation of “Quick a zombie apocalypse happens! What do you do?!” She’d laugh and says she’d die in the next month or two. To which her friends would moan and groan because surely “You wouldn’t give up so easily?? Come onnnn what would you actually do.” She’d think it over and before putting much thought, she said.

“I’d kill myself.” Her friends went silent before laughing at how serious she sounded and even she laughed. A good banter back and forth as her college friends sipped on cheap booze. “No, no, but in all seriousness. I’d stay with my parents. My dads a police Captain after all. He’s taught me how to shoot before I could write and my ma… well she’ll probably teach me something.” Snorting a chuckle since her moms a teacher. One of her friends asks what she’d do if her parents became zombies.

“Well I guess I’d try to find groups to stay in. What do y’all think? I guess I’d put up with y’all.” Nudging her friend playfully on the shoulder. Laughter in the room as the music starts playing and the cheep booze starts kicking in. As her friends dance and sing to “Only Girl in the World” by Rihanna she sits on the couch in deep thought. Her drink in hand as she thinks bout her life. Thinks about her finals coming up and how she’s gotta take all the tests to become a nurse. Both her parents were exceptionally happy that she didn’t follow in their footsteps.

“I love kids but please… do not become a teacher.” Her mother sounded so exhausted when they spoke early on the phone. “And don’t become a police officer!” Her father yells in the background. The running joke for every phone call even though her parents are well aware that she’s going to be a nurse. She’s been deadset on it since she was a kid. She doesn’t plan on telling her ma that she’s gonna try and apply to be the school nurse where her ma works. Sipping her booze some more as the apple news on her phone pings “Reports of a New Virus, Scientists say… ”

She huffs, reading the first couple of paragraphs before getting bored and exiting out of the article. “Probably another variant of COVID. Great another shot I’m gonna have to take.” Turning her phone off and chugging her drink before she starts dancing with her giggly and much too drunk friends.

————————————————————

Oh how life turned so fast and so quickly the following week. Nearly half of the friends in the room became the first percentages of “Turned” and the other half “Missing, have you seen them?” She barely made it out herself. But that’s life. Cruel and beautiful and so, so lonely in the world she now knows. She stays too long thinking about it and she’ll drown. She doesn’t want to think about her friends, her home, her… family. It’s still too much even after all this time. Even with it being well over a year it still hurts.

Shaking her head of those thoughts as she gets situated. Glad that she triple checked the ‘room’ she’s in. Her anxiety has been through the roof these last couple days and every lil noise is having her jump. At least she can put her mind at ease since she’s checked and barricaded the exit. A couple deads outside that she handled quickly. Who knew that she’s be so proficient with a bat and knife? She’s a good shot but before a to keep her rifle hidden. Not many bullets being made anyways..

She turns her radio on as she waits for it to come to life. For months she been speaking on it. Using it as a dairy of sorts, it helps her when she feels the loneliest. Helps when the days feel colder than what it typically does in Texas. She spoke and spoke until one day it started speaking back. The man on the radio commented how he’s been hearing her speak and at first, he and his group thought it was a hoax since they couldn’t get the radio to work. She didn’t speak on it for days, but the men would still speak back and call out to her.

Finally, she worked up the courage to speak back and from then on, they’ve become a part of her routine. Once a day around noon they’d speak. She has her rules, No names, no locations, no descriptions. She doesn’t want to get attached only to one day not hear them speak back again. She doesn’t need another name added to her list of grief. That, and as much as she wants to trust them, she knows that humans can be just as dangerous if not more so.

“Static, come in Static.” She grins as she sits in the office room that she’s been sleeping in. Stretching her legs as she’s never gotten used to the floors even after all this time. Her legs stiff as her other hand rubs her knee. The radio crinkles and scratches until finally.

“Must you keep calling me that?” The man speaks, the heavy Scottish accent shining through, and she can just tell he’s grinning. “I’ve told ya, mah name is Joh- “

“No,” she cuts him off as she clicks on the button. “No names. I don’t... I don’t want to hear it, please.” She’s told him before that she doesn’t want to hear his name. He’s been understanding but sometimes he’ll still try it... The thought that there is an actual person behind the radio scares her and intrigues her. Hearing someone even through all this mess makes it all bearable even if it’s just by a little bit. “Don’t make me ‘hang up’.” A lighthearted threat. She wouldn’t actually do that. She needs her daily talks with them.

“I know, Bonnie, I know,” the voice speaks with understanding. The man knows all too well on why it’s easier to stay nameless, easier to not be attached incase the voice one day doesn’t speak back. “But one day I would love ta hear my name from your pretty voice.” The voice chuckles, “Where are ya now?” A hopeful tinged to his voice.

“You know I don’t give locations, Static.” Singing back her words with a furrow of her brow. “But… I’m in an office building.”

“Ah, I see that’s become a fan favorite of yours.” A tease in the man’s voice. “Oh, it seems my friend wants to speak to ya.” Her eyes perk up as she knows who is about to speak.

“Electricity!” She smiles big and she just knows Static is rolling his eyes.

“Sunshine haven’t heard from you since, Static,” emphasizing the other man’s nickname and she can practically hear the glare. “has been hogging you.” Electricity, as she’s been calling him even though he’s also tried to get her to call him by his name, has a much softer voice. Calmer and levelheaded compared to Static who's more outgoing and louder. She’s called them the duo 1 and duo 2 before she called them Static and Electricity. Much to their annoyance and amusement, much better than her other idea of calling them Thing 1 and Thing 2.

“Well next time hit him or something.” She smiles as she can hear Static mouthing off something. Probably Static telling him where she’s been in for a bit. “In an office building again? That seems to be your usual, yeah?” The man speaks lowly. His words concerned and yet with the subtleness of memorizing something.

“Am I that predictable, Electricity? She stands up from where she was sitting. “Static said something similar.”

“Not predictable just doing what you always do, Sunshine.”

“That’s… That means I’m being predictable.” She teases as he stammers.

“No, no, I meant that you are more comfortable with what you know to be safe.”

“Soooo predictable with my safety?” She teases as she can hear him muttering “bollocks” like he always does when, she assumes, he is flustered. “I’m pulling your leg, Electricity. Just messing around and being a brat.”

He laughs and sighs in relief. His voice cool like the summer breeze after a rainy day. “So where are you?” His voice sounding slightly insistent.

“No where near you.” Rolling her eyes as they always ask the same questions everytime they talk. “Quit askin, I’m fine on my own. I don’t do groups and you know why.” She’s told them about her run in with the only group she’s been with. Handmaidens Tale meet zombie apocalypse and she barely got out.

“I know, I know, you’ve done well on your own, but a little help goes a long way, Sunny.” Sometimes she wishes she would hate the nicknames that they give her but it does give a warm fuzziness in her stomach whenever they say it. Sighing as she speaks back. “Oh yes because you’re military right?” A bit of sarcasm in her voice as this is one of her questions that she always asks.

“Taskforce 141, Special Operation Forces, you already know this, Lass.” The other man speaks making her jolt. Guess he was listening in when she was speaking to Electricity.

“Yeah, yeah, just making sure you’re not lying and trying to sound more badass than you both already do.” Remarking quickly as a light blush spread on her face. The way he’s speaking sounds deeper. Like she’s in trouble somehow and he’s going to correct her.

“We know, Sunshine, we know you just want to be safe. It’s hard to trust especially with the dead around.” Electricity’s speaks softly, the cool to Static’s heat, “But to say it again; Joh— I mean, Static, is a Sergeant and I am also a Sergeant. Static is an expert in demolitions and trained as a sniper. I myself am an expert with prime target eliminations and covert surveillance.” He says it so sincerely and she has half a mind to believe him.

“And why are you all the way in Texas then?” They’ve told her how they moved up here and she knows the reason, but she wants them to say it again.

“We received word that a base, Fort Sam Houston, was working on a cure for the zombie virus. The BAMC is a hospital within that fort that was conducting research.” Electricity sites off the very thing that they’ve repeated for the last month.

“And?” She makes a go on motion that they can’t see but she knows that they can imagine that’s what she’s doing.

“But when we got there it was already over run and Kyl— I mean Electricity almost got killed in the process.” Static says, he sounds upset. “We’ve been over this, Lass. We tell you about the same things over and over again.” A hushed murmur from Electricity is heard and she starts feels bad.

“I know… I’m sorry, I just...” she starts off as she tries to not sound upset. “I just want to make sure that I can trust you. Last time I did...”

“Handmaidens tale, you’ve told us about it. The leader, Abraham, is a far-right Christian, yes?” Static says the man’s name and she shivers as she gives a tiny yes in reply. “He tried to keep you. To force you to stay with his group and be treated as a... how did you say it?”

“A breading cow.”

“Yes, that,” he sighs deeply on the radio, and she wonders what he and Electricity looks like. Wonders if they are as comforting as their warm voices. Wonders if they have beards or stubbles but her self-imposed rules keep her from asking. “I know it’s a lot, learnin ta trust when it's hard to. We’ve promised since the beginnin ta be honest and if I ever see him.” The threat is laced in his voice but he clears his throat. “Enough of that. We are finally moving to Houston. We acquired a car. A Jeep to be more precise. Any chance we’ll be near ya?”

“You might be…” she says softly as she bites her tongue. The urge to let them come to her gets harder and harder to say no to everyday they speak. “I don’t give locations, Static.”

“I know but can’t blame a man for trying. Oh?” She can hear his eyebrows furrowing as voices in the background speak. They’ve told her that they are a group of 4 in total. She’s never heard the other 2 speak but she can sometimes hear them… they sound funny. “It seems we have to cut this shorter, Bonnie.”

“We’ll speak again tomorrow, Sunshine, we promise.” The other man promises, and she knows they will. They’ve never broken a promise. Never did more than what they couldn’t do from the month that they’ve talked.

“I’ll see you both tomorrow and please,” she stresses the word as she hopes and prays that one day they can meet. That she’ll be brave enough to let them in and find her. “Please be safe. Please don’t get hurt, okay? I’ll metaphorically hit you, I swear I will.”

“Always, Bonnie, we will always be safe. Take care and check corners and windows. Make sure you can quickly get’n and out. Don’t go’n if your gut tells ya not to.” Static says, listing off his advice like he would to a fresh-faced recruit. “Don’t play fair and don’t play kind. Everyone’s an enemy until proven otherwise.” He waits a couple seconds before he passes it to the other man.

“Make sure to pack light and that you can easily grasp your weapon.” Electricity warns. A deep sigh from him before he speaks, “And if you ever… if you ever need help, just... please just tell us. We’ll do whatever we can to come for you, okay?” He waits and waits for her to speak but when she doesn’t, he sighs. He waits another minute and then the radio turns to static signaling the end of their conversation.

“I know,” she says softly as she hears the static of the radio. “Be safe, please be safe.” She murmurs the bits of name that she has overheard them say. Going against her own rules of not saying their names even though she knows it’s half of what their names are. She’s gotten too attached and now… now she’s worried. Worried for men she’s never met and probably never will.

“One can dream,” she rolls her shoulders and bends to stretch. Her stomach growling as she knows it’s about time to eat. Pulling her backpack on the office desk and opening it. A couple cans of food and jerky from gas stations. 2 water bottles and a simple medkit along with an extra shirt and pants. “Okay… raviolis or beans….” Humming as sits and pops open the beans. “I’ll save the raviolis for a special day.”

She’s sat for too long on her ass now it’s time to get a move on. Can’t stay for too long in the same places. Always gotta keep moving to different places. Curse the anxiety that still makes her think that a zombie is around every corner. Guess that’s what she’s been alive for so long.

[supersoakerfullofblood]

Beta Reading, Workshopping, and Peer Editing for Indie Writers: a Guide

Beta reading is a term you might hear tossed out as a vague buzzword, kind of like how people talk about "character development" and "worldbuilding"; I've made a bunch of posts to demystify words in that latter category, but beta reading is a different type of term. Where those latter words and their ilk are terms of craft, things we can discuss in theory ("this is how I think characters are developed best"), beta reading is about a novel after its first draft and first wave-ish of edits. Pretty much everything before and after the production of a novel or story is purely up to what works best for the writer, so this post will introduce beta reading if it's new to you, and I'll give you my process if you want to tinker with it!

Beta reading is when interested readers work through your polished manuscript and make workshop comments so you can make an extra wave of edits. Publishing houses usually have two waves of this type of reading--alpha reading (AR) and beta reading (BR). If you can find enough people to alpha read for you (and you want alpha readers), go for it! But if you're confident in your grammar, your ability to craft a scene and characters, and the other formalities of creative writing, alpha reading isn't a requirement (as an indie. If you ever query your work to a house, it'll probably go through alpha reading).

Alpha reading is to catch grammar and syntax slips, mischaracterizations, character development that doesn't add up, excesses of adverbs and adjectives, and other craft faux-pas that the average reader wouldn't catch. Your alpha readers should pretty exclusively be other writers.

Beta reading is to gauge what your audience is thinking or feeling while they read your work. If your beta readers want to make alpha reading comments ("I don't feel like [character] would do that here"), that's A-okay, especially if you didn't have alpha readers, but that shouldn't be your chief concern with your betas. These are your audience surrogates! The job of beta readers is to tell you what they think or feel: "I like this," "I don't like this"; "This paragraph hit me hard"; "This word is confusing"; etc. If they add more words to their comments, that's A-okay ("I like this because these words go well together" or "This word is confusing--does it mean X or Y?") but not necessary! If your beta readers are your audience and not people who really get how writing works, then you should be taking any reasonings in their comments as loose, loose suggestions. Maybe those words that go well together to one reader feel, as you look at them a second time, cliche. Or perhaps the confusing nature of a word or phrase was by design. In any case, try to see your beta readers as a "live audience reaction" and not a "live reactionary critique."

One aside about alpha/beta reading: "this is bad" and "this is good" comments are toxic and should be avoided at all costs. Tell your readers to avoid these before they start writing. No good can come from these. Even "I don't like this" and "I like this" are worlds better, though still not great. But absolutely warn your readers against using objective blanket statements like "good/bad" as they read.

Now that we've laid the foundations, I'll go into my own process so hopefully everything above makes more sense.

Before I give my manuscript to beta readers, I go through 2-3 waves of revision on my own. After I finish my first draft, I wait about a month to let the dust settle, to gain at least a little emotional distance from the project so I can look at it a little more objectively. Then, I read it through, revising for content: cut this scene, add a scene here, chop paragraphs and sentences, add paragraphs and sentences, move this chapter here, make sure this character actually functions as he should in the narrative, etc. These are my macro edits.

Then I let it sit a week or two and go into line editing: punctuation and syntax, word choice, tweaking figurative language, etc. Close pruning of your work. Filing your nails after you've clipped them.

The third read-through is at a normal reading pace, as if you were a reader, to catch anything that may have slipped past during your close edits and revisions. This third read-through is likely the first time you've read your manuscript as it should be read--a book! This step, then, is a victory lap, but it's also one last troubleshoot. You might not find the errors in a computer program until you run the program. So too it is with writing.

This is a lot of work! You might want to relegate these tasks to your readers, but DO NOT!!! If you're still heavily revising and editing your work, don't let your readers to the table. This is your work and your story, and outside influence will stray it from what you want. Own this. Buckle down. Read.

Once you've got your polished draft, it's time to contact your readers! I would recommend 4-6 readers total unless you think you can handle more cooks in your kitchen at a time (I cannot). I typically just ask some of my friends to beta for me. Here's an example text:

"Hey all! I finished that book about church camp a while ago and was wondering if you'd beta read for me! Basically, I'd just need you to read through the book and make comments in the sidebar whenever you like something, don't understand something, are excited or intrigued by something, or other general impressions. You can comment however often or little you feel comfortable with--some people make one comment a chapter, others make multiple comments a page--anything works great. Really all you shouldn't comment are blanket statements of "this is bad" or "this is good," but feel free even to say stuff like "I like this" or "I don't like this." Just avoid objective language when possible.

I don't have any money for this, so sorry in advance, and if possible, I'd love for all of my beta reading to be done by the end of summer.

Let me know if you're down or not! :)"

I really have had readers comment that much and that little on my manuscripts. This is normal. If your readers are supposed to comment whenever something in their attention triggers, different readers' attentions will trigger differently.

It's also a wise idea to form your beta reading group (again, especially if you aren't doing a wave of alpha reading) as a mix of people from different backgrounds and writing experience. My church camp novel group is below:

Person A who went to church camp with me, is into poetry

Person B is into fanfiction, little church experience, mindful of social issues

Person C has little church or writing experience, mindful of social issues

Person D is very into writing, pretty into church

Person E is very into social issues and church, not a writer

I would advise to find a similar balance of people who are into your subject matter and those who aren't.

It's also helpful to give them a timeframe to read by, and make this longer than they need. I gave people ~two months for my ~60k-word novel.

Also, as a little incentive for your readers, plan something for when everyone's done! A post-beta party! Something like this will also encourage you through the process :)

Once you have your betas' comments, it's time for one last wave of revisions. Compile these comments however you like, and start tweaking. I like to have each beta's document open so I can cross-reference while I work through my own doc. And remember: these are audience comments, not writer comments (unless you explicitly brought writers on). If someone says something confuses them, that might just be their cross to bear. If none of your other betas were confused by it, or if one of your betas compliments the same section, it may be worth ignoring that first comment. Try to rule with the majority when you can, and take everything with a grain of salt. "I don't like this" doesn't mean it needs to be changed. It means you should figure out why that reader doesn't like it.

If you have any questions, my asks are open! Again, this is a pretty open concept where anything works as long as it works for you, so don't feel pressured to "get it right." But if you have any questions or suggestions, I'm all ears :)

Hope this helps!

[oh-no-its-bird]

Ok so updated list of my WIPS;

Actually in progress;

- Offal and All (Kakashi's relationship with food throughout the years, mostly told through the eyes of others) I'm activley focusing on this one rn and hoping to post it like, this week actually. It's a mash up of a lot of different tiny Kakashi hc's I've posted about and should be very fun (and depressing, but that's kind of my brand, so.)

- One Step Three Steps chapter 10, it's going well so far actually I just keep writing it at work then being forced to stop bc like. Work. Might go up this week, hopefully

- Chasing Shadows chapter 4, it's like 20% done? Ish? I just need to find the head space to get back to writing it, will go up within the next 2 weeks for sure but idk when exactly. It'll be great tho ur gonna get Hikaku, Fugaku, Shisui, Mikoto, just all the cool Uchiha. Lots of politics, lots of drama, the works

- Itama and the secret senju weed empire fic,,,, it will be long and it will be beautiful which means it'll take me forever to do, sorry

- Magical Girl Izuna AU (my beloved) I got distracted by other projects midway through writing chapter 1 but I'll get there eventually

- Little lab mystery where kid edo-tensei reincarnations of Madara and Tobirama wake up with no memories and immediately stage a jail break

- Nin burger!!!!! Yes this is a real thing yes I meant to post it like the same week I started making it but then I got distracted and didn't. But I swear to fucking GOD I will see it complete. Nin Burger is my favorite real naruto restaurant that is real

- That one oneshot where Madara and Tobirama spend a festival night in the capital together as children, and Madara develops his very first crush on the fox masked boy, but seems to be doomed never to meet him again— till Konoha's first festival is held and he sees a man wearing the very same mask, waiting for him in the crowds. Might not actually finish this one tbh but also maybe I'll save it for tbmd week?? Idk

Considering / Planning;

- Hikaku as the Uchiha clan head after Madara's betrayal comic,,, not an actual fic but I wanna make this so bad. I've written notes for it I just need to get along to drawing it

- Izuna in Wonderland comic, honestly I'll probably end up doing the entire thing in one go one night when I get hit in the face w a brick w motivation. So it'll be a surprise for both u guys and me when I post that! I always do my comics in one go bc I physically can't bring myself to return to art projects if interrupted, which means I tend to do longer ones on my days off where I have literally nothing else to do or distract me, but I haven't had one of those in like. 2 months now. So. But I will soon!! Umm. Maybe.

- Here Before and After Me chapter 2, I'll probably make one eventually but who tf knows when. I have a very specific vision of Kakashi following Tobirama onto the battlefield and scaring the shit out of a very alarmed and confused Izuna

- Tobirama and Izuna's field trip through time and space, I don't think I want to commit to a full fic bc it'd be seriously long and I'm already commiting to Chasing Shadows and One Step Three Steps as my regular update long fics, then the MG Izuna au and Itama fic as my "write it all behind the scenes then post" long fics. One shots only for me, sorry. But I do wanna write a silly one shot of the boys crash landing face first into a konoha council meeting during their field trip

Dropped / Abandoned;

- That one mdtb space mermaid au, rip. Maybe I'll come back to u one day but for now I have a lot to focus on, sorry

- mdtb fish in a pond fic where Tobirama is half spirit and turns into a koifish that Tajima then brings home and tosses into the families koi pond

I think that's everything? I have a shit memory and do everything on my notes app then forget to categorize the notes half the time so I honestly wouldn't be surprised if I'd lost smthn else in my like billion different notes.

Those are the important ones tho, so, good enough!

[foxett]

What's the swingset AU. I am hellbent on this AU rn and like pls yap about the lore 🙏

Aha.... Buckle your seatbelts this will take a while. (TW for mentions of s*icide, s*lf h*rm and death in general under the cut. Also omori spoilers. But that's probably to be expected)

Swingset was first an idea. Probably around early 2024??? I'm not sure but!!! I didn't actually plan to write anything about it until I got the idea for it and started writing the fic my last week of school (so it updates every wednesday)

The au itself... Hhhh yeah. Basically, the incident happens as normal, but Sunny doesn't have headspace and whitespace to slip into in his mind, and is fully aware the whole time Basil is doing the hanging and stuff or Mari. Sunny decides it's for the best and kills himself, hanging himself on the same tree Mari was already hanging on only like. Minutes later. (First chapter). Basil leaves before Sunny does that so he doesn't know it happens.

The rest of the gang (+ Basil is dragged along) and they find Mari and Sunny!!!! Yay!!! (Sarcastic yay) Anyways in short they react badly but Kel probably has it the worst because he's a little delulu in this au. Basil is close behind tho.

Kel twists the incident to Mari and Sunny making a swing and. Yeah. Au name!!! He also makes up fake versions of Sunny and Mari (and also everyone else, because the group fell apart) to hang out with. In other words, Kel needs a schizophrenia diagnosis. Everyone copes horribly (Basil. Well. Self harms. And generally is probably going insane.) (Hero bedrots like in canon but longer) (Aubrey bullies Basil at first but they make up and form a sorta sibling bond!) (not gonna spoil the exact thing but Aubrey will be traumatized further)

There's!!! A lot of stuff going on. Kel has all his fake friends (before the group reunited because of a certain incident!) - and also ghost Sunny and Mari (who age like ghost Mari does in canon because i said so) exist but they're not too important outside of the good ending.

I don't keep count but i think there's a total of 8 something's total. Canon something (Mari something, Maris hanging body), Sunny something (Sunny's hanging body), canon something (Mari at the bottom of the stairs, Basil's something), Noosething (Basil's extra au something (tying the noose which leads to Sunny's own suicide), Basil something (Aubrey's extra something. Not spoiling it for now...), Kel something (bad ending) and hero's very hd quality something's (he looked at the bodies too long ig)

Everyone has the sunny and mari somethings. Basil has 4 total. Hero and Aubrey have 3 (sunny, mari, their own bonus) Kel repressed his two but they still show up in the shadows sometimes :)

Basil is. Where do i start. He actually is completely delusional. Completely. More than Kel kinda. He also hears voices. He almost kills someone trying to kill himself (spoilers), and overall almost kills himself like. At least thrice. He doesn't take care of himself. At least Aubrey's there to help!

On a sorta wholesome note, everyone gets their hair dyed!! They do it to 'help' Kel to snap out of his delusions (it makes it worse) (kel does snap out of it at some point! But it might just be too late for it by then :) )

For the fic itself it's 11k ish words and 4 chapters at the moment.???? I have 20 chapters planned total plus two bonus ones so. Ouch. that's gonna be fun to write. I take the au itself seriously but the extra drawings i do for it... Ehhh not so much.

I have this gem of a doodle (vision basil and real basil) i frankly don't remember when i drew this. I probably was half asleep and it was like 2 am.

I plan to rework the old reference sheets i have and hopefully do the fifth chapter today and tomorrow! I don't actually wanna spoil much but definitely keep an eye out for some post!!!

Yippie! Read below ↓

mind the warnings (although since you made it this far, you probably don't care!!)

[sunsuns-babie]

My Roommate is a Gumiho | 01. It Took You 2 Weeks (2,529 wrds)

A/N: This took forever to write and edit but finally, the 1st chapter is posted!!!!!! Not entirely proof read but I tried to catch as many mistakes as possible.

The quiet atmosphere at the table was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a fried chicken bone clanking down on a plate, rather dramatically one might say. Around the small-ish table pushed in a corner near one of the big windows in the diner sat Kazuha, Y/n, and Taehyun on one side and across from them sat Kai, Beomgyu, and Chaeryeong.

Up until this moment to be frank the friends had all been quietly stewing with their thoughts after the incident on Twitter between Y/n and Minjeong, with the added insult to injury from Kai who couldn’t hold back from tagging the rest of that wretched friend group. Now it seemed Chaeryeong could no longer sit and stew, biting back her tongue.

Sighing dramatically she begins, “Man, I really hate Minjeong and her silly little goons”, she rolls her eyes before adding, “I mean her friends that basically live up her asshole—!”

“Cherry, keep your voice down people are starting to stare”, Taehyun adds through gritted teeth.

“No. Like come on! How dare she act all sweet and innocent… like she didn’t take everything from Beomgyu!”, Kai who quickly interjected after Taehyun.

It seems Huening Kai could no longer hold back his tongue because he now started unintentionally raising his voice a few octaves, “Quite literally bleeding him dry like a god damn vampire as Olivia Rodrigo would say. Then throwing him away like he’s some kind of piece of trash!”

“Guys stop talking so loud people—”

“Yah!”, Beomgyu exclaims cutting Taehyun off, “This is embarrassing! Please be quiet”.

Now it’s Y/n’s turn to let out her feelings, but unlike the others she keeps her tone down like Taehyun keeps reminding, “What a bitch, her and her group of followers. How can anyone stand being ruled by her?”

Y/n then turns to Taehyun pointing the piece of chicken she was eating at him, “Yah, I’m glad you got away from those monsters Kang Taehyun. They didn’t deserve you, you’re too good for them and they showed their true colors”, on the last syllable she takes a bite out of her chicken.

Beomgyu sighs and pours himself another drink, “Can we just stop talking about Minjeong’s friends? I’m tired of hearing about them”. Kazuha who was just observing the mess unfold starts to order some more bottles of beer knowing they’re all in for a long night.

“You know what? I knew it! I knew this would happen”, Chaeryeong quickly downs her current drink, “time and time again I told you Choi Beomgyu. You never listen, I said Kim Minjeong and her fucked excuse of so called friends—”, she looks at Taehyun, “no offense, were all trouble. ‘Just keep rejecting her Beomgyu’. ‘If she keeps bothering you I’ll take care of it’. ‘Just be direct with her so she’ll screw off’. But no, Cherry doesn’t know what she’s talking about”.

“It’s not Beomgyu’s fault, he didn’t even want her in the first place but that crazy bitch couldn’t take a hint and finally wore him down enough that he caved and gave her one date but Minjeong the master manipulator of course got exactly what she wanted, so she wouldn’t let go easy”, Kazuha finally spoke while opening a new bottle of beer to start pouring in her glass.

Through bites of his free fried chicken Kai starts yapping, “She bled Beomgyu’s bank account, then got mad he stopped buying stuff for her because news flash we’re all broke college students. Then in that same vein did that fucked up shit to Taehyun all because he stopped letting her sink her claws in him and control him. Minjeong turned her backs on both of them just because they weren’t useful to her anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was two timing Beomgyu with that other guy Heetong or whatever. It would explain how she could move on so easily and quickly”.

“Kim Minjeong isn’t capable of loving anyone but herself and controlling those around her with fear. Two timing bitch. There’s no way she wasn’t talking to Heeson the entire time she was Beomgyu”, Y/n adds with an eye roll wiping her hands with a napkin.

“Fucking bitch”, Taehyun says while opening a new bottle of beer and drinking it straight from the bottle, “I don’t know how long that was going on but I do know she was just keeping Heeseung around as a backup for convenience. She fucking hates him”.

Suddenly Beomgyu who wasn’t entirely part of the conversation or even drinking/eating anymore looks up after playing with his food deep in thought. He looks around at his friends and after a beat says, “But she wouldn’t do this to me… really. She wouldn’t do that to me.. so why—”, suddenly he chokes up and starts crying into his hands.

“Yah! Why are you crying? Just think of this as some kind of awful accident. That bitch doesn’t deserve your tears!”

“Cherry, I don’t think that’s helping”.

“No, Zuha she’s right. He needs to get over her already. She’s done nothing but continue to prove that she doesn’t give a fuck about him or his feelings. He needs to start seeing her for the bitch she is”.

Taehyun slams his bottle down on the table causing everyone at the table and even the surrounding area to look at him. “Yah, you think you’re helping any? Y/n, you and Chaeryeong are acting no better than Minjeong”, he starts to grumble and roll his eyes, “my god you’re all so fucking annoying”.

Y/n then turns her full body to Taehyun pushing his shoulder, “Hey, Kang Taehyun you want to talk about annoying? Watch your attitude, talk about us being like Minjeong? You’re acting just like her and her goons again. You’re supposed to be our friend now, act like it!”

“Whatever.”

“I think we all need to cool it, we shouldn’t let Minjeong and her goons ruin our night let alone cause us to fight. We’re all friends here”, Kazuha firmly states causing everyone to slump in their seats cutting the building tension in half.

Some time passes by there’s bottles piling up at the end of the table and empty chicken boxes stacked on top of each other. Some of the group stopped drinking and have empty glasses or ones with a little beer leftover and replaced them with a Coke or some water. A couple were still eating fried chicken (mainly Kai and Y/n) and others stopped. Meanwhile Beomgyu is still downing drinks while the others simultaneously keep giving him fake drinks that are just apple juice and forcing him to eat something in between. The night seemed to be going better compared to before but then Beomgyu starts crying again.

“I miss her so much…”

The gang starts looking at each other trying to figure out what to do or say to calm him down because they don’t want to accidentally trigger him again. Earlier after the first initial conversation about Minjeong he started crying loudly and they tried to comfort him more gently than the first time but it backfired greatly.

This time’s crying didn’t last long though because just as fast as it started it stopped with Beomgyu slamming his fists down on the table and loudly proclaiming, “Kim Minjeong! You evil bitch, I hope you shit your pants in front of everyone tomorrow! I hope your makeup bag falls and all your favorite glitter eyeshadow completely shatters!”

His friends stare in shock at his outburst and watch in horror as he pulls out his phone and clumsily tries to unlock it. Taehyun starts scolding Beomgyu from across the table, “Hey! No, no, no, no!”, he reaches over the table trying to snatch it from the heartbroken boy, “don’t touch your phone right now! Hand it over!”

“No! Leave me alone!”

“Someone take his phone!”

Y/n got up and quickly went around the table and starts fighting with a very drunk Beomgyu for his phone but he resists well.

“Choi Beomgyu! You’re causing a scene, just give me the phone!”

“No! I’m not doing anything!”

“No! Give it to me! You’re just going to call her and make a fool of yourself!”

“Leave me alone!”

Y/n manages to wrestle with Beomgyu a bit causing him to jut out his arm towards Chaeryeong who snatches the phone out of his hand and hands it to Taehyun.

“Thank you”, Chaeryeong says in a mockingly sweet sing-song voice as she takes the phone away from Beomgyu.

Now Beomgyu starts openly sobbing, the hardest he’s cried all night. Taehyun sighs while pocketing Gyu’s phone, “Don’t cry because I took the phone. Trust me you’ll thank all of us tomorrow morning for stopping you now”.

Like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum Beomgyu starts fussing and whining rather than crying, making a bigger scene while Kai tries to get him to drink some apple juice but at this point he’s figured out his “beer” wasn’t beer anymore and doesn’t want juice anymore. Kazuha was the first to cave and slides him her half full bottle she’d had pretty much for the last hour and a half-ish. Like a baby being handed a bottle he drinks it eagerly while the group just watches wondering how they’re going to deal with him tomorrow when he’s hungover.

After a short lived couple moments of silence suddenly Beomgyu takes the now empty beer bottle holding it like a mic and to the horror of the group starts singing for the whole diner.

“Come back to me~”

“The place where you belong—”, he starts getting louder and tries to stand up on his chair. Chaeryeong grabs his free hand trying to direct him back in his seat while Kai zips up his jacket all the way and flips his hood over his face in embarrassment. Kazuha is frozen in shock, Taehyun looks like a parent who’s lost all patience with their noisy child, and Y/n was begging Beomgyu to be quiet and sit down.

“— is right here!”, Beomgyu snatches his hand out of Chaeryeong’s grip and hits his chest where his heart is, “by my side!”

Now choking up and taking a very short break from singing to cry some more, Chaeryeong finally gets him to sit down again. Then he starts singing again but less enthusiastic and more depressed.

“Come back to me~”

During Beomgyu’s drunken high note he suddenly just face plants into the table causing a loud thud while he openly wails. Kai then picks him back up while Kazuha fawns over him asking if he’s okay. Ignoring her Beomgyu latches himself on to Kai and sobs into his shoulder while he awkwardly pats his back. Poor Huening Kai looked mortified because now the whole place is staring at them.

“Ah goodness”, Kazuha says as she moves a piece of Beomgyu’s hair checking his head for bruises, “poor thing. Now he has a knot on his head”.

Y/n grabs some fries that have gone rather untouched the whole night then adds, “He’s always been such a softy, he always gives his all to girls and gets nothing in return”.

“Even when it’s a girl he never wanted in the first place”, Chaeryeong says with a roll of her eyes pulling out her phone to text someone. Taehyun suddenly stands up fast hitting his knee on the table while looking at his phone, “Shit! I forgot I had English lessons with Jake today at 9. I have to go like now if I want to make it back to campus on time and grab my things”.

Beomgyu who was otherwise wallowing in his own misery perks up at Taehyun saying he’s leaving and yells, “NO!”

Jumping away from Kai he fumbles as he reaches over the table and grabs onto Taehyun’s hands begging him to stay, “You can’t go! I’m going to disinfect my broken heart with alcohol, all night!”

He lets go of Taehyun’s right hand but continues to grip his left and now with Beomgyu’s free hand he reaches for Taehyun’s forgotten beer bottle and takes a big gulp for emphasis. He hisses at the taste and starts coughing, “that’s bitter… it hurts”, he lets go of Taehyun all together and starts pounding on his heart again for emphasis, “it hurts right here, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—”, and then he slumped back in his chair and face plants back into the table.

“Aish… why is he—”, Kazuha starts but then trails off while looking at the mess that is Beomgyu.

“You can go Taehyun, if you want to. It’s okay, really”, Y/n says while looking at Beomgyu with a sigh of something not quite disappointment but not really sympathy either.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, of course! You can go ahead”.

“Well since we carpooled are the rest of you ready to go?”, Taehyun asks looking around the table. Y/n then adds, “If you aren’t ready to go yet my house isn’t that far from here it’s just a short bus ride away”.

Chaeryeong starts standing and pulling her bag over her shoulder, “I have some homework to finish so I might as well leave now”.

“Well if Cherry is ready than I am too since we’re roomies”, Kazuha laughs, “Besides since I left practice early today for Beomgyu I have to make up time early in the morning so I should head back with Taehyun.

Y/n nods as both her and Taehyun look at Kai while the girls get up and stand with Taehyun ready to go.

“What about you, Kai?”

He seems to ponder for a moment and then answers Taehyun, “Yeah I guess I’ll go back with you. I don’t feel like riding the bus… not just because I’m broke”.

“Then it’s just me and the drunk dork”, Y/n says in what seems to be a teasing tone but also could be taken as sarcasm.

Taehyun doesn’t seem to like that answer, “Are you sure you want to stay here with him? I’m sure Kai and I could manage to drag him out back to their dorm”.

Kazuha then hits Beomgyu on the back of the head, not enough to hurt him but if he was sober he would have dramatically yelped and started pouting at her. Instead he just groaned drooling on the table.

“He’s completely wasted, are you sure you want to deal with him alone?”

“Don’t worry about it Zuha”, Y/n looks back at Taehyun and continues, “This isn’t the first time, don’t worry about us. You guys can go, I’ll take him home with me. Yujin won’t mind sharing a bed with him”, she jokes.

Taehyun still seems unsure but looks at the time once more on his phone, “Okay… call me if anything happens with that loser”, he gestures to Beomgyu, “I’ll come back if you need me to”.

“Of course, now go! Don’t worry I can handle him, promise!”

“Fine, call me when you get home”.

“Okay!”

After an exchange of goodbyes from the more coherent friends and Y/n being given Beomgyu’s confiscation phone. Taehyun, Kai, Kazuha, and Chaeryeong leave both Y/n and the heartbroken Beomgyu alone.

profile (3) | smau masterlist | next

taglist 🏷️: @plskillme22 @missychief1404

[nobigsecrets]

Fic Writing Review 2023 🌈

Ha, I did think about digging up last year's review and doing it sometime before Christmas! Because I've done these for a few years now. But I have barely written anything in 2023 and I never went looking. But now that I've been tagged I'm gonna do it, even if it comes out on the (very) short side. Thank you for the tag, @itwoodbeprefect!

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Words and Fics (on ao3) 📚

words posted: 32,393

fics posted: 5

first fic: Rainbows over Waikiki

last fic: "Are you mad?" (Chapter 7 of H50 Short Fics and Prompt Fills)

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Ships and Fandoms ⚓

Hawaii Five-0 (2010) (2) McDanno, of course

Ted Lasso (TV) (3) Roy x Jamie, who I have shipped since season 1 (when Jamie confessed to Roy about the poster) and I find it somewhat funny that it has become the fandom's Big Ship only after last season

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Top 5 Fics by Kudos 🏆

With 5 fics in total this one is easy:

Oi! Tartt! Boot Room now! Ted Lasso, Roy x Jamie, T, 1k words

Those Lips (Red as Blood) Ted Lasso, Roy x Jamie, T, 1.4k words

Rainbows over Waikiki H50, McDanno, M, 27k words, incomplete

One night at G-A-Y Ted Lasso, Roy x Jamie, T, 405 words

"Are you mad?" H50, McDanno, G, 567 words

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Top 5 Favorite Fics 💖

Picking just one:

Rainbows over Waikiki Shortly after his mom dies, Steve kisses his best friend Luca. A week later his dad shoves him back into the closet by sending him away to the Army-Navy-Academy. What follows is a life full of lying and hiding and pretending—until he finds support from unlikely allies. Things get complicated when he returns to Hawaii 20 years later, when DADT is repealed and he falls head over heels for his new partner, Danny Williams. This is Steve’s story.

My baby. My big story. The Project that I've been working on for several years tbh. It's still incomplete even though there's not much that's missing (mostly editing, a missing link between the last two chapters and parts of the epilogue). I wrote most of it in 2022 and was on a good way to finishing it at the beginning of 2023 so I started posting. I don't know what happened then. Too much work, too much stress, call it writer's block if you will, I haven't been able to pick it back up. I will finish it, I promise, I just don't know when. 🥺

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Fandom Fic Events 🤝

none

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Projects for 2024 👀

After the last year I don't have much trust in making fic writing plans anymore. I don't think my work load will decrease anytime soon. But then, maybe I should stop waiting for the day I'm suddenly not tired anymore and just write anyway. Because I miss writing. A lot.

So let's treat this as a wish list more than an actual project list, yeah?

The fic that is closest to finishing is a continuation of One night at G-A-Y, with a gay Roy trying to figure out what kind of flavor queer Jamie is, if at all.

A McDanno fic where Steve has been dishonorably discharged from the Navy thanks to DADT. He returns to Hawaii, out and proud now because fuck the Navy, and he opens up a queer gym after he doesn't find a place where he can train without either hiding or suffering harassment. When a man dies in an illegal MMA fight, Steve suddenly finds himself subject of a police investigation led by (surprise!) Detective Danny Williams. In my mind this is another Big and Long Story. Maybe I can find a way to break it down into small chunks.

A kind of dark-ish fic where, despite being a SEAL and therefore very capable of defending himself, thank you very much, Steve finds himself at a disadvantage when he's assaulted by a bunch of homophobe thugs.

I have collected a variety of paragraphs and snippets around a transmasc!Steve headcanon. I haven't figured out what to do with them yet.

And, of course, finish Rainbows Over Waikiki

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Tagging ✨

I think most people I know have been tagged in the original post. I'm adding (no pressure) @cowandcalf, @goneahead, @emphasisonthehomo, @lukeclvez and anyone (you!) who wants to join in.

[chasingfigments]

So here's what I've been up to

Despite the years of relative silence, I actually HAVE been writing, and writing a lot. Most of it just isn't public yet.

September 2021 to January 2023: Planned and outlined a FFXV alternate universe collab with @crazyloststar. (~20,000 words)

January 2023 to present: Started writing the FFXV alternate universe collab. (~76,000 words; 21/36 chapters written; no chapters posted)

January 2023 to August 2023: Took notes for and outlined a FE3H fic about Lysithea returning to Ordelia and dismantling her house, while also being in a long-distance relationship with Claude. (~9,000 words)

September 2023 to present: Started writing the FE3H fic. (~20,000 words; 6/14 chapters written; no chapters posted)

February 2024 to March 2024: Outlined For Some Desperate Glory, a Batman fic where Red Hood kidnaps Bruce Wayne instead of taking over the drug trade. (~7,000 words)

February 2024 to present: Started writing For Some Desperate Glory. (~5,000 words; 1/12 chapters written; 1 chapter posted)

More detail about each of these projects after the cut.

FFXV collab with crazyloststar

If you liked all of our Borders of Divinity bullshit, expect More but also Different. It's another alternate universe/canon divergence, and it's going to be half again as long as BoD.

We're nearly done with Act 2 (chapter 25), which we're scheduled to wrap up next month. We'll be doing a massive continuity edit at that point (it's been well over a year since we wrote chapter one), and once that's finished, we're likely going to start approaching artists for commissions.

According to our writing schedule, we'll be drafting the final chapter sometime in November 2024.

We'll likely start posting before then, but that's going to depend on art and how closely we stick to the writing schedule. We liked being able to post every week with BoD and don't want to risk having to delay a chapter because we're behind.

You'll likely start seeing chapters this year, though it's incredibly likely we'll still be posting in 2025 given its length.

FE3H Lysithea dismantles her house

I'm obsessed with Lysithea's canon ending with Claude, couldn't find anything on AO3 that addressed it, and so here I am, writing it myself.

Also stealing other shit from other endings, but please note--this is essentially the aftermath of a no-recruitment run. It's Golden Deer, with cameos and occasional mentions of other Church-aligned folks.

Claude is off in Almyra for almost the entire fic; here's hoping you're into long-distance relationships when mail delivery takes ages and is not as reliable as the USPS.

I need to get through Act 2 (chapter 9) and do a continuity edit there before I feel comfortable posting.

You'll start seeing chapters this year; maybe late summer-ish. I should be able to get this off my plate this year.

For Some Desperate Glory (Batman fic)

The first chapter is up because I was extra excited and feeling reckless and wanted to get something up the first half of the year when everything else is still months out from being public.

I've gotten my hands on the deluxe version of the UTRH comic; aiming to read it this month. This is likely to cause some additional outline revisions; the chapter count may actually go down--we'll see.

This is the one fic I plan to post chapters as they're finished; the narrative structure is different from the two other projects and won't require continuity checks/overhauls at a specific point.

Hoping to have the entire fic done and up this year. Wish me luck!

[daniwib]

Fic Writing Review 2023

Words and fics

• 281,412 words published to ao3

• approx. 150,000 more unpublished (unfinished WIP’s)

• 2 fandoms (911 & 911 Lonestar)

• Most recent drop: Night at the (Wax) Museum – an utterly cursed piece of work that is virtually unreadable. Seriously. I dare you to try. I wrote this for a guess-the-writer event and made it so unrecognisable as my own work that virtually no one read it at all. It’s a fun story and I hope that more people will read the grammatically correct version that I’ll be posting hopefully today.  

• Longest fic in 2023: empty, broken, lonely, hoping at 44k (Buck and Christopher are presumed dead when Buck’s building burns down) This is one of my favourites this year.

Top 2023 fics by kudos

• empty, broken, lonely, hoping (Buck and Christopher are presumed dead when Buck’s building burns down). I really like this one and am quite proud of it. One of my favourites I’ve written this year.

• Losing Hope (Buck gets pregnant right before the lawsuit but loses the baby). Huh. This surprised me. I never thought I’d write mpreg or lawsuit fic OR that it would be one of my highest kudos’d fic this year. How bizarre!

Upcoming events and projects for 2024

Gah this is scary, I have so many.

Reluctant Werewolf crack – I really need to sit down and finish the last chapter of this. It’s about half done.

Coronation crack – likewise. I got blocked when RWRB was released and featured a polo scene very similar to what I was planning for Buddie in England and haven’t been able to get back to it since. I think I’ll scrap that chapter and just finish it off. I loathe having unfinished wip’s partly posted, it does my head in.

Big werewolf AU – featuring all my favourite tropes of kidnapped Buck, worried Eddie, Buck whump and Eddie whump too. I started it in January 2023. It’s fully plotted and maybe 2/3’s written at around 70k.

Navy Seal Buck – there’s something so fun about secretly bamf! Buck going all out to protect his firefam. He gets whumped during the course of, naturally. Again, started in January 2023, fully plotted and is maybe half done at about 50k-ish.

Angsty Buckley family drama set around the Madney wedding aka the one that will make you all weep. Fully plotted, partly begun.

Kidnapped TK – this one is so big and complex that I’m thinking of turning it into a novel some day. Fully plotted and partially written.

Eddie porn reviewer. Plotted only.

Buck sex worker. Plotted, partially written.

Carla romance novelist gets Buddie together. Plotted, partially written.

Plus the other 90+ ideas in my Ideas folder!

I’m unlikely to get much done before Christmas, too busy with family stuff and am recovering from having to have an emergency appendectomy while also having Influenza A this week. It’s been… rough.

Same for January as hubby and I are going on the first holiday alone together since having kids – Tasmania here we come! I am very glad my surgery didn’t ruin that.

Thank you for the tag @sherlockcrossing  

No pressure tagging: @daughterofscotland  @rogerzsteven @cal-daisies-and-briars @ronordmann and anyone else who wants to share!

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please don’t eat glass but don’t feel like you have to do this either.

[wakebymoonsleepbysun]

Untitled DJ x Reader Soulmate AU - Ch 2

EDIT: This is now being updated on ao3!

Throwing this up here for now. I have an ao3 but I don't know that I want this to be the first thing posted in it. Also it's in need of editing because the first chapter is in a different tense than the second chapter because I'd intended it to be a flashback-ish thing but that's not really clear in the finished writing. Alas.

Might delete these posts when it this story eventually makes its way to ao3, but we'll see.

[ Ch 1 ] [ Ch 2 - You are here ]

CHAPTER 2

It was either the best time to start or the worst time. That’s what your mentor had told you as she walked you through the atrium towards the West Arcade. 

Your predecessor had quit unexpectedly, which is why there had been such a fast turnaround to get you in the door. And why they don’t have that many resources to devote to training you. Your mentor is not unsympathetic. She’s at least managed to convince the upper management to let the dance hall stay closed for at least a week, giving you plenty of time to get your feet under you.

“You’ll know more about DJ Music Man than the rest of us by the time you’re done, at least,” she chuckles, giving you a supportive clap on the shoulder before leaving you in the dance hall with only a cart of supplies, a tablet full of documentation, and your own gumption.

You nod uncertainly as she leaves. You slip through the small opening in the metal shield that blocks the dance hall from the rest of the West Arcade. The sound squeaky wheel on your cart echoes through the empty space.

And there he is. The gigantic mechanical DJ Music Man, the biggest animatronic in the world. He lays on his stage, apparently in rest mode, since he doesn’t seem to register your presence as you approach.

You frown at his broken eye. Even without the lights up, you can see a few wires behind the shattered glass have been pulled loose somehow.

You climb onto the stage, circling the animatronic and surveying the damage. You’d been briefed on it of course. Broken eye, broken elbow joint, lots of graffiti…but you still wanted to take a look at it yourself before you got started.

You regard the elbow joint, figuring that would be a good thing to fix first. Between this, the eye, and the damage to the stage, you’re shocked at how much a group of kids can damage such a gigantic piece of equipment. But that’s what a few lucky shots will do, you suppose.

“They really did a number on you, huh?” you say, stepping towards his elbow and lightly touching the joint.

DJ’s optics switch on abruptly as his head shoots up. Those words! Those sacred words! Somehow he’d convinced himself he’d never actually hear them. He’d been aware of you coming in, but hadn’t bothered to actually look at you.

Now you find yourself scrambling back from a flurry of arms and hands as the DJ rights himself, dragging his bad arm as he quickly turns to see who spoke to him.

As his massive head swings toward you, you vaguely register a look of alarm on his face at the same time you register a distinct lack of ground beneath one of your feet.

Your stomach jumps into your throat as you fall backwards off the stage. You close your eyes, already imagining the eight foot drop that’s going to see you land flat on your back if you’re lucky…or on the back of your head if you're unlucky.

But it’s not the hard dance floor you hit. It’s something soft and padded. Your heart is hammering as you slowly open your eyes.

Once again you’re staring at the face of the DJ, now more worried than alarmed.

He caught you, you realize. You’re in his hands.

“Th-Thanks…” you manage, your voice thin as you resist the urge to peer over the edge of his gloved hand. You can’t tell how high up he’s holding you, and you realize you don’t want to know. Just pretend you’re only a few feet up. No more than that.

He scoots back, his bad arm scraping against the stage. He gently sets you down, but keeps his hands cupped behind you like a wall. You hope he’s only doing that to keep you from stumbling off the stage again.

DJ tilts his head, looking at you in concern.

You glance nervously at the massive gloved hands behind you. “I-I’m…okay. I won’t fall off again…” you say. Maybe he’s running some kind of safety protocol. That kind of thing usually requires some kind of positive affirmation from the human to release the robot from their obligations.

It seems to work, and his hands lower, coming to rest on either side of you. You had expected him to go back to his resting state, but he just continues watching you. Expectantly? Curiously? Despite being capable of emoting to some degree--moving his eyebrows, shuttering his eyes, and changing his mouth shape--his current expression is hard to read.

Probably because DJ barely knows what to think himself. He’d just been suddenly presented with his soulmate, and before he could process that revelation, you’d been in his hands. Though you hadn’t seemed too happy about it. He’s well aware that most humans wouldn’t be happy to find themselves in the hands of a giant robot, of course…but…

But what? What had he thought your first meeting would be like? He had already accepted that there was no way you’d know he was your soulmate when you met.

You finally find your voice, and manage to stammer out your name. The DJ perks, smiling and leaning forward eagerly, as if waiting for you to tell him more.

You have a lovely name, at least in DJ’s mind. It’s the name of his soulmate, he was destined to adore it!

You don’t bother to ask his name. You know it already, and you also have no reason to assume he puts much weight on the ritual of introductions. So you continue, “I’m…the new tech. Here to fix you up?”

Realizing he was encroaching on your space, he pulls back slightly, nodding at your statement.

You smile awkwardly up at him. Your mentor and the other techs made it sound like he wouldn’t move until you told him to. You step around his head to get to his arm, only for him to start circling with you, keeping you in his view.

“H-Hey!” you say, surprised as his bad elbow was dragged away from you.

DJ froze immediately, lowering his body to the ground and staring at you guiltily.

You frown wonderingly at the expression. Did he feel chastised? A robot shouldn’t feel anything…but you felt a bit guilty that he was programmed to act chastised for being scolded. Not that you had meant to scold him, exactly.

“S-Sorry…” you say, holding up your hands. “I was just surprised. Th-They uh…said you mostly…held still…”

He didn’t respond, continuing to watch you. You’d also been told he had no voice, so his lack of response was hardly surprising. Maybe he just didn’t understand what you wanted from him.

“I’m going to look at your elbow now, okay?” you say. You wait for him to tilt his head in a nod before you once again move around him to get to the broken joint. This time he stays put, though turns his head as far as he can to watch you from the corner of his eye.

“I know you probably want your eye fixed,” you say, taking a screwdriver from your pocket and starting to undo the fastenings of the purple orb joint of his elbow. “But I think every time you try to move your elbow, it gets worse. So I want to at least look at it first.”

It feels more natural to speak conversationally, instead of giving clipped orders like the voice commands you would give to a digital assistant. The DJ has a face. He emotes. Even though you know he’s just an AI inside a machine, the urge to talk to him as if he’s a human is winning out.

You suppose it’s harmless. Besides, you were already told that if you’re ever in front of customers, you need to “stay in character”, and talk to the animatronics as if they’re your friends. “Because everyone’s your friend at Freddy Fazbear’s!”

The DJ nods again, and you take that to mean the information is of some value to whatever processes he was running in that AI of his.

You get the casing off, tossing it aside. No need to be careful with it--you can already see it’s damaged beyond repair. You’ll have to send for another one from Parts and Services. 

You flinch a bit as you look at the joint mechanism. It’s worse than you thought. The stage light falling on the joint had warped it considerably, and apparently DJ’s frantic movements afterwards had actually caused the connecting wires to get tangled in the shards of the warped joint.

“Hm…looks like these wires are going to have to be cut off and replaced. Do you think you can straighten your arm enough so that the joint is on the ground? That’ll make it easier for me to work on.” The bend in his elbow currently had the joint slightly above your eye level.

DJ grimaces, both from the bad news and the command. But he nods, albeit with a slight bit of reluctance. His body shifts as if he’d taken a breath to steady himself, and then he slowly begins to straighten his broken elbow.

He gazes blankly ahead, seeming focused as his brow knits and his lips press together in a grimace. If he could sweat, surely a sheen of it would be coating his forehead now.

He’s only lowered the joint a couple feet when you say, “W-Wait…” That look on his face…as if he’s in pain. That…can’t be right.

DJ stops, looking at you questioningly.

You hold up your hands, your fingers flexing slightly as you consider your question. “Wh-Why do you…look like you’re in pain…?” you ask.

DJ’s head tilts slightly, one brow raising.

You flinch. Of course he can’t answer. Stick to yes or no questions. “...Are you in pain?”

DJ frowns slightly before nodding. Nobody has asked that before. Not even Karter, though DJ had assumed that was because Karter already knew he could feel pain, and DJ had gotten the impression Karter had at least tried to avoid causing him pain.

You blanch. You’d heard of some robots being given pain sensors for various reasons…usually as an incentive to keep them from damaging themselves, or as an exercise in trying to make them more “alive”. But the DJ didn’t seem like the type of robot that should have them.

“I-I’m sorry,” you stammer out. “Th-They didn’t tell me you felt pain. I-If I’d known…”

DJ’s expression softens. You’re worried? About him? He’s flattered, but…he also hates to see you so distressed. There’s no need for you to be upset…as you said, you didn’t know. He lifts one of his good arms, lightly brushing the back of one finger against your shoulder.

Your mind had already drifted to trying to figure out the least painful way to treat--fix--the DJ’s broken joint, so when you felt something brush against your shoulder you jumped slightly.

“Wh-What?” you ask, eying the large hand somewhat nervously. You’ve never worked with a robot this large before. Not even close. You can’t help but be a little intimidated.

He regards you silently. He looks worried, though it doesn’t occur to you he would be worried about you.

You try to smile encouragingly as you pat one of his fingers. “It’ll be alright. It’ll hurt for a bit, but you’ll feel better afterwards. But I’ll try to keep it as painless as possible.”

DJ pauses, but then forces a small smile of his own. His lack of voice had never bothered him before. He had never needed to say all that much. The few sounds he’d adapted (yes, no, and his querying chirp), along with occasional pointing or waving had always gotten across whatever point he’d wanted to make. At least until Karter’s last day. And now this.

You didn’t understand he was trying to comfort you. That he didn’t want you to be upset. And he didn’t know how to make that clear. So he had to simply let it go.

Your own smile fades just a touch, as you get the sense that you didn’t actually address whatever his concern was. But you don’t know what to ask to prompt him to clarify. So like him, you have to simply let it go.

“Alright, let’s see…” you say to yourself, lightly resting a hand on his upper arm as you examine the broken joint. You glance over at him. “It doesn’t hurt if I rest my hand here, does it?” you ask.

He’s resting his chin on one of his good hands, still looking at you sideways with a look you can only describe as fondness. You must be seeing things; he has no reason to be fond of you. Maybe he’s just…friendly? But he shakes his head no, so you turn your attention back to his elbow.

DJ’s surprised you thought that gentle touch would hurt…but more than that, he’s moved that you even thought to ask. That you’re so worried about his comfort even though you’ve just met.

“Okay, I’m going to need to remove the casing on your upper arm here,” you say, patting the casing where your hand was already resting. “Will that hurt you?”

He shakes his head again. That, at least, is what you expected. Generally unscrewing and removing swappable components didn’t cause pain in robots. Making routine maintenance painful was, at best, missing the point behind giving robots pain sensors in the first place or, at worst, just plain cruel. You tended to lean towards the latter. Though you rarely admitted it--calling any treatment of robots “cruel” was controversial and generally not something the higher ups who owned said robots liked to hear.

You began unscrewing the small screws that lined the casing. You had to hunch your shoulders at a slightly awkward angle, but you’re sure it hurts less for you than it would for him if you asked him to keep moving the broken elbow. Still, you occasionally have to straighten up, roll your shoulders, and crack your neck before continuing your work.

DJ watches this with some amount of guilt. He appreciates that you’re trying to spare him pain, but he wishes it didn’t come at the cost of your comfort. If he could speak he would tell you to stop a moment, and he’d just deal with the pain of repositioning his arm. But he knows that if he starts moving unexpectedly you’ll fret over it, or maybe even think he’s being uncooperative.

The casing is starting to come loose, so you have to hold it in place with one hand while you unfasten the last few screws. This casing is undamaged, so you don’t want it to crash to the floor or start warping as the weight of the unfixed portion pulls at the screws that are still attached.

You see a movement out of the corner of your eye, and see DJ’s backmost hand reach over your shoulder and hold the casing of his bad arm in place for you.

You glance over at him, letting out an awkward laugh. “Right, you uh…have five other arms, huh?” you say.

He grins charmingly, his eyes closing briefly as he nods.

You quickly turn back to your work, something about the smile leaving you a bit flustered.

After unscrewing the last remaining screws, you keep your hand on the casing, glancing up at DJ. “Okay, I’m going to lift this part here, then you lower your end. This part of the casing seems undamaged, so I wanna keep it that way,” you say with a light smile.

He nods, and together you two carefully open and remove the casing, and you guide him to set it behind him where you won’t trip on it.

“Okay. Now…these wires are going to need to be cut,” you say, lightly tapping the now exposed wires along his upper arm. He’s already flinching before you can ask, but you ask anyway. “I…take it that’ll be painful?”

DJ nods, but waves an arm in a “go ahead” gesture. There’s no way to replace his joint without cutting the wires that are now tangled up in it.

“Will covering the ends help?” you ask.

At his nod, you give a small sigh of relief. You suspected as much, but you’re glad to get confirmation. You make your way off the stage (via the stairs this time) and rummage around in your cart until you find the electrical tape.

From what you understand of robot pain, it’s having the conductive part of the wiring exposed that triggers the pain sensors. A strong incentive for robots not to let their wires become frayed and potentially dangerous. So if you cover the ends with electrical tape shortly after cutting them, that should keep the pain to a minimum.

You climb back onto the stage, wire cutters and tape in hand. “Okay, ready?” you say, readying the cutters.

DJ nods, then quickly closes his eyes and turns away.

Well damn if that isn’t heartbreaking…

You quickly cut the wires, doing your best to ignore the shudder that runs over the DJ’s body. Not out of callousness, of course, but you need to stay focused and get this done as quickly as possible.

You toss the cutters to the floor where they land with a clatter so you can quickly get out the tape and bind the ends of the wires. As you press the ends of the tape down, you glance back up at the DJ. “How’s that feel?” you ask. Remembering the yes/no rule, you add, “Does it feel alright?”

His eyes peek open and he nods. 

“Alright. Let me detach the joint…then I think you’ll be feeling a bit better,” you say, giving him an encouraging smile. 

He nods, then turns away again. The sight of his exposed endoskeleton and the wires hanging limply from it, as well as the ruined joint were uncomfortable to look at…but despite that, your kindness was keeping his spirits high. He smiled softly, letting you work.

You unscrewed the bearings that were still intact, only to flinch when you realize some the joint is too mangled to detach conventionally. You’ll need the mini circular saw.

“Uh, hey, DJ Music Man?” you ask.

DJ glances back at you, a bit surprised to hear you use his full name. Though he supposes you have no reason to be as informal with him as Karter was.

 “Can you put a hand under here?” you gesture to his forearm. “I need to get the saw, but the joint is a bit unstable right now and I don’t want the weight to pull on you too much.”

DJ nods, once again graciously using his backmost hand to hold up his arm while you fetch what you need.

You don a pair of work gloves and safety glasses, and then you’re back to work, sawing off the bolts too damaged to remove any other way. In a moment, the last bolt breaks free.

…Leaving DJ holding his own severed arm.

You didn’t think this through.

You quickly set the saw aside, pushing the glasses onto the top of your head as you stand up. “Here, DJ Music Man, lemme take that…I-I’m sorry, I…I wasn’t thinking when I asked you to--”

You take his arm, grunting as you lower it to the ground. It’s not exactly light. You glance up at him. He doesn’t seem all that troubled, in fact, he almost looks worried as he cants his head.

You let out a nervous laugh. “I-I…guess you’re not…that squeamish, huh?”

DJ shrugs his first set of arms, then lifts a hand and wobbles it in a “so-so” gesture. Ah. So, perhaps he is not exactly unphased by having his arm removed, but it’s still far from traumatizing? At least you hope it’s far from traumatizing.

You remove the gloves, tossing them down next to the saw and wiping your hands on your pantlegs. “Is it…less painful now, at least?” you ask.

He nods. The pain sensors being triggered by the small bits you had to saw off is far less than what was being triggered by the mangled joint and tangled wires, though even that had been mostly bearable as long as he kept still.

You sigh in relief. “Good,” you say. “Then…I think this is a good time for me to break for lunch. If that’s alright,” you add.

He blinks owlishly, quirking a brow. If it’s alright? With him? You’re…asking his approval for your lunch break? As you continue to watch him expectantly, he finally tilts his head in a nod.

To his continued surprise, you thank him before once again taking the stairs off the stage. When you said you were going to lunch, DJ assumed you were heading to the atrium, or perhaps leaving the ‘Plex entirely. He didn’t expect you to grab a brown paper bag from your personal backpack within the cart, and he certainly didn’t expect you to bring it back on stage.

“I get a little shaky if I forget to eat,” you explain, sitting criss-cross in front of his face. “Nothing too bad,” you say quickly, noting the look of concern on his face. “But…probably not the best when working with wires and such,” you say with a bit of levity.

DJ gives a small nod of understanding, having no other way to respond. He’s only known you a short time but he’s constantly surprised by your kindness towards him. You’re spending your free time with him. Time you could be spending with other employees. Other humans.

But you’re here with him.

You watch as the DJ folds his hands on the stage floor, resting his chin on them and staring at you with a smile that hovers somewhere between fond and dopey. You weren’t expecting him to be so friendly…The pictures you’d seen of him from his performances made him appear a bit more aloof. Usually in those, he wore a cool smile and partially lidded eyes as he focused on his music.

You can only assume he just acts a bit different when he’s not focused on performing.

You eat your sandwich in relative silence, looking over his broken eye as well as whatever other graffiti you can see from where you sit, formulating a rough order of tasks in your head. You wish you had a way to ask his input, so you could fix what’s bothering him most.

“I…don’t suppose you know any ASL?” you say as you pick at your bag of chips.

DJ cants his head slightly. He would have played his querying chirp if the speakers were on.

“American Sign Language?” you clarify.

DJ shakes his head. He knows what sign language is, and even if he didn’t, the term itself is pretty telling.

“Hmm,” you murmur in thought. It’s strange they didn’t give such a complex robot the ability to communicate. Voice boxes aren’t the end-all, be-all of robot communication, of course, but no ASL? No text display? Nothing except nods, gestures, and cute little head tilts?

…You feel a bit rude for thinking of his head tilts as cute, given he wouldn’t need to do them so much if he’d been given a better way to communicate.

“I took some ASL classes in college. But I haven’t used it in years,” you say. “Let’s see…” You set the bag of chips aside, holding up your hands as you prepare to sign. “‘Thank you’, ‘sorry’...uh, ‘yes’, ‘no’...” You smile weakly. “‘Broccoli’,” you speak-sign, with a small laugh. “But I don’t know how useful that one would be to you.”

He grins at that, shaking his shoulders as if laughing. He repeats the signs back to you, and you say the words aloud as he does.

“You learn quick,” you say, leaning back as you look up at him. Your smile turns a bit awkward as you add, “I…guess photographic memory helps with that…”

DJ grins excitedly at you. Your small bit of praise means the world to him. He’s never been complimented like that, not directly to his face anyway. He’s overheard some people on the dance floor complimenting his music and occasionally even his overall design, but nobody ever came up to him and directly told him he was doing well at anything.

And, for the first time, he can actually start to tell you how much it means to him.

“Thank you,” he signs.

You smile up at him. “Sure…” you say.

He twirls a hand in a “go on” gesture.

“More?” you ask. You hold up your hands, pausing briefly to make sure you’re remembering the sign right. “More,” you speak-sign.

“More,” he repeats.

“Well…I guess most people start with the alphabet. You can spell out any words you don’t know the word signs for,” you explain. “Or names,” you add. You spell out your own name, saying each letter as you do.

DJ repeats it perfectly. If he had a heart it would be beating out of his chest right now. He’d never understood that phrase until this moment.

He can say your name. He can call you by your name.

“And D-J-M-U-S-I-C-M-A-N,” you sign.

He repeats it obligingly, then pauses before signing just. “DJ.” 

It takes you a moment to realize why he only signed part of his name. “Oh. You…want me to call you DJ? Instead of DJ Music Man?”

DJ nods eagerly, happy that you got it so quickly.

“Um, alright, sure,” you say, a bit bemused. You’re a bit surprised a robot would want a nickname…though maybe it’s less of a nickname and more equivalent to just calling him by his first name, instead of his first and last name. You suppose you’d probably get a similar reaction if you called Freddy “Freddy Fazbear” all the time.

“Oh, I’ve got an idea. Hang on a second,” you say, pulling out your phone. He watches you curiously as you double check your memory of a few signs. “Okay, here we go,” you say, setting your phone aside. “My name is DJ Music Man. Call me DJ,” you speak-sign. 

DJ repeats it eagerly. He’s not sure when he’d have the chance or the need to use it…but he’s happy to know it.

“Pleased to meet you, DJ,” you speak-sign. 

“Thank you!”

You don’t know why the little exchange has made you so giddy. Maybe the robot’s bright smile is just infectious. But he does also seem…genuinely happy. Excited even, to have a new way of communicating opened up to him.

You crumple your lunch bag and toss it aside. “Back to work,” you announced. “But…maybe sometime I could teach you more signs? If you want?”

DJ nodded eagerly. Of course he wanted to learn more! To be able to have actual, full conversations with you! Conversations about--

About what, exactly?

There’d be time to figure that out later.

[chocochipbiscuit]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I was tagged by @anneapocalypse, thank you Anne! <3

And I would like to tag @replicafatale. @formlessvoidbeast, @bittylildragon, and @meikuree if you are so inclined!

Blank questions for your convenience! My answers are below the cut.

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

3. what fandoms do you write for?

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

5. do you respond to comments?

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

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

8. do you get hate on fics?

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

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

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

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

16. what are your writing strengths?

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

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

19. first fandom you wrote for?

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written?

1. how many works do you have on ao3? 178, over almost 10 years! Though I suspect if I actually went back to tally them, the vast majority would be skewed towards my early years, back when I’d crank out a fic or two every week for the kink meme then post with minimal editing. Ah, youth.

2. what’s your total ao3 word count? 910,453! Again, I strongly suspect they’re skewed towards the beginning.

3. what fandoms do you write for? I started out pretty intensely monofandom for Fallout, but I write a lot of Dragon Age these days. Which is ironic because I don’t consider myself ‘that’ big a Dragon Age fan, but the fandom exchanges are fun and I’m familiar enough with the setting and characters that I don’t mind picking up pinch hits or writing impulsive ‘what if’ fics.

In general, I almost exclusively write for video game fandoms. (with a few books thrown in…)

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

The Vashoth and The Qunari (Dragon Age, The Iron Bull/F!Qunari Inquisitor, rated E)

Belief (Fallout 4, Cait/F!Sole Survivor, rated G)

A Dream of Red (Dragon Age, Leliana/Morrigan, rated E)

And They Say Size Doesn’t Matter (Fallout 3, Fawkes/F!Lone Wanderer, rated E)

Data Collection (Fallout 4, Cait/F!Sole Survivor, rated E)

Basically: they’re all older fics, mostly smut, and mostly written while the fandoms were still new (or new-ish) and popular. The Vashoth and the Qunari was written before Inquisition even came out, and was written mostly from frenetic fandom speculation. I wouldn’t call it my best fic, just one that happened to strike while the hype machine was still active.

And They Say Size Doesn’t Matter has the questionable distinction of being the longest mutie smut fic on AO3, mostly because each chapter was written for various kink meme fills and then put somewhat in order. It makes me cringe a bit to reread it (I could do it so much better now! I could write with so much more nuance! I would have made less questionable decisions about characterization and description, or at least different questionable decisions!) but I still look back fondly on it.

5. do you respond to comments? Absolutely, though I’m rather late to respond sometimes! The only ones I don’t respond to (and usually just delete) are comments that make demands without any other attempt at interaction. (Ex: “next time write X/Y with New Kink” or “tag your trans characters” when there’s a perfectly nice author’s note at the beginning if you feel shocked or scandalized by the existence of trans characters in a fic that doesn’t focus on being trans and where the trans characters are minor or background!)

…anyways, mild aside: I consider tagging to be both warning (“please don’t read if X, Y, or Z bothers you, or at least prepare yourself”) and advertisement (“please do read if Tropes A, B, or C are appealing to you!”) rather than simple description. If I went out of my way to describe everything that might be relevant in a fic, including every single minor character who gets a single line of mention, then my tags bloat beyond what I consider useable. I try to include notes at the beginning to clarify or mention content that I don’t think needs to be warned/advertised for. Which is part of why I find it weird and borderline hostile to have specific identity tags demanded without explanation.

(And that said, I tag myself biracial bisexual….nah.)

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I don’t write a lot of angst, but I do have a story that ends ‘unhappily for now’!

Schroedinger’s Pussy (The Locked Tomb, Gideon/Harrow, rated E) is a fic about yes, pussy spanking, but also denial of feelings and ends with an unresolved sex thing that Harrow refuses to talk about, and Gideon in an empty room. In my head they’ll work through it (eventually) but obviously, not in this fic!

The weirdest dark fic I’ve written was an older kink meme fill, and it’s something that I promised from the beginning would only end in pain.

Pain (Fallout: New Vegas, Vulpes Inculta/Rose of Sharon Cassidy/Boone Craig, rated E) is morally dubious not-actually-a-love-triangle fic with under negotiated BDSM and an ambiguous ending that most likely ended with Vulpes’ off-screen death at Cass and Boone’s hands. It’s a fic I still think about sometimes, not because I think it was the best, but because I feel like it shows when I was more willing to be weird and experimental around fraught topics and messy dynamics. I don’t write that sort of thing now simply because I don’t enjoy it, but I’m still glad I had the experience of experimenting. 

7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I love happy endings, but don’t often enjoy fluff! By which I mean: I want a happy ending to feel earned. I prefer desserts that have a little salt or bitterness to cut through the sweet and add balance. I want a fic to feel the same way.

That said: I think most of my fics have happy endings, if not always fluffy one.

That also said, I think never gonna say I’m sorry (Borderlands 3, Amara/Tyreen Calypso, rated E) fits the bill because it’s both a fix-it fic and villainous decay arc and I love that for Tyreen, the emotional journey and character growth she goes on from wanting to destroy the world to being willing to destroy herself in order to save it, and ultimately being pulled back to be told no, sometimes you gotta live even when it feels so much harder.

Fun fact: this fic has two endings, one in which Tyreen murders her brother (because just because she’s trying to be a good guy doesn’t mean she’s actually a good guy yet!) and one in which she tries the harder and messier path of not murdering him. I originally wrote the murder chapter because I didn’t think Tyreen would be at the point of being willing to forgive her own brother for attempting to kill her, but @bittylildragon made a note that essentially Troy was being punished for twink crimes, so I decided what the hey, I’ll try an alternate ending. And now I think that’s actually my favorite!

8. do you get hate on fics? Not on AO3. Some on Tumblr before I closed my inbox to anons. A couple on the old kink meme, back when it was self-destructing from the weirdly polarizing “Gay Wasteland” vs “the icky hets” arguments.

Funnily enough, I don't think I ever received a homophobic comment from a straight person! (Straight hate?). But I sure got comments accusing me of being ‘secretly het’ or a ‘proghet’ or ‘trying to trick lesbians into reading Big Dude/Smol Lady’ fic! Because fandom forbid being a bi woman who prefers to read and write fic that centers women! Even if that means that sometimes this means reading, writing, or recommending F/M fic instead of M/M!

Anyways. My AO3 bookmarks and works list are free for anyone to peruse, in case you want a statistical breakdown of my preferences for F/F >>> F/M > M/M so you can yell at me about not prioritizing M/M. /sarcasm

(And as always: I do read, write, and enjoy fics that feature nonbinary characters. I always feel weird including that as an aside, because there’s so little nonbinary rep in general that it feels weird trying to analyze anything from that, and ‘nonbinary’ is a big enough umbrella that even as someone who sometimes prefers they/them, I don’t necessary resonate with or feel represented by all nonbinary characters in fiction. Which is fine! When there’s so few examples, it feels even more fraught because no single character or person can Be All The Rep, and it feels like a weird sort of pressure to presume that they are, can be, or should be. Sometimes a character should just be allowed to exist, be interesting, and be nonbinary, without going ‘oh they’re such a good role model!’)

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind? I cut my teeth on a kink meme, of course I write smut! As for what kind…whatever catches my interest, really? Which means mostly F/F, if there are dudes involved at all they’re usually Real Big Dudes. There’s usually loving attention to oral sex. Often size kink. I also like including bondage and anal sex.

I’ve been writing a lot less smut in recent years. (I’ve also been writing a lot less in general, or at least posting a lot less, for various reasons. Mostly because now that I’m no longer working graveyard shifts and am out of a time-consuming bad relationship, I have more time for non-fandom hobbies!) Partly it’s because…well, repetition. When I first started writing for kink memes, my purpose was just to write; pick a prompt, bang something out, post. It was the exhilaration of writing, of starting something new.

Now: if I’m going to write, I want to do it in a way that feels new or fresh to me, whether that means in terms of prose, emotional depth, or characterization. There’s also, admittedly, some self-consciousness: I’m no longer ‘just’ writing for prompts on a kink meme, I have the (gasp) terrible responsibility of admitting that I wrote a thing just because I like it, or think it’s interesting! It’s the tension between realizing that nah, I haven’t written anything that truly makes me blush in ages, and then the mortification of going “but who else is gonna be interested in this weird goofy playful fic where Piper sits on a birthday cake???”

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written? I’m not usually a fan of crossovers; I prefer looking at a character in their ‘home’ story and setting and how their environment shaped them. Some crossovers can be interesting if they add a new depth or layer to the existing canon (which I think is one of the reasons that Pacific Rim AUs were so popular for a while; drift-compatibility is an interesting way to explore characterization and relationships!) but I don’t often write them myself.

That said, ‘often’ doesn’t mean ‘never.’ I’ve written some AUs (unfinished Cassandra/Leliana werewolf fic, the moody cannibal mermaid AU with Aveline/Isabela) but full on crossovers are a different entity.

The closest to a crossover that I currently have is the still untitled Fallout Necromancy AU, in which I merge some of The Locked Tomb’s approach to necromancy with Fallout 4 for some incredibly unhealthy cav/necro codependencies for necromancer Hancock and cavalier Danse. It’s more true to Fallout’s canon than TLT, and still unfinished. Alas.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen? I’ve had some of my fics scraped and posted to shady publishing sites (“only $5 for all the stories you want!”) and submitted takedown requests. No in-fandom stealing that I’m aware of.

12. have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! Here is a Russian translation of what we don’t talk about (Mass Effect, Zaeed Massani/Karin Chakwas), which I was absolutely tickled pink to receive!

13. have you ever co-written a fic before? Technically, yes. The fic has been subsequently deleted and I have abolished all ties to that person, so that might be a warning. /tongue in cheek

More seriously: I don’t think I can. I’m idiosyncratic and particular about my process, and I just don’t think I’m very good at co-writing with someone. I can take an idea and feedback and process that into my fic, sometimes very heavily, and I can work off someone else’s outline or prompt, but to the level of co-writing, assuming we’re taking equal claim and responsibility for the work? It feels profanely intimate in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable, which unfortunately probably says more about me than anyone else!

That said: I have been fortunate enough to have truly excellent friends who have also played cheerleader and beta for me, sometimes offering me substantial notes that meant I had to fundamentally rewrite portions of a story. Does this make them co-writers? I don’t think so, but it’s definitely a more intense collaboration than I usually request, and it’s something I reserve for only a few people.

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship? How dare you ask this of a multi-shipper!!!!

I don’t know that I have a real answer for this. In my head, I try to split it by fandoms (but wait! Would I consider Dragon Age Origins, Awakening, DA2, and Inquisition to all have different fandoms?), but some fandoms are only occasional urges and others are more consuming passions, so….

I’ll leave it at this: if I’ve written it, I probably ship it on some level. And not all ships are “oh I think they’re gonna live happily ever after,” some ships are “hm, that could be interesting” or “oh, they could be so bad for each other in such compelling ways,” and others are “they’re good for each other at this point in time, but maybe not beyond that,” etc etc.

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? If I want to finish it, I assume I eventually will. ‘Eventually’ may take a while. Life is short, love is long, and I do love stories.

16. what are your writing strengths? *hour-long fart noise* Strengths? Idk. I always feel strange talking about my strengths to begin with, and this year has been particularly rough for that because I’ve been taking more deliberate time doing writing exercises and reading different books about writing. It makes me more critical of my own work.

But if I must: sensory immersion. Character interiority. Basically, I try my best to love a character—or at least find something I can love about them, something that evokes care and pity if not admiration—and let that shape how I write them, even if they don’t love themselves. If that makes my authorial bias a bit kinder, then so be it. I feel like the world needs a little more kindness.

17. what are your writing weaknesses? *hour-long fart noise* What about my love of obscure words? If I had a nickel for every time I tried to sneak ‘palimpsest’ into my prose and been called out by a beta, I’d have two nickels! Which isn’t that often, but weird that it happened twice! (Other amazing words I often fight over including or not: phosphenes, mordant, triptych, chiaroscuro, bellicose, gelid. I get a daily word of the day from Merriam-Webster and I don’t know if it’s actually improved my vocabulary or only made me more insufferable!)

I fully admit that sometimes I get overly compelled to write something ‘pretty’ and linguistically clever than fully in the character’s voice. I jump around with sentence fragments and don’t link my scenes; sometimes it works (choppy, disjointed prose for characters who themselves are extremely angry or disconnected from their environment in some way) and more often it doesn’t.

I have mild synesthesia and an idiosyncratic interpretation of certain stimuli, and often need to revise to ensure it makes sense to anyone else. Or if I can tweak it just enough to sound refreshing and vivid. (Example: low musical notes feel ‘blue’ to me, and often bitter. Higher notes can be sharp-sweet or acidic, but usually don’t have a color association. Yellow is rancid. This only becomes a problem when I’m sleep-deprived or highly-caffeinated, as when I once had to stop my playlist because the rapid taste/sound/smell combos were making me nauseous.)

I often want to write characters as softer, kinder, or gentler than they are in canon. Does that sand out their complexity? Yes. Is it because I want them to have a kinder, softer, or gentler future than what their story gave them? Also yes.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? OH BOY DO I HAVE THOUGHTS.

Okay, so! First of all, I need to foreground this: as a Chinese-American living in the US, I find it extremely off putting when I read a story and the mere choice of capitalization and italics make it clear who the author thinks their intended audience is, and who is ‘other.’ If an author bothers capitalizing or italicizing “Pad Thai,” “Sushi,” or “Shu Mai,” (as in: “I ordered some Shu Mai.”) but not, say “Pizza,” “Burrito,” or “Croissant,” there are some pretty big assumptions going on already that make me feel alienated from the text. (As always, there’s some room to play with: if the author is intentionally writing their POV character as having those particular biases, that’s one thing. When it’s a completely unexamined bias, that’s another.)

Translated text doesn’t need to be italicized or marked as other, unless again, there’s a specific reason that the POV character might see it as ‘other.’ Most people won’t interpret their home language or heart languages as ‘other.’ A dialogue tag like ‘said in Cantonese’ or ‘said in Spanish’ is sufficient, I’ll trust in the reader to pick it up!

I am a first-generation Chinese-American who can’t read the Chinese syllabary. (And what little I speak is Cantonese, not Mandarin. The loss or use of heritage languages across the diaspora is an entire topic by itself, so please understand that this is one person’s view and experience.) Some Chinese writers prefer to write with hanzi; I prefer to write Romanized versions but what goes in a fic will depend on the POV character’s relationship to the language and how intelligible (or not) it’s meant to be to the reader. I generally include context or a note if it’s meant to be clear; if it’s something that the POV character won’t understand, I often prefer to leave it as “speaks in another language” or “said something in another language.”

In general, I find most fictional languages to be intellectual masturbation (there, I said it! :P) and am less interested in those than in how real-world languages are depicted in fiction, especially when read by people who may or may not be familiar with those actual languages and the people who speak them.

19. first fandom you wrote for? While the first fandom I ever posted for was Fallout…very technically I suppose the first fandom I ever wrote for was Pokemon. Because back when I was 9 or 10, I was very invested in Misty and Jesse because they were the only two girls who got a lot of screen time in the anime, and I just really wanted them to be friends!

In hindsight…I don’t think I was consciously thinking of it as shipping terms or romantic interest, but I thought it sucked that the only two girls who really showed up couldn’t at least be friends. So I wrote a lil’ story in which they got trapped in a cave…and obviously they had to camp together…and save each other as they looked for a way out…

Scandalous!!!!

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written? I try to love every fic at least a little before I share it with the world! But this one’s my newest baby:

(love is) the suture and the wound (Dragon Age, Leliana/Morrigan, rated E)

Thank you for reading this far! Now please drink some water and get up and stretch. :P

[malimaywrite]

i disappeared again and i'm back cause i need a distraction. (i hope you all have been as well as you can be. please, please take good care of yourselves)

with less important things since i've been here:

i have 2 full requests out with literary agents (~20 rejections and waiting on another ~20 to get back to me and about 10 agents i'm waiting to see if they'll open up. idt i'll be querying beyond them?? i know that would be only like 50 agents queried in total but we'll see)

long querying journey (so far) ramble below

so i started querying two-ish months ago with 7 queries. i got a rejection by an agent who requested a manuscript from me yearssss ago within a day (they're a fast responder) and it hurt like hell. i got 2 more rejections and despite the ok on my query from pubtips on reddit prior to starting, i changed that query after that (made it even shorter, went from covering both POVs to one POV, from covering 40% of the manuscript to 15%-20%).

i sent more queries out and kept racking up rejections and it was affecting my mental health (severely the first two weeks tbh then calmed down especially once i got another story idea). i posted another slightly different query to pubtips hoping for someone to help me pull out the 'wow factor' of my query. at that point, the query seemed like it was "pretty good" but not "oooooh! i gotta read this!" good. i got a reassurance that the premise and stakes were there and big, but i needed to highlight some things better. then (after other posts with compliments or the 'thumbs up' on my query and first page) someone said my first page/first 300 words weren't "written to publishable standard" which ouch especially when you're racking up rejections, but i took what they said (purple prose, antecedent problems, contextual issues) and clarified the issues/edited down.

that comment then led me to ask a YA fantasy author i admire who frequents pubtips (she writes full time, has great work/novels, always gives helpful advice on pubtips, NYT bestseller) for help. i crossed my fingers and asked if she had time to read my query and first ten pages and she messaged back minutes later to say that she loves when people shoot their shot, that she just turned in a manuscript and to send it over!

before i got her notes back, i got my first personalized rejection where an agent said they liked my premise, but the first five pages went too fast. they then mentioned i could revise those pages and send it back. i was already thinking of rewriting the whole chapter by that point (my thinking being i've tried two very different queries with no bites so it has to be the pages) so this only led me to go full on with a 1st chapter rewrite. then i got to work.

literally while i was mid-chapter rewrite, i got notes back from the YA fantasy author. she thought my voice was "fantastic" (!!!), the pacing was great (???), said that she read through it without stopping, and that she knew i'd get requests on my first chapter. the query wasn't quite there yet to her though and she did lovely line edits to help me and told me that i mention a villain romance in my metadata paragraph but it doesn't show up in the plot summary paragraphs and that that was my big marketing draw. so i reworked it with her notes to pull it out. i debated still rewriting the first chapter, but decided to trust her notes on it and betas and take a chance that the query had been the issue the whole time.

i sent out more queries with the new query and same pages and got my first request a week later. i decided to send it out to the rest of my list that was open because this is mentally draining, at least i knew something was working at that point, and i have another story coming if i need to query again. i got a couple of rejections from this new group and the old groups and then another request a few days after that from the new group.

this is where i'm at at this point. it's been about two weeks since the last request. i've since gotten a rejection from the last agent in that first group of 7 a few days ago and one from another agent in an earlier group as well. i've been checking querytracker non-stop lol, but i will say that i'm feeling more at ease with this than i was the first two weeks (behaving like you have a finite number of ideas or that any manuscript has to be The One or it's over......is not helpful during querying so i'm glad that's chilled). i have a YA fantasy retelling idea (it's very rough rn lol) that i hope to start in december and what ever happens with this current story is what happens.

i hope all of your writings have been going well! and i'm sorry if you read all the way down to this point lol.

[more-better-words]

Questions yoinked from @iamstartraveller776 (hope you don't mind! ☺️)

1. Do you have a word-count goal for the upcoming year?

I don't tend to pay attention to word count so much as completing chapters. So my goal is to finish chapters.

2. Will you participate in any fandom exchanges or fic challenges, etc? 

I never have before, but @talshiargirlfriend is planning to do a small-ish one, so hopefully that won't be too intimidating!

3. Do you anticipate writing for a new fandom this year? Which one?

Only if some new-to-me media grabs me by the throat, which always a possibility.

4. Do you think you’ll stop writing for a fandom this year? Which one?

Well, once I complete The Place We Call Home, that will likely mark the end of me writing longform ST:ENT fic. I'm sure I'll still write shorter pieces and one-offs, but completing the Built to Last series will be a capstone for me.

5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?

The Place We Call Home!

She slumped back, her energy suddenly and absolutely depleted. Then Doctor Jimenez was handing her a very small form, placed against her chest. The baby whimpered, unaccustomed to this huge new world, and she lifted an exhausted arm to cradle her daughter. It's all right. Everything’s all right. I'm here, just like I said I would be. She looked up at Trip, whose eyes were huge and bright with tears. “Oh my God, T'Pol,” he murmured, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat. “She’s here. She’s perfect.” “She is,” she agreed. She reached up, brushing at the tears on his cheeks. “You should hold her.” With infinite care, he tentatively took their daughter in his hands, a marveling, awe-struck smile on his face. “Hi,” he whispered. “It’s me. Do you recognize my voice?” T'Pol looked at them, her mate and their child, and suddenly her entire being was filled with a triumphant, roaring love like a fire in her veins. She would do anything for them, because they were hers. Trip felt her eyes on him, and shot her a tiny, tearful, adoring smile. “You did it,” he said. “We did,” she replied. “We three.”

6. Which yet-to-be-started fic is first on your list?

The one that hasn't occurred to me yet. 😅

7. Will you change anything about the way you interact with other writers?

I don't think so? Do I need to?

*frets*

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

Mostly followups to (much) older fic that never made it out of the outline/draft stages. But I doubt I'll ever return to them - not a lot of interest in the world of Baldur's Gate 2 when we have Baldur's Gate 3.

9. Short term goals… what do you hope to complete this week or in January?

By the end of January, I may have The Place We Call Home fully drafted. Maybe. Hopefully.

10. Will you keep a record of all the fics you write and/or post this year?

Other than my AO3 stats, no.

11. Would you like to try any new fanfic genres or tropes this year?

I finally took the plunge and tried my hand at writing...well, we'll call it smut adjacent. I think I'll keep at it, and we'll see how it evolves.

12. Will you change anything about the way you edit or rewrite this year?

I don't think so...my current system works fairly well. At least I think so.

13. Aside from fanfic, are there any other fan works you’d like to try creating? Fanart, or fanvids, gifsets, or podfic? 

I write because I'm no good at any of that other stuff! I'd LOVE to be able to create visual art, but...I'm just not wired for it.

14. Have you ever lost large chunks of your work in the past, due to not backing up your work? Will you change your methods this year?

I thought I'd lost two whole chapters a couple of weeks ago and I was distraught! Fortunately, I was wrong and my backups were still there.

15. Do you foresee any personal or professional obstacles this year, that would keep you from creating fanworks? 

Unfortunately, yes. But I shall soldier on!

16. Do you have that one fanfic that you wrote a ton for, ages ago, but never posted? Will this be the year, come hell or high water, that it WILL get finished and posted?

The aformentioned Baldur's Gate stuff, and no. I just don't feel the compulsion, really.

17. Do you typically answer all comments/reviews individually? Do you plan to change the way you interact with your readers this year?

I try to! I absolutely treasure every comment and reblog - why would I change that?

18. Do you typically post multi-chapters as you write, or finish it all and then start posting? Would you like to change your posting method? 

I keep a buffer of chapters - like I published chapter 13 of TPWCH a few days ago, but I've got chapter 14-16 basically complete, and I'm working on chapter 17 right now as of posting this.

It's a system that works pretty well for me, though sometimes I am left dying wanting to just share it all! Now! I want everyone to see it!

19. Would you consider non-fandom writing events, like NaNoWriMo or writing contests? 

Probably not.

20. Any plans to work on original fiction this year?

I toyed with the idea of writing original fiction years ago, and I had a few ideas, but...I find it much more stressful that fanfic. Fanfic is my hobby. I like to tell stories for fun. I don't think I want to turn it into a job.

21. Will you try writing software, like Scrivener or those programs that won’t let you stop writing?

I use Word - I've tried more specialized software, like Scrivener and Focus Writer, but I just didn't get anything out of them.

22. Do you plan to take writing classes this year?

I have never taken anything that might be even in the neighborhood of a creative writing class, and I'm scared that if I did now, they'd tell me I'm doing it all wrong!

23. Would you like to go on a writing retreat?

That sounds fascinating, but I don't even know what that would entail lol

24. By the end of this year, you want your fandom to think of you as “that author who _______.”

Wrote the best darn post-Terra Prime Trip/T'Pol fic out there. The one you recommend to anyone suffering post-TATV trauma.

25. If you answered questions from this list last year, find your answers and compare your goals to your results. How’d you do?

N/A

[carmenized-onions]

SIGH you got me good with this one I fear

Okay so the chap is still fresher in my mind this time since I read yesterday!! Itemized yap sheet incoming below based mostly on the order they happened

1) Yoooooo

That just cracked me up okay. Had to add. But also like. I love them. I love that Tony is so nervous to catch up with Richie bc it means talking abt mikey, but also relieved and excited ish to talk to richie bc it means talking abt mikey does that makes ykwim

2) AAAAAAA listen the way that Carmy thinks about Tony to calm down?? Like hes having a panic attack and he thinks about Tony and is calmed slightly by smelling her shampoo in his hair literally makes me ILL

2b) kinda related but also like not ?? But Anyway Like. Carmy like unsure whether or not he is actually scared/believes Richie when he says he could end his relationship with tony got me like on my knees in my workplace when I read that bc UGH he has absolutely zero confidence and i just want to kiss his face okay. Also him not really wanting to share tony with Richie is so real of him actually. Like he wants Tony to just be his and that's so sweet.

3) if we dont find out the chip storyline ill riot if only for Carmy's sake cause like Carm, im also now very intrigued that Richie didn't immediately blab when prompted but also go richie thats very cute

4)AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Scream break mb

5) last one but like the painting??? The way that it starts with the beef and has like pictures of before and stuff and the mid point is mikey and then it has pictures from like the building process and ends with the The Bear sign? IM DECEASED YOU KILLED ME THATS SO GOOD WHAT LITERALLY WHAT

6)okay im i liar whatever could i edit the post yes will i no. I digress. Last one fr. So the way both their lil povs end with them saying on friday they'll do right by each other??? Im so gone actually wtf

Anyways as always i adore you and your writing RAAAA

HEHEHEH GOTCHU!!! GOT YOUR ASS!!!

yoooooooo -- The next convos are really some of my favourite to write, i get to amp up the funny and math out what their texting styles would probably be, it's fun!!

Also yes, it's very much that part of grief where it's like a knife to talk about them, but it's also nice, it's weird when in the grief process, everyone around you acts like that person just simply Never Happened in fear of being triggering-- It's nice for Tony and Richie to get to talk raw!! Even if it's anxiety inducing to lead with it!!

2. Hehehhehe, he does it a LOT, When he called her before, trying and failing to get her voicemail, when he was having an episode in the diner and then Tony came back and he became Normal mostly. Grounding Tool but it's a Person

3. listen baby, I don't put a gun in the first act just to not fire it. I've had this backstory since chapter two. And honestly, I was extremely nervous that someone was gonna guess it and I was being too obvious. Thank God, no one has, yet-- But also no one's guessed, so like, feel free to throw in your guesses, love to hear em.

4. AHHHHHHHH!!!! Here let's see, during this scream break what can I give you...

This is what I'm screaming over, personally. This is Chapter 10 alone, LMAO. AND I'M NOT EVEN DONE LMAOOOO. The goal for me is to get it out this Friday, so it's like, timely and on theme. But we'll see how tired I am, this work week. Might've just gotten a commission (that I honestly don't want to take lmaoo) so we'll see. Fingers crossed. It's definitely gonna need me to take my eyes off it for a day and come back to, so keep your fingers crossed, for me.

5. OH GOOD! I was worried I described it poorly; there's always that fear, when you have to make the thing that's like the thing of the story, and if it's not good then what the FUCK WAS IT FOR!!!!!????

I'm vv happy to hear it killed you, is what I'm trying to say. I also thought the idea was very sweet. Hehhehe

6. You're always free to yap on end, never fear such a thing. Yes!! Their POVs start and end the same way, which is just like, a cute lil touch, yknow. Two anxious mfs. In the club tnnnnn, trying to do right by each other if it fuckin' KILLS them

thank you thank you thank u as always i love to hear this and i hope u enjoy Friday whenever the FUCK it comes out.

[writer-darling]

UPDATES: AYEDOF & ZACH PIECE

Oh my god it’s a Christmas miracle… I'm actually writing again. Ok, just kidding but also not really because life has had hands for the last few months and I have had no time/energy to write. HOWEVER, I have been semi-productive this time around as I am finally taking this writing thing seriously and - for the first time ever - spent all this time editing/rewriting and reformatting Are You Ever Dreaming of Me.

There was just a lot to fix: grammar mistakes, continuity errors, and just the overall flow of the story was off to me. I also added in a bunch of new details and dialogue and things that hopefully will imrpove it in general. Does this mean I will go back and re-do it to all of my stories? No, absolutely not, this has been hell. BUT also kinda fun and rewarding, which brings me to my point for this post:

I finally created a Masterlist for this story! (I plan on doing it for Northern Lights too… whenever I get back to that one haha, whoops). But yes, I have a Masterlist for this work now and it’ll be under my main Masterlist just ya know with the title only but if you click that link, it’ll take you to all of the chapters. It’ll also of course contain a moodboard, a playlist, and the current taglist for this story. 

Additionally, for the next week-ish or so I am going to be uploading the new edited and reformatted versions of all of the past 7 chapters of this story (one per day), starting tomorrow (12/24/23). The final day will be uploading both chapter 7 reformatted and the latest chapter 8, which will be under the new format already. Just so I can give whoever has read this already and hasn’t thought about it for the last few months, a chance to catch up and hopefully catch all the new details and changes before we proceed with the newest chapter. If you want to be a part of that, either join my taglist if you haven’t already OR shoot me a message letting me know you’re a part of the taglist already and specifically want to be a part of the list for this particular story. 

Finally, I hope to have the Zach Wellison work sometime after New Years. I’m thinking this is gonna be a multi-chapter thing but not sure how long yet (like a 2-3 part thing or a series). If you want to be notified about that, again, join the taglist to get notified when I get around to that. 

Thanks a million and see you tomorrow!

Tag List!: @luz-introvertida​ @castleamc​ @moralesfish​  @december-gal1 @castleamcc @hillarymurray4 @supernaturalgirl20​ @supernaturalgirl20 @sherala007​ @littlemisspascal @practicalghost​ @donnaa​ @scorpio-marionette​ @kayleezra @amandanik23 @maxpbxtch97​ @lowlights​ @shadesofnerdlygrace @harriedandharassed @carefulnowprincess​ @amneris21​ @horton-hears-a-honk​ @xdaddysprincessxx​ @trickstersp8​ @mandy-sings @mswarriorbabe80 @permanentlydizzy @teddy2510 @theredwritingwitch @thesoftdumbass @readingiskeepingmegoing @pedropascalposting @pedrocentric @mandynik23 @klara-luise18 @supernaturalgirl89 @pbeatriz (hope it’s ok that I’m tagging you all!)

[leofrith]

[20 Question Fic Writer Tag]

Tagged by @aeide and @ainulindaelynn 💖 I did this one a few months ago but a few answers have changed since then so I'll update those. 😊

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Six now! Four one-shots, a short-ish multi-chapter which was supposed to be a one-shot that got away from me, and my longfic which at this point I should have just waited to post but am definitely still chipping away at.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

33,030 which is almost double my count from a few months ago. Woaaaaaaaaahhhh

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Still Assassin's Creed, now dipping into Baldur's Gate 3 as well.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Still the same five fics in the same order but with slightly different numbers:

Hideaway - 149

Bright Skies - 139

Press On, Move Along - 94

Out of the Cold - 43

Honor Bound - 29

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! Always.

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

Still Press On, Move Along.

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

Still Hideaway.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Still hate-free, for now.

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

Sure do 💀 and I've posted some of it since the last time I did this. I think the only way I can really describe it is emotionally-charged, because if I'm going to horny jail it will at the very least be in service of some kind of character development. 😭

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

Still occasionally poke away at the AC x Star Wars AU, but I'm not super invested in it right now. But I'm sure that will change as soon as a new Star Wars thing comes out. Since I last did this I also went digging through the depths of my writing folder and found a Walking Dead x MCU crossover that I must have started when I was like 14 years old. Absolute fucking horror show that I am so very thankful I never wrote enough to post. 🤡

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Still no, as far as I'm aware.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

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

No, except for yelling back and forth about ideas with friends. I would probably be open to it but also maybe not because I know I am extremely unreliable.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Saying "all-time" favourite feels a bit much, but as far as mental real estate and also just sheer number of words written, Leovor far surpasses any other ship I've been into. 🧍🏻‍♀️

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

Since I did that ask game a few weeks ago, the Inquisitor Ahsoka/Rex starting a clone rebellion/post TCW AU has been on my mind. But I know that, realistically speaking, I'm unlikely to ever be invested enough to actually sit down and write it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm trying to make a point to read more fiction and while it's possible that the few books I've read thus far lately just haven't been particularly good, it's certainly made me way more confident in my ability to write dialogue that feels like it would be spoken by real live humans and not aliens pretending to be humans. Similar deal with internal monologues. I'm convinced that none of these authors read their work aloud.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Still generally the same—overthinking comma usage, editing while I write and therefore being very slow, going back and forth between being stuck because I didn't plan enough and feeling stifled because I planned too much. Etc etc.

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

I try to avoid it as much as possible, with the exception being words or phrases that are used a lot in canon.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Still Marvel :(

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Honor Bound is still my baby, but I didn't expect to actually like A Different Kind of Solace as much as I do, mostly because I didn't really go into writing it expecting to hit the emotional notes that it does. Also still Out of the Cold. There are some banger lines there.

Not tagging anyone because this one has gone around a few times recently but if you want to do it, you're welcome to pretend I tagged you. 😌