#along with other unfinished prompts and asks. for what it's worth there is a General Plotline and an Order Of Reveals planned

[starflungwaddledee]

Wait, now that I think about it; does Starstruck meet Elfilin??

they have met; kirby introduced them to each other!

the results of this were actually rather unexpected and complicated. i do in fact already have a comic planned for february (based on a shipaganza submission from last february!) that will address it!

nothing disastrous came of it or anything, but they are ultimately not very close. mostly because much like the waddle dees, efilin is deeply uncomfortable around starstruck. for very different, but also shockingly similar reasons.

[silverskye13]

Angst prompt courtesy of: @theunderscorwolph

[Accidental unfinished sneak peak. Whoops.]

Helsknight waited... Probably too long to check in on Tanguish. In his defense, the last time he spoke to Tanguish, he was heading to Hermitcraft, and while Hermitcraft was far from safe, it was, in its own ways, safer than hels. There were fewer people, fewer hazards in general, and there was Tango. Tango wasn't a fighter. As far as Helsknight could tell, he was mostly just squirrelly, and a bit cowardly. But he was fiercely loyal. That went a long way. He had even, misguidedly, attempted to save Tanguish from Helsknight once. Helsknight, who recognized he was a big, scary, angry-looking, armed and armored knight, could respect that. And Tango and Tanguish were friends, and they got wrapped up in each other sometimes, and this was far from the first time Tanguish was gone all day talking to his other half about some project.

It was, however, the first time he'd been gone for two days in a row.

Helsknight didn't really consider himself to be a worrier. Tanguish was an adult. He could take care of himself. And even if he couldn't take care of himself, Helsknight could recognize that everyone had some level of pride. Butting in on someone else's business uninvited was a great way to be a nuisance at best, and a problem at worst. So, Tanguish didn't come back by the evening? If there was a problem, Helsknight would respectfully let him handle it. Tanguish knew to come get him for help. And while Helsknight would feel truly guilty if his dithering caused Tanguish to respawn, he could take some solace in knowing he would wreak holy vengeance on whoever did it.

[That was one of the perks of being a knight: when you pointed at someone and said something along the lines of "Through hels or high water I will smite thee" or some such dramatic nonsense, people tended to get out of your way and let you get to business.]

Day two of no Tanguish, and Helsknight went from being passively concerned, to something closer to open nervousness. He asked, as subtly as he could, around the Colosseum if anyone had seen him. No one had, though Martyn did make a joke about Tanguish finally getting wise and finding a real knight to squire to.

[EB really needed to stop getting between them when Martyn said things like that. The power of a bloody nose on shitty humor was astounding.]

Eventually, Helsknight had given up and decided the best thing to do was go to Hermitcraft and track the little pest down himself. He suited up for what he thought might be a mild amount of trouble -- it was always possible he would run into Wels when he was on Hermitcraft, and if he planned on searching for someone, he wanted to minimize the time he was fighting his double. He donned his chainmail, and the netherite gauntlets and grieves. He made sure the clasps on his boots were pulled tight. He cinched on his netherite sword, and made sure it pulled easily from the sheath.

He picked up his cloak last, and gave it a contemplative frown. In hels, the cloak was a distinctive and somewhat necessary piece of costuming. It was the visual shorthand he needed to inform everyone that he was a knight, and therefore probably knew his way around a sword [and wasn't worth mugging]. For those who knew knights, it told them what Order he was a part of. Useful. On Hermitcraft, however... Being able to tell at a glance that he was a red-themed knight in dark armor, who looked suspiciously like but not quite enough like one of the other server members...

While Helsknight weighed the pros and cons of stealth and subtly, two things he was famously very bad at, the shield hanging on his wall shuddered and kicked, and someone tumbled out of the reflection with a shriek. Helsknight sighed and rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling. He did a slow count to ten in his head, and tried not to be very, very annoyed he'd just spent twenty minutes putting on armor for no good gods-damned reason.

"Tanguish," Helsknight hummed, when he thought he could keep his voice relatively neutral, "for no reason in particular, I think we should make some ground rules about when you should check in with people--"

Helsknight turned, looked down, and anything else he was going to say vanished out of his head with such abruptness, it made his ears ring. Laying prone on the floor of Helsknight's cell, staring with wide, somewhat terrified eyes and the kind of grin that screamed about recently realized mistakes, was Tango. The Hermit blinked up at him. Helsknight blinked down at him. Somewhere down the hall, somebody laughed at something, which was their only indication that the whole world hadn't frozen with them when they made eye contact.

Helsknight could say, with honesty, he never expected to be put in a situation where a Hermit stumbled into hels, much less into his cell in the Colosseum, surrounded by all the biggest, scariest, most dangerous people in hels. At a complete loss on what to do, he fell back on what he thought was safest: namely, making sure no one got killed over it. Helsknight leaped over Tango -- who screeched ingloriously -- crossed to the door of his cell and slammed it shut. There was no lock -- he'd never needed one until now -- so he settled on turning his back to the door and bracing against it, content in the knowledge that, should someone come inside, he would be the first one to know.

It did not hearten him to see that Tango was still on his floor. He had apparently, when Helsknight stepped over him, curled up as small as he could, anticipating some kind of attack. He'd thrown his arms up over his face, and now peered at Helsknight through his fingers, humming tuneless, horrified syllables.

"Tangotek," Helsknight said, concentrating on keeping his voice very calm and very quiet, "you aren't welcome in my home."

"I didn't know I was going to end up here," Tango whispered back, his voice high and tense as a violin string.

"Go home."

Something flickered in Tango's eyes, something like determination. Helsknight hated that look.

"Uhm. N-no can do. Sorry."

"Can't." Helsknight said, barring his teeth at the Hermit. "Or won't."

Tango made a face at him, tight-lipped and tense. He propped himself up on his elbows. "Uhm. If. If I say won't, will you kill me?"

"Possibly."

"Then I can't. Definitely, definitely, physically can't." Tango looked around, scrambled to his feet, and dashed to Helsknight's bed. He, admirably, only winced a little when he set his spawn -- probably worried hels worked like the nether, and the bed would manage to explode somehow. With a bit more confidence this time, Tango stated again: "Can't."

"I can break that." Helsknight seethed quietly, and tried very hard not to grind his teeth. "It would piss me off. I like being able to sleep here. But I can break that, and send you back to Hermitcraft."

"But you don't want to do that," Tango said nervously. "Because-- uh-- you'd have to kill me, and Tanguish would be really, really upset about that."

"Tanguish isn't here. So either run home, or I will... escort you there." Helsknight put on his most wicked grin, and placed his hand on his sword meaningfully.

Tango staggered a step back away from Helsknight, somehow managing to go paler than he already was. The redstone freckles adorning his face sparked, and the flame of his hair took on a slightly green cast. The idiot Hermit was apparently made of very stern stuff, though, because he didn't flee for the nearest reflection. He took a few seconds to breathe. He had his own sword, a fact that Helsknight only noticed because his hand twitched towards the hilt uncertainly. Helsknight wasn't alarmed. Tango didn't move like someone who knew how to use a sword well, and he was fairly sure the Hermit's hands were shaking so much he would drop it if he tried to draw it.

Tango swallowed hard, darted a tongue across his lips, and asked with only a minimal tremor in his voice, "Uh, T-Tanguish isn't here? Like, not here here, or like... Not in hels, here?"

Helsknight narrowed his eyes. "Is he supposed to be?"

"He left my place yesterday, and said he would be back in a few hours," Tango explained quickly. "I thought-- like, you know, maybe he decided to wait until morning? But. He didn't come back. And I got worried. He. You know. He tells me if he can't make it. It's-- all it takes is a reflection to talk. You know? And I did look in my reflection, but I couldn't see anything, which normally means he's not by one. It was just dark."

Tango crossed his arms. It was a gesture that somehow made him look smaller.

"I thought-- I hoped-- you know. Hopping through the reflection. I could just check on him. Make sure he was okay. I think. I think maybe it just took me to his spawn point."

Tango thought that statement over, then flashed Helsknight an incredulous, almost horrified look, "Why is his spawn point your bed?"

"Tanguish was supposed to be with you," Helsknight frowned.

"You haven't seen him?"

"No." Helsknight rested his hand on his sword hilt, mostly just so he wouldn't fidget. "Could he have gone back to Hermitcraft and you just missed each other?"

"I checked," Tango said, shaking his head. "I have... X gave a few of us console access. I did a few scans... Is there. Anyone you know with that kind of access for hels?"

"Hels and Hermitcraft are different places." Helsknight wrinkled his nose. "Maybe Evil X?"

"Cool! We'll talk to him then!"

"Oh sure," Helsknight spat derisively, "I'll just go knock on the front door to Evil X's tower and ask politely for admin access, will I?"

Tango grimaced. "Will he not... Like that kind of thing?"

"Oh he'd just love it. One more thing to hold over my head." Helsknight snorted. "It wouldn't work anyway. I have a pact that says I can't directly oppose him. If he, for the gods know what reason, has Tanguish, and I knew--" Helsknight made a parrying motion with his hand. "It's better if I don't know. Keeps my hands from being tied."

"Huh," Tango leaned back against the wall, slightly more at ease. Helsknight wasn't sure if he liked the fact that the Hermit was getting comfortable. "I kind of figured you and X-- uh, Evil X, would be friends."

[snackhobi]

prompt: “Is that my shirt you’re wearing?”

thank you to my darling @yeojaa​ for sending this in and thank you to my darling @hobi-gif​ for beta reading it for me, you are both such lovely stars in the night sky of my life xoxo

pairing: seokjin x reader / word count: 1.9k / genre: fluff (sfw/general) / warnings: none!

--

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a hot roommate, must want to jump his bones.

Like. C’mon. Kim Seokjin is nothing if not easy on the eyes. It’s not enough that he has the body proportions of a god—broad shoulders, lovely thighs, everything in its place and perfectly in line with his height and his poise—he has a beautiful face, too. Those lips. That jaw. Those eyes. You don’t want to wax lyrical but it really is like God decided to take his time making Kim Seokjin and everyone else (like you) was just left with the dregs; the stuff that wasn’t good enough for Jin and was thrown aside.

The worst thing, though. The worst thing. The absolute worst thing about Kim Seokjin is that he is A Nice Person. 

You’d barely known each other, only a month into your cohabitation when he’d come across you crying into a tub of ice cream in the kitchen, sobbing over the guy who’d finally grown bored of stringing you along with promises of eventually becoming your actual boyfriend and had just cut you off altogether after one final lay. You were utterly heartbroken and entirely mortified when you noticed Jin standing in the kitchen doorway as you clumsily tried to dig your spoon into the still-hard vanilla, but he’d just slid down onto the floor next to you with a spoon in one hand as the other came to rest on your shoulder. He’d listened to you snivel and sniffle, quietly eating the weirdly chemical-flavoured chocolate ice cream in the own-brand Neapolitan tub you favoured—your least favourite and the one you always left till last.

Once a guy’s seen you crying your eyes out on the kitchen floor in old pyjamas, and you’ve seen him eat five pots of super hot instant noodles on the trot and chase the whole thing down with an entire box of doughnuts, you sort of get to know each other as people—both things are revealing in different ways—and it’s hard for that to not lead to friendship.

You could have dealt with Jin if he was just hot. But he’s hot and nice and funny, utterly ridiculous; he doesn’t take himself seriously while also knowing how to rein himself in when necessary to not overwhelm people and basically you’ve been crushing on him in a major, major way for a while now.

And like. Seokjin is single, so technically you have a chance. But you also have absolutely no chance at all, because? Hello? Kim Seokjin? You? You? Kim Seokjin? He’s so far out of your league he may as well be in another galaxy. And he’s also probably the best roommate you’ve ever had (cleans up after himself, doesn’t microwave fish and stink up the place, likes the same TV shows as you so there are no arguments over the remote), so you’re not about to throw a wrench into the mix by doing something stupid like confessing that you like him.

“Right, I should be back around ten,” says Seokjin. He’s all dressed up for a noraebang night with his friends—well, not dressed up really, they’re just gonna get drunk while wailing songs at the top of their lungs in a small room so it’s not like he has to go all out, but Seokjin makes everything look good. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

Seokjin is nice and hot and funny and friendly. Honestly, he’s just a dreamboat of a roommate and a man, with great friends too. Normally you would have leaped at the chance to spend a night out with Seokjin and the other guys, but you’d spilled your drink on Yoongi last time and were still convinced that he was plotting your imminent demise. Even if Seokjin insists otherwise, you want to give Yoongi a wide berth for a little while longer in the hopes he’ll suddenly suffer a bout of amnesia and forget that you spilled a very boozy and sticky Oreo and Baileys cocktail(/glorified milkshake) on him and ruined his shoes.

“I’m good,” you say. “But make sure you don’t have any fun without me and you have to let everyone know that it’s because I’m not there.”

Jin laughs, a wet squeegee of a sound, and it goes straight to your heart. “I’ll pass on the message,” he promises, blowing you a tiny kiss as he goes. 

(Ugh, he’s so cute. You hate him.) (No, you don’t.)

You seem to be setting a trend for yourself in the drink-spilling department, though. During an ad break you decide to get yourself a drink, and even though it’s just a Boys Over Flowers rerun that you’ve seen multiple times, you rush as you pour yourself a glass of orange juice—you don’t want to take too long and miss anything. Suffice to say you Fuck Up and end up with a shirt and trousers covered in juice and pulp and you miss a bunch of the episode as you clean it up, huffing dramatically to yourself the whole time, before scarpering towards your bedroom for some new clothes. 

At least, that’s the plan. You pass by Seokjin’s open door and pause, taking in the sight of a few discarded bits of clothing on his bed and across the back of his chair, things he’d clearly decided weren’t worth wearing out tonight. The one that’s caught your eye is the vibrant pink shirt strewn over his duvet, one of your favourites, one you haven’t seen him wear in a while. It’s one of your favourites because he just looks so cosy in it—Jin ends up with a lot of oversized clothes so they can fit over his shoulders, but he practically swims in material when he wears this shirt, flapping the sleeves at you and then laughing at his own antics. He could wear it as a dress if he wanted to, probably.

… so could you, if you wanted to, probably.

… but you shouldn’t. Like, that’s weird. Jin is your roommate and even if he’s made it clear that he has an open door policy, going in through said open door to get a bit of his clothing is weird. Definitely creepy.

But… you’ve already kicked off your dirtied outfit and you’re just in your underwear so you can’t be blamed for being worried if you’re going to get cold, right? You’re just grabbing the closest bit of clothing, aren’t you?

… You’ll take it off before he gets back and put it in the laundry with everything else; he won’t notice. You’ll just take this awful awful secret to the grave and never tell anyone about your invasive actions.

Oh, man, the shirt smells so good. You share the same laundry detergent but Jin had clearly tried this on before discarding it, the scent of his cologne lingering in the air as you end up swamped in the shirt (/shirt dress), and you don’t regret this. Well, you do, but also you don’t. It’s like being wrapped up in Jin’s arms. Jin’s not shy about giving you hugs but there’s something altogether different about wearing someone’s clothes.

You end up curled up on the sofa as you watch more Boys Over Flowers, knees to your chest and revelling in how cosy and small Jin’s massive shirt makes you feel. You have to hitch the material up so that your hands peep out the ends of the sleeves. Sweater paws are cute on everyone, even yourself, and you giggle as you fumble for the remote so that you can check how many more episodes there are before it turns to something else. You can indulge yourself for a bit. As a treat.

“Unbelievable, I can’t believe Minji did that,” you mutter, so caught up in the drama of it all (as if you haven’t seen this episode four times) that you don’t hear the key turning in the lock, nor do you hear the footsteps that are heading towards you—what you do hear, however, is the sudden sound of Seokjin’s voice, freezing like a rabbit caught in headlights when you do.

“I forgot my wallet,” he says. “I—”

And that’s how he catches you, wide-eyed as you stare back at him, wishing that you could bury yourself between the sofa pillows so that he can’t see you. His keys are still in his hand and his mouth is open around an unfinished word as he takes the sight of you in, scrunched up against the armrest in some ridiculous attempt to shrink yourself small enough that he would have missed you.

He stares. You stare. You both stare. And then—

“Is that my shirt you’re wearing?”

“No!” A high-pitched shrill of an obvious lie. “No, uh, nope. Nuh-uh. Haha, oh, Jin, always such a jokester, you.”

You want the sofa to suddenly develop sentience and swallow you whole, just so you can be out of this situation. So you wouldn’t have to watch as a smile starts to spread over Jin’s face, the way there’s a little glint in his eyes, the way he opens his mouth and says—

“You know, you didn’t have to turn down noraebang just so you could wear my clothes. You just had to ask, I would have said yes.” He doesn’t seem creeped out, just amused, which is—well, it’s better, but, what? He’s laughing at you? You don’t know if that’s worse, somehow, actually.

“I didn’t! I spilled orange juice on my shirt and then I saw this shirt and you weren’t home—”

“Aha, so you admit it, it’s not your shirt,” Jin proclaims. He looks smug.

“Oh my God, I am full of regret,” you groan. “My life is a disaster. Can we pretend this never happened? I will pay you literal money. Please.”

At this, Jin’s eyes turn soft. “Do you really want that?”

“I—wuh? Do I really want us both to pretend you didn’t walk in on me wearing your shirt like some weird stalker or something? Absolutely. Yes. Let’s do that.”

“I wasn’t joking about letting you wear my clothes,” he says. There’s a note to his voice, something a little doughy, yielding and warm for you, and—you know what your gut is screaming at you, but— “I always thought you’d look cute in them, and I was right.”

You splutter. Jin thought you’d look cute—he’s been thinking about you wearing his clothes—the sort of thing that, you know, couples do. But this is Kim Seokjin you’re talking about. There’s no way he’s attracted to you in the way you’re attracted to him.

… but he is looking at you in a way that’s soft and tender, the same look you give him when you think he isn’t looking.

“Jin,” you say, slow. “Are you…”

“The most handsome man alive? Yes, I am.”

You make a face at his interruption and he laughs at your expression before going quiet, eyes so big and lovely and warm as he smiles at you, and you continue to speak. “Are you saying you want to, y’know. See me wearing more of your clothes? Or, uh... Less clothes in general?”

You can feel the blood rising in your cheeks as you say this, and you can see the red that starts to tinge the top of Jin’s ears, exquisite and wonderful. “I’m saying that I’m happy to give you what’s mine, including my clothes,” he says. “And my time. And love.”

You end up pulling the excess material of the shirt over your head as you turn into some sort of bright pink turtle, overwhelmed and in disbelief but so happy.

Judging from Jin’s laughter and the warmth of his hands reaching for yours in their too-long sleeves, he is, too.

[doitwritenow]

IronStrange Starter Kit - Master Fic Rec List for all Y’all Because You’ve been Asking and I’ve been Avoiding

Hi! All you anons and askers, I made a list!!! Hopefully some of these are what you’ve been after. :D

(Please reblog this, lol, I spent too much time on it...) 

General rules: These are complete unless indicated otherwise, and end happily unless indicated otherwise. There’s a variety of ratings, as I have no qualms against smut, but I don’t usually read it outside of a larger plot. So I don’t think there’ll be many explicit stories on here. Word counts vary; I indicate general length but don’t go into specifics. What else, uh... Bold stuff is the headers and general subjects. I link the titles. Block quotes are author summaries. Enjoy!!

- 

Okay so first off, there are a couple of Fandom Staples who just have leagues worth of good short stories, and if you haven’t read them, then definitely treat yourself to the array:

A Thousand Futures of Me and You - VisionaryGalaxy (Vishanti, what a legend, ily so much). This is a series of unconnected one-shots, each their own and covering a variety of tropes and moments and themes and AUs. They’re so fun (and/or painful and/or thought-provoking and/or tense and/or sexy)! In-character and amazing, consistantly. 

Prompt Collection -  amethyst-noir (Arbonne). (Also a legendary human). This is exactly what it sounds like: a series of prompt fills in all sorts of tones. You’ll almost certainly find something here that feels like it was just made for you!

Alright, onto the individual stories and series!

Long fics/series:

The of overqualified hands and pi figures series - lantia4ever. (This was my first Ironstrange story, and it is no less magical now.)

A series of one-shots, all set in the same alternate verse in which Tony and Stephen first meet following the events of the first Avengers and then continue to meet after that throughout the canon up until Infinity War and eventually beyond it. Becoming friends - and more along the way.

Time After Time - fancylances. (I love love LOVE this one. Highly recommended.) 

Tony Stark is unstuck in time. Stephen Strange might just be the only person in the universe qualified enough to help.

Citizen Erased - Imagined. (This author. Just... such a wonderful, talented, stunning person who makes wonderful, talented, stunning works. This story is masterful.)

What do you do when no one in the world ever manages to remember you?

Anyone who sees Tony Stark promptly forgets he ever existed after mere seconds. When everyone he has ever cared about has lost their memories of him, he goes to Stephen Strange, possibly the only one who can help him lift the curse. But a terrifying danger is coming, and saving the world isn’t an easy job to do when no one can remember who you are.

if only the gods had mercy on us and it’s sequel a soul too deep - orphan_account. (Vishanti, this series...  It’s so beautiful and emotional and heart-breaking and heart-warming. And it has so few views for so many words! One of my absolute favorites, VERY highly recommended.) 

Tony Stark loved Stephen Strange. He loved him more than anyone could ever imagine. But then a terrorist group attacked the convoy. Then there was a car accident. In the middle of it all, there is tired, battered love. (And, maybe, a little bit of genius)

From the Top - lucifersfavoritechild. (Everyone reads this fic. Written by the blogger Monarch Of The Ironstrange Ship, it’s an MCU rewrite around the relationship. Very fun.) 

“Stephen, if you’re . . . there somewhere . . . when I drift off, I’ll be with you again. I can’t wait.”

|| Personally, I think the MCU would be much better as a love story between Stephen Strange and Tony Stark. Don't you?

Starting from Iron Man, and going all the way to Endgame, with all the appropriate stops in between. Let's take it from the top.

UNFINISHED: Skin Deep - Mystical_Magician. (Super cool premise, and super interesting to read! The dynamic here is very fun.)

A battle that should have finally killed Stephen instead launches him into a parallel universe. Exhausted from centuries as Sorcerer Supreme, he chooses instead to explore this new world in any animal form except human. Having hoped for peace at last, he can't stand to be looked up to, to be responsible for others, to have the world on his shoulders.

If he'd hoped to avoid excitement, however, he really should have stayed away when he noticed an enormous explosion and a falling metal suit of armor as he passed through Afghanistan.

UNFINISHED: The End of Infinity - FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls. (Self rec. Very long, very slow-burn. Canon-compliant Endgame fix-it. I’m trying so hard, lol.)

In 2023, the battle for the universe has been won. At a cost no one can forget, the fight is over—for all but one. Stephen Strange has an idea. An impossible idea spanning dimensions and timelines, life and death, and the lines of good and evil. But he's played impossible odds before—perhaps he never stopped.

All that Loki wanted was to fight, one last time, for the fate of his universe. So when he finds himself fighting for another, crashing into the past, he has a few intended words for the wizard that forced him there. But not before he finds a boy. Or, more accurately, before the boy finds him.

Peter Parker had been waiting for the next mission. He just doesn't expect it to come from the future, armed with a ridiculous story demanding a ridiculous quest. And he doesn't expect not to be able to tell Mr. Stark.

Tony Stark is trying to rebuild from the Civil War, knowing that someday, something will come that he needs to be ready for. And he doesn't know it yet, but two universes are trying to rebuild around him, and that something is already here.

Seven Stones. Five dead. Two universes. And one impossible quest to tie it all back together.

UNFINISHED: Sunrise in Exile - Ragdoll (Keshka). (Another fandom favorite! And for good reason. This is really really good!) 

Tony does the math and realizes their best chance to save the universe is by... not confronting Thanos on his own turf.

So he steals a wizard and a spider and a space ship. And he runs.

(Three humans and an A.I in space, the alien friendships they make along the way, and discovering how science and magic might coexist in a universe where they can be one and the same.)

Shorter plotty ones: 

Out of Suffering - Mystical_Magician. (So this author??? THIS AUTHOR??? Very very good, much yes, very good.) 

Stephen Strange does not like people, but 14,000,605 lifetimes of fighting and dying alongside this small group have worn down his walls. He likes them, gods help him. He might even consider them friends. It’s really for the best that they all go their separate ways once Thanos has been defeated. In their eyes, he’s barely even an acquaintance.

Now if only Tony and Peter would stop surprising him.

moros - spookykingdomstarlight. (Almost got a spot in the angst section. Very good). 

There were fourteen million universes Stephen had birthed into existence and let die and, in far more than he cared to count, the visitor standing before him had become something… dear.

Shaking is Caring - mariadperiad20. (This is just STUNNING. Highly loved.)

5 times Stephen's hands would shake, +1 time they didn't.

It's Kinda Chalky - DestielsDestiny. (This one’s pretty short, but definitely worth it.) 

You can live an entire lifetime by looking into someone’s eyes. His sister used to say that all the time. Stephen never gave it much thought back then. These days, he can think of little else.

Something Magic - Imagined. (Beautiful!)

There is only ever one rule that matters:

do not fall in love with the enemy.

An Idiotic Theory - FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls. (Self rec! I tried to be funny.)

His wizard has been cursed, again, and Tony's already used up his luck for the day.

(Stephen says it's not a curse. He says Tony's whole daily-allotted karma-based luck theory has minimal merit, citing the fact that Tony had come up with it while he was drunk.)

Tony really should have saved his miracle.

Love Through Time - babywarg (morphaileffect). (I love this one. It sticks with you.) 

Tony discovers an old drawing of, and finally remembers, his invisible friend Stephen from when he was a child.

Alternates - doobler. (Super cool!)

After being punked by a lowbrow magician, Stephen finds himself falling through doors to otherwordly dimensions. How will he ever get home?

132 - 28ghosts. (Soulmate AU! Very fun, incorporates Stephen’s time-loop with Dormammu.)

Ninety-nine point eight percent of humans have a soulmate mark that tells them the age their soulmate will be when they meet them. Tony Stark has a mark. It's just that his is...different than most people's.

(Or: six people who aren't Tony Stark's soulmate, and one who is.)

and when the world falls (I will fall with it) - HeavenChild. (Another multichap soulmate AU. Absolutely lovely.)

Tony will give anything to those he loves.

People will take everything he gives before leaving him in shambles.

Rhodhey, Pepper and Vision have had enough.

Or the five times Tony had his heart broken and the one time he didn't.

i saw the end of the world - JumpToConclusions. (Why has no one read this fic??? It’s so good!!! Stephen knows the future since he saw it on Titan, and things grow more complex from there.)

Tony and Strange are trying to make this work, this being remaking The Avengers. ...And maybe they'll stumble into something else along the way.

Tiresome heart, forever living and dying - Mystical_Magician. (R e a d  t h i s  p l e a s e. The mythology is so cool and the symbolism is so beautiful and the prose is so satisfying. One of my absolute faves.) 

As a fledgling crane, Stephen was too curious for his own good, and it was this curiosity that led to Eugene Strange finding and stealing away his feather robe. Trapped in human form, cruelly forged into the perfect son, not even his father's death freed him when his robe was so well hidden. He only managed to break his father's mold after breaking completely in the aftermath of his accident, and slowly gluing those broken pieces back together at Kamar-Taj, but not even magic could find what had been hidden. Enter Tony, after the defeat of Thanos.

Fluffy ones:

From The Outside - Live. (Hilarious.) 

Being a sentient life-form surrounded by humanity can be hard. Especially when said humans just can't admit their feelings for each other.

Sleeping Iron Man - Golden_Asp. (Another fun one. Perfect balance of ridiculousness with a touch of angst to make it interesting.) 

Stephen Strange stared at the Avengers on his doorstep, Tony Stark flung over Steve Rogers' shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "He touched something, didn't he?" "Yuup." or The one where Tony touches Sleeping Beauty's spindle, is put into an enchanted sleep, and everyone, even Rocket Raccoon, take their turn kissing him. But Tony only has one prince charming.

Doctor Ob(li)vious - lantia4ever. (One of my very favorites. So cute.) 

Stephen starts getting some weird looks from the Avengers, spanning across disturbed, confused and even scared all the way to curious. He dismisses it at first until weird turns into knowing.

And knowing turns into realizing...even if the scheming teenagers had to all but paint it on the walls for him to do so. Oh wait...

Applied Combinatorics in Two-Player Games - 28ghosts. (Short and fun and full of snark.)

After a battle, Tony Stark and Stephen Strange argue about games.

-

“Chess is not a solved problem.”

“Has been since ‘97, Kasparov versus Deep Blue. Kasparov, 1; Deep Blue, 2; three draws.”

“Chess is a game, not a problem.”

The Courtship of Peter Parker's Father (Figures) - flyingonfeatherlesswings. (Peter plays matchmaker! Adorable.)

Peter couldn't stand to sit by while Tony and Stephen danced around each other any longer. Something had to be done.

Speaking Eyes - Vrishchika. (Not Steve Friendly. Tony is amazing in this. And Stephen is so fantastically dramatic.)

Tony has always had expressive eyes.

The Signs of Sleep Deprivation - FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls. (Another self-rec. <3)

"Tony said to put the potato in the dishwasher, so that's what I did."

Sometimes, Avengers just show up to say hi. Sometimes, they all show up at once, and Tony makes an party out of it. Sometimes, he invites the snarky, oblivious, somewhat insecure wizard because, and Peter quotes: "everyone else is coming".

Sometimes, something needs to be done.

Show Me Your Scars (And I'll Show You Mine) - Imagined. (Adorable. Lovely. Imagined does it again.)

The worst part is that Stephen keeps tucking his hands away, just as Tony wants to hold them. He keeps hiding them, surreptitiously, no matter what they’re doing. It’s only when Tony kisses Stephen, or hugs him, that he feels the hands settle on his back, uncertain, ready to pull back within seconds.

It only makes him want to cuddle up to Stephen even more, but he backs away, not sure if it’d be welcome.

Promise? Promise. - sharonscarters. (AU, kidfic, absolutely adorable.) 

A four year old Tony Stark runs away from home and finds his Guardian Angel.

What The Doctor Ordered - wakandan_wardog. (Post CW. Kind of not Rogues friendly? So fun, makes me smile. I re-read this one a lot.)

The Rogue Avengers are called back to New York because the heavy hitters are going to be needed against Thanos. Of course, there are some truths that Steve Rogers will need to accept sooner rather than later. Tony Stark has moved on and Stephen Strange will not suffer fools lightly.

Hurt/Comforty ones:

Among The Chaos of The Stars (You're My Safe Harbour) - ShootMeDead. (Oh my vishanti. OH MY VISHANTI. So so so so SO good.) 

Stephen has always been able to hear the stars. Tony is the only one who can silence them.

each night like a white noise frequency - Phierie. (I ADORE THIS FIC. OKAY. I LOVE IT. READ IT.)

Stephen is no stranger to making hard choices. He doesn’t regret his actions on Titan, but months later they weigh on his mind heavier than ever; the cracks begin to show.

Just An Accident - CucumbersInGold. (I really like fics with Stephen’s hands and the difficulties thereabout. Idk, just one of my favorite things. This is beautiful). 

Stephen's hands act up.

Learning, Unlearning - Caaaaaaas. (More character study than anything else. Really good.)

Whatever Stephen wanted with life, life just didn’t seem to know what to do with him.

In which Stephen learns and unlearns some very important lessons.

your eyes have their silence - doctortwelfth. (Oh look it’s another scars fic. I told you I liked them.) 

Tony is gentle with Stephen’s hands even when Stephen forgets to be.

Burning Lines Into The Snow - petroltogo. (Not very Steve friendly. Short and sweet.)

Post CW: It's not just the team that's so broken they are barely able to comprehend how many parts they're missing now, how many have been ripped and twisted and torn. It's Tony as well, right down to the core, the damage so far-reaching even he doesn't know how to fix it.

And then there's Strange, who has his own way of covering the cracks.

Old Bones - CJtheWeeb. (Owch. Dumb geniuses trying to be invulnerable.)

Sometimes Stephen Strange has great days, where he was nearly pain free and his hands still enough to where he could pick up a cup of water and barely spill a drop.

Today was not one of those days.

something taken, something new - meowrails. (So in-character. The premise was a little off to me, but I’m so glad I decided to read this one. I really really like this fic.)

The ChronicConnection implement and app allows a person that lives with chronic or illness-induced pain to transfer their burden temporarily to a willing loved one.

Tony and Stephen sign up as beta testers.

Angsty ones (happy ending unless otherwise mentioned):

day one - days4daisy. (THIS IS SO GOOD OKAY IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE ON THIS LIST READ THIS).

Three days in Stark Tower. Stephen must be in bad shape if he just agreed to this.

His Merlin - babywarg (morphaileffect). (This author keeps showing up on this list because they are A LEGEND. A LEGEND I TELL YOU.) 

As a child, Tony imagined himself a Knight of the Round Table. Little did he know he would grow up to be a king. And that he would have a wizard by his side to lead him to either glory or destruction.

there is no heart for me like yours - turtle_abyss. (Soulmate AU! Wonderful. <3)

Being able to feel your soulmate - a phantom touch, a bone-deep awareness - is a divine torture. To know, but not see. To seek, but not find. To feel someone holding your hand and not be able to hold theirs.

Grace - StrangeMischief. (*cries in beautiful fic* Happy ending!)

“Pain’s an old friend.” 

Us...Me - StrangeMischief. (This will hurt you. So melancholy. Pepper and Tony live their life, and Tony remembers. Not a happy ending.) 

“I don’t believe in happily ever after.” 

One-Thousand Cranes - FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls. (Self rec, sorry. Hopeful ending.) 

After it all, a man with shaking hands makes a wish.

courtesy - deathofglitter. (Dealing with the fourteen-million futures. So good.) 

Stark looked at him like he looked at the amulet that rested on his chest like a steady promise - dutiful, a bit burdened, and trying to hold a profound lack of personal emotion whatsoever, still personal enough to protect as anyone would a precious object.

La Douleur Exquise - BananasofThorns, StrangeMischief. (More pain. Pepper and Tony, and Stephen watching and trying not to wish. Very good, no happy ending.)

The before was easy. There were fewer boxes in their minds and no chains around their hearts. There was no hurt. No tears. No dreams.

But those days were long gone.

Stigmata - babywarg (morphaileffect). (AU! Soulmates again. Very interesting, beautifully done.)

Since Stephen was little, mysterious wounds have appeared and disappeared on his body, leaving mysterious scars. His mother says it's because he's one of a Pair, and he's absorbing pain meant for someone else.

*wipes brow* PHEW! That gotta a little more in-depth than I first intended... Have fun, my MysticIron friends. Happy quarantine. 

[paradife-loft]

In the blood orange sky

Well. Does anybody remember a couple months ago when I made this post? Because apparently I’ve been thinking about it a fair bit.

And also thinking about... maybe doing a thing? A thing that involves writing various vignettes as I’m moved to, very low pressure, but all in the same continuity, about sequences of various events that are related to one another and a central premise...? So kind of maybe like a “multi-chapter fic” as they call them, but y’know. No particular goals for “finishing” something, or requiring they be in chronological order or any other strict structure binding them together. Just exploring things for fun, and I’ll see where it goes!

But yes, so, I have written a bit this week that I think does what I would like for a first portion of something like this, and... here it is!

1.4k words, Xiyao, post-canon, dark-ish mystery/intrigue/character and relationship exploration I guess?; warnings for injury and general unpleasant body stuff, and also unpleasant mental health stuff, and also discussed off-screen (mass) murder.

*

When he comes to this time, he is sitting - propped up in the gentle rays of early sun against something he can vaguely identify as soft, with enough give to cradle his shoulders. That alone is a departure from each time previous… and Jin Guangyao supposes he ought to be thankful he continues to wake up at all; that his condition upon doing so this one time at least is no longer face-down, body practically smeared into the dirt.

An unpleasant prickling in one of his legs prompts him to open his eyes again, lift his head from where it’d fallen back against a pillow. His neck throbs with the motion. He sees a pair of hands - familiar enough that the distortions between his sight now and his memories cannot help but unsettle him - moving steadily with needle and thread through a deep rent in his left calf.

Ah. That would explain that particular discomfort, then.

Viewing the sight on top of feeling the muted, distant sensation it evokes, gives him the perverse and contrarian instinct to kick out and abort the effort of cleaning him up as it’s only partway done - but he recognises well enough that it would be a waste, and even now he isn’t so far gone as that. And he doesn’t want his leg to remain ruined. And to repair it himself now would be… possible, but far more difficult.

All arguments he has to pull out in front of his mind’s eye, like a text one might recite, to convince himself not to protest this time; but he does hold himself still, does remain for the time being a silent, compliant patient.

(Not entirely still, he must admit: his eyes follow the tiny shifts in those hands, trying to reconcile the absence of both manicured care, and the unique pattern of callused ridges he had memorised once upon a time. And yet more important, more incorrect when compared to the state he is familiar with: Lan Xichen has never known how to sew.)

(And yet. And yet.)

He presses his lips together as Xichen approaches the completion of the task, drawing the words he resents needing to speak up like pitchers of water from a drying well. They crowd his tongue, sour the inside of his mouth.

"I take it you found me quickly this time, after your target was done with me?"

Lan Xichen starts when he hears his voice, head jumping up and eyes round. Jin Guangyao had not taken him to be so absorbed that he hadn't even noticed him waking, but -

(He should have, perhaps.)

Xichen's expression hardens into something resigned after that, the dam holding back a great dredged mass of displeasure. Pain and anger in a hundred or more shades, silt and loam and sand.

"You tore apart the gravesites of three prominent clans, scattering the bones, and then did the same with the bodies of their living families when they came to drive out the robbers who defiled their ancestors' remains. The entire village has been terrified since last night. The news was not difficult to follow."

Jin Guangyao resists the urge to close his eyes, staring down the spray of blood to his face with the same dispassion he once used to with regularity. He is out of practise, however: he can't stop the reflexive flinch in his mouth, or his one remaining hand. It curls stiffly in the blankets pushed to one side of the bed pallet.

It’s not that he hadn't expected something along these lines, from the moment he’d woken up and taken in his surroundings. He hadn’t particularly relished the anticipation of hearing it, and so allowed himself a few moments watching Lan Xichen work in silence before disturbing him, it’s true - but he regrets the pain and exhaustion on Xichen's face and in the set of his shoulders and limbs more than he cares to spend his sympathy on another (inevitable) group of dead strangers.

He glances down at the long column of stitches holding the greying flesh of his leg together around the bone, and wonders which hapless, doomed villager from this new feat of resentful destruction had managed to inflict the injury.

"So it didn't require all that much searching, then. Nobody was angry with you, stealing away with the corpse that had killed all those people instead of burning it?"

"Not enough to express it to me. I imagine it helped that I spent several hours in the interim helping right the disturbed graves, and set wards around several of the neighboring houses," Xichen replies. Stress still lines his eyes, flickering more prominent like a candle flame as he speaks. Reconstructing the sequence of events implied, Jin Guangyao feels a twinge of - something - surprise, or hurt? he can't quite say - that Xichen had apparently seen fit this time to seal him away and then leave him, presumably alone, for some significant time afterward, while he tended to the village. Even though it was presumably an effective distraction, not to mention well-deserved.

"I was intending on returning this afternoon, to add more wards to some of the other houses, and suppress any other spirits roused in the process,” Xichen adds. Half an afterthought, half an explanation.

The emotion, whatever it is, crystallizes into a spike of irritation. "Temporary wards aren't going to be enough to turn away a determined corpse-raiser of this strength if he has unfinished vendettas against anybody left there," replies Jin Guangyao, snappish.

Lan Xichen’s lips thin. "I would still prefer to comfort some of their fears, however unrealistically, in the time before the problem has been solved, than leave them with no help or explanation at all after such a loss."

Jin Guangyao knows this. Agrees with it, even; it had been one of many principles they shared in the nighthunts they used to investigate. If Lan Xichen is frustrated at having to reiterate such a thing to him specifically, rather than in general, it doesn't show amidst everything else on his face.

He does stand though, turning away from the bed, tucking the medical supplies he’d been using back into their pouch and going to check on an iron kettle perched over a fire.

“Where are we?” Jin Guangyao asks, preferring the abrupt change of subject to a continuation of the prior topic. Xichen glances back at him - not for long.

“The abandoned house of one of the walking corpses I suppressed a few months ago,” he replies. He pours hot water into a skin, tying it off, and then another steaming portion into a tea pot - drab by Gusu Lan standards, but still likely worth more than the entire roof they’re under. “Don’t get up on that leg yet; you’ll split it open.”

Silence clouds between them, as Jin Guangyao stops shifting his way toward the edge of the bed pallet and lets the leg stretch out in front of him, holding back his weight against his arm. His fingers itch.

He’s asked Lan Xichen before, how long he’s been living like this, although not in those terms; and Lan Xichen has responded only with obvious deflections, despite giving perfectly cogent answers to less savory questions, such as how he’s managed to take a room at an inn with a resentment-spilling corpse in tow. There are many people in need with no one else to turn to throughout the countryside. A simple glamour works well enough when neither the inkeep nor other patrons are cultivators. Spending nights at the house left abandoned after a prior nighthunt certainly sidesteps the minor inconveniences of the latter, but leaves him even less sanguine about the former.

Would you rather neither of you were here at all, and in all likelihood even more people were dead? his own mind poses snidely, while he sits and watches Lan Xichen putting the hot compress over his lower leg, manually drawing up the blood in his body toward the region. He sips the cup of medicinal brew pressed into his hands, despite strong doubt in its capacity to do anything now for him in particular.

When he can acutely feel the spiritual energy circulating through his through him - pushed by Xichen’s intent and core, urging tissue to repair itself in the same way it would in a living body - Jin Guangyao finally admits the need to push on the issue of what they both have surely understood by now.

“I need to come with when you leave,” he says. He doesn’t make it a suggestion.

Lan Xichen closes his eyes, and Jin Guangyao’s still heart seems to squeeze like a vise. Go back to Gusu! he wants to yell; fuck the villagers, and fuck whatever further bloody deaths he won’t be conscious enough to care about causing.

Lan Xichen only nods, like it pains him. “Yes. I suppose you do.”

[captain--sif]

Object Impermanence for Beginners

Words: 1.3k Fandom: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Julie Molina & Reggie Peters, Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters Characters: Julie Molina, Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms) Additional Tags: Object Impermanence, Ghost Shenanigans, Dumbasses (affectionate), Forgetting that they're ghosts, Hanging Out, Inside jokes Summary:

Being in a band that's three fourth ghosts can be pretty fun, Julie has to admit.

Sure,  there's the whole object impermanence thing they still struggle with, but for the most part, once you get used to having them around, it becomes surprisingly easy to forget that her bandmates are not, in fact, human.

Julie tries not to let it become a problem. A/N: for @unholyobsessions as part of the JATP Secret Valentine Exchange. I’m so sorry I’ve only been able to post this now. I had a mental health episode that I did not see coming and kept me from being able to post. I hope you still enjoy this. It’s mainly Julie & Reggie, but some other characters have smaller or bigger appearances. Thanks go to @the-sneering-menagerie  for beta reading this! <3 Read on AO3, on wattpad, or below:

Being in a band that’s three fourth ghosts can be pretty fun, Julie has to admit.

Sure, it’s taken all of them a while to get used to everything that comes along with it, especially her, but Julie thinks that they’re doing a pretty great job by now.

And yeah, there’s the whole object impermanence thing they still struggle with, but for the most part, once you get used to having them around (constantly, as Julie sometimes mourns, but always in good humor), it becomes surprisingly easy to forget that her bandmates are not, in fact, human.

Julie feels like, as the token human member of the band, she’s the only one slipping up on that account. Considering Flynn has been the first and so far only person to point it out to her, it’s safe to assume that the boys haven’t even noticed. For the sake of all of their sanity, she promises Flynn to work on it, but, even though Julie has always preferred music to maths, she still knows that the odds of her succeeding converge to zero.

In Julie’s defense: When she’s lounging on the couch in the music room, essentially mirroring Reggie’s position next to her, both of them listening to what Luke and Alex are working on while Reggie browses through a magazine and Julie scrolls through her Instagram feed, it’s easy to forget that they’re not the same. It’s very easy to get fooled by the mundanity they fell into.

Once Julie registers what just happened, she doesn’t even remember what Reggie said, only that it was funny, and that she had offered him a high five in response, as well as the tingling sensation going through her arm when he’d tried to reciprocate her gesture. The two of them keep staring at their hands and the point in the air where they failed to connect, wondering where their high five went wrong.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Reggie says drily and Julie bursts into laughter.

It’s not that funny, but Reggie joins in after a beat and they don’t stop laughing until long after Alex and Luke stopped playing and share a worried look over the state of their friends.

When she’s thinking about it later, the failed high five serves as a calming reminder that Julie’s not alone in this.

It also helps that it keeps happening.

The day is windy and cold, clouds slowly darkening overhead and making Julie believe it’ll probably start raining soon.

All in all, not the best weather conditions. For a human, that is. Reggie next to her doesn’t seem bothered in the least.

Which is good, Julie thinks to herself, as he may have decided against keeping her company otherwise, quickly poofing back into the warmth of the studio, leaving her cold and alone, instead of just cold.

“What’s wrong?” Reggie asks then, causing her to subconsciously wrap her thin cardigan more tightly around her shoulders.

“Oh you’re cold,” he realizes, stripping off his leather jacket, “you can have my jacket if you want.”

Julie furrows her brows as he proceeds to cautiously drape it over her shoulders, only for it to softly float down towards the ground, as if Julie was made of air. Well, no. It’s the jacket that’s made of air.

“That was unexpected,” Julie quips, lacing her words with teasing irony, startling a laugh out of Reggie.

Picking his jacket off the ground, he crosses his arm defensively.

“How was I supposed to know that my jacket is a ghost too?”

This time, it is kind of funny.

Her dad only lifts an eyebrow in question when he comes to retrieve her, soaked through but giddy with laughter. Reggie responds with a smug smile, for once both of them aware that Ray won’t be able to see it.

Other times, it isn’t quite as funny.

Like the time when they’re backstage at one of the bigger venues (those that Julie is afraid to ask how Flynn got them to play at), where there’s a lot of people, but the corridors are still empty.

Julie’s been making music her whole life, been backstage more times than she can count, but the bigger venues never stopped being a little terrifying.

The boys are poofing in and out of rooms and corridors, their curiosity knowing no bounds, their movements not limited by having to be granted access to pass. It’s fun hearing what they discover, small and big practice rooms, signed posters on the walls, rare instruments collecting dust under protective coverings. She wishes she could see it herself.

But mostly, she wishes that Flynn were walking with her to keep her company in these dimly lit corridors with the sickly artificial lights while the boys disappeared in discovery. Still, she wasn’t about to ask them not to. She wants that info of what’s hiding behind the closed doors just as much as them. She can handle some weirdly lit concert hall hallways on her own.

But then Reggie poofs back in next to her with the words, “Alex thinks we should take turns staying with you because you seem uncomfortable.” and Julie exhales.

“The hallways are a little creepy,” she admits, shrugging.

Reggie nods. “Don’t be scared. I’m right here,” he says, and Julie has to admit that she feels better having someone by her side.

Then he adds: “I’m gonna protect you.”

Julie says nothing, just clears her throat, careful not to make him self-conscious.

“I did it again, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.” She smiles at him. “For what it’s worth, I do feel safer with you here. Even if you can’t protect me.”

They stay quiet for a while, just walking past the doors that lead to the other practice and storage rooms, listening to the echo of their steps on the linoleum floor.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Reggie asks, and Julie gets the feeling that he’s been stewing on that for a while.

“The ghost thing?” she says, “Uh, yeah.”

“That too.” He shrugs. “But I don’t really mind it. Of all the supernatural beings that could exist and that we could be, ghosts are kinda chill.” There’s a small smile playing around his lips now. Julie nods along.

“We’re still together, and we met you, so that’s cool. We adapted quickly, and so have you, but…”

She turns her head to a surprisingly quiet Reggie, a contemplative look on his face.

“Sometimes you still slip up and forget what it means to be a ghost?” Julie prompts, searching. Finally, she sighs. “Me too.”

Reggie sways in her direction. Julie draws her eyebrows together, then laughs.

“Was that supposed to be a shoulder bump?”

Reggie covers his face with his hands a little too forcefully for it not to have hurt. If ghosts feel that kind of pain.

“Yes, it was.” He sighs exasperatedly. “Why does that happen to us?”

“I think,” Julie says, “that it happens to remind us that you still have unfinished business you have to get to.” More quietly, “And to remind me that I won’t be able to keep you forever.”

“That’s sad,” Reggie says.

Julie shrugs noncommittally. “It’s life, I guess.”

“And death, in our case,” Reggie adds.

That puts a reluctant smile on Julie’s face. “And death, in your case.”

“Do you think that if we just never do our unfinished business, the four of us could stay together?”

“That would be nice.” Julie sways towards Reggie, imitating his earlier shoulder bump.

Reggie answers with a grin.

That’s when a tingling sensation through her whole body causes Julie to stumble. Once she’s caught herself, she looks towards Reggie, who fell a few steps back, now half-obscured by the body he ran into. She recognizes the pink sweater.

“We didn’t aim well,” Alex apologizes.

Julie concludes that she must have walked through Luke then, turning in the direction she expects him to be in.

“You okay?” She finds herself looking up to worry etched onto his face and a hand outstretched to steady her.

A hand outstretched to steady her.

Her gaze flits to Reggie, only to see that his eyes have caught it too. He lifts his eyes to meet hers and god, does she wish they had a better reason to burst into laughter.

AO3. Wattpad.

[noctisfishing]

2020 Wrap-Up and 2021 Wishes

I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to do this or not, but I decided, why not? Even though this year was pretty wild for everyone in various ways, I want to celebrate my writing progress and accomplishments, and share with you what I wish for in 2021.

I’ve already posted a similar post on Reddit, although this one has a more detailed breakdown and includes my fic titles! I won’t link any of the fics mentioned, but you can visit my FFN or AO3 pages to find them. You can also click through my Welcome Post or find them all listed here (if you’re on desktop) (*every project I talk about can be found somewhere on my Tumblr :D)

Click below for some nice Fic Stats!! (mostly wordcounts and rambling!!)

Preview: I wrote a good amount of words, got some nice progress on some long fics, churned out dozens of ficlets!! Plus: What’s on my fic mind for 2021, and a short bit about other personal wins.

Before I ramble with numbers, I think we can all agree that we should say goodbye to 2020 this way:

Now, the numbers you’ll see are close approximations to how much I’ve written this year. I’m including works that I’ve published on AO3, FFN, Tumblr, and Reddit, and also works unpublished (and will post probably next year).

So, here it is:

Total Wordcount: 107,662 words!

Dang, I wrote a lot more than I thought. I think there was one year that I wrote 200,000 in a year and I’ve always set that number as my standard. But I’m still pretty happy with this year’s number! I think I’ll make 100K my “soft goal” for 2021 given how topsy-turvy life can go but it would be awesome to hit 200K again :)

And now, we break it down:

Completed Works (54,432 words)

2 Multi-Chaptered Fics (10,353 words) 

Both happen to be Sorato! I posted the last chapter of The Sound of His Goodbye back in March (I started the fic late 2019), and I posted all of The Last One Wins towards the end of November. Both gave me reminders earlier and later on in the year that I can complete fics, haha! It’s possible!!! \o/

38 Ficlets/Scenes (19,667 words) 

“Ficlets” don’t typically have a wordcount but are generally less than 1,000 words. I’d have to say that the impact of quitting my job, moving back home, and the pandemic brought on major changes and responsibilities that I had to adapt to. Simpler, smaller scale ideas were easier on my basket case of a mind and kept me writing, and that is most likely why for most of the year my inspiration was more drawn toward different little scenes. I got to write for and explore six new fandoms outside of Digimon which is cool!

When I say “scenes,” I mean those that either didn’t fit in the (slightly) larger works I’ve published, or those for future projects (which technically shouldn’t be counted as “complete” but I had to stick them somewhere :P).

9 One-Shots (24,412 words)

Day 6 Prompt of Takari Week just barely made it to be counted as a One-Shot, but the rest in this category are all Taiora: six for Taiora Week, as well as The Princess and the Dragon, and Colors in Distance. The Color Shot was actually sitting unfinished in my drafts for a few months so I’m glad I found the motivation to finish it before the year’s end. The other fics were inspired by prompts with deadlines - this was the first year I’ve participated and completed those and I’m happy I did them! 

Works in Progress (53,230 words)

I’ve posted one new chapter each for Digital Recovery (4,770 words) and  Tsukiakari (2,292 words) and I had the hope of working more on both of these this year! But you know, this year was tough (see also why I threw so many ficlets at my readers). I had three huge ongoing longfics and I made the decision to set these aside and put my main focus on one of those so as not to overwhelm myself. These fics are mostly planned out. They just need to be written more! We’ve got a long way to go with both of these.

Just One Drink (10,131 words) was.. probably my most popular fic this year, lol. I don’t see this one being too long (I would be surprised if it goes past 50K) but I see myself continue to update this next year. ;) 

And let’s talk about The Spark of Dawn (DoreDore Adventure Part II) (24,316 words). This was my chosen longfic to focus on this year, as evidenced by the wordcount, and even the number of chapters I’ve posted - three with 10,659 words total. This fic also carried me through July’s Camp NaNoWriMo where I reached my word count goal of 12,000 words. I think two chapters from that event ended up being posted, and there are still 13,657 words’ worth of content yet to be published. Overall, I think half of this story has been written out (including the content I haven’t posted yet) but that being said, this fic remains as one of my priorities to finish before moving along to my other WIPs!

Here’s a list of the rest of my unpublished works:

Untitled Taiorato Fic (1,433 words)

More Taiora Snapshots (2,454 words)

The Girl Who Stands Out (7,834 words) - This one is a Mimato, and should show up really soon. ;)

2021 Wishes: My main wish is for me to *keep writing*!

I’m already making some pretty elaborate spreadsheets for myself to help track my personal writing and reader stats. Hopefully they help motivate me in my writing progress in 2021! 

Toward the end of the year, I felt the need to “clear out” my plot bunnies folder and realized that fics from few ideas weren’t going to be as long as I initially thought. That’s where The Last One Wins came from, as well as The Girl Who Stands Out. I think once the latter is all written out, I will work more on DoreDore and see where it goes.

I want to tackle my “Write Your Melody” prompts, because since I’ve written them I feel obligated to. XD I’m sure there will be room for more ficlets and one-shots in next year’s endeavors; while it’s ideal to work on one big longfic until it’s done, I know for a fact that I’ll need writing breaks along the way.

Other Personal Wins (Not Writing-Related): This year, left a job and living situation that took a toll on my mental health. I also started to learn R and SQL programming languages. I was asked to be a moderator of one of my favorite communities! I made new friendships and a few of my friendships grew. And I found joy and comfort in things I hadn’t been able to in years’ past. I had a fair share of rough moments this year, but looking back at my small wins gave me reminders of the good I have. <3 

If you made it to the end of this post, GO YOU. I’m optimistic that next year will bring more good things. I hope to continue remembering to take time to breathe and rest, and keep talking to my friends and loved ones. Many of my wishes are for long-term goals/projects in general, but rather than setting year-end deadlines, I want to focus on just working on them, my efforts varying between chipping away at them little by little, or hardcore-drop-everything-and-spend-the-weekend.

Anyway, thank you for reading! I wish you all the best as we head toward a new year. <3

[tisfan]

State of the Fics 2019

The WIPS and Dead Ends Edition

So: having recently had a few discussions with some fellow authors and talking about other writers and stuff... here is where I’m going to answer some/most/all of the MOARPLZ requests.

I have 440+ works on A03 and a lot of what I hear is MOARPLZ or “is there going to be any more of this...”

So, I’m kinda going through my list right now and letting you know what my plans are for 2020 and what, if anything, you can count on to see more of, and what is, in fact, truly over. If you don’t see a fic that you love and want to know more about it, feel free to ask me. 

Take Note and RSVP - every once in a while, we get asked about this story. This was my first jaunt into the fic world, and it’s unfinished. We lost our Steve writer because of some Fandom Drama (you can blame some stans who accused us of plagiarizing a fic we’d never read who continually attacked us until the stress just made it not worth the effort of finishing.)

Solar Powered Soldiers was my first solo effort. This fic, as far as I’m concerned, pretty much sucks. It was meant to be a Steve/Bucky fic, ended up with the only smut scene as a Nat/Clint piece, and didn’t really have a satisfactory ending. I am not likely to ever go back and fix this.

Steve of Oz was supposed to be mostly smutty foray into exploring Steve as the Avengers Bike. The plan was basically for him to end up having sex with literally everyone, while in a Wizard of Oz setting. Never happened, didn’t get much response to it. 

Lost in the Shadows Every once in a while, I get someone who asks me about this AU. Talk about your niche markets! On the other hand, I love me some ShadowRun, so I have not closed down the idea of writing more on this AU... 

So, here’s a fun thing: This particular AU is what’s been requested by my Marvel Trumps Hate winner, so, I’ll be writing a dragon-level event story for this, some 27 - 30,000 words. You ready, chummer?

The Communal Kitchen AU We have a few half-complete stories in this series; Vol 3, the Mating Habits of Hero Birds, a vague outline of a Team NuclearWinter side piece, and a couple of smut pieces that never got written. I may yank the sex pollen scene from Vol 3 out and post it as a stand-alone. We’ll see. If there’s interest in any of this, maybe we’ll come back to it. (I am currently re-reading the whole series, because honestly, I write the fic I want to read, and so I re-read my own stuff rather a lot.)

Anything involving Phil Coulson and Clint Barton - while I still ship this couple, and I’ll read stuff about them, I’ve pretty much given up writing them. Between Agents of SHIELD and everything with Clint starting in, say Age of Ultron forward, I just... don’t feel it anymore? Which does include the started and never finished Coulson’s Final Case 

Next Thursday Night - huh, I’d honestly forgotten about this fic. maybe i’ll revisit it this year upcoming... somewhere I think I have an outline.

Subject to PunTax - I love puns, and this story is very formulaic. I pick a topic, make up 5-7 puns on the subject, wrap a story around it and tie a bow with a suggestive pick up line. So, I leave this open to continue, the next time I’m feeling Punny.

Bucky Barnes has Kittens - Bucky as the crazy cat lady writer with bad anxiety. I’ve had a lot of people tell me this story has been great for them, dealing with Bucky’s anxiety issues. I do have more story ideas for this ‘verse, including Bucky finding out that Steve is also a writer and dealing with that. Decidedly On the List.

Eight Arms to Hold You - I have a handful of extra stories for these. Some of them went up on Tumblr for tentacletober... generally speaking, any mermaid fic of mine is subject to a continuation because MERMAIDS and OCTOBUCKY

All American Road Trip confession time here: I stopped writing this fic because of some anti-tonys who kept popping in my comments for this fic to rant about Tony Stark in a fic that was NOT ABOUT TONY. I’ve deleted all their comments, but they were nasty, and I stopped wanting to write for people who were being so abusive to Tony (and honestly, that much bile spilling in my comments, I don’t care who it’s about, it makes me sad) Like, they liked the Fic (steve/sam/bucky) but... eeeh, whatevs. I didn’t feel like dealing with it, and I’m not going to.

Also Prey - One of my more popular pieces, I reserve the right to add more to it when I’m in a fluff mood.

Kiss me Through the Phone - I wrote this with @27dragons and I have about... half a plan for a third chapter called Your Dirty Little Secret. So, with some encouragement, that could happen.

The Truth is Who You Are - my BDSM with religious song lyrics fic; this stuff is really emotional for me, and while I do have 2-3 more pieces planned, they take me a while to write and they knock the shit out of me while I’m doing it. There’s a lot of Tony working through his self-hatred that just... it’s deep. So... there will be more, it just... might be Some Time. 

The Killer and the Kid - this is literally my most popular piece. I get a MOAR PLZ ask on this at least once a month. I have been saying for a while I’m not planning any more of this, but I did offer it as an incentive for the Marvel Trumps Hate auction. This particular fic will ONLY BE WRITTEN for a charitable donation. 

Joyride - I’ve written a couple of addons for this fic loosely titled Bundle of Joy. They’re not quite Done Yet, but when I get there, I’ll be posting that.

Nights in Sandbridge - our most popular series, and I love these boys so much here. We have no major plans to continue, but if something strikes us, we may. 

WinterIron Pickup - a short story that spawned a second chapter. I have some ideas for continuing this, but it’s fallen by the wayside as I write other things.

What Good is the Sky - this piece is so angsty, and I keep getting requests to do moar of it. Trust me, you don’t want that, it will END BADLY. and I will cry a LOT.

Off the Menu - I really do have a LOT more of this story in my head. I just don’t know when I’m going to get around to it.

Bucky Barnes Prom CYOA this was SO HARD to format that I just gave up on it. I may come back and redo this as a few “completed” stories? 

Phoning it In - I do, in fact, have a few more of this AU in mind, I just lost a bit of the shiny after an amazing fucking against the sofa smut scene. So, there might be more of this in your future (also I kept expecting it to win March Madness, so I-- didn’t get back ‘round to it?)

A Poor Reflection - never got finished. Not sure why, I had the whole damn thing plotted out. Where is my outline??

The Enhancile War Series - mostly to play with the trope of naked girl in a box, this series originally had four plotted stories, but we just could NOT get the fourth story to GO anywhere, even pushing on it really, really hard.

Any Old Music Will Do - I have a plot outline for this one, with Bucky and Tony forming the core of the Defenders, along with Luke and Jessica, but I don’t know what I did with it... anyway, there’s more ideas here. a bit.

Indispensable we had a plot idea for a sequel and I actually think we wrote about 15000 words or so on it, but-- meh, it ended up not being very interesting. If we come up with some actual plot, then maybe?

Park(s) and Wreck(ed) - I have some more ideas for this as Tony and Bucky get their sexy on all over the office.

Stark, Naked - we did, in fact, do a sequel to this, which was rather short, but well-received. Not much ideas here for anything else, but we like this version of them, so if we get good prompts, we might be tempted to take up the reigns again.

Land After Time - We get a LOT of requests for Moar of this. If we had ANY FUCKING CLUE what was going on, we might. but we really, really don’t

We Can’t Eat That (It’s Dead) - I actually have an entire plot for this, on who the dead guy is and what happened...  I could be encouraged.

Forever Home - we wrote a full length sequel to this, but weirdly enough, it WASN’T the original sequel we’d sort of talked about. which means there’s potentially a third story here... (maybe a 4th one, too)

Excuse me, I think You Have My Suitcase - the further adventures of Tony and Bucky in lacy underthings. Yes. The next time I feel like PWP, I plan to revisit.

Dead to Rights - I still really like this idea... I just didn’t get as much traction from the Umbrella Academy fandom as I would have liked. Probably because most of my writer friends are Not Into It, which doesn’t give me many people to bounce ideas off 

New York: Become Human - there’s a LOT more story here to tell... maybe we’ll tell it.

Rejoice in the Sun - I started writing this fairly soon after Endgame, when I had a lot of feels, but between the absolute outpouring of hatred about that movie from the fandom. seriously, y’all were going all Annie Wilkes up in the house to the point that I put Endgame back on BLACKLIST to get away from the seething bile... it got really hard to enjoy post endgame content, and I got sick, too, so... that didn’t help any.

Once a Knight - Witch Bucky and Knight Tony... we have some more plot for this...

No Job Too Small - I think I even have another chapter of this WRITTEN. And some more plotted out. Tony and tiny children. What could go wrong?

(D)rift Away - Bigger Better Bugspray... what happens when the Rifters come back? There might be more of this, once I work out some plot. And honestly, stop getting distracted by the damn @heamarvel prompts.

The Door into Winter - I have a whole story for this, still working on it

Learning to Work Together (Good Omens) - we have some more feels for this, so possibly, if we can put plot together.

Pretty much everything else i’m posting in progress is still going strong, Blueberries, Hell Charger, Can’t Help you Fix Yourself, Reclamation, Draco Malfoy and the Rune... and I have a couple of other collabs with other people that are... bogged down with details right now.

We’ve got a couple of stories headed your way from the Marvel HEA Hallmark challenge, including what may well be my new favorite: Buck Barnes Got Married. We also wrote a Cyber Punk AU with companion Tony as an excuse to dress Tony up in skimpy outfits.

So, that’s like the general status of Old Fic... and having ideas is not the same as finding the time to sit down and WRITE them, especially since New Ideas are attacking me at the same time, honestly.

[bittykimmy13]

Gallery Walk (GT) (Part 1/2)

This is prompt from the 100 (GT) Themes Challenge. Feel free to send a number/word from the list for me to write about, and a specific character to go along with it, if you like!

This is the 8th installment of An Extra Roommate! Introducing Zoe!

Here are the other prompts that I’ve filled for the challenge!

Cassandra's heart fluttered with a sense of trepidation that never quite eased when she was away from her nook. There was something particularly nervewracking about being in Zoe's room, though the borrower found herself returning to it for the third time that week.

The room was cluttered as ever--a borrower's dream, as far as hiding places and knickknacks to claim. The bed existed in a permanent state of unmade with the sheets tossed haphazardly atop it, and the desk was cluttered with sketchbooks and crumpled papers, which only left the floor free for art projects in need of drying.

Lily had been the one to suggest that Cassandra visit Zoe's room if she was bored--but only while the dorm was completely empty, of course. And bored Cassandra was. She was stocked up with plenty of supplies and food.

She would be picking way through perishables for the next few days, which meant she didn't have borrowing to occupy her time. She didn't want to read, either; it was much more enjoyable to share a novel with Lily.

So while the humans were away at their classes, Cassandra had taken to exploring--something she never would have seen herself doing for fun until Lily inspired the confidence in her.

"She's a great artist, you know," Lily had said offhandedly just last week. "If you're ever in the mood to stretch your legs, it'd be worth checking out her stuff. Just don't step on anything--she'll notice."

That wasn't surprising, as Zoe seemed quite protective of her projects. Even before noting Lily's warning, Cassandra had overheard commotion more than once: Zoe shooing her friends away from her bedroom and slamming the door shut, exclaiming that her paint was still wet, or her project was unfinished.

It almost felt like a particularly risky adventure, getting to see what the girls of the dorm were barred from.

It proved to be a nice distraction, too.

Cassandra returned to her home only once since discovering Vince had rifled through her storage, along with the note claiming he wanted to return to her. She wouldn't have returned if she could help it, but all her things were down there. There was no need to bring any food, Lily said. Only her other essentials--clothes, climbing gear, bags.

The hope was that if Vince returned, he would see her belongings gone and think she had abandoned the space in the walls for good. The food was all his if he wanted it. Though resolute in her decision, Cassandra's stomach did backflips while she had retrieved her things, terrified that Vince would be waiting for her or would show up while she was clearing the place out.

He didn't show, but that didn't stop her from thinking over and over what he would say if she found out she was moving her belongings to the bottom shelf of Lily's bookcase.

There was no telling how long the setup would last. Lily assured Cassandra that she was more than welcome to stay as long as Lily was still living in the dorm. With winter break months away, they had time to sort things out.

For now, Cassandra was content enough living behind a stack of books on the shelf. The space didn't feel quite as homey as she was used to. The books could be used to create barriers, she supposed--something to divide her makeshift bed from her storage area--but she felt embarrassed at the thought of asking Lily to accommodate her any further. She was doing Cassandra a kindness enough by sharing her room.

Cassandra shook those thoughts away and focused instead on seeing how Zoe's work was coming along.

A thick sheet lay upon the carpet, along with several cups of all sizes containing murky water. Two sets of watercolor palettes lay beside the sheet, some pans still damp.

"Wow," Cassandra breathed, leaning over the painting while being careful not to disturb it.

Up close, it wasn't easy to distinguish the deep green forest that Zoe had painted, but even so, Cassandra was thoroughly impressed by the detail that had been added since she'd last visited. She needed a higher vantage point, and luckily the bed had proved to be perfect during her previous venture.

No sooner than she'd started unwinding her climbing rope, a noise came from the main area of the dorm that made her flinch back violently--straight into one of the smaller containers.

Water sloshed across the corner of the sheet, staining across the dark forest floor like an unexpected flood.

Cassandra clamped a hand over her mouth, eyes darting over the mess she'd made while a human voice floated from the front entrance of the dorm. It was Lily.

"Can't believe Jones let us out early!" There was an awkward tightness to Lily's voice. It was a warning to Cassandra to hide quickly if she was out and about in the kitchen or living room.

"Uh… yeah," came Zoe's reply, though she didn't pursue Lily's strange tone. "Anyway, naptime for me. Wake me when before noon, huh?"

"Sure thing," Lily answered as Cassandra scrambled to hide under Zoe's bed. There was no way she could sneak past, not with Zoe's footsteps already beginning to tremor through the floor as she approached her room.

Ducking behind the nearest leg of the bed, Cassandra squeezed her eyes shut. The door swung open, and the ground gave a particularly frightening shake as Zoe flung her bag carelessly to the corner. Before Cassandra could begin to hope that the human would simply lay down and fall asleep, Zoe gave a strangled gasp.

Cassandra dared to peek out from the shadows, her blood turning to ice when she saw Zoe's gaze was pointed in her general direction.

But she was looking at her ruined painting.

The human's short black hair seemed to curl at the tips as she stared, her burgundy-painted lips forming a perfect 'o'. Her eyes went from glazed with shock, to glowing like blue flames.

She whirled on her heel. "Who's been in my room!" Her shout made Cassandra cover her ears and whimper. The angrier the human got, the faster she spoke, sentences running into each other. "Who's been in--I'm going to kill--do you have any idea how long it took me to--Lily!"

Lily had already strode into Cassandra's view, standing just shy of the doorway and looking wide-eyed. "Shh! What's going on?"

"I left earlier than you," Zoe seethed. "Did you see Amelie or Nat go into my room? M-my painting--there's water all over--someone spilled--"

"Calm down!" Lily advised, stepping over to see what the fuss was about. She frowned at the painting, and perhaps it was because she had gotten so used to seeking out Cassandra, her eyes landed on the borrower peeking out from behind her hiding place almost immediately.

Even after weeks and weeks of knowing her, Cassandra felt a thrill of fear race through her veins when Lily spotted her on the ground.

They shared a brief look, Cassandra's heart pounding away while tears tickled the corners of her eyes. She ducked away swiftly in case Zoe followed Lily's line of sight.

"Well?" Zoe demanded. "Did you see--"

"I-I… I did it," Lily croaked.

"You… what--what were you doing in my room?" Zoe snapped, and Cassandra could just imagine her eyes widening furiously.

Lily stammered for a few seconds before settling on her story. "I c-couldn't find Slaughterhouse Five, I thought you had borrower--borrowed it, so I came in. I didn't see the cup. I thought it was just a few drops and that it would dry up without leaving a mark, I swear."

With a snarl, Zoe stalked off, maybe to calm down before she ripped her best friend limb from limb. Whatever the case, the ground shook with the approach of a human, making Cassandra nearly jump out of her skin.

"C'mon, c'mon, Cassie," Lily breathed.

The shadows around Cassandra darkened as a giant hand presented itself beside her. She didn't think twice about scrambling aboard, holding tight to Lily's ring finger as she swept her off the ground.

Before Lily got halfway through a whispered, "Are you okay?", Zoe's voice sliced through the air like a knife.

"Why are you still in here?" she demanded angrily, storming back into the room. "You're going to ruin something else--"

Lily let out a cry of surprise as Zoe gripped her shoulder and sharply tugged to turn her around. It left her no time to cover Cassandra or hide her away.

In an instant, the room was drenched with an awful silence. Though Cassandra had her head down while she cowered against Lily's fingers, she was very much aware that she was exposed. The room around her darkened as Lily's other hand draped over her, but it was too late.

The other human had seen her.

[vampirewalterskinner]

Do you have any tips for writing fanfics? Or writing in general?

I have a few, and I’m flattered af that you would ask me!

1. Just write. Seriously. Just write whatever you want to. You don’t have to post it or fix grammatical errors or any of that, just write. I spent a good chunk of four years just writing on paper or on my phone and only shared the fics with my friends. That got me used to the flow of writing and what to expect when I write and loosens you up. (Plus, my writing from when I first started to now is SO much better, and I still have a long way to go, which is okay!!! I’m proud of my progress and you should be too!)

2. Don’t be afraid to share your work and have someone critique it for you. Honestly my writing would be SO much better if I let someone do that, but I’m super insecure so I don’t. I encourage you to at LEAST share some of your writing with a friend or two and ask them if they have questions about it. That’s an easy way for them to bring up problems in your work that need to be looked at without insulting you, and it makes you feel better to explain your work and understand how the reader interprets your fic. ALSO!!!! I find that I ADORE when people ask me questions about what I’m writing because then I know people are interested and invested in my story! So it’s really a win-win!

3. After writing a one-shot or a chapter, don’t look at it for a few days. Become unfamiliar with it, so when you go back to edit, you read it as a READER not a writer. Sometimes what you try to convey doesn’t exactly come out on paper, and you don’t even notice it until later when you read it yourself. This is also the time I use to edit spelling mistakes and the like.

4. Embrace shitty fanfiction. The amount of fiction I have written is astounding (literally 200 unfinished fics on my flashdrive) and I can tell you only like five of those are even worth reading. Guess what? That’s still okay!!! Every time you write you improve! All of those crappy fanfics brought me to the point I’m at now! It’s really exactly like an artist drawing every day every year and gradually improving. Writing is an art form, after all.

5. Read!!! Read novels and comics and manga and and fanfiction written by thousands of authors from all different periods. Through this you’ll see different writing styles and themes and amazing characters and their unique personalities. One of my favorites to read is Water For Elephants. An amazingly descriptive novel that I aspire to obtain in my own writing.

6. Along with reading, analyze the crap outta whatever you read and even watch on tv! If you’re good at analyzing you’ll be good at writing. Note little things characters do. Watch how they speak to one another. For instance: Shawn Spencer from Psych. Shawn is a character notorious for being over the top and ridiculous and childish. Why does he act this way? It is revealed in multiple episodes that he’s ashamed of being smart and hides his intelligence with a ridiculous and flashy show of stupidity. Take Adrian Monk from Monk: since episode one they had him sleeping on the left side of the bed, leaving an empty space on the right, and never sleeps in the middle. Why? That’s where his wife used to sleep before she was killed by a car bomb. Characters have reason and motive behind everything they do just like real people.

7. Research! Very important. While writing for Guzma I had to do extensive research on many things. Such as: why someone would want to cut their thighs, chronic depression and other disorders, and the affects alcohol has on an alcoholic AND how it interferes with depression. Research also helps you avoid offensive stereotypes! Another way to do research besides google is speak to someone involved in what you’re writing. Ask if you can question an current/ex alcoholic about what it is like to have that addiction. Ask someone who is disabled how they take care of themselves and the terms for prosthetics/wheelchairs/etc. Make sure to ask if you CAN ask them a question first, though. Never assume that they are willing.

8. Get the app Dictionary.com. It’s a blessing bc not only is it a dictionary, but it’s also a thesaurus. It’s incredibly helpful.

9. If you have the time, take prompts! Tumblr is full of people eager for fanfic content and they’re always ready to give a prompt to those willing to write.

10. Give yourself time. If you get bored with what you’re writing, take a breather. Your writing suffers if you continue to write when you don’t want to and it takes all the fun out of it. Don’t force yourself.

11. Buy self help books! If you want to become a writer like me, this is something that should be done. Buy a book about how to create complex characters and dynamic dialogue, it will help you for years to come. If you are only writing for fun, however, you probably won’t want to shell out 15-20 bucks on a book about writing. So this one you can take or leave depending on your situation.

12. Plan out the plot. It really does help. I avoid doing that and it only causes me problems. I recently planned out 32 chapters and now I know exactly how I want Alone and Hunted to end! I don’t have to worry about whether or not the next chapter will fit along with the story, because everything is planned out for me.

Sorry this got long!!! These are only a few I could think of lol. I could honestly ramble on forever about this. Good luck to you!!!

[missunitwocents]

What Lies Between

You have to admire Steve Sammartino’s optimism. His The Great Fragmentation is a welcome paeon to micro-, small- and medium sized businesses (MiSMEs), which are the proportional giants of our and the world’s economy. Sammartino, like the rest of us, can see the economic shift from mass produced industrialisation to personalisation which is being pushed along rapidly by the broad availability of mobile phones, technology platforms, 3D printing, and innovative logistics solutions.

Startups Meicai and Naturally Vietnam, for example, knock down food security concerns and ‘middleman’ costs for small-scale farmers and restaurants by summoning and organising locally available minivan and motorbike drivers as couriers. We can all celebrate examples like these, and think of a host of others that belong to our local community.

But Sammartino’s optimism is broader than examples, with him declaring that the future is writ in the fragmentation of industries, and that this fragmentation will provide some redress to economic inequality. I can’t match that optimism, and not simply because I—like Sammartino—have read Piketty’s Capital in the Twentieth-Century and its older and more famous namesake and see the historical evidence against the idea that the world wealth gap is closing.

My wariness stems from wondering whether we have summoned all of the capabilities that we need to help micro-, small and medium-sized businesses to perform at their best. I wonder this because I am not sure universities have pulled education enough into the picture of innovation, or at least thought about education as flexibly as might be the case in the innovation pipeline.

I applaud the work that universities around the world are doing to support early stage innovation translation. We have a pretty good handle on the length of time and the financial support that might be needed to take an idea to market. Supporting people’s early-stage ideas with funding, mentoring and access to much needed services such as market research therefore makes a great deal of sense. But early backing is not the only reason startups fail, and of course technology and biopharma startups only make up a tiny fraction of what is predominantly a ‘bricks and mortar’ sector. It hardly needs to be restated that agribusiness, retail and consumer services make up the lion’s share of small business activity around the world.

Why MiSMEs fail has been the subject of much discussion, with structural barriers such as regulation or insolvency law not keeping up with new business models, lack of engagement with local communities—including Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples—or the difficulties operators have in securing financing, assuring supply-chain reliability and security, and IP protection. Meta-analyses, however, are few and far between, and many focus on technology startups rather than other small business types.

What meta analyses we do have suggest that upskilling could be as much of a problem as regulation, access to financial resources or logistics. Indeed, an absence of skills in dealing with those issues could be a key cause of small business failure.

An interesting example of a meta-analysis from the March 2016 edition of the Journal of Small Business Management drives home the value of concepts like ‘entrepreneurial self- efficacy (ESE)’ as a good predictor of business failure and success. ESE is, in basic terms, belief in one’s capability to marshal all the resources and capabilities needed to get a job done. Both too little and too much belief without justification can cripple innovation, and the suggested remedy is the more widespread provision of entrepreneurial education.

That’s a difficult ask if you don’t think you need it, or you don’t have the confidence to ask for it.

The former may be the bigger issue if we see our economy and those of China and the US as ineluctably headed in the direction of the era of the ‘overqualified, under-utilised and poorly paid’. The overqualified, we assume, won’t see themselves as needing any help.

‘Overqualified’ is a question-begging term. It expects a causality between a professional degree and a profession, for example, at a time when those professions are being stripped down and reshaped by what some are calling an informatics revolution. It also fails to acknowledge the general applicability of skills and proficiencies beyond a one-job horizon. Law is just one example of a professional area on the front line of those changes.

But my bigger issue is that the criticism is focused on the content of the degrees completed, rather than on the seemingly fixed and ahistorical structure of qualifications themselves, and our need to think about a suite of educational approaches to support business success.

The idea of a bachelor degree is about 800 years old. That idea has changed over time, but it is at present a relatively stable global phenomenon expressed in a 3–5 year length and majors and minors. This idea is codified both formally and informally in qualifications frameworks, legislation, and in funding agreements.

Yet the idea of a bachelor degree might be unravelling at the edges. Outside of universities, spinoffs such as Udacity and edX have coined and even trademarked terms such as ‘nanodegree’ and ‘micromasters’. We should not be concerned about the rise of an exotic zoo of new micro qualifications types and hack school pedagogies, including badges. We should be more firmly part of it, as firmly as mentoring in innovation programs. An export industry worth as much as ours should be ahead of the curve, not following long after it. It seems strange to me that our research can fuel deep machine learning, new models of logistics and new product materials and yet the containers we use to support the passing on of those innovations are thought of in such fixed terms.

I am not suggesting that people walking away from unfinished bachelor degrees is a good thing, or that bachelor degrees have zero worth. But I do wonder whether our diploma to doctorate array provides the personalised, lifelong support that our MiSME innovators need. Bachelor degrees might be too ‘once in a liftetime’, badges too small and MOOCs too lacking in recognition at present; our economy might need something in between and it might need different credential types at different times.

It might be that our off the shelf approach to qualifications needs to take a precision, personalised turn—as business is doing—and that our next generation of accelerators should include credential accelerators that produce qualifications innovations that are just as breathtaking, creative and useful as artificial intelligence and personalised immunology.

This blog’s shout-out is to Joan Angel, for her gift of The Great Fragmentation, and to Jenny Gordon, for prompting a deeper conversation on underemployment and the cascading occupancy of jobs by university graduates.