#also the fact that I lost all my files and this all my wips

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

I like getting emails about any of the *checks account* 392 fics I’m currently subscribed to. It distracts me from all the things I haven’t written.

[ravenstargames]

✦ Lost in Limbo Devlog #14 | 12.02.24

And November is over! This month has been filled with paperwork, organizing receipts, and so on, which isn't very fun, but it's part of the job!

We are making great progress with everything overall; merch has been ordered and we have received proof and approved it; our voice actors are already delivering the voiced names y'all paid for during our Kickstarter campaign; and more! Let's see it in detail, shall we? :^)

Our dear Raquel has been working hard (I think I say this every devlog, but damn) on reworking the sprites for the extended demo now that the Special postcards for the Kickstarter are done! For this next batch, she'll be working on Ara and Amon, so here's a WIP of how Ara is looking so far! 💜

I think you can see how her design is already more detailed and cohesive in some areas. We'll most likely ask for feedback when Amon is ready too, to test the waters with both characters like we did with Gael and Xal :^)

The street is coming to life! This background is almost ready thanks to Astro. We'll have four new locations in the Extended Demo to help with the pacing and the introduction of our world and story to (hopefully) make it perfect. Or something close to it!

In the writing department, I've so far added 7000 words to the prologue. We have one flavor choice, two personality choices (and several personality reactions), and three "relationship choices". These basically shape your relationship with Evie in this case. For example, you'll be able to choose if you are intimate friends, are warm to each other, or if you prefer something less physical / touchy. And Evie will remember that!

And this is just so far. While River has a kind of "set" personality, I want people to be able to shape some aspects of their life.

In the writing department I should also include the documents I've provided to our VAs, and to our composer, Tomás. More on that below!

We have a proper help screen! Wohoo! 💜

Now you can enjoy Ren'py's default help screen but looking a bit nicer. This is for those who are not familiar with Ren'py's usual keybindings and stuff :^)

Nothing else on the programming side this month. I've focused on writing the script and that's going to be my main job until I can actually start programming something!

As I said before, our beloved voice actors are already working on the voiced names! In fact, Xal's VA (Francfil Pontañeles) and Pride's (Pat Langner) already recorded them! A little surprise is that we have been able to add our default MC's name, River, as a voiced name. For those of you who want to play with that name, you'll also enjoy some voiced lines!

What else—ah! We are already working with Tomás for our OST, and we have settled in 19 tracks total. Those are even more tracks than we expected! This is thanks to you all, and especially thanks to those of you who ordered more merch via Backerkit. You made those four extra tracks possible!

Our merch has been checked and so far only the pins are missing a preview and therefore our approval. We had to edit some files (beginner's mistake!) but being the first time we do this, I'd say things have been rather smoothly! We'd like to be able to start shipping this month, but it may not be possible. Which is a bummer! But well, we settled in December / January, so January it is, if nothing happens!

(Don't mind the colors being too flashy here—they will look more cohesive in game!)

OH, and the last extra bit! I've been working on the personality choices, as you all know, and Kayden has been helping me make the icons that will appear next to those choices for those who are colorblind. An extra thing to make them pop and differentiate them better! I think they are pretty self-explanatory, and if not, well—that means we have to give those icons a twist!

November has been a chaotic month for me due to the aftermath of the floods and my vacation week. The rest of the team has also had their good amount of irl stuff happening around them, but we've made it! The new year is approaching faster than I thought, as per usual, and I hope we can finish 2024 on a good note!

And that's all! As always, please take care, have fun, and enjoy the rest of the week!

[suzukiblu]

For wip Wednesday Love the vibes of “weird Kryptonian bonding rituals” especially if it’s superfam

. . . I am just gonna blame the fact that I haven't really worked on this WIP in a minute for how "write you three sentences" turned into "write you 1k", cough cough.

Clark gets into Superman's suit and leaves the Daily Planet building at inadvisable speed, probably, but manages not to break the sound barrier anywhere too obvious, he thinks. He follows the sound of that thrumming heartbeat and voice, and finds himself blocks and blocks away, hovering in the air a few hundred feet above a food truck being operated by a woman with dark skin and bright pink hair in her mid-twenties, and the single customer standing on the sidewalk in front of it as assorted civilians pass by in one's and two's.

The single customer is the thrumming heartbeat's owner, and he's about fifteen or sixteen, with pale skin and dark curly hair and bright and eager and inhumanly blue eyes behind a pair of round sunglasses. He's wearing a loose-fitting black leather jacket and heavy black boots and a tight bodysuit, all blue and black and red and yellow and with the exact same "S" on its chest as the one Clark's wearing himself.

The kid looks up, takes one look at Clark, and absolutely lights up.

Clark feels several very new and strange feelings, then charges straight down into the kid and sends them both skidding into the empty street. Hitting him, touching him, is like . . .

Clark barely even remembers to be careful, but the instinct is ingrained too deep to ignore even as they crash into the pavement together.

And then the kid laughs delightedly and throws him off.

Actually throws him.

Clark comes to a stop twenty feet up in the air, blinks down at the kid still beaming up at him, and then bolts back down and smashes him into the pavement again.

"Shit!" the food truck worker shrieks in alarm. "Don't hurt him, Superman, he's just a kid!"

Clark . . . pauses, then looks up from said kid that he is currently pinning into the street as he struggles underneath him.

"'Hurt him'?" he asks in reflexive confusion, and then realizes how batting a teenager around like a person-shaped cat toy and pinning him to the street hard enough to crack it probably actually looks to an outside observer.

. . . um.

Whoops.

"Um," he starts awkwardly, and then the kid slips his pin while he's distracted and throws his arms around his neck with a gleeful laugh and a bright grin.

"Dad!" he crows triumphantly, and hugs Clark harder than literally anyone has ever hugged him before, except maybe, like, Ivo in the fullest and most vicious version of his Parasite suit while trying to crush him to death. It's . . . kind of adorable. Although also Clark can't really breathe very well now. "I found you! Hi, hi, I totally found you!"

"You did," Clark agrees reflexively and slightly out-of-breath-ly, patting the kid's back as he shoots the food truck worker and the several other staring civilians back on the sidewalk all an apologetic smile. "Sorry, ma'am, didn't mean to worry you. We're just playing."

"Oh my god so there was this lab and these doctors and they were all such jerks so I maybe kinda just broke everything and I guess maybe that was bad but they all sucked and they deserved it, I promise, I hope they all lost all their data and their personal files and their customization settings when I smashed up their stupid computers and stuff," the kid half-rants, hanging off Clark like a super-strong but also undeniably floating koala, and Clark straightens up and pats his back again as he listens to his excited and also-adorable ramblings. The way the kid talks actually reminds him of a much younger kid, oddly–even younger than Flip and the rest of the newskids, despite his appearance–but that doesn't exactly hurt the "adorable" impression. "Also there were some really annoying guys who were bothering the way cool chick in the truck over there so I threw them in a dumpster but did you know chili fries were a thing because they are so good, seriously, you should get some!"

"Are you asking me to buy you more chili fries, kid?" Clark asks wryly, and the kid somehow finds a way to perk up even more.

"I mean, no, but if you wanna . . ." he mentions, grinning hopefully.

"Two orders of chili fries please, ma'am?" Clark requests, sparing the food truck worker another smile. "If it's not too much trouble."

"Yesssss," the kid cackles delightedly, hanging heavier off his neck again as he somehow actually manages to hug him tighter. The food truck worker stares at them both for a moment, then reaches for an empty fry basket.

"Uh, sure," she says slowly. "No problem. Uh. Sorry, Superman, but do you . . . have a kid? Is that, like . . . what's happening here?"

"Yes," Clark replies reflexively, patting the kid's head.

. . . wait, that's not–

Then the kid beams at him again and nope, never mind, apparently that is right, he guesses he's just a dad now. Oh no, he and Jimmy are gonna need a bigger apartment, and Clark really hates apartment-hunting and doesn't even know how he's gonna afford his half of a bigger apartment, though at least he knows Jimmy can after selling Flamebird so he guesses that's something, and besides, what, is he gonna make his kid sleep on the couch? No way. The kid can have his bunk, heck, he'll sleep on the couch 'til they can sign a new lease or something. At least he's not an intern anymore, that's been a bit of a financial improvement, so that'll help.

". . . well okay then," the food truck worker says. "How do you even age, are you–um. I'm just . . . gonna make those both double orders, then. No charge. Congrats on, uh . . . congrats? Like, fifteen years late, apparently, but congrats."

"Thank you," Clark replies politely, smiling at her again as he walks over to her truck, the kid still happily hanging/floating off him. "We can pay, though, that's really not necessary."

"Dude. My dad would literally fire me if I ever made Superman pay for freaking chili fries," she says feelingly. "Like. Fire me so hard. Unto our family's next three generations, would he fire me."

"Thank you," Clark repeats, still smiling at her, then pulls a couple of twenties out of his belt and tucks them into her tip jar. Only seems decent, he thinks.

"Oh my god how are you even real," the food truck worker mumbles under her breath as she drops both double-orders of fries into the fryer.

[kredenakrejn]

Last update: 03d.02m.25y.

Welcome on my blog :D

Plz note, if I am not answering your ask for a longer while, I plan to draw something to that, and just don't have time to do it now

Pfp was made by my lovely friend Me! And the banner was made by also Me!

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✦ Side Blogs @Kre-UTMV-Art @Bad-Sanses-SMP @DailyGenoArt

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✦ About me

My name here is Kredena or Krejn I love nicknames too :3

Multifandom artist Mostly UTMV stuff for now But I also like: RotTMNT, LMK, HelluvaVerse, MLP, Tadc and many more!

B-Day on 13 of April

She / They

I am Aroace (Aromatic / Asexual) Maybe a bit Pan and Demiromatic too..? 'Am not sure

I will die / bite for my friends (they are like a family to me.)

Sometimes I use "we" but I am just one person here It's just sometimes more comfortable to write like that

I sometimes have problems with knowing what emotions I feel at the moment I sometimes over-react just to be silly Or sometimes I just feel empty

I work at McDonalds (save me) on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and every other Sunday

No problem with saying stuff about myself, just someone needs to ask

✦ Boundaries

If I say "I love you" I don't say it in a romantic way I only say it in a platonic way. So don't you dare think 'am flirting with you.

DO NOT USE OR REPOST MY ART ANYWHERE You may reblog it (some people think it's the same as reposting, but it's not.) You may use it if it was a gift for you You may use it if you asked me before that (but you NEED to credit me.)

If something is not clear about me Plz just ask I get sad when people just assume stuff about me

Plz do not use any images, gifs, or videos with smol children, when you talk with me They just disgust me, I can't help it

If you gonna hurt even one of my friends, you gonna have a bad time buddy.

Plz, don't add ship tags when there is none of 'em on the original post

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If you like what I create, plz consider supporting me on Ko-Fi! I will be making doddles for every donation :3

Before donating, plz note:

I have work, so I will not be able to draw the same secound you send me a donation, but I will draw something for you! (Just tell me what, in my DM's on Ko-Fi)

I will not draw N5FW, T-C3ST or PRO5HIP stuff, so plz do not ask me for it

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Yes I am kredenadark Some may be curious why I will no longer be active there Well, my old discord account got hacked, tho I was able to buy my data back (*cries*) I did not feel safe on my old accounts, so I decided to make new ones where I could, or change every emile and password I had I tried to recover form my old blog whatever I could, for some time, I will be just rebloging my old stuff, so I will not lose it too Becouse of the fact that before re-instalating my windows, I saved my files on the pendrive the wrong way, all the stuff from my laptop is gone, so all my WIP's are lost, sorry, I was not able to show them to you

[distressednoise]

Realised there are only 100 days til s2, aka the day Tony Gilroy snatches away my beautiful dream of Brasso quietly unionising rebel engineers, to the dismay of everyone who owes them back pay. It isn't six sentence Sunday or WIP Wednesday, but I'm posting this for myself as a treat.

“We need to talk,” said Draven, “about your friend.”

Draven's office was as spartan as any other on the base, but it at least it gave the impression that was less because of the rebellion's fugitive status and more because of a certain asceticism on behalf of the occupant; Cassian could picture him in a series of similarly neat series of cells in school dormitories and military barracks and that one detention centre that Draven leaves half-concealed in his records, baiting curious new recruits to prove themselves untrustworthy.

Of course, it could also have been arranged that way to make it harder to screen a reaction. A bare office meant Draven got to see every tic, every tapped foot, every sidelong glance at nothing. But Cassian hadn't given in to the temptation to read the file, and he wasn't going to give in to the temptation to look away now. “I wouldn't call him that, sir.”

“You're inseparable enough.”

“He has very few reference points for -”

“And your name is at the top of all his information requests. Finances, policy, contract law -”

“Our command structures aren't what he's used to -”

“- I mean hazard pay, for pity's sake. If we gave agents hazard pay we'd bankrupt the rebellion.”

“Just so, sir.” Draven liked ‘just so’ and the fact that Cassian had borrowed it, nodded sardonically whenever he saw it in crop up in one of Cassian's transcripts and said doing my bit for the rebellion, eh? as if it was his major contribution to Cassian's development. Cassian let him smirk at it, then tried: “I don't think Kay quite grasps how payment works, sir. For a worker. He's probably trying to assimilate.” Don't be so fucking stupid, he wanted to say. Don't pretend this isn't a one in a million asset, don't pretend he's not valuable, don't take -

“Who?” Draven glanced up briefly from the stack of flimsi that was seemingly responsible for his rare show of annoyance. “Oh, the droid. No, no. Good find, that. I meant the other one.”

Right. The other one.

Brasso has been found waist deep in sewage attempting to tunnel out of a mining camp, and had adjusted to live on Yavin with what Cassian thought was admirable ease. He'd quickly taken over one of the crypts beneath the temple and set up a work bench and a still, and kept himself busy repairing anything deemed too inessential for the base mechanics to bother with, attracting a grateful line of cooks and data wranglers and refugees clutching holoprojectors packed with pictures of missing loved ones. It was nice to think, when Cassian let himself think about it, that after everything that had happened some things were still true. That he could remember Maarva saying if you get lost just look for Brasso's house and have it still be true.

“He's finding his feet, sir.”

“I'd say he's got them quite firmly under the table,” Draven said. “Have a word, would you? He's not even enlisted.”

[mariyekos]

Forgetting / Vergil

WIP Folder Game: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. [...] People can send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! (click here to see my list)

So this one is more of a concept than a real fic! I like to headcanon that post-DMC5 Vergil is actually missing a ton of memories, both because of what Mundus did to him and potentially because he lost some when he split himself with the Yamato, and this fic is my way of exploring that.

I like to headcanon that Mundus attempted to destroy Vergil's spirit/consciousness in order to get the perfect/subservient knight, and that part of that process was essentially wiping the slate clean by getting rid of Vergil's memories. Some he very specifically targeted, others were (conveniently? inadvertently?) destroyed as part of the Angelo process. As for the Yamato thing, Griffon, Shadow, Nightmare, and Phantom in the Visions of V Mange seem to be made of Vergil's unpleasant memories. In separating them from himself, Vergil at least temporarily freed Urizen of the burden of those memories. Would destroying Griffon and co. destroy those memories entirely (like what V did to Phantom in VoV, and Dante did to the trio in DMC5 M18)? Or would they go back to Vergil once they were all dead? I haven't quite decided. I think it would be interesting if Vergil carved them out with the intent of getting rid of them, but phantoms (hehe) of the memories remained somehow. The impulse is there even if the tangible memory is not.

Anyway! This fic is basically supposed to explore the idea of Vergil being upset by how many mundane memories of his are missing. Sure he's been freed of Mundus in that he's no longer subservient to Mundus, but he still feels shackled in a way because the effect of Mundus' actions (Vergil's loss of memories) remains.

While Vergil isn't as clingy to his humanity as Dante is, I think it would still disturb him to know he's incomplete/"broken." He's been altered in a way he cannot fix. Not even the Qliphoth could do it. So, this fic would be an exploration of mental/emotional wounds, perhaps made worse by the fact that no physical wound remains. He can't look at something and go 'yes, something happened here' because there's nothing to look at. He can't get visual confirmation of his experiences. It's all in his head and there's no one who'd know but him.

He also doesn't know just how much he's lost, because he'd need to know he had it in the first place to know it's gone, and this is also a particularly painful topic. Is it that he never knew XYZ, or that that knowledge has been taken from him? How many times will he accidentally/randomly upset himself because he runs into knowledge/memories he should have but doesn't? How many times will the wound be reopened? How is he to avoid reopening the wound when he does not know its depth, its length? He can't. And it frustrates him immensely. He wants to move on, but it's hard when you never know what will set you off and have no way of regaining what you've lost. Sure, Dante can tell Vergil about some of the things that happened in their shared childhood, but there's an entire decade Dante missed before their encounter at eighteen, not to mention a decade of haze afterward that Vergil may or may not be interested in recalling (I think he'd be less interested in remembering that because he did cut out those memories with his humanity as a source of weakness, but I'd like to think post-DMC5/V Vergil would be more interested in that than he was at the start of the game).

Thank you for sending the ask! I haven't looked at this fic in a few months and this makes me want to get back to it. For fun, I'll put the rest of the outline below the cut.

Dante: “That book steal your favorite teabags or something?”

Vergil's head snapped up to look at the source.

Vergil goes on about how he knows he read this series. He knows it. Something in the book was important to him, changed his outlook on…something. Life, maybe? He doesn't know. He doesn't know because even a hundred pages in, the words are completely unfamiliar. There's not even a fragment, not even a wisp of memory there. No hint of recognition. And he knows that people forget things, sometimes, but this isn't simple forgetting. The memory has been carved from his mind. Broken and siphoned out and thrown away, never to be used again. It is gone. 

And he isn't sure how to feel about that. Why would Mundus eliminate such a memory? Was it because he was trying to completely erase Vergil? Was he targeting Vergil's more “human” memories? Was he trying to destroy each and every thing Vergil ever enjoyed, to punish him?

Dante tells him it's okay. It's just a book. Vergil can read it again-

And Vergil snaps back that it's not just the book. He hadn't even realized he'd lost this memory until he came across the book in a pile of Dante's stuff in the back room. He hadn't known he'd lost it.

How much has he lost without realizing it? How much has been taken from him? How much will never, ever come back, because it's been scraped so clean there's no residue to reform it from?

The majority of his life in the human world wasn't a pleasant one, but it was his. It's what made him into the man he is. If it didn't, then it meant Mundus did. And he didn't want to be that man. He wanted to be the man he himself formed, through the things he chose to do and the books he chose to read. And if he doesn't have that then…

[tryslora]

On rereading my old fic...

I’m having a lot of thoughts right now about rereading things I have written.

I struggle to reread original work. I don’t get lost in it when I start reading it, and I suspect that’s because I have already read it a few hundred times (I’m exaggerating, but it’s a lot) before it was put out for public consumption.

But fic. Ohhhh… I am one of those weirdos who loves to reread fic I wrote.

This came to mind because in the past few days, I’ve reread two old fics because both of them came up on my radar for different reasons.

(They were the “Love You So Hard” series of Scott/Stiles fics, and the “Dancing On Blades” Sterek Olympic figure skating AU, both from the Teen Wolf fandom, if you’re curious).

I didn’t mean to read them. But then I sat down trying to remember exactly what I’d written, and a half hour or so later, there I was like oh. Hey. I wrote that and I do not hate it. In fact, I now have a bit of a words hangover where I’m not ready to leave that world.

I love and hate that hangover. I get it both from reading and writing. In this moment, it reminded me a lot of what I loved about both writing and reading fic.

I haven’t had time to write fic recently. I have several unfinished WIPs in a Scrivener file, but if I’m not getting the overdue original done, I don’t feel like I can take time to write fic.

I haven’t been reading fic, either. I’m so far out of the fandoms I used to be part of, I don’t know how to find the fic that will give me the feels I love. I haven’t found a new fandom to be obsessed by where I feel comfortably falling into it. I admit, I like big fandoms, mostly because I love the variety of work and the ability to find so many wonderful gems. Small fandoms are great for flailing in meta, but terrible for finding more than a few fics.

Reading these two pieces years after I wrote them (and yes, I have reread both of them before) brought me right back to the world I lived in at the time. The world of fic. The feels. The memories of what it was like to belong to a  big fandom, and all that energy.

I miss it.

But this isn’t about fandom—this is about rereading my own words.

I’ve heard a lot of writers say that they never reread their own pieces, whether that is fic or original. They don’t want to revisit them. They are uncomfortable.

I find great delight in rediscovering myself. Every story is a snapshot of where my mind was in that moment. Every story is a reminder that yes, I can write, and I don’t hate my words. They are GOOD words. They made someone smile enough to leave a comment, and when I reread them, they make me smile, too.

I, too, want to comment to ask, “hey, where’s the rest? can I have more of this?” and that’s a tad bit frustrating since um, the only way that’ll happen is if I write it.

It makes me want to write more, though. Not necessarily that story. Maybe an original piece. Maybe something inspired by it. Might be difficult, given that one of those stories was absolutely buried in the world of Teen Wolf, and the other was a fanfic nod to Yuri on Ice without being a full-on YOI fic.

But at the same time, I have shapeshifter pack politics in my PHU serial; Alaric has to deal with it all the time. And much of the inspiration for that was drawn from things I developed that were my own head-canons while writing TW fic.

Writing is about learning. Writing fic is about joy, and it’s also about testing theories, and playing with words and ideas in familiar spaces.

It’s about creating a soft blanket that someone might want to wrap up in again and again, shutting out the cold, dark night.

I’m happy that rereading my own work gave me that feel, like I could build a blanket fort out of a story and retreat into a simpler time.

I want to create those same feels with my original work. I want to create a comfort blankie made of words.

In the meantime, I need to stop rereading my own work and move on. Write new words. Remember that if I did it before, I can do it again, and better this time. I’m not done. There are still stories in me; my mind is a library waiting to give books to those who need them.

[borealopelta]

wip whatever

i'm gonna go ahead and consider myself tagged in @arokel's tagless tag game because i want to talk about My Wips :-) if anyone feels like joining in, please do!!

after posting my latest fic i was kinda like. hmm. i don't have anything to show. which is not true!! i have not one but two geologist!don fics in the wip folder. (now you could ask. hey finch why do you keep writing geologyfic. well a) i have this mental illness called degree in geology and b) it's basically just me trying to conceptualise what being a geologist (or studying geology) must have been like for someone who was doing it before the theory of plate tectonics was even proposed (not to mention accepted). the amount of stuff that was fully unknown to geology in the times these fics are set is limiting as fuck and that's what makes them endlessly fun to tinker with. i've done sooooo much niche research. this is what constitutes fun for me. apologies)

i've already talked about the first one in an ask game, don's horrible geology exam, which i've been slowly piecing together from semi coherent notes app scribblings from the height of my mystery illness, BUT the other is newww so. also i don't have titles picked out because i'm bad at that so the titles are. the file names. yay! snippets under readmore:

geologydonfic is the aforementioned don's exam misery fic

Bobby takes in Don – the line of his bracelet a red imprint on his cheek, bruise-black circles under his red-rimmed eyes, paler than ever, frown lines like deep etchings on his handsome face. It’s clear that he’s not dealing on his own. “Fine,” he says after barely any deliberation, “I can help you study.” He picks up Don’s textbook and flips to a random page. Most of it is taken up by a big, colourful chart, sort of like a repeating rainbow getting more and more washed out, with ray-like lines coming out of one corner. It’s utterly incomprehensible. Bobby puts the book back down on the table. “I can’t help you study.” The corner of Don’s mouth twists into an almost-smile.

argentina is the newer one, set in argentina in 1967. don is there for work, bobby is there for don, it's hot, it's dirty (so far only in the "the drill site is a filthy place in general" way but who knows)

The Jeep that had picked him up at the airport slowly rolled away to join the fleet of identical vehicles, all decorated with the letters YPF – the name of the company in charge of the work, Bob assumed. He barely had time to feel (or look) lost when he noticed Don coming his way. Or at least he guessed it was Don, from the familiar walk and the fact that the man was a good four inches taller than everyone around him. Dressed in grubby work clothes and wearing a hard-hat that cast enough shadow to hide his entire face however, he could have been anyone. Then the smile gave him away. Bob had not been twenty-two and a fool in love in a good while, but that toothpaste-commercial-runaway, all-teeth, bright-as-the-sun smile Don could smile when he really put his mind to it still made him go weak in the knees.

[meowmeowriley]

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! Tag as many people as you have WIPS!

If you saw the original, no you didn't. Lol sorry, had to do some housekeeping here on my blog, and had to redo this post.

Right well, here's the thing, I have way more WIPs than I do moots 😅 butttttt I'll drop what I've got. Please please please ask me about any of them! I'm begging for interaction!

1) Little Meow Meow - my first fic, it's not abandoned, catboy!Ghost is also unkillable and emo.

2) Poké-Pandemonium - Pokémon and secrets. Here soon I aim to make people cry with it ❤ (soon as in within the next couple of chapters, whenever I put them out)

3) More Than Just Loose Ends - 09 Ghost has been watching over and mentoring 22 Ghost his whole life

4) Oh, Brother - my most popular fic, told through the eyes of Erin MacTavish (John's sister) and Tommy Riley. Baby's first realistic and in character AU.

5) I Don't Think We're in Space Anymore - Ghost is a shape-shifting alien and also chaotic as fuck. And horny. Whoops.

6) Was tHat thE BiTe oF 22 - FNAF but all the characters are replaced with COD characters. It's my little abomination.

7) Be Kind, Rewind - Ghost is suddenly 10 years younger. Young dumb and full of cum. Seriously, being 19 means he's got that teenager horndog thing goin on.

On to the ones that haven't been posted yet

8) Duo Fatui - Unus Annus, but make it Soap and Ghost

9) Is That Gonna be a Problem? - Ghost and Soap met before the events of MW2, and were secretly together during the game. This is the story of their relationship.

10) Cohabitation - ghost!Ghost and Zombie!Ghost share one body. They're the same person, so it's not difficult. They banter like siblings.

11) Lost a Bet - Ghost lost a bet with Gaz, so Gaz gets to design his next mask. Gaz designs a cat skull mask, and Ghost bonds with a bunch of stray cats on base.

12) Outlaw Outta Time - some of the COD boys get sent back in time and meet up with a certain outlaw. COD RDR2 crossover. It's a fix it for Arthur ❤

13) unnamed fic about trans Ghost dropping hints that he's trans and Soap who thought he was straight being really confused by the boners he gets around Ghost.

14) unnamed fic about Soap thinking Ghost has a girlfriend, that they're on their way to rescue, when it is in fact a dog. Ghost is fully aware of the miscommunication and thinks it's funny, so he doesn't clarify

15) unnamed fic about Ghost and Soap getting sucked into our world a la Supernatural's The French Mistake. They have to pretend to be Samuel and Neil until they figure out how to get home

WHOO BOY! I think that's all of them. And they're all Ghost/Soap except the FNAF one, because they're children.

Mooties who aren't already on this list, no pressure though! @myriadblvck @27potatochips @resident-idiot-simp @tacticaltaxonomist @ratpiss0

[blackkatmagic]

Hey, blackkat!

I've been reading your star wars fanfictions for a while now and I'm seriously intrigued by all of them. My favorite is running with lightning feet and I'm currently reading efface the footprints in the sands--poor Master Kolar...

Anyway, I really wonder how you approach writing. You seem to be able to write very consistently and keep track of many stories all at once, which are things I admire very much about you. Would you be able to give some advice on that?

Also, I very much love your characterization of more 'minor' (less appearance in canon) characters and how you breathe life into them with your dialogue. Really make me wonder how you make that out--what do you consider, or do the characterization/dialogue just pop up, fleshing themselves out?

Yeah, I really hope you don't mind me asking these. Again, love your writing very much. Would continue to read your stories always~~ Thank you for sharing them (and putting all your effort into writing them!)

Hi! I definitely don't mind, and I've answered similar questions before in my writing advice tag, if you want to scroll through some other answers that might be worded better.

For how I approach writing...the inconvenient answer is that it's mostly practice. I've been giving myself a goal of 500 words every day for the last....10-ish years, probably? Just consistently sitting down and doing a thing, writing without worrying about quality and only quantity, with lots of WIPs always going at the same time, really helps in figuring out how to juggle them. I usually keep a file of vague notes, one doc for each WIP with a bunch of keywords and ideas I want to hit eventually, and plot twists I'm aiming for, though I don't ever really outline things, and that helps a lot with keeping track, too.

As far as characterization of minor characters goes, that's the part I enjoy most about writing, and it's one of the easier parts for me, so I'm not sure I'm the best at putting it into words. But basically, you have to get to the very core of how you see the character - what their baseline personality is, what motivates them, what their goals are. It's something that can change between fics (which I think is one of the joys of minor characters; you don't have to stick to one defined interpretation), but it is something you have to nail down, imo. It also takes some filling in the gaps with headcanon and some leaps in logic.

Take Agen for example: canon gives us the information that he lost his padawan on Geonosis, incorporated Tan's lightsaber crystal into his own, and is an incredible swordsman but too blunt and aggressive to be diplomatic, while still being very loyal to the Council/Order. He gets called "the Council's attack dog" in the comics. Also, in the wider universe, we know that Zabraks have a reputation for being aggressive/warlike, and at one point Qui-Gon calls Maul it, even though he has to know what Zabraks are.

Those are all the canon facts. If you go back and fill in the gaps: Agen is someone who's grieving deeply, and he's incredibly devoted. He uses Tan's lightsaber crystal against Palpatine, which means he's sentimental, and he's not willing to speak against the Order in public, so he's at least that tactful. At the same time, he has no patience for people who get in his way, and he's willing to use force to cut through them. He believes in other Jedi until they irrevocably prove themselves traitors, and then he's stern and willing to remove them by whatever means. At the same time, he's very aware of his reputation, and he knows what people say about him/other Zabraks, but he's stubborn enough (at peace with himself enough) that he's not going to change.

From that sort of character summary, you can figure out the way Agen talks pretty easily. He's blunt, and he doesn't always think about the impact of his words, but he can be compassionate and thoughtful, particularly given his own grief. He's willing to defend anyone, and he doesn't make a fuss but always tends towards action - that means short sentences, usually directly to the point with no niceties. He's polite, because that's usually the fastest way to achieve something, but he's not overly deferential. He has a sense of humor, but most people miss it because he's so blunt.

Taking a character and dissecting them like that is something I have a lot of fun doing, which, well. I'm a therapist irl, so that probably helps. But I think it's very much just about breaking a character down into component parts and applying them to whatever you're writing - if you understand why someone reacts a certain way, it's a thousand times easier to figure out how they're going to react in a new situation. And after that, getting them to sound right, getting your dialogue to fit - it's all about practice.

[sarcasticmothwrites]

20 question for writers tag game

tagged by @alexandia03

1. Total number of ao3 works?

54

2. Total ao3 word count

233,997.

3. Fandoms I've written in

On the AO3: Empyrean, Repo! the Genetic Opera, Xiaolin Showdown, and a bunch of one-offs for Yuletide or other collection/prompt fics.

Pre-AO3, I've written FFVII, FFVIII, Hellsing (how I met my spouse), GI Joe, Babylon 5. Buffy/Angel. X-Men, X-Files. Probably others I'm not thinking about, I've been writing fanfic since before I knew that other people did it and by that I'm talking 1988.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos

Scott Pilgrim vs. the Unspoken History - Based on the 2010 film, Scott Pilgrim/Wallace Wells. Written for @copperfirebird

At Lunchtime, in the Wilderness - Calvin & Hobbes + Where the Wild Things Are, Gen. Also written for @copperfirebird.

Time and Time Again and Again and Again and Again - Xiaolin Showdown, Chase Young/Jack Spicer. Written *with* @copperfirebird, just for variety.

A Kiss is a Terrible Thing to Waste - Repo! the Genetic Opera, Graverobber/Nathan Wallace. Written for a request meme.

Sketchbook - The Empyrean, Violet & Brennan, Naolin/Brennan. The most recent of my top five by a LOT, this was my first posted Empyrean fic.

5. Do I respond to comments?

Not unless they ask a question or something similar. I'm not good at writing comments.

6. What has the angstiest ending?

I'm not sure if this is "of the top five" or "of the 54 pieces I've posted on the AO3," but I'm going to go with the latter because the former has angst but not really in the ending. So.

Angstiest ending is Dear Alex, a Yuletide fic I wrote for @copperfirebird. A Wrinkle in Time is one of his very favorite books, and this is Kate and Alex Murray figuring out how to be a married couple again. It made me cry, writing it.

7. What has the happiest ending?

It might be New Year's Welcome, which is FFVIII Seifer/Squall/Rinoa and is about finding a home and a place when you thought you'd lost everything.

8. Have I received hate?

Nope. Possibly because I've mostly stayed in very small fandoms.

9. Do I write smut? And what kind?

Yes, I do. If I had to describe it, I would call it lyrical smut, where it's about the flow of the words and the feeling more than the specifics.

10. Do I write crossovers?

One of my top 5s is a crossover, in fact, but it's not something I do very often.

11. Have I ever had a fic stolen?

Yeah, back in the ff.net days, and it was a very weird feeling.

12. Have I ever had a fic translated?

No.

13. Have I ever co-written a fic?

Many. @copperfirebird and I are partners in life and fiction.

14. What is my all-time fave ship?

I can tell you who my favorite child is (I only have one) but I could not possibly pick my favorite ship. I would have a hard time picking a favorite ship in any given fandom.

I love relationships between people whose feelings are bigger than their abilities to communicate it, but who find understanding in the silences; people who are drawn together despite all the reasons that they should not be; and people who are deeply loyal to one another.

15. A WIP I'll never finish

The Future Waits Without Us was supposed to be a large multi-part story that I wrote two pieces of.

Probably Came Too Far To Die because I have one mostly-written chapter I haven't published yet and then I have no idea what I'm doing. I have never known what I was doing with this fic, but I didn't let it stop me.

16. Writing strengths?

Lyrical prose. Three-part clauses. Emotionally complex characters. Witty banter.

17. Writing weaknesses?

Plot. Too bad that's, like, an extremely important part of story building.

18. Do I like foreign language dialogue?

This is a weird question. I don't have any problems with other people writing in multiple languages. There are bilingual characters who should use multiple languages. I'm more prone to things like, "This sentence is written in the common tongue," he said in Tyrrish.

19. First fandom I wrote for?

Dragonriders of Pern when I was in 7th grade.

20. Favourite fic I've written?

It's hard to pick one, but there are two fics that I'm always breathlessly startled I was able to write. Both of them were Yuletide requests, and I know Yuletide's coming around again when I start getting kudos for these.

The first one is In Two Bodies, Alexander and Hephaestian, inspired by Mary Renault's Alexander Trilogy. If you were wondering what I meant by "lyrical smut," this one's an excellent example.

The second one is Finding Zihuatanejo, inspired by the beautiful Stephen King short story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption." It really feels like I got the narrator's voice down perfectly.

tagging: Anybody who hasn't done it yet

[philcoulsonismyhero]

Self-indulgent gay crime thriller for the wip meme

Ah yes, my beloved Detective Thing(TM) that I really need to properly title...

I've talked about this one before, and it's basically the result of two lines of thought, number one being: 'I know this crime drama is from the early 2000s and thus is Not going to have queer people in it but Please can I just have one (1) queer hero in this genre? For once? For me?' There's something about the genre conventions of older crime dramas that I just enjoy, but it is Exhausting in that particular regard and I started contemplating the idea of Doing It Myself.

And the other slightly less serious one coming from the fact that I got back into Kingsman while I was also on a Silent Witness kick and had the thought 'isn't it funny how many of my favourite characters are called Harry? Oh no, hang on a minute, I think Harry Hart is exactly the type that Harry Cunningham would have an enormous hopeless crush on...' (Harry Cunningham isn't technically canon bi, but. He is. He just is.)

So I rattled those two characters around in my brain a bit until the serial numbers came off and suddenly a whole story had built itself around the resulting characters, initially referred to in my outline as Doctor and Detective. (And I'm not very interested in writing active romance plotlines, so they became an established couple instead.)

The resulting thing has been snowballing in my brain, picking up complexity and structure and other characters and Themes, and now it's the story of George Glen, detective chief inspector in London's Metropolitan Police in 2005 and closeted gay man who lives with his partner, forensic pathologist Dr Tim Kingswood, who he frequently works with on cases with none of his colleagues being any the wiser as to their actual relationship. George, working with his brilliant Detective Sergeant Naomi Edusei and Tim as the designated pathologist, ends up lead detective on a complicated murder case that slowly develops into a serial killer investigation. But things get more complicated as certain elements of the case start to feel a little close to home for George, who's keeping rather more secrets than just his orientation and home life, and eventually the finger of suspicion starts to drift in his direction...

I love this story, it's basically me having a go at doing Silent Witness, Criminal Minds and various other crime thrillers all at once, and I'm extremely fond of George as a protagonist. Here's a bit I think you'll enjoy, featuring George and Tim's cat, named The Usual Suspect for his habit of doing Cat Crimes:

George stared at the file, lost in memory, until he heard a soft scrabbling at the door. He sighed.  “Go away, Suspect,” he said, softly. “I'm working.” But, unsurprisingly, the cat ignored him and kept scrabbling. George rolled his eyes and pushed his chair back. “If you leave scratch marks on that door, cat, you and I are going to have a conversation that you won't enjoy.” He got up, crossed to the office door, and opened it a crack, balancing on one foot so he could hold the other in front of the gap to stop the cat from getting in.  The Usual Suspect stopped scraping his paws on the door like he was trying to dig through it and looked up at George with his ridiculous lamp-like eyes. “Go and sleep on Tim,” said George, still keeping his voice low because of the late hour. “I'm working.” But the cat just meowed back at him and kept staring. “Oh, alright,” said George, giving in. He moved his foot, and quick as a flash Suspect had slid past his ankles and into the room.  George crossed back to his desk and sat down, and Suspect immediately jumped up into his lap, purring like a lawnmower. George laughed slightly, unable to keep pretending he was cross with him. “You are such an attention hog,” he said, scratching the cat's ears as he rubbed his little head against his hand. “How am I supposed to get anything done with you around, hm? I could charge you with obstructing a criminal investigation.” Scooting his chair back in slightly, although not enough to squash Suspect up against the desk, George went one-handedly back to the files, keeping the other hand occupying the cat. Maybe it would be nice to have some furry company as he navigated the darker corners of memory lane. 

(Technically this thing is probably going to be a comic rather than a novel, but I've been writing bits in prose just to get a handle on character voices and such, and because I'm more familiar with prose than script format. But it exists in my head as a visual thing and I can't make a TV miniseries so comic it probably is.)

[hungrydolphin91]

WIP Folder Game

Rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Tag as many people as you have WIPs. People can send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then post a little snippet/preview or tell them something about it!

Thank you Jay (@lildoodlecat) for tagging me!! You have such hilarious titles for your wips, I feel like mine are more boring/straightforward by comparison 😅 luckily for me I recently made a list of all my wips and their words counts (the document word count, most of it is NOT prose) so I can just copy and paste it here. fair warning, there's quite a few, and some of them have been "on hiatus (i'll come back someday bet)" for years so i may have less to say about them if prompted. But without further ado here's the doc titles of all of my Tales wips!

Graces:

Grace richass hurt/comfort: 1456

Graces AU Compilation 2 Eletric Boogaloo (You Shape Me): 465

Graces AU of ambiguous definition but it's the same bullshit I always write (Training Wheels): 4982

Graces AUs in a jumbled mess (titled ones include: Seasons Are Changing; Lambda 2 Electric Boogaloo: There's Another One, Folks; Inside and Out. also a G/T Richass AU and a Psi POV story): 19,933

Graces Berzesty AU: 2285

Graces Chapters (Two Hearts Could Be One part 1): 47,862

Graces charcter reference and outline (Two Hearts Could Be One part 2): 92,690

Graces long fic: The Sequel (Two Hearts Could Be Two): 19,616

Graces rarepair Cheribert ideas: 2430

Zesty:

Living House AU: 15,857 (items with an * are wips under this same AU. Yes, they're all house-related puns)

*Room For Improvement: 4083

*Welcome Home: 5754

*Amazon Home: 951

*Shingles Virus: 2328

Joyride: 5339

Sormik timeloop angst: 1387

Innominat Returns (Falling Awake): 33,304

Zestiria but I dont have a name for it yet idk how to describe it either (personality nonsense): 1275

Zestiria ideas in a jumbled mess (featuring AUs such as human!mikleo, cult Elysia, noragami AU, Skyward Sword AU, that one kinky one): 14,695

Rose and Mikleo’s Day Off: 4185

Berseria:

Berseria But I Don’t Have a Title Yet (To Walk With the Reaper): 5453

Berseria Van Eltia Fluff (Maiden Voyage): 608

Bien-formant: 342

Diary of a Pengyon: 1579

Dotnw:

Dontw Polwiggle: 3115

Dontw Spur of the Moment fic (Didn’t Know I Was Lost): 1312

Vesperia:

Fighting of the Spirit: 1345

Ghost Trick Repede (Chance 4 a Big Reversal): 12904

Vespy nonsense of the self-indulgent kind (Angel/Demon AU with so many cliches you're gonna drown in them): 1471

Vespy Ooo (Without a Shadow): 6211

Xillia 1&2:

Eurydice: 378

Kind of a depressing mess (RIP Julius): 901

Notes for Leia (aka this girl has problems (and maybe a ghost) haunting her): 1153

Some kind of Xillia AU (ft. AUs such as spiritvessel!Jude and spirit!Jude): 4873

Sad fractured dimension stuff (jude's sister AU): 2091

Smol jude: 1281

Arise:

Werewolf!Law (You’re Running in Circles): 2332

Okay, that's all of them, currently! I really do write a lot for this fandom I just never finish anything ever so they stay stuck in my wips folder forever 😅 But anyone is free to ask me about these, in fact I will take your interest in my half-baked ideas as flattery of the highest form 💜

As for tagging others, I think Jay already snagged up my mutuals so I will open this up to literally anyone who sees this, Tales fan or no. And please @ me in it, I wanna see what other people are working on!!!!

[chaos-monkeyy]

20 Questions for fanfic writers

Tagged by @trainofcommand and @cordeliaperry , thank you 😁

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

351

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

969,232 !

(I had a soft goal of trying to break a million this year, but I probably won't quite make it. Ah well, next year!)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Literally anything I see or read that happens to hit squirrel-brain in the right spot: Stargate, Star Wars, Cosmere / Stormlight Archive / Sanderson's books generally, Loki series & other MCU media, OFMD, Good Omens, Dresden Files, Star Trek (and one-offs for random-ass shows like the Mentalist, 1899, tLoVM, Echoes, etc). Honorable mentions to past beloved fandoms that I'm not super likely to really get back to again include Midsomer Murders, the Witcher, Assassin's Creed, and the Expanse 💕

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Top spot is A wonderful thing (OFMD); the next four in order are all Witcher - A Tight Fit, Stolen Moments, Keep it up, and Undignified.

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

I do! I love seeing people's reactions, and letting them know how much I appreciate that they took the time and energy to comment (because fuck knows, I don't always have the spoons to comment on stuff myself). And it's so nice to get that connection with people and get excited about stuff together!

(I have missed some replies here and there just because of over-stressing about what to respond, and subsequently feeling guilty that I left them unanswered so long 🙈 ahh, anxiety-brain, you sure are special)

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

This is one is easy, it's definitely Zombie / what's in your head. One of only two times I've written Major Character Death, and the only time I've used the Angst and Tragedy tag.

It's fucking brutal, honestly. Damn good, but ouch. Dark. Sometimes I reread it when I just want to cry hopelessly for awhile. It's like an... emotional reset or something.

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

Most of my fics have happy endings in the happy-sexy-sated vein, but most of my fics are also happy-sexy-oneshots so there isn't any real conflict or worry to come back from that makes the happy ending something that wasn't a given, if that makes sense. My first thought for something more involved was Inflection Point, but it's not exactly a happy ending for everyone. So I think I'll go with Curious Creatures, because even though I know how it ends and I wrote the damn thing, I still somehow get worried it will have a sad ending every time I go back and reread it, and then I'm relieved all over again at the end.

(Honorable mention to the Adventures of Admiral Prawn and Yee-Claw, because how can we not be happy that he found his lost hat with the help of a new friend 😂)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Honestly nowhere near as much as I'd kind of expect to? 😆

I had some rando dickhead giving me grief in comments on a couple Assassin's Creed fics, and I've seen people griping in fandom social media spaces about a couple of my works and the fact they (gasp) existed in the tags at all, but mostly people have been decent and kept it to themselves when they don't like me or my writing 💖

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

Yes. All of it. All the smut.

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

Not really! Never published one to AO3. Closest I've got is that Witcher-Assassins Creed WIP languishing in my google docs, and a silly fun little SGA-Original SW thing on tumblr from probably a couple years ago now.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Pretty sure, yeah. Not to the point of really being able to do anything about it but it kinda sucked. Shit happens.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! A couple of them that I know of 😁

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Oh hell yeah. Many times 💕

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

Cock/Hole.

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

Mmm I have two published WIPs that fall into that category exactly, Ill-advised encounters and The skills of Assassins. They were really fun, I'd have really liked to finish them, annnd I probably never will 😅

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm pretty damn good at pacing a story, whether it's a oneshot or a longer fic, and at getting ~feelings~ across (whether it's horny feelings, smushy soft feelings, angsty feelings, whatever). And I've been told that I'm good at like... developing a setting and characters in a way that flows or unfolds naturally with the story while you read? Or something like that? (they said it better and it made me very happy)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

That would be not getting things actually started and just keeping the ideas in my head because What If this time I can't make the words do the thing good enough. Especially whenever I have ideas for something potentially longer or more involved, I do tend to kinda shoot myself in the foot by going "eehhhhh that would be a LOT of work though.... I don't want that kind of commitment....... Maybe I'll write down the idea later............"

Also being constantly distracted by shiny new things. But that part's fun 😆

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

I use italics, try to limit it to single words or short phrases, and where possible I make the meaning clear or translated somehow within the fic itself. Last resort, I'll add a little glossary to the start or end notes if it's important to the story.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Midsomer Murders 💖

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

I genuinely don't have a favourite! There's a few I'm extra proud of myself for accomplishing, but I really like most of what I've ever written for one reason or another.

Or another answer would be, my current favourite changes like every week and is usually one of my recent fics 😂 Right now it's probably The Taste of My Blade; it'll be something else in a month.

No pressure tags: @dewdropreader , @mirilyawrites , @starport-seven-five , @loki-is-my-kink-awakening , @dedkake , @wantonwhale , and I won't spam tag all the same people as I did in yesterday's tag game in case you're not feeling it right now, but as always - if you see this and want to be tagged, you are! 💙

[eviltothecore13]

Why do so many people think Wesker was conditioned/brainwashed into feeling anxious whenever Spencer wasn't around?

Even if we just look at the English and not the imo clearer Japanese version, it says almost the exact opposite of that. Spencer's existence, Spencer's presence, was the source of the concern (note: the Japanese word for "anxiety" used refers to feeling anxious or worried about something, and is NOT the same as the word used for a clinical anxiety disorder. People who do not have anxiety disorders can feel worried about things. It is not stated anywhere in canon that Wesker has an anxiety disorder and neither does he display symptoms of such onscreen) that Wesker felt. Not the *lack* of his presence. He was worried because he knew Spencer was still out there and still hiding secrets from him, he's not a lost puppy with separation anxiety.

Wesker sought out Spencer looking for answers to the unanswered questions (about Umbrella, and Spencer's plans--there is no indication anywhere that Wesker knew Spencer had anything to do with his own childhood and in fact it appears that he was completely taken by surprise at the idea) that had been worrying him. The other kids were similarly manipulated into wanting to seek Spencer out--the details of this are unclear but given that in the Japanese version in particular, words like "concern" but also "interest", "curiosity", etc were present (saying that e.g. "Wesker was only curious about/interested in/concerned with Spencer because he had been made to be so") it suggests that they were also manipulated into seeking out *answers*, not just feeling constantly anxious whenever he isn't around (which they were never shown or stated to feel). Especially since it's also stated that once Wesker HAS those answers, Spencer has no more value to him and no more ability to manipulate him.

(Also a side note about the word "programmed" used in the English translation: I'm not saying it's wrong, but I do think it's put some inaccurate images in some people's heads. People picture someone strapped to an operating table with a device over their head that zaps their brain. That kind of sci-fi brainwashing doesn't work in real life, and hasn't really been shown working quite like that in RE--there's P30, and there's the technology used to make Carla believe she is Ada, but those are both stated to be recent inventions and also are only partly effective and don't work quite like the typical image of the trope. I REALLY don't think the RE universe had that kind of tech in the 60s and I don't like to introduce these sci-fi brainwashing tropes to any universe where they're not shown onscreen to be true, mostly because I think the whole trope should be thrown into the sun. But also because I think more realistic and subtle manipulation to make characters do certain things is more interesting both to write and to read. The phrasing used in the Japanese file could easily be translated as "he was made to do [X]", "he was influenced", manipulated, etc. Now, I don't actually think the English translator was necessarily TRYING to give a sci-fi brainwashing impression, because lots of media uses the word "programmed" to refer to the actions of real-life manipulative groups that of course use mundane methods of manipulation and NOT brain-zapping devices. But since 2009 a lot of media like the Winter Soldier etc has come out that put sci-fi brainwashing more at the forefront of people's minds and now that's the kind of assumption a lot of people have made. It's not actually explicit canon and unless it becomes explicit canon I'll assume it's NOT what went on because it's a trope that I really hate and introducing it to the 1960s would also just completely fuck up the whole timeline of what was invented when in the RE universe. If it IS made explicit canon at some point...idk I'll probably delete all my fics and WIPs and leave the fandom.)

[eruherdiriel]

your wip names are all so non-descriptive, I'm so intrigued by them!! I have a love/hate relationship with apocalypse media, so I'm so curious and hesitant to ask about that one... but also x-files AU, right up my alleyyyyyy

(WIP game)

Ah, for the apocalypse one, I was struggling with the threat haha, so I think what I really want to write is a dark roadtrip fic. I haven't touched that one in a while, but looking back, it has some stuff I like.

X-Files AU, my beloved. I don't have much for this, just a paragraph of brainstorming and the very beginning of two scenes. I want to write this, though.

Snippets from both below!

Apocalypse

All he sees is grey and dull brown, day after day after day, and he starts to believe he imagined the color that filled the world during his childhood, before his mother sent him away.

You'll be safer in the North, she'd told him.

Safe from what, Jon had wanted to ask, but he didn't, couldn't, for he knew it would upset her into silence.

The days were awash in color then—his mother's chestnut hair gleaming in the sunlight, father's cheeks ruddy with laughter, the yellow fruit growing from the trees in the yard.

But when the nights came and his parents argued in hushed tones after they believed Jon was asleep, the color seemed to drain away—the blue of his bedroom walls deepening to an abyssal black, the sandy hue of his skin going wan, and the purple of his eyes fading to grey.

....

"What do I call you?" Jon asks.

She hesitates. And then, "Alayne."

Liar. Jon saw her eyes flick to the east like it held her answer, noticed the drag of her lip under her teeth after she spoke.

"What's your name?" she asks.

"Howland." Jon's own lie comes easier, the name of Mother's diminutive friend tucked into his cheek where he'd been saving it. If "Alayne" knows he lied, too, she gives no indication of the fact. Nothing good comes of a stranger knowing your name, not anymore.

....

"You knew well enough to lie about your name but not well enough to not come here in the first place." Seeing her flinch, he adds, "Don't worry, I won't ask who you really are, Alayne."

"Did you lie as well? About your name?'

"Nah. No use in hiding when you're no one of consequence," he says with a grin, but he's not sure the act convinces her this time. She nods slowly.

"Everyone is of consequence to someone," Alayne says softly.

And everyone who ever loved me is dead or lost.

X-Files AU

“The Others are real,” he huffs.

“I'm sure they are,” Sansa says, clenching her fist behind her so she won’t roll her eyes at him. The Others are all children’s stories and old legends, but this is who the Bureau has sent her to work with, a grown man who still believes in fairy tales. Top of my class at the academy and a medical doctor on top of that. Who did I piss off to wind up here?

(She knows who, but it's useless to dwell on now.)

Yet she also knows Jon Snow isn’t an idiot, despite his beliefs. Rumor has it, he went undercover with the wildlings for months, but that operation is still classified. Officially, he is one of the best criminologists in the FBI, but also one of its biggest jokes.

“We’re wasting our time looking for the killer among the Free Folk. Yeah, some of them are thieves and murderers, but it’s usually crimes of opportunity or desperation with them. This was premeditated.”

“What about Mance Rayder?” Sansa watches for some reaction in Snow, but the light wafting into the basement office illuminates only the dust in the air, while Snow stands in the shadow beyond. “Wasn’t he planning some big attack on Castle Black?”

A grunt comes from her partner. “I don’t know about that. But if he was, it would have been a full-scale attack. These are targeted.” Liar, she thinks. So that’s what you were involved with. And if Snow helped foil the attack on Castle Black, it would make sense why the Bureau puts up with his growing obsession with the supernatural.

haha, they both catch each other in a lie in these!