#and sure like half my comments are me rambling but i think it's probably fun for a writer to see my excited reaction

[turretangel]

As a reader, I quite agree!

Also @senblades go to bed!

better than drugs

[thef1diary]

Do we think dirtbag Daniel could get his feelings hurt by reader.

Maybe deep down he sees what their doing as more or she says something in the moment.

— hi lovely!! I love this question! the first thing I thought when I read this was “Oh totally!” I don’t think he’d react much to it right away if you casually mentioned it to him, but to someone else—especially later on in your unlabelled relationship—yeah that’ll hurt. Lil ramble under the cut!

I think it’s one of those moments where it depends on when it’s mentioned. Early on? Nah, he wouldn’t care at all, in fact he would laugh it off without a second thought. Back when you two first started hooking up, it was all about banter, how he could quickly ruin you, and most importantly, no feelings. If someone had asked you about your relationship with him then, you’d shrug and say, “Danny? Oh, it’s nothing serious, just fun.” Even he’d probably smirk if he overheard. He might even add, “Damn right. Best fun you’ve ever had, though, don’t lie.”

But fast forward a few months, and it’s different—for him. Not in any big, obvious way, but in the little things—like how Daniel’s been around more often, how he hasn’t mentioned hooking up with anyone else in a while, and how he seems more comfortable at your place than his own.

Then comes that moment, right? You’re on the phone with a friend, and they ask about him again. “What’s the deal with you and Danny? Are you guys, like, a thing yet?” And without thinking, you laugh and give them the same response every time they’ve asked you about him, “No, Danny’s not my boyfriend. It’s just fun.”

Daniel overhears from the other room. Maybe he’s lying back on your couch, half-watching TV, when the words hit him like a sucker punch. Not my boyfriend. It’s not like he expected you to call him that, but hearing it so bluntly? Yeah, that’s a whole different feeling. He’s heard you say similar things before, early on, and it never bothered him. Hell, he used to make those kinds of comments himself. But now? Now it stings in a way he wasn’t ready for.

He starts replaying everything in his head. The way you whispered “I’m yours” when he’s deep inside your cunt, how you cling to him like he’s the only thing grounding you. In those moments, it feels like more, doesn’t it? Or is he just fooling himself?

When you walk back into the room, still smiling from your conversation, he’s quieter than usual. Maybe he gives you that trademark smirk, masking everything he’s feeling, and asks, “Who were you talking to?” His tone is casual, but there’s an edge to it, like he’s testing the waters.

You just shrug, “Oh, just my friend.” And you’re so relaxed about it, so oblivious to how those words—not my boyfriend—are still ringing in his ears.

He doesn’t bring it up directly because that’s not who he is, especially in terms of relationships. Instead, it comes out later, during one of those moments when you’re tangled together, your body arching against his, and he commands, “say it. Tell me you’re mine.” And when you do, breathless and trembling, it’s like a balm over that sting from earlier.

But it’s also confusing as fuck for him because now he’s wondering—do you mean it? Or is it just part of the heat, just words to get you both off?

And the worst part, he doesn’t even know what he wants. Does he want you to change your answer? To stop calling it casual? Or is he scared that if you do, it’ll mean something he’s not ready to deal with? It’s a mess, and for the first time in a long time, Daniel Ricciardo—Danny Ric, the cockiest dirtbag in the room—isn’t sure where he stands.

[pythoness94]

My opinion on "Chance

Okay, listen, let me ramble for a minute. I don't think Chance is real. To have "Chance" Makes no fucking sense. Sure, it gets Mike jealous, but Mike doesn't need to be jealous for Byler to get together. They can do that on their own time, but from a non-Byler shipping standpoint, it makes no sense too. Chance adds nothing to the plot. What would he do? Why would he care about Will? Why would Will give a fuck about him? Why would Will get over Mike in this season of all times? Why, why, why? and not enough time to answer it. and that's the most pressing issue, time. This is the final season, we can't have Eddie's, Argyle's, and Max's popping up now. Erica's friend (Which is who I think the younger male actor is, the one with the glasses.) can pass because he's probably a minor role. But a whole ass love interest for the main character in the FINAL season. There isn't a spot for him, the cast is to big, there is to many stories going at once, to many dots to connect, for this Chance character to fit in easily. He won't be developed right, he will take away precious time from other characters, and he won't be a satisfying end for Will.

That is the most important part, Will's character ending. From the start Will has been pushed down again, and again, and again. There is a reason that "Will Byers needs a break" is a character tag for ao3, we all want Will to be happy, and a half-baked character introduced THIS season won't be satisfying. We want Will to get what he wants after all the shit he's been put through and some bad Y/N wattpad stand in, isn't what Will wants. He wants Mike, he always wanted Mike, and to not get what he wants at the end of the series would be criminal. it starts and ends with Will. From the start, mike was there, and for the end Mike will be there. Not some rando introduced during like the third episode. Also, is it just me or does Chance not feel very duffer brothers? The way people are saying Chance is introduced doesn't feel like them, it feels like a fanfic. That Wattpad burn wasn't just for fun, it was because of this. Chance feels like the set up to a highschool Byler fanfic. It's like "Oh a new kid comes into town and Will falls in love and that Makes Mike realize what he's been missing. But GASP! What if it's to late!"

That isn't the duffers modus operandi, they don't just put people into ST for like a one-shot gag. Each and every character got developed in some way, even Argyle to an extent. Not one was just a means to an end, Max, Eddie, Argyle, they all fulfilled a purpose and developed along the way. Chance doesn't work like that. One, the time crunch i mentioned early, no time to develop him. Two, without that time, he's a fucking cardboard cut out, he's a means to an end, he's a way to make Mike jealous and get Will a disney love interest, period. So for all these reasons, i don't think Chance is real. I can talk more in the comments and add on more if you want lmao.

[moose-muffin]

Lee Vox enthusiast? Aight bet.

The brain rot I have for this man is not even funny, he's so lee-coded I swear to god-

Probably the kind of lee that provokes their lers into wrecking them (both intentionally and unintentionally.) I.E refusing to let Velvette watch TV on him despite knowing full well she's feeling playful, or getting so worked up about Alastor people will do anything to make him shut up about it.

Height does not matter because he's way to easy to fluster, you could be twice as big or twice as small but the fact remains that he will crumble when his hips are targeted.

Definitely glitches out when he's being got good, might even get to see him flash through random channels if you can really get him going. Just be careful that he isn't too close to any electronics because he might fry them by mistake.

Accidentally caused a black out throughout half the Vee's building one time, it took a week to be fully repaired and Velvette still hasn't stopped making fun of him for it.

Spends 90% percent of his energy covering his face/stifling his laugh (and failing horribly)

I'd throw in some Radiostatic for flavor but I'm not sure how you feel about that pairing so I'll leave it at this for now lol-

Thanks for the excuse to ramble about the TV guy - 📽

ME CURRENTLY: 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭

THESE HEADCANONS ARE MAKING MY BRAIN DO LIKE CARTWHEELS AND BACKFLIPS I AM SO GRATEFUL RIGHT NOW!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING THESE WITH THE CLASS <3

YOU ARE RIGHT THAT HE’S LEE-CODED!!!!! He is so Lee it’s actually crazy! We saw him at the end of Stayed Gone. That man was stomping his feet.. you KNOW he does that when he gets tickled too LIKEEEE IMAGINE OH MY GOD

THIS PART SPECIFICALLY WAS SO ACCURATE AND I AM OBSESSED. THE FACT IT CAN BE UNINTENTIONAL AND ALSO VERY MUCH INTENTIONAL LIKE WITH VELVETTE WANTING TO WATCH TV ON HIMMMM AND THEN TICKLING HIM TO GET HER WAY!!!!!! THIS IS WHY SHES AN ICON AND ALSO WHY VOX IS LEE MOVING ON

THIS PART IS ADORABLE. BIG SCARY ALASTOR DEMON VERSION OR LIKE VELVETTE BEING A LITTLE SHIT BECAUSE ITS SO FUN FOR HER <3 DONT THINK I MISSED THE TICKLISH HIPS COMMENT. UR SPITTING BARS CURRENTLY

GIGGLING AT THIS ONE!!! THE Flipping THRU CHANNELS!!!!!! IMAGINE HE JUST GOES FROM LIKE SOME COOKING SHOW TO A SOAP OPERA TO LIKE IDK MTV TO LIKE IDK IF HELL HAS IMPRACTICAL JOKERS BUT I HOPE THEY DO OR AT LEAST SOMETHING ADJACENT, REGARDLESS ABSOLUTE TOTAL SILLINESS (please tease him about it oh my GOD he would get so flustered)

THIS IS FUCKINF CRAZY AND I LOVE IT ITS SO CANON. VELVETTE LOVES BRINGING IT UP OR TRYING TO GET HIM TO EXPLAIN IT TO PEOPLE. HE DOESNT TELL THEM AND SHE HAS TO OF COURSE TICKLE HIM TO PROVE JUST HOW TICKLISH HE IS AND THEN TELLS THE STORY. He’s MORTIFIED but also a little flustered and blushy <3 god he’s so gorgeous

oh my god please PLEASE IF YOU HAVE RADIOSTATIC HEADCANONS I WOULD LOVEEEEE TO HEAR THEM!!!! IM SLOWLY BECOMING A FAN OF THEM (not that I wasn’t before, I was just kinda like “haha that’s a funny concept” and now the vision is clearer and im feeling feelings)

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK <3 GENUINELY SO KIND AND SWEET AND I ABSOLUTELY ADORED EVERY SECOND!!! YOU HAVE A GREAT STYLE OF WRITING ITS SO FUN AND JUST WORKSSSS

[starshifter]

notes for chp 5. come listen to me ramble

-

Blade is such a fucking mess in this chapter. No one emulate this self-destructive idiot.

Blade take a shower challenge. That’s fucking gross, dude. (Walking around with blood still on him is taken from in-game, actually. Bailu made that comment about him smelling like blood when he visited her, but not seeming injured, and that’s majorly colored how I see him interacting with his injuries. He can’t be bothered to take care of them all, because they just happen so much and he doesn't have the energy. Relatable, I guess. Still a biohazard.)

Why didn’t Blade call Welt directly? Honestly, I forgot he could do that lol. My terrible depression brain can’t remember anything. So clearly, Blade also forgot because he also has that. He’s been through a lot, forgetting things is normal. He also probably just wanted something familiar and comforting at that time, so he called Silver Wolf. She would have the answer, wouldn’t demand payment (looking at you, kafka), and would still be awake (firefly deserves what sleep she can get).

I fully believe that Silver Wolf is a disgusting goblin because she is a hardcore gamer. I don’t care how “gamer fantasy” she dresses. She’s a little gremlin who touches her gum and then puts her spitty little hands all over things. Disgusting. Someone spray her with a hose.

So I made the incorrect assumption that the Express had facilities for guests onboard. Since, you know, it’s a train that had passengers cycling on and off it in the past. Hell, in the present as well, based on the guests we picked up on Penacony. Where the hell are they staying??? Are they sleeping on the couches and borrowing the Trailblazer’s bathroom?? We just don’t know. Maybe there is a guest section, but that wasn’t good enough for a Nameless. Idk man. Nothing makes sense around here I’d honestly originally assumed that sleeping cars with additional rooms for passengers appeared and disappeared by the power of the Trailblaze depending on how many people were staying on the train. This was wrong. I also assumed they had public bathrooms since I didn’t see any attached to the archive’s or March’s room. Also wrong. Go figure. What the actual fuck was Himeko thinking? She deadass just looked at the half rebuilt train and was, like, three rooms is enough, right? And then she launched the Express into space without waiting for anyone to respond.

Yes, that was Himeko’s very polite version of a shovel talk. She does not have to resort to direct threats of violence to get her willingness to tear people apart across. Her power is just that great. I fucking love her, honestly. Her desire to tear Shush into scrap metal with her bare hands and impressive restraint fully justified my characterization in this scene.

They’re like…weirdly co-dependent despite being estranged for like 700 years?? Which is way longer than they’ve spent together. What’s up with that?

Also, there was a very fun gossip session held between the Trailblaze trio about DH’s crush on Blade that involved him sort of admitting that he did like Blade. He did try to stay silent and admit nothing, but eventually they started saying such outrageous things that he spoke up just to make them stop being so wrong.

The Trailblazer trio definitely all bully each other. Dan Heng gets bullied the least though, so he’s earned this. Let the girls repay his many sarcastic remarks 2k24. ….wait what’s the amber era in star rail again? Let’s try this again: let the girls bully Dan Heng back 2k157

I don’t know anything about archival work. However, I have two friends who work in archives. I still don’t really understand metadata (like, it’s shit like the day something was created. Useful and all, but I’m sure there’s more too), but they seem to think it’s a big deal. So Dan Heng cares about proper metadata maintenance. (I could have just asked them what they do, I suppose, but then I have to confess the existence of this fic and these are, like, college friends. Not fandom friends. I might combust on the spot if they asked to see the fic)

It also amuses me greatly that Jing Yuan is low-key haunting the narrative. Smuggled Blade off the Xianzhou… Sent DH those books to help him reconnect with his past… He’s out here playing 5D chess to help his friends while everyone else is still playing checkers.

DH did not decide his bed was lacking. At least not for the reason Blade thought. He doesn’t really care about having a big fancy bed, in fact he thinks it might make sleeping more difficult, he just wants to leech Blade’s warmth lmao

OK, so the suicide attempt was added on the edits, but I also debated adding an additional scene with Pom-Pom confronting Blade about it because they sensed the death happening on their train. Ultimately, I decided Pom-Pom was the wrong choice for this scene. Blade would not deal well with the Conductor lecturing him in that scenario. And! It was an excuse for more Firefly! I didn’t feel like I had enough of her in these last chapters and that annoyed me. So, more Stellaron Hunter feels, the whole fucking reason I started writing this damn fic before Blade hijacked it with his Dan Heng obsession smh

Seriously, this was supposed to be just Blade and Firefly going on an adventure together, and then I realized that they would both like to see their respective Trailblazers, so I added them, and then it spun completely out of control. As these things go…

Kafka’s bad romance choices were also added on the edits. I have a LOT of headcanons about Kafka and her disaster of a love life. Almost all of them are highly concerning. Oops. Kafhime might actually be more fucked up than Renheng the way that I would write it. That’s tragic. ….if I knew more about Kafka’s backstory, please know that I would ABSOLUTELY be writing kafhime right now. I crave my toxic lesbians, but I currently feel like I would have to make up way too much backstory with no supporting evidence and I don’t like doing that. ….maybe I could make an AU? No, bad, Des. Stop right fucking there. ….except… pirates……? NO. FUCK

[karliahs]

fic writer interview!!

tysm @plusultraetc for the tag!! <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

50 exactly!

What's your total AO3 word count?

234,906, almost half of which (110k) was written/posted this year. insane!!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

darken your door (12,832)

walk a mile (5642)

swan dive (4857)

rescue (3905)

something else to pretend (3,572)

there's a theme here and it's bnha fics i wrote in 2019/2020

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yes!! with several asterisks i'll get into in a minute. i try to respond to every comment i get because:

i genuinely really appreciate that anyone takes the time to tell me they liked a fic when they could just consume it and say nothing with 0 consequences, so i want to say thank you

some comments have a rly big impact on me - change the way i feel about stuff, contain phrases i remember for a really long time, make me cry, etc - and just like how if someone writes a fic that impacts me then i want to tell them, i want to tell people how much their comment mattered

i often only figure out why i did something or made certain choices in a fic until someone prompts me to talk about it. it's such a useful exercise for understanding my own work better

i genuinely adore rambling about my fics, it's arguably more fun than writing them in the first place

it's really nice getting to chat to commenters and get to know people!

however. there is a 3-4 year period where i didn't reply to any comments at all because i got overwhelmed and then felt like it was too late to try and catch up. this still haunts me a little bit because i got some really lovely impactful comments in that era but it just feels too weird to reply literally like 5 years late 😭

2nd asterisk is some fics i feel kind of embarrassed about and so don't reply to comments on, 3rd is that i'm bad at managing my comments inbox so i'm sure i miss people out by accident sometimes, and 4th is that if i don't have anything nice to say then i won't respond...i get almost no comments i think are intentionally meant to be rude, but sometimes i get ones that rankle for one reason or another and i won't reply if i'm just gonna be tetchy bc again, i don't think they're meant badly

so very much a yes in theory but not in practice 😂

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

bargaining chips i think. the funny thing about that series is that in some ways i think things would ultimately turn out better than in canon (there's a reason the 2nd fic has akechi promise to contact ren if he does survive, a thing that would have paid off in the 3rd fic i never finished). but as of bargaining chips it's very much...this is the POV of a person who thinks the only power they have left in the world is to hurt people

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

my usual ending is like bittersweet and/or hopeful, so for example i feel a lot of things about the cathertic (for me at least) endings for redux and something else to pretend and unwanted, but idk if they can exactly be called happy.

going to my pure silly fluff fics instead where we pretty much start happy and end happy: to work, to rest which ends with the gang being happy about stickers, or class pets which ends with class a getting three (3) cats

Do you write crossovers?

nope!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not really! probably the closest was someone commenting on pathologised with just "WHERE IS YUSUKE?" in all caps 🙄 "why isn't my fave dude in your fic" is not a genre of comment i enjoy, though it's usually phrased more politely than that at least

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nope!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of, though it's apparently fairly rampant in bnha fandom with those "what if deku [x]" youtube videos. i think those are reserved for fics with actual plots though

Have you ever had a fic translated?

i think i've been asked for permission for people to do so before, but i don't think i've ever actually seen anything posted...someone did translate a little section of one fic into spanish in a bookmarker comment once, which was very fun because i remember little bits of spanish from school & years of sporadic duolingo

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no but i think it would be so fun 👀

What's your all-time favorite ship?

mannnn i just cannot care about romantic ships the way that seems to be so ubiquitous in fandom. even when i try and write romance it ends up as like ambigious tenderness or Friendship With Vibes. the few times i've even written kissing it's been just a build up to a kiss after which the fic immediately fades to black, which is really funny in retrospect like...buddy, is that because you stop caring about what's happening once the kissing starts?

i am fond of erasermic, jontim and shindeku, though i enjoy them as platonic dynamics pretty much the same amount

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

it mostly doesn't bother me to have tons of unfinished WIPs, i don't really put that expectation that everything i start will or should get finished/posted.

so the only one that genuinely bugs me is the third fic in seen and not heard, because i feel like i kind of promised it to people and then didn't deliver, and because it would have properly concluded a series i know a few people really connected with...and because the draft got to like 80% done but i could just never finish it off in a way i was happy with. maybe someday though

there's also a more recent bnha fic draft that i am really fond of in some ways, but i just could not take the discourse i think it would inspire. i might finish it just for me someday

What are your writing strengths?

cribbing all these from comments honestly but i think i'm pretty good at real-feeling emotional responses to situations. emotional realism, maybe? and writing introspection/people thinking and feeling things in general.

my characterisation gets complimented a fair bit, which is funny bc i think i actually take a lot of liberties with canon characters, but i guess i'm decent at couching those liberties in a way that makes it pass muster most of the time. like passing off a counterfeit watch as genuine

i'm somewhat good with grounding things in sensory detail, but that's one of those things i think i'll always be trying to get better at

What are your writing weaknesses?

i've never met a plot in my life and i don't want to. i also can't write longfic. in real-world terms i'm a short story writer and not a novelist - all those structural narrative things people do to make a long-form story work are just mystifying to me. part of that is just driven by what interests me though - i don't read a lot of plotty longfic either

i'm also still working on improving syntax and flow in my prose in general, but that's another one of those endless projects i think

oh also having more than two people in a prolonged dialogue scene is wildly difficult to me

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i have no thoughts on this matter!

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

merlin! i wrote probably bad merlin fic on ff.net back when i was like 15/16. it's actually the reason i joined tumblr in the first place, bc my fave merlin fic writer had a tumblr and i got curious

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

i'd like to write more about my silly little video game OCs. i've dabbled in it a bit before but i've never really invested in it because i know no one would read it/care. but i'm getting better at writing for myself and it is really fun to have records of these OCs that i love, so i hope i can write some stuff about the protag i make for new dragon age that i'll inevitably get deeply attached to

it's also kind of wild to me that i've never written for homestuck or dangan ronpa given the impact those two things had on my psyche

What's your favorite fic you've written?

my answer to this changes depending on the day but right now...something else to pretend my beloved

wow that got long. not tagging anyone but if you'd like to do it, consider yourself tagged!

[fadebolt]

I've seen some people posting their attacks collection from this year, so here's mine:

With the lovely targets being:

1. meowynn

2. aquaticnebulae

3. soul-sylver

4. sb-is-a-thing

5. saintwyrm

6. bindibites

7. phishtoast

8. pansear-doodles

9. toiletpapericecream

Decided not to ping them here, since I already did it once when I posted the attacks individually. But these are their blog names, and they're cool people with cool art - so feel free to look through their stuff!

This was an awesome first year of Artfight! Huge thanks to everyone who sent me their creations involving my powerswap scugs, I adore them all quite a lot! And thanks for all the wonderful comments and reactions to my attacks as well!

You guys were wonderful, and I hope I'll get to see you next year as well! :)

(Bonus ramblings about AF thoughts below cut. Be warned, they do be lengthy)

So when I was starting out with the site, I looked around on the internet to see what people had to say (out of curiosity, and to maybe find something helpful). And apparently, there are a bunch of entitled users that complain if the art you send them isn't "high quality" enough, or if you don't send a revenge for their attacks.

And I'm just sitting here, and wondering which Artfight did these people show up to, cus I've frankly never seen a person like that. Everyone was super sweet and appreciative when I attacked them, and I received zero scorn from attackers I didn't revenge. Perhaps it's something that happens only outside the Rain World community?

Anyhow, I ended this year with a solid 9/5, which might seem like rookie numbers for many, which... is actually kind of fair, considering that I am technically a rookie.

I really didn't expect to get attacked at all, considering that my refs were slightly rushed, and not particularly polished (something I'll hopefully get around to addressing in the meantime). Though I did have hopes that sharing my profile on Tumblr, and some Discord servers might help.

Funny thing is, I don't think any of those 5 people came from there, as they haven't interacted with me on Tumblr yet, and they haven't joined the servers that I was in. There's no way for me to confirm this, but they probably found me while browsing through the AF website itself, which is extremely flattering (especially since I initially thought that folks usually just attack their friends... turns out that ain't quite the case).

But this also proves that my theory about people liking powerswap Slugcats was actually correct! Which is great, cus they're a blast to create, and hopefully by next year, I'll get to have the other half of the cast (name ideas are 'Lightcat', 'The Crusader', 'The Solitary' 'The Augmented' and 'The Gambler', but it's all subject to change).

There were also some of my OCs which showed up in my attacks - I'm planning on adding them in, too. (So if you like necromancers, wizards that copy the spells of others, and weird fanchildren of niche ships, then I got some wonderful news for you!)

Speaking of my attacks, I definitely didn't draw nearly as much as I did for Art Month. That's because I decided it would be better to take things a bit slower, to have more fun, and avoid burnout. As I would rather send over a few attacks that I enjoyed, than to rapidly rush out like 60, to hit as many people as possible.

Sure, it'll mean that I won't get to attack as many people, but I still think it's worth it, as I get to enjoy myself more, while my target gets a better piece.

I was slightly concerned that a lot of people would find it insulting that I used a randomizer to pick targets, but nobody seemed to mind, which is great. After all, there were no bad intentions on my part, I just simply had too many people I considered worthy of being attacked, and I needed some outside help to combat my indecisiveness. There's simply too many great artists in this community!

My list consisted of SC members that stayed (I was grateful for their efforts to keep the place alive, and I felt this would be a great way to thank them), some other people from the fandom that I liked, and my attackers, who were given a multiplier of 5 to their chances, cus yeah xd

There were over 30 people there, so it's safe to say that I didn't get to most of them. I think next year, I'll give them increased chances too, and hopefully, I get around to most of 'em. (Unless I'll have to work on my thesis in July... I don't quite remember when that's going to happen. Hopefully, that won't be the case, and I'll have a bunch of free time, like this year, and I'll be able to do more than 9 attacks then. Fingers crossed)

So that's pretty much all I wanted to say here. I'm not sure if I should post any updates or uploads I do to my characters there btw. I suppose we'll see.

But the event was real fun, and I'm looking forward to experiencing it again!

[loftec]

Last week's Weekly Tag Wednesday!

Because I was festival prepping last week and had zero time for anything else but now I'm back and ready for some tags! Thank you @wehangout @mmmichyyy @michellemisfit for the tag (and also @deedala & @jrooc for the picrew tags!) <3

Name and A03 handle: lofty / loftec

Current Location: Sofa, living room.

Favorite picrew (don't have one? you can skip this or do this one)? I can't remember if I have a favourite one, so I'll just do this one!

The "SF" probably stands for something, but I immediately thought of Svensk Filmindustri and thought that was fun.

What's one thing you want in a picrew?

MORE GLASSES OPTIONS omg please. Colour and shape. I also really love it when I can build the hair in sections so I can colour my roots differently than the rest of the hair. Also, worse hair options. Come on, normalise 'I've got no hair texture or interest or time to do anything about it'. I feel like an imposter whenever I pick one of these perfectly swooshy dos.

Favourite thing you’ve created (or seen created) for the fandom?

None the wiser

Why is it your favourite? It's mad to think about but it was the first thing I decided to make for this fandom, and I'm still working on it (very very slowly) I don't know if I've ever spent this much time and effort on anything else. It's very special to me.

Did it come easily or was it hard to create? Both, right now it's very hard, but it usually comes back around.

Last ao3 fic you commented on? A Dead Boy Detectives fic, I'm pretty sure.

Biggest WIP heartache you’ve ever experienced? I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't usually read WIPs, not really because they're unfinished but because I don't often read long fic lol. My ideal fic for reading is a concise 5k oneshot, I am a terrible hypocrite.

Favorite trope or head cannon you like included in a fanfic? I do love a good outside perspective on Ian and Mickey's relationship not fully getting their dynamic and misunderstanding their special flavour of love. Also really like different canon-divergent stories where they get separated in different moments and then reunited in the future in various ways.

Least favourite? For most ships / fandoms I read fic of, I usually develop a set of icks that cause me to click out more or less immediately, often it's to do with a certain nickname or expression or act that I can't physically stand, or, you know, which signal a fundamental mismatch between mine and the author's focus/interests/views. Unfortunately, any mention of anything happening after season 5 has become a bit of an ick for me, which is deeply unfair to writers who embrace the later half of the show.

Secret or surprising kink or trope? No, I'm extremely basic tbh. My favourite time to read fic for a new fandom is always at the very start when everybody is writing the same super basic story over and over again.

Describe how you feel after you’ve created something new? The best feeling is when I know I've written the last sentence of a story or a chapter, it's always so clear that this, this is it, that's where it ends. I feel really accomplished and complete in that moment and it's great. Then there's still hours and hours of editing after that and it's usually 4 in the morning and I'm feeling slightly unhinged when I actually post.

Top hype man you have that always helps you get across the finish line: I tend to keep to myself when I'm working on something, but I can always rely on @mittimellan @wideblueskies & @the-rat-wins if I ever need to ramble about anything.

It's been a bad day, you turn to the fandom and you _____? Lurk and enjoy the good vibes and crafts. I probably also find something in my bookmarks that I've already read a thousand times and read it again.

[s0lar-ch3ri]

hey new draft making

i keep putting this off, but it today arrives! a ramble about ryan selucreh to fill tghe tag for once

(spoilers for mythborne ahead BUT ITS BEEN OUT FOR A WHILE FOR FREE NO PATREON REQUIRED PLEASDE CHECK IT OUT I NEED MORE MYTHBORNE FRIENDS IN MY JRWI MUTUAL CIRCLE)

so who even is ryan selucreh? well, hes a football jock and a big oaf, the stereotypical strong dumb athlete kid. however, theres more to ryan that we're diving into, years after the oneshot ended!

one thing to note on ryan is how his powers were gotten in a mix of ways aster and connor did. aster was born with them (assumed cause goddess mother), connor got them from a book (recieved from searching, wasnt born with it), ryan got his powers from squats. silly, sure, but like i said, its like the inbetween of the two. he has the power himself and doesnt need a book for them or anything, but he wasnt born with them either. i also wanna note how asters powers are like life (plants and the sun, both can symbolize life) and connors powers are like death (decay and disintegrating, both are related back to death), but ryans powers cant be "like" anything. its not something super showy, hes just super strong (strong enough to rip a mountainin half im pretty sure was confirmed).

lwts get into those comments ryan made, and how its reflected across the 3 episodes. yeah, the comments on faking his personality around people and how he doesnt know who he is anymore.

first showing of this is with the j crew. charlie gave a good idea (he was nicknamed jyan), but condi says he told them that. granted, it was probably to be funny, but theres other options to that. ryan missaid his name out of nervousness, the j crew misheard him, he wrote his name really wrong, so many different options that also are pretty comedic. yet, ryan told them he was jyan to join their team.

on the floatball jersey he wears, they didnt even have a 10 for him, simply a jersey with a 1 and a "poorly painted 0". did someone else use the 10? why didnt they have one? another way ryan changed for people symbolically, wearing one number but being another.

ryan joins in with the omnious curse speech despite it not being planned. an attempt to keep fitting in with his group there.

hell, ryan even was an ass to connor before when he was with the j crew, yet wasnt when he was with connor and aster alone.

he even goes out of his way to try and save asters dad, an act of carrying for her and her father. hes such a friendly and caring dude that hes trying to fit in with them all to keep up their friendships.

thats what makes the whole "i dont have a real personality" line mean so much. because he really doesnt. all that can be seen as his personality is simply to appeal to another person.

HELL IM FUCKING CONNECTING IN THE FACT THAR RYAN WAS A HISTORY MAJOR TO THIS! WHO EXPECTS THE JOCK TO LIKE HISTORY? NOT ME, I THOUGHT THAT WAS CONNOR, AND THATS WHY ITS SO INTERESTING, CAUSS NOTHING LEADS YOU TO BELIEVE RYANS INTERESTED IN THAT SHIT!!! ryan barely talks about his past or anything, minus the memory (but that was only to save professor aeliana), BUT HE DIDNT FUCKING BRING IT UP. kinda ironic, the character whos past is pretty unknown is in classes learning about our past.

oh yeah did i ever mention his parents are dead? cause they are (confirmed by condi a while back)

maybe thats why he tries to be so appealing to everyone, to make up for that missing link. i mean, its not like that event wouldnt have some impact on you (also no jrwi pc has gone to therapy from what i know so safe to assume he has no coping skills PLUS ITS A CONDI PC YPU THINK HES MENTALLY STABLE??).

another thing i learned: ryans last name is a backwards hercules. fun call back to the name, yeah, but the actual story may have some weight here...

the screenshot doesnt give the full story, of course, so i will. the picture leaves out how the reason he went through hardships was because he was driven to madness. according to research, hera was mad at hercules being born (for he was the product of zeus and a mortal woman), so she made him go crazy and slaughter his family. to make up for it, he was given 12 impossible tasks to do.

am i saying the full story applys? hell fucking no! i dont think ryan killed his parents or anything, but i think the jist can apply. a man trying to be forgiven by people for wrongdoings that wouldnt have happened if said people didnt make those wrongdoings happen. ryan trying to get the validation of his friends and acquaintances by pretending to be someone hes not, which wouldnt be needed if he could see friends accept people as themselves. given impossible missions (be someone else) to appease those who he looks to (whether its to the side or up to).

another thing to note is theres no episode cover with only ryan on it. cover 1 has all 3, cover 2 has background faceless frat members and connor, and cover 3 has only aster.

it could be from how there was only 3 episodes of mythborne, yet this could be solved by having all 3 in a cover at once. while it would have been a lot, they had all 3 in the first and a total of 4 characyers in thr second cover. this of course was a purposeful choice, and it shows in a way who the focus is meant to be on in that ep (all of them, connor, aster).

so why coupdnt ryan have been focused on in episode 1? yeah he was directly related to the chaos (j crew being first vicitms and shit), yet that clearly had a more general showing. its because ryan isnt a character who can be focused on. he crutches to his friends like a team relys to eachother, thats how he has purpose, thats how hes even a person.

i woulsnt even doubt the stupid bit being an act! to play in a sport, you actually do need good grades (in my school experience, above a C+ in all classes), and ryans been on this team since he started college (infered from dialoge with j crew member), probably since kindergarten even (has known j cre since kindergarten). he learnt it from them, and found it to be a possibly appealing trait of himself to others, everyone likes the lovable idiot! sure, what he does to play an act can be extreme, but if this is really thr coping mechanism i think it is, its not too much for him (also wanna note how of all characters ryan is the biggest stereotype caharacyer).

the 3rd episode btw seemed a lot from the cover and namr and all like the whole world was a fake (for me atleast), and isnt it fitting that ryan was the first to fall off the stage? the man, who had an identity crisis outloud for once after it seemed like one friendgroupd was about to learn his secrets, the first to exit stage down (stage direction jokes). hes been playong a play himself for what feels like his whole life by now, he doesnt need a script.

i came in here to talk about ryan, put him under a microscope, see who he is. really, ryans a shell of a person, a muscle soulless being pretending to be a person someone can love and care about. maybe he too thinks about how connor had changed inside to save him. whatever it is, i think ive not learnt from this who ryan selucreh is, and maybe if he gets aomething like this, he can learn himself who ryan selucreh is.

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

for, ahem, no particular reason, i decided to catch up on brilliant minds today instead of watching… other things. so! have a random assortment of brilliant minds thoughts:

the “outed by my phone’s text-to-speech feature while driving a failing patient to the bronx for treatment while my also gay colleague stabs the patient in the eye with a needle i keep in my car” scene in ep 3 was… a lot. medical drama nonsense, yes, but also a lot of fun for me personally.

(i do think this means the show is setting nichols up as a potential romance for wolf, though i don’t have a good sense for whether they’re going to acknowledge that potential in the text soon vs take the slow burn/will they won’t they path. given oliver sacks’ real life ‘shyness’ i think i’d prefer the slow burn, but i’m up for either option.)*

i need me a gif of that classic zq eyebrow reaction, captioned with “🏳️‍🌈?”

*coming back to this comment after episode 6 and feeling vindicated. i love how self-aware wolf is. saying “i’m not available” and meaning he’s emotionally not in a place to date? not for a lack of interest in this “objectively good-looking guy,” but because he doesn’t want to put a near-stranger through his intimacy issues for a chance at physical intimacy. slow burn, slow burn, slow burn…!

had not noticed the “glory to god” line (in the pilot, when wolf accepts an intern’s offer of half a clonazepam) until i went gifset hunting, and i am a bit :/ about it. are we really taking a real life jewish man and fictionalizing him as christian? like, sure, you’ve also changed the man’s birth year and nation of origin, but those changes were for storytelling convenience. it’s not like zachary quinto is incapable of playing jewish characters.

and the recent flashback with his dad, off his meds, rambling about going out in the woods to protect wolf-the-messiah… yeah, i don’t know about this one, gang.

the flashbacks felt like they were being told out of chronological order the first few episodes, so the more recent ones being a very straightforward linear progression kinda bummed me out… it felt like much blunter storytelling. they also felt increasingly less related to the medical mystery of the week—which, aren’t they supposed to be flashbacks wolf is having during the episode? there should be a connection between the events and the memories—especially in the latest episode, but i acknowledge that a group pregnancy delusion was going to be hard to tie to a single man.

i like the interns quite a bit! the only one i’m still a little uncertain about is jacob (ex-jock); while i think they’re being intentional about him withholding his personal stuff, i still want to learn that personal stuff!! does he really think being a college football player with a death sentence would’ve been a better life than a long-lived doctor? what’s his context that could make that true??

dana (anxious tumblrina) is probably my favorite intern? she’s fun, she’s Very Online, what’s not to like? her panic attack in episode 6 was very well done—this show does a great job of filming to show the subjective perspective in such moments, and her response to the panic attack was even better. felt very real.

i want ericka (‘i’m the real quarterback’) to have more going on than the “i worked so hard for this/never got to have fun” thing. i’m hoping she’s just a private person, and that something more meaty will come up about her eventually.

van (anxious empath) is fine, but i would like for him to stop drawing focus. he’s the only white intern, giving him the potentially big “another neurologist with a neurological condition for wolf to bond with/care for” storyline makes me concerned for this show’s ability to center its characters of color.

also… i do not want intern love triangle. i am worried that either the writing team is trying to build one, or two different writers favor different intern romances and aren’t talking to each other before setting them up with emotional moments. :/ i’m just not into either option. the way both relationships have been written so far feels very much about the guys’ emotions towards ericka, and nothing from ericka herself.

(granted, we haven’t gotten much emotion from ericka in general, see my above comment about her, but even so… this is not a compelling way to introduce a romance. convince me that there is a mutual interest!)

in the “house md but kinder and more diverse” metaphor, carol’s somehow both the wilson “best friend in a different specialty” analog and the cuddy “antagonistic administrator” analog—though she shares the latter role with wolf’s mom. it’s interesting! i don’t know how successfully the show is handling that balance, it’s a bit of a wait-and-see thing right now.

(actually, wait, i may have overlooked this in the pilot: does this fictional hospital have a combined neuro & psych department? is carol wolf’s boss? i guess that would make more sense than a one-man neuro department—and the two specialties do share a medical board in the us…)

i want more of the wolf-carol friendship! i think the weight of their history is well written, their dialogue isn’t written in that clunky “spelling things out for the viewer” way that states things that are obvious to the characters but that are news to the viewers. it’s refreshing. i worry about the “spying for mom” thing, i don’t have a good sense for how seriously the show’s taking it or how much of a betrayal wolf will find it.

[livsspecialinterests]

don't really know what I'm writing or why but it's 0350am and I'm sitting in bed unable to get back to sleep having a weird slight panic

idk whether I'm feeling a bit of a writing slump because I know that the dead should stay dead still has quite a way to go and some part of me worries that by the time I've gotten at the very least to the next big plot point a lot of people may very well have lost interest in the fandom

like I know it's silly because there's probably always going to be some sort of fandom around BJTM but this little community means so much to me and has meant so much to me during a really difficult and life altering time, I mean for gods sake I started writing fics to try to figure out my own meltdowns

plus at this point I really have no other strong interests, idk maybe I'll get super into Doctor Who again with the specials and the new series starting but I've really gone hard on the One Interest

I really love the last few chapters of the dead should stay dead but it's felt a bit different writing them. maybe it's because I feel a little guilty spending whole days on chapters when I've got so much that I need to do for work (I know it sounds sad but there's exams, portfolio etc), plus I'd really like to give writing original fiction another go

there's also that gnawing fear that the fandom is going to like... vanish, which again is probably not true in its entirety but once the tour ends I can see some people falling off or finding another thing

also people leaving or drifting away from the fandom is a completely okay thing to do I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad if that's what they want to do

it's also not to say that people are obliged to engage with or comment on my fics or hell even read them, of course no one *has to* do anything in fandom it's a bunch of people just having fun

I know I should just write for my own fun and enrichment but external validation is nice, okay? plus these past few weeks the external validation and thinking 'no, I want to write this for the people who are reading the fic and want to know what happens next' have been big motivators

my main motivator used to be this absolutely unstoppable creative drive and love for the show and it's characters (which is still there, I'm unfortunately going to love this silly show until the day I die I think) but this past week I've found that I'd rather study for my work exams than spend time writing a few paragraphs

if I cool it off a little with the frequency of chapter updates it'll probably be a net good for me, I really need to buckle down and get these exams passed, I need to start actually engaging in planning my career because I think in my head I've been thinking I might get a book published one day and as a result I've been sort of half neglecting the actual really decent career I've got

but also my mental health is so much better, I've mostly healed from a lot of my late diagnosed autistic trauma, plus work is actually quite good right now?

maybe more of my writing for BJTM fics was motivated by being mentally ill than I originally thought, and maybe I don't *need* to write fics anymore but I want to and I want to still love writing fics as much as I did back when I was having that difficult time, where it was a huge personal comfort to be able to write Beej having a hard time in very specific ways and have other people comfort him

I have said to my husband that I'll probably cool it with the fics once I've finished the dead should stay dead and am going to focus my creative energy on something original to see where that goes but there's still so much to go on the dead should stay dead..

that silly little fic has become like my baby, I want to write it all, flesh out the characters before the next Big Thing happens, I want to do my ideas justice but I also want to make sure there are people still in the fandom to read it once I get to that point

again I'm super tired it's the middle of the night and I'm rambling, I don't want to imply that anyone reading this should carry on reading something they don't enjoy, and I don't even think the number of people reading the fic has even gone down, I've just woken up this morning full of dread for the fandom changing because, fandom and interests wise, BJTM is kind of all I've got right now.

I didn't really belong to a fandom for years after BBC Sherlock ended and I realised while watching the 4th series that it wasn't that good there was just a very passionate fan base and that's what I likes (I know, I know), BJTM was the first thing I got really into for ages and the first thing I got really into while figuring out what it was that I got *really into* stuff (autism)

obviously no one has to stick around in a fandom for the benefit of a silly autistic fanfic author whos terrified of change, and please, please don't think that's what I'm implying or what I want

ughh idk what I'm even writing, I should probably just reach out more to people but doing that is scary without the buffer of a fic

I should also probably invest more time in doing stuff irl but I know that no hobby gives me the joy that writing gives me, like when I'm really vibing with something there really are few better things for me than being safe at home and writing

also maybe I should try to get into some other stuff but I don't really want to but equally I know the BJTM fandom isn't going to last forever I just.... 🙃

the silly musical and the silly community that has sprung up around it and making art and writing fics for it has saved me in so many ways I'm just scaaarrreedddd (and also tired and typing this at 4am so I might be being dramatic for nothing, plus I know I struggle with assuming any fleeting emotion is going to last forever, maybe I'll feel different in a weeks time idk)

anyway I'm going to try to get a little bit more sleep because I've got to be up for work at 6 for my actual grownup job that I should probably pay more attention to

(this is also totally not some way to subtly say I'm not going to finish the dead should stay dead BTW, I love that fic and I'm proud of what it is and what I've got planned for it, so to the people who are still reading please don't worry 💜)

[thousand-winters]

20 questions for fic authors

Thank you for tagging me, @candyskiez!!! I shall use this wisely (to procrastinate. And to ramble because I love rambling). Tagging @pascal-oswell @justmagicalgirl and @drbtinglecannon if you wanna do it, if not, that's okay!

1. How many fics do you have on ao3?

36, which would probably be insane to me a couple of years ago, but they're nothing compared to the amount of wips I have, enlisted or not (please, send help).

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

170,058! Nice

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mainly The Owl House.

I have a couple of fics for the Shadowhunter Chronicles, mostly The Last Hours (though I do have a Wicked Powers wip) but I haven't had the most pleasant experiences in the TSC fandom so that'll probably be it.

Oh! I do have 4-ish Mob Psycho 100 fics in the works and a Star Wars one.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

So, what was your name again? No surprises there, it's still lowkey insane to me how much attention that one got

Sentimental, grieving to survive: I think we all were longing for the family reunions after Thanks to Them, so I get it too

Operation 'Make Darius like me': If I had to pick something as my fic writing legacy, it would be Hunter causing Darius psychic damage by saying"meow-meow" in the most deadpan expression in the world

Long lost lies: I remember being sooo excited to write this one and then having a mental illness episode in the middle of it so overall it's funny it came out nice

An unsung melody, mine for safekeeping: I think this was like my third fic??? And it's just pure fluff so... really nice to have it here

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

I do! I cherish each comment dearly so I try to reply to them all within the week. Though I have been going Through It the past couple of months, so I've been falling behind on that :( I love them tho, I'm kinda sad when I don't get any

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

Okay, it's either "Loyalty Binds you" or one of my puppet Dadrius reunions which is, in retrospective, incredibly funny because I wrote those 3 one after the other, no hurt/comfort to be found.

I would argue the puppet ones have some hopeful undertones tho, so perhaps "Loyalty Binds you", especially because there's no hopeful ending in sight unless the whim strikes me to write it. It exists. In my head.

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

I write SUCH cheesy endings, you have no idea, I'm generally not one to leave things in a sad note because I'm too soft for that. But if I have to pick, I woud say "So, what was your name again?" if only because the ending is happy like in most of my fics, but this one, because it's a reunion fic, has a ecstatic sort of quality, I would say.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have gotten a couple of weird comments, but not hate, no.

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

Girl, I can barely write people kissing, this is asking too much from me. In all seriousness, I mostly write found family, so no smut here.

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

Same as candyskiez said, I prefer to write AUs in the setting of other media. I think crossovers can be fun but most of them aren't my thing, ngl.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Once as far as I know. When I went to ask the person to take it down, they deleted their whole profile so... win?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone asked me once for permission to translate a fic to Russian, I believe, but I'm not sure if they went through with it.

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

Not really, but Will and I should really get on with the one we have planned. To be fair, I have not replied our unhinged planning in a While™ so it's mostly on me. Oops.

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

I don't think I have one. Half of the ships I like don't compel me to read fics about them and the other half feel to fresh to even begin to compete as all-time favorite.

If I had to pick tho, I'm going with Cecilos because they meant everything to me from like 14-17.

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

All of them /j

Okay, kidding, I have been so exhausted lately in the writing department buuuut probably "Children of Dust and Ashes". I still love the concept and ideas I had for it but the one other person who cared about it is an ex-friend and as I mentioned before, TSC is a tricky fandom for me so I don't think I can cheerlead myself into finishing this one. I'm sorry to the like... 2 people who seemed interested.

16. What's your writing strengths?

You think I know myself that much? /j

Um. I'm gonna say characterization? I don't think it's perfect, but I do try to keep it consistent and it's something people have praised before so let's go with it.

17. What's your writing weaknesses?

In theory I know a shit ton of vocabulary. In practice, I feel like the language I use is too basic, which I blame a bit on the language barrier, and my descriptions too simple, which is a problem for me in Spanish as well, so that one is all me lmao.

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

I eat that shit up. Of course, I think it also depends on the context, keep it consistent! Like if a character canonically sprinkles their speech with words/sentences in their own language, one should absolutely strive to imitate that.

I think adding the translations at the end as a note works well.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

In general in life? Lord of the Rings, especifically, about Gimli, he was my guy.

Actually posting online? I'm. Huh. I'd rather not say... I'm willing to say the second one was Voltron Legendary Defender, so you can imagine how bad the first one must have been.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

"Loving Echoes (In loving memory of Emperor Belos)" is one I was super fond of when I wrote it and I still think back to it when considering my best pieces. I just really liked writing the speech/monologue there.

[callioope]

fencing update. this post is a bit rambling.

Something that is very different about the new place I fence, compared to the original place I fenced 15+ years ago: people feel incredibly comfortable giving unsolicited advice.

While I perceive this is coming from a good place and they are trying to be helpful, it's a bit disconcerting to me. Fencing already involves so much complex coordination, and there's so much to think about while doing it, and now every week it seems, someone is telling me that I need to work on XYZ. It's very overwhelming.

Like I sometimes feel a bit self-conscious about just how often I say "well it's been fifteen years" (like shut up Liz you've said this already), but then I say it because I sometimes feel like people expect me to know or remember certain things and I basically get defensive like, cut me some slack please!

I said this once when someone was offering advice, and they were like, "Well but you fenced before, right?"

And it's like: listen. I fenced consistently for about five years. Then I went to college and came back only every couple of months, and had a brief semester of participating in the fencing club someone was trying to start on campus (not a great experience). It's probably been at least 15 years since that last 'visiting for the holidays' fencing session. It's probably been 17 years since I was taking regular lessons. That means that at best, the amount of time I haven't been fencing is double the amount of time I was fencing. It could by some calculations be triple it, depending on what you count as my official last day.

That is a long time! Like I fenced a person today who was probably born after the last time I fenced (before I started back up again this year).

I just don't feel like people appreciate just how rusty I really am. Sure, I've been back for four or five months now, but that does not make up a 15-17 year gap.

All this to say, trying to remember information I haven't used for 15 years is overwhelming enough. Things like how to time attacks properly, etc. Then there's the fact that I'm not in the same shape as I used to be -- in my peak I was fencing 3x per week -- and my body is also just older. I don't have the reaction time I used to. Recovering from lunge position back to en garde probably takes longer.

Then pile on top of this, getting different advice from multiple people about what I should work on -- it's just A Lot. It's a lot to keep track of!

And I'm supposed to be doing this for fun. I'm mainly trying to work on accepting losing and remembering that getting a work out by brandishing a sword is freaking fun. It is! But it's more challenging to do that when people are commenting on my technique.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I don't remember this happening at my old fencing school. Perhaps the difference is that we were all younger, and the couch was a more obvious and distinct authority -- we left it to the coach mainly to, well, coach! Now there were some people who gave unsolicited advice, but as I recall they were the, ah, rather more arrogant types and they were not nice about it. Now, it's a class primarily of adults, more than half of which are 40+.

Oh, and the other part is that: in a model where the coach is primarily the person instructing a student on what to work on, they can approach their growth and learning in a more structured way. Work on this technique first for foundation, then go to this, then this, etc. But if every person is offering their own advice -- well, how do I filter that? How do I prioritize?

The answer I've come to is that I'm going to try to start keeping a journal. Here are highlights of what felt good today. Here was what I decided to work on myself, and how successful that was. Here is what the coach's lesson's focused on, and how successful that was. Here is what random person suggested. And then just collate that and make a list of what's important to me.

But finally, I don't have any intentions right now of competing in official tournaments. So, maybe I also need to work on just letting things roll off my back. Thanks for the advice, file it away, and just don't think about it. That's hard for me, but maybe something worth attempting.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

AHJSJSJS TUMBLRS A BITCH BUT YOU DONT NEED TO APOLOGIZE ITS NOT YOUR FAULT i was also getting some things done i just took a quick break and saw Jeirin’s post LMAO (epic crossover fr HAHA) so i didn’t have the time to notice but also even if i did id probably assume you were just touching grass (which you were LMAOOO)

L is now trademarked by otoya yup he doesn’t have any Ls in his name so he had to make up for it elsewhere (haha Lswhere I’ll shut up now)

SUHSJSSH WAIT OK GOOD I wasn’t sure if it was a shitty kid bully teasing or like a cute friend teasing it’s good that it wasn’t bullying though because if anything it is a rather cute nickname I just didn’t know if you had trauma from it SHSHSHSH

Ah 2022 jjk era….yk back then I definitely would’ve been like “NOOO DONT END SOON” now I’m like “yeah fucking finally” it had its good run back then now it’s fr just kinda insane also it’s actually so sad that at some point I ended up just full on saving the TikTok’s I knew I needed to reference back to later on just in case they disappeared forever SHSBSNS I have so many random

tutorials saved on there too like I’m not losing this hack

- Karasu anon

HAHA sometimes i do see your asks but i’m like “i know i’m going to write a super lengthy response to this so let me save it for later” LMAOAOA like i know for a fact i’m going to ramble and have to whip out my ipad for it meanwhile i can post my silly two sentence thoughts and responses to comments in five seconds on my phone so i’ll be active just not answering-asks-active if that makes sense HAHAH but yeah idk why tumblr does that with longer asks especially it just freaks out 😭 maybe one day they will resolve it…

LSWHERE PLS no yeah it’s his letter honestly he’s lowkey chill i think he would find it funny that we slander him sm…idk how to describe it i just have this hunch that if he knew he’d think it’s his rizz at work or smth

yeahhh i never got mad i thought it was so cute as a nickname!! pls i was too mean to be bullied…i was rlly shy as a little kid so i got bullied when i was like really young?? not like making fun of me bullied but forced to do stuff by my “friends” because i didn’t want to hurt their feelings by saying no 😭 but i got new friends and ended up moving for middle school anyways!! and at that point i had developed the most villainous mouth ever i was actually lowkey evil with some of my quips BUT only to people who deserved it so like it cancelled out 😩 mostly everyone liked me so it was def meant as an endearment thing like aww cutie pie mouse mira hehe especially because that was back when the guys were just starting to hit their growth spurts and they loved to do anything to show off that they were now 5’7 instead of 5’3 so they’d pat me on the head after singing the little song LMAOAOOA icl looking back it’s lowkey unreal but then again what in the mira lore isn’t

REALLLL 2022 jjk era was so diff i also thought back then that the manga would go on for much longer so it was a diff vibe?? tbh i still can’t believe it already ended tbh i feel like it had such a short runtime for a manga…like attack on titan i know ran from before 2013 (because that’s when s1 of the anime came out so it would’ve had to have been before) and the manga ended in 2021 and that’s not to mention the ones like one piece that have been going on FOREVER ofc idt jjk should’ve gone on for quite that long but it def could’ve done with some extra time i think 😩 did you see that gege straight up released a new character LKSDJFH like what even

no that’s so real half of my saved tik toks are edits and the other half are makeup tutorials…ngl i never use them though because the only makeup i can ever do is a tiny bit of pencil liner, mascara, blush, OCCASIONALLY highlight if it’s smth super important/a special event, and some color on my lips!! so like all of the foundation/contour hacks are very useless for me and same with the eyeshadow tutorials but that doesn’t stop me from watching and saving HAHAH

[rockinlibrarian]

Fic stats game

Check this out. I saw it on @therulerofallpotatos, reblogged from @ourdramaqueen, who themselves reblogged it from somewhere else, because it's NOT one everyone just adds to. In fact it doesn't appear to be a tag game. Just do it if you, like I, think it looks fun!

rules: give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.

Most hits: "On the End of Endgame: A Series of Scenarios" at 1,105 hits.

Second Most Kudos: SIGH. This is the wrong one. "Chapter 19.5: Hidden. Safe. Somewhere." is a perfectly nice little fic, but there's no way it got to 103 kudos organically. It's from a super-small fandom where I tend to get ten kudos at most for works I put a lot more work into, and there are no tags that make it stand out in any way (there are only four additional tags, and only half of those are actual tags that aren't freeform rambling and even that's just "Missing Scene" and "Post-Season/Series 02"), and there are only 250 hits, which is an awfully close hit-to-kudo ratio. 4 of those kudos are registered users, the other 99 are guests, and while I'm sure some of those are real people, the majority must be some sort of glitch that was happening last summer. I'd get new "guest" kudos for this fic every day. It was the only notification from AO3 that would DISAPPOINT me, because I knew it wasn't REAL!

So my most likely more organic answer is "Not Just Stupid Kids," which is catching up at 96 kudos, and while I'm not entirely sure all of THOSE are organic either since it outnumbers my other Fiktor fiks by double...but maybe not, because only 34 of those are guests and that seems totally likely for a somewhat-controversial ship.

Third most comments: I'm not sure about this question because if you're actually going by what's on your stats page, it lists fics not by individual comments but by unique comment THREADS. And since the answer to comment THREADS is "On the End of Endgame" again at 9, and I already linked to that one, the third most COMMENTS is a tie between "Exploration of the Astral Plane" and "A Strictly Scholarly Collaboration" at 15 comments each.

Fourth Most Bookmarks: Is another tie, at 12, between "The Puppy-Fly Effect" and "On Soul Mates and Nemeses".

Fifth most words: "We Will (Not) Always Have Each Other" at 9,672 words. Aw, I'm happy to give that one a little extra spotlight, here!

Which is why this game is so interesting! It lets me talk about fics that don't get singled out very often! (Although I did specifically link to BOTH my "third most comments" tie in the very LAST Writer's Ask game I did).

But then on the other hand, my last answer is another repeat:

Least words: "The Puppy-Fly Effect" at 849 words, but hey, it's short and sweet and you should read it as it's probably one of my most accessible fics, since pretty much everyone knows the source material for once. (Though, friendly reminder that my Legion fics are mostly all prequels that require no prior knowledge! I just like to point that out whenever I get the opportunity).

[ofchrysoprase]

"So what I'm getting from this is that you're supporting my dream to own a pet tortoise?" Dante asked with a smile. He doubted he would ever actually do such an irresponsible thing - as he had no clue how to take care of a tortoise, nor where to get one in the first place. With his luck, he would end up with one that wanted nothing to do with him. Shit, why had his insecurity expanded into hypothetical pets? Not that it mattered, as the entire conversation had really been nothing more than an attempt to keep Valentine's attention on something completely unrelated to his panic attack. Something outrageous enough to genuinely distract him. Judging by Val's chuckles, he had at least somewhat succeeded in his own way.

"Tortoises hibernate? See, I didn't even know that, I would probably poke it with a stick and worry it had died or something. Wait, is that why they get so old? Because they sleep for half of the year? That actually sounds like the best idea I've heard in a while." He laughed, though he was serious about most of it. How did one even check if a tortoise was still breathing? He had no idea. "Next time someone suggests exercise to me, I'll let them know that hibernation is actually the key to a long and healthy life. That and a solid diet of lettuce. That's what I've seen them eat the one time I saw tortoises at the zoo, anyway."

Catching Valentine's comment on the 'kids' part of his rambling, Dante pulled up his shoulders in a shrug. "I meant it more, like, you know, it would be nice for the kids. I also like to make snowmen, but I'd be okay if I didn't get to make one. But if they're getting enough snow for it, then obviously we should get to have fun too." He was quick to correct himself. His gaze fell back onto Merry, who appeared a bit less guarded than a few minutes ago. "Sounds like you guys should get back inside soon, I'm sure he deserves a few treats to warm him back up. I don't think I could ever have a dog breed that's made for the snow, because that would mean I have to go out in that same snow. I'll take a beach dog like Merry any day, as long as I don't end up with sand in all the places I don't want it."

" well it sounds plenty appealing to me too , " not that valentine was planning on going out to get a pet tortoise any time soon , " so maybe it's just appealing . nothing about how you made it sound . " he wasn't sure why he felt so strongly about anything to do with the matter , wasn't sure why it really did sound like he was trying to convince dante to get a pet , but it certainly beat dwelling over his fears and the chilling reminders of the last attack - which in turn , brought up everything unpleasant from his own attack , and every terrible personal experience that he'd gone through since . " i don't know , i think if you're trying to teach your tortoise how to fetch the remote you've likely reached the point of no return with your tv addiction , " he chuckled .

he chuckled again at dante's comment on bravery , mainly laughing at the comment about dante himself being brave . he wasn't sure if he'd be able to find the words , not wanting to be awkward or make things weird , but he was rather glad that dante had found himself there , too . though valentine knew that he had to deal with his issues sooner , rather than later , a distraction definitely helped him better in the moment of deep panic and fear . " well if you got a tortoise right now , they'd be in hibernation - winter and all - so i don't think there'd be much exercising , " valentine told him . " but at the same time , that would also mean that they wouldn't be able to miss you too much right now . "

" you never know what's gonna happen , " valentine offered with a shrug , but he wasn't going to say much more on the topic . valentine could say so much about love - he could talk nonstop about it - but he understood when it wasn't his place to do so . he liked dante a lot , but he didn't get the impression that dante wanted him to pipe up and chime in on the matter . besides , going from talking about getting your hair done to the topic of love was rather dramatic ; it was valentine's natural thought process , but he recognised it wouldn't have been everybody's .

" yeah , just enough for the kids , " he chuckled , as if to say that snowmen construction and snowball fights weren't only for children . or maybe they were , and valentine was still extremely young at heart ; he wouldn't have been surprised if that was the truth . " no , merry doesn't like the snow at all . he's just like me , loves the heat . he'd much rather frolic through the sand on a sunny beach somewhere rather than have to trek through snow , " he laughed affectionately . " i know some dogs who totally love the snow , though . especially some particular breeds who are made for the snow , you know ? but merry's not one of them . he will take a great big pile of leafs to run through any day , though . "