#but it's still a huge wip and I still need to figure out a bunch of major plotholes so whatever

[haza1ll]

animation for THE NEON VOIDD BABYYYY

this post is for @sugarpasteltmnt

‼️‼️MEGA YAPPING AHEAD PLEASE BEWARE‼️‼️

this might end up being really long and rambly and sappy but maybe not who knows.( it was) (and also featuring numerous spelling errors i am way too tired to fix and i am not re reading what i just wrote) SO. yknow how when chap idek..25(?) came out and i was all like “yeah so i made this animation for TNV and ill drop it when the fic ends” in your ask box? so. I FINISHED IT RAHHH. technically it has been finished since i sent that ask but ohhh my goodness did it need polishing. i haven’t animated in 4 years before that and omg it felt so good getting back into it but IDFK SOMETHING IS STILL NOT UP TO MY STANDARDS. i feel like i could have done so much more with it and i deffo wanted to but as soon as i told myself “oh yeah this is basically done” art block literally sucker punched me in the gut out of NOWHERE. I COULD NOT PICK UP MY I PAD. I COULD NOT DRAW. I WOULD STARE AT THE WIP ANIMATION AND BE UPSET BC I DDINT WANNA WORK ON IT AHH. that goes with saying. i kept having this thought in the back of my head “you need to finish it. you have a wip sitting. finish it. go do it. what are you doing are you STARTING ANOTHER PROJECT??? anddd yeah i got super distracted with other stuff and other projects and then i started spending my free time rewatching 2012 turtles and omg this summer has been a mess. i have all the free time in the world and i choose to be the least productive as possible with it even though i have a job that lets me literally sit on my phone and do whatever i want if no one is there. (i’ve brought my switch to work numerous times ☠️) what i was trying to get at is the fact that TNV has inspired a lot of the old me to come back and i lowk missed her. i really missed the point in all those words up there but im here now so whatever. BUT. TNV made me make a tumblr account, i got back in to animation AND digital art in general, got back into longfics that are ongoing, AND it also helped kickstart ideas for writing. i’ve got so many stories now!! you are such an inspirational person pastels i just- every time i read a new chapter of yours it made me wanna go get up and do something. i wanted to create something. because at the end of each chapter, i would think- “woah. a person out there just wrote this. they just sat down one day and committed. i wanna do that” so i did that. just huge thank you and shoutout to you pastel. like damn. idk no words from me here. just a bunch of platonic hugs and kisses and thankyouthankyouthsnkuou for this lovely heart wrenching but also sweet story. i love this fandom (tmnt) so SO much and i think it’s so awesome how interactive you are with your own personal NV fans. crazy how we’re all here because of a bunch of turtles. 

STUFF ABOUT THE ANIMATION:

okay i really like to talk and if you let me, i will run my mouth. this is the internet so im gonna do just that. so more words for you to read 😁. AHEM. so like i stated before in the genuinely scary mess of words up there, i haven’t touched animation in a while, like, 4 years a while. yes i’ve done digital art here and there along the years, i haven’t been doing it nearly as much as i need to to use some programs to their full potential. layers are still confusing, and don’t even get me started on multiply and all that jazz. shading never comes out right on digital for me, i gotta work that one out. so, for this animation, i decided to go with a very rough style. nothing needed to be perfect, i just wanted to live my little life of trying to experiment with a bunch of different things all at once in one short animatic. I wanted to do that little ball bounce thing all animation artists start with (i kinda included that with the key). i also wanted to have a go at lip sync (no hate it was my first time) and also timing the animation with the music. i wanted to see how smoothly i could move a figure in and out of and out of the screen as well, which honestly, i think that part might be my favorite. i think i did a good job, and thats what matters. the animation itself lost a bunch of quality on importing it- no clue how it happened but now the ending is grainy af. ignore that pls lol- but it was sitting in my flipaclip for god, i dont even know, 3 months now? i kept going back and forth on if i wanted to share it or not, so im throwing it to the wolves and i guess whatrver happrns happens and im good with that. yay. im actually rrwlly tired now sooo *leaves this absolute pile of words with a video attached at your feet and stumbles away quickly*

also i’ve genuinely never posted anything so i’m learning how to use tumblr too ☠️

[literaticat]

It took me a while to stop crying and resolve to help people who will be targeted (starting 1/20/25). I am also trying to reconnect to even a scrap of joy, by tiptoeing back into writing. But...I keep analyzing my WIPs through the lens of how That Guy will be making half the country feel, wondering, "Is X funny enough? Is Y topic too serious?" Help?! Is it worth writing/querying anything that's not totally escapist? Are there genres that should just stay in a drawer right now?

No need to wait until January to help people! :-)

As to the writing piece: I think you are overthinking it. And hey, I get that! Half the country is still somewhat in "reeling mode", it hasn't even been a month, no need to make any huge decisions or change the course of your writing life or fret about queries that you aren't ready to send anyway right this second. Give yourself some grace. Do some deep breathing.

Nobody knows what the future will bring.

Hey, maybe people will want to read more than they ever have and publishing will thrive across all genres. Maybe there will be an unforeseen trend of books about cowboys in space or something that will make a genre flourish that we haven't ever even thought of before!

Or, maybe the tarriffs will eff publishing up so badly we won't need to worry about ANY genres anymore. Maybe he'll sell us all to Daddy Vladdy for a nickel or start Civil War II and we'll all have to become resistance fighters. (Or, maybe we'll get lucky and the meteor will come; that might be better, because I don't have much to offer in the way of actual resistance fighting unless the troops need children's books or cookies!)

But since none of those lines of thinking are particularly helpful or healthy, maybe let's not focus on speculating about all the random possible scenarios. It's too much! Your brain will break!

Here's what is within your purview: YOUR LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD. That includes your work, yes, but also your home, your family, your personal behavior and habits, your physical and mental health, and the well-being of your communities (both literal, like, the people who live near you, and figurative, the people near you or even across the country or the globe with whom you have shared values, etc)

I'm not an expert obvs, but I do feel like, when I stop "reeling" and thinking about whatever bizzaro outrage some politician is perpetrating and start thinking about what tangible things I can do to help support MY LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD, I feel a lot better. More useful.

(Like, how about instead of doomscrolling, I actually take that time and put my impotent rage to use pulling out the dying tomato plants and getting the yard ready for winter? How about instead of crying into my pillow, I gather a bunch of stuff to donate to a local charity? OH LOOK, I FORGOT ABOUT THE NEWS FOR A WHILE AND GOT THINGS DONE AND MADE MY CORNER OF THE WORLD BETTER! And now I'm tired and can take a nice shower and watch something silly on TV and go to sleep! Yay!)

What I'm saying is, AFTER you do the deep breathing and give yourself grace and all that stuff -- maybe DON'T think about your WIPS through the lens of "OMG what horror show is that freak in the white house doing" or "what will random terrible people think about what I'm doing" -- but rather, think, how do *I* feel about what I'm doing?

We have limited time on this earth -- do you WANT to spend your time on this? Will working on this bring you joy? Does the idea of writing it excite you? Will it reading it bring other people in your communities joy, or hope, or escapism, or important information, or inspiration, or *something else positive*? Those are the kinds of projects you should focus on, imo.

Obviously I have no clue what "Trends" will be coming up in the future, or what the publishing landscape or the world will look like at all -- but I DO SUSPECT that what we will need the most is books that bring something positive to the table. Whether that means a book full of pure delight/escapist entertainment, or reminders about what is beautiful in the world and special about humanity, or tools to help people enact change, or fuel for the next generation of rebels and resistance fighters, or whatever it is.

And, I think that "something positive" could come in the form of fiction, nonfiction, and pretty much ANY genre or category.

(Probably not a great time for extremely bleak / hopeless books, and certainly not a great time for books that you yourself are not passionate about. Writing and publishing is hard enough - don't do the projects that are a misery on top of all that!)

[liminalmemories21]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

tagged by @screamlet (who I've been reading since at least 2010). Thank you!

1. How many works do you have an AO3? 48

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 711,517

3. What fandoms do you write for? 911 LS, and 911

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Long Story Short (series) - LS A home isn't always the house we live in - LS It came without ribbons! - LS Always Wear Your Invisible Crown - LS Awful quiet here since love fell asleep - 911

5. Do you respond to comments? I really try to, sometimes I think they get lost in my inbox, but I do try.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? uh, none of them? I don't think I've written anything that doesn't have a happy ending.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? hmmm, maybe It came without ribbons?, or Knave 4 (The Knave of Clubs ... swears he'll take her part). They both end in marriage proposals.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Just a few on Knave 4, which I expected and mostly ignored.

9. Do you write smut? more often than I ever imagined I would

10. Do you write crossovers? I love a good crossover. Haven't written one yet, but would enjoy it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of. Let's keep it that way. (finger's crossed)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? no

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yup! All the 911 stuff with @cecilyv - nothing better.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Well, I don't publish WIPs, not because I have an ethical stance on it, but because I'm usually still changing things at the beginning right up until I hit post and I don't understand how people post things as they write them. Not my process.

That being said, there's a LS kidfic that I'd like to finish some day, but every time I look at it I can't figure out where it's going.

16. What are your writing strengths? I feel like this is a thing other people need to tell me? Dialogue? Plot (apparently? or so 200,000 words of Knave-verse would like me to believe).

17. What are your writing weaknesses? brevity

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I'd like to do more of it, because I have characters I write who I think probably do think in another language, but it's not a language I speak, so I don't.

19. First fandom you wrote for? published? Lonestar. unpublished? there's a Merlin story @cecilyv and I wrote for years that is mostly not great, but has it's moments.

20. Favorite fics you've written? ooh, okay:

There were a bunch I wrote early for LS that are kind of character studies that I love - A home isn't always the house we live in (Judd), Stitched with its color (TK & 9/11), and through same of am through haves of give (Enzo)

And, I'd be lying if I didn't say Knave-verse, because I think Knave 2 and Knave 4 are the best things I've ever written - and there is just so much of me in the way TK thinks about art.

And then Baggage That Goes with Mine - because there isn't necessarily me in there, but there is a lot of my history in fandom and the huge cultural shift that I have seen happen since I started reading fic in Tommy's story. Also, I do love me a split timeline narrative.

tagging @walkinginland, @rmd-writes, @alchemistc, @rcmclachlan, and @three-drink-amy

[campfam4lyfe]

Got any campfam aus or ideas in the works?

hey anon! I wouldn’t say I have any ideas in the works, because I have what I like to call commitment issues when it comes to writing fic.

This means that while I have an abundance of ideas, outlines, and wips in my Google docs for the fandoms I’ve been in. I’ve never actually finished a fic and posted it.

In fact, the only single time I have, (diff fandom!) I am not counting properly, because it was a collab with a close mutual, and a lot of the legwork was them. I had the initial plot bunny and was going to leave it as a one off tumblr post, but my mutual rlly liked the idea and we bounced drabbles and such back and forth. We wrote a bunch of snippets and put them together in a doc, until we had cohesive chapters, as we filled the empty spaces with more and more work, ending up to a total of 18 chapters. It took us a year and a half to post it, and that was mostly my fault, as where my mutual had finished most of their allotted sections, different hyperfixations kept pulling me to other unfinished works. This is why I won’t promise anything—I don’t want to disappoint anyone.

But, that being said. I do have ideas, hcs, and aus! One that is currently consuming me, was actually inspired by this one other post I saw recently. (When I find the post ima link it dw!) OP of the post was saying that there should be a Carmen Sandiego au for CC and I jumped on that SO fucking fast anon. I LOVE Carmen Sandiego, and have since it first aired when I was in HS.

So. Here’s some of the Carmen Sandiego au thoughts copy/pasted from my Google docs. (Yes I do always write out my outlines as if I’m taking to someone but that’s bc i sometimes end up sharing the doc link with some friends)

JWCC Carmen Sandiego AU:

Y’all know Kenlynn is my JAM and so is RedCrackle. So obvi I thought of mixing the two right? But here’s the thing. While I love Carmen/Gray, I am also in love with Carmen/Ivy and Carmen/Julia.

So with that in mind. Kenlynn is going to take a backseat for a second (meaning tho they'll become a thing and obvi they will bc they are a constant to me, theyre not the center of this), and my fave girls YASAMMY will be at the forefront of this au.

I’m thinking. Carmen Sammy. But I’m not entirely sure about whether or not that’s what I want? It could be argued that Sammy’s love for her family is a core driving force in her character, and Carmen doesn’t KNOW her family. But also—a huge plot point is that she’s looking for her mom. So. Tentative Carmen Sammy.

MANTAH CORP AS VILE MANTAH CORP AS V.I.L.E MANTAH CORP AS V.I.L.E

So I figure not everything is going to be one-to-one. This means I am placing Kenji in the role of Gray/Crackle. His story is going to be different tho, bc whereas Gray was a recruit, with MANTAH CORP AS V.I.L.E that means Daniel is already on the board. So kenji trying to make his dad proud? More likely than you think.

(I just wanted my Sammy&Kenji besties. Bestie betrayal can be just as good as romantic betrayal)

I’m sure you know where I’m going with this if we’re not going the redcrackle route. Thats right. YASMINA JULIA.

I considered at first, YASMINA CARMEN and SAMMY IVY, but in the end the need for Sammy Carmen was too great.

So I also considered Dave and Roxxie as Chase and Julia but, I decided to scrap that idea for now. You know me, at some point I might revamp most of the au anyways lol, now is not a time for fine tuning it’s just a tentative starting point.

Torn between DARIUS as Player or Brooklynn as Player. I considered Ben of course, but I think we need to put him on an island at some point—he needs a Bumpy, no matter the universe.

WAIT. REVISITING BEN AS PLAYER. BECAUSE DARIUS AND BRAND AS ZACK AND IVY. This means no Carmen/Ivy vibes but since we ditched the Gray/Carmen as well in this au I think it’s fine.

Ben still has to end up with Bumpy somehow tho? Original Ben plan, when Darius was a Player candidate, was Ben is also a V.I.L.E recruit.

V.I.L.E having a faction that deals with genetics and cloning (in addition to like. Kash and his robots) and ending up with a dinosaur—Bumpy! And that being Ben’s flip to the other side/Team Sammy. He defects and steals Bumpy on his way out.

Okay I’m a little too attached to that, so yeah. V.I.L.E recruit Ben, so Brooklynn as player??

Oh! She doesn’t have!!! IRL friends!! Brooklynn being an Internet famous vlogger as in canon. So we get that running gag of Sammy and Brooklynn always being in contact and Brooklynn being a big part of the heists through investigative work and such, yet she’s constantly on the other side of the globe? Sammy needs to be in Sydney but Brooklynn is in New Orleans. That kinda stuff.

Works with Brooklynn having traveled all over the world, she can also do those factoids player does—she’s got the deets.

Oh!???? THATS HOW WE GET MY FAVE DUO OF DINOSTAR BESTIES!!! They both love their facts. They’re nerds.

Mae as shadowsan? Tentatively?

Okay. Player Brooklynn. Except instead of being home most of the time, she’s usually on the go. She’s talked to kenji a few times during Sammy and Kenji’s V.I.L.E recruit era.

Kenji as the Gray of this au. he’s a V.I.L.E legacy. he became friends with sammy his recruitment year, and he'd talked to brooklynn a few times, due to sammy introducing them because kenji was curious about whether or not sammy has friends in the outside world, and sammy noticing brooklynn feeling a little left out/jealous that sammy had friends she was hanging with in person rather than over a phone call.

kenlynn kenlynn kenlynn

does he recognize her voice from her vlogs? does he even watch them? i dont think hed be a brooklander, guys got a lot on his plate and thats impressing his dad

ben is a V.I.L.E. recruit. maybe a bit of mime bomb, in that he was. not as close? with the other recruits. i do think having ben come in as a recruit the year sammy defects would be cool tho. so he doesn't know her as "black sheep" or whatever code name V.I.L.E refers to her as. he'll first meet her as Sammy.

yaz as JULIA!!!!! a junior agent? a former athlete. trying to make it make sense, but i think it fits.

omg. yaz. is alex rider basically holy shit

was thinking of dave as chase, and decided that i was going to keep it.

roxxie as the Chief.

mae as shadowsan.

yes. it IS because i want a roxxie/mae/dave love triangle and that need's final form was ot3

DARIUS AND BRAND AS ZACK AND IVY. i dont want their mom to be dead. but i dont know WHAT happened to her and why theyre involved in this life of crime? i love the og carmen&ivy&zack meeting. and i love that they were involved with racing. trying to find a way to incorporate it and make it make sense

important question.....is darius and his dad's great shared love still dinosaurs?

OR IS IT CARS? RACING?????? BRAND BEING INVOLVED IN THE RACES BC IT WAS IMPORTANT TO DARIUS AND THEIR DAD AND DARIUS CANT DRIVE YET

AND. SAMMY. AS CARMEN!!!!!!

okay so carmen's dad was a former V.I.L.E. agent who left it all behind for the woman he fell in love with right? well. obvi this au isnt a one to one. like there clearly have been changes in characters and dynamics. but i think involving elements from this could work. lemme map it out to make sense

okay so in cc sammy spies for mantah corp despite her parents not wanting her to. meanwhie carmen's dad defects from V.I.L.E., i think shadowsan was there and so was the chief and he dies.

okay so--sammy's dad was a V.I.L.E. agent, fell in love, defected. V.I.L.E. catches up with him, and does A.C.M.E. and in the fallout, the house collapses. A fire? an explosion? they think sammy died. (im not killing off sammy's dad bc damnit she needs a happy ending)

yaz losing faith in the system and having her hot girl summer being romanced by the pretty thief she's supposed to be catching

ben ditches VILE/Mantah Corp with Bumpy and meets Darius at some point--oh!!!

mae/shadowsan joins Team Sammy at the end of s1 i think? okay, so, when she joins, she brings ben, a fresh defector with her.

obvi ben left after he stole bumpy from them

at some point during their occasional talks, kenlynn became friendly with each other. then The Train scene happens. and kenji is promptly deemed a disappointment and dealt with the way gray is.

brooklynn ends up coming across a memory-wiped kenji during one of her vlogs. he doesnt know he knows her, just that something about her voice seems familiar.

brooklynn brings it up and the other are Concerned but also have a lot on their plate rn/dont truly trust him again or are unclear on whether or not they should. darius/brand bc their experiences havent been good so far, and sammy doesnt want to risk them. but he was still one of her first friends. shes torn

brooklynn making contact with him. smth smth she ends up needing a camera man for one of her vlogs and kenji volunteers. they grow closer during her sporadic visits. he asks her out.

DANIEL KON HAS ENTERED THE CHAT. SAMMY NEEDS BROOKLYNN TO DO HER THING. SHE MISSES THE DATE.

Meanwhile, that entire interactive ep??? of carmen sandiego with the julia/carmen??? THAT. THAT HAPPENS. YASAMMY DANCE AND WE GET THAT SCENE YOU KNOW THE ONE

[wolfjackle-creates]

Hi! First of all I love your work! Second, for the WIP ask thing I'd love any thoughts you have knocking around your head on I'll Carry Your Heart Until I Find You Again. I've been meaning to reread it, and I love it to bits!

Okay, so I have, probably, the most thoughts surrounding this fic! This fic is based off the first prompt I ever sent to @stealingyourbones and I sent it as a prompt because it was too much for me to dive in and write it myself.

I still get a little intimidated when I think of what I want to do for it.

And honestly? I'm gonna need to get my hands on some comics to do it justice. I already realized there's some minor time line things I want to adjust for the parts I've already posted, but those shouldn't make a huge difference to the fic. Just need to adjust Jason's death date and some of the details surrounding his resurrection.

I'm gonna put the rest under a cut because, again, this isn't a snippet. It's a discussion of where I'm going to take the fic in broader terms. So ~spoilers~ 😘

---

Danny is gonna spend his time thinking Jason is in a coma. And the other ghosts have no reason to suspect that's not the case. I mean, he's retreated into his core and can't be woken up. What else are they to think?

Meanwhile, Jason is running around without any of his ghostly memories because those are locked into his core and he doesn't have it.

Anyway, Danny is traveling all over the realms trying to learn ghost medicine to figure out ways to wake up Jason. But nothing he tries works. Frostbite and the Yetis are also searching to no results.

After a time, Danny gets the idea to look into magical healing rather than ghost healing. So he looks up magic users he might be able to learn from.

Which is when he learns about The House of Mysteries and it's current owner/resident John Constantine. (And this is why I'm gonna need to read a bunch of comics. I need to know more than dpxdc fanon about Constantine.) He realizes John Constantine is someone he can make a deal with and could have the knowledge he needs for Jason.

Shenanigans ensue. (But it's all super angsty because I'm me.)

[nicheappeal]

WIP Wednesday

Currently looking for a better title for this one than "predebut hyunsung rapefic". So. That tells you a lot about this fic.

Normally I don't bother doing wip wednesdays on here anymore because none of my followers are into skz, but I thought maybe you sickos would be into the concept if not the fandom.

Context for this section, written for people not in the fandom: The characters are around 16, in training to become idols. On the first day Hyunjin started training, he was invited to a party and taken advantage of by some older boys. Jisung was also at this party, but was ~15 and dumb and horny and really really wanted to be liked. So he told himself the story he needed to tell himself about it. It's only afterward, as he started to get to know Hyunjin, that he's started to reconsider what happened that night. It's now some vague amount of time later, and they are becoming friends as well as starting to think maybe they'll go on to be in the same band/idol group.

I would welcome feedback! And if you wanna see more (including some of the more nsfw stuff) I'd be happy to share.

Under a readmore b/c it's a little bit long.

When Jisung finally got back from the bathroom(he’d spent some time after splashing some water in his face giving himself a pep talk), their time in the karaoke room was almost up. Chan had already left, citing work to do. A bunch of the other guys had peeled off with him, leaving just the three of them: Jisung, Hyunjin, and Changbin. 

And despite all that time spent sobering up in the bathroom, he must have still been drunk, because when Changbin invited them back to his house to sleep over and keep celebrating…. He said yes.

Changbin’s house was huge, but he rushed them past it and his parents, hustling them into his room as soon as possible. Probably he didn’t want them talking to his parents while drunk. Which was definitely a good call. Drunk Hyunjin was talkative, loose-lipped and giggling and even a little catty. Who knows what he would have said to them. 

And Jisung was hardly any better, struggling to pay attention to conversation, zoning out thinking about… things he didn’t want to be thinking about. Thinking about the last time he’d seen Hyunjin drunk. Thinking about how different it was. Hyunjin hadn’t been bright and bubbly. Or maybe he had, before Jisung saw him. Maybe he’d been bright and happy when they’d all talked about what they were gonna do at the party later. Maybe he’d made fun of them a little, for how bad they wanted him. Jisung’s stomach twisted, and he put a hand over his mouth, just in case. It could have happened, he told himself. He could picture it, could see Hyunjin laughing as he said the words. He could picture it…. But he couldn’t believe it. He just didn’t know what else to believe. 

He was too drunk to figure it out, but his thoughts kept looping back. Hyunjin was magnetic, his lips and his laugh and the way he moved and his body. And every time Jisung looked at him he felt that rush of arousal and memory. He was glad when they finally decided it was time to sleep. 

But sleep didn’t provide him the relief he expected. Changbin, in an unexpected show of generosity, had given the guests his bed. It was only big enough for two, so he had brought in a futon, laid on the floor next to them, and started snoring immediately. 

Hyunjin took a little more time to sleep, tossed and turned until he finally threw an arm and a leg over Jisung and promptly slipped into unconsciousness. Which left only Jisung, sweaty and staring at the ceiling and wretchedly, miserably hard. 

“Hyunjin?” he whispered. No response. He tried to get up, but as soon as he moved Hyunjin growled and tightened his grip. Jisung relaxed his body back down and, luckily, Hyunjin relaxed his grip as well. Jisung didn’t want Hyunjin to wake up. The idea of talking to Hyunjin in this state was intimidating, even if he was just asking Hyunjin to let him go so Jisung could go to the bathroom.

But that meant he was trapped. Trapped on a bed with a beautiful boy and a boner that wouldn’t quit and a head still swimming from drink. Hyunjin’s hand was resting where his shoulder met his neck, leaving his entire right arm free. 

[zmediaoutlet]

abandoned(?) wip: the cult fic

Here's one that I really really really want to write because it was for a charity run and it is NOT the fault of the fic or the donator that I got hit with a depression meteor, nor indeed that somehow it was 'easier' to write a bunch of other fics instead of the charity fics that I still owe!! Ugh. The self is a real garbage pit sometimes. So hopefully let's call this one dormant and not abandoned, and so --

Big Idea: which isn't mine, bc charity fic as aforementioned, but -- Jared runs a cult and Jensen joins and there's lots of sexy sex. Pretty much. :) But because it's a cult fic, I really wanted to dive into that, which required plot [spits on floor], and it's really more now about like... lost youth getting wrapped up into a personality & lifestyle just for somewhere to belong. Like cult stories always go. It's an unusual fic for me in that I'd normally never do ageswap (even with J2 -- I prefer to keep them as is) and I don't actually have much interest in irl cults, but it's interesting as a stretch in that sense.

Why it was abandoned: because plot!!! Ugh. Plot is the worst, idk how people are like 'ooh I wanna get all involved in this murder mystery'. Yack. But if it's gonna have a plot it's got to work, and it also has to have a bunch of legible and interesting and not-quirky-stand-in characters -- like I want it to read like actual humans, not goofy nonsense a la the cult in Bad Times at the El Royale. So that requires some genuine thought and time put in and probably even a chart, and... #lazy writer noises. But I have some random scenes I think might be good already planned. Trouble would be if I could make Jared-the-cult-leader seem believable and not just like a doofy romance novel figure. My personal trouble with cults is that whenever someone's holding themselves up as a leader because of whatever mystical whatever I'm like, this motherfucker? Are y'all kidding? So I'll have to get over that instinct, lol.

Snippet:

"He renamed it when we came," Allie says, easy. She taps her thumb on the steering wheel, smiling. "He said Wildheart was more right, for what we were going to be." Jensen nods but he has no idea what that means. Whatever the name was before, the wild part at least is right. His grandpa had a farm, outside Dallas, and that was all neat rows, trimmed up hedges, smoothed-out roads with everything exactly in place. Jensen didn't mind it—driving it was easier, he thinks, as they're jolted by the Volkswagen rocking over yet another huge tree root—but it was… Well, it doesn't matter. He'll never see that farm again. He's about to ask another question when Allie turns, again, and the screen of oaks gives sudden way to—open air, a field. The sky opens up above them and Jensen leans forward, trying to see everything. They're on a dirt drive and there are—people, young, maybe his age or maybe Allie's, on the grounds on either side of the drive, working squared-off garden plots—tomatoes, in chickenwire cages. More that Jensen doesn't recognize as they roll past. A boy with red hair waves at the car and Allie waves back, grinning. "Good to be home," she says, to Jensen. Home, Jensen thinks, and chews his thumbnail, scanning the grounds. A medium-sized house, at the end of the lane, painted a faded yellow that needs redoing. On the west side of the house Allie pulls the Volkswagen up next to a purple Gremlin with messy handpainted yellow flowers on the rear hatch, a Cadillac with a rusted-out door and some kind of viney plant spilling out of the broken back window. "C'mon," Allie says, turning off the engine, so Jensen takes a deep breath and gets out of the car into the sunshine, holding his duffle up against his chest, looking around. No one's running up to bug them—the dozen people gardening are still gardening, down by the lane—and Allie flips her keys into her palm, comes around the hood of the car, touches his arm, soft. "Nothing be scared of, sweetie," she says, quiet even though it's just the two of them, and Jensen—believes her. He has to. He wouldn't have gotten into her car, otherwise.

[sun-daisies]

fic snippet | mcu | monsters of men

since ao3 is down for who knows how long I figured I’d dig through some abandoned wips and post some snippets of fics I love but never got to share. feel free to do this too - we can keep each other going until ao3 is back up and running!

Once upon a time, an American hero shielded the world from evil. 

Once upon a time, an iron soldier rose from certain death as a new man. 

Once upon a time, the god of thunder came to Earth. 

Once upon a time, a marksman joined the military.  

Once upon a time, a monster and an assassin chose a different path. 

Once upon a time, aliens rained down on New York and once upon a time, machines gained sentience and once upon a time, a Titan wiped out half of humanity and every single time, the heroes vanquished the bad guys. 

-

Stories don’t end where they should, wrapped up in a neat little bow, all loose ends tied up and everyone smiling happily together as they walk into the sunset. You want a happy ending. You want to watch the underdog rise to the occasion and achieve their destiny. You want glory and grandeur. You want something extraordinary. 

You want a band of larger than life champions coming together to save the world, and you want the happy ending. 

That’s not what happens. 

Once upon a time, a bunch of misfits, human at their core, made mistakes. Argued. Lost everything. 

Died. 

-

Natasha fights. She fights for freedom, she fights for justice, she fights for her family, she fights for the world. Maybe she fights for herself, too - maybe she wants to prove that there’s something good in her worth fighting for. 

(She’s tired of fighting.) 

But when the air chills and the ground is hundreds of feet below her, she doesn’t fight her own death. It’s as simple as letting go, and when it comes down to it, she can’t think of a reason to dig her heels in. 

(Somewhere across the universe, her sister screams until her throat is raw.) 

-

And Wanda died somewhere in Sokovia a couple decades prior, buried under the ashes of her childhood home. Or maybe she died in her Hydra cell. Or maybe she died fighting Ultron; at the Raft; at the hands of Thanos. 

(The stench of blood follows her everywhere she goes, the bodies trail behind her. And when she returns home, what does she have left?)

Regardless, she hides her grief behind laugh tracks and smiles for applause. She is nothing but a character pretending to be what they need her to be. Maybe someday she’ll get to write her own story.

- 

There’s a mournful stillness as Pepper sets a wreath of flowers adrift on the lake, crowned with Tony Stark’s own heart. His daughter watches with huge, watery eyes, and Pepper holds onto her like she might slip away at any moment. 

Perhaps they will drown in Tony’s absence. He saved the world, but the empty space he left in doing so is too great. He was a husband. A father. A friend. Iron Man. 

This is the fate of heroes - to fight, to lose, to die. They signed up for this. 

(None of us ever wanted this, Clint thinks bitterly.) 

- 

Peter still has that optimistic smile, hope glimmering in his eyes. He’s probably kinder than any of them have ever deserved, and surprisingly light on his feet for someone with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

His hands are tainted in blood long washed away and he’s surrounded by ghosts. He feels he’s lived a hundred years despite being gone for five. And all eyes are on him, watching, waiting to see what he does next. 

(He could never be Iron Man and he can barely be Spiderman but Peter Parker isn’t enough, either.)

He can still try. 

-

Once upon a time, the heroes sat around a table at a party, giddy and elated, making fun of each other the way that friends do. The world stops for a moment and they allow themselves the little luxuries for once. 

It won’t last. Aliens have rained down from the sky and they will come again. Sentient machines will rise and throw morality to the wind. Half of humanity will disintegrate, and five long years will elapse while they desperately claw for solutions. 

(It is inevitable.)

But let them have this. Before the next apocalypse, just let them have this. 

- 

And what is left in their wake? A great niece left to scrap together some semblance of a life in Madripoor. Communities of displaced refugees fighting tooth and nail for those left behind, forgotten. A man with a vibranium shield he’s not certain fits quite right on his back, a survivor of war desperate to atone for the sins he was forced to commit. 

You want to believe that Sam doesn’t look at the shield with a lump in his throat. You want to believe Bucky doesn’t cry when the lights go out, terrified to close his eyes. 

They do. 

-

Countless iterations of these stories exist across societies all over the world, but no one will ever know what really happened. Their names are thrown in the news and plastered on billboards, their likenesses on hoodies and action figures. A little boy will hold a plastic shield on Halloween and Bucky’s stomach will tie into knots. Wanda will be painted as a villain. Tony Stark, a martyr. 

History is a tale spun by the victors and watered down into easy, digestible facts. And by the time it reaches the youth whose story even is it anymore? Whose truth is told? 

-

To be a hero is to be a tragedy. 

Heroes die. They sacrifice. They suffer. They mourn. To be a hero is to be destined to lose, lose, lose, even when they’ve won - especially when they’ve won. And how can they live with themselves knowing that they’ve lost everything? Can you really blame them for letting go? For wanting to live in the past? For losing hope? 

Is it their duty, or a destiny we thrust on them? What do they want?

Pietro. Vision. Natasha. Tony. For better or for worse, they die. They can’t help it. They just die. 

[nawilla]

2023 Year in Review:

Did I make any of my goals for 2023: in short no. But I'm not being too hard on myself because this year was crap. M the Cat died. My friend died. Work was nutty. My house is still a pit. I had a stalker. N the Cat murdered my computer. But hey, I DID start cleaning a bit over the holiday break, which is something.

Personal goals made in 2023:

1.  Clean something every day.  No, this didn't happen, unless you count the last three days of 2023 and a huge push at yardwork in the summer/fall. But I am making improvements now.

2.  Start cooking again.  No, this didn't happen either, but since the most recent cleaning has been in the kitchen, this is looking hopeful for 2024.

3.  Track my money.  Not yet. I used to do this, but got overwhelmed with work and my murdered computer. I HAVE started doing this for January 2024 but I'm not going to fuss over trying to backtrack 2023. Just do better going forward.

4.  Drink more water.  I did this intermittently. I did notice in the summer that I had stopped peeing at work because I was sweating out the water and it kind of scared me when I realized I wasn't drinking enough water. Dug out some fun water bottles and am continuing to do so.

5.  Get back on the writing bandwagon.  I actually did do quite a bit of writing, started a few projects that stalled out (I think I ended up doing the third project idea for Star Wars Day, not the first one). I also posted a fic for Valentines Day that I finished in the spring. I also ended up writing most of a fic that I was on schedule to complete and post by the end of the year, but when my friend got sick at the end of summer I just got off the bandwagon again between visiting her in the hospital/rehab center, then trying to help get her affairs in order after she passed. There was much drama and pets with no human anymore. I did start posting and I did start writing a bit more this weekend so hopefully I will get done before I run out of chapters to post. It's doable, but we know me, I probably won't finish before I run out. I should also mention I was working on a fourth project, but a chunk of it is on the murdered computer, so I either have to find the handwritten draft of take the computer in for service to at least get the documents off it. (The hard drive is fine. N murdered the connections to the monitor AND keyboard).

Here are the writing goals I set in January 2023:

1.  My first goal this year is to finish the largish fic I’ve been working on intermittently for a while.  It’s in the Little Lights Universe, and is Simet and Bes focused.  I think I figured out everything that has to happen and how it needs to end, but there is a bunch of middle that has to be worked out.

Yeah, this is the one on the computer with locked in syndrome.

2.  My secondary goal is the sequel to ‘Love and Indifference.’  I got a good chunk written but it got stuck in the sense that I think the scenes planned need to be reordered as opposed to needing more material.  Not that more material might not happen.  It’s a bridging story, so hopefully people won’t hate it.

This story remains stalled out (computer death didn't help), but I did write the Valentine's Day story in the same universe, so I feel less bad about it.

3.  The Jedi Ghost story I outlined but only wrote the first scene of.

This was idea 1 for Star Wars Day that went nowhere. I need to watch Clone Wars for this I think.

4.  Finishing the WIP I started LAST CHRISTMAS BREAK (Lock and Qui).  It only needs 1-2 short chapter, dammnit.

Yeah, never did.

5. Outlining a story to follow Evenstar, exploring Obi-Wan’s relationship with his childhood mentor Master L.

Did not explore this.

6.  Outlining a 5+1 fic for our favorite Rare Pair.

Might try this again this year.

Mind you, I only expected to make 2 out of 5 goals. I did end up posting three stories this year (one still unfinished) so I'm not displeased considering I got off the writing bandwagon for several MONTHS.

As for my craft goals for 2023, um, I did not make any of them. I think I already explained how nutty a year this was.

January: Boba Fett Cross stitch. Still not finished. Had to stop because M the Cat started putting his feet in the water bowl and then wanted to crawl all over me and I had to keep putting it away before it got yucked. N is generally less yucky when it's hot. Generally.

February: Gingerbread Tree skirt: I have the yarn. This could be the year.

March: Floral Wreath. Yeah, didn't happen.

April: Socks. Didn't make any socks for me, but did make socks as a Christmas gift for someone else. And T bought me a yarn bowl for my work office so I can knit while in Zoom Meetings to prevent me from saying things I shouldn't. I did have to ask to have the recipient's feet remeasured since it has been so long since I've made socks for other people.

May: Crack open that embroidery kit. Nope, didn't happen.

June: crack open that crochet kit. Nope, didn't happen.

July: crack open that rock painting kit. Nope, didn't happen.

August: crack open that diamond painting kit. Yes, I actually did this one over the weekend and it's almost done and I will probably finish it very soon. I also fell down the diamond painting rabbit hole (they have coaster set kits!) so yeah, expect more of that.

September-December: I did not paint any tree ornaments, but I did end up making scarves for most of my co-workers, utilizing three different patterns, including keyhole scarves, which I had never made before. All seem well-received, despite me frequently gifting scarves. I'm not kidding, it was a lot of scarves.

I also did Inktober this year, but did not finish until November due to my friend's illness kind of sucking the creativity out of me.

And while I didn't do any holiday baking or cooking, I did give out gifts, drew my holiday card (and got it printed and sent out!) and was an actual participant in the holidays this year.

So while I still have a long way to go to get back to a healthy lifestyle that is good for me and N, and I will no doubt make goals this week that will go unrealized, I am trying and I did get some stuff done this year.

[tabby-shieldmaiden]

fire, ice, clouds, spring

Fire: What’s a scene that you are dying to write?

There's a lot of them. But for the current big WIP, I'm both really hoping to get to part 2 (because part 1 really is just setting up the world the characters inhibit) so that the plot can really begin. And In particular, I'm really hoping to get to the bit where I go a little bit more into detail about the main antagonist's backstory, and how he ended up in his position of power.

Ice: What do you always get stuck on when writing?

It kind of depends. Usually when I'm stuck on writing, it's because I'm feeling tired from other life stuff. But generally I can keep writing and meet my daily goals by just... pushing myself to stick it out until it's done more or less ^^;. This style of writing and word-dumping when I'm too tired to write properly is producing this mess of a first draft which will no doubt be a headache to clean through, but hey, better than nothing.

Clouds: How clearly do you picture a scene before you start writing it down?

I think I generally need a rough idea about what I'm writing towards before I can properly write anything down. I don't think I necessarily picture anything really clearly, but as long as I have the outline, sitting down and writing it out tends to help that outline materialise into something more solid.

Spring: Have you ever scrapped (a huge chunk of) a story to start over?  Why did the change come about?

Yeah totally. I think I restarted writing this current WIP like three times before sticking with the current beginning. I needed to get myself to stop rewriting the intro, so I made myself stop at three times. But I think during the rewrite, I will have to redo the beginning now lol. There's one that'll be much more fitting I have in mind now, based on what the story is evolving to be.

I also restarted writing a bunch of my fanfics back in the day. Mostly because back then, I was mostly learning to write by producing huge quantities of stories. And if I couldn't keep writing until the story was done, I took it as a sign that something was wrong.

In particular, I restarted my Sonic Boom Skylanders angst fic at least three times before I got to the final version. This was a part of my NaNoWriMo project that year. I still counted all the words of fic that I wrote but never published towards the word count for the challenge, but the first two versions, when I tried to write them, about halfway through I felt like something was off and I couldn't figure out how to continue. So I just... dropped them. And restarted. Until I got to the final version.

For this writer's ask meme

[stormhaven257]

The accuracy of this statement hurts

[marinesocks]

writeblr intro!!

hi hi!! i'm helena/danger (she/her) and i'm new to tumblr but i saw a bunch of people doing writeblr introductions and wanted to join in!! i'm a bit shy when it comes to reaching out but if you interact with me at all i will like. 100% respond!!! ok here goes!!

about me

i am a:

adult,

lesbian,

ADD haver,

third culture kid,

hobbyist reader,

psych major,

avid dog enthusiast,

wannabe artist,

horror movie fan,

ecology nerd,

and, as you might have guessed,

a writer!!

i'm not incredible at it but for some reason i cant stop doing it so here i am!!

favorite genres/niches

fantasy mostly!!!

i like to think i like plot but honestly i'll like anything if the characters are good enough

HUGE mythology and folktale fan!! i have very strong opinions on how to incorporate those into a novel tho, so only ask about that if you dare!!

surprise creepy concepts and crapsaccharine worlds are like my favorite of all time. i 100% support lying about the contents of a project to keep that twist extra shocking!!

romcoms might not be my favorite but im a sucker for cute couples, especially if they are LGBTQ+

psychological horror is excellent, one of my favorites (even if i'd never dare to write it)

depictions and representations of mental health is probably the thing that's most consistent throughout my work? maybe its just the psych major talking but i find that stuff endlessly fascinating

i've lived in various places overseas for most of my life, so i enjoy stories set in unique locations absolutely DRENCHED in culture!!

current projects

i feel a bit awkward sharing these because again, i'm not a great writer, but i like reading about other writeblr's projects so i figured i'd give other people the option of seeing mine! warning for pretentious titles for very straightforward and basic concepts

WIP - flowers that mean "we'd miss you" - a short story I wrote while testing out subtext, character dynamics and prose!! the basic run-down is that a boy wakes up in the hospital and now he and his friends have to navigate a very difficult conversation. the subject matter definitely requires a content warning, and it has a few gaps i still need to fill, but overall i really like the direction it's headed!! out of all of these projects, it's probably the one i have the least issues with.

in the ataraxis of aftermath - this one is a novel i wrote for NaNoWriMo 2020! it is post-apocalyptic with elements of fantasy, slice-of-life, and romance, specifically lgbtq+ romance. it's about a girl exploring what remains of her flooded city when she suddenly finds another survivor. despite the genre, this novel is very slow-paced and calm, relying more on the character dynamics and emotional journey of the protagonist instead of traditional story beats and plotlines!! i finished the whole first draft that november (and without any real outline to guide me, so altogether it's a bit of a mess), and i plan on rewriting it after i finish the two following projects!!

WIP - the owl's wish - originally intended as a short story for just a friend and i, this project is quickly expanding into a full-on novel!! it's a haikyuu!! fanfic, but i've been told that the story is well enough removed from the show that it can work even if you don't that context. the only summary i can give without spoilers is that it's about an owl spirit with amnesia who finds a friend, and together they set off to get their wishes granted by the mysterious Lady of the Yellow Springs (but it's about more than that, i promise ;) ). it's set in ancient japan, and i referenced a few traditional fairytales when drawing up the outline, but otherwise it's a completely original folktale that can hopefully be accessible to anyone who picks it up!!

WIP - currently titled ouroboros paradox - this is a novel i am currently plotting, so honestly i'm not so sure how much i can say!! this is a fantasy novel coming from my intense passion for large creatures, horror elements, and norse mythology. as far as i know now, the story will follow two protagonists in the city of jörmungandr - one from the past and one in the present - as they try to navigate life, religion and ethics in a world where murdering living beings lengthens your lifespan. i plan on finishing my outline before this november, so i can try to hit 50K for nanowrimo this year!!

where to find me

Instagram, Wattpad, Art Fight, AO3, & Toyhouse! If you would like to read my writing but don't have a Wattpad account, i've linked the google docs directly to the titles :)

and that should be it!! if you read this far imagine i am giving you a very firm handshake with very watery eyes. if you'd like to reach out, ask questions, or share some of your story tidbits with me, please do!! i'd be so happy to reciprocate however you'd like :) have a great day!! drink some water!!!

[ellesliterarycorner]

What My Followers Want to See More of in Female Characters

My favorite thing in my WIP is all the badass female characters I have. I love writing about the bonds, friendships, relationships, and rivalries between them. It makes my little heart so happy! And, I will be the first person to admit that I hadn’t even thought of some of the things you guys suggested on our little instagram poll, but I cannot wait to add some of them to my story! Even though we’ve made so many leaps and bounds with the way female characters are portrayed, I still think we’ve got a long way to go, and if you guys include half of the stuff you suggested in your stories, then I think we’re gonna be okay. Once again, I didn’t change anything that you guys wrote, so there are gonna be some repeats on the list, but this time just because the list was getting so long, I did take out a few things if I saw that several other people had suggested it!

“Nerdy” or sporty girl who gets a love interest without a makeover or changing herself 

super girly femme characters shown as a complex person

making her own decisions, if good or bad

a strong female character without a tragic backstory 

gender non conformity!! 

Being openly children and not changing her mind about it

chubby and flaws and not having a crush with every cute boy they see 

girlie girls who are still really powerful 

self reliance but still having emotion, not being ice cold but not needing a a man 

lesbians who’s entire character arc isn’t about them being a lesbian 

having body insecurities eg wanting to be flat-chested

women in politics and women that have classic “man” as well as “woman” characteristics 

independence 

be less oblivious lol and more like real people who pick up hints 

not dead caring moms.

comic relief female characters

not minding about liking “girly” things/ having a bunch of friends who are boys but there is no romance between them 

being a mother doesn’t mean giving up ur dreams and settling for less,

having mcs that actually make smart decisions 

a bad ass character that loves kids and wants to have them in the future

not taking abuse cause they think it’s love 

ball gowns and pretty stuff for themselves and not for a mission or anything 

more bold female characters since many females are shown as shy 

having a big appetite 

female characters who can be cool without having to wield swords 

willingness to do domestic work with a cheerful heart 

women whose strength is their intelligence 

women who are not afraid to be feminine or strong 

strong mother figures 

girls that are the lead in their relationship over the boy 

more actual girly interests 

the women you least expect to sing the best 

strong women who like feminine stuff 

being happy without a romantic relationship 

black females being protected or vulnerable for once 

ending up single 

hanging out with male friends with no romantic subtext 

females who aren’t super pretty

ultra femininity (pink, dresses, glitter, makeup) that isn’t seen as bad/evil/weak 

allow them to look up to/admire male peers rather than feel inferior or as if they have something to prove 

traditional “femininity” isn’t regarded as weak! Can cook/sew/clean and it’s normal : )

Female characters who are funny and make quips 

soft, kind women, who are still powerful. I don’t like the mean strong girl stereotype : (

Not forced strong women. Just relatable and human ones. We all have strengths and weaknesses 

less insecurities. Yes, we all have those, but it’s becoming stereotypical, mostly in YA 

I want them to be strong without being upright bossy 

strong women who also embrace their feminine side 

a girl with menstruation

ego actions- I feel like only male characters can throw ego actions while fem characters are classified selfish 

nonbinary female characters 

has a twin 

sarcasm and general impoliteness without making them the bady guy 

them being warriors or soldiers and that’s normal, nobody questions it 

villains and manipulating 

autistic female characters 

being single throughout the story. Some people like being single, thank you very much 

not being the perfect pretty little thing. Having an interesting personality and thoughts, dreams outside of relationships and being a badass 

a morally grey female character like y r those only men 

girls and women in healthy relationships with personalities aside from their S/O

girls who can be strong and confident while still being emotionally vulnerable 

also, girls who own huge “aggressive” dog breeds

groups of girls doing really impulsive things together like all guy friend groups do 

strong, but not jerks about it and not looking down on things like sewing/cooking/etc 

shyness that doesn’t need to be “fixed” or overcome 

well written romances- straight and gay (ie not ones that objectify one partner or the other) 

“strong female characters” who are gentle and caring! Tough doesn’t mean heatless! 

women who care more about the plot than their inconvenient love life 

girls who empower other girls and don’t play into internalized misogyny 

i’d love to see women putting forward their ideas and having their voices heard more : )

Strong in their own way, not just hands on fighting stuff. Like mentally strong 

less who are arrogant and rude to the male protagonists who they fall in love with anyway 

More LGBTQ+ women! 

Oh and more female protagonists who stay single 

being average looking, not a hot model and being okay with it 

Not falling for “bad boys” 

saving herself or another character from a dangerous situation 

not wanting marriage or children and people being okay with it 

not obsessed with  looks 

being good at math and sciences 

not being sexualized constantly (or at all) 

being just friends with straight male characters 

being like other girls 

having a life outside of romance 

to not need a man, but also not to be a stereotypical “bad girl, I don’t need man” authors need to find a medium between the two 

drinking, swearing, anything deemed “masculine” 

confident women who embrace both their femininity and masculinity

empowering other women

somebody with variety of interests and skills that are shown to be important to her badass female characters who are genuinely kind/even loving 

strong women who don’t discredit the model of the ideal woman of the time in historical fiction 

older women protagonists! I’d love to read about middle aged female heroes

females that aren’t afraid to be themselves 

strength without being a “baddie” or at the expense of others 

emotional sensitivity that isn’t linked to mental illness, men, or a weakness in character 

a chaotic neutral female protagonist 

physically strong/skilled female characters that remain feminine and aren’t femme fatales 

female characters that don’t particularly fit into a trope as that’s not really realistic

[corneliaavenue-ao3]

2022 Wrapped

Tagged by @seriouslysam8

Sorry for not doing this in 2022, I was busy last night!

Post the top 5 works you're most proud of that you released in 2022 (not necessarily your most popular)

Well since I only published 5 works this makes my life easy!

i wrote a poem (you say what a mind) - my first ever fanfic! just a nice sweet moment between Harry and Ginny in OOTP. I feel like it's not a secret that I love missing moments between those two in OOTP.

island breeze with the lights down low - I WROTE SMUT?!?

up on a roof with a school girls crush - written for several sunlit daylights! Also a New Year's Eve fic, so very fitting for the day!

the road not taken looks real good now - also written for several sunlit daylights (not that it had to be, all of my fics are slightly based off of Taylor Swift songs). Harry and Ginny just get a much needed moment of peace before the horcrux hunt

god rest my soul - a quick oneshot I wrote a few days ago about the impact Tom has on Ginny. I am really proud of the prose on this fic.

your top 4 current WIPs that you're excited to release in the new year

I will be honest, not sure I have 4.

the breaks in your soul - a oneshot about a double date between Lavender/Ron and Ginny/Dean. It is like 99% done, I just am not happy with the last paragraph and honestly I hate the title. I have been scouring Taylor Swift lyrics to find something better and nothing has clicked yet. So it will stay a WIP until I find a better title!

barefoot in the kitchen - I posted a scene of this for Several Sunlit Daylights. It is just a bunch of missing moments of Harry and Ginny in the kitchen over the years!

time can't stop me quite like you did - this is my baby. I've been thinking about this fic for maybe 2 years now. Some dark magic happens while cleaning Grimmauld Place causing Harry and Ginny to get stuck in a time loop. They must work together to figure out how to get out of the time loop and why they are the only two stuck in it. Originally it was a one shot and then I wrote a lot and now its a multi-chapter fic. Hopefully you see this in 2023.

I have ideas post time can't stop me quite like you did, so in theory those are mental WIPs

your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year

Well to start off I posted a fic this year! I got over that huge mental leap and started to share my work!

I think my detail in my prose have improved. I try to paint more and more of a picture of the scene.

I used to struggle with dialogue, and not I think I have some natural banter and flow! Still needs a little improvement, but that is okay!

your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year

To focus when I write. I often write 100 words and then go off and do something else. I want to dedicate some time to writing each week.

I want to build more of a community with my writing! That is my favorite things about fandom, and I just want to continue to build on what I have! (love you to all of my mutuals!)

and your number 1 favorite line you've written this year

I'll be honest, I am not 100% sure this is my favorite, but I do really like it! A scene from the road not taken...

Her bed was much colder now that Harry no longer occupied it with her. Now that she had experienced fire, everything else felt cold. The frigid feeling froze Ginny as she realized this new bitterness would stick with her when Harry really left for good.

Tagging (sorry if you have already been tagged I have no clue who has participated!)

@displayheartcode @nuatthebeach @thegirlwhowrites642 @ginnyw-potter

[itwoodbeprefect]

ao3 wrapped: 7, 16, 20, 28? (i'm intrigued about the general correlation between the last two)

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?

i mean, even without checking the numbers, if the answer isn’t bruce springsteen someone needs to demand a recount.

[wildly clicking across ao3 interlude]

okay! alright! so, going just by posted works from this year, everyone else individually: 1. bruce springsteen: 5. i remember almost nothing from high school math, but i think i still know which one is the bigger number. (and it could potentially still go up - there’s a lot of december left, and my “huge list of potential titles for fic” document has well an truly been hijacked.)

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

fdjkf. if we’re talking all time it’s Fluff (95) (which is separate from Fluff and Humor (20), which at some point i stopped using because it seemed to make more sense to tag them separately), which, yeah, obviously. if we’re talking only this year... Fluff (17). a very general tag, so no big surprise, but it is. perhaps. indicative of a vibe. and i love that for me, and for everyone who’s reading my fic, actually.

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

so. a thing about me is that i reread my own work a lot, both in the process of writing (a lot of days “writing” means rereading a bunch of WIPs and going 🤞 that i’ll come up with more words for any of them, which might not even happen, and then next time i’ll just have to reread the things i’ve already reread) and also definitely after it’s been posted, and i do this enough that i genuinely couldn’t say what the answer here is. narrowing it down to things posted this year, it would probably be something short posted early on because that’s just. there’s been more time. to reread it more. so maybe I’d swallow the moon and the stars (To follow the beat of your heart), because at the time of posting i’d read it so many times i really couldn’t tell if it was good or kind of an awkward mess of mixed metaphors and run-on sentences, and then there were a lot of really sweet comments that had me rereading it again with those in mind, trying to see what someone else might be seeing, and since then i’ve reread it a few more times just because it’s nice and i like it, or even because i want to figure out why i like it (what makes it tick? how do i do that again? is there anything that doesn’t hit, and could i do better today?). (but also that’s the process with a lot of my fic, so again, no idea, really.)

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

potentially The stars above were bright and new (I pulled them down for you)? it’s short, it’s sweet, it’s just a liiittle bittersweet, it has some very cool imagery in it and it’s very starsky and hutch, and it’s kind of the quintessential Thing I Write First when i get into a fandom, and that i can’t do it again. the i-want-to-spend-my-life-with-you-talk (marriage proposal) while doing the dishes fic has been done now, even though i really like that concept and gravitate towards it very easily, and theoretically i could have a great month just writing that same thing five more times.

but actually, also, i have to mention A pretty pig deal (You’re guinea love her, Hutch) here, because it’s one of the most I’m Writing This For Me, Specifically things possible, and i always forget how much i like that last paragraph until i read it and it makes me feel stuff.

-

ao3 wrapped! send me numbers (if you want)! ✨

[aimmyarrowshigh]

2021 Fic Roundup Meme

Total Fics Posted: 1,036, but that will be out of date by the actual end of 2021 because I need to do daily drabbles and finish the Steve Bingo drabbles by the end of the 31st! Total Words Posted: 147,576, which ironically is the lowest annual total, I think, since I started doing these roundups back on LiveJournal. Although I don’t think I even bothered to do a 2019 or 2020 roundup because I’d posted virtually nothing. Total Words (of Anything Excluding Blogs) Written: Somewhere between 250,000-300,000, I think. The first quarter of 2021 was dismal for writing -- not just for me, I think, but for most of the, like, writing world. So I can’t be too down on myself about it. Most of what I’ve written this year, I’ve posted right away because it’s been drabbles, but I do have probably 50k of unposted Old Guard WIP stuff and 70k so far of unposted Stucky. And 7k of unposted Wanda Maximoff smut that may never get finished, haha. My favorite fic story this year: I mean, the only one that “counts” that I posted this year is Wish You Were Here, which is on an extended hiatus at the moment. I do like WYWH and I think it’s not bad, but I definitely struggle with writing it -- vignettes are essentially a bunch of short stories and I forgot that I massively struggle with short stories (ironically, given drabbles). And I still haven’t figured out what happens character-growth-wise during one part of it and it’s killing me. My best story this year: It’s hard, because I’ve posted so fucking many drabbles and most of them are like, “well, this exists” but every once in a while I get a turn of phrase exactly right. I can’t remember any in particular that I’m particularly proud of, but there aren’t any that I’m NOT proud of, either. Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: It sticks in my craw a little bit when someone requests a drabble and then doesn’t give it a kudo, especially if it’s for a more rarepair or niche fandom where, you know, no one else is going to, either. But that’s just me being crabby. I do feel like maybe I would feel more urgency with regard to WYWH if I felt like there were an audience for the story, but I also knew going in that it was a minor, non-canon pairing in a fandom with a MASSIVE canon ship that dominates EVERYTHING in the fic sphere, so I can’t actually be rightfully disappointed by that, either. I would love anything I write to grab people’s attention in a way that made them want to reach out and comment or message or kudo, but I also know that we’re moving into a post-feedback internet era, so again, I can’t rightfully want more than I get. I was spoiled by 1D fandom and, more than that, hugely spoiled by web 1.0 fandom and LJ fandom when it comes to feedback and attention. These days I’m just flattered anyone reads at all. (Although I will be Literally Devastated if no one reads my stucky when it comes out, I’m ngl.) Sexiest Story: I don’t tend to write sexy drabbles very often because it’s hard to build sexual tension in fewer than 100 words, so the payoff to a sexy drabble is always a little... premature. (Ba dum bum!) But here are the E rated drabbles if you want them! Most fun story: Oooh... honestly, pretty much every day, there’s at least one drabble that is particularly fun for me to write, so I’m not sure. The Continuing Adventures of Cap & Molly tickle me (thanks @therebeccaw) and I love writing Yelena/Kate. I love dunking on Booker in Booker/Nile fic. I love writing Darcy. I love writing the Peter Parkers and MJ. I love writing Gomez/Morticia. I think probably some of the Addams Family drabbles were the most fun, maybe. Maybe. Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: To coopt myself from the 2012 meme, “if I write a fic and it doesn’t change my feelings on the characters or fandom in some way, then I don’t think I wrote it correctly.” Hardest story to write: WYWH. Biggest surprise: Actually sticking to the drabbling! In the past when I tried Three-Line Fic Thursday and Five-Sentence Friday, I failed miserably, and I’ve failed myself at drabble challenges, too. But for some reason this time it’s stuck and is genuinely working to remind me that I can get words out, I can have ideas, and I can get those ideas out in words. Yay! A story I want remembered: I mean, if I wrote anything this year that anyone remembers fondly, that makes me happy. Resolutions for 2022: FINISH LENT FROM TOMORROW (TODAY WAS TOO SMALL FOR US). BE A FINISHER. FINISH THE THING. Also, do Femslash February and a drabble March Madness, probably.