#but i need a chunk of time where i can reread what i've got and get down some solid character notes and an outline

[eusuntgratie]

first sentence game

 Tagged by @voxofthevoid 😘

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

I’m doing a mix of posted fics and wips, bc why not.

In reverse chronological order (for wips based on when I plan to finish/post):

1. Travis doesn’t recognize the guy in his face running through all the stupid protocol questions he’s done a million times. (tknp concussion angst, wip)

2. TK is halfway through a story when he stops, frozen, mouth hanging open, Law staring at him like he’s a fucking idiot, people awkwardly shuffling around them. (tknp, thirsty airport meet cute au, wip)

3. Nolan tries hard to project an aura of “responsible adult” as he walks into the schoolyard. (tknp, school pickup thirst au, wip)

4. Normally they leave him alone when he gets like this, let him suffer in silence for a minute until he gets his shit together enough to address the team, say something to bring everybody back together, refocused and leaving the last period behind. (sidgeno d/s fic, wip)

5. Patty holds his breath when the text comes through from his agent with a link to the article. (tknp, patty retires fic, wip - hopefully my next to post but still a ways out!)

6. Sid’s happy, watching his team trail into his house with their wives, girlfriends, and kids. (sidannageno, can’t help it i want you, posted)

7. Allison watches as Cora grips a canvas bag she doesn’t recognize, twisting the handle in her hands. (allison/cora, let’s get lost, posted)

8. “They’re never gonna go away,” Stiles says, out of the blue, while he’s chopping veggies for a salad and Stiles is stirring a pot of pasta sauce on the stove. (sterek, i know places, part of stiles gets migraine ‘verse series, posted)

9. Allison hears someone come into the bathroom and figures it’s probably Lydia waiting to corner her about some party this weekend. (allison/erica, pink like the truth you can’t hide, posted)

10. TK drags Patty by the hand through the woods until she stops bitching about TK making her hike and starts taking in the beauty around her. (rule 63 tknp, she, posted)

No pressure tagging @jbarneswilson @munsonboy @lostcol @onward--upward @librarian-von-sassypants

[artbyblastweave]

You said you needed to be prodded to elaborate on why Worm should have been longer? Well consider this a prod, if I may be so bold.

A big chunk of it is rote contrarianism. Part of it is that I like Worm, my experience reading so much Worm was "Sweet! Even More Worm! I've got so much Worm left before I'm out of Worm!" So a version of Worm with More Worm is prima facie an enticing prospect.

In the non-reflexive, genuinely considered sense, there possibly should have been an interlude arc to flesh out the timeskip, make it feel like it was as much of her powered career as it objectively was. And I'm far from the first person to make this observation. But on another level, there's a sense where "Worm Should Have Been Longer" is conflated in my head with "Worm's Timeframe Should Have Been Longer." Which is tricky, and invites further unpacking-

One thing about Worm I've noted in the past is that the villain portion of Skitter's cape career- more than two thirds of the book- only takes place over about three months, but- speaking only for my reading experience- this was surprisingly easy to miss or elide in my consideration of the narrative. One reason for this is that Taylor and her supporting cast are so heavily fleshed out, are so well-realized, undergo so much character development in a compacted timeframe, that it felt like I had been following them for much longer than I had. This is enhanced (was enhanced?) by the out-of-universe passage of time; The S9 interlude arc is, like, a little over the one-third mark of the story, but Worm had been running for a year at the time that that was published, and it certainly felt like I’d been reading a years' worth of fiction while binging it. In this way Worm was truly faithful to its comic book origins; story arcs that take place over the course of hours but are published over the course of months, building reader familiarity with characters who objectively haven’t been at what they're doing for very long. A third element (noticed on rereads) is that Wildbow often opens with scene transitions/cold-opens or what-have you that, are generally contiguous with the preceding events, but simultaneously slightly obfuscate exactly how much time has passed. Arc 6 opens with Taylor finishing up with the ABB mop-up, and it’s blocked to demonstrate how far she’s come in such a relatively short time period. It can’t have been more than a few days since Lung. It explicitly wasn’t. But it had the vibe of having been a while.

What I’m working towards here, inch by inch, is the following conclusion: Worm has what I call an eyedropper approach to Taylor’s three-months and 22 arcs. Any given escapade feels like it’s just one vignette, emblematic of a longer, two-or-three-year stage of her life, scooped out and displayed as a representative sample of what’s going on. When shit hits the fan with Dinah, it feels like the upset of a longstanding status quo, even though by that point, Skitter has only been in five or six major engagements alongside the Undersiders. When they spend Arc 21 lancing various supervillain incursions into the city, it felt like I was watching a day in the life, like this was something the Undersiders had been dealing with, and would be dealing with, for a while- even though arc 21′s handful of engagements are basically the only times Skitter did that before she left. Purely from a vibes-based perspective, you could tell me that the first two thirds of Worm are occurring over the course of eight to ten years, and I might roll with that for a minute.

But the catch is- her villainous career has the vibes of lasting a long time, but it’s actually really thematically and logically important that it doesn’t. Skitter’s friendships within the Undersiders are strongly predicated on her ping-ponging from crisis to crisis so quickly that no true reckoning about their differing morals can ever come about. Skitter’s ability to administer as a benevolent warlord is heavily predicated on her lines of credit from Coil- and you cannot stretch that tension out much longer than it was stretched in canon without Dinah dying or Coil getting fed up with Skitters non-profitability. Breathing room is anathema to the story’s depiction of a pressure-cooker society where every crisis begets a new crisis. Nothing between Lung and Alexandria plays out the same way if anyone is allowed any amount of time to think about or process anything. And you actually see this in arc 21; it’s the first time that Skitter has a real opportunity to think about what the long-term looks like, and there’s a whole sequence where she’s getting nervous about her ability to reign in Regent over the long-haul. It’s the first time in three months where she’s had the luxury to worry about that kind of thing. 

You square this circle by.... basically, by striking the canon balance. There's a sense in which I'm increasingly convincing myself that I'm not talking about a problem Worm has so much as a problem Worm already has a workable-but-imperfect solution for. Create distinct periods in Skitter's development- "Rookie era," "Warlord Era," "Wards Era," whatever-each of which feel like they could balloon out into a years-long status quo if this were a comic, even though the cast are really living through the weeks where decades happen. Rely on the Sheer Amount Of Worm to smooth over the breakneck pace at which everyone's character growth and interpersonal connections are developing. There are a few points in the story where "fuck, has it only been three months?" is a salient mood to invoke. The get-together with Danny's coworkers, the back-to-school portions of arc 20. But for the most part the work already does a really good job of making the pinched timeframe a minor bit of fridge logic and not something hugely dissonant and immersion-breaking.

In the process of writing this I've basically argued myself out of thinking that there's much to gain from fucking around with this delicate balance. I don't know if that has implications for whether or not additional arcs covering the timeskip would help or hurt that balance- at a certain level of focus, that whole "you liked us, but you didn't love us" bit about Skitter's time with the Wards vs. The Undersiders becomes a much harder sell. It was already one of the hardest sells in the book for me, the thing that got me thinking about this in the first place. (two years vs three months!) But at some point, I have to bite the bullet- in a work as ambitious as Worm, "good enough" is a fine thing to settle for. It's good enough!

[bomberqueen17]

The Witch King

This is not like, a coherent review or anything.

Yesterday I was just like possessed with anxiety nonstop the whole day and everything I did seemed to make it worse and i just like spun my wheels and I got some things done but mostly felt worse and worse and more and more stressed, due partly to external circumstances but largely, i think, to nothing in particular. And finally after dinner I was sitting on the couch comfortably and realized you know what, fuck it, I am not going to "try to write" and wind up refreshing tumblr and chatting on discord all night, not while I'm already fretting and stewing like this, i'm going to be miserable and probably get in a fight or something and i don't want that. Fuck it. So I went to the tab I already had open in my browser, which I'd had open for weeks but the time was never right, and I bought the kindle version of Witch King and read it right there in my browser, the whole way through, did not click away or put it down or move or do anything else, and you know what it was fantastic.

I'd read a preview and been like hm i don't know what this is about and read a couple of amazon reviews that were like this was really confusing, some of which concluded so i didn't like it and some of which concluded so i super liked it, and like, I've been a fan of Martha Wells since she put the Element of Fire up for free chapter by chapter on her Livejournal when the rights reverted to her in like 2006 or so, so I knew what I was going to get and also knew that I would not particularly know exactly what I was going to get until I got it, and I also knew I was going to enjoy the ride, but I hadn't wanted to read it in stolen or exhausted moments lest the "this is confusing" bits prove too much.

In the end I found it not in the slightest bit confusing, it was a very straightforward interspersed flashbacks storytelling technique that i thought suited the story beautifully (not to be spoilery but we join a character in medias res with an action scene and it's him trying to figure out who has betrayed him in a complicated political scenario, and in the process of unspooling this he has to revisit the site of where the complicated political scenario was first set up, some sixty (?) years earlier, so he's retracing his own steps and it's really well done I think, introducing new bits of history right as they're relevant to the current storyline-- and just fantastically done, not at all forced, completely natural and compelling, and no the reader isn't told anything they don't need to know but you do get everthing you need to know, there's no unneccessary coyness at all).

So anyway i loved that, and I hope there's a sequel planned but it stands alone just fine if not, I'm already figuring i'll alternate my rereads and do every other chapter each time, so I can do All The Backstory first, then All The Current Timeline story, and that's such a fun way to eke out many many many rereads of a story that like all of Wells' works I will reread until I have chunks of them memorized (anyone who has read my works surely has found whole undigested bits of hers bobbing around in there because I do this so much; I found the phrase weary past bearing in something of mine the other day and was like oh that's moon when ember first shows up i stole that whole emotion wholesale out of the third raksura book yes i did).

Little side notes: Love the aroace qpr vibes with Kai and Zeide, also sort of enjoy the lowkey genderfuckery that comes with a demon who has his own gender then inhabiting bodies that had different genders. Great magic system too, and I love that we first get introduced to how Kai's pain magic works as a like totally fait accompli chunk of didactic worldbuilding and then in a later chapter we get to see the flashback of him inventing it and understand why it works the way it does, that was also so well-wrapped-up.

Anyway-- Definitely recommend this one but probably it is best if you can do it like I did, in one big binge-read. It took me probably three hours and I was trying hard not to read it too fast.

Yeah. Anyway. People assume I'm a big reader. I was, as a kid. I am not now. This is the first new book I've read since probably the spring sometime. I don't casually read things i only read them if I'm going to add them to my Pantheon of Rereads, and that goes for fic too mostly.

[liminalmemories21]

17, 19, 22 if you please, my dear.

Thank you!

#17 - talk about your writing and editing process

Chaotic? I don't write in order. And, I find that if I try and got into a story with an idea of what I want it to be it ends up feeling forced. I need to write at least a big chunk of it and then go back and reread it to figure out what it is that I'm exploring, and then I can go back and write the rest around that once I know.

A story always starts with a line of dialogue. A Conversation in Eight Acts started with me hearing TK say 'tell me something I don't know about you' and then I built out from there.

Editing is different depending on the story. For most fics I edit as I go, so by the time I have a first draft totally down on the page, the first half of the story is in really good shape. With knave-verse, my first drafts are a mess because I can't edit until I know the ending, and I don't know the ending until I've written it. So, it ends up being a lot of finding all the places where I've contradicted myself, and left gaping plot holes and retroactively trying to patch over them into something coherent.

And then I just read and reread and reread until the only thing I'm doing is second guessing comma placements, until I'm not changing anything except paragraph marks.

#19 - the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic

Currently, all the ways tv and the movies have lied to us about chloroform, and then trying to find something that will do what we were told chloroform does (RIP my google search history).

#22 - do you ever worry about public reaction to what you’re writing? how do you get past that?

Yes. I try and make it something that I'm proud of, that does what I want it to do, and says what I want it to say, so that it feels complete to me, whatever the reaction to it is. Also, sometimes I channel Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes and remind myself that I can be Towanda, and also that I'm older and have better insurance.

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

bro, i need to know your opinion of Jason Grace from Percy Jackson. I mean as a character, I had never understood the hate train that went in and on about him though I do feel like Rick undervalued and underutilized his overwhelming potentiel.

Like it was all laid out man, the backstory, the relationships, the personality all of it, but Rick decided to just insert all of his character development at the worst times and introduce him in a way that set him up for failure. Then TOA came out and the whole population went crazy bc of his little… ‘accident’

Point is that I loved him so much and his sorry really broke my heart, I feel like he never truly got to explore himself, nor live for himself…he was 16.

What Hera took from him is my Roman Empire (pun intended)

I'm so sorry, I am not a huge Jason fan.

I am a little older (stupid to say at 24 but the Avatar fandom are babies), so I had aged out of Percy Jackson (if one can) by the time of Magnus Chase and the Apollo series, so I've actually never read them. I was deep in high school by that point, I read mostly like... Stephen King and books for English class. Idk maybe I'd like him better if I read them??

Personally, I think the "hate train" for Jason stems from The Lost Hero. You cannot fully imagine how pissed we all were at that book unless you were excited and waiting for it for a year and then were slapped in the face with Jason. Like who the fuck are you, leave me alone, where is Percy? It felt like watching Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin instead of Pretty Little Liars. Like, I'm sorry, you will never be the Liars stop trying. Jason and Piper will never be percabeth and that's how we felt reading that book in 2010.

I was much more open to Hazel and Frank by The Son of Neptune, because I was getting answers about Percy. The effect softened with time and more character interactions, but it definitely hurt Jason and also Piper for a chunk of us. There could probably be essays about how Leo escaped that a little bit. That after effect has definitely stuck with me, and with others for sure.

I also personally always found him the most boring, I really think every other character has a cooler story then him. But to each his own! I'm now very interested to see if I like him a ton more rereading them as an adult. I enjoyed rereading the first book so so much, I've got to reread the others.

[yesimwriting]

Hey girl I'm about to have my first batch of finals this year what are your tips for surviving? I feel so confused on the best ways to prepare 😭😭 thanks 🙏

omg as a self proclaimed academic weapon whose current projected GPA range for the end of semester is 3.9 - 4.0 and who went to a college prep high school i feel like i have finals/midterms down to a science

I have some general finals steps and then some even more general advise where I expand on the tips below the cut. I got kind of carried away😭 pls let me know if you need me to expand on anything

Step 1. List out everything that's due (all projects, essays, and exams) in order of when they're do. If multiple things are due the same day, order them from the assignment you're least confident in to the assignment you're most confident in.

Step 2. Personalize your schedule. Half the battle of finals is a mental game bc it's easy to see all the things you have to do and freeze bc it feels like nothing's going to get done or that you'll be working every second of the day until finals end. If you break your assignments into blocks/chunks, you'll still be able to take small breaks and feel less overwhelmed.

So like if you have 3 essays and 2 tests within two to three days of each other, tell yourself you'll write 2 essays and study for one test on the first day or that you'll write one essay everyday and study on the last two days. If that makes sense lol.

this doesn't mean to over schedule your life!! i don't write out time stamps for every break, i just like to do assignments a day or two in advance so that I can take breaks if that makes sense.

Step 3. Do your projects/essays first. I've always been someone that likes doing projects before studying for tests. Because projects/essays are something that have tangible ends,, you'll feel a lot more productive/better getting those out of the way. The exception to this is if you have a big test coming that's before your essays/project, study first lol.

Step 4. Make study guides. Ik it's annoying, but you're more likely to study more if you have a cheat sheet you can just look over. More on this in general advise.

-- This is just general advice. ---

Tip 1. Study guides are life savers. It's one thing to have all of your notes, but typing/writing everything you need so that it's in one place makes it so much easier to take advantage of small moments. I do best on tests when I make my study guide in advanced and then just reread it a bunch the night before and then right before the test.

If it's a harder topic with more information and you think you need more time with the info, I still think a study guide is a great way to just have something that you can look at whenever you have a a few minutes. You're more likely to study more when you have something that you can just pull out and read a few times than if you just have miscellaneous notes you have to waste time looking for/gathering.

Tip 2. Plan/accept study breaks. Sometimes you just need to do something else. It feels like you're wasting time, but if you're super tired/overwhelmed, you're definitely not working efficiently, so if your body is telling you to walk around for a little or scroll on your phone for fifteen minutes or do something else to mentally get away, accept it.

Tip 3. Don't fall for the 11:59 trap. This might just be bc I'm a night person so I do a lot of homework late at night, but I think knowing something is due at midnight adds some extra stress. It makes it harder to take breaks and gets more overwhelming bc the deadline is right there.

I like to make the day before the 11:59 deadline my personal deadline. Ofc there are exceptions to this, like if the assignment is smaller,, like a discussion post or just answering some homework questions, and you know it won't take up your entire day and you'll have time, it's okay to leave it. Especially if you have larger assignments or other things to study for.

Tip 4. Do the harder assignments first. This may be personal preference, but I always do the more draining assignments first. This doesn't always mean the longest/objectively the hardest. Sometimes it's just getting your least favorite/worst subject out of the way so that you can check it off your list.

Tip 5. Personal reward system. This is why it's good to have hobbies! it's not a good idea to make needs rewards, like food/water and bathroom breaks,, please don't do that!!

but the amount of times i've told myself that if i finish/get to a certain point in an assignment i can go onto tumblr and read a fic is insane 😭

small rewards like that that are just fun are super helpful,, so if you have any hobbies that are like reading, scrolling on your phone, watching a certain show, etc,, you can use that to motivate you as long as you can quantify it.

Like don't say you can scroll on your phone as a reward unless you're done for the day, say you can scroll on your phone for X amount of time so that it doesn't take up the entire day,, if that makes sense lol

that's why i tend to like other rewards better, because phones aren't set up to have a natural, satisfying end. But if you tell yourself that you can watch an episode of a TV show or read a specific fic or read a chapter of a book,, you'll feel better when it's over. That's more of a personal opinion though.

sorry for how long this is 😭i hope it helps

[anotherghoul666]

You're reading American Gods! What do you think of it? I reread it for the first time in ages last month and it's still one of my favorites. Gaiman and Pratchett were what I grew up on and I love putting a reference or two in my fics (or just. Writing an entire fic based off Shadow's nickname 🤭) because without them I wouldn't have started writing at all! -Stream

I quite like it! I find American Gods reads very easy, in that the prose is super easy to fall into and get absorbed by. I don't have the spoons to make big reading sessions often, but when I do, I find I polish good chunks of the book without having seen time pass at all. It's very much a book where I have no fucking clue what's going on but I also feel secure in the knowledge that the author knows 100% of what's going on and I just need to let go of the reins and get dragged along. I have a ton of fun pulling from my paganism knowledge to try and guess which characters are which deities, so far I've been right often and that little hit of dopamine I get when a true name is finally written out and I'm like "HA! KNEW IT!" is fire. I am not American so I feel a ton of the references to US culture, places, towns, the all American road trip vibe, are lost on me and would hit better for someone who was born in the US and actually knows of these cultural items, but it's still fun to discover. I'm just shy of entering the final 100 pages so I can't speak to the ending or to how things resolve, if there is any resolve to be had. To be honest I feel like this is gonna be a very open ended book where none of my questions will get answered? I kinda dread the ending because of that not gonna lie, because that makes me hate books, but. You know. I'm this far in, I'll finish it for sure eventually, and at least the ride will have been a fun time. So far quite an entertaining read, 7.5/10 for me? Subject to change with how clear and satisfying the ending will feel for me? TBD. I also want to watch the TV show once I'm done with the book. I enjoy seeing other people's visual interpretations ofthe characters and compare them to mine :)

I enjoy Gaiman and Pratchett's writing. Good Omens I have especially fond memories of. That was one of those full throttle pure fun books that got out loud laughs from me several times.

Gaiman has a special place in my heart because of his Norse Mythology. I'm a practicing heathen and I feel we're taught to be of interpretations and re-writings of the eddas, but. Gaiman's was A FUCKING DELIGHT. I don't care what the hardcore first-source purists will say, sue me. His Norse Mythology made me laugh, made me cry, made me need to put the book down for pauses because of how flooded with love for the gods I was, and it was a devotional experience. For an author to put such personality in the gods and present some of the main myths in such a personable, accessible, fun, light, real, three-dimensional way, this book is a damn treasure and an asset to us pagans. I've unapologetically used it as a starting point for non-pagans to understand a bit of how we can feel and it has hit every time. I adore this book, and that's why I had American Gods on my list too. I don't regret having picked it up :D

I can completely understand Gaiman and by extension Pratchett's influence on you Stream, and the desire to put nods to them in your own writing! I'm so glad they were here when you grew up to inspire you picking up the pen!! That's precious! ❤️

[the-lonelybarricade]

I just finished rereading all of ACoFD!! Took me a whole week to get through but god it’s so worth it. And this time I read LVER alongside it since I didn’t read it the first time through - so good! I love how you’ve fleshed out Elain’s character and made her feel whole. But jeez that cliffhanger with Elain and Nesta jumping in the cauldron, I’m so nervous what’s gonna happen! Can’t wait for the next chapter! Take as much time as you need though, cause I can always reread it again while I wait :P

Awww omg 🥺 Thank you for re-reading and especially thank you for coming to LET ME KNOW that you reread because 🥺🥺 wow. A whole week??? It blows my mind to think about how many words I've put into that series. Thank you for loving it enough to read it multiple times and to be patient with me while I've taken far too long to finish the story. I appreciate it so, so much 💕

I AM planning on returning to the ACoFD universe imminently, I just got a bit side tracked for Feysand month but after I finish up this chapter for my collab with MB I'm setting my sights on Chapter 50. I went to read through what I have already (3k words) and gasped when i remembered where I left it off. Like DAMN LB you really threw Elain and Nesta into the pit and peaced out. At the time I was very much planning on releasing chapter 50 like the week after.

Anyway! I am hoping to be able to do a lot of writing while I'm on my buisness trip this week and I'm hoping that means I'll come back with a decent chunk of ACoFD ready to be sent to my lovely beta. I promise I won't keep y'all waiting much longer! 💕

[heartofstanding]

A little while ago, I got a comment on the Humphrey instalment of the fic series about the births of the Lancasterlings, saying they were eagerly awaiting the Blanche and Philippa instalments. Which was really nice to hear but also made me realise that it's been four years (?!?!) since I posted the Humphrey instalment.

I don't consider the series to be over, in case anyone thought I did. I've always intended to cover the births of Blanche and Philippa and still do. I mean, at the very least, it's me. Come on, do you really think I'd drop the series before I got to write the sweet, sweet angst surrounding Philippa's birth? And that's not going into how much I yell and cry about Blanche or Philippa at any given hour on any given day.

Why is it taking so long? Mainly because I've been writing a bunch of other stuff, and my brain is such that I can only really write what I want to write unless I've got an external deadline pushing me on. I've also had to rejig the timeline a bit in relation to finding out when Blanche's actual birthdate was (I had her in early May, she's actually late February). I've also been blocked on the Blanche instalment for a while - I started writing it and have about 2.5k already written but then got stalled.

The good news is that I've got some fresh ideas for how to get unblocked. I was going to write it solely from Mary's POV, like the last two instalments, but I'm thinking a return to Henry's POV, either solely or shared with Mary, might be the shift I need to get cracking on it.

I've also been playing with the idea of delving into Henry's issues more and borrowing from Susan Howatch's The Wheel of Fortune where the equivalent of Henry's crusading leaves him with some PTSD, iirc, and how that impacts his relationships with his kids. One problem with this plan is that I'd have to reread chunks of the Henry bios I have which means reading Ian Mortimer (ugh) which will probably result in me yelling about it at poor @shredsandpatches, who has already suffered though many, many, many of my rants about Mortimer's BS. On the other hand, this fic would be gratifying revenge as this Henry would be even more the antithesis of everything Mortimer thinks Henry was. After all, Henry's crusading is one of the big things Mortimer cites as proof of Henry's greatness and unquestionable heroism and his giant penis supreme masculinity...

Another possible problem with this plot is whether it's going to be a sudden and dark tonal shift in a series that's largely about the Lancasterlings being stinking adorable. On the other hand, the first and second instalments deal with Henry having depression and anxiety after Hal's birth and the last one has Hal having his first depressive episode so it's not like the series is Fluff and Cuteness: Everything Is Fine and Wholesome All The Time.

At the moment, I want to get to it soonish. I have a couple of WIPs I'm actively working on, from a modern AU about Hal's birth and a fic about Henry seeing Hal for the first time following his Shrewsbury wound. I also want to finish off the fic from Hal's POV about the dagger incident. It'll probably be long too so it'll take awhile to write once I get started. And this all supposes my brain doesn't chuck an "actually, write about this instead!!!" moment and scuttle these plans completely.

I do have some stuff written for the Philippa instalment - actually, it's one of the very first things I wrote from Mary's POV and still really love - but I don't have any real idea about the plot, character arcs etc etc except "Mary dies and it's very sad" which means it'll take even longer to write. I'm pretty sure that will be a split POV too but we'll see what happens once I start actively working on it.

So, that's the state of the series. It's not abandoned, only stalled, and I can't believe it's been four years since the last instalment. I hope to get to Blanche's instalment soon and not get stalled again.

If you made it all the way to end, an excerpt feat. Mary and baby John:

Mary scrutinises the open pages of her account book, making careful notes on a wax tablet every time she finds something to query or adjust. John, sitting on her lap, mirrors her – his eyes slide over the list of figures and as soon as she lifts the stylus, he scribbles his wax tablet. Despite the fact that he is only just beginning to make shapes that could look like letters, he’s clearly a clerk in the making. She takes a moment to kiss his cheek and cuddle him to her. ‘Mama,’ he says, ‘Mama love?’ ‘Yes, Mama loves you very much,’ she said. He gives a contented sigh and wriggles on her lap. She kisses him again, nuzzles her chin into his thatch of dark hair. He and Humphrey have been needy and insecure since Harry and Thomas went to stay with her mother for a short while. She can’t blame them. Without Harry and Thomas, their home in Peterborough feels half-empty and much too quiet. There’s no Thomas ready to scream or shout at all hours of the day or night, no boys nosily playing in the courtyard. John misses them especially – he’s too young to follow them and too old to be much interested in Humphrey.

[lumienn]

Re-reading my own fic + reaction

Once upon a time, back when Yashahime was airing, I posted a few chapters of my sessrin fic titled 'Ice King, Icing' on AO3. I eventually ran out of steam, life got in the way (as it always does) plus I had some negative experiences within the fandom which got to me.

It's been at least a year since I last touched it, and I barely remember the plot.

So now that I've got my laptop back, it's time for a reread with fresh eyes. Let's see if it's any good!

Chapter 1:

Okay, I'm recalling the story a little now. The end result is a lot better than I thought it was at the time, I put a lot of research into everything (and I needed to, because I know nothing about 90% of the things I was writing about here). I enjoyed reading the worldbuilding just as much as I enjoyed writing and imagining it. This chapter shows glimpses of a modern world where humans and youkai coexist, and how they manage to do it.

While writing, I was worried the setting descriptions may be too much, but it feels just right to me as a reader. There's just a LOT of effort that went into this chapter and I'm glad it shows.

I feel like I should have more criticism for this chapter but somehow I don't. So here's the fun fact of the chapter instead: Rin was originally supposed to work at the cafe Kagome and Sango go to! The original draft had a more detailed description of the cafe for that reason, but I scrapped it and gave her a normal office job because it didn't feel right. I still wanted the cafe to have a personal connection to one of the characters, so I had Kohaku design it instead.

Chapter 2:

So some interesting plot points are introduced in this chapter. This story was basically based on three what ifs- what if Sesshomaru's good side came out before he met Rin? What if he didn't give Rin the choice to travel with him, and sent her away instead? And what if we still had time travel in this modern AU?

This is where the story and Sesshomaru and Rin's relationship deviates from canon. I love canon, obviously, but I was so intrigued by these questions. So Ice King, Icing was born, lol.

I also wanted Rin to roast Sess

I don't have any complaints for this chapter either. I caught a couple of grammatical errors, but shh. Also I was clearly having so much fun writing it.

Fun fact of the chapter: Kagome still has her purification powers and is still a reincarnation of Kikyo. But Inuyasha and Kikyo are inconsequential characters to each other here. Kagome is from the year 2318, and travelled 300 years in the past- to 2018- which is the year this story is set.

Chapter 3:

Another chapter where I was worried the descriptions and story of Rin's life may be too much, but it wasn't. Homegirl is out here living the life we can only dream of :')

We finally get a good chunk of Sess POV here, and the characterization is satisfactory. Again, big sigh of relief- he was SO difficult to write. I also had an evil chuckle reading Rin's flashbacks and Kaede's worries that her childhood saviors may have found her again- yes, lady, that's THE POINT. We are HERE for some hurt/comfort. Also eviler chuckling at my past self for managing to sneak in some Captain America trio references.

This reread is turning out a lot better than I expected. I'm really enjoying this a lot!

Fun fact of the chapter: The subject line of Jaken's email seems to reference the kdrama 'A Business Proposal', but Ice King Icing did it first :) (chapter posted in April 2021, drama released in 2022)

Chapter 4:

Kagome to the rescue! That's all I'll say ;)

Okay no. I shouldn't be surprised at how much I enjoyed reading this chapter, again, the whole fic is a banger. It has everything I want in a sessrin fic- not surprising, because I wrote it myself. I remember writing the balcony scene and Sesshomaru's realization and giggling to myself at how hilarious it was. Plot forcing them to spend time together by making him hide her from his father= a romcom classic that I'll never get tired of.

Fun fact of the chapter (and mild spoiler): the mystery girl that has been following Kagome will be revealed in the next chapter, along with her motives.

Conclusion:

As I said in the chapter notes, this fic isn't abandoned. I've just gone on hiatus from all my fics for a while because irl is taking up all my time and energy. I enjoyed writing this fic a lot though, and I will definitely update and try to complete it. Just not sure when.

[villanesus]

writers asks: 1, 6, 9, 11, 25, 30, 40, 48, 58, 69, 92, 94, 99.

I honestly would like to hear all your answers put i picked my favorite questions.

Pistachio!! Sooo many questions, I'll do my best.

1. do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?

I usually know where I want my characters to end up, but that doesn't always equate to a proper ending. Endings have always been hard for me to articulate. As a kid in school, I got feedback from a primary school teacher once that I needed to include something at the end of my stories to indicate that it was really the conclusion. My autistic ass starting ending every single story I wrote with the sentence, "And that is all." 😂

6. do you have any kind of consistent writing schedule or just hoping for the best?

Not really. I write when I've got a decent chunk of time open (at least an hour) and I'm feeling writery feelings. Some nights, most weekends. During nanowrimo I write during my lunch break, mostly out of necessity to meet word count.

9. in an ideal world where you’re already super successful and published, would you want to see a tv or movie adaptation of your work? why or why not?

I'd be pretty content just to be successfully published, BUT I'm definitely not turning down an opportunity for Jodie Comer to option one of my books for a TV series a la Big Swiss so I can meet her and be awkward. 🥴

11. what’s something neat you’ve learned while doing research for something you were writing? also, how much do you worry about doing research in general?

I do worry quite a bit about research because I know how jarring it can be as the reader when an author writes something that is pure nonsense wrt something I know about. That said, I don't always know what I don't know, so I'm sure I miss all kinds of things.

The neatest thing I've ever stumbled upon is escaping me right now, but the most recent thing that sticks out was stumbling upon the gem of the towns Sappho and Beaver near Forks for my goosey Killing Eve/Twilight AU (Evenfall). I found that far too funny.

25. what’s your revision or rewriting process like?

I usually start each writing session be rereading the last section I've written and I catch a lot of edits there. Once I'm reasonably confident about a full chapter, I actually listen to it twice using a text-to-speech feature. I find I catch a lot more of my mistakes when I listen than when I read with my eyes.

And then I immediately find like three more mistakes as soon as I share or publish what I've written. Because of course.

30. most inspirational quote you’ve ever read or heard that’s still important to you.

I'm (perhaps weirdly) not big on inspiration or inspirational quotes. And, as noted in one of the other ask games, I'm a little bit of a jerk? So, my favorite quote is actually the running bit in Candide by Voltaire where they make fun of the "best of all possible worlds" philosophy. You will catch me in real life regularly punching down on things by saying, "In this, the best of all possible worlds." I guess this jives with my "things suck, bring a bat" philosophy.

40. best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.

I had a computer science professor who took me aside once and told me I should write textbooks because students would actually engage with and learn from my writing. I really like to explain and to teach, so this was maximum flattery for me.

At the moment, though, there's a person who is mostly commenting screaming and keyboard smashes on Evenfall and I'm really enjoying that. 🤣

48. do you reread your own stories?

Not once they're finished. I read and reread as part of my editing process, by the end I'm a bit sick of it. And if too much time goes by and I come back to read, my style/voice/skill has changed and then I feel sad-cringe about my older work.

58. what is the last thing that a fic made you google when you were writing it?

"which movie did edward and bella have sex?" 🫠 hahaha

69 (nice). how do you write emotional scenes? do you ever feel what the characters feel?

I find this challenging because I want to shout at the characters to do the "right" thing and not necessarily the authentic emotional response that they would have? For example, character is going to misunderstand and be hurt or character is angry and won't listen to apology—it kills me to write that sometimes.

The how...eh, I just write stuff and step back and see if it feels authentic. I try to draw from my own experiences and emotions, but can't always tell how well that translates for others because my emotional processing is maybe non-typical as a non-neurotypical individual.

92. first, second, or third person?

Third person is typically my jam as a reader and a writer, though I do love me some unreliable narrator first-person works. My big struggle as a writer is the different flavors of third person—omniscient, objective, partial/limited. I'm bad at consistency here.

94. do you prefer dialogue or description?

Dialogue is really fun for me to write. My favorite thing though is internal monologue? Perhaps a side effect of all the journaling.

99. was being a writer a dream of yours when you were little? or did it spring up when your older? or is it just a hobby?

I've been writing stories since I was a little kid and I've always loved the idea of just being a novelist or writer. But I am both pessimistic and pragmatic. I doubt I'd be happy if writing was my full-time job—making a living on this would be too much pressure. It's a lovely hobby and if I ever write something that other people are excited to read, I'll just be real chuffed about it.

Phew, we made it to the end!

[lavenoon]

For the writing asks:

💞 💫 🎀 (if you wanna!)

I always wanna! Even though I might pretend I theatrically perish at having to compliment myself gfhdjs it's mostly just for the bit! (The rest is bad awareness of myself so I gotta think hard lmao)

🎀 give yourself a compliment about your own writing

Okay compliment number 2, let's go fghdsj

I really really like my dialogue! It's often the first thing that I have for a scene, because I think in words more than visuals, and then I craft a scene around it to make it all as emotionally devastating as possible! Seems to work well enough, with an eye towards the comments I get hehe <3

💫 what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

Answered here, but I can also say that I really just reread comments an insane amount. It's a bit of a shame they're all very scattered - some in tumblr tags, some in asks, some on ao3, some on discord - but that just makes it rewarding no matter where I look! Especially recently with that creative slump I've been rereading my own stuff and the reactions it got to remind myself why it's fun and a good thing, so I'm really really glad the dca fandom is just so generous with feedback! <3

💞 what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

Also mentioned a bit already in that other ask, but there's more! These also translate to what turns me away from a story if I don't feel like they were considered to a satisfying degree, because yeah that's. That's what's important to me!

So another point is not exactly worldbuilding, because I do admittedly not worldbuild a lot. But it's about how what is there is treated, and integrated, and if it feels like there's info missing! My willingness to suspend my disbelief is unparalleled, as long as what is given within the fic makes sense. I don't need excessive detail as long as things are consistent, and make sense for the world the characters live in. That's of course a tad subjective, but it really depends on the vibe! In fact, sometimes worldbuilding can be excessive - my favorite urban fantasy series unfortunately has that habit of just. Reiterating the worldbuilding in every new novel, and often in a big chunk to get it back out of the way like a refresher, even if not all of it is currently relevant! (me, every Kate Daniels novel: yes, I know how the were-society works, I know I know I know I have binge read this many times thank you can we please go back to your currently happening conversation with your best friend -) So I tend to not overdo it on the worldbuilding myself - there's the asks I reply to here on tumblr, to give the people curious some idea of what I'm imagining, but within the fic I keep that stuff to a minimum and expect the reader to read things at face value. There's hints there, but they're treated as normal and natural within the fic, because I want the audience to think of it as such within the universe! The elaboration has no room within the writing itself, that's for lore asks!

[corvidcrybaby]

12, 22, 69 (lol) for the fanfic ask game 👀

SCREEEEEEEEE HERE WE GO

12. Do you outline your fics?  If yes, how detailed are your outlines?  How far do you stray from them?

It's an even fifty-fifty. I outline my fics when I begin to have a lot of plot elements, narrative threads or allegorical references I want to work into it - if I don't, I'm liable to forget something relatively important and have to either shoehorn that thread in later, or do the Edit Of Shame where I go back and include something as a throwaway line. If you're curious as to what they look like, here's an example from when I was working on Formulas Fatal To the Flesh:

Some of these beats ended up in the final cut, while others didn't. I usually try to break it down based on "okay, what is The Moment I want Character X and Character Y to have together" and from there I build backwards and forwards. How they got there and where it takes them - I'll often keep a "scrap heap" of ideas or lines of dialogue (especially with Zemi since I entertain the fuck outta myself with writing her inane bullshit one-liners) on a spare sheet somewhere that I will pull from to weave into the story. This does look a bit like a mad scientist's scrawlings, and I like it that way! My trick is to outline and be thorough about it but not get too rigid. This is why I typically only plan fics in chunks at a time, with general ideas of where I want the story to go. Stories morph and evolve as one writes them, and I am the type who KNOWS that if I make the outline too demanding and rigid I'll get all up my own ass about it. Outlining too hard and trying too viciously to stick to it tends to shoot me in the foot so I avoid it.

Additionally, I particularly enjoy structuring stories based on conversations. Dialogue is often the first thing I write, and the rest comes after that. This comes from my background studying theatre - a thespian scholar bitch like me knows better than anybody that you can build a whole world around little more than a few words between two characters, so I like to let the rest of the work bloom from that organically. Not always, but these are common methods I use.

22. Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process?  How do you come up with titles?

Fuck yeah so glad somebody asked this one. I develop titles for chapters after I'm done writing them. I make it a point to title pretty much EVERY CHAPTER I WRITE for everything I've written publicly so far based on the title of a death metal track or album. I'll branch out into other genres like black metal and whatnot but I try to stick to death metal specifically. This mostly comes from my personal annoyance that there's so little decent media content based on extreme metal. Part of why I love Hellsing so much is just based on the fact I think it gets the closest to the aesthetic of the deepest bowels of extreme metal in its art style, themes, visuals, and so on. So when I need a new title, I deadass will just leaf through my music catalogue and pick a title I think fits the themes of the chapter in some allegorical sense - ditto for the little lyrical blurbs I put at the front of each chapter. Is it corny? Fuck yeah, man, but so am I. Sometimes I just say "fuck it, I'll put TWO songs names in the title, who will stop me?" When it comes to the entire fic titles, I put more thought into it and play process of elimination until I settle on one I think rolls off the tongue best. See: Formulas Fatal to the Flesh (Morbid Angel), Lesions of A Different Kind (Undeath), etc.

69. What are your favorite fics at the moment?

Aw shit man, puttin' me on the spot as I've been off my fic reading game for a minute but I'll plug what I can remember!

First off, shout out to the homie @neet0 with their work Revelations. Absolutely love this piece, I reread chapters from it a lot and feel like I learn something new about writing every time.

I'm also really into this My Hero Academia fic, In The End (We Are Left Bereft). Only halfway through, and some of the elements may not be for me personally, but first of all, anything that examines Bakugo as a closeted trans woman is gonna make me come running because I just ADORE that as a concept. Second, the issues this take on Bakugo deals with regarding identity and belonging, being touch-starved and alienated, etc? A bitch relates, what can I say. Good MHA fics are so hard to find in my experience so this one has been a delight to read thus far.

I also eat up almost everything that BirdOfHermes ever does. Because, listen mate, sometimes a bitch just wants that sweet, sweet cheesy wish fulfillment with fictional men. That, and their writing is so easy to read for me that it hooks me into stories about characters from series I haven't even watched or read. Never thought Harry Dresden would be hot to me, but, oops, they made it happen. Also, forever awaiting the glorious day they decide to finish Tame. One of my favorite Alucard/Reader fics of all time, I've reread it probably a dozen times by now.

Beyond this, I've been in a bit of a fic rut as of late, so if you got recs, send them my way!

Thank you so much for the ask it made my day for real <3

[hideyseek]

12.15.2022

hmm started talking to myself about the writing process during my lunch break so i wanted to jot some ideas down while they're fresh. lots of fic talk below the cut, mostly about reunion!fic, which i'm writing for the kazetsuyo january fandom event.

i'm definitely worried about my ability to produce all of the writing i want to / need to / am promised to produce by the end of this year! mostly i am worried about reunion!fic, which i'm writing for kazeweek 2023! and also i am juggling my secret saito fic. i've never had two writing projects w/ deadlines in the same overlapping space (bc never been active in two fandoms at once) however, i am reminding myself that: 1. i am a much faster writer than i was two years ago! 2. it will be fine!!!!! (can u tell i simply did not have a second thing but wanted to commit to this list format lol)

here are the things i'm not too sure about:

what will the revision process look like? i don't really remember what it was like to thoroughly revise a piece of writing because the last time i did that was ... like jul/aug of 2020 which is now 2+ years in the past

i really want to make sure i'm making interesting narrative choices with what happens in reunion!fic, and part of that is just: i want to make sure i'm not writing the same thing that has been written four million times already! i've done a fair amount of trawling through ao3 reading things tagged "reunion" or "10 years later" or other similar tags, but i'm just not particularly good at this kind of thematic story pattern-matching or narrative elements synthesis. there are a few fics about group reunions (well, one in particular) that i have read and LOVED, so at some point in the revision process i might reread and try to poke at what makes me love them so much.

however!!!!! i will be saved by tvtropes! i did a really quick search this morning before work, and there are a couple pages about reunion stories that i'll take a look at that can hopefully help me pull back and take a more bird's eye view of the story and where it's going.

i don't remember at what point i used to like, split off and just start rewriting the whole fic essentially from scratch in a clean doc. no idea how i used to do that, the thought of having to do this for reunion!fic is ... hugely intimidating and i really don't want to. i'll need to come up with some strategies for how i can do that same revision work but ... not in that one large chunk, but i have ideas. in terms of at what point to move to a new doc ... not sure! i would love to decide beforehand but i don't actually think that's necessary. oh -- no i just remembered: i moved stuff when i was going to start working on it. so after i piece together the down draft, i'll copy the whole thing into a new doc and work off that for my first round of revisions, and then send that copy to betas, and then create a THIRD doc with the raw content of the second draft to work on as i go through beta comments. this is fully just: i love archiving things sooooo much. but hey! it'll work, it'll separate things into pretty distinct stages. i think it will work fine, and i can always reflect and revise the process afterward.

anyway! i was thinking through the strategies that got me to the final draft of a to b (or really, anything else i've finished before) and, i think they are:

revising in chunks -- one thing i did especially close to the final draft was to pull out the scene i was editing and rework it in a separate document and then paste it back into the "main" document. i think this will also serve me well with reunion!fic. i've noticed that i tend to get overwhelmed when faced with large chunks (more than a couple hundred words) of writing to either produce or "make good" (a task that is unfortunately completely distinct in my mind form the actionable task of revision). i'm hoping that deliberately

revision wishlist -- this is not something i did when writing a to b but i've seen some writers on here talk about it, and it appeals to the part of me that works best given essentially, a checklist of goals to work through systematically. i think once i've got my rough / down draft completely (likely today, mainly pulling from my organizing doc of previous draft material and my drafting ("outlining" lol) doc that i've been putting tiny scenes into in the last week), i'll read through it and make notes of anything that i notice that is ... not what i'm looking for in the final draft. i might need to do this a few times, with varying levels of verbally guiding myself, some things i want to check are: pacing, haiji's emotional arc (does it exist?), whether the tension is being sustained/raised through scenes or if it diffuses in places i don't mean for it to, consistent characterization (or at least, believably older!haiji characterization, my number one nemesis aha).

i suspect that having a poetic or musical emotional "anchor" for the fic will help a lot, that definitely helped guide some smaller tone/mood (sorry to my english teachers i kinda don't know the difference) decisions for a to b. however ... this time i do not have a convenient buddy to send me music, and i am simply: not very skilled at mentally linking these things. well ... i also thought about going through some web weavings on here for the vibe and then seeking out the full texts. or i'll just go through my tag for reunion!fic and hope that past!me did my proper duty haha.

lol ok. cool. i am very excited!!! but also very nervous!!!

[essayofthoughts]

Ohohoho! en guarde!

7, 42, 51, 55 (especially for words/expressions!), 68, 75?

7. Post a snippet from a wip.

You asked for Tiefling AU and/or Cass focussed when I PM'd you so:

"It is me," he promises her. "I- I don't know when exactly I changed, but I remember here, I remember everything. I remember you helping me escape-"

"Do you remember leaving me?" He can't blame Cass for how accusatory her tone is. In her shoes he thinks he'd be the exact same way.

"I saw you shot down," he says. "I saw-" He swallows. "Three arrows, one right through your chest, I saw you fall and cough blood and I thought... I thought there was no way you'd survive, even if I managed to carry you to safety. I thought you were dead."

The laugh Cassandra gives is bitter and thin. "Yes," she says. "I can believe that."

"I'm sorry," he says, because he is. "I'm sorry. If I'd known- I didn't know. I didn't even know that this-" he gestures at himself "-wasn't Ripley's doing - I wasn't there for two years, and when I came back to myself all I could think was yet another thing they've taken from me - that they wouldn't even leave me my humanity."

He pauses, looks at the ashy tint of his fingers, the too-long, too-sharp fingernails. He feels his tail wanting to lash side-to-side behind him, anxiety desperate to be let out, and refuses to allow it.

"Sometimes," he admits, "I- I'm sure I'm Percival. I'm sure of that. Even if I don't look it, I am myself at the very least. I remember chasing you around my lab, I remember Whitney nagging me downstairs, I remember Julius teasing me. But sometimes..." He draws a deep breath because he doesn't want to admit this but he needs Cass to understand, needs her to grasp it if they're to mend this rift between them, "Sometimes I don't feel like myself anymore."

There's a stretch of silence. He swallows; when he looks up, Cass is watching him, her mouth a little open before she swallows too.

"I don't feel like I'm me all the time either," Cass admits. "Not after- not after everything. After they-" and it's half-spat and half-fond and he can't really blame her, can he? "-tried make me a Briarwood and- and there was a part of me that wanted it. Wanted a family that wouldn't leave me behind."

That hurts but he can't blame her for that either. How else would it have felt to be bleeding out and gasping for breath, watching your one remaining family member flee across the snow?

"It's like," she says, pausing and stuttering, free hand flexing where it's not tightly grasping a mug of tea. "It's like they reached inside my head and mixed me all up so they could put the pieces back how they liked. I don't feel like Cassandra. I don't feel like your sister. I feel like... like a thing they made."

"You're not," he says, because that much he's sure of. That much he's had to learn to survive becoming what he now is. "You're not, Cass. They've shaped you but... you're not theirs. You're you. You're whoever you decide to make now."

You get both.

42. What’s your favorite title that you’ve come up with?

Uh...

So probably the collective titles for all of the Ghost Cass AU, because I've got the titles planned for all eight parts and there's an Easter Egg hidden in how they fit together.

But I'm not gonna tell you what the Easter Egg is yet.

51. Does what you like to write differ from what you like to read?

Not hugely these days? There's a chunk of things I wrote mostly because I wasn't finding them in fandom, because a lot of the seemingly well-regarded fics that touched on it just... did not feel true to my experiences and the ones that did were really short or were unfinished and there's only so many times you can reread things, you know?

I do sometimes like going for a crackfic, which I can't write for shit, but I am incredibly picky about the crackfics I like because I like the crack balanced with accurate characterisation. But otherwise... yeah I do enjoy reading fics with worldbuilding, canon-compliant but dense stories, which dig into trauma, which are compelling, self-contained AUs - or some combination of the above.

55. Have you noticed any patterns in your fics?  Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

There's a lot of phrases I see when I read over chapters before upload where I'm like "That's a me-ism" "That's just something embedded in my head that doesn't fit this character" "Aich, that sentence construction only makes sense to you". I can't recall any off the top of my head, but rest assured I notice them during the pre-upload read-over and I try to edit them out when they get too much.

As for themes - trauma and codependency are big ones, obviously. As for settings... idk, HP is my forever fandom even as JKR's become an ever bigger piece of shit and that's probably why my brain really likes the idea of castles and magical schools to this day.

Also just the fact that those concepts are both just really cool.

68. Are there any fics that influenced you to write the way you do?

Sacrifices Arc. It was one of the first absurd-length fics I ever really encountered that deeply dug into and portrayed trauma and the struggle of healing in a way I felt was accurate. It also has just... some of the most gorgeous, poetic language at times, it's depiction of the Wild Dark, or Last Time Pays For All, how it weaves worldbuilding into the narration, its characterisation...

It's one of a few fics that taught me that if you drop information in just right it doesn't feel like an infodump, it just feels like character knowledge you're meant to have. That if you just, refer to something, a reader can just infer from that that it's a known thing and you can fill it out more as it becomes relevant. It's a story which showed me that you don't have to infodump all the complex nuances of a complex, nuanced concept at once - you can slowly dole it out piecemeal, explaining how the rigid lawfulness of the Light nonetheless also means freedom in the sense of free will, while the wild freedom of the Dark also carries the freedom to be cruel and just.

God. I love this fic. I love it so much.

75. Is there a particular fic that readers gravitated towards that you didn’t expect?

Good question. In truth, I do not know. I have a reasonable readership and I know how to tag things so for the most part most of my fics get at least a couple of comments and kudos even if it's weird and niche, and I think I have a reasonable handle on what things are more or less popular in a fandom: i know when to temper my expectations. I don't think I've ever had a fic that really blew up where I didn't expect it? Most of my fics got about the level of attention I expected - even if those expectations shifted as I went?

Like... Questions is a Star Wars fic set in @fialleril's excellent Double Agent Vader 'verse, and I asked them for permission to write it as a gift to a friend. As I recall, they reblogged my post about it, and when that happened, I knew that I'd get a sudden influx of readers, because not only is it now inspired by a pretty popular AU, the AU’s creator has shared it on their blog, meaning people who might have passed it by once are seeing it again and might pick it up this time. Something similar with finds and shall find me unafraid - @sparxwrites reblogged the post I made because it's based on a fic of theirs and I asked them for permission, and when that happened I got an additional few people reading the fic, because it was clearly marked as adjacent to their interests.

So like... sometimes my expectations have shifted, but I don't think I've ever had a fic break my expectations without warning.

[jeanmoreaux]

trigger warning (?): passively suicidal idiot (me)

hey the recent posts on aftg has fried my brain like literally. how far can we keep trying before (i) should accept im just nothing. and not just aftg but all your lovely posts about trying again and how to continue living even after bad things

i'm sorry this is so dark. fiction and stories (esp aftg and captive prince in my 20s) have quite honestly saved my life more times than i can count

but recently i've just lost the ability to read and retain good chunks of memory and i'm not motivated or disciplined even though i hate where i am in life (i need to graduate but i haven't even done my thesis because idk how to explain my reading slump the articles just gloss over and i end up crying cz why is this so difficult)

i just...these days i really try to not look too close at things that can quite easily, relieve me of this life

i am so sorry you’re feeling like this :( and pls don’t apologize for sharing this!! it’s so important to talk about these things and share these thoughts, given them room and space and acknowledging this feeling is a reality. i also want to thank you for sharing this with me. i am glad you feel like this blog is a safe space for it. i really truly wish there was more i could to help, especially with the academic stuff. sometimes you just need someone to help yoi get your things in order. because i get it, motivation and discipline are so hard. thesis writing is so hard. reading articles and parsing them for relevant info and using that relevant info for your own texts is HARD. so it’s okay to ask for help if you need it. i had to ask for help too when i wrote mine. because it is an exhausting process that can suck so much of your mental energy.

also the part about fiction being a lifesaving refuge…. yeah. a story that speaks to you can be like a soothing balm. especially when your going through a lot. i really understand why both the series you mentioned are a little bit like life rafts. i only recently reread cp and it hasn’t left my mind since, maybe also because there are some aftg parallels (in a veryyyy broad sense). both stories do include a lot of difficult topics and violence and hurt and pain but that’s ultimately not what brings change or transformation in either stories. it’s the love that develops and that’s the reason. not just the love between characters, but the love characters have for themselve. their determination to get better and have a life after trauma/hardship; their willingness to strive for happiness or contentment. the overall idea of things were shit but things got better. that just sparks hope.

i really hope things will fall into place for you, and that you’ll find it in yourself to keep going <3 i am so proud of you