#but i need to edit during winter break i cant not do it during all this free time

[jocelynwus]

ok wait fuck it aerinmc edit soon

[amazingphilza]

maniac :: cc!tommy x reader

angst (?) , platonic (?) , gender neutral ! ib: conan gray’s maniac

this is satire & note that i write the reader to be a few months younger than tommy (besides that, i think it is fully inclusive !)

synopsis : you put all your hard work towards a useless crush. with no expectation for reciprocated feelings in the first place, it still all ends in a bittersweet slap to reality.

you grew up with minecraft and it was an understatement to say it was part of your childhood

even years later, you still maintained interested in the game

it wasn’t just a simple video game, the community inspired you to do many things

you aspired to be like the creators you watched at a young age like sky, dantdm, cupquake, stampy, and many more

making people happy and entertained was a dream

and when minecraft slowly began trending again in 2019, you started making your own content whenever you felt like it out of fun

you never got much views but it was an enjoyable experience nonetheless

but it wasn’t until the first minecraft monday you decided to push a bit more with your hobbies and worked hard to make it somewhere

however balancing your passions with school wasn’t the easiest

given, you were still only around 15 and your content wasn’t even that good

with not much of a goal or plan with your youtube channel, you fell out of interest eventually

you loved minecraft but you always a rocky relationship with it; getting back into it for a few months then pretending it never really existed for another few

besides the occasional videos you watched in your pass time, you didn’t stay that updated

then lockdown happened

it changed everything and even got you regressing back to old interests

soon enough you were back to minecraft

there was so much to catch up on

hermitcraft season 7 just started, there was minecraft championships, and smp earth and smp live, and so much more to look forward to watching

you were a bit late on both of the smps but your interest peaked specially towards smp earth and it didn’t stop you from watching the past videos

you first gravitated towards a certain youtuber’s videos first since you remember stumbling onto his videos before from your recommended page; wilbur soot

besides recognizing him from his you laugh you lose series and making parody-type of songs, you didn’t know much

however with a few clicks, you had binge watched his smp earth series effortlessly

you found yourself falling down the endless hole, finding more creators to watch through wilbur

one in particular caught your eye in an interesting way

tommyinnit

my god, how can someone be so annoying and pushy in these videos? like shut up already

and to find out he was barely months older than you frustrated you

you just wanted to be better in some way

if someone like him could be popular, why can’t you? yelling at others and causing problems didn’t seem that hard

and so you went back to working hard on your previously failed youtube channel but this time with a goal; be better than tommyinnit

it was a weird aspiration in your head but it worked

he was your age and successful, why need a better motivator?

tommy wasn’t the sole reason why you strive to make content since you truly did want to create videos to entertain people like the youtubers you originally grew up watching

and with the amount of free time you had, you thoroughly analyzed his content; what was the most popular, how he streamed, edited his videos, everything

you just completely studied the algorithm in general

along the way, tommy’s personality grew on you

tommy was undoubtedly a very loud and energetic person but you became fond of his ambitions

you understood why he was popular at such a young age; he was a natural entertainer

your spite towards the boy turned into a hope

a hope to be at par with him someday and even be mutuals

and it was like your dreams were suddenly manifested into existence

you gained a large following in the early months of lockdown and even was recognized to be apart of minecraft championships

it felt like yesterday that you were just watching your favorite youtubers livestream the same competition

and now you were situation in a team to play yourself for the first time instead of being a viewer for once

not to mention, with tommyinnit as a teammate

how did you manage to get so lucky?

under the excitement, you felt beyond never nervous waiting in the empty discord call for your team to join you to practice the mini-games

in the middle of gathering your thoughts together, you heard a sound from discord signaling someone joined the call

“uh, hello?”

you heard the familiar british accent you spent hours listening to from countless streams and videos

“h-hi! i’m y/n, how are you?”

you hoped tommy couldn’t hear the strain in your voice due to fighting your nerves, but you quietly celebrated that you didn’t freeze up altogether

“oh i’m good, thank you. and i’m tommy by the way, this is the first time we’re speaking, yeah?”

“yep! it’s nice to meet you”

“yeah, i’ve seen your name around the timeline a few times, you seem cool”

oh my god what?

“thanks! um i actually really enjoy your content not gonna lie”

“oh wow, good shit!”

and the conversation smoothly went on, bouncing back and forth between you two before your other two teammates joined the call

once everyone was situated, you decided to start streaming since it was your first mcc and you wanted a vod of you practicing to look at later on as a memory

your chat immediately noticed how much you were enjoying yourself, especially after all the short stories of talking about who inspired you in the past

the smile plastered on your face never left

after stream and your other teammates went offline, it was you and tommy left in the call once together again

“it was nice talking to you tommy! and the practice was really fun, i cant wait for the actual competition!”

“yeah definitely, we’ll for sure place high”

“hopefully. it’s my first time and i hope i don’t cost us the dub”

“nah, you think so? i mean rt and plumbella are also our team mates so you know, it’s all for fun in the end”

you knew tommy was implying the teamwork wasn’t going to be the best compared to the other teams but at least in the end you’ve both made a new friend

“yeah you’re right!”

“anyway it’s getting late imma hop off”

“okay tommy, talk to you soon?”

“yep!”

“alright byee”

“bye!”

the moment he left the call, you felt a sense of relief before a small wave of sadness took over

you wanted to continue talking to tommy but you knew you had other responsibilities to tend to

for the rest of the day, you couldn’t stop thinking of the call and mcc practice

the funny jokes, singing random songs, screaming for no reason, everything

it even kept you awake until the early morning

you buried your head in a pillow and screamed into it after realization hit

y/n no

no no no no no no no

you tried to recall anything that remotely related your other teammates which you remembered that didn’t include tommy

even if it was a few hours ago, you couldn’t pin point something specific

no

i must just be forgetful, right?

what the hell did rt and plumbella even say that whole call?

you vividly remembered everything with tommy and it was clear to you why

surely not

with putting a hand on your chest above your heart, you confirmed that you couldn’t lie to yourself based on the rapid speed

you liked tommy for a good while but it hadn’t clicked to you until now

eventually you fell asleep due to exhaustion but that’s to say you didn’t do so without imagining spending more time with tommy

ever since that day, time went by in a flash

your team didn’t do the best in mcc but it had been a while since then to have that as a concern

sadly you and tommy didn’t talk as often as you hoped but that didn’t make you have less feelings for him

on some days you felt bad since you thought you didn’t know enough about him to even be allowed to crush on him

it was a bit unprofessional but you were nearly 16, it’s normal to have these little crushes right?

eventually time came to rescue when tommy asked you if you wanted to accompany him in the dream smp

undoubtedly, you said yes

and for the few months during summer, it was where you two became even closer than before

however, once both of you two had to go back and attend school, it was harder to catch up with each other

even on calls together off stream, the occasional snapchat notification going off irked you in a way you couldn’t explain

only winter break was the small pause on your disappointment

but even then, it was a slow but steady hill of repressed sadness and frustration until early spring of the following year

you had hoped 2021 would be better than last year but after scrolling through twitter one day and seeing stans making rumors about how tommy had a crush on one of his classmates gave you the same pain you felt when school started last fall

you dreaded to look over at tommy’s most recent story time stream vod where all the gossip arose from; it was him stumbling over his words with the mention of a girl during a certain part

jealousy wasn’t the right word to describe the way you felt

you would never go out of your way to make tommy reciprocate the feelings you had for him

and if he liked someone else the way you saw him, you wouldn’t mind

having a crush is ecstatic, and if he has someone like that too, you should be happy

right?

you tried

what finally broke you was seeing a tiktok a few weeks later of tommy in college with eryn and another girl talking

you didn’t know how she looked like or anything but you wanted to sob

good for him

she didn’t even say much in the video and you dont know enough about tommy’s personal life to jump to conclusions like this

you knew you were acting irrational and you couldn’t be upset at tommy for something he couldn’t control

if anything, you never directly showed interest in him

you didn’t want to in the first place

it was a bad idea from the start

you looked back at the past year and all your intentions

what kind of sick fanfiction did you think you were living?

becoming a content creator, hoping to blow up, just to talk to a big youtuber you had a crush on?

oh my god

y/n what is wrong with you?

listen to yourself, y/n

you need to get some help

whether tommy was dating or even just had interest someone was none of your business

you had to move on no matter what it was and be good and supportive friend

it was dreadful to get over a stupid crush like this but after so much work you put in, you gave some sympathy for yourself

in a friend perspective, you were happy with whatever tommy did and was satisfied your friendship together, but you hadn’t realized how much you gambled from the beginning

and just for a crush?

you couldn’t comprehend how far you gone because you fancied someone

it wasn’t like anyone could get famous and become a popular content creator either

and now with you being on the dream smp along with a successful youtube channel at 16? you were grateful something pushed you enough to work this hard

but you’d never forget the fact everything that lead up to this point was a crush on no other than tommyinnit which first spurred from complete spite

“who’s the one better off now?” your thoughts mocked you from the complete irony

sigh

y/n, you maniac

[ginnyweasleywannabe]

Last Morning Alone

Written for Blackinnon Week 2021

This is the first fic I've ever written so I hope everyone likes it. I also haven't re-read or edited it because I just wanted to get something out there for the week so I do apologize for any mistakes or weird wordings. I have another blackinnon story for blackinnon week but this week has been unexpectedly busy so it might not get written during the actual week.

Last Morning Alone

Marlene was beautiful when she slept, or at least he thought so. Watching her sleep was one of his favorite things to do. The war had taken its toll on him and he didn’t sleep much so he was always up earlier than her. He would wake from his minimal sleep and turn to look down at her and just think “holy shit.” This morning was no different. If he had known it would be their last day and night alone together he night have done things differently, made love to her, made she knew how much she and she alone meant to him but he didn’t so he just watched with silent adoration.

Marlene hated that he watched her. She knew it wasn’t her best look. Marlene slept like a bear in winter, she always had. He used to tease her about falling asleep all over the castle. Sirius thought Marlene was beautiful when she slept. She looked so peaceful. Ok so maybe peaceful wasn’t the right word. She was sprawled out on her back, hands above her head, mouth wide open with a little drool. He was just happy she was sleeping, she had been having trouble the past few weeks. Marlene normally slept on her stomach, mouth closed and that’s when she was peaceful, undisturbed, like a bear in winter. But she could no longer sleep on her stomach, not with the rather large now bump that was holding his most precious little boy or girl. So she slept on her back mouth open with loud snores. A particularly loud and harsh snore pulled him from his inner monologue. She had woke herself up. Stretching her arms up and blinking a few times she came too, seeing Sirius watching her.

She hated that he watched her. She looked over and there he was just like any other morning, smiling that same stupid grin that she fell in love with. She wanted to be mad and fuss at him but she was really too tired and her back hurt. Besides it never worked because there was no real anger behind the words.

“Whatcha you looking at?”

“Some girl I brought home from a bar once and she just can’t take a hint, she just won’t leave”

Marlene let out a laugh at that. “Oh yeah, see I remember some guy practically begging me to go home with him, look where that got me” She said gesturing to the bump giggling.

Sirius rolled his eyes but reached over and pulled her closer. “Any day now you know”

“I know, believe me I literally can’t forget”

“Your back?”

Marlene just nodded and snuggled closer but Sirius was already starting to shift them so that she was sitting in front of him and he could rub he back.

These were the moments Marlene loved. Just the two of them, when he would do something so sweet without prompting. Had you asked her a few years ago if she ever saw womanizer playboy Sirius Black rubbing his wife’s back because their unborn child was making hard to sleep she would have laughed and hard. If you had asked her if she was going to be said wife she would had told you that was just impossible because she was never going to fall in love with Sirius Black. Although deep down she knew that was a lie, it had been a lie since second year but she would never admit that to anyone, not herself, and definitely not him.

“What do you want for breakfast, I think we might have some eggs” Sirius didn’t sound very confident in this statement.

“You know we’re about to have a kid, we really need to get better at stocking the pantry and stop ordering take-out”

“No” Sirius whined “This kid cant take Foo Lin’s from me, babes everyone says we have to stay true to who we are before the baby came. Look at James, He wouldn’t even get a beer with me last me week”

“Take-out and going to bars are two very different things, so I think your Foo Lin’s is safe. Besides James didn’t go out because the next morning was Harry’s first day at pre-school and you boys went out the week before.” Marlene looked back at him

“Well I’ll go check on the egg situation and you can just have a lie in” With a quick kiss, too short for his liking but he heard her stomach growl he was out the door. Returning just a few minutes later, a sheepish smile on his face.

“We’re out aren’t we?” Marlene groaned, she really was hungry.

“Bakery on 7th?”

The suggestion was music to her ears. Her whole face lit up. She hoped from the bed with a newfound energy and began waddling around to get ready to leave. Sirius just laughed at his wife’s antics. If you had asked him a few years ago if he would be a mix of excitement and nerves for a baby on the way, he would have laughed and hard. If you would have told him that the mother of his child would be spitfire Marlene McKinnon he would have called you crazy. Although he had known he was in love with her since the first moment he saw her talking to James on the platform September 1st before first year, before he knew what either of them would mean to him but he was never going to admit that to anyone but her.

He quickly dressed and helped her put on her shoes. A routine that perfected, her refusing to ask for help and attempting to reach down or bend them up to her and eventually pretending to get distracted with the paper and sit down while he would put them on without a word about it. After a satisfactory amount of time she would pretend she was done with the paper and walk to the door.

“Marlene…”

She had almost made it out the door

“Hmm” Marlene would hum pretending she didn’t know what he was about to say

“Don’t you think you’re forgetting something”

“Oh sorry babes!” She leaned gave him a hearty kiss hoping to distracted him from his original thought. It had almost worked, I mean who could blame him, his wife was hot if she wanted a snog he couldn’t refuse a pregnant women. It had almost worked. Almost.

Pulling away he softened his face “Marls…”

Huffing she reluctantly sighed out a “fineee” and held her arms up. Still as stubborn as always

Sirius began to bundle her up, a heavy coat, a scarf, and topping it off with a beanie and quick kiss to her forehead.

Rolling her eyes but still leaning her head in so he could kiss it she huffed once more as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and they exited the flat.

“You know you’re the one who keeps bring up how we shouldn’t change because of the baby and yet you treat me like I will break at the slightest chill. I’m a Scott for sakes, we can handle this London ‘fall’…. Weak city boys” Mumbling the last bit under her breath.

Sirius just listened and nodded knowing she wasn’t truly upset. I mean she was carrying precious cargo, she was precious cargo so yeah he was going to keep it up. They continued to walk to the bakery. It was a nice morning, not too cold and he had probably over done the layers but too late now.

They had entered warmth of the bakery. She was so happy to smell the blueberry muffins. Marlene kept rocking on her heels, antsy to order and get some food.

“Finally…” she mumbled and was quick to order her muffin and a coffee.

“Marlene…”

“Fine. Change the coffee to a decafe”

“Marlene…” She was eight months pregnant, he didn’t think he was being unreasonable.

“Foo Lin’s, Sirius. And its small” She turned around to pay with a satisfied smirk. Marlene knew the threat of no more take out would shut him right up.

They began the walk home, her happily munching on a muffin and his arm slung over her shoulder. As they rounded a corner he felt a splash. They stopped and he began inspecting himself wiping the wet area on the bottom of his pants

“Marlene, did you spill your coffee?” She had stopped a few feet behind him as he walked forward.

“Marlene?” He turned around expecting her to be crying. This had happened before, she would spill a drink or food and just burst into tears but he turned around and she was just standing there wide eyed and panicked.

“Sirius, that wasn’t my coffee…”

Sirius could see the wet all down her pants and it all clicked it was happening, it was really happening. He quickly closed the distance between them scooping her up and jogging as smoothly as possible to St. Mungo’s

Regulus Michael Black was born 13 hours later.

[seijch]

ANNOUNCEMENT: NOT A HELLO, BUT NOT A GOODBYE EITHER

omg hi ... im like . ashamed to come back after saying brief hiatus in october and then disappearing off the face of the earth til FEBRUARY but under the cut i will be explaining myself and the following, if youre interested (and a tl;dr at the very bottom if you don’t wanna scroll thru this obnoxiously long post):

the reason(s) i was gone for so long

what i was doing during that time (its just a personal account yall can scroll past this idrc)

the status of those um . halloween requests

the future of this account

i. so . Hiatus .

i know. i know . i probably mentioned it when i made the announcement post, but my mental health likes to go on one of those rides. yknow the ones where you go like up rlly fast then down maybe and then up then DOWN .... its like that. i needed a break and every time i wanted to come back or thought about it, something would happen and i would get stuck in my own head.

a big reason for getting stuck in my head was (and i hate to admit this ... i hate to admit that i have Insecurities On The Internet) my feelings of inadequacy regarding my writing. i love to plot fics, i love concepts and characters and making little headcanons but i dont ... know if i love writing rn. and i thought for the longest time that like . whatever ill just push thru it its fine ill be fine but it kinda wasnt lmao you can kinda see it in my halloween reqs and what become of them when i get to that but i began to feel like nothing i had put out or would put out would hold up prose wise (and normally i dont feel like this im much more “idc its my life im living it” but thats not a rant for tumblr LMAO). i still feel like that -- like im better as a reader than a writer. but . You Know :-)

tl;dr: mental state go brrrrr

ii. anywhere here’s wonderwall

when i left, i was in a steadily decreasing mental and emotional state, made worse by a situation at work that really was a case of petty jealousy on my end and rlly isnt very consequential now despite how much pain and resentment it gave me when it Was a problem so i wont get into it. the tl;dr of november and december was me using work as an crutch and distraction -- i know my job, i do it well, it helped me not think about my responsibilities and obligations and inadequacies. of course, as the holiday season grew busier n busier i was scheduled so often that i moved 88 or so miles (according to my apple watch, which i ONLY wear at work since im never anywhere else outside my house) and fell into a cycle of showering n sleeping at my house before going back the next day. (theres definitely something to be said abt capitalism and “grind culture” here but once again its not the time or place snsjkdfds)

at the turn of the new year, i happened to remember a birthday card i hadnt filed away for safekeeping from a friend of mine that id been horribly out of touch with til that point. i started crying because i realized how out of touch id been in general up until that point. the month of january was great for me: i was focused, happy, and in a much better place than i had been before. the end of it brought me down focus wise and im hoping that enough time away from my distractions will refocus me bc i ... need it LMAO and though ive burned out from that level of productivity and gotten distracted again im ... trying to stay positive which i think is the most i can do 😁👍🏼

media wise, i got real into stardew valley (but burned out bc i played it extensively as a way to wind down after work), the pokemon platinum romhack renegade platinum (still havent finished it bc of school n i played it w the intent to see if i could nuzlocke it ... bitch its so hard but its so fun bc of it), briefly assassins creed: odyssey (im one of those ppl who completes an entire region before i move to the next so you can tell i burned out of that one + wouldnt have the time to properly devote to it even if i didnt), got back into genshin impact after pulling for xiao (after not touching it for like . months), and danganronpa. yes . danganronpa 😐 i Know. i stopped playing it after the second trial of the first game bc i was so hurt by the outcome and picked it up in late january only to get sucked in (thank god i had the foresight to buy the second and third games during the steam winter sale). rn im at the start of chapter 4 if anyone wants to come in my asks and um . talk to me abt danganronpa

tl;dr: I’m Into Danganronpa Now

iii. you realize halloween was three months ago right

i mentioned this in the first section, but i love to plot things. every request is plotted or at least has a solid foundation. i had fun detailing what concept i wanted to go with considering what i was given, and there were some bangers i might touch up in the future. but heres whats going to happen to the requests themselves:

there are two finished requests. one will be posted tomorrow and the other will be touched up (just bc i finished it doesnt mean its good 🧍‍♂️) and scheduled for next saturday. as for the ones i never got around to ...

i will not be finishing those requests. i hate to be That Person, but i feel like we all expected this 🧍‍♂️ what i will do is post all of my notes for each request in batches -- requests that have an @ to go with them will be mentioned in the post proper, but anon asks will be pictured. (there are some asks that came from blogs who are now deactivated but i wrote down all the prompts and remember most of those askers so ill cross that bridge when i get there) there will most likely be an excerpt or two simply bc i think i mightve written a few plot points or interactions in the form of bullet points. i rlly am sorry about doing this but i remember looking at my notion doc with all the prompts and feeling ... like i wasnt measuring up n it wasnt just to myself or to some intangible concept of “other” id constructed but it was instead to those who requested n actually WANTED to see and hear and read my writing and i ...... im gonna admit thats another big reason i avoided this site.

regardless, youll definitely get what i have (and likely more than just my bullet points and illegible handwriting).

tl;dr: im sorry. what i have in terms of plot, concept, and interaction for every request will be posted, but i cant say ill ever complete them and mean it.

iv. so what now?

well i mean . im not entirely sure how sold i am on haikyuu in the content creation department (as a creator n to a lesser extent, as a consumer). as mentioned previously, its no longer my primary focus. it doesnt mean im not into haikyuu anymore; i have a lot of love for those boys but i cant rlly say im even caught up w recent fandom activity and also havent even finished s4 pt2 LMAO thats on my to do list

and despite all that, i still want to share my plots n concepts and snippets and maybe even fics. it wont happen anytime soon. it might not even happen. but i mean . its better than me saying i wont write ever again shjdkfs but either way ill probably use this blog as a personal blog w the occasional ask game for dialogue prompts (those are always so fun i love making up aus to fit like . the most mundane prompts)

as for my works (past and any potential future), ive opened an ao3 acc here n ill be editing n possibly expanding on my old works to post there. tumblr, to me, is The x reader hub, but i figure more x reader fics on ao3 is never a bad thing.

ill be deleting/posting drafted posts to the queue since they were all meant to be queued anyway as well as (sorry again 🧍‍♂️) deleting or answering asks in the inbox. (moots if you get a notif from me saying i rbed your post from months ago ... mind your business) im very hard to get ahold of and its ... a problem. expect an overhaul of the nav n shit to reflect my new direction n also because i feel like i cant tell if my passion for carrd is shared by the majority HSDKLFS maybe its better to read my info in a normal post ykwim .......

and of course . if youve read all this n decided im no longer worth the follow, i sure as hell cant stop you. thank you for wanting to, at some point, hear what i have to say -- it means more than you think.

tl;dr: writing will be edited and reposted to ao3, this blog will be a personal blog with a hint of writing (sometimes)

the tl;dr to end all tl;drs:

im back! i wont be as active as i used to due to a lessened interest in haikyuu in general, but i have an ao3 acc now where all my past work will be edited, possibly expanded, and reposted. any future work will also find itself there. my halloween requests will be posted in batches as incomplete concepts, plots, and snippets of scenes; i wont be promising to finish any of them.

there are still fic concepts im attached to and want to finish, but i cant promise any more writing on my end. this blog will be a personal blog with maybe writing, not a writing blog with my personal thoughts all over it.

regardless if you stick around or not, its been crazy sexy cool (equal emphasis) being on haikyuu tumblr even tho i wasnt around for long ... even tho its not my main focus anymore, im still excited to see what the future might hold 🤝

love, ari 💌

[clevercatchphrase]

Just some numbers and figures~

So! I finished my fan fiction, You Monster, this week, and it took me exactly 3 and a half years to write/edit/publish. This post at the time of writing, however, is being written a few days before the final chapter goes up, just examining  some numbers and trends around the wordcount and posting rate of my fan fic, because i’m obsessed with numbers and such, and i’m just trying to chew up time and keep myself occupied before the last chapter goes public. There’s literally no point to this post other than to marvel at how long this story is and how long it took me to get it out there, and reflect on what happened to me in The Real World during that time. Care to join me?

In Microsoft Word, this entire story is 609 pages and 209,235 words. The word count is slightly higher on AO3 (which I consider the definitive draft), partly because AO3 counts formatting tags as words for some reason, and because if I make little adjustments to the story, I’ll do it on AO3, but not on the original word file (or corresponding tumblr post for that matter) because I can’t be bothered to. 

According to AO3, I started this fic on January 3rd, 2016, smack dab in the middle of my winter break in my last year of college. I probably started writing it a few days before, maybe in december. I’m not really sure, but I’m kinda surprised I started it so early in the year, especially since I was writing by the seat of my pants for the first 14 chapters or so.

The following pictures highlight what days/months chapters were posted, according to AO3 (I personally think there might be a discrepancy or two due to timezones)

Chapter-wise, the first third of this story (Chapters 1 through 12) was written and posted in 2 months, and TWO THIRDS of the entire story (Chapters 1 through 25 (rounding up)) were written in the first YEAR.

Wordcount-wise, HALF the story (roughly 100k words) was written in one year.

There was a dramatic drop in productivity at the middle/end of 2016 due to Real World Stress, mostly me graduating & getting a job, the presidential elections, and learning a family member was starting to have kidney failure.

God, 2017 was a bad year for me, productivity-wise. In early June I lost said family member due to their kidney failure, and was completely unmotivated to work on You Monster for the rest of the year. I remember forcing myself to write for NaNoWriMo that year, and it helped snap me out of my funk, but I didn’t like how the writing came out and kept pushing off revising and editing the drafts for several weeks. I also remember getting really sick on christmas eve/day with a terrible flu, which made me unable to post the next chapter until January.

I actually felt a lot better mentally and emotionally in 2018. I WOULD have written more in early 2018, but that was also when the Hiveswap Comic Contest started, and lasted for 3 straight months with me doing nothing more than drawing comics for 12 consecutive weeks. Then, after that was over, I started thinking/planning more seriously about writing ANOTHER story, which later became Ghost Switch, and I offically started that halfway through 2018. I originally thought about making Ghost Switch a written work, but it was basically going to be another re-telling of Undertale, which was what I was doing with You Monster anyway, and I didn’t want to write all of that out again, so I decided to make it a comic instead. It was a great decision for me art-wise, because now I’m improving my art skills through weekly comic pages, but it was also a terrible decision art-wise because now I GOTTA KEEP DRAWING POSES AND BACKGROUNDS AND DRAWING PEOPLE IS HARD. 

Back to the point- I forced myself to write this fic again for NaNoWriMo that year, and was terribly upset that I still didn’t finish. But this time, I forced myself to revise and edit my writing until it became something I could tolerate, and posted the next chapter in January (again, but this time because my writing needed far more revisions than last year’s nano draft) 

Getting back into revising and editing DID seriously help me get back in the groove of Wanting To Write, but it was a little trickier now that I was also drawing a comic, and it was hard to manage my time between the two, because when I write, I do it for great stretches at a time. I mean, like, 4 or 5 hours straight of writing. Same goes for comic making, too. sketching the pages can take me two hours, and cleaning/inking/coloring them can take me anywhere from 4 to 6 hours.

Hm. If I included the other fics I wrote during this time, I get the feeling these calendars would look a lot more active and colorful. Maybe i’ll do that for myself later, so I can see how much I posted in 3 years.

This year, I was absolutely determined to finish this story, even if it killed me. I was still struggling to manage my time between writing and art, mostly dedicating a few weeks to make a buffer of comic pages so I could have a couple of weeks dedicated to writing. It was time consuming, and I felt bad when I worked on one but not the other, but I finally got my breakthrough in May, when I had to take multiple trips to an automotive shop for several different car repairs. Instead of just leaving my car there and going home, I brought my writing spirals with me and just wrote and wrote and didn’t stop writing while I waited in their loby. I finally finished the rough drafts of my story after being stuck for 4 hours in a Pepboys, and spent two more full days typing it out. Then, I rested for a week, and spent 3 more revising and editing the remaining bits. I was hoping to get the whole thing done and posted before July ended, but that did not end up being the case. For me, when we finally get to August, we have entered “the end of the year”. Ah, well. Even though I didn’t get the story completely posted before August, I can still take pride in knowing I finished it before the year was half way over~!

NOW FOR SOME NUMBERS!

I personally divide this story into 5 arcs, Ruins, Snowdin, Waterfall, Hotland, and New Home And Beyond (Which is basically anything that can happen after you unlock the true lab in-game)

Ruins

The Ruins arc I consider everything in chapters 1 thorugh 12. It is simultainiously the longest arc (chapter-wise, with 12 chapters which as mentioned earlier, is 1/3rd of the story) and also the shortest arc, only taking up 24k words (Which is an 8th of the entire story, or roughly 12.5%).It was also the quickest writen arc, as it was primarily prologue/first act material. Pretty much all of it was written in that first January. It’s 80 pages long, or 13% of all pages

Snowdin

The snowdin arc (chapters 13 to 22) is just under 25% of the entire story, coming in at 49 thousand words (on the nose!) It is the second longest arc in both word count and in number of Chapters (10, to be exact~) It took me roughly 4.5 months to write this arc. We also spend the most physical in-story time in Snowdin. Almost 3 full days, which is half of the story’s timeline (not counting the 7-8 years in the Ruins. That was all set-up) It’s 172 pages long, or 28% of all pages.

Waterfall

The Waterfall arc (Chapters 23 to 28) is the longest arc wordcount-wise, making up another 25% of the story, coming in at 53.6 thousand words, and dead center when it comes to the number of chapters it makes up (which is 6). Looking at this now, litterally half this story takes place in Snowdin and Waterfall. Roughly one full day is spent in waterfall, from noon of the first day, to roughly late morning of the second. This arc took me 11 months to write/post, and if you read the notes for these corrisponding chapters, you can tell I was not having a good time during it. It’s 178 pages long, or 29% of all pages.

Hotland

The Hotland arc, (chapters 29 to 32) Is the shortest arc chapter-wise, with only 4 (10% of all chapters), and second shortest arc wordcount-wise, coming in at 36 thousand words, or about 18% of the story. It’s also the shortest in-story arc time-wise, seeing as you only spend about half a day here. I did not like writing the hotland arc! Mostly in part because Hotland is my least favorite region in the game. Chapter 32 is probably my least favorite out of all of what I’ve written. It was difficult figuring out what to do with Alphys and Mettaton, seeing as their interactions with you in game heavily focus on you and your human-ness. I am quite glad that each chapter was pretty neatly divided by in-game floors. It was a good way to know where a chapter could end and when I could give the characters some breathing room. It took me over a year to complete the Hotland arc, and most of that time was because I didn’t want to revise and edit what I wrote. It’s 123 pages long, or 20% of all pages.

New Home and Beyond

I don’t consider the True Lab part of Hotland because of in-game story reasons. You can’t access it until you’ve gone to New Home at least once, and once you enter it, you cant leave until you finish it, which, again, takes you to new home. Honestly, once you get to the true lab, you’ve won the game. There is no way to ruin your pacifist playthrough once you get to the lab, and while the amalgamates may kill you, you can’t “lose” once you get this far. That’s why I consider Chapter 33 the start of the New Home arc even though in my story we haven’t seen new home yet (mostly because there are no saves or resets in this story, so we kinda couldn’t have gone there first).

The New Home arc is the second shortest chapter-wise, making up the last 5 chapters (13% of all of them), and is dead-center when it comes to word count, finishing with 46.5 thousand words, or roughly the last 25%. I was actually really excited to write everything from chapter 34 to 36 after having been fantisizing about it in my head for the last two years. I gotta be honest, the end of chapter 37 gave me some trouble. I was still making edits up to a few days before it went public, but I think I got the feelings I wanted across~ It’s 161 pages long, or 26% of all pages.

Extra???

I started keeping a word file for bits of dialogue and scenes that I originally wrote in my spiral, but ultimately cut for one reason or another. Mostly these are just sentences and snippets that sounded redundant, ooc, or were just an alternate dialouge I decided not to use. I didn’t start doing this until chapter 28, according to my files, but according to the masterfile, there were 6.4 thousand words I ended up not using. 

There are, in fact, several bullet points I had originally planned and ended up not using, such as Sans ASKING Undyne to keep an eye on the kid while they were in waterfall, which sounded hypocritical after I wrote him coming to peace with them, as well as having Asgore tuoring the Underground that week, and thus Sans, Papyrus, Undyne and Alphys having to hide Frisk from him once they become friends. (the painkillers Alphys also gave frisk were actually supposed to induce drowsiness in Frisk, making them fall asleep so Alphys could keep them from going to New Home, but this was a point I dropped at the absolute last minute, and you can tell if you re-read chapter 29, because it’s hinted at, but the painkillers are never mentioned again. I figured that plot point was a little too dark for Alphys’ character)

Fun Fact: the zalgo text in Chapter 27 DOES actually have dialouge in it, if you know what to look for. Only one person has asked about it, but no one has yet to decifer it.

AT A GLANCE:

ARC LENGTHS (CHAPTER WISE) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Hotland (4 Chapters)

New Home and Beyond (5 Chapters)

Waterfall (6 Chapters)

Snowdin (10 Chapters)

Ruins (12 Chapters)

ARC LENGTHS (WORDCOUNT WISE) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Ruins (24k)

Hotland (36k)

New Home and Beyond (46.5k)

Snowdin (48k)

Waterfall (53.6k)

ARC LENGTHS (PAGE COUNT) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

(Same order as above)

TIME TAKEN TO WRITE/PUBLISH, SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Ruins (1 month)

Snowdin (4.5 months)

New Home and Beyond (~6 months)

Waterfall (11 months)

Hotland (>1 Year)

Other Numbers For Some Reason

Chapters 1 through 19 make up the 1st 50k words (this when Frisk falls into the underground, up to Sans attacking them in the kitchen) 19 chapters

Chapters 20 through 26 make up the 2nd 50k words (when Frisk decides to seek asgore’s help, to when Undyne cuts the bridge) 7 chapters

Chapters 27 through 31 make up the 3rd 50k words (when Frisk dislocates their shoulder to Flowey killing the messenger spider) 5 chapters

Chapters 32 through 37 make up the 4th 50k words (When Mettaton decides to change the programming, to Frisk’s final choice) 6 chapters

Only 5 chapters exceed 10k words, they are chapters 22, 27, 28, 33 and 36

Here’s a visual representation of all the chapters and their word counts in relation to one another. I was so startled by the spikes of chapter 22 and 28 that I had to go back and skim the chapters to remind myself what went down in them and why they were so long. Chapter 22 is papyrus trying to keep the human in snowdin while sans runs some errands, and then the human discovering the skelebro’s deceit. Chapter 28 is the human realizing Undyne tried to murder them, and then escaping from waterfall. I distinctly remembering saying I could have split chapter 28, but I was so tired of writing waterfall that I refused to do so because I just wanted it to end already.

I find it absolutely hilarious how consistant my word count was until chapter 20 (chapter 15 is an outliar), and then everything went off the rails.

Here’s a graph of the total word count, shown to you NaNoWriMo style~ (I spent way too long in excel making both of these charts, please validate me) 

The climb definitely looks a lot less drastic here, as it is always building on itself, but if you look closely, you can see one or two inflection points, roughly around chapter 20 and 28.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’m so glad to finally be done with this story. It’s certainly deviated from what I originally planned, but I think all the changes are for the better. Now I can think about writing other things, like the PTA!AU shorts I’ve been meaning to do. It was fun and it was challenging, and this is literally the longest thing I’ve ever written in my life. Will I ever make a story this long again? Maybe?? If I ever encounter another game with as much character and worldbuilding as Undertale that also just hits me in the feels the same way, I might, but for now I’m going to focus on other projects (most of them still undertale related, but shut up)

Got any questions, comments, concerns for my fic? I’m so glad it’s done, now, and I’d be happy to talk about my thoughts behind it~

[rumpikerzzzworld]

April, You Will Be Remembered

It’s the 1st of May!! I want to post about some unforgettable April 2019 moments because I want to keep the memories that someday I want to remember again. So many things happened in the month. There were some heart-breaking incidents and of course there were some enjoyable moments as well. I’m just gonna highlight the things I want to remember the most. Here they are!!

BLACK HOLE

It is announced that on 10th April 2019 a group of scientist from the international Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) releasing the image of a black hole to public. This project was began in 2006. It took supercomputers, eight telescopes stationed on five continents, hundreds of researchers, and vast amounts of data to accomplish (source: the verge).  

(cr: Event Horizon Telescope)

I was not someone who understands much about space life, even though I studied the basic knowledge when I was in secondary and high school. However, I appreciated a lot this not easy job. I used to have a dream to be an astronomer when I was a kid, but i have to come to realization that I’m not smart enough to pursue the dream, lol. I’m currently into astronauts’ life though. I watch documentaries, read articles and other sources about astronaut’s and space’s life. So that, it made me happy to read this news. Moreover, one of the computer scientists in the team who led the development program to get the first-image of black hole is a woman named Katie Bouman. She is just 29-year-old when she did that. She is amazing!! I always wonder what kind of method those people use when they are studying. I mean, how could they be so smart? I feel like I’m such a useless and stupid human being. I’m nothing huhu. Anyway, I’m happy to witness the history of the first image of black hole.

GAME OF THRONES

FINALLY, WINTER IS COMING. I might not be the fan of the show since day 1. I just started watching game of thrones in 2017. Ever since I watched the first season, I started becoming a fan and addicted to the show then finished all of the 7 seasons in a few weeks. The show is that addictive, it made me threw any dramas/movies for about 6 months because I felt that the show was too well executed and any other movies/dramas in that time period I was watching the show felt bland. I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to belittle other shows. It’s just the thing I felt that moment. I was so mesmerized by the storyline which literally beyond my expectation. It was so good. I know there are a lot of people who don’t like the show, and it’s okay as everyone has their own preference. But to me, this show is so far my very favourite one.

It took me 2 years to wait for the last season which is season 8 to be aired. I cant contain my feelings as I was so excited about this. AAAANNDDDDD IT’S FINALLY HERE. GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8 IS HAPPENING. 14th April 2019 should be put as a history date as the show was aired on that day. Actually, I’m pretty sad that there will be just 6 episodes. I wish they make it to 10, but who am I to complain?

Okay, back to the show. The most talked episode is episode 3, the Battle of Winterfell, which was shown in that very episode. The episode lasts for about 80 minutes long. The thing that has been waited since season 1 was the war between the alive and the dead. There are so much reactions and opinions regarding the episode, fans are splitted into two groups, the one who enjoyed the episode and the one who disliked the episode as it didn’t reach their expectation. I’m the one who included to the first one, I pretty enjoyed the show although I think it wasn’t the greatest battle in Game of Thrones. My favourite battle was Battle of Bastards as it was really tensed. But, I still like the Battle of Winterfell though. As of now, I want to put aside the negativity and just enjoy the rest of episodes. I’m planning on reading the books after the show is over.

One thing that I really like about episode 3 is the hyped from the people who watched together in cafes, restaurants, and other place. Their reactions were priceless. See these videos that went viral on twitter!!

1    2

ELECTION

One of the most tiring to bear ever since social media era existed is election. The countries that pursue democracy usually conduct election to choose their own leader, including my country. In the past, there weren’t much sources to search about election information other than from tv and newspaper, so that the backlash could be reduced. But it’s different now. In this digital age, people can share everything including the positive and negative contents. Social media as one of the tools for people to do campaign and spread either good thing or black-campaign for the election candidates. ISTG, this is so tiring to witness people bashing each other and most of them have crossed the line. I’m so done!

In Indonesia, for 2019’s election, there were some changes compare to the previous election. They were included the period of time of campaign which was so long (about 7 months) and also adding the other 3 elections of legislative to be held in the same very day. It used to be held in different months, but due to the lack of participation in legislative election so that they were all conducted together.

Indonesian Presidential Election Candidates (Left: Jokowi-Amin, Right: Prabowo-Sandi) 

(cr: Media Indonesia)

I was eager for this to end soon. It finally happened on 17th April 2019. But, something bad happened again. The incident which happened in 2014 was re-enacted as both candidates claimed they win. Even though the quick count results from about 12 institutions showed that Jokowi-Amin led the vote by gaining about 54% votes while Prabowo-Sandi gained around 44% votes. I’m so done with this. I will just wait for the official results to be announced and I wish on that day there will be no chaos happen.

Aside of that, something that breaks my heart is there were a lot of election officers died and fell sick due to exhaustion from working way too hard as most of them working until very late night and some even worked until the next morning because there were so many jobs to do, including counting the vote for legislative elections (DPR, DPRD, DPD). Although there were no major incident happened during the election process itself, but still this thing supposed to not happen. There is definitely something wrong with the system and it should be fixed so that there will be no victims anymore.

MOURNING IN SRI LANKA

21st April 2019 is Easter Day. Things supposed to be calm and sacred on that day. But disgusting act ruined it all. Multiple bombing attacks happened in several places in Sri Lanka, including at churches and hotels. Hundred of people died and many people got injured. Some extremists claimed they are responsible for the attacks, SMH. I wish the ones who dead are resting in peace, while the ones who got injured will get well soon and receive some strength to continue life. and for the terrorists, I wish you die in suffer and go to hell!!

I don’t get why in 2019, hatred ideology is still growing fast in this world. Sadly, in some developed-countries which the citizen are more educated, this ideology also exist. People should learn that the differences that make this world beautiful. Why some people feel like they want to hurt each other just because they have differences in term of race, skin colour, religion, countries, ideology, etc. We need to respect each other differences as long as it doesn’t violate the rule of law.

I think there should be a formal lesson in school to teach students to respect the differences. Parents should teach their children right too. Sadly, I found a lot of parents who taught their children to hate people who are different from them. This needs to be stopped. Everyone deserves to get equal treatment. We all want a better future. We cant reach this as long as we still fight each other because of the differences. Just put aside it and look the bigger picture, the same goal we want to pursue. As of now, i’m kinda sceptical if we can reach peace in the near future. However, someday in the future, I wish the world will be a better place to live in. Amen

(cr: wisdom quotes)

AVENGERS ENDGAME

Marvel fans have anticipated the final movie from Avengers United. They are excited as well as sad as the avengers series come to end. Avengers Endgame was screened since 26th April 2019 in my country. There were so much fans who purchased pre-order ticket in a few days prior to the movie screening. It’s kinda cray because the cinemas are full packed with the audiences. Most cinemas even dedicated all of their studios for this movie as the demands are very high then putting aside the other movies. I feel bad for the other movies as they didn’t get time slot for their movies in cinema because of Avengers movie. I wish this wont last long as other movies deserve to get screened as well.

Okay, back to Avengers Endgame movie. Just in March 2019, I watched Captain Marvel movie and in April, I got to watch the last movie of Avengers. I’m actually not a big fan of Superheroes movies, I’m just a casual viewer who enjoyed the movies and i enjoyed watching this one as well. Avengers Endgame runs for 181 minutes, it’s pretty long. I came to bathroom in the middle of movie though, lol.

Overall, I like this movie as I think everything was executed very well. The cinematography, the sound, the edit, the effect are totally top-class work as well as the casts and their act. It really gives everyone goosebumps during the war between Avengers United and Thanos and his soldiers. I couldn’t blink my eye any second because I didn’t want to miss anything. Even though, I felt like I wanted to go to number 1 again in the middle of war scene, but I held it until the movie was over, lol. The movie is worth the hyped though. It’s indeed a masterpiece. I think I’m gonna rewatch it later. But, first I need to watch several marvel movies that I haven’t watched yet so everything will connect and make sense as I still didn’t understand some part. Anyway, thanks marvel for presenting a very well done job!! Goodbye or See you (?) Avengers!!

(cr: marvel)

Bye April 2019. Welcome my month, May!!

xoxo

mels