#could've posted on ao3

[clovariia]

we can FINALLY post our pieces for the @tohgrimoire zine!!! i wrote a fic about luz and her family visiting her father's grave. it's a tragic but healing time for all of them.

thank you so much to @astrolavas for drawing the devastating spot art and the zine's writing mod @taruchinator for helping with beta reading!!! all the zine contributors and mods were so sweet and encouraging. i'm so grateful that i got to be a part of this project! thank you to everyone for all the support!!!!!! 🦉💕

🔗 https://archiveofourown.org/works/58919038

[royalarchivist]

Richarlyson: You're skinny sir, are you eating well these days?

Pac: Not really. To tell you the truth, I've been eating... I stole, together with my son, we stole some cupcakes from the Federation. I ate some, but I know chocolate isn't the best thing to eat, right?

Richarlyson: 12 kilos D:

Pac: 12 kilos?!? No– what? My god. My god... Am I malnourished, Doctovo? Am I- Am I malnourished?

Richarlyson: You weigh less than a pitbull, sir.

Pac: Less than the singer? Damn... [Laughs]

Richarlyson: [Hits Pac]

[hangryyeena]

SquidgeWorld refusing to even talk about Palestine and other genocides happening because "this a fandom space" is wild and severely disappointing

[beanghostprincess]

I can't believe I just had to explain my last Zolusan (more Lusan/Sanlu than anything but yeah) fic to somebody because they said it was normalizing unhealthy behavior when it comes to starting poly relationships. As if the monster trio would talk things out like normal people. Seriously.

Please NEVER leave a comment like this on a fanfic. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it. I am not here to educate people!! I am not your parents!! This is a fanfic site!! Don't expect me to write a manual on how to have a poly relationship, especially when it would be out of character for the main couple.

I'm gonna leave the link to the fic here and what I told them about it because now I am extremely anxious other people won't get what I want to express with this fic and I feel the need to share my thoughts:

[syrcus]

FFXIVwrite 2024 Day 1: Steer

Non-WoL OC. No major spoilers. Pre-Calamity, minor setting spoiler for early 7.0 zone. 868 words ao3 link

Ask a dozen sailors what the most important part of a ship is, and you'll be given a dozen answers. You may be told of the mast, and how without it the ship can make no headway; you might hear of the galley and the comforts of a warm meal and good company after a long day's work; others still will tell you of pieces of a ship's anatomy you never considered, paints and metals hidden beneath the waterline to protect the hull from barnacles and the caustic effects of ocean salt.      Soley Torunn never cared much for all that. Then again, he was never much of a sailor, and never felt at peace on the ship he called home his whole sixteen years.

     It's a curious feeling, he realises, to stand on Tuliyollal's dock and watch the place he grew up slowly drift away. A handful of paces to his right stands a shetona woman with dark hair and bright eyes, waving enthusiastically, yelling at the top of her voice without a care as to whether it will carry to the people she's calling for.

     "Be safe out there, Salka! And bring back something fun! And-" she catches herself and laughs, seeming to realise the futility of her effort, before lowering her voice and turning to Soley with a fond smile. "Well. I suppose we're left to hold down the fort."

Soley finds himself at a loss. She's a nice enough woman, too nice to be his mother's closest friend on this, or any, side of the world. He always wondered how that bond was formed, how someone so unkind could be loved by someone so her opposite. Perhaps they were living through each other in a way; his "aunt" had always wanted to go out and see the world, perhaps she in turn has some quality his mother values, though he struggles to imagine what a woman like his mother might find endearing. Maybe she's just a useful connection to those in power.      He looks at her uneasily, all too acutely aware of the differences between them. She's smiling, warm and bright; staying in Tural this year had been her idea, she'd said it would do him good to strike out on his own a little. He had leapt at the opportunity at first, but standing here now he barely knows where to start. He takes a breath.

     "I… What do I do now?" he asks quietly. He's spent his whole life a sailor's son, 'Árni and Salka's kit', never having the time to put down roots somewhere. Now that he has the chance, he can't help but feel like a ship with a broken mast, forced to weigh anchor far from home.

     "Well, we can get you set up in a room, or get some food, or-" Not the mast, he realises as his aunt chatters on, it's the rudder I'm missing. It's a discomforting thought, to be directionless, unable to change course by his own hand.  At sea or on land, his fate always seems to sit in the hands of those around him.  I need to get out of here.

     "I'm sorry, Auntie," he cuts in. "I think I need some time alone. A walk perhaps." He doesn't wait for a reply before turning to leave, and doesn't say goodbye. He knows his aunt well enough to know she'll find him again sooner or later, she's persistent and well-practiced at hunting down lost boys. Her own child, as far as Soley knows him, also prefers solitude more often than not.      He pays little attention to where he's going, just a vague sense of 'upwards'. He cuts through the markets and the plaza, and avoids the residential district, his mind racing and empty all at once. The only thing he's sure of is that he needs distance, from the Aalto and the person he was aboard it, from the docks and the sea, from anyone and everyone. Tuliyollal is, he thinks, a good city.  It's bright, and colourful, and its people even moreso.  The towns of Aldenard and Vylbrand seem grey and small by comparison, and for all its colour Kugane has always been so rigid.  For as long as he can remember, the months spent in Tuliyollal between long days at sea have always been his favourite.      A small mamool ja child runs past him, giggling, their mum chasing behind and telling them to slow down.  What is it like, Soley wonders, to grow up loved?  To be tucked in to a soft bed a night, one that doesn't sway to and fro until nothing feels solid anymore?

     As he walks, his thoughts turn further to his own life, a ship as its metaphor.  For as long as he can remember, someone has manned the helm; he may have had no choice over the direction he took, but his course was charted and mapped.  Now, it seems, the wheel spins wildly, every path and none at all open to him in unison.

Ask a dozen sailors what the most important part of a ship is, and you'll be given a dozen answers.  Ask Soley Torunn, though, and he will say,

     "Where it's going."

[simp-for-long-hair]

click for better quality :)

THE FANFICTION HOTEL

idk, i thought this was a fun idea ♡

[oxymoronicdumbass]

"you have nice long piano fingers"

thanks, i use them to type out my fanfics <33

[hecatesbroom]

Another fic?? You bet! I almost finished this about 4 weeks ago, when I got sidetracked by the Dorothy gets dipped fic, so I finally managed to add the finishing touches here :) it's been in the works for about 3 months (off and on; many different projects got in the way) so I'm happy to finally be able to say it's done! (after that final edit at 3 am I posted about last night lol)

Summary

When Blanche announces that she thinks she's pregnant, each of the girls deals with it in her own way. (They find each other in Rose's bedroom in the end, for one reason or another.) // an exploration of S02E01: end of the curse, and what happens in between

[rotisseries]

i don't have any particular gender headcanon about atsushi but it is a known fact that shapeshifter characters are transgender. those are the rules

[friedno]

ARAGHGS..... art block hit recently but i still wanna post so here's like. three doodles😭😭 the one with Twitter and tumblr arguing is from a scrapped joke comic thing i made wayyy before cloutchase proper released LMAO the drawings are unrelated lmao

[mythicamagic]

Loathe that this is a thing

[mazegays]

could've followed my fears all the way down

please do enjoy this sunday offering of angst : ). i've played with this one a bit since i originally wrote it and personally i think it has a lot of great lines. let me know what you think!

Chapter 21

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22

Harriet falls to her knees at the edge of the ditch, the shock of the impact zinging through her body and pulling something in her lungs taut. She has to force herself to close her eyes so that she can take a breath. 

He’s on his side, wood tied to his chest. 

He’s even still got his bag; if she didn’t know what she was looking for, she wouldn’t have been able to find it.

He—the body—he’s covered in mud, and dirt, and she can’t tell what’s wrong with him. She needs to get someone, needs to move, but she can’t make herself stand up,

One of his arms—oh, that looks bad. His legs look okay, just positioned oddly. He doesn’t have shoes on. How could he have lost them? What happened? Did they wear out that quickly? His feet will be a mess of cuts, for sure. And if they’re infected… what if they have to remove them? Maybe Gally will be able to build him something… 

Harriet shakes herself. She can’t afford to get distracted now. She doesn’t even know… she can’t tell, not while she’s still so far away.

She can’t tell if he’s alive, or if she’s just found his body.

How long has he been here? How close were they to finding him?

If they’d spent just one more day looking, would have they found him in time?

His eyes are open, just halfway, and Harriet unfreezes. She moves as quickly as she can down the side of the ditch without tripping herself, and taps his face lightly.

It’s red, swollen; his lips are dry and cracking. 

She doesn’t know what that means. Dehydration, but that’s a given. She’d be more surprised if he wasn’t dehydrated. She has to find a way to get her fingers under the wood on his chest to get to his neck.

She can’t tell if he’s dead or not. Her heart is racing in her ears, all the way down to  her fingertips; she can’t get a pulse. 

“Thomas, can you look at me? Can you hear me? Thomas, it’s okay, you’re going to be okay. I promise. I’ll get you back.”

Harriet’s strong, but she doesn’t think she should be able to carry Thomas.

He’s lost weight, again, that much is obvious—he’s been out here for a while without food. She doesn’t let herself think about how long it’s been. Too long, probably.

And he was right here… he was so close.

His arm is definitely broken. There’s not a lot she can do out here, but she makes a sling out of her shirt to keep it from getting worse while she carries him.

She’s not sure it even matters, but it makes her feel better, at least. If he is still alive, somehow, she’s helped. She’s helping. 

So she keeps talking to him, narrating what she’s doing like it matters. Like he can hear her.

“Thomas, I’m going to carry you, okay? We’re not far, you almost made it by yourself.” It’s easier if she pretends he can. Anya can tell her later, but for now, she’s pretending. Pretending that it’s possible for him to be alive, and here, and that she’s just saved him.

“We’ll take care of it, Thomas, I promise. It won’t hurt like this for much longer.” Carrying him is awkward, but she manages to keep his broken arm against his chest.

He’s just too tall for her to be able to support his head at this angle, but she can’t worry about that too much right now.

Anya will know what to do. 

She has to know what to do.

They can’t lose Thomas twice.

They can’t.

And if Anya tells her that she’s just found his body, at least she’s brought him back.

They won’t have to leave another friend unburied, with no idea where the body ended up. He won’t be eaten and picked apart by scavengers until only his bones are left.

Harriet can’t do much else now, not if he’s really gone, but she can run, and she can hope.

It’s that hope, faint as it is, that keeps her legs from giving out under her as she tears back out of the woods, directly to the medical cabin.

finish on ao3 or continue reading

Sonya knows something’s up when Harriet doesn’t visit the greenhouse after her morning run. It’s become part of their routine. Harriet runs in the woods, and Sonya pretends she’s working instead of just wishing that she could have another dirt fight with Thomas or something similarly unproductive.

Maybe Harriet tripped on a root or something, and had to go wrap her ankle. Or she could have decided to go on a longer run today. The change in routine itches at her a little; not as much as it would have back in the Glen, she’s more used to changes happening day-to-day now, but it still doesn’t feel right.

Sonya makes herself wait a while before she goes down to the medical cabin, to make sure that Harriet’s really not coming. 

Then she can’t get into the medical cabin, and she knows something is really wrong. Had Harriet broken a bone? Someone should have come to get her. Unless there was no one to come and get her.

She’d be allowed in, though. She would be allowed in if it was just a broken bone, as long as it wasn’t, like, poking through the skin.

Why else would Harriet and Anya be locked in the medical cabin for? The kitchens and the greenhouse are the most injury-prone spots, and she already knows that no one in the greenhouse got hurt. 

Had Harriet found— 

No. She couldn’t have. There’s no way.

Sonya doesn’t let herself think about it. It’s not possible.

Minho’s by Thomas’s tree. Gally’s in the kitchen with Frypan, and Aris, Rosa, and Frankie are working somewhere. Even Jorge is out working this morning.

From what she can see, everyone is where they’re supposed to be. She can’t see everything, not as easily as she could have in the Glen, but she can see enough.

Everyone is working—or playing, in the case of some of the kids—and no one is hurt. They’re all where they’re supposed to be.

Everyone but Harriet and Anya. Well, and herself, since she’s not in the greenhouse. 

Harriet might have gotten hurt, or found an injured animal. She didn’t find— she couldn’t have found him.

Thomas can’t have been that close all this time.

His body can’t have been that close the entire time.

Because that means they almost found him. It means that if they had just looked a little harder, they would have been able to save him.

Feeling lost, she sinks down next to Minho and lets him tell her facts about spruce trees. 

She’s heard them all from Thomas before, but she thinks she could stand to hear them a few more times.

Minho doesn’t watch as Harriet carries Thomas’s  a body into the medical cabin. He can’t.

Gally doesn’t know yet. He’d be rushing over here if he did. Shuck, not even Minho knows yet, not really. He just knows that Harriet was carrying something and rushing. It doesn’t mean she’s found a body. It could be an injured animal.

It’s probably an injured animal.

If it’s Thomas, then Minho’s not going to be the one to tell Gally. Minho hadn’t even been able to tell him the first time around, that they hadn’t found him.

When Sonya sits next to him, he tells her the facts he can remember, the ones he’s been repeating to himself for days like they’ll bring Thomas back.

Nothing will bring Thomas back, not even his body.

Maybe they’ll bury him under this tree, and then Minho can recite Thomas’s spruce facts back to him, over and over again until the roots and trunk have grown their way around him.

Sonya listens, but she’s watching the door.

“Harriet’s okay.” He tells her, realizing she didn’t see what Harriet had been carrying. “She found Thomas’s body.” He hadn’t meant to say that. He doesn’t know that Harriet found Thomas’s body. She found something, but that doesn’t mean it’s Thomas.

“No, she couldn’t have— she doesn’t go that far, he can’t have been that close for all this time. Why didn’t we find him?”

“I don’t know.” If he were less numb, Minho knows he’d be freaking out the way she is.

But he hasn’t felt much of anything since he realized they were never going to find Thomas alive.

“I just want him back.” He whispers, interrupting her. “The tree facts, they’re all from Thomas, and I don’t even remember most of them. I just— I want him back. I want him to tell us this is a stupid place for a tree, especially one that will get as big as a spruce. I want to watch his face when he’s thinking and try to figure it out. I want him to know how much I love him. He didn’t know, Sonya. I never got that chance.”

“Minho, I don’t think he’s dead.” Sonya’s still watching the door. “I don’t think she found a body.”

“What else could she have found, Sonya? He’s dead. It’s…” There are countless reasons.

It’s been too long. He would have run out of food days ago. Probably before they even started looking for him, from what Sonya and Aris have said about how much food he had.  The wind storm could have caused him any number of injuries, he might have been crushed by a tree and actually died under it, because Minho wasn’t fast enough to save him.

He wasn’t fast enough to find him in time. He should have gone ahead sooner, and maybe then he would have found Thomas before the worst could happen. If they ever find him now, it will only be his body.

Minho doesn’t know if he’d rather never see Thomas’s face ever again, or be able to bury him properly.

“I think she found Thomas.” Sonya’s still insisting, but Minho can’t let himself believe it. He can’t think he has Thomas back again, only to find out he’s wrong.

He’s the one who wasn’t there in time. Thomas had always been there to save him, to make sure he was safe.

But Minho hadn’t been… he just… 

He wasn’t good enough. Not this time. Not when it mattered.

Is this how Thomas felt all the time? That he wasn’t enough?

Minho should have told him earlier.

Should have said something one of those nights where they curled into each other to chase away nightmares, told him ‘I love you.’ and asked if he could kiss him.

He’ll never know what that’s like, now.

He and Gally have moved in together, but it’s not the same. They don’t love each other the way they love Thomas, not yet. They’ve been too distant for that.

He wants to.

He wants to have them both, but Thomas is dead, and now he won’t have either of them.

“No, Minho, why would they still be in there if Thomas is dead?” Sonya insists. He tunes her out.

Thomas is dead. He’s accepted that.

(He hasn’t.)

So why is he hoping for more now?

Making this applesauce, something Thomas would have loved— once he’d made the strawberry jam, it’d been his favorite food to eat. He hadn’t shut up about it.

So why now? Why would Frypan have him make this now?

He can barely see Thomas’s tree from this angle; he knows Minho’s sitting under it.

He hardly goes anywhere else these days.

Sometimes, Gally wants to join him.

Usually, he’s too afraid he’ll say or do something he’ll regret. Things have been weird between them.

Worse than before, even though he moved into Minho’s cabin because it’s closer and easier to manage with his leg.

They don’t have Thomas tying them together now, not in the same way he was before. Gally’s not quite sure what to do with that.

So he draws on his anger the way he always used to in the Glade, because it’s easier than having to deal with the sadness and the worry and the numbness that threatens to creep in and weave ivy walls over his heart and mind.

“Fry, what are we going to do with this? How long will it keep for?” Smashing the strawberries up has been vaguely therapeutic, and as much as he hates the thought of making something Thomas would love that he can’t eat, it’s still been… kind of fun.

“Well, it’s only one batch, so it should go pretty quickly.” Frypan seems tense. Like something’s wrong.

Gally can’t see anything wrong, but he knows Thomas was put at this station because it’s pretty hard to see everything.

What does Frypan know?

Why is he not saying anything about it?

Or maybe it’s just that he’s remembering Thomas, too. Whenever they lost someone, Frypan would do this. He’d be tense for a few days, throw himself into cooking and baking almost aggressively, and it’s nothing new.

But Gally desperately  wants for there to be another reason for Fry to be tense.

“What’s going on, Fry?” He can’t leave the applesauce, it’ll burn, but he wants to know.

“I don’t know, Gally. I just saw Harriet running back, is all. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Running back…

Running back from the woods.

Fuck.

She’s found Thomas’s body.

“I want to see him.” He says, moving faster than he thought he could.

“Gally, don’t— ” Frypan takes his spoon and tosses it to one of the other cooks. “If you’re going, you can’t go alone. Your leg is still bad.”

“Mina, you’re in charge. Please make sure nothing burns.”

“Got it, boss.” Frypan takes one of Gally’s arms around his shoulders— it’s faster than the crutches he hasn’t quite gotten the hang of yet.

He can use them fine in the cabin, but he still has a difficult time on the grass.

They go to Thomas’s tree. Sonya, who usually avoids it, is sitting pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with Minho.

Gally sits on Minho’s other side, but not quite as close.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Frypan asks. “I saw Harriet run by, but I wasn’t sure.”

“That’s why you wanted me to make strawberry applesauce. You thought— ” Gally cuts himself off.

Does Frypan think Thomas is alive?

“Would they have been in there this long if he wasn’t?” Sonya counters, softly. She sounds tired. Like they’ve been doing this over and over.

They probably have.

“He’s dead, Sonya. It’s been too long.” Minho sounds tired, like he doesn’t want to hold onto any hope that Thomas is alive, that Harriet found him after all this time.

It’s only been a week and a half since they planted the tree, but it feels like a lot longer.

Most things feel like that. Gally feels like it’s been ten years and also no time at all since they escaped the Glade, since he joined the Right Arm, since they got here.

“She wouldn’t have been running like that if he were dead.” Frypan says. “She was moving pretty quickly. Why would she do that if there was no hope?”

“To keep us from seeing? Because it wasn’t him?”

“No one else has gone missing.”

“Could be an animal.” Gally hears himself say.

He wants to believe it’s Thomas, but— he can’t. He can’t do that to himself. Because if he believes it’s Thomas, lets himself have that, and then it’s not Thomas, it will shatter him.

Minho’s doing the same thing, he realizes.

To protect himself.

Sonya and Frypan were his close friends, but they didn’t know Thomas the way Gally and Minho did. 

They weren’t in love with him.

If it is Thomas, Gally’s never letting him go anywhere alone again.

Not in the near future, anyway. And by near future, he means in the next ten years. 

(He’s still clinging to the faintest thread of hope that it is Thomas, that he’s alive, that he’s safe.

That he’s here.

Somehow.

He knows the truth is probably that Harriet was moving quickly to conceal the body from them, at least until she and Anya could clean it up a little, but Gally can’t force himself to squash that little bit of hope.

It’s going to be what destroys him, in the end.)

<- 20 22 ->

[jedi-enthusiast]

y'all are so lucky I didn't post any of the shit I wrote a couple years ago to Ao3 wanna know why? because this would've been one of the author's notes: "so hey guys, sorry this chapter was late, but I just got diagnosed with cancer--so that sucks" ignoring the fact I made an announcement like that on Wattpad before I unpublished all my works, but yknow, it's not the same

[fullmetalscullyy]

currently cooking....................

currently cooking.

[jinxofthedesert]

To all wanting an update: I am hoping to get chapter 29 of Carve My Name Into Your Skin out next month. I was really hoping to make it for January but I just haven't had the time.

To those who are unaware, I began my Masters Program at the start of Jan and that is literally all I've been doing. It doesn't leave my mind with much clarity afterward, so the writing has been incredibly slow.

Ironically the chapter is getting long despite this as I've been working on it when I can. I was hoping there would be a place to break it off, as I've done with the last few chapters concerning the scene with Thorfinn and Bjorn. Make it a 4 part, instead of my planned 3 part. But there has been no good spot to end the chapter, unless I did it mid-dialogue which isn't something I want to do.

Currently the chapter is sitting at 18k, very close to 19k honestly. I have a possible place I could break it off a bit further from where I am and end the chapter early since the conversation will be switching but . . . we shall see. That would be great.

Either way, thought I'd let you all know! Wishing you all a fantastic rest of your weekend and a good luck to the start of your week. You got this~

[rubberbandballqueen]

About your tags: is there more that you can share about the OW fandom and fics? This was a phenomenon I wonder about too. It was one of the most popular fandoms around 2017-2018, but the way the fandom stopped on its tracks around 2019 was hard not to notice. Especially from people who didn't play the game but were aware of it's fandom.

oh! overwatch is one of about 50-ish fandoms i track for this one spreadsheet project i do as a hobby (which i Technically blog about @fandom-data-scientist, but i've been too lazy to do a proper writeup to explain what the hell it is i do), wherein i try to answer the age-old question: when did the weebs move to ao3?

(the answer is late 2015/early 2016. most likely this was in large part a result of undertale and sports anime, but that's currently just my own conjecture)

According To My Research(tm), the overwatch fandom peaked in late 2016/early 2017 when it comes to the number of new fics posted per month. after this, it declined quite rapidly, as it didn't even get to enjoy a plateau period.

(there's a reason why the plots are really wonky towards the end of this graph-- it's bc i found the past dates for number of fics archived to a particular site via the wayback machine. since those snapshots are typically bot crawls, the number of fics shown on the fandoms listings will not include fics that have been archive-locked. although i technically started this project in august 2022, i did not add overwatch to my tracking list until this june/july or so. my current guess for the small uptick in the rate of ow fics published to ao3 in october 2022 is that the sequel came out? and then the rate plunged for january 2023 bc of the ai scraping scare that happened at around that time-- nearly every single fandom i track had a significant drop right then bc everyone was archive-locking their fics. the rate shooting up in like july 2023 on this chart is bc like i said, that's when i added ow to my list of tracked fandoms; because i'm logged into my own ao3 acct when checking these numbers live, i get access to the archive-locked fics and so the display number goes up.)

in my experience, fandoms will generally kind of plateau in their fic production after their peak, which will ofc normally gradually taper off. games that receive regular lore or story updates probably have fairly long or stable plateaus, although i haven't made scatterplots or made any comparing analyses to prove this rigorously. this plateau period generally represents a time of fandom stability as the fair-weather, casual, or migratory slash fans run off to the next big thing.

if we ignore the fact the plague and quarantine happened, we can see a nice, steady, and very consistent plateau period for the danganronpa fandom from about 2018-2020!

let's look at an older fandom, like my archnemesis final fantasy:

granted, the ao3 numbers are kind of all over the place these days, but you kind of get my point by now, right? that healthy fandoms tend to plateau as the wind carries away the faintly-interested and leaves the long-haulers behind to form their communities.

overwatch struck me as unusual when i was on one of my long wayback machine trips because of the way there was a net increase of only two fics published from 1 july 2021 to 1 october 2021, when before then it had usually been in the hundreds or so. i then went on a work tangent n googled around n more or less concluded it had Something to do with some kind of scandal with the development company, but otherwise i don't really have any more comments on it hahaha.