#especially since there's already over 30K of this written

[the-narwhals-awaken]

Bloody Hearts Bingo: Supplement 3

Sixteen months of peace and experimentation was far more than Kisuke had thought he'd get, but the prospect of being disturbed and needing to let his lab rats out of his lab on a more regular basis had Benihime hissing. He'd basked in having them- refining, training, teaching, making them and being remade in turn to produce a perfectly suiting set. He'd even gotten to taste them properly- coaxing away that last thread of disconnection to ensure that he'd always have them, no matter what happened. It was no wonder that his brother kept it up- it was intoxicating to have them like that.

Still, the threat in his territory had to be dealt with (it was his territory by now- the Thirteenth maintained a perfunctory presence, which certainly helped in managing things while his ratlings were busy, but was by no means the primary presence in the area) and he would not let them prey on any of the weaker presences beginning to arise due to the high level of ambient spiritual power- only Arisawa might be able to handle them, and the safety of the twins was one of the only things that might break Ichigo's loyalty to him.

The fact that they'd almost immediately started baiting two of his rats made it personal. One had been starting his dear Ichi-chan, and another had been pointedly staying just out of range of Yasu-kun while dropping hints so obvious it was a wonder the police hadn't been called- or the yakuza, on somebody poaching their prostitution arrangements, if nothing else.

Chad had volunteered to infiltrate- he'd managed to coax Yoruichi into helping with some of the assassin-specific training that Kisuke had managed to acclimate to naturally and thus didn't really know how to teach, turning into a terrifying assassin-tank that had Tessai heading back to the Seireitei for three months before returning and yanking even more control of the shop away from him.

It was a wonder to watch him perform- for most people, they wouldn't be able to tell that anything was wrong or different, but to Kisuke, who'd seen and facilitated the transformation, it was an incredible mask he was wearing. Quieter, more restrained, half-afraid of his own power and ability to commit harm and more focused on not causing harm than refining his ability- the fact that they'd recruited him outside of the shelter that he volunteered at (a genuine habit, helping him settle and soothe himself and continue some independent self-definition) only helped cement the illusion.

He proceeded to lead them around by the nose- gaining a better explanation of Fullbring, filling holes Kisuke had noticed and worked to lead off, diverting their attempts to lure Ichigo into their group. There was, unfortunately, a limit on the power a physical body could contain, and even Kisuke's bindings had their limits.

There was only so long Chad was willing to wait, though- even the most patient of his rats had limits, and they were built to fight- he'd gentle them down later, once his kin were dead and they were safe. For now, Chad let them see Ichigo, let them get close- and then they sprung their trap.

[inkedtae]

ᥫ᭡bee's tumblr wrapped (2024)ᥫ᭡

it took me embarrassingly long to make this banner.... anyway a special thanks to dia ( @yoonia ) for tagging me to do this ! i didn't do much writing this year but i wanna do this so imma do it lol

this year kinda fucked me sideways multiple times. it took months of therapy and lots of courage to sit myself down and reconnect with not only my writing, but myself. i have been feeling so lost but diving back into passions like writing has given me the confidence i needed to find my direction again. i still have no idea where i am supposed to be or what i am meant to do. but, right now, it feels like at least i know which way i am going, and that's forward.

thank you so much to everyone who has continued to read, comment, reblog, like, and interact with me and my work. i don't think i deserve any of it and it's incredibly surreal that i still got asks about my fics and series. i can't believe that a lot of these fics were not only read once, but twice. like that's fucking insane to me. so thank you so much. and thank you to everyone behind the scene who has supported me from banners to reading things over. jen ( @anobodyslove ) is the most wonderful, sweet, beautiful person i have ever had the pleasure of connecting with. from late night editing to long walks talking about every and any thing, you are my favourite human and i love you!

okay, okay, enough sappiness!! let's dive in!

₊˚✧ OVERALL STATS ✧˚₊‧

: ̗̀➛ fics published: 9 : ̗̀➛ series completed: 1 : ̗̀➛ series ongoing: 4 : ̗̀➛ words written: 122,258 : ̗̀➛ fics to be published: 24 (i don't wanna talk about it...)

‎‧₊˚✧ FIRST FIC OF 2024 | published : february 17 ✧˚₊‧

: ̗̀➛ xi. rotten angelcake ⇾ kth. | s2l, ceo au, sugar daddy au | 16.5k

retrospection: ahh my first attempt at returning to tumblr after a long unplanned hiatus. if you were ever curious on what kind of headspace i was in, this fic is the perfect explanation. the rotten angelcake series has been my form of self-indulgence and journaling since the very first chapter. however, i completely threw myself into this chapter of the series. all my anger, frustration, regret, confusion, sadness was poured into this chapter. it's so emotionally charged and personal, i almost didn't post it. i haven't even looked at it again before this moment and that was just to retrieve the link lol it's just carrying a very dark part of my life that i have been trying to pull myself out of. but, while it does hold so much for me, i do not regret writing or publishing it. it's all part of the self-healing process ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡

‎‧₊˚✧ LONGEST FIC OF 2024 | published : october 3 ✧˚₊‧

: ̗̀➛ the underground ⇾ bgc. | strangers to lovers, boxer au, dark themes | 29.1 k |

retrospection: oof this fic! so i wrote this for channie's b-day and one of my favourite chantober rituals, especially for his b-day, is to write the most unhinged, dark story. i have never been able to get the idea of boxer, mafia boss!chan ruining me in front of his friends out of my head, so i wrote about it. i lowkey wish i could make it a series or add an epilogue but i vowed to finish my ongoing series first before starting another one. it's just such a fun fic with a lot of grittiness. i don't think the nearly 30k words was enough either tbh but it will have to do for now ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

‎‧₊˚✧ PERSONAL FAVOURITE FIC OF 2024 | published : october 17 ✧˚₊‧

: ̗̀➛ between roar and whisper ⇾ bgc. | hogwarts au, pwp, e2l | 9.4k |

retrospection: this was probably the easiest to write because there was very little worldbuilding required and i got to focus on the sexual tension between these two "enemies". it was short, sweet, to the point, and the smut was so fucking hot—ugh! i need slytherin!chan to make me cockdumb too! i don't think i will ever be over this fic and i kinda wanna write an epilogue for it too but i will stop myself because i am already overcommitted ˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

‎‧₊˚✧ LAST FIC OF 2024 | published : december 31 ✧˚₊‧

: ̗̀➛ marked by krampus ⇾ kth. | twisted christmas au, monster kink, s2l | 11.1k |

retrospection: okay i just finished this fic yesterday so i don't know how much real introspection i can truly muster but i will do my best. as the last fic of taecember, as well as the year, i decided to indulge in my very big, very embarrassing monster kink. i was kind of focused on that which meant that the worldbuilding for this fic was not my best. i could have done better...anyway! this may be the final fic for 2024 but it will not be the final monster au i write ᡣ • . • 𐭩 ♡

‎‧₊˚✧ HONOURABLE MENTION | published : november 1 ✧˚₊‧

: ̗̀➛ elixir of the damned ⇾ bgc. | vampire au, s2l | 19.5k |

retrospection: this fic was written as the last fic of chantober, but it had been in my drafts for about two years. now i obviously do not know bang chan in real life, but he seems to wear his heart on his sleeve and is very forthcoming about his struggles on camera. so this fic was heavily inspired but the sentiments of sadness and wistfulness, about missing his family in australia. i remembered this v-live where he was back home and he was doing his chan's room (which omg i miss so much) in his old room. and the room had become his little brothers. and i just couldn't stop thinking about what that must feel like. just imagine walking back into a familiar room and it looks the same, like the layout is exactly how you left it, but all the stuff in there does not belong to you. how uncanny must that have felt? to tiptoe around a room that was once yours? idk it just inspired his character in this fic and i hope that i was able to capture that well enough ૮₍´˶• . • ⑅ ₎ა

‧₊˚✧ SPECIAL EVENTS OF 2024 | published : november 1 ✧˚₊‧

: ̗̀➛ chantober 2024 & taecember 2024

retrospection: god, i love bias months so much—even though they wreck me by the end. being able to fully express my love and devotion to my biases just makes me feel so full and happy. it's like even if my day might be shitty, it's okay because i have something to work towards and look forward to. i also have the chance to celebrate both chan, and taehyung with you, which is always so exciting and fun! i literally cannot wait to do it all over again in 2025 ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ

‧₊˚✧ TOP TRACKS OF 2024 ✧˚₊‧

𐙚 hurt — newjeans 𐙚 espresso — sabrina carpenter 𐙚 i like it — stray kids 𐙚 red lights (bang chan, hyunjin) — stray kids 𐙚 venus fly trap — marina 𐙚 work — ateez 𐙚 perfect night — le sserafim 𐙚 chk chk boom — stray kids 𐙚 mon amour — gemini 𐙚 na — hwasa

‧₊˚✧ GOALS FOR 2025 ✧˚₊‧

𐙚 stick to my posting schedule !! (writing two fics a month) 𐙚 properly plan ahead for bias months (i'm literally the worst at this) 𐙚 finish the rotten angelcake series 𐙚 breathe... (sometimes i forget that i just need to take a minute and breathe)

many thanks again to dia for tagging me, this was really fun ♡︎ i wanna tag jen ( @anobodyslove ) , dee (@awrkives ) , ghost ( @ghxstwrites ) , lixie ( @bunnliix ) , minerva ( @yourlocaljonghoe ) , and stardust ( @skzdust ). there's no pressure to do this !!

♡¸.•' happy new year lovelies '•.¸♡

[joycieillustrations]

Hey girl! 😊 I wonder, which fic are you gonna update next? I have enjoyed them very much, haven’t enjoyed a fic like this since The Cavern’s shade (The Silmarillion). Awesome! 🌟

Hello hello! Thank you for your lovely words 🥹

Normally I wouldn’t want to say because my brain can be fickle and decide to lose inspiration, but I can safely say that the next one to be updated will be Office Hours! The most recent update was originally part of a much larger chapter that is now also very close to being finished. Once the chapter hit 11k, I decided it was better to split it, especially as there were two clear halves - I love to write a long chapter, but even I draw the line at anything over 10k 😂

With regards to everything else:

- I have 30k of scenes and ideas for Ad amorem written out, but they are all for much later in the fic, so it’ll be a while before any of that is published. I think I need to sit with the events of season 2 for a bit before I tackle the opening chapters!

- Salt and Smoke is currently on hiatus: as I mentioned in a previous post, I’m considering revisiting the chapters I’ve already published before completing the final chapter (which is mostly written). The opening two chapters are the first thing I ever wrote for HotD and though I’m very proud and fond of them, my writing style has changed a bit since then and I’d love to elaborate on some scenes so the style reads a bit more fluently with Ex libris.

- I have a couple of WIP chapters for Auctores varii but none of them are speaking to me right now, so I don’t know when I’ll be uploading those.

Thank you so much for your ask ❤️

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

ok so i spent yesterday looking through and collecting data from ao3's rpf (real person fanfiction) collection (for no reason other than 'i was intrigued' lol...)

and i thought i'd go through some of the interesting finds!

(this is probably interesting to nobody but me but hey when has that ever stopped me lol!)

starting with a disclaimer that this is a judgement free zone! i may make a few jokes about things from time to time on here, but i am firmly of the 'ship and let ship' mindset so no hate meant in any of this at all lol <3

first interesting fact is that kpop is the highest rpf tag (with over 650k works!!), bts are obviously the boy group with the most fics, with twice being the highest girl group!

speaking of girls... so for every category i tried to find what the top f/f ship was and for a couple of the tags (most notably actors and music), the top f/f ships were actually male characters (which confused me until i saw the additional tags were genderbend and genderswap lol)... there are also a lot of fandoms where the top characters when you take out m/m ships is actually original female characters (or reader)!

unsurprisingly, taylor swift is the solo artist with the most fics written about her (many shipping her with various celebs, both men and women), but what i found interesting is that there are 140 of her songs and albums that are featured in fics, which is more than any other musician's work (even hozier lol!)

other music tag info is one direction as the non-kpop band with the most fics, with larry stylinson being the top ship (no one is shocked at this) and the highest rating being explicit! which is a bit surprising since most of these fandoms have either general or teen and up ratings as the top one... the only other umbrella rpf fandom that has explicit as the top rating is actors... oh and porn (duh)

my chemical romance deserve a mention as the band with the most fics under the rock music tag (and in the bandom tag), with gerard as the top character (good for them!)! queen also rank pretty highly, with a lot of the fics being specifically linked to the 2018 film bohemian rhapsody rather than specifically the band themselves (so it's like... rpf of rpf lol?)

i think the beatles are the oldest band/musician to have a lot of rpf about them but it's honestly a little hard to tell so don't quote me on this... they are also at the top of the 60's music scene, where the rolling stones take 2nd lol...

the rpf section that i went into the most blind was the sports tag, since my knowledge of sports is .......... yeh that's about all i know lol

men's football and hockey have a similar number of fics each (a little over 30k), though the top character in the sports tag is max verstappen who is actually a racing driver so ??? confused noises lol

anyway idrc about the men (this is a joke ofc @ men i love you), what i DO care about is that women's football (and this is specifically the soccer kind not the american lol) has the highest femslash fics, and i looked up tobin heath (who was the top character in this section) and lemme just say that i Get it lol...

wwe and formula 1 are some other sports that have a significant number of fics in the, filled with people i've never heard of before pfft... i will say that most of the sports have general as their top rating, except for hockey which has explicit (i feel like theirs some kinda joke i could make here about playing with sticks but i'm not gonna lol... especially since most sports already play with balls so?)

anyway enough about sports lol, let's return to something i'm much more comfortable with: youtubers!

youtube is actually the 2nd most written about category (next to kpop, with nearly 280k fics) with minecraft youtubers (the top character being tommyinnit) being the most written about!

what i found most fascinating about this is that 8 out of the 10 top ships in this tag are platonic (and 1 is actually just the 'no romantic relationships' tag lol... the top ship overall is still a slash pairing, but it's still interesting that such a big fandom has mainly platonic pairings!)

also even though the phandom have nowhere near the amount of fics as minecraft youtube, i found it kinda funny that there are (as of writing this) only 95 more fics featuring dan than phil (essentially saying that literally nearly 99% of the fics feature the both of them lol... phandom really said 'co-dependency' and i respect that lol)

moving on to actors, which i expected to have a lot more fics than it does given a lot of rpf involves the actors of characters in popular fictional ships (i mean there are still a lot, over 130k lol...) and supernatural takes the crown of having the most fics of this category! j2 is the top ship, though the 3rd top ship in the actors tag is actually tom hiddleston x original female character! i think because of this british actors are the highest subsection of actors, followed by chinese actors!

i think i did expect the chinese actors to have more fics, but i'm guessing the smaller number is because of the whole xiao zhan ao3 drama from a few years ago... wang yibo x xiao zhan still make up the most popular ship, plus there are plenty of other c-dramas and other chinese shows that have a big number of fics that don't fall under the chinese actor umbrella tag (so the number probably would be a lot larger if i went through and counted them... but i'm not gonna)... similar thing with thai actors, which only has a couple thousand fics in the tag, but there are a whole lot more fics dedicated to rpf of specific actors on specific shows (from a quick glance i think tharntype and kinnporsche are a couple of the highest fandoms? but i didn't go through everything cos i'd already been doing this for a few hours and i was getting sleeeeeby lol...)

one thing that intrigued me was the british comedy category (which is the top comedy category lol! we did it lads we finally came top with something!), where would i lie to you and taskmaster were the top fandoms! david mitchell was the top character and, kinda bizarrely imo, david x charlie brooker was the top ship (i feel like i'm missing some kinda big thing in the british comedy fandom ngl lol... but like really? you ship david with charlie brooker when robert webb, his actual comedy partney, is RIGHT there? or even lee mack i'm ??? ok ok i'm getting off topic pfft...)

oh greg davies and alex horne are also a popular ship in this category ofc (though they have less than 1000 fics lol!)

the final umbrella category of rpf that i could find was historical, which is the tag with the least amount of fics (under 20k), with alexander hamilton and various other american specific historical figures making up the bulk of the popular historical fics (these are mainly tired to the musical hamilton btw)!

the top characters and ship when narrowed down to just the f/f of the historical tag is mostly original female characters btw!

there are also fics of other public figures, like politics, porn, journalists and chefs, and probably the most intriguing facts i found from this section are that hillary clinton is the most popular character in the 21st century us politics section, joe biden and donald trump are the 4th most popular ship (with the reoccurring additional tag of 'crack fic' lol), and though it isn't in the top stats, when i went into the pundit and journalist tag the first few fics to pop up were ben shapiro x matt walsh explicit stuff which was... uh... interesting lol

final thing i'll note is that i stuck mainly to ao3 for this because though i know places like wattpad have a large rpf collection too, but it's so bloody HARD to find data about fics on that site pfft... though i think one thing that would be shown by looking into wattpad's rpf community is that whereas ao3 has a lot of shipping content (obviously), wattpad has a lot more reader x celebrity (but like take this with a pinch of salt since i've not actually done the research for this part pfft...)

anyway i hope you (all 0 of you) enjoyed this rambling take on the data i found on ao3's rpf collection lol!

i know people get really weird around rpf, but i just genuinely find it SO interesting how diverse the range of stuff people write about!

[paul-ster]

I Have a Confession…

I’ve been writing a fic in which the end goal is a short but sweet 30k words. I’m at 4k and losing motivation 😭💔

(I’m not gonna talk about the 40K word fic in my notes app staring at me waiting for it to be fully written 😥 100K words is a bit of a stretch for me right now 💀)

Here’s the first chapter though- tell me what you think about it. Maybe I’ll work on it so that I can post it before the end of next month!!!

It’s a Ponyboy hurt/comfort and Ponyboy/Curly with Dallas/Johnny and everyone is gay here 😭💀💀 ALSO VERY OUT OF CHARACTER. I had gotten inspiration from some ooc fics and wanted to make something. I know Ponyboy isn’t like this but cmon- it’s so fun to write.

No Title- in my notes it’s put as “Don’t Even Ask”

Word count 884

I walked down the street alone. It was a dumb idea to try and tag along with Johnny and Dally. They’ve been dating for about a month already and are always together.

Dally asked me to leave and I did. Nothing feels worse than being in a place where you ain’t wanted so I ditched. Johnny and Dally seem happy together so I’m happy for them.

Two-Bit and Darry are together too. They spend a lot of time together and seem happy. Sodapop and Steve are together too. It doesn’t make me as happy for Steve to get angry at me more but I can survive. They’re all happy so I’m fine with it.

Maybe…

Ever since they’ve started dating each other, they’ve left me behind. I even started sleeping in my own room because I started feeling sad a lot. I couldn’t explain what was making me so sad so I just started to sleep alone. Soda didn’t take it so well, he tried asking me what was wrong.

But I couldn’t answer him. Because I didn’t have an answer.

Now I’m walking down the street looking for something to do. My heart kind of aches but I’ve learned to leave it alone and stop feeling.

I walk to the library, the scent of books assaulting my nose. While I would tell Darry where I was when I got home, I decided to call him and told him I’d be back late. He tried asking where I was but I didn’t answer and just quickly hung up. The librarian looked at me weird for a second but then sighed.

“The library’s starting to go overnight. Tonight we’re starting it, we just ask that you keep the library clean. Another librarian will be coming in 20 minutes for the night shift,” the librarian fixed up some papers and I nodded. A 24 hour library seemed perfect for me right now.

I settled down with a book and started reading. This library was the only place that the greasers fully owned. It was founded and operated by some greasers and no Socs are allowed in. Unless they’re with a greaser but that doesn’t happen often.

Anyways, for a library like this to have a lot of cool stuff without Socs it’s a shame none of the greasers really use it. There’s not much crime you can get into inside a library. Maybe that’s why this is the only greaser owned building that hasn’t been bombed yet.

My eyes read over the words and I felt myself getting sleepier. With a glance from the clock I decided to get up.

“Oh you’re Ponyboy right?” A chirpy voice came from the desk. I looked over and saw the other librarian. I nodded.

“Yea, why?”

“Oh! The librarian told me about how you’re a regular; just wanted to introduce myself. My names Stella,” Stella’s voice seemed way too happy to be awake at 10PM. I just nodded and left. She reminded me of the fact that I stayed out too long, even if I called Darry.

I didn’t even have to get into the house to hear some yelling. Everyone was home and Darry was asking where I was.

“Didn’t he call you Dar?” Two-Bit said, trying to defuse the situation.

“He called but he didn’t say where he was going! Dally you oughta tell me where he is. He went with you!” Darry sounded mad and scared. My mind went blank and I decided to go inside.

The second the door hit the doorframe, everyone looked at me.

“Where have you been?” Darry asked, his voice booming. I didn’t want to fully say where I was, especially if he wanted to look for me again.

“Somewhere,” I shrugged my shoulders and winced. Sitting down in one spot wasn’t ask comfortable as I thought. In an instant, Sodapop was trying to hug me. I pushed him off and shimmied my way to the hallway.

“You’re gonna tell us where you were Ponyboy,” Darry continued, “Did it ever cross your mind that your brothers were worrying their heads off for you?”

“Yeah, that’s why I came home. I wasn’t really planning on it,” I couldn’t stop the remark. It was too good to pass up. It was a bad idea though.

Darry’s face contorted in anger and some sadness. Suddenly it went silent and even Sodapop just started to stare at me. I turned around and went into my room.

As I laid down, I couldn’t help but not feel any sympathy for them. I didn’t care if my words hurt them. Just thinking about that made me feel guilty. I did feel bad and wanted to apologize.

“Pony?” A voice came from my door. I turned around in bed so my back faced the door.

“Please Pony. Are you awake? C-can we talk?” It was Johnny. I wanted to say something better but my mouth couldn’t form any words. Suddenly sleep seemed more interesting than what was happening.

“I’m sorry Johnny. Could you tell the gang I’m sorry too? I’m just real tired,” I finally found my words. Johnnys breath went silent and I found myself slipping.

In the morning they wouldn’t find me. I will start to make myself scarce. They won’t mind… I know they won’t.

[boleynns]

Do u have fic recommendations?

I'm gonna assume this is for Daemon/Rhaenyra since that has been all I've talked about for months haha. And definitely have plenty of recs! In general I love reading really long fic (like, in really popular pairings I will set my parameters to see 50k+ or 100k+ fics only...), so due to the relative newness of this ship's popularity, most of my recs are incomplete. I also have way more that I am subscribed to that absolutely could be faves eventually, but that are just a little too early in the story to guarantee.

Canon/Canon!AU

To Ashes (Series) by Emerald_Aphelion (~30k, series incomplete but has 3 complete works so far) -- AU from Daemon's return from the Stepstones, basically where Daemon and Rhaenyra are just a little more thoughtful and forward-thinking within their relationship and with the political situation they're in. Established Relationship Vibes but also slow burn romance at the same time, they make each other smarter and better by working together, Rhaenyra bonds with baby!Aegon AND Rhea, Daemon picks Rhaenyra up and puts her on a table and calls her his queen at one point (hot), and this is the ideal Dance fix-it.

my eyes are aching to see you--126AC by SeveDeChampagne (~2.5k, complete) -- set between Episode 7 and 8, a very spicy First Time Post-Birth one-shot that contains multiple sentences that are some of the most intensely romantic things I've ever read. Considering my love of long fics, it takes a special kind of short fic for me to be so moved and attached.

How to Win Thrones and Ensnare Dragons by Writer_in_the__Dark (~15k, incomplete) -- Time Travel AU (my kink) where Rhaenyra is reborn into her baby-self. Only a few chapters in but I am HOOKED by the writing style and characterization of The Early Years dynamic, and am so looking forward to seeing how this evolves as time moves forward -- but based on the writing so far, I know it will be wonderful.

put down that gravestone by darkgods (~35k, incomplete) -- Post-Episode 4 AU, where Daemon went back to the Vale and Rhea didn't die, and then Rhaenyra gave birth to very Daemon-looking twins (wonder how that happened!), and then 10 years later Rhea has dead and Viserys invites Daemon back to be Hand. This story is so well-written and rich with character detail, I honestly just want to re-read it over and over! It has so beautifully dove into Rhaenyra's psyche, Daemon's personality (from his own perspective and from others), built a very sad and realistic portrait of Jace and Luke's lives as outcasts in court, set up some deliciously hurtful and complicated strings to unravel between Daemon and Rhaenyra due to this inciting situation, and has already indulged my pathological need for some Outside POV content by adding in Luke's (very well-written) perspective on a dinner scene. The fact that the chapter count is currently at 4/36 and we already have 35k words has me so hyped, you guys don't understand how badly I need piles and piles of giant fics.

Significance by AmazingAngie (~21k, incomplete) -- AmazingAngie is amazing because of how quickly she writes such amazing material! This is a Soulmate!AU, and this one in particular is just so insanely lovely so far! I'm a sucker for a "meant to be" setup so I will always love those from the get go, but I especially love the nuance in this story, and the ways that knowing that they are the endgame changes the trajectory of all of these characters lives.

you came/you called by scarlettscribbles (~10k, incomplete) -- basically an Episode 10 AU, kind of, but beyond that I just suggest reading it and going with the flow, because once I was like 80% into this first chapter I finally realized what was happening and it was so exciting. Needless to say I am pumped for the rest of the story.

Modern!AU

No joke I have literally NEVER liked Modern!AU's before, except for with 'Merlin' (because even if it wasn't explicitly stated, I could pretend that it was Reincarnation). It has just never appealed to me, until now with Daemon and Rhaenyra -- because they are just that powerful. Also none of my Modern!AU faves are any of that "Oh, actually, Daemon is adopted, or they're third cousins twice removed, or Daemon is only a ~symbolic uncle", like, we all know what we're doing here 😂

Lets Ignite Under the Ember Skies by grandlovescheme (26k, complete) -- So freaking good! The uncertainty, the jealousy, the tension, the ~vibes, the ~sexy ~vibes, it is a tightly-written and very well-characterized modern version of these characters and I love it.

Petrichor by sweetestsorrows (katschako) (~23k, incomplete) -- one of the chapters made me cry for real. Very intense "we are way too close to be appropriate, and it is causing angst, but i wanna be closer..." vibes, and I am so here for it. It really is wonderfully translating their bond to a modern lens, and all the problems and tensions that would come along with that dynamic. It made me go "omg that is so intensely romantic", it made me literally cry, it made me go "ooh ~spicy", its got it all.

the beauty queen in tears by writingwhatidream (~30k, incomplete) -- AHHH I am obsessed with this story (almost as obsessed as Crispin is with Rhaenyra in it...). To try and sum it up, it is a Modern!AU A/B/O Royal Family fic...but that all sounds so much more reductive than it actually reads. For me, it is: delicious Daemon/Rhaenyra "Us Against the World" vibes, where even if they're not physically together they are 100% together, with a healthy (or rather unhealthy, in-context) dose of creepy Outsider POV, and the promise of Alpha/Omega-induced drama, love, possessiveness, and danger to come. It is juicy and beautifully written, and is giving me so many things I want all in one place.

[parkerlyn]

Hi all!

I'll save the gushing for below the cut, but ahhh one year of this game!! Thank you a million times over for your support 💚💛💙💜 I'd love to hear from y'all if you have any questions about The Nameless, or things you like about the game or characters or any thoughts or memes you'd like to share 👀

I'm still working on the game POV specials unfortunately aksjdsk but in regards to other words...we did it! (JUST BARELY)

30k complete over the past month! Granted, I did count some drabbles as part of this too, but it was still about 25k words into Chapter 4! And I am very very excited to continue more of the main story soon.

And to continue celebrating, a new little surprise...

A bonus content hub! Since tumblr tends to be a Webbed Site when it comes to search, I've started to compile the longer drabbles that have been published here into a Twine portal. This allows you to set your MC name, pronouns, and sheevra type, as well as the RO pronouns when reading!

Still working on sorting through my archive and adding potential drabbles and small edits, but wanted to push this live as a little thank you. 🥰 This will continue to be updated as new drabbles are written.

Check it out here!

(pspsps it's also @attollogame's anniversary go send them some love if you haven't already. And if you have send more 👀We...may or may not be working on a collab sysba/oisein piece thanks to those touch prompts and an excellent anon ajdfkaslj)

Thank you so much again and hope you enjoy!!

xoxo Parker

Okay a tiny bit more gushing-

I'm a broken record of being cheesy and over the top and I know I get quiet or just kind of disappear in and out interactivity wise. But all the authors and readers of the IF community have been absolutely wonderful to share this world and story and characters with, and it's become such an integral part of my life. So thank you for continuing to stick with me (and for your patience as I know I'm particularly slow).

Every comment and message and anything is so wonderful, especially when I have those dips and doubts around this story and my writing. I'll never be able to express how much I appreciate that, and I'm so thankful to have y'all along!

So thank you thank you thank you times a billion. And here's to continuing this adventure! ❤️❤️❤️

[the-darklings]

kat do you think you will ever post more clara/reader? 🥺👉👈 I constantly find myself rereading her pieces and I’m so djxjdjdnd I love her 😩

first of all thank you so much ♥️ it always makes me really, really happy to hear people love V, especially in her OC form.

second, my friend do I have news for you sksksks. I’ve written a lot of clara/reader ngl and have a whole mini series for clara/f!reader (+jean aka it’s complicated) on discord but I never posted it on here for a few reasons.

one: my mental health has been all over the place as you can probs tell by my spells of inactivity or barely activity, so I was worried about pressuring myself.

two: genuinely didn’t think anyone cared or even wanted more original content for her specifically outside the discord. it’s also original setting oppose to coa, and since tumblr is kinda a poor place for writers in general unless you’re super popular I didn’t want to discourage myself by accident (because I’m way too self-critical as it is) or make people feel like they have to read it. and to add further and to be very blunt wlw content doesn’t get nearly as much support in general and it’s a long running problem sooo yeah.

honestly I’m super fond of that mini-series and adore the relationship there, so I guess if enough people did want to see it I would def be up for posting it (since about 30k is already written and ready to go).

[princip1914]

A few thoughts on writing longfic

I’ve had this post brewing for a while and I figured since today is a Friday I might as well let it out into the wild. 

First off, this is not writing advice. I don’t feel qualified to give writing advice. This is a few observations I’ve made over the course of trying to write something that feels, well, long. Fandom is full of excellent authors writing long chaptered fic, but I don’t see a lot of people talking about how they go about producing such fics. I remember feeling like long fic was really out of reach for me when I started writing again in the summer of 2019 after not writing for years and years and I wanted to talk a bit about how that changed for me. Of course, this post comes with all the caveats that there is no need to ever write long fic if you’re not feeling it. Some of my favorite authors write mostly or only oneshots! But, if you are interested, here’s my lengthy, self indulgent, and entirely personal take on ~the longfic process~ below the cut. 

First, to get this out of the way: long fic is anything that feels long or complicated to you, the author. “I’m working on my long fic” can mean that you’re branching out from microfiction to write something that’s 2k long, or it can mean you’ve got a multi-part 800k epic. There’s no objective measure of if something is “long fic,” Your own personal definitions can also change as you grow in confidence or change your focus as a writer (a little over a year ago when I finished Doubt Thou the Stars are Fire topping out at 31k, that felt very very long to me. Now it feels….still long, but not very very long.) 

Here are a few specific things that helped me write something long. I don’t know if they will be interesting for anyone else, but at the very least writing these down has been a fun way for me to reflect on my own process. 

Practice exercises. Ok, this is going to sound exceedingly obvious, but writing one shots prepares you for writing chaptered fic. Here’s what I mean more specifically: if you know you want to write (as a totally hypothetical example) a chaptered fic set in America in the summer that relies heavily on a nature metaphors, is written out of chronological order, and features a melancholy tone--it helps to write a few one shots like that before you embark on the Big Fic. Just like artists tend to do sketches before starting a big piece, it’s very helpful to write something small that gives you a feel for the ~vibe~ of what you’re trying to do in the long fic. It’s helpful for all the usual reasons--you get to know a specific version of the characters which helps plan out a character driven plot for the long fic--but it’s also helpful because you will learn if the tone and mood of the fic has enough staying power to capture your interest for the long haul. For instance, I have a few unfinished chaptered fics that have a humorous tone. I wish I had done more short humorous fics before starting them, because I would have realized that I don’t currently have the mental stamina to hold up a humorous tone for the length of a chaptered fic (hopefully that will change and I will finish Last Days some time this century!). 

Plan it out ahead of time. I used google sheets for The False and the Fair. I do not think God intended google sheets to be used for fiction, but that was not going to stop me. On a more serious note, I think the best tool for planning fiction is the one you’re the most comfortable with--the notes app in your phone, handwriting, word, google drive, sheets, chalk board, summoning circle, the blood of your enemies, etc. The reason I chose to use sheets is that I knew from the very beginning that I wanted certain things to happen at specific places in the story--for instance, I wanted the first kiss to happen at the end of the first third of the story and I wanted the “reveal” about the mine accident to happen at the end of the second third of the story. But, I didn’t know what was supposed to go in between those elements. A traditional outline for a story at this point in development might have looked like: 

Meet cute

Kiss

Reveal 

Ending 

But, what my brain needed was to preserve the blank spaces in between these story elements, and specifically to preserve the right amount of blank space between these story elements so that it didn’t end up, for instance, that the first kiss was halfway through rather than a third of the way through. In this way, I found google sheets an invaluable tool for pacing in the early parts of the planning process. I simply made 30 rows assuming 30 chapters, and started plugging in the elements I knew I wanted in the locations I wanted them. Then I filled in the blank spaces by asking myself “how do we get from X plot element to Y plot element in Z amount of chapters.” I’m not a mountain climber, but I’ve often thought about the first things that go into the spreadsheet in terms of mountain climbing terminology.  In climbing, a crux move, which can be anywhere along the route, is the most difficult move of the route: if you can’t do it, you can’t do the route. I think of the first things that go into the planning spreadsheet as the crux moves of the story, the most important pieces around which everything else turns. It was not an accident that those were also all the first scenes of the fic that I wrote; if I couldn’t do those scenes, I couldn’t do the story the way I planned it so I wanted to know early on if I needed to make changes.

Make changes if you have to: even though it helps to have things planned in advance, don’t resist the story if it tries to change on you while you’re writing it. Usually the feeling that you have to make changes stems from having a plot that is not entirely character driven. As you write the story, the characters reveal themselves and sometimes the plot has to change to change with the characters’ motivations. Here’s an area where fanfic writers have a leg up on everyone else: if you write fic, you already know the characters really well. That means, (in my experience anyway) it’s less likely that you’ll have a surprise character development which leads to a rethinking of the whole plot. Less likely, but not completely unlikely, unfortunately.

Lie to yourself: The False and the Fair was supposed to be 90k words. I thought that sounded reasonable, a little less than 3x the longest fic I had ever written. Now it's 161k and will probably top out a little over 170k. Ooops. But I never would have set out to write something that long. I wouldn’t have thought I could do it, even though anyone more experienced looking at my plans for the fic probably would have laughed at the idea I could cover all those plot points in 90k. Ignorance is bliss. Protect your ignorance.

Scrivener: Long fic for me means “fic that is long enough you can’t hold all the parts of it in your head at once.” That’s where Scrivener comes in (or another app if you’d rather, but I really like Scrivener for the ability to see the project either linearly or as condensed notecards). You can put together an organizational scaffold in Scrivener that allows you to move back and forth between the forest and the trees. So, for instance, you might be going for a jog and come up with the perfect line of dialogue for chapter 27 when you’re only up to chapter 5 in terms of writing progress. With Scrivener, you can go home, and put that dialogue in the “bucket”/index card/whatever for chapter 27 without compromising your ability to see chapter 5 clearly or muddying up your google doc. You can then use the fact that you’ve started writing bits and pieces of the later chapters in conjunction with the tool of lying to yourself that, actually, you’ve written a lot more of the fic than you realize and that when you get to chapter 27 it won’t be as hard as chapter 5 because you’ve put in the groundwork already. In my experience, this lie turns out to be true about 50% of the time, which is better than 0% of the time.

Digestible mini arcs: The False and the Fair was originally broken up into thirds. I thought it would be 90k and 30k was the longest I had written, so thirds seemed to make sense. Also, 3 is a nice, time honored storytelling number. I think it’s good to give yourself seemingly achievable milestones along the way to completion. These milestones (for me anyway) lined up well with the “crux moments” I’ve described. If you’re someone who likes to write out of order, writing your way to an already written milestone can feel like sailing to an island where you get to rest for a bit from the stormy seas before setting out for the next island in the archipelago.

“It's all part of the process”: I’m categorically incapable of describing things without resorting to running metaphors, and so I apologize in advance, but I am now going to do the insufferable thing of comparing writing a long fic to running a marathon. Here’s the thing with a marathon. You are not going to feel good every step of the way. We all know this. It’s a marathon, it’s supposed to hurt a little bit, especially at the end. In the same way you literally cannot write something novel length or even novella or long short story length without, at least at some point, feeling bad about yourself and your writing. But you also can’t run a marathon if the whole thing is agony, and for most people, it’s not--your meat sack shuffling along the course is subjected to the slings and arrows of all sorts of weird body chemistry that only happens when you push it to its limits. So, you’ll be in agony and then the endorphins will kick in for a while and you’ll be thinking “this isn’t nearly as bad as everyone said,” and then you’ll drink some water at a rest stop and feel like a God for half a mile before you crash and you’re in agony again until that one perfect song comes up on the playlist...and you get the idea. Writing something long, for me at least, is a bit like that. There are massive ups and downs. The key for me is to just understand it’s all part of the process, a necessary step on the way to the finish line. If the fic is 10 chapters long, at some point you have to write chapter 5. Just like you have to write chapter 5, at some point you also have to go through a bit of despair before reaching the end. It is unfortunately non-optional. In fact, despairing is something you can check off your list each time you’ve done it. Cut dialogue tags, check. Feel awful about my writing for thirty minutes, check. Write ending section, check. Often I feel that the stress and shame and fear that come with bad emotions while writing are worse than the bad emotions themselves. It really helps me to remember these emotions are all part of the process and nothing to worry about. If I didn’t have them, then I would worry! 

I certainly have plenty more to say about writing, but this ramble has gone on long enough. If you’re interested in any of this stuff, please feel free to send me an ask. 

I would also love to know more about everyone else’s writing processes, so feel free to pop into my ask box to talk about your own approach too! I am very interested in this stuff! 

[unofficial-cactus]

FANFIC WRITER INTERVIEW

With tagged by @captainkappa

Name: Sunset

Fandoms: Currently Dream SMP. I’ve previously written for Thrilling Intent and Mindcrack, but have lurked in many other fandoms.

Two-shot: I’ve never actually formally published/finished a two shot before. I guess my closest would be Hear Me Out and the previously unpublished and still incomplete sequel Two Truths and a Lie - I’m giving anyone who follows me a gdoc link for that because why not.

Most popular multichapter: The fic-writing side of Mindcrack was a tiny fandom - about 500-700 of us in total in its prime, so it’s no surprise that joining a mega fandom (Dream SMP) has launched my first multichapter fic for that fandom straight to ‘most popular multichapter’ by a long shot. That’ll be Daddy Issues.

Actual worst part of writing: Starting to write is always the worst part for me. No matter where I am in a fic - beginnning or almost finished - it takes a while of hammering out and deleting sentences before I get into the flow of things and actually start writing usable content.

How you choose your titles: I don’t really know. I’ve done a few lyric-based ones, but I guess I go for something thematically relavant and just play around with words, phrases, and ideas until something sounds write.

Do you outline: Practically never, even though the writing process is easier when I do. I spent nearly three years sitting down every lunch break in high school plotting out The Survival Saga. I’m not kidding when I say that was my baby. I have the other two arcs planned out in varying levels of detail, but I had a notebook filled with handwriting details for each chapter of the first arc, plus plot beats for the rest of it, as well as plenty of digital notes for it. The only other thing I’ve had to put a degree of outlining into is my current fic I’m working on for the DSMP Big Bang.

Ideas I probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?: Finishing the Survival Saga. The next two arc were gonna be called The Wither Effect and The Ender Complex and I’m still so excited about the ideas. But realisitcally, the Mindcrack fandom is practically dead and I really don’t have the motivation to write 60k words that all of 3 people are gonna read, especially since it already took me about 5 years to write the first 30k words. Fandom drama too means it’d be weird to have to write some of the characters in there now, plus so much has changed that the mechanics of the plot, as well as the charactisations I was using are very outdated. I also feel there’s a notable enough change to my tone in writing that I wouldn’t know how to carry over the same voice into the rest of the fic.

Callouts @ me: Spite is not a healthy motivator for writing. Being so judgemental about other people’s writing makes you snide and arrogant which just aren’t nice personality traits. It’s okay for the first draft to suck - editing is a useful tool and you’re more productive when you write something meh then edit it to hell then sit there expecting the first draft to be perfect and thus not being able to write at all when the first few sentences fail to meet that expectation.

Best writing traits: Not a particular part of my writing itself, but rather my reading process. I’m very analytical when I read things, constantly noting what works, and what doesn’t in other people’s fics, so reading fic for me is a constant learning and bettering process for my own writing. On one hand it means I have very particular standards about what fics I can read through to the end, on the other I at least hope that it means I don’t make a lot of the same mistakes often found in fanfic that people find makes for poor writing. I do also have a history of being known for my smut, but I still don’t know how much of that is influenced by lack of many better options in that fandom.

Spicy tangential opinion: I have some quite spicy opinions about boundaries in RPF, but I’m not gonna throw myself to wolves on this by saying anything more than: fanfiction is for the fans. the RP of RPF do not belong in fandom spaces, nor should they be welcomed into them. So long as we also do our fair share of keeping creators out of fandom spaces, then what we do in fandom spaces is none of their business.

Don’t like, don’t read. Dead dove, do not eat.

Fiction is not necessarily a reflection of a writer’s personal opinions. Someone can enjoy something in fiction while being horrified by it in real life scenarios.

No pressure tags: @theropodtheroblogs @solena2 @genofeve I have no idea who tf to tag for this lmao.

[sagemoderocklee]

2020 has been a weird fucking year, to put it mildly. There have been a lot of ups and downs, and with New Year’s Eve and the start of 2021 upon us, focusing on the ~positive~ seemed like a better way to end the year, and hopefully start 2021 feeling inspired and proud for overcoming this horrendous year.

For many people, it was difficult--even impossible--to get anything done this year (myself included), and that’s okay! But if you were able to make progress on writing projects, even if it was just one or even if it was just part of one, you should celebrate that! I wish I’d thought of this sooner and organized it better, but regardless I wanted to celebrate my own accomplishments with regards to my writing, and encourage others to do the same! I was going to tag people, but I’m not sure with it being 2 hours til midnight for me if that would feel like putting too much pressure on others, so if you want to do this too please do!

This wrap up is honestly just a self-indulgent look back on the works I’ve made and what I learned/gained from each, maybe what I don’t like about them, some totaling on what I did, and some resolutions for the next year. It’s silly, but I think it’s kinda fun and if you missed any of the things I have posted this year, you’ll find them here!

2020 Fic Wrap Up:

Kado: Parts II+III (COMPLETED)

Kado was started in September of 2019 for the @puregaalee​ summer event. This was a last minute thing that I started the day the prompt was due and managed to write the first part in about 6 hours while sitting in a cafe--remember that? Sitting in cafes? Man, I miss that. I hadn’t anticipated working on Kado, but I decided that I was going to finish it this year, and I’m honestly amazed that I did. This fic is sweet and fun, and surprisingly popular, though it isn’t my favorite of my works. However, it is a light, fluffy little romcom modern AU, and I learned a lot with it because despite my struggles with modern AUs and their horrible lack of political intrigue, this fic forced me to work within set parameters. I was only writing a 3 part story, and each part could only be 9 scenes long. For those unfamiliar, kado is another term for Ikebana, and in Ikebana there are specific elements to follow. Certain styles will only use three branches, some will use nine. So my goal was for the structural elements of the fic to mimic Ikebana. In doing this, I was able to do something I don’t usually do, which is keep this story more concise.

I’m still not sure how I personally feel about the ending, but I think endings are always a struggle, especially with something like this.

Gate of Dreaming (COMPLETED) 

This is a fic that I started last year, then left to sit untouched with only 2k words. Getting back into it was a bit difficult because I was writing something very different from my usual: stream of consciousness. This fic was very experimental for me not only because of the stream of consciousness, but also because of the changing tenses. This was another exercise--unexpected though it was--in brevity. With this particular story, it couldn’t be dragged on and on, because--despite the 100 year time span--the events take place within the Infinite Tsukuyomi. This was also the first time I’d worked from Lee’s PoV in quite some time, so that was fun because I do enjoy writing him, but usually write from Gaara’s PoV. This is definitely one of my favorites from this year, and since it had been sitting on the back burner for so long, I’m so excited that I could finally get it done.

Another one where the ending really wasn’t easy to achieve, but I did end up liking it more than I expected, and I think the best thing is that it’s open-ended which leaves room for others to guess at what the future holds.

It Eats Your Heart (WIP)

This was an unexpected fic for me in every way imaginable. Starting another fic? Making another modern AU? Tackling the horror genre? None of those were things I’d planned to do this year, but lo and behold, that’s just what I did. I really enjoy a good bit of horror, but it is NOT an easy genre to work within, and this fic has definitely been a push for me. But with it being such a push, the payoff is far more. Stepping out of my comfort zone is something I like doing, but I think this is the biggest step outside of that and I am so incredibly proud of how that first chapter turned out because of it. I was really able to surprise myself with this fic, and I am hoping to update the next chapter early on in the year.

Absolution (WIP)

This fic is probably the second oldest idea/longest unpublished fic I currently have up. Formerly a much longer title, the idea for this fic came to me in May of 2017 when a friend, @brianadoesotherjunk / @brianadoesart, posted a piece of GaaLee fanart that sparked inspiration. The fic took off, morphed into something much bigger than the one scene depicted by the art, and now 3 years later, the first part is up. Initially, this was meant to be a long shot, but after sitting with this for so long, I realized that I needed to split it up into 9 parts, which allowed me to use this for GaaLee bingo and finally publish it. Much of the first part was already written before this year, but I’d been quite stuck on it until now. This is actually probably one of my favorite GaaLee concepts to date. I remember back in the day, there weren’t a lot of different takes on getting Lee to Suna so he and Gaara could fall in love, so (at the risk of sounding cocky) I think that Lee as a nanny is rather inspired. I think with this fic, I pushed myself the hardest to get past the hurdle of writer’s block and accepted that publishing is probably the best way to motivate myself to keep going. The feedback for this fic has been really motivating, so I think I’m probably right about that.

I do think there are some parts in the middle or towards the end that could maybe use some tightening up, but I’m just happy to finally have this fic out in the world.

The Art of Love: Chapter 11 (WIP)

TAoL is such a ridiculous labor of love. The chapters for this fic are novellas in and of themselves, so each time I update it takes a lot of work to get them out. This fic is one of those like magnum opus type fics. I have put so much into it, and I’m honestly amazed that it’s only been up for 3 years because I’m approaching the halfway mark on it, and I don’t think I expected to be there by now. Despite being able to churn out 30k chapters, I have a hard time focusing on one thing and I often struggle with mental health related writer’s block, so big works are always sort of sporadic in their updates. 

This particular update of TAoL was definitely one of my favorites though. Initially, I didn’t plan to go the sort of dark fantasy rout that I did with Shikamaru, but I actually really love what I’ve done with him, though I worry others won’t be as into it or that the execution isn’t quite there. One thing I would like to work on with future chapters of TAoL, however, is maybe pairing things down a bit--though I’m not sure that’ll always be possible. The next chapter is a Naruto PoV chapter, though, so I expect that one to be a MUCH shorter chapter than the last three and should be able to get it out sometime next year.

Before I could publish this chapter, however, I did go through and make some big changes, which is something I often struggle with because of such long breaks in between working on certain projects. I will say, though, that TAoL continues to push me to greater heights as a writer, and I look forward to actually finishing this fic someday.

Thirteen Strokes: 1 + 2 (WIP)

Another unexpected fic this year, however, this one was actually an idea for about a year, unlike IEYH. This fic has really given me a lot of perspective on my own writing and world building, and has inspired me to sit down and really start committing the things I’ve developed to paper to create a cohesive view of Suna, Wind, and the shinobi world. This fic is meant to be a Romance. Like just full on Romance. I write a lot of tragedy and focus on a lot of darker themes in my writing, so while I don’t think of this as stepping outside of my comfort zone, it is very different from my usual, and a really nice change of pace. I think, in all honesty, it is one of my best works, and I do hope I can continue to deliver on the remaining 11 parts of this story.

if this were the last i felt you breathing (COMPLETED)

Ugh. This fic has been my enemy for 2 long years. I signed up for a Secret Santa exchange, and of course, I regretted doing it when I found that I was not motivated and, after the month of October where I was churning out fic after fic for GaaLee Bingo, that I was massively burned out. I wasn’t able to think past writer’s block, and so I ended up settling on dusting off an old, unfinished piece for my giftee, and I hope they can forgive me for not coming up with something brand new for them.

This fic was a struggle. Working so closely with the canon--following the Rescue Kazekage Arc as closely as I did for this fic--made this a much bigger challenge and this fic sat and sat and sat for two years, untouched and incomplete. I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I know it’s not my best work, but I am glad that this fic isn’t hanging over my head and that I was able to deliver something to my secret santa giftee.

My goal with this fic was to rewrite this particular arc from Lee’s PoV to give more depth to the arc and shift the emotional core of it away from Naruto. Naruto as a character has a lot of flaws that never get addressed, and one of the things that is consistently frustrating for me is the way the emotional core of the series rests on him in unrealistic and often superficial ways. Naruto hasn’t spoken to Gaara in three years, but I’m supposed to believe he’s this affected by Gaara’s kidnapping? Temari and Kankuro are right there! Lee is right there! I wanted to see that, so that’s what I set out to do, and ultimately I don’t think I fully succeeded, but I tried. I guess not everything can be a resounding success

---

This year I managed to do a lot more than I realized. New works, updates, and COMPLETED pieces?! I never would have thought, but staying home gave me more free time, and when I was too broke to work on costumes, writing fanfiction was something free I could do.

Total new works: 5 Total updates: 9 Total completed works: 3 Total words this year: 143,587

---

I have a lot of goals for the coming year, and I know I won’t make all of them, but that won’t stop me from trying.

2021 Writing Resolutions:

Reach 1million words (+238,073 words)

Finish IEYH

Finish Pearl-Filled Lungs

Update TAoL (Chapter 12 and 13)

Update Absolution

Update 13S

Update Find Me (Chapter 6)

Start the Ballad of the Dragon and the Phoenix

Start editing Alliance

Return to working on Honor Bound

Return to working on We Need Not Be Yellow Tulips

[cinematicnomad]

1, 7, 25 for the fanfic end of year ask :)

001. favorite fic you wrote this year i have a soft spot for take my hand (take my everything) which was the first fic i wrote this year! and kind of the first step back into writing creatively on something new that wasn’t the 7 year monster sterek fic. also my first foray into 9-1-1 fic and was just a lot of fun! 

007. longest completed fic you wrote this year the longest fic i wrote was my second for the year! so show me (family) wound up being around 16k+ for 9-1-1 which kind of burst out of me over the course of one 48 hour window unlike take my hand which took a few weeks to crank out. 

025. a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read SO MANY FICS DUDE!!! i’m gonna rec a couple, some that i re-read this year and some that i discovered for the first time, all from a variety of fandoms. BUT heads up, you didn’t specify a fandom so it’s gonna be a little scattered. also someone else sent me this same question but specified 9-1-1, so i’m gonna reserve those recs for that ask. GET READY!!

and this, your living kiss by opal_bullets (7/7 | 84k+ | M) destiel; AU: college/university; john winchester’s A+ parenting; angst with a happy ending

only a very few people in the world know that the celebrated and reclusive poet jack allen is just kansas mechanic dean winchester, a high school dropout with a few bucks to his name. not that it matters anymore; life has left him so wrung out he never wants to pick up another pen.

until, that is, a string of coincidences leads dean to auditing a poetry course with one dr. castiel novak. the professor is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome...and just so happens to be academia’s foremost expert on the poetry of jack allen.

note: i discovered this fic back in the pre-pandemic times of feb 2020 and i’ve read this fic TWICE since, leaving a lengthy comment each time. the poetry in the fic itself is stunningly gorgeous and i have a habit of reading it out loud to myself while reading bc it begs to be heard. this fic is seriously beautiful and makes me want to read all the poet!dean au’s out there in the world. unfortunately there aren’t that many so i just keep coming back to this well. i don’t think i can express enough how much i love this fic. 

lost time by ARCurren (105/105 | 350k+ | T)  bransonxsybil; AU: canon divergent; outsider POVs; original characters; slow burn

the story of a free spirit who was asked to give up the man she loved for a system she didn’t believe in and what happened next. AU after 3.04. 

note: did i think, when i stumbled across this fic years ago, that it would wind up being one of my all time favorites that i return to time and again to re-read? never. did i re-read it for like the dozenth time this year?? 110%. this fic is everything i want from fanfiction—it’s beautifully written, expands on canon, and shows me all the hidden moments the cameras never did (not to mention it’s historically accurate and delves deep into irish politics of the time). the first third or so of this fic is all about tom and sybil’s slow burn romance at downton, but the fic really bursts into its own when we follow the two to dublin and get introduced to all of the author’s deliciously detailed oc’s. heads up warning: this fic was never officially completed, though the final chapter is a beautifully written summary of the final arc of the fic. even so, it’s fucking worth it. 

misfire by mothlights & unpossible (6/6 | 28k+ | T) sterek; time travel; angst with a happy ending; alive hale family; magic; alternating POV

“the debt must be repaid,” she says, and it has the weight of a vow. the words resonate through him, ringing through his ribcage and the bones of his jaw, and stiles loses his breath and maybe his grip on reality because she draws herself upright and where there had once stood a supermodel-level MILK now there is galadriel’s much hotter older sister, a presence of unmistakable power in their ordinary, smells-vaguely-of-thai-takeout hallway. 

“oh shit,” stiles says. 

note: this fic is the first in the misfire ‘verse and i need you to understand that it literally broke me when i binge read these fics a month or so ago. i am a sucker for a solid time travel fic especially bc there are such few good ones in fandom. but this gets at the heart of it all by exploring the idea of stiles getting the chance to save derek’s family and taking it...after he and derek are romantically together in his true timeline and then actually dealing with the ramifications of how that alters everything and how stiles survives in this new present where he and derek are virtual strangers. everyone should definitely read this, but you should also know that i fucking sobbed while reading the sequel (which also has a happy ending, but really digs deep into the nitty gritty angst of the repercussions). 

map of the world by seperis (11/11 | 154k+ | M)  destiel; end!verse; alternate universe; canon divergent; original characters; slow burn

the world’s already over and they’re already dead. all they’re doing now is marking time until the end. 

note: look, if you don’t know about down to agincourt by @seperis, what are you doing with your life?? the series is over 1M+ words so far, the fic author is on book 4 out of a planned 8, and it’s fucking phenomenal. i know i’ve tagged a couple of these recs as slow burn but...this is the slowest slow burn to ever burn. canon!dean travels back into the end!verse timeline just as lucifer kills dean and somehow cas made it out alive and has to keep dean safe while he learns to become his end!verse counterpoint. the world building in this series is intense and i cannot recommend it enough. i’m still in the midst of my re-read bc it’s SUCH an endeavor but i highly recommend it to everybody. 

invictus by ellanasan (116/116 | 355+ | M) hayffie; au: alive abernathy family; pre-hunger games; canon prostitution; slow burn

“so then, before i can even think about doing something stupid like trying to stab him with his fucking golden paperknife, he gives me a choice, see?” haymitch continued, almost detached. “either i play nice like all the other victors or he’ll kill my family. i could either become his puppet—greatest punishment he could give me, according to him—or i could become the example.”

AU in which haymitch’s family lives.

note: hello, have you ever wondered what the hunger games series would be like if haymitch’s family were alive? i fucking hadn’t until 2 years ago when i stumbled across this fic and fell head over heels in love with this ship. @ellanainthetardis is my go to hunger games fic writer for anything exploring canon and i’m obsessed with anything she writes about the OG victors pre-canon (finnick, joanna, chaff, etc). this fic is just 300k+ exploring that world and all the intricate details of how cruel the games could really be. HIGHLY recommend. i definitely re-read it this fall when i needed a pick me up.

don’t know what i’m supposed to do (haunted by the ghost of you) by crazyassmurdererwall (1/1 | 30k+ | T) sterek; canon divergent; angst with a happy ending; ghosts; stiles POV

stiles sees dead people. yep. seriously.

(he’s got this. he’s totally got this. so what if one of them is derek’s mom?)

note: did you know that @crazyassmurdererwall is one of my all time favorite people? and that she’s wicked talented? and that in our spare time she’ll send me a billion fic ideas that are amazing and i get to hear all the intricate details of her plot bunnies? but i digress. this fic is one of my all time fave sterek fics i’ve re-read it sooo many times. there’s just something about the heartache and stiles’ insecurity and the way he tries to shoulder it all on his own. and then there’s alli’s brilliant writing, the way she weaves through a scene and paints a picture just so and manages to tug at your heart strings with her precise word choice. there’s some amazing world building in this fic as it explores this other facet of the supernatural that canon teen wolf never touched upon, and i’m so grateful for that bc alli is the only one who should be allowed to write about ghosts and teen wolf together. 

lagavulin and guinness by snarfle (10/10 | 163k+ | explicit) hartwin; slow burn; PTSD; suicidal thoughts; graphic depictions of violence; domestic abuse

plenty of people had looked down on eggsy throughout his life. he had gotten fairly used to it. didn’t mean it was fair, but he knew how these things worked. what really sucked was that the new arthur was worse than the old one.

“eggsy grimaced. he didn’t know how to explain to harry—who seemed like he hadn’t been discriminated against a day in his life—that the new arthur kept giving him what amounted to suicide missions, and that he was currently bleeding out in a warehouse because of the deliberately bad intel she had given him.”

also featuring: dean is harder to get rid of than eggsy thought, his mum is going off the deep end, there are way too many nefarious plots in play, and eggsy is really beginning to wish that harry would stop holding his hand and kiss him instead.

note: look, i know i recced this literally less than a week ago but i ALSO stayed up til 5AM re-reading this last night and it was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. i was on a bit of a kingsman kick earlier this year, so i’ve actually re-read this fic TWICE so far in 2020. i will give you a serious warning in that this fic delves deep into domestic abuse through the lens of a variety of different relationships. it also explores the potential for abuse in hartwin, bc this fic is one of the few that actually commits to the fact that they’re literal spies who murder people. actively. a lot. but seriously, this fic is one of my fave in the fandom and i STRONGLY recommend it. 

waste of breath by bryrosea (1/1 | 22k+ | M) loganxveronica; canon compliant; missing scenes; navy; past child abuse

logan echolls, the nine years, and the navy.

note: bryrosea has an obscene number of amazing logan and veronica fics (her canon divergent series stay with me is another i re-read this year), but i’ve found myself returning to this fic a lot over the years. i’m a sucker for canon compliant fics that explore the missing scenes in between canon and this fic hits all the right buttons by diving deep into how logan echolls went from being a trash fire at hearst college at the end of s3 to being a decorated navy pilot by the movie. it explores logan seeking out therapy and making a life for himself that he can be proud of, all while pining after the girl who got away. and bc this author is amazing, she followed it up with a sequel from veronica’s point of view in the series done by only me. 

the law of equivalent exchange by awed_frog (8/8 | 60k+ | M) destiel; POV castiel; pre-canon; post-canon; canon compliant; immortality; reincarnation

“and what’s the point of it?”

“of love? there isn’t one. loving is its own purpose.” 

note: i mean??? i don’t really know what to say except that this is one of the truly most beautiful fics i have ever read. it follows castiel through time as he meets different reincarnations of sam and dean across history and falls ever more deeply in love. it is achingly tender and so ecstatically written that i die just thinking about it. and that summary? i mean. holy fuck break my heart why don’t you? i don’t know how i missed out on this fic for so long since it was published in 2015 but i only learned about it for the first time back in july and it was. life changing?? when the fic finally reaches the canon timeline and he meets THIS dean it’s peak yearning. 10/10 will read again.

ahead in the count by elisela (17/17 | 50k+ | E) sterek; AU: sports; pitcher!stiles; teacher!derek; long distance relationship; getting together

“yankee fan,” derek says, laughing when stiles makes a disgusted face. “the bronx bombers, stiles, you can’t be a new yorker and—”

“stop talking right now,” stiles sighs, shaking his head. “i can’t believe i still want to kiss you after that,” he says, pulling derek in by his coat. “this is making me rethink everything.” 

“i’ll never watch them again,” derek promises, and stiles laughs against his mouth. 

or: stiles is a starting pitcher for the NY mets when he meets and falls in love with derek. derek doesn’t know. 

note: i read SO MANY of @elisela’s 911 fics this summer, which i loved, and then she got into teen wolf and started writing sterek and i just about died. this fic is amazing, one of my fave sterek AU’s that i’ve read in years. it’s just the right amount of drama and angst and fluff filled with all the joys of miscommunication and character relationships that makes reading sterek such a joy. reading this fic and finding out eli needed fic recs pushed me to dive back in to reading sterek fics for a bit this fall so i can say with the utmost authority that this is one of the best i’ve read in a long time. 

i used to think one day we’d tell the story of us by notequitegucci (2/2 | 32k+ | M) gendrya; alternate universe—modern setting; outsider POV; friends to lovers; friends to lovers

9 times a stark encounters gendry + 1 time he meets the starks.

note: again, this is the first in a 2 part series titled love me like you do that explores arya and gendry’s dynamics together through the point of view of her family. game of thrones ended last year with a whimper but i keep returning to the gendrya tag on ao3 to seek out new, amazing content and also to re-read some old favorites. i can’t remember if i came across this for the first time last year or this one, but i’ve read it and re-read it more times than i can count since and i love it more than i can describe. i’m a total sucker for outsider POV fics and my biggest pet peeve in canon is the fact that none of the stark’s ever found out that arya and gendry had a history together. this modern au fic almost makes up for it by giving me a gendry encounter with every family member and then the big reveal. it’s peak content. 

theeeeeeese recs got a little away from me. i wasn’t originally intending on adding lengthy notes to each entry but ... oh well!! these are all amazing so please enjoy. 

fanfic end of the year asks

[azems-familiar]

2, 4, 19, 39 for that pairing ask thing, for revan/alek/bastila of course

2) how’s their team work? do they share well?

so this Really depends on what era/verse of the gang but in 90% of them Alek and Bastila have this Silent Petty Rivalry going on for ages while Revan is utterly oblivious because holy shit Two Whole People. Revan is not smart. given that i write them as a V (haaard headcanon Bastila as a lesbian), Alek and Bastila utterly refuse to admit they’re friends for ages - oh my god the rivalry in the hp au is especially hilarious - but they Band Together the moment anyone threatens Revan. there are petty contests over who gets to get the closest seat next to Revan and many other things, it’s objectively hilarious, especially since they’re all completely awful at communication.

they do eventually get their shit together though and end up a good, solid team. there are a lot of things Revan shares with Alek that Bastila just can’t in the end understand, especially related to the war in my canon verse (i could give you a whole other set of paragraphs about them in the hp au ask me on discord if you really want that ramble), but post Star Forge there’s also a lot that Revan can only really talk to Bastila about - re the Council, the mind wipe, and Bastila understands the fall and return a lot better given that Revan post-Reveal went a little off the deep end into the Dark Side before realizing that oh, she doesn’t actually Want That. so they manage to find their footing and a good dynamic because Alek and Bastila both love Revan a lot and so are able to put aside their differences for her. (although there’s a whole lot to work through immediately post-SF re Bastila’s whole. imprisonment. which is a bit of a mess. but that’s another subject i’m rambling OOPS)

4. first impression of each other? was it love at first sight?

Revan and Alek met in the creche when Revan was five and Alek six. they Instantly Bonded. Alek’s realization of oh shit i’m in love happened the night they were knighted - Revan was nineteen and Alek twenty, and look he knew he’d had feelings but he’d been trying to avoid them, but then they went out and stole a speeder together and took it for a joyride and Revan was laughing into the wind and oh. oh no. then he spent four YEARS suffering in silence because she was too stupid and oblivious to pick up on it or realize her Own feelings until midway through the first war.

meanwhile, Revan’s first impression of Bastila was her fighting Brejik after the swoop race. Revan watched her and went oh no and Carth, who had previously been rebuffed because “i don’t do romance”, went “yeah i think i’m just not your type”. he was very right.

Bastila on the other hand has had a sort of hero worship crush on Revan since midway through the Mandalorian Wars, when she would hide bootleg holos of Revan’s fights under her mattress and even though she had no idea what Revan actually looked like it was a Whole Thing. meeting Revan as Shala did not help this crush in the slightest.

19) what do they fight about? what are their arguments like? how do they make up?

Actual Arguments are pretty rare; most of the times their fights are about incredibly small, stupid, petty things and they’re just bickering. all three of them bicker with each other as a form of affection. the Real Actual arguments tend to come over things like Revan deciding to abandon a planet to save Alek’s life during the war (because oh Yeah does that come out at some point post-amnesia) or about Revan’s sacrifices in general or about Revan running off to do something incredibly stupid alone because clearly that’s her best plan.

Revan and Alek get extremely sharp and cutting with each other if it’s bad, or they just get snappy in general because Revan is Determined and Alek is equally determined because he’s worried, damn it, Revan, and then Revan storms off and there are shields for like. a few hours. HOURS max. they’re too codependent to be apart longer than that especially with the bond. post SF it’s a bit different but i haven’t quite worked out all the details of their relationship there yet. they generally make up with a lot of silent apology and promises of affection across the bond and a lot of cuddling. Alek is almost always the one who gives in first.

Revan and Bastila’s arguments are a lot more explosive because Bastila also has a temper, they are vaguely less codependent, they tend to say things they’ll regret later and then Revan will go complain to Alek about it and he’ll get very annoyed. (on the Hawk it’s Jolee who plays relationship counselor. he is so tired. s o  t i r e d) eventually Revan finds a way to apologize without actually apologizing and generally attempts to like, do something thoughtful or bring Bastila something nice to help. Bastila, who is less ridiculously proud, can actually say the words “i’m sorry” without having an allergic reaction.

Alek and Bastila.... well. they can go for days on end without speaking to each other, while remaining perfectly unified on Revan’s Behalf. is this a healthy dynamic? perhaps not. but when has this triad ever been healthy.

39) who initiated the relationship? who kissed who first? when did they realize they were in love?

oh my god you’re hitting me with ALL the juicy questions today. SO.

i’ve already written a little of this and in the answers above, Alek realized he was in love with Revan on Coruscant when they were both knights, but he and Revan have a Force bond so clearly she Knew and thus if she Felt The Same she’d do something about it, and she never did, so clearly his feelings weren’t reciprocated, so it’s F i n e, clearly, he suffers in silence until a year into the war - i have written this scene! - at which point Revan kisses him while they’re back on Coruscant for her promotion to Supreme Commander. she’s going to figure out that she’s in love with him (as opposed to just loving him) either after Fett injures him on Lantillies or during the whole. Clefar shenanigans, i don’t know the specifics, i haven’t written it yet and i didn’t think they’d get together this early in the war so there’s that. they don’t actually Talk about being in a relationship like, at all, ever, they just don’t talk about this Thing between them, because there’s the war and then there’s Vitiate and then there’s the Sith and then there’s another war and then-

they do end up talking about it post-SF at Bastila’s encouragement because Revan finally gets most of her memories back and is Clearly Moping and Alek is Also Moping. god i’m going to have to write that aren’t i.

with Revan (should i say Shala?) and Bastila, hmm. i’m honestly not so sure on this one in my canon verse? it’ll make itself more clear as i write that fic, but i know that Shala has a hell of a lot of realizations post-Leviathan and i feel like this is one of them. i really want to say their first kiss is in the fucking, submarine thing on Manaan on the way back post-Star Map, because that was a Hellish experience, and then they do things Bastila regrets (except she doesn’t except she does except-) on the Hawk after, and then ofc the Leviathan happens. Bastila definitely kisses Revan first and i think she might realize she’s a little in love on Kashyyyk when Revan does the whole free the Wookiees thing? hmmm i’m going to have to poke at that more. 

anyway they have this whole scene at the temple of the ancients which is one of the few things from the kotor fic i have visualized in my head because it’s the moment Revan decides she’s going to choose the Light over the Dark and it’s massively important character-wise and i’m actually super super excited to finally get there so i can write it. post-SF they’re actually dating because they finally have a Sort Of Talk about it.

oh my god this got so long but i’m Not Sorry and i have approximately 30k more words to say on the subject especially related to the HP AU but i will shut up now lol. thank you for the questions!

[onthevirgeofdestruction]

35 Q’s for Fanfic Writers

From this post

I’m having a shitty, rude alter-y, crap night so I’m just going to answer all of these to distract myself and focus and to not bother anybody just making my own post and putting it under the cut btw, notice to anyone not aware: since I’m moving I won’t likely be updating anything until I’m done doing so.

1. From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing?  (No downplaying yourself!) 3/5? Could use more editing and description and can be weirdly paced.

2. Why do you write fanfiction? Because it’s better than focusing on pain 24/7. 

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works? I don’t seem to have a specific narrative voice that people recognize but I’m pretty proud of mostly organic dialogue. 

4. Are there any writers that inspire you? as a rule i never look up to anybody for inspiration but there’s some stuff in my ao3 bookmarks I fawn over.

5. What’s the fic you’re most proud of? Right now, none of them. It changes normally, anyway. If get too proud then I’d get my ass kicked by RSD if someone didn’t like it so it’s safer this way

6. What element of writing do you find comes easily? Dialogue. 

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most? Organic description, poetic language kind of stuff. I can paint a scene but I’m not so great with bring out out a feeling with description alone.

8. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write? Janus and Virgil are probably tied. They both have things I struggle with but I don’t have to go back and do much adjusting of language and tone with them. Though admittedly my Virgil is signifigantly more foul-mouthed than canon and I tend to prefer pre-AA feral asshole Virgil.

9. Which character(s) do you find most difficult to write? Patton. I write him the least, so people can probably tell. I love Patton, I really do, but it’s so hard to keep away from fanon Patton. 

10. What’s your favorite genre to write for? Angst w/ H/C obviously. Or if you’re talking about regular book genres, Fantasy. I fucking love fantasy world building.

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most? Trauma. I blame Daeram. As if Ayri isn’t a giant Angst Demon.

12. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about. Slopes. I’m really into it. I’ve got three one shots running right now. Patrons can read the first part of the unnamed cat remus one, there’s also a coffeeshop au tropey nonsense one like eglantine & lycoris, but Slopes is addiction angst. Mmmmm. Virgil is addicted to coke and alcohol and will listening to his friends even be in time? Who knows, especially not me, but there’s already over 30k. 

13. First fandom you ever wrote for? InuYasha. Or was it Harry Potter? Or shit, The Blue Sword? Fuck, I’ve been writing for a long time, I really have no idea.

14. What’s your favorite fandom to write for? Sanders Sides. The characters are the perfect dynamic for writing since they exist in balance of each other and the popular, easy to project on archetypes featured are incredibly fun to do basically any scenario with.

15. What’s the weirdest fandom you’ve ever written for? Weird storywise? Kingdom Hearts? I can’t even follow the plot anymore. Weird Fandomwise? Sanders Sides. Its simultainiously the fluffiest and angstiest nonsense at the same time.

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)? Vampires. Gay ones. Gay Vampires. I also love calm tol and angy smol.

17. A trope you’ll never, ever write for. Any tropes that normalize incredibly toxic behaviour or tropes that are inherantly ableist, but I can’t think of any.

18. Wildest fic you’ve ever written? Incorrigible continues to be complete nonsense.

19. Do you prefer canon-compliant, AUs, or something in-between? AUs. I mean closest I even have is canon-divergence other than a single short.

20. Gen fic or shippy stuff? I like it when there is gay nonsense along with a plot that is treated as more important than the relationship the most. But I like both. There’s more shippy stuff in tss so i read more shipping action by default.

21. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!) Anxceit/Sleepxiety, but in general, give me darksides or give me death/j

22. Do you listen to anything while you write? Almost everything I write has a special playlist I listen to to help me write it, but otherwise I listen to my Nyan playlist, an alter is picking the tunes, or a voidfam playlist. I never have music off. When my internet is down I just listen to the songs I own or Anxiety’s theme on loop.

23. Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas? I’m fine with all of them. I love working with prompts but I tend to deviate. And I’ve never done a challenge since I can’t do deadlines and bad things happen bingo never sent me a card and I applied three times.

24. One-shots or multi-chaptered works? I am generally multi-chaptered stuff, but I’ve been working on a few one-shots lately that are much longer than most one shots.

25. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them! I was originally thinking of doing some little 13-year-old Dreaming!Roman (y’know, the one with a job) shorts but it turns out I just had an alter of that little bastard and that’s why I inexplicably know more about him then I ever even considered. I still might do them after Dreaming is done. But that’s paced so slowly who knows when that might happen. Otherwise I put stuff in my notes and just do shorts of it if I’m like “oh you know what’s cool???” but since I can’t daydream maybe this question doesn’t apply to me.

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try? I want to do more autism stuff, and I’ve had it demanded a few times, but I’m scared of being that explict about it for some reason. Possibly because I might be, possibly because I’m scared of doing it wrong even though I’ve accidentally coded multiple characters autistic. I’m scared of explictly tagging them as such, too. 

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received? That I can remember off the top of my head? I’m going with one from @a-genz-with-trauma-and-kins. It really helped me out and was just so kind and literally the best christmas gift I got in 2020. 

28. How well do you handle criticism when it comes to your writing? I can handle it alright but Daeram is a little fucking pissbaby about it. Constructive criticism helps people get better, so I appreciate it. I can’t handle critism that is incomplete, though. “i just don’t get it” or “I don’t know I don’t like it” kind of things. If I can’t understand the why to fix it then things get out of control. And then I spiral and RSD for like four days minimum. If it came from an anon or a troll, too, It might not bother me for as long. Things that are just like “this is shit and you should feel bad” just make me laugh. Couldn’t even bother to read it long enough to insult me proper? I don’t care.

29. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out? I have a few times. Mostly in shorts and prompts, I think. I think they turned out okay. They’re not particularly inspired or anything.

30. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst? Depends on my mood. Am I triggered? give me the fluff. Am I vibin? Angst. 

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them! Fuck, fam, no, I can’t, I have so many. I have multiple original stories and some of them have very large casts and like holy fuck. Or do you mean in Sanders Sides fandom? Um, Morgan and Thorn in PD. The lesbian and her himbo dynamic. I love them. They’re dorks. Morgan is strong person with sharp tongue and soft romantic heart and Thorn is just so kind and so dumb and so exciteable he’s like a puppy. They were just filler characters and I got attached to them. Felton even gets redemption for being an ass later in PD, like oof i never intended to include so much OC content, especially for names I just picked randomly. 

32. Summarize a random fic of yours in 10 words or less. nope I’m doing all of them because these are fun plea for my new self: 2 gay vampires, 4 humans, 1 braincell dreaming while I wake: trauma child needs therapy and so do you break: big oof, oh dragons, oh why, go virgil go rebuild: virgil is so not okay there’s more virgil to deal painful death: gay teens drink themselves into a new religion stargazing: whoops we didn’t realize people actually cared whole castle: everyone will throw down for kid!patton, even you incorrigible: found family with a shot of psychological horror and crack dangerous instincts: wholesome crime syndacite action  slopes: addict gets mugged and thinks that’s just fine with him conflagration: logan avoids everything ever like a champ cat!remus: bored fae shifts gay pining from one person to another  caffeine cyptids: caffinated gay panic goes faster than regular gay panic eglantine & lycoris: more tropes than you can toss a shoe at storytime: overpowered virgil also overreacts literally always

33. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process? an alter and I write together and I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen, what I’m writing about, or even what year it is. I often don’t even remember what I wrote. There’s no outline. I have an idea and I pick things at random for it. There’s just notes and an evil gleam in a demon’s eye. The only reason I know more than readers is because I take a long time to edit and some of these stories have fucking alters up in my head who can tell me things. Daeram tells me nothing. The writing demon supposedly has all this knowledge but I have absolutely no clue because he does not talk to me, he just fronts and slams out 9k in a few hours or we cofront to write and I’m like “oh no she didn’t” while typing 

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of. i’m fond of the entire painful death series and I tried to find something I really liked without spoilers in stargazing and I couldn’t so here’s a random thing from incorrigble: “So, what do you do with your friends?” Patton continued on with a megawatt smile. “Grand larceny,” Virgil deadpanned and glared at Patton, who was taken aback. Remy and Andy just broke out laughing while Virgil tentatively sipped his still-too-hot-cocoa. 

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!  slopes my dudes slopes i have learned so much about cocaine! like wow! I thought for a minute it was going to end with MCD around 30k but it swtiched from whump to hurt/comfort and I still don’t know if it’s going to be MCD but look at that funky little coke/alcohol addict go, it’s a medical wonder he’s alive! It’s not like there’s what seems to be a little talked about interaction between alcohol and cocaine that causes a toxic chemical to build up in the liver which can result in liver failure and sudden death at basically any moment! Which is part of why it may result in MCD but this time no ghosts! maybe it’ll be h/c with whump elements or maybe it’ll be whump with h/c elements we can’t know for sure

[angst-in-space]

december ‘20 writing progress (and yearly wrap-up)

december progress:

words written: 15.2k

yearly total: 248.8k 

projects worked on:

- sylvix dreamscape fic - edited/posted the sylvix xmas fic, “where the love light gleams” - finished writing the altea rising recap - worked on a couple secret projects

december goals: - reach my yearly goal of writing 250k words....*sweats* (ok i didn’t quite get there but i’ll give myself credit cuz i was only like 200 words off) - finish/submit final draft of piece for long live zine - finish editing and publish the sylvix xmas fic! - finish/publish [redacted] and [redacted] - work some more on the sylvix dreamscape fic  - finish the altea rising recap summary (and....maybe work a little on chapter 19 if i have time)

notes:

well, december was....a very busy month. had kind of a hellish start to the month what with a health-related thing (not covid, don’t worry i’m fine dkfjdl) so that kinda sapped my energy for about a week. then ofc there was the holidays and everything. aaand on top of that i had like four writing deadlines (although like....two of them were postponed so that was good haha). 

but anyway! i did at least manage to finish a couple of things––mainly my sylvix christmas fic (“where the love light gleams”), finishing/submitting my “long live” zine piece, FINALLY finishing the altea rising recap summary ... and also finishing one secret thing that is not published yet, but it’s for a fandom i’ve never written before and i’ll be very excited to publish it once i can!

other than that, i mostly worked on the sylvix dreamscape fic and on a secret santa exchange fic that i still have not finished (we extended the deadline to end of january bc like...no one in the group had finished by end of december lol). 

i didn’t quite reach my goal of 250k words for the year, but i mean my initial goal was 150k and i only ended up being about 200 words shy of 250k SO i still think that’s a big win lol. 

as for what i’ll be working on next: top priority is finishing the secret santa fic. but i also hope to keep working on the sylvix dreamscape fic. aaand hoping to edit/publish the klance hotel au by the end of january maybe, since uh i finished a draft of it in november and STILL have not finished editing that so OOPS. and mayyybe will finally delve into finishing the last few chapters of altea rising, and maybe at least start editing chapter 15 but that’s pretty optimistic of me lmao.

2020 wrap up:

total words written: 248.8k most words written in a month: 50.1k (november) least words written in a month: 14.1k (march)

works completed:

- want your fire on me - i know a place we can run - illumination - cover my skin with your sunkissed light - where the love light gleams - klance hotel au (not published yet) - [secret project] (not published yet) - miles to go (my zine piece for “long live”, not published yet) other wips:  - sylvix dreamscape fic - altea rising - secret santa fic - planning my wlw YA sci-fi novel 

2020 goals:

- write every day - write at least 150k words - focus more on my multichaps  - finish altea rising - finish a couple of my kl standalone fics?? not sure which ones yet, but yeah! - finish galolio fic - write burning hearts piece - work on wangxian fic w jessie! - maybe start writing something original??

notes: 

all in all, a very productive year! there were some yearly goals i did not reach (i.e. finishing my old klance multichaps.....rip) but i mean, i also ended up getting involved in (and writing fic for) several other fandoms, so i couldn’t really have anticipated that at the beginning of the year. i’m really happy with the two sylvix fics i’ve published so far, and i hope to write a lot more for them this year! 

so yeah... i have a few big projects i want to tackle in 2021. firstly the sylvix dreamscape fic is...already over 30k and i’m estimating it’ll probably end up being a total of somewhere around 50k-60k so uh yeah that’s gonna be a big commitment lol. but i think i’m gonna do the same thing i did with “cover my skin...” and make it a chaptered fic. not sure when i will start posting it but i’m hoping ideally sometime in like late february or early march, depending on a few things. 

i have a few other sylvix fics i also hope to at least start writing sometime this year. one in particular i have had fully planned out for months but ironically have not started it yet even though it was the first sylvix fic idea i came up with... but yeah i might start that one after the dreamscape fic is done. i also have a couple aus that i might tackle, but they both need a lot more fleshing out before i even begin writing them so hmm we shall see. 

besides that... i do really honestly want to finish my klance multichaps even tho it’s been...over a year since i updated either of them and idk if anyone even gives a shit anymore but i’m a completionist at heart and just wanna see them through sooo yEAH. i have at least finished writing up a (very long) summary of everything i’ve written of altea rising so far, mostly to recap myself to make sure i tie up all the loose ends in the last few chapters. i did work a bit on actually writing it in 2020 although tbh i like kinda fell off the rails once i fell into fe3h/sylvix hell BUT i still intend to get back to it because i do still have a soft spot for it and want to finish it. and long story short, i’ve decided to divide up what i’ve written of the last part into like...5-ish chapters so yeah, hopefully i can start posting those at some point in the near future. ....and uhh i don’t think i worked on red skies at all in 2020 which makes me sad bc i still love that fic dearly and want to complete it as well, it just may take me a few months to get back to it but hey if i’m able to update it at all in 2021 that would be great haha.  another thing i’m hoping is to possibly open commissions in 2021, something i said i would do in 2020 and never did but....kinda wanna give it a try, especially because i am funemployed once again. :’) AND LASTLY...i’ve been planning an original wlw YA sci-fi novel for like two years and i would really love to start at least the first draft of it this year....that would be neat. 

so yeah this post is starting to get insanely long but i’ll just wrap up with my 2021 goals and january goals, and...yeah. 2020 sure was a weird year, here’s hoping 2021 is (at least..slightly...??) better. 

2021 goals: - write every day - write at least 150k words - finish the sylvix dreamscape fic - start on like 1 or 2 other sylvix multichaps...? - finish altea rising - work on red skies again - do some fic commissions - continue planning my novel and maybe start the first draft january goals:  - finish secret santa fic - publish [redacted] - work on sylvix dreamscape fic - edit klance hotel au (hopefully send to betas by end of month at least?) - maybe work on altea rising ch. 19

[paintedrecs]

Since you've semi-recently gotten into "Gargoyles," do you have some fanfic recommendations for it? (And yes, you can include your own fics if you want. We don't mind.)

Hahaha honestly I don’t have a lot of other recommendations - when I was close to finishing the show, I got impatient and checked the David Xanatos/Owen Burnett tag on AO3, which <em>literally had six fics in it</em>. I was surprised and disappointed, and I spent a few days idly writing a fic in my own head. Since there was nothing out there for me, I had to create my own content.

At one point, I told @mad-madam-m​, “I'm talking myself out of writing a Gargoyles fic that 1 person (me) would read.” She replied, “Why would you talk yourself out of that.” I said, “.....huh, fair point I guess.” A few days later, I’d posted an 11k fic.

The funny part is that M, who had not seen the show at that point, has now written 10 Gargoyles fics (going on a 30k+ 11th) to my 4. So really, she played herself.

I’ve poked around in a few other Gargoyles fics - basically scrolled through the whole tag and checked for anything that sounded like it had sufficient Owen in it - but I’m...kinda picky about my pairings, and I’ve gotten weirdly attached to the rarest possible dynamic in this fandom. (Polyamorous Xanatos, married to Fox and dating Owen, but without any romantic/sexual OT3 trio action.) 

And I’m also very picky about how people write Owen, because there’s this odd tendency to separate Owen Burnett from Puck, treating them as different people/personalities. Owen IS Puck. Puck is Owen. Just because his face and name changes doesn’t mean he does. 

I wrote nearly 37,000 words to try to properly convey my love for this incredibly complicated, fascinating character. (Each subsequent fic was because I felt like I didn’t quite do enough in the last one. I still have a few more in me, if I can ever get around to writing them.)

So...my recommendations...really are just my fics and M’s. Sorry!! It’s sad for me, too. :(

Here they are, though, if anyone’s interested. 

My Fics

Then Fate O’errules (30k)

This two-part series has my original Owen POV fic (11k), and an 18k Xanatos POV follow up, since M wanted to know what Xanatos was thinking during all of their relationship drama. (These fics are, incidentally, the first time I ever used the E rating. Gargoyles is an oddly inspiring show.)

I’ve left this as a complete series, since it covers everything I wanted it to, and I consider it a full story.

However...I’ve been dipping back in with timestamp-style fics, so everything I’ve written for this pairing all fits within the same universe: canon-compliant, with the very slight and (I think) fully believable addition of Xanatos being romantically/sexually involved with Owen.

But a Dream (5k)

Technically this has an unhappy ending (unusual for me), but it fits between chapters of my longer series, so it’s just a glimpse of a tougher point in their relationship, when Owen was stubbornly breaking his own heart and Xanatos was massively failing at communication. I honestly really like what I did with the snapshots of their dynamic here, regardless of the angst.

Spirits of Another Sort (2k)

Another quick timestamp between episodes, because I couldn’t stop thinking about Xanatos putting so much effort into trapping a trickster, when he already had a far more powerful one at home. I also have a LOT of emotions about how incredibly desperate Puck is to stay with Xanatos, as Owen. I love exploring their love, as messy and complicated and painful as it is.

[Pending fics: Another short timestamp, from earlier in their relationship, set in the dojo. An outsider perspective on this unusual Xanatos family dynamic from David’s dad, Petros. And, if I ever manage to go back to it, a fairy tale AU that I fully outlined months ago.]

Mikkimouse’s Fics

To my incredibly great fortune, M ended up liking the Xanatos/Owen dynamic as much as I did, so she’s written a few lovely fics for this pairing, now bringing the grand total in the AO3 tag to fourteen.

The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth (2k)

M and I had a conversation some time ago about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, because how can you talk about Puck (and Oberon, the douchebag) without bringing up that play. M then produced this very wonderful snapshot from later on in the Xanatos/Owen relationship, when they go to a play together and run into unexpected emotions. It’s very tender and true to them. I love this one a lot.

Important Questions (592 words)

Xanatos gets drunk. Owen is indulgent.

Explanations (195 words)

A very short, very sweet glimpse of the Xanatos family. I love seeing Owen’s softer side, especially with young Alexander.

Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be (5k)

While all my fics are tightly focused on the Xanatos family - primarily Xanatos/Owen, with Xanatos/Fox and Alex in the mix - M has really run with the wider Gargoyles world. She’s particularly great at writing Elisa, who’s one of my favorite characters in the show (which might not be visible from my fics, since uh...Owen doesn’t particularly like her, and I’m largely writing from his perspective).

M has a fantastic grasp on Elisa, though, and has fully sold me on the idea of Elisa and Xanatos eventually becoming really solid friends. This fic has achingly great Xanatos/Owen pining, but it’s mostly about Elisa (sniping at Xanatos but grudgingly getting along with him because he’s frustratingly brilliant and ridiculously charming), and it’s A+.

New Friends and Stranger Companies (3k)

Another stop along the “how the effff do Elisa and Xanatos become best friends??” journey, with Xanatos showing up at Elisa’s apartment after the events of The Gathering. There’s some Owen/Xanatos and Fox/Xanatos, but it’s mostly about Elisa & Xanatos starting to see (to Elisa’s dismay) how much they have in common. There aren’t many people in the world who know what it’s like to be a human hopelessly in love with a very powerful...non-human.

It’s messy and complicated and Elisa begins to really get a sense of the kind of guy Xanatos truly is, beyond his immense wealth and evil plots and fondness for messing with her easy-to-mess-with roar-happy winged boyfriend.

Concerns (200 words)

Some episode timestamps, because this really is the kind of show that inspires you to fill in the gaps. First, a brief exchange between Xanatos and Owen after they’ve discovered Goliath and Elisa (their two biggest harassers and meddlers) are off on some Avalon World Tour, leaving them free to do whatever they want.

That Shrewd and Knavish Sprite (2k)

And an exchange between Hudson and Owen during The Price, when Owen got his stone hand and Hudson turned out to be a lot more perceptive and difficult than the extremely easy to predict Goliath. Also an introduction to another unexpected friendship I’m super on board with: Owen needs friends, and Hudson makes weirdly perfect sense. (They’re definitely not there yet in this fic, but I’m hoping for a sequel.)

Gargoyles Three Sentence Fics (575 words)

Some of M’s early explorations of Elisa and Alex, whom she wrote wonderfully even before watching the show.

Ill Met By Moonlight (5k)

An Elisa & Xanatos friendship? Weird, but it works. An Elisa & Owen friendship? ...Not really going to happen.

One of the things I really like about this show is that it has all these different layers of relationships. Xanatos can be deeply in love with both Fox and Owen, but that doesn’t mean that Fox and Owen are going to feel that way about each other. They get along and definitely grow closer over the years, especially with all three of them being Alex’s parents, but they’re different kinds of people who live different lives and who both happen to have fallen in love with the same man.

Similarly, Elisa and Xanatos becoming best friends doesn’t mean that Owen and Elisa will ever be close. You don’t have to like all your friends’ friends - being an adult means recognizing and knowing how to navigate those complexities.

So here we have Elisa waking up tied to her least favorite person in the world, a sentiment that Owen has no interest in refuting. But they can still work together, and Elisa can still feel and express concern for Owen when she realizes he’s not quite as put together as he always appears.

(Also really great action writing. M is fantastic at that.)

Gentles, Do Not Reprehend (1.2k)

Along with Elisa, M has really made Alex her own. She’s working on a 30k plus Alex-centric story that I am super excited about, and this is an initial window into some of how that will look. I lovelove the unusual and wonderful Xanatos Family structure, and M does such a great job of building it out in funny, emotional, believable ways.