#even if most have probably long since given up on my wips

[rycolfan]

I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year (because that really would be jumping in at the deep end). However, I've decided to write at least a few words every day this month to try to ease myself back into it. It's especially hard after such a long (but necessary) break, with everything that's happened over the last year or so, but it's a small step back towards fandom and the old me.

[thesummerestsolstice]

I would love to see more about the orc librarian of Rivendell. How did he come to choose that life? How and why did Elrond let him in? Perhaps you could put it on AO3.

Thanks for the ask!

I do want to write a proper fic with Garthaglir eventually but I've got a few WIPs going already so it'll probably be a while. For now, I'll try to answer some of your questions here:

(Content warning: this post discusses the creation of orcs, and their indoctrination and subjugation under Sauron, as well as non-graphic violence)

My headcanon is that while the first orcs were elves kidnapped by Morgoth, the later generations of orcs basically became their own species (subspecies? arguably they're still kind of elves). They're born in Angband/Mordor, undergo pretty brutal training and indoctrination from an early age, and generally don't interact with the outside world unless they're on a raid.

The only interaction orcs have with men, elves, etc are violent. They only ever see peope when they're at war, so they aren't really exposed to life outside of the constant struggle of war. They have a very warped view of the world. And because there's a language barrier, there's no way for them to speak with anyone else. Even the language they use is designed to isolate them; Black Speech was created by Sauron, not the orcs, and doesn't really allow for free expression– it's not built for that. There are a few stories and some carried over words from the original elvish orcs, but it's more myth than reality for most of them.

It's a long story, but Garthaglir ended up getting separated from his party sometime in the early Third Age, and hiding out in some elvish ruins to avoid sunlight (and the human warriors they were running from). He ended up spending weeks there, every night he'd go exploring; finding old paintings, books, toys. The remnants of a people who weren't forced into a life of war. Eventually, he realized that there was more to Middle-Earth than fighting, and that he didn't want to go back to fighting for Sauron. He ended up wandering, unsure of what else he could do with his life. And, well, doorways to Rivendell have a habit of showing up when they're needed.

As for Elrond– that's a long story. He was taught Black Speech as a survival tactic at a young age, but has also used it to communicate with orcs. There was also a kidnapping incident with some surprisingly nice orcs. You know. Normal means of cultural exchange given Elrond's life. So he was much more open to letting orcs who wanted to to escape Sauron and live a better life into Rivendell. Since Garthaglir wasn't the first orc to live there, many of the other residents were also pretty used to the idea by that point.

Bonus: Garthaglir found Mittens when she was a small kitten. She showed up outside the library one day when it was pouring rain, trying to get out of the storm. Garthaglir let her in and dried her off. They've been inseparable ever since.

[likeadeuce]

WIP Wednesday: you're on your own kid

(Challengers, Tashi + Art)

Art  got permission to take his exams early, packed up his stuff, and hung around long enough for a raucous and teary farewell party attended by most of the campus’s many athletes, who knew Art Donaldson as a friendly, reliable guy.  Tomorrow, he was going to fly to Spain, meet his parents and his training team, and catch the tail end of European grass court season. 

Tashi was going to finish her exams at the normal time in the normal way, ride back to New York with her parents, and then call her coach to confirm that she was quitting.  Not that it would come as a shock.  The school had given her a medical redshirt year to try everything with surgery and rehab, but that chance had passed, and there was no point in them holding the scholarship from someone who could use it.  If she wanted to stay in school here, her family could make the money work -- there had been insurance and savings, her business-minded parents never ones to put all their fragile dreams in one basket.  But Stanford without tennis was worse than nothing.  Her mom had gone to Wellesley and her dad to Howard; they took turns dropping hints about what awaited her down those paths: law school or consulting or maybe the Hill.  

(Tashi, who had hoarded her few, fragile dreams after all, tried not to feel betrayed when her loving parents could pivot so gracefully).

Maybe she wouldn’t call the coach.  Maybe texting was okay.  Email even better.  She never had to log back in to that account if she didn't want to.

But tonight, she and Art picked up some organic sodas and a Big Sur special from Pizza My Heart, threw everything in his stupid ragtop Jeep, and drove up into the foothills to watch the sun set over the valley.  

They spread the pizza box over the tailgate.  Tashi took out a big slice and folded it, savoring the grease and crunch for once.  Art followed her lead, which made her glad; he’d have nutritionists to measure his carbs for him soon enough.  He made (probably) innocent lustful noises over the food, then raised his soda in a toast.

“So what do you think you’ll do this summer?”

She was glad Art hadn’t asked what her plans were, a subtle difference that  would have felt judgmental since she didn’t have any.  This, she could answer honestly.   “Sulk,” she admitted.  “Find something to do for exercise that doesn’t kill my knee.  Swimming?  Tai chi? Maybe I’ll get a bike.  And, I don’t know, after that, maybe Dad has a point about the Howard thing.  D.C. is about as different as it gets from here.”

“A change might be good.”  He stretched and looked up into the cloudless sky,  almost nine o’clock and still brilliant blue overhead as bright colors touched the horizon.  The solstice was coming soon.  Tashi had always loved long days that meant more time to practice.  “Is it okay to say I’ll miss it here?” Art asked.

Art was afraid to say it because Tashi had gotten hurt so much here   Because it had been a wrong turn in her path.  Because she had tried to love this place and it hadn’t loved her back.  “You can say you’ll miss it,” Tashi granted him.  “I don’t know if I’m gonna believe it next week when you’re playing Roger Federer in fucking Mallorca, but you can say it.”

[theskeletonprior]

The Twenty-Second: Blasts from the Past

This is a casual little writing challenge to get myself into a habit, perhaps, or if not, to get some words from the meat of my brain to the pulp of the page. All of my stories for this challenge are set in the world of RAVENOT, and if you’re curious, you can take a look at my WIP intro right here. And if you’re really keen, you can read the first chapter (sort of a pilot as I toil) right here! Now onto the daily ramble.

I haven't been writing as much as I'd like, mostly because I've had some self-work that I've needed to do more. I've needed to rest, and think about how I'm using my newfound free time, and balance that with the practicalities of the world I'm living in. But also, in the wake of the announcement of a Soul Reaver 1&2 Remaster I've fallen back into some serious brainrot about a series that has been incredibly formative to me. When I saw the trailers I got so excited I was literally jumping up and down, which is not something that usually happens to me. There's also a graphic novel coming? I am absolutely frothing at the mouth, which for a skeleton is a pretty mean feat. I've loved the Legacy of Kain series since I first stumbled upon it at a time when I was too young to be playing M-rated video games. I have two tattoos featuring symbols from the series. It's the second most serious relationship I have in my life, and that's almost not a joke. I've been keeping a candle in the window for more ever since Legacy of Kain: Defiance came out. The story is incredible, the voice acting is excellent, and the character designs are absolutely bonkers. No one does vampires like this, and if they do, it's probably with thanks to Legacy of Kain. So yeah, anyway, if you're curious, there are lore videos on Youtube, and someone has also uploaded all the story cutscenes for your viewing pleasure. And it really is a pleasure. I'd recommend taking in the lore videos first, because it'll make the cutscenes easier to put together, but honestly they're pretty watchable even if you don't do that. Anyway, I've been immersed in that awesome story again, but it did strike me that it was even more formative than I've given it credit for--but that realization has actually fired me up about my writing in a roundabout way. My stories really are love letters to things like this, and thinking about it that way has been really exciting. I'd lost sight about how some of my favorite stories can make me feel, so this was like getting hit by a truck if getting hit by a truck could be awesome and affirming of one's craft. So I've been taking some time for immersion in someone else's very good work, and that has been nourishing, even if my word count hasn't budged much. (I did also work on The Bishop of Black today with my husband so I am still writing. So many projects, and only one me!) Anyway. I need it to be December urgently. Vae fucking victis, or whatever. And now, the tiniest excerpt ever:

The night wore on, the guard changing twice before the sky began to blush with the first light of day. Yarrowling came, looking weary. "'Til dawn, you said." Ravenot drew themself up, their long shadow passing over Yarrowling's wizened face, but before another word could pass between them, the first screams shook the morning air.

Until next time! Taglist: @alexanderflowerbird @void-botanist @carmillasboywife @ceph-the-ghost-writer

As always, let me know if you’d like to join or leave the taglist, and I’ll act accordingly.

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

@mk-writes-stuff you sent an ask but Tumblr has eaten this so many times but I WILL ANSWER IT

I'm just trying it in a normal post.

It's called the shop talk ask game (here)! Thanks so much for the ask!

🌓- Show us a snippet of a before and an after between drafts! What did you change and why?

This is a good one! Since TSP has been around for so long, I have five main drafts to pull from! One of the scenes that has always stayed is, of course, the discovery of the portal. I posted a WIP Wednesday a while back that went over the five different ways, but as a treat I'll post longer excerpts and go into detail about what changes.

This should be long, so it's under the cut!

Draft One (2013)

The beautiful blanket of May flowers stretched out all the way… to my house. <3 I sighed. Nothing was better than… “AAAHHH!!!” I whirled around. Aurora had disappeared! I moved the grass where she had been standing. A rock. A metal rock? I stood up, confused. I put my bag down, next to Aurora’s (which she probably dropped) and felt the rock with my hand. “AAAHHH!!!” I screamed. EVERYTHING WENT BLACK

In my defense, I was ten. No paragraphs, a random heart, no ending punctuation, random ellipses-- it's a mess! The action goes way too fast, the first sentence does nothing to convey the imagery I was going for, and Alexia and Aurora's personalities are not given a chance to shine at all in this. It's unclear what happened when Alexia touched the portal or why she passed out. Obviously, when rewriting this I decided to add a bit more detail and pondering.

Draft Two (2014)

I was so busy daydreaming that I wasn’t talking to Aurora like I usually do. I snapped out of my daydream just in time to hear a scream. I turned around as fast as I could to see what Aurora was so scared over. But all I saw was a backpack. I didn’t even see Aurora. [Chapter break] I stared in the place that I was pretty sure Aurora was standing. I stared at the backpack. I was pretty sure that it was hers. I looked at the name plate. Yup. Her handwriting. Aurora Austin Where was my friend?!?!?! I looked all around. Nothing. The only place I hadn’t looked was the ground. Why would she be in the ground? I have no idea. But it’s worth a try. I moved the grass. The only thing I saw was a rock. As I looked closer, the rock seemed to be metal. I crawled a little closer. It still looked metal. I reached out to touch it when…. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I was falling through nothingness. All I saw was a bunch of rainbows swirling around me. I kept falling and screaming. Then everything went black.

Technically, I succeeded in my original goal. The pacing is still fast, but slow enough for the reader to process that something has happened. Alexia gets the chance to look around and wonder where her friend was, but instead of authentically noticing the backpack or looking at the ground, it's like the book is forcing her to do those things so the plot can happen. The portal itself gets more description, now with the addition of rainbows swirling around Alexia, but it's unclear what happened when she actually touched the portal or why she passed out. We don't get a lot of her personality here, since most of her actions could've been done by anyone. In revisions, I knew I needed more character, descriptions, and dialogue in order to make the pacing better.

Draft Three (2015)

I had been so into daydreaming I hadn’t realized we weren’t anywhere near the meeting place. Instead, Aurora and I were in the middle of the field. I looked around, but I didn’t even see the school. “Where are we?” Aurora shrugged. “I was just following you.” She set her black-and-white backpack on the ground and started to go back where we came from. “I’ll try and find the school! I’ll come back if I do!” I watched her go for only a few feet. Then she disappeared! I ran to where the last place she was, but the only thing there was a rock. [Chapter] I stared at the spot where Aurora was standing. The rock was still there, and a few feet away was her backpack, but Aurora herself was nowhere to be found. I set down my backpack and violin and crept forward. I looked at the rock. It looked metal. I got out my metal detector just to check. Yup! Definitely metal. Then I thought of a crazy thought. What if the rock was a portal? I knew it was impossible, but it was the only explanation to why Aurora disappeared. If it was a portal, what was on the other end? Air? No air? Well, whatever was behind it, I knew I had to go. Aurora was in danger. Possibly. Actually, I don’t know. It might be Band Land over there with all the boys you can crush on. I slowly crawled away from the portal and shuddered at that thought. Band Land would be anyone who wasn’t in band’s nightmare. Band is just noise to me, so Band Land must be torture. I shook the thought away. That was a stupid thought. Maybe this was a dream. Well, usually in dreams you don’t think they are dreams, but I actually did have a dream inside a dream, and I knew I was dreaming then, but in the dream, the edges around my vision were a little foggy, and I could see perfectly fine here. Well, except for the fact I wear glasses. Without them, I can’t see worth crap. I crawled back to the rock. Last year, we learned metals rusted after rain. And it was super rainy this year. So, why was it shiny? This was frying my pour brain. Despite whatever was behind there, there was still a chance Aurora could be in trouble. Without thinking, I reached out my hand and touched the rock. I watched as the field dissolved around me. It soon seemed like all the color didn’t matter anymore, and soon, rainbows were all around me. I stood up and looked around. The field was gone. Rainbows were in its place. I looked at my feet and saw that the field hadn’t disappeared completely. I was standing on the only patch of grass above a long tunnel. A tunnel that was going down. “Oh, crap,” I said as the grass disappeared. I hovered in the air for a moment, then I started falling. Then the millions of color all came together in a blackness.

Now we finally have the addition of what I now call The Gateway before the girls find the portal. This was mainly added to help with pacing so Alexia and Aurora could react to weird things happening together (which means I had to play catch up with the world building aspect of it but yes that's why it's so convoluted... PACING!). Already, the addition of dialogue helps break up the narration and add more variety to the story. Alexia does get more character moments here, with her inner monologue and tendency to overthink (in this draft mainly), though the tangent about Band is quite weird. She did figure out the rock was a portal, so at least that's out of the way. The portal forming gets much more description than it has. However, despite her character moments, Alexia doesn't get a lot of emotions regarding the situation, and Aurora gets two lines of dialogue. Still in need of improvement! Next draft!

Draft Four (2017-2020)

Ash laughed, then stopped. “Um, Lexi…? Where are we?” I looked around. The tennis court wasn’t anywhere in sight. In fact, neither was the school. Ash and I were standing in the middle of a seemingly endless field. And as far as I knew, there were no fields anywhere near Falcon, except for the football field. I set down my backpack, binders, violin--all the crap. “I don’t have any clue.” Ash set her backpack beside my stuff, and the two of us surveyed our surroundings. “Where did—how did we get here?” Ash soon asked. I had no answer. All I saw was grass, and more grass...and more grass…. “Okay,” I said. “Maybe if we go back the way we came, we will return to the school.” “Right,” said Ash. The two of us retrieved our stuff and turned back the way we came. We walked a couple yards, but nothing. We dropped our stuff again, and sat down on the grass, our backs facing one another, though not touching. “I can’t believe this,” I said. “I’d say we were dreaming, but that’s a little cliché, and I’m never aware that I’m dreaming in my dreams, so either we’re experiencing a very strange reality, or we’re hallucinating.” I laughed weakly. “Verisimilitude. Remember that word? ‘The appearance of being true or real’. That took forever to memorize on that quiz, right?” I waited for Ash to answer, but she was silent. “Ash?” I asked, making sure she was okay. I turned around, about to say something based on her reaction, but she wasn’t there. “Ash?” I said, standing up. I looked around in all directions, but there was no sign of Ash. “Ash!?” I said louder. Still no response. “ASHLEY!” No answer. I fell on the soft, green grass and tried to hold back the tears, as I often did if I were stressed and felt lost, not a clue what to do. I had no idea what was happening, and frankly, wasn't even sure it was happening. I fell on my back to contemplate what happened when I hit something hard with my head. I cried out in pain, and shot up, rubbing the back of my neck. I turned to see what I hit, and jumped when I saw millions of colors shoot up from the ground and wrap around me. I looked around and watched the endless field disappear around me. I must’ve hit my head hard. I looked down at the ground and watched as the colors started to erase the grass around me. “Oh, sh—” The ground disappeared completely and I fell through a tunnel of millions of colors. I never knew there were so many in the world. I would’ve been in awe if it weren’t for the fact that I was falling to my death. I ended up spinning around somehow, which caused me to fall headfirst down the tunnel. At the end, I saw a bright white light. Was it Heaven? Was I dead? The light became bigger and brighter and whiter as I fell closer, and closer, and closer. Soon I landed in the light, and I felt it enclose around me, sucking me up in its brightness. I felt content, safe, and warm in the light. But then I felt a cold wind at my feet. I felt cold air-like ropes tie themselves around my ankles. I was suddenly yanked down. Then everything went black.

For the first time since Draft One, this scene doesn't have a chapter break, and I think it flows a lot better like this. The pacing is better, and we have much better characterization for Lexi. She has a constant inner monologue with her thoughts, opinions, and emotions about what's going on. There's even more dialogue now to help make the scene feel more natural. Now, where would I improve it? Well, the rope things for the portal is a weird addition. Ash still gets no true characterization. While Lexi emotionally reacts to things, I wouldn't mind more. The descriptions are bare bones, and while I can see what's happening to an extent, it's hard to feel like I'm there. Also, why did Lexi black out? Very unclear. So let's do this one more time.

This is all they're letting me post so to be continued....

[amorfista]

I have some news to share ^^

A few days ago I had a revelation while at work.

For over 8 years I've been a big fan of the Dark Souls franchise. The first Dark Souls felt to me like a journey; a full-on immersion into an incredibly complex world, marked by disparity: old royalty, splendor, trust, hope, magic, nostalgia, wonder, gold, light... but also decay, dread, betrayal, horrors, darkness, death, monsters, disease, anguish. This game left a deep print on me that hasn't faded. Ever since I played it, fantasy changed in my eyes. Dark Souls I, II and III became a standard, a reference point. Even when I didn't draw as much as I do now, I aspired to one day pay good tribute to the games that meant so much to me! And, of course, I created fan art, but I always felt like I could have given more.

Now. As you probably know I'm also a big Star Wars fan, specifically TCW fan. And a few months ago I watched The Bad Batch for the first time. This show left a print in a very similar way as Dark Souls had before. It fueled my inspiration significantly, motivated me and, most importantly, helped me form friendships that I'm incredibly grateful for ♥. So... the other day, while I listened to some Dark Souls music at work, I thought...

Why not combine my favorite show with my favorite videogame franchise?

So that's it guys. May I present to you:

-The Bad Batch: Dark Souls AU-

That's it! That's my brilliant idea! XD This is going to be a project, a BIG one. So I would like to briefly (i promise i tried) explain how it will affect my content, under the cut: (I'll also drop some older DS artwork at the bottom!)

TLDR: From now on I will focus on TBB DS AU as my main and basically sole project . Even if you didn't play DS, that's okay! I will make it people-who-didn't-play friendly, to ensure everyone enjoys the journey. However, if this isn't for you, it's okay to unfollow <3 -I would say that, since I came to tumblr this early summer, my "signature" drawings are the TBB beach episode ones. I have WIPs for this project but I've been feeling stuck for far too long, so I am going to put it on hold. In fact, I am going to put on hold virtually everything that I was planning on doing, with a few exceptions. This means that I will rarely draw anything outside this AU.

-I am CLOSING commissions. I found that they put a kind of pressure on me that doesn't feel too good, and, honestly, I'm lucky to say that I do not need the money at the moment. I'm still open to requests, though, so don't hesitate to send anything and I'll draw it if I feel like it :) I'll even try to set up a store at some point!

-The project will consist on three journeys, featuring the 6 members of the Bad Batch, and corresponding with the three Dark Souls games. Each of those journeys will, more or less faithfully, follow the events of EACH season of TBB, adapted of course to the universe of Dark Souls, AKA Dark Medieval Fantasy. This means that, until the third season of TBB is released, I won't make any DSIII-related drawings.

-The journeys are adapted to the universe, and thus, will follow the real player journey as faithfully as I can, staying within DS canon and allowing people who have played the games to enjoy my drawings. However,

-THE DRAWINGS WILL BE 100% NON-DS-PLAYER FRIENDLY. I know that my followers are not DS fans but TBB/TCW fans. I am NOT here just to please DS fans. I want TBB fans to enjoy this journey, without having to google meanings or go easter-egg hunt to understand what is happening. I will tell a story and you will only have to enjoy it.

-This is a project for myself. Both DS and TBB mean A LOT to me, and this idea had me vibrating with excitement. I am making this project to PAY TRIBUTE to two things I love. However that does not mean that I will neglect the very people who have motivated me to keep creating. I promise to still deliver my very best with every drawing.

Do not hesitate to unfollow if this isn't for you.

I can understand that some people might follow me only for my wholesome beach episode drawings or for regular, HC TBB content. And that's okay. That's what this announcement is for! To let you know. This community has given me so much and I want to give back. And if you do stay, I can almost 100% assure you that you will enjoy what's to come!! <3 It will be a long but satisfactory journey. I'LL BE POSTING THE FIRST DRAWINGS IN THE UPCOMING DAYS!

OKAY, SORRY FOR THE WALL OF TEXT!!! 😖 Here are some older DS drawings ^^ (jesus I have way more than I thought and these aren't even all of them)

AIGHT. NOW YOU KNOW IT'S SOME SERIOUS SHIT WHEN I SAY I LIKE THESE GAMES.

Anyway. Including a taglist, because I think it would be unfair not to let you guys know about this project in case anyone wants out (or to not be tagged). Send me a DM if that's the case, it's NO PROBLEM!!! I wouldn't want to tag someone who doesn't want this content.

ALSO PLEASE, ANY QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT HAVE, TOSS THEM TO ME! And thank you kindly for making it this far <3

@dukeoftheblackstar @justalittletomato @darthmaulshispanichousewife @botherbother-blog @aftergloom @badolmen @ihaventpickedausername @ohboi @stardustbee @nik-barinova @the-chains-are-the-easy-part @gen-has-green-vibes @ejfivercommander @herbalinz-of-yesteryear @eyecandyeoz @noesqape @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @staycalmandhugaclone @callmesunny04 @freesia-writes @ginnymilling @sunshinesdaydream @sev-on-kamino @cloneloverrrrr @moon-wrecked @idontgetanysleep @tech-aficionado @followthepurrgil @renton6echo @queen-jiru @shoe-bag @eyayah123 @eloquentmoon @and-loth-cat @ladyzirkonia @stardusthuntress @bambambunny @morphofan @gt13tbbart @amalthiaph @cameronirat @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @anxiouspineapple99

[hermannsthumb]

omg could we see #62 from the winter prompts list?

62. you’re my college roommate’s sibling/best friend and you’ve come to visit for a week since you’re done school but unlike some people, I have three more finals to study for so kindly fuck off

from winter writing prompts here

stuck on some of my other wips so i'm digging back through my old unfilled winter prompts!! from. well. 2018. can you believe i've been writing fic this long. insane.

enjoy some dumb (sort of?) college boys newmann! I decided to cheat with the prompt a little (a lot) so I could work it to be conceivably not an AU but instead set pre-canon, though I realize it techhhhnically screws around with the newt/herm penpal backstory just a tiny little bit....

------------------------------------

To be honest Newt’s probably paying more for year-round university housing then he would be in rent at an actual apartment at this point, but details like that get a little screwy when you start college significantly before your eighteenth birthday and grow up on campus. His dorm holds more sentimental value than his childhood home at this point. I mean, it technically is his childhood home. Newt did try the spring of his twenty-first birthday to finally move out, but he spent exactly two minutes poking through a Cambridge housing group on Facebook before it made him want to die and he gave up. At least this way he doesn't have to buy new furniture.

He has enough good will left with administration despite all the shit he's pulled to leverage certain things like that in his favor, and he struck a deal to keep his dorm in exchange for letting campus housing utilize it as an actual dorm from time to time. (Which is to say, Newt is kind of broke and needs to save money from his stipend every now and then for, you know, groceries, so he can grit his teeth and deal with a roommate when the time comes.)

His roommate at the moment is a German exchange student (maybe one or two years younger than Newt) who’s currently enrolled in a year-long study abroad program to mess around with electrical engineering—interesting enough guy with just enough neuroses and weird family issues to make Newt feel like the most well-adjusted twentysomething in the world. It's a great ego boost.

Anyway, it’s convenient. There are like three Dunks of varying quality to choose from at any given moment, and Newt only has to walk ten minutes max to any lecture hall to give class. This is especially nice on stupidly cold and snowy days like today where even a ten minute walk feels like too much.

The door to Newt’s dorm is slightly ajar when he finally gets home. In normal circumstances this would make Newt pause and think for a few seconds before stomping inside—rules of horror movies or whatever—because if his roommate is anything, it’s particular with things like that. Shoes off at the door, dishes left in the sink on a firm one-day-max limit, doors very much locked when they leave to protect all their super important possessions from being stolen, like the refurbished Playstation 2 Newt got off eBay or the Brita filter Newt also got off eBay. Very luxurious stuff.

But Newt’s cold and hungry, so he stomps inside anyway. He does kick his boots off, though—just because some people decided to stop following the dorm rules doesn’t mean Newt will—and makes sure to click the door shut behind him carefully. “Hey, dude, you home?” he calls down the hallway. Nothing. His roommate, Bastien, is usually in class at this time of the day, but finals have turned their schedules upside down, so who knows. He wiggles out of his winter coat and hangs it next to an unfamiliar green parka on the wall hooks (maybe Bastien went on a shopping spree?) and tries a second time. “Uh, you know you left the door open?”

Newt's glasses are splattered with melted snow, and he dries them on the hem of his sweater as he fumbles with the door to their room—and is more than a little surprised when he sees the blurry shape of Bastien sitting primly on the edge of his bed, smoothing out his clothing like he’s just woken up from a nap. His bed as in Newt’s bed. Newt startles backwards. “Oh,” he says. “Um. Hey?” Has he fucked up? Are they having a roommate talk about something? …Preceded by Bastien inexplicably taking a nap in his bed?

He pushes his glasses back on. The dark-haired blur on his bed comes into focus, and though the sharp angles, bad haircut, and vaguely sickly pale flush are reminiscent of Newt’s roommate, everything else about him is different, from the brown eyes to the wide frown. It’s a Gottlieb, no question, but which one Newt’s not sure. He knows there are at least three more of them, a concept which has always struck fear into Newt’s heart each time Bastien alludes to having siblings. “Hello,” the guy on Newt’s bed says. He nods. Very proper. “You’re Newton.”

“…Yeah?” Newt says.

The mysterious Gottlieb is kind of hot, which is the worst part. The whole stern professor look he’s rocking—big glasses, knit sweatervest, slightly too-big loafers—is doing him plenty of favors. Normal circumstances, Newt thinks again, coming home to a hot nerd lounging in your bed? It might almost make him believe in a higher power. It’s taking a significant amount of effort to not start flirting. Then again, he is in Newt's bed, and has been clearly been sleeping in Newt's bed, which feels like a flirtation in and of itself.

“Hermann Gottlieb,” the professor-dude says. He gets to his feet with the aid of a cane, which he’d hooked on one of Newt’s bedposts and offers a hand out to Newt like they’re both eighty years old. Mildly bewildered, Newt takes it. He's treated to a firm handshake. “I assume my brother told you to expect me? I let myself in. I hope that’s not too rude of me, but it was rather cold out.”

“Uh,” Newt says again. He’s a lot more…British than Newt expected. Very posh BBC-miniseries about posh English people with large country estates. Especially compared to Bastien, whose first language is clearly German and is very much not British—it’s just not exactly what Newt was expecting. “I mean—he didn’t totally tell me you were coming. Or, at all.” Hermann drops his hand. “I guess he could’ve mentioned it and I just forgot.” This is probably what happened. Newt’s been a little busy lately.

He decides to address the elephant in the room next, the bed thing, and determine if it was a deliberate choice or not. Maybe Bastien has made Newt out to be so irresistible in whatever he’s reported back to the Gottlieb family that Hermann decided to try his luck. This is definitely not the case, but Newt can pretend. “You’re on my bed,” he continues, and points across the room. “Bastien’s is that one.”

“Oh,” Hermann says. He looks mortified in a properly stiff-lipped way and almost trips over himself to cross the tiny dorm room, and for a split second Newt sees a different Hermann behind the dress shoes and exaggerated formalities: an awkward twentysomething probably barely older than Newt playing dress-up to be taken seriously. The belt he’s cinched to the last notch around the oversized waist of his tweed pants is stiff and cracked in places. Bastien mentioned once that one of his brothers is a math whiz who’s followed an accelerated academic path not entirely unlike Newt’s, and Newt suddenly has a strong hunch he’s looking right at him. “I’m—I’m very sorry. I didn’t realize. My flight only just got in, and the time zones—I was a bit tired.”

“No worries, man,” Newt says. He tosses his tote bag onto the Hermann-sized indentation in his bedspread and kicks his docs off one at a time, while across the room Hermann twists the handle of his cane between his hands. “You want some coffee or something? Bastien is usually out until late on Thursdays, so it might just be us for a while, sorry.” He pulls the sweatshirt he’d slung on his desk chair that morning down over his head and straightens out his glasses.

The offer for coffee is a somewhat-pitying lifeline Newt is decent enough to throw out, which he has a feeling both of them understand. Hermann seizes it desperately. “Coffee would be nice,” he says.

He trails after Newt into the kitchen. Apartment-style or not, it’s still a campus dorm, and the kitchen space is cozy at best and cramped at worst. Hermann plasters himself against a row of cabinets in a heroic effort to stay out of Newt’s way as Newt dumps some coffee grounds and water into his cheap pot and digs two mugs out of the cupboard. They avoid making eye contact at all costs while it percolates. “We have, like,” Newt gestures vaguely at the doorway, “a couch? If you wanted to sit? And not stand here?”

“I don’t mind,” Hermann says.

Newt kind of minds, but whatever, he can deal. He pours soy milk into one mug in preparation and offers some to Hermann, who shakes his head. The coffee drips slowly into the pot. Newt thinks about the stack of ungraded finals tucked into a binder in his tote bag, the other stack waiting on his desk, and the final final he still has to proofread and send off to Copytech for, like, seventy copies by tomorrow. “So, Hermann,” Newt says, and tries to think of a polite way to ask why exactly are you in my apartment during finals week? Does the guy not also have finals in England or wherever? “Are you just visiting your bro for fun, or…?”

Hermann’s face twists with a sour expression. “For a week,” he says. “Not all that willingly. I’m in town for a conference and I won’t have my hotel room until tomorrow morning. Bastien offered to let me use his couch for the night.” He adds hesitantly, “I’m due to give a presentation on Tuesday.”

A lecture: almost definitely the math whiz, then, unless overachieving is a family trait. Newt will circle back to that later. He’s not exactly a math expert, but you kinda can’t really pick up that many STEM doctorates without having at least a basic (or, you know, decently advanced) understanding of, uh, everything about math, and he’s keen to hear what Hermann plans to lecture on. “I’ll try to stay out of your hair,” Hermann adds quickly. “I know you’re busy with final exams and whatnot.”

“Ugh, no kidding,” Newt says. The coffee finally finishes with a few rattling huffs, and Newt carefully pours it into their mugs and shoves the less-chipped one over to Hermann. “I still have another left to go,” he continues. “I got stuck with three whole sections this semester, it sucks. I think they just wanted to get back at me for—well, um, I caused a minor fire in the lab last year and they had to evacuate a few buildings, and I put it out right away because I'm the king of lab safety, but whatever, everyone lost their shit anyway. It’s going to take me forever to grade everything.”

Hermann frowns at him, and Newt wonders exactly how much Bastien has shared about his American roommate—or in this case how little. “Not a student,” he explains. “Dr. Geiszler, technically, but do not call me that. I managed to convince the biology department head to convince student life to let me keep living on campus after I—well, I guess I technically graduated undergrad a while ago. After I wrapped up my first PhD?”

“Ah,” Hermann says, and the edges of his sharp cheekbones going the faintest shade of pink. “I’d assumed—Bastien didn’t mention that, is all.” His eyes flick over Newt twice, scrutinizing him and lingering on his oversized hoodie, a DIY screen-print job bearing the latest logo for Newt’s band that he tried valiantly to sell at their last show. “First PhD? Exactly how old are you?”

“Twenty-two,” Newt says. “I skipped a grade. Or ten. Would not recommend it. Anyway, Hermann, you’re some sort of super-genius, right? You were doing calculus in your crib or something?”

If Newt’s right about which brother Hermann is, that means—compared to the rest of his family—Bastien has alluded to Hermann’s existence in all but name three whole times. By familial standards Newt can only assume that means they’re practically BFFs and probably send each other birthday cards every year. If possible Hermann might be even more reserved than Bastien, though, and it’s making Newt want very badly to prod him a little more just to see what happens. Get him to poke his head out of his shell or something. “That’s pretty impressive, you know,” he adds.

Hermann flushes pink for real this time, obviously pleased with the compliment, and Newt’s equally pleased to see him hold his head a little higher. They’re getting somewhere. “It’s not precisely that dramatic,” Hermann says. “But, yes, er—I started university at a rather young age. Comparatively. Before that, my father sent me abroad when I was eight for my schooling. I’d shown a knack, I suppose, for mathematics, and…”

Abroad—Newt guesses that explains the different accent. Not unlike Newt himself. He wonders if Hermann’s family ribs him for the lapses in his German the way Newt’s family does (America is rotting your brain, Newt!), though maybe somewhat less gently. “And?”

“I’ll finish my doctorate in the spring,” Hermann finishes, with a small smile.

“Dr. Gottlieb,” Newt says. “Nice. I like the sound of that.”

Hermann suddenly spills a large amount of coffee down the front of his sweater. He doesn’t seem to notice, though his ears (which stick out just a little) do go red, so Newt doesn’t say anything.

It’s unfortunate how cute Hermann is. Newt briefly debates the ethics of hitting on your roommate’s hot British brother and whether or not it breaches some sort of sacred roommate code. On the one hand, Hermann is only here for a week, so it’s not like they can get up to too much, and Bastien himself will be packing everything back up for Germany in like, six months tops when his study abroad program ends in the spring anyway. And besides, it’s not like Newt and Bastien are tight or anything like that. On the other hand—I mean, that would be weird, right? You can’t just hit on your roommate’s hot British brother, especially not when he's sleeping on your couch for the night.

Newt has over a hundred final exams to grade, and a suitcase to pack for his own trip (albeit one that’s a maybe-thirty minute ride on the commuter rail) out to his dad’s for the break. He kinda wants to hit on Hermann.

He’s going to hit on Hermann.

“Sooooo,” he begins, “you got any plans, or—?”

And it’s then that Hermann’s cell phone begins to buzz in his pocket. “Ah,” Hermann says. “One moment—apologies.” He pulls out a battered flip phone that looks like it’s been passed down from at least two other people and squints at the screen. “My brother,” he explains, “at last. He’s finishing up at the library and wants to meet for dinner.”

“Oh, right,” Newt says. “Of course. Duh.”

Hermann closes his phone slowly and hazards a small, but considering, glance at Newt, and Newt has a fleeting suspicion he’s not the only one weighing the pros and cons of risky flirting. He might just be flattering himself, though. “…Would you like to join us?” Hermann says. “I’m sure Bastien wouldn’t mind. It might be…” He works his jaw a few times. It’s incredibly cute. He’s clean-shaven in a way Newt hasn’t managed to be since he turned seventeen (the Geiszlerian curse of thick facial hair whether you want it or not), and it makes him look even more like a weird kid trying very hard to be an adult. “Fun.”

It's a bad idea. Hermann’s only here for a week, and he’ll clearly be busy with his conference and his big talk and all that, and then they’ll be back on opposite sides of the Atlantic probably forever—Newt would just be setting himself up for heartbreak. And six months of awkwardly dodging his roommate, which is possibly worse. Ugh. Being responsible sucks. “I shouldn’t,” he finally sighs. “I have to finish—”

“—your finals. Of course,” Hermann says. “Yes, of course, I’m sorry. I forgot. I’ll let you be.” He sets his mug on the counter by the sink. “Thank you for the coffee.”

“Sure, dude,” Newt says.

Hermann works his jaw again, chewing at his lower lip, and then says so quickly Newt almost misses it “If you’re around next Tuesday, perhaps you would like to see my talk?”

Newt tries very hard to be chill. “Yeah, totally,” he says. “That would be awesome. I think I can make it.”

Hermann nods solemnly. “Excellent. I’ll ask Bastien to give you the details later.”

He finally begins to dot at the coffee stain on his sweater with a handkerchief he pulls from a different pocket, and Newt squeezes past him to rinse their mugs out. (No dishes in the sink overnight.) His elbow brushes against Hermann’s as he dries them with a dishtowel. Hermann makes no effort to move away from him, and this close he smells like stale cigarette smoke. Newt can imagine him standing out in the rain in a dreary English landscape somewhere, maybe in the oversized coat he saw hanging by the door, scowling and crushing cigarette filters beneath his cane.

There’s something strangely magnetic about Hermann.

“Hey, listen,” Newt says. He dries his hands off on his pants. Hermann looks at him, abandoning his efforts to clean himself up. “You wanna swap emails or anything…? Maybe we could talk. Collaborate on, uh, something.” He has absolutely zero idea of Hermann’s subfield so he doesn’t know exactly what they’ll collaborate on just yet, but he’ll think of something. Make some notes during the Tuesday lecture. Newt has three PhDs and counting, he can come up with an excuse to talk to a cute boy, okay, he’s not twelve. He’d ask for Hermann’s number like a normal human being if he could dream of affording the international texting rate.

Hermann gives him another stiff nod and the shadow of a smile, which Newt hopes means an enthusiastic yes, Newt, I’d love to be your penpal!, so Newt fishes a pad of paper and a pencil out from the kitchen junk drawer and they take turns printing their emails out as neatly as possible. Hermann folds the slip of paper with Newt’s in half and slips it into his top pocket. “It was very good to meet you, Dr. Geiszler,” Hermann says, and he offers Newt a parting handshake.

What the hell, Newt thinks, and takes it.

It takes ten months and a split in reality at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean for Hermann to get around to emailing Newt. Newt expects they’ll have a lot to collaborate on in the near future.

[lusthurts]

writing meme about me!

no official tag but thought maybe time to share more about myself! mostly because I want to know more about you all as well, and @sperrywink extended an invite to seblaine mutuals so I will do the same!

How did you get into writing fanfiction?

I discovered it on accident as most of us do - I was on the Glee wiki I think? There was a link to select fanfics on the ship pages at the time, and I started reading one of the Finchel ones, and it was game over for me lol - I started writing my own a while after that, and I participated in a variety of Glee RPGs that inspired me to write other characters. I was in one of those massive Glee RPGs in like 2011 on fanfiction.net, and it was very formative for me in terms of connecting with the rest of the fandom and wanting to do more of that. RPGs are also so great for exposing you to ships you never would've liked or even thought of before, although all my current ships came from elsewhere lol

oh, and there was the whole escapism from family shit that was going down at the time thing - that was a huge factor for sure

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

I've almost exclusively been writing for the Glee fandom since the beginning, although the ships I've written for have changed drastically throughout that time. I've dabbled in some other things as well depending on my special interest at the moment, but I always come back to Glee. Other fandoms I've written for include The Outsiders, Degrassi, How I Met Your Mother, 13 Reasons Why, Girl Meets World, and Skam ! none of these are published anywhere anymore though as far as I know, it's all far too embarrassing (and yes I'm aware that's the most bizarre mix of fandoms ever)

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

at least 12, I wanna say I started around 2012ish?

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I genuinely think it's about equal, but it comes in waves. Sometimes I'm reading more, sometimes I'm writing more. I'm almost always working on something and I'm also almost always in the middle of reading a long fic.

5. What is one way you've improved as a writer?

I think I've gotten a lot better at writing comedy and ensemble dialogue. I like writing the silly goofy scenes with large friend groups a lot, especially when I feel like I've nailed the character's voices enough that I don't even need dialogue tags to know who said each line.

6. What's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Ohio geography lmao - I like always have Google Maps pulled up trying to map out different locations and how far drives would be, etc. I also have researched a ton about various colleges (especially for my current WIP since these characters are actively applying for college rn) and France (never been there, constantly have to write stuff that takes place there).

7. What's your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

I genuinely do love all comments! I especially loves one that are specific/mention parts of the chapter or the fic that they enjoyed or thoughts that they had while reading. I also like chatting about the characters and canon and their predictions/hopes for the rest of the fic. The length doesn't really matter so much - I love long comments and short comments, and I try my best to respond to all of them.

8. What's the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

Idk I kinda write a lot of infidelity and toxic relationship stuff. Seblaine is the main ship I write for nowadays, and the nature of their relationship lends itself to a lot of infidelity in their process of getting together. I also just love writing angst, so even when I'm writing established relationships, they end up being sort of toxic throughout especially given the traits of both characters. I just find it more fun and probable to write a slightly toxic relationship than a 100% healthy one.

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

PWP - I struggle so much with writing smut, although I like to think I've gotten a bit better at it recently. I'm also trying to get better at writing ensemble fics, but it's definitely a struggle for me to give each ship/character enough attention. And I'm pretty awful at world building, so anything remotely fantasy, sci fi, etc. is a huge struggle for me.

10. What is the easiest type?

slow burns! I've gotten so much better at delaying the characters from getting together for a really long time in fics and it's soooo fun. I prefer a character centric slow burn with lots of sexual tension and an arc that involves characters moving from enemies/friends/strangers to lovers over the course of many months or years.

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I like to write outside of my own home - something about physically relocating makes me way more productive. I write a ton on planes (I travel a lot for work). I also love a good coffee shop, Panera, park, library, etc.

I write in Word and publish to AO3 - used to write in Google Docs but it's so slow and laggy so I much prefer Word. Used to publish on fanfiction.net but I will never go anywhere else now that I've transitioned to AO3, the far superior fanfic site lol

I am most productive with writing either during the day if I'm somewhere other than at home or in the middle of the night in bed - my most productive hours at home are between like midnight and 3 am

12. What is something you've been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

I recently got over my fear of PWP and published a one shot that I'm very proud of. I have many ideas for things similar that I'd like to work through in the future!!

Most of this is fandom specific though - I'm super intimidated to write for big fandoms because I've gotten so comfortable in the Glee fandom, especially writing Seblaine which has a relatively small audience in comparison. I'd love to write Marauders, but that fandom is HUGE and very intimidating because there is so much lore and fanon to mess up. I hope to give it a shot one day though!

13. What made you choose your username?

it's a song lyric! lust hurts comes from the song "Barcelona Boots" by Arlie - the lyric goes "Lust hurts, could you bear it for me?" and I thought that was very fitting for someone like me who's obsessed with romance in fiction but can't be bothered with it in my real life

any of my mutuals are welcome to participate! I'll specifically throw in a tag for @daisyishedwig @calsvoid @xonceinadream @andyandersmythe bc these are the ones that come up first when I go to tag haha

[singsweetmelodies]

hullo everyone 👋❤️ it's me again, hi, and i'm back with yet another too-long, probably too-sentimental post. this one is also about a f1 rpf milestone of mine, because of course it is, but this time it's about YOU as well.

allow me to set the scene a little first: a few weeks ago, i was double-checking the date on my first ever f1 rpf fic so i could make my sappy "i can't believe it's been a year you guys" post at the right time. i was going through my AO3 stats, and in so doing i happened to glance over at my little user subscriptions count - and proceeded to nearly fall out of my seat, because that counter was at 98. WHAT.

now, i'm not usually the kind of person who makes a big deal about amounts of followers, or whatnot. that's not really why i'm in fandom. but there is one exception, and that exception is: AO3 user subscriptions. because an AO3 user subscription is like... you're pretty much saying "i like this person's writing so much that i want to get a fucking EMAIL when they post a new work." to me, that's one of the biggest compliments ever. (maybe it's just because i personally am very stingy about my AO3 user subscriptions, lmao - i think i have about twelve, currently, if it's even that much. so the fact that 98 of you liked my writing enough to want that? and it's only barely been a year since i posted my first fic to this account? that blew my fucking mind, in the best way ever.)

i remember thinking to myself, "ohhh, if i get a few more in a couple of months' time, i need to do a phoebe and have some sort of a fic giveaway to celebrate the big 100 <333"

well, today i checked again, and there are a hundred and seven user subscriptions to my AO3. a hundred and seven. and THAT is just... well fuck me, i don't think i even have the words to express how much that means to me. over a hundred of you ACTUALLY LIKE MY WRITING THAT MUCH??? i can't quite reconcile it in my head, but... it means everything. it really does. i am so, so honoured - and also mildly teary-eyed, and definitely about to say a whole bunch of way-too-sappy things. this fandom is just so incredible, and supportive, and... AAAHHH, i love you all so so much. thank you so much for loving me back ❤️❤️❤️ unlike the monaco gp and charles SORRY, i had to do it. ouch. i had to 🥲🙈❤️

anyways! i did promise a fic giveaway, even if it was just to myself, so GIVEAWAY TIME IT IS!! you have all given me so much - endless support, smiles and love - so this is me officially opening up my writing folder to give something back to you, in turn ❤️

how this is going to work is:

step 1: you have to interact with this post in some way. (and by that i mean either reblog or comment, not just a like. it doesn't have to be a complicated comment or anything - just a ❤️, if you want. but just something so i know you're not a bot, lmao.) you have until Friday the 23rd of June - which is to say, 16 days from now. yes, sixteen. of COURSE. <3

step 2: i collect the names/URLs of everyone who interacted, and put them into a random name picker thingy. i will then use that to - randomly! - pick a P1, P2 and P3. (the emphasis on "random" is because I KNOW there are going to be some of my friends accusing me of fixing the results. I'M NOT GOING TO, GUYS. smh smh smh. it's going to be completely random, i swear it on my honour as a piarles shipper. 🙏)

step 3: PRIZES 😍🏆

for P1, what i'm offering is the following: an afternoon of unlimited access to the entirety of my WIP folder (including longfics, snippets, ideas and dreams and everything in various states of completion.) you then get to choose any WIP/snippet/idea you like the most, and i will write that in full and dedicate it to you. <3

for P2: also an afternoon of access to my WIPs folder, but excluding the longfic ideas - because i love you guys, i do, but i'm only human. i can't write all my longfic ideas at once, much as i wish i could 😅 bar longfics, though, everything else is on the table - you get to go through it all and pick whatever you like the most, and it'll be yours.

and for P3: pretty much the same as P2 - your choice of whichever of WIP idea (bar longfics) that you like the most, fully written and dedicated to you :D

why am i doing it like this and not offering a "prompt me whatever you'd like" type thing? well, if you really want, i can do that. the thing is just - i have way, WAY too many WIP ideas, and i'll probably never get to writing even a quarter of them if i don't give myself some form of accountability. and i feel pretty safe in saying i have enough WIP ideas that there's probably something in there for everyone. so it's a two birds one stone type of thing - a gift fic for you, and assurance that i will actually write at least some of my WIP ideas for me. (also idk about you, but i always adore hearing about other writers' ideas and seeing the ways their brains work 👀)

if you guys would prefer a prompt thing, though, then we can absolutely do it like that too! after all, at the end of the day, this is for you. i want you to like it, and think it's a cool idea, and celebrate this one with me <333

because this is, from the bottom of my heart, a thank you. thank you to each and every one of you who hit that "subscribe" button on AO3, and helped me reach a fandom milestone i didn't think i would achieve for a long while yet. thank you for the endless support and enthusiasm and love. thank you, thank you, thank you. and i love you all ❤️❤️❤️

[n7punk]

2023 Writing Wrapped!

I think I forgot to do this last year but I was a little burnt out at the time. I had so much fun writing this year I wanted to do a little retrospective/celebration for it (which I encourage everyone to do! Even if you wrote just one fic, take a second to congratulation yourself for accomplishing it).

I wrote 34 fics and updated 118 times this year. Almost half of those were for the Children of the Crystal series (16 fics) but that series was so fun and clocks in at 121k so I'm totally okay with that. If anything, that's a bit of equalizing, because I know my fics are a lot longer on average than most people's since I write a lot of longer AUs (quick math off the top of my head is about half my fics are longer AUs) so now my words-per-fic average is probably a bit closer to usual lol. Actually that got me curious and my average is 20,176 which is honestly lower than I was expecting but still almost certainly higher than average since I've seen a lot of profiles without a single fic that long. Okay I'm a nerd and I did the math and it was only 21,041 before this year which is way more surprising since I really would have thought it was more.

Anyway, I posted 610k words this year between all my fics (though I wrote more in WIPs and upcoming projects). I had so much fun with a lot of the fics I did this year. Children of the Crystal is still a stand out for me, but I'm SO proud of 'the long way down' and I spent the first half of the year pretty feral for each idea as I tore through Hurricane Adora, As Many Lives As It Takes (To Be With You), Superzero, City of Angels, Trade Today For Tomorrow, and CotC of course. February through August I averaged 12 updates a month which is. insane. I updated daily for 12 days in a row in July/August for CotC, and I spent most of that fic series updating every other day.

A lot of that creative energy came from the health stuff that has been bogging me down for a few years (and especially last year) improving, and though I'm still dealing with that, I'm doing a lot better and it has really felt like rediscovering my creative passion. I had a span from like March-ish trhough August I called my "unhinged era" between how feral I was for my ideas, how much I was updating, and just how wild some of those ideas were lol. My slow down at the end of the year came from starting a new job that was very demanding and especially exhausting with my health issues, plus health issues for the rest of my family, but I've still been averaging updating once or twice a week since, so I'm happy with that given everything that has been going on.

Now let's get to the two big ones.

Writing streaks: Definitely not for everyone, but for me they're really motivating and 100% the reason I was able to keep up momentum these last three months with work. I wrote every single day this year. I still can't believe that. Sure, some days it was literally 50 words at the end of the day when I was exhausted, but I also had my highest single-word count day since I started recording them this year at 12,738 on July 18th when I was writing CotC. My previous record was 94 days in a row. 364 is a huge leap. I don't know where I'm going to go with my streak from here. On one hand, it was hugely motivating. On the other, you always want to be careful to prevent burnout. For now, allowing myself to count days where I barely do anything as long as I engage with my WIP seems like a good middle ground since it keeps me motivated and connected to what I'm writing while letting me mostly take time off. I'm exploring more creative hobbies like painting in my free time, though, and as long as I've created that day I don't necessarily feel the need to write, so we'll see if I reconsider my writing streak as a "creating" streak in the future, but for now I'm just going to see how long I can go.

And the final one... my stupid goal.

I can't remember if it was at the end of last year or the start of this one when an anon pointed out how much I had written and I realized I was something like .99% of all Catradora fics on AO3, but my ridiculous goal for this year was to get my fics to 1% of the entire Catradora tag. This goal... I half reached. It takes a bit of explaining.

First, when I first set that goal, I think needed to write twenty-something more fics to reach it. Obviously, I well exceeded that goal at 34 fics, but as I was writing, so was everyone else, so the number of fics I needed to write to reach 1% increased. In the sense of my original benchmark, I definitely passed my goal.

Second, as I write this, AO3 shows there are 11,632 Catradora fics. You can consider 1% of this to be either 116 or 117 depending on rounding. I have 117 She-ra fics, but one of those is a Glimbow fic with no mention of Catradora, so that takes me to 116. However, one of those 116 is tagged as Adora & Catra because it's the CotC fic from when they're small children and meeting for the first time. I consider it a Catradora fic, but it's not actually in the tag and thus doesn't contribute to it. As such, I've fallen short at 115/117, but I really do consider this goal complete for this year given that I passed the initial milestone, the rounding makes the final number debatably 116, and I do actually have 116 "Catradora-centric" fics. That said, I'm very aware those are technicalities and I have a special celebration planned for when I actually, officially become 1% of the tag, so look out for that :) It'll be a great way to celebrate the new year. I'm hoping/planning to do it in the next week or two.

The future: I'm ending this year and starting the next trying to clean up a bunch of WIPs since my fic folder is getting a little ridiculous with the (mostly Outside of the War) one-shots I've written one scene or just a description for, which feels like a really fitting way to end off the year, accomplishing my goals and making everything neat and tidy. I have like 7~ to work though, though my actual goal is maybe 4-5 since I don't want to "force" myself to work on an idea if I'm not feeling it at the second, but I also have a longer AU calling my name, and I don't want to ignore an idea interesting me either... so we'll see, but I'm excited for everything I'm working on right now, and that feels really good. I finished last year in kind of a rough place writing/creativity wise, and I'm finishing this year really excited for everything I did and everything upcoming, so that feels pretty great :)

Thank you to everyone who read and commented this year! I know I ran out of energy to keep up with comments a lot, but they really made me smile so much and I appreciate them so much. Some days they were the difference between the motivation to write 1000 words versus 50. Thanks for another great year!

[umbracirrus]

WIP Wednesday! 💛

I actually scheduled this WIP post yesterday to be posted today just because we had a new internet provider set up today and I didn't know if there would be any issues. Luckily, it seems to be running great! Keeping it scheduled to post though!

A decently long WIP this week, with both Elyse and Balgruuf getting some sense talked into them after their argument about her fine. I'm probably posting a good chunk of a chapter of The Perfect Storm here 😅

I'm tagging quite a few of you this time!! Hehe :3 But of course no obligations to share if you don't want to! Tagging @thequeenofthewinter, @pitiable-arisen, @throughtrialbyfire, @bostoniangirl21, @your-talos-is-problematic, and anyone who wants to share their WIPs! 💛

------

“Odahviing told me that you said that Jarl of Ahrolsedovah was helping you, protecting you by giving you shelter in his palace.” Paarthurnax stated, his words spoken to her, though it came across as more of an observation than anything. “Has this now changed, Dovahkiin?”

Elyse scowled frustratedly as she huddled against the wall atop the Throat of the World, her borrowed and oversized clothing given to her by Arngeir from the surplus donations left for the Greybeards held tightly against her body. “He was,” she grumbled, watching as the old dragon slowly moved to shield her from the most frigid of the winds. “Until he took matters into his own hands. The person I was trying to hide from decided to try and fine me for... reasons. I responded by ignoring it, because I didn’t commit any crime! Is wanting independence and the ability to make my own decision a crime?!”

Paarthurnax’s eyes narrowed towards her with how heated she was getting, so she took a few deep breaths before tilting her head back and sinking down into the snow beneath her. “But it was Balgruuf who took that from me instead, by handling my fine.”

 “Did he tell you why he did so?”

“... N-Not really, no...”

That was a lie, and she knew it. Paarthurnax likely did too. He’d yelled that she was endangering Whiterun. But she didn’t know any more than that – how exactly was she endangering the hold? Or was he just frustrated that she hadn’t done anything and used that as an excuse?

“Then how do you know that he was, in your own words... ‘taking matters into his own hands’?” The dragon’s head lowered towards her, in a manner reminiscent of when she was a child and her father would kneel down to talk to her to let her know that what she had done was either wrong or reckless but didn’t want her to think that she was in trouble. “Perhaps... He thought that he was helping. That you would be safer if he were to do so. There are many questions which can be asked... But can only be answered by him.”

Elyse wavered in her frustration towards Balgruuf, before shaking her head, allowing it to bubble up once more. “It doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t discuss it with me first.”

“Hm. That is... True, yes, but would you have done it yourself even if he were to discuss the issue with you?”

She knew that he was correct, and frowned as she folded her arms over. “I... I don’t like burdening others with my issues. It just drags others into the chaos that has been my life since I made that stupid decision to leave Cyrodiil years ago. Balgruuf took on enough of them by letting me into his home...”

“Have you considered... That sharing your burdens may make them lighter? This Jarl seems to be looking out for your best interests, Dovahkiin. That is not something to be taken lightly. The Greybeards have also spoken to me of this Jarl... this Balgruuf. When you brought war to High Hrothgar to stop the unruly eldest, he was one of the few who did not want violence to dictate the peace. Who did not throw vitriol or bitter words. If this is true, I doubt that malicious intentions are behind his actions.” Paarthurnax rose once more, allowing the frozen winds to once more brush against her, and forcing her to stand up and conjure a small flame in her hands to counter some of the cold. “You should talk to him... That will help with clearing your mind and easing your burden. Perhaps the same will go for him too. I would imagine that he would be worried for you, as would everyone else that you left behind.”

As much as she wanted to argue back with him, something stopped her. Her anger had fizzled out, and had been replaced with a gut-wrenching anxiety. People would be worried. It was the middle of winter, she had left on her own without a word of where she was going... And she had left in what was worse than a bad mood. For all that they knew, she could have gotten herself killed.

She needed to get back to Whiterun.

“Sahvot, Dovahkiin. Have faith. Things may not be as bad as you currently perceive them to be.”

---

"I don't know what you are expecting me to say, Balgruuf. That you want me to pity you over this situation? That you want me to give you a little pat on the back and say 'there there'? Because if you do, I am most certainly not-"

"What? No, Irileth, I just-" Balgruuf took a deep breath as he ran his hands down his face. "Look, I am just trying to get my head around this all," he stated, starting to pace back and forth across his bedroom. He hadn't even wanted to be there in the first place, but after being caught in his study with some documents which needed reading through by Frothar – who had promptly tattled – he had been kicked out of there to get some rest. "Surely not having a bounty which was getting bigger by the week is a goodthing? I don't get what about that was enough to make Elyse angry or leave the way that she did!"

Irileth let out a frustrated puff of air from her nose. "Because you made an important decision about her without her. It's damn well obvious!"

"I needed to protect Whiterun-"

"And you promised to protect her."

"I-" His throat felt dry as not a single word came to him at that direct statement which made him freeze in his tracks. When he had made the decision to pay off that fine, his intentions had been to do achieve both of those statements – protecting both Whiterun and the Dragonborn. Getting Ulfric off both of their backs had to have been beneficial, he had been certain of it. The looming threat of an attack had been on their doorstep, it had been pushed back to give them space to breathe. But now… he was feeling uncertain. Uneasy.

"You welcomed her into Dragonsreach so that she could be safe."

His jaw tensed as he turned his back to his housecarl, and pressed his hands into the top of the drawers which were to his side. For a moment, he took in a few deep breaths to calm himself, in the hopes that the point had been made and he could take a moment to just think.

"For all that she knows now, all it takes is Ulfric Stormcloak throwing his demands about for him to get what he wants."

Irileth's words were both eye-opening yet horrifying. He had always appreciated her bluntness and her ability to assess a situation, but hearing it all directed at him now…

"How long will it be until you hand her over to him, saying that it's for the good of Whiterun?"

He had messed up.

"I would never-!"

"And how would she know that, Balgruuf?!"

[phereshift]

Tagged by @cozy-fish-crow 🥰 rules: answer and tag nine people you want to get to know better and catch up with.

Favourite Colour: It changes like every year but at the moment it is a lovely orange-yellow. Probably helps that it's the colour I overuse as an overlay layer for all my art too.

Last Song: Something off of lime cordiale's discography... I think it's because I hear their music at work (coworker has an aus indie playlist) but they've been my latest background noise while I do uni work and I've been SO productive omg. I've just had them on shuffle. Currently Reading: I haven't really made time for anything other than some self-indulgent fanfics tbh :C My last novel was Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. Currently Watching: If you ignore how long it's been since I watched an episode then it's the clone wars tv show... I can't watch tv while I draw so I'm never usually watching anything though q-q

Currently Craving: I need strawberries back in season so that I can have homemade strawberry milk asap. I was also craving watermelon last week but that's just the iron deficiency :') Coffee or Tea: tea! Hobby to try: I recently tried out gouache (I've been staring non-stop at Angela Sung's work, her gouache is SO good) so... I'd like to put more time into that. Otherwise I've also learned how to sharpen my pencils for figure drawing with a box cutter + sandpaper and it's mildly reignited an old interest in wood carving. Current AU: Well. For starters, I always have an infinite number of things going at any given time and that includes fic lmao. My writing is also mostly just for myself but I do have a Star Wars AU exploring Obi-wan (maybe a little bit of quinlan too) with themes of post-mission recovery and community support systems in the drafts somewhere. I think this makes it sound more put together than what it is (which is a simple, self-indulgent fic haha) but I love exploring the Jedi community even if my Star Wars knowledge is limited. Also including my current personal art WIP since I'm more likely to finish it/I am more of an artist than a writer. Which is Tusken Raider fanart that I am absolutely suffering through... one of those 'I got most of it done months ago and now I have to find the motivation to go back and finish it' T_T

Tragically I am not bold enough to tag people so I will be taking the coward's way out and doing an open tag!

[two-reflections]

how you feel about your current WIP

Which one, hahahahaaa...

Thanks for asking, it's always good to do a WIP audit. Let's do it as a numbered list. Only going for the multi-chapter stories here. I also have a lot of oneshots in varying states of completion.

Non Warhammer 40k stories are under the Read More.

Carrion's Heir - Technically not a WIP, but not fully uploaded yet. It would have been a better story if I hadn't had to follow a set of prompts, but that was how the challenge I wrote it for worked. Still, I love the main character and his story arc. May come back to it in the future.

Of Steel and Flesh - Started off as a quick series of campaign-inspired drabbles, but became its own thing. I kind of love it and kind of hate it sometimes. Maybe I should have just left it as a bunch of tiny vignettes. I am committed to finishing it, though. Again, I care a lot about the main characters, and I REALLY like the Dark Mechanicum sect in it.

Even in Death - MY BELOVED. MY DARLING. MY SWEET, SELF-INDULGENT DREADNOUGHT-BASED BABY. Putting this one off to finish other projects hurts so bad. I want to write the rest of this ASAP.

[Unnamed Techmarine Story] - This is about my character Bai'keti's 30 years on Mars. It's less about his training and more about what being so far from his brothers and culture is like, the difficulty of adopting a new culture, and his intense friendship with another techmarine in training from the Dragonspears chapter. I'll probably never upload this one because I'm not too familiar with what Mars in 40k is like beyond "Admech and the Void Dragon live here." Plus, it's based on my own time as an International student at a particularly weird British University. It makes me feel nostalgic for the rare good times, and also SO freaking glad I survived my time and am not there any more. Hated my Uni so much. This WIP is also on the back burner at like 12k words, will probably pick it back up in the autumn.

[Unnamed Salamander Story] - The story of Val'ten's first year in the Salamanders' 6th company. Includes a romance between him and his brander priest, but it's mostly about various missions and adventures, how he settles to life as a Salamander brother, and his attempt to grow a little garden in his downtime. This one is my most long-term wh40k project since I came up with Val'ten in 2017 for a completely different (and much worse) fic. His story has been stuck at around 60k words for months because it's on the back burner while I finish other things, but this is the story I think about in the shower, when I'm waiting in a queue, when I'm on the train. It's so important to me.

Other fandoms and Original Work

The Name Within - A leftover from my Kingdom Hearts Days. It's about Isa straightening out his head after everything that happened in KH3, and coming to terms with perhaps never functioning like a normal human after experiencing literal dehumanization at a pivotal age. I've linked it because it's on Ao3, but I wouldn't bother checking it out, it's probably not worth reading unless you really like this one particular dude. It's been missing around two paragraphs to finish for years. I should just bash those out and finish it, but it's hard to find the keen for it now.

Big Name on Campus/The Dream He Was Given - Temporary names for two fanfics based on a very old Sci-Fi manga. One is a weird fix-it-fic, the other is based on the University career of my favourite character, the chronically ill director of a medical center. I know, another university story, but I swear this one's not primarily based on my experience; rather, on watching my parents' students over the years. Decent chance I will never finish these two, there's no English-speaking audience for this comic so they're only for me. I love BNOC, though. The other, I could take or leave.

Twisted Links - Original story. After a series of international incidents and corporate takeovers, HR Agent Marley from the Pan-Martian Corporation ends up as temporary site director for a radio telescope in the Caribbean with secret instructions to ensure the Corp's permanent control of the site. Unbeknownst to Marley, local engineer and anti-colonialism activist Victor is struggling to hide a rogue Pan-Martian AI which caused a major international incident several decades before. Will Victor be able to keep the AI secret, or will Marley find out that there's a second being living inside Victor's head? Whose vision for the future of the telescope will become reality, or will the whole place shut down? The first 20k words of this story secured me a first-class Master's degree, but just as I was gearing up to write the rest, the catastrophic demise of the telescope where I grew up happened. I miss this story and want to go back to it but... Trauma...

[missmungoe]

Hellooo!

I was wondering is the fic about kid luffy sleeping in the bar and shanks carrying him upstairs in AO3? I mean it probably is not because I have already re-read most of them.

If it is not I think it would be great for download and easy access.

And I have stressful times right now, have lots of exams and work. I have to take my mind out of them a little. Soooo can I ask kindly are there any snippet that you can share? I mean I think I already memorized most of them especially Andromea 😄 WHİCH WAS JUST EPİC. Buggy and my girl Makino what a duo.

And finally thank you for all your amazing stories.💙

Hi! I haven't posted that fic to AO3 (yet) because it's a scene from a longer one-shot. I know it's been a WIP for ages and that I could just post the scene and be done with it, but I also really want to finish this fic, so once I have, I'll post it on AO3 ;)

And I'm so sorry to hear you're having a stressful time! I'm not sure this snippet will make it any less stressful, but here's a sneak peek of my next update, which believe it or not is Bind Me to the Tide - aka, the Soulmate AU I started and then didn't touch for three years (oops). But hey, better late than never!

She ran.

The darkened cottages disappeared as she hurtled past them, half-stumbling in her desperation, her skirt gripped between her hands and her breaths gasping. She didn’t even know where she was going, knew only that she had to run, even as she felt the tug where she’d cut her finger, like an invisible tether, drawing her back towards the bar, and the captain she'd left there.

The look in his eyes was burned into her mind, the moment of recognition she'd feared ever since he'd walked through her doors. Or maybe it was in her soul she felt it, a brand carved as deep as the scars on his face, and a knowledge just as cruel: that there was no running from the truth, or from him, now that he knew what she was.

She ran so hard she tasted blood, her breaths sobbing as she stumbled through the dark, the village behind her as the forest opened up ahead. It was almost too dark to see, nothing but the moon to guide her, the star-strewn sky weighing heavily over the fields where the windmills waited, their sails silent in the still air.

An idea seized her, and before she could second-guess it she’d climbed the fence, nearly falling in her hurry and scraping her palms on the rough planks, too panicked to remember that he’d be able to feel it, but she wasn’t thinking as she ran through the tall grass, her boots slipping in the soft soil as she scrambled for the door to the windmill.

The darkened interior greeted her, the round chamber lit by the shaft of moonlight piercing the mill’s only window. A stack of crates leaned against the far wall, and a ladder climbed up to the level above. As a child, it had been everything from a castle to a pirate ship, climbing the ladder with her imaginary sword, or a book tucked under her arm; had been whatever her imagination had needed it to be at any given moment.

Now Makino needed it to be a hiding place, although it wasn't chores or a scolding she was hiding from, a little girl's worries, back when she'd known no greater fear than her mother's disapproval.

Huddling behind the crates, her knees drawn up to her chest, she tried to be quiet, but even with her brow pressed to her knees, she couldn’t stifle her shivering breaths. Her heart was beating so loud it hurt, and she wondered, terrified, if he could feel that, too.

But even if he felt it, the bond only bound them through their pain; as far as Makino knew, it couldn’t tell him where she was.

Maybe he wouldn’t think to look for her here, if he thought she'd try to lose him in the forest. Maybe he’d even think she’d fled to Goa, and search for her there. If she could just stay hidden long enough, then maybe…

But even thinking it, she couldn’t forget his eyes when he'd looked at her and known, a recognition so vivid she still felt it, like the dull throbbing in her fingertip. And she knew then, in the quiet depths of her soul, that there was no escaping her fate, or the bond. That she could run and hide all she wanted, but that there was no way he would leave her port now that he knew.

No, there was only one thing that would grant her freedom now, the only thing that could sever a soul-bond. Even bound by the Fates’ will, there was one choice she was still free to make, even if it would be her last.

The door to the windmill creaked open, and her breath seized as her eyes flew up.

The pale moon outlined the tall figure in the doorway, his cloak draping from his wide shoulders, as though he'd dragged the night with him. He wasn’t wearing his straw hat, although with the moon behind him, Makino couldn’t see his face, but then she didn’t need to, a hundred nightmares resurfacing, the shadowed figure in her dreams replaced with his features as she knew them now, the high, regal brow and the chiselled jaw, and his breathtaking features warped with the wide, gleeful grin that had been carved into her memory.

Stepping across the threshold, the moonlight illuminated his scars, and she felt the phantom pulse in her own, and Shanks had barely taken a step inside when she moved, snatching the corkscrew she kept at her belt, the polished handle gripped between her white-knuckled fingers and the sharpened tip pressed to the soft underside of her throat where her pulse leaped wildly, her voice lashing from her, sharper than Makino had ever heard it.

“Don’t come any closer!”

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

For the story ideas folder "You Drew Stars Around My Scars" have definitely caught my eye!

Also hope you are doing good, Elm!

First of all, Crys, hiiiiiii! I'm doing okay! I hope you're well! ✨ Second, I just want to thank you for asking about "You Drew Stars Around My Scars" and to apologize for the person I'm about to become.

Are you ready for it?

"You Drew Stars Around My Scars" is a The Elder Scrolls V/Baldur's Gate 3 crossover that will likely never see the light of day for several factors, such as the number of WIPs I have, my original novel, school, and, oh, the fact that I've never played BG3 My MacBook Air cannot handle those demands. DESPITE THE EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES!, I just think the game is neat and have been sucked into it in part by Astarion. Mostly Astarion . . . okay, entirely.

Background information: Ever since I started writing Keeping Count, I knew Bishop was lifted from Neverwinter Nights and that it was a D&D-based game. And I guess that's why someone mentioned Astarion as a palette cleanser to me a few months ago, shared universe and all. And my initial perception of the character was so cool that I vaguely entertained an alternative Keeping Count where Astarion shows up, seduces Leara from Bishop, and probably sexy stabs Bishop or something. And then I didn't really think about it again. For months.

Then my brain went back to it and Astarion and BG3 and I cried a bit when I realized that my laptop couldn't play the game. I'm fine. And you know what? @cosmermaid is right: Leara deserves a better companion than freaking Bishop. Also please forgive my minimal BG3/D&D knowledge, 95% of which I've absorbed since like last Monday ish.

SO! "You Drew Stars Around My Scars" features Leara getting picked up by the Mind Flayer ship post-Sovngarde and taken via dimensional travel to Faerûn where, following the crash, she joins the usual party on a quest to get rid of the parasites. This Leara is very specifically taken after the planned Chapter 15 of Keeping Count for Reasons. Can Leara use magic in Faerûn since she's not able to draw it from Aetherius? No idea. Can she Dragon Shout? Also no idea. Transdimensional magic mechanics are weird. Regardless, Leara probably mentions something about being Dragonborn and gets weird and confused looks because her definition of Dragonborn is totally different from that in the Forgotten Realms. Linearly, I have no idea what would happen, but overall, Leara and Astarion both suffer trauma from following people who hurt them and they have complicated relationships with sex. They could have what could be a very cathartic relationship. Or I think so, anyway. Also, I kinda want to know if vampires react differently to the Dragonblood.

Symbolism in the story could heavily involve stars and light. Leara means "Light of the Sea" while Astarion means "Little Star". Leara is dependent on the stars for her magic but she's lost them, while Astarion wants to walk in the light even after the parasite is gone. There's no balance and it has to be found. They're both so cold and have lived in the shadows for a long time. There are dark versions of themselves they don't want to be anymore.

There's the possibility that, given her background in the Blades and Dominion, Leara might see through Astarion's mask in Act I. But she'd end up helping Astarion (and probably not giving on that she's on to him until later) because she's a bleeding heart. Two other very important things about this underwhelming but brain-rotting story: First, Astarion wouldn't ascend. We would need a Leara Disapproves sticker because she would not be for Astarion doing that. The second thing is, well, since motherhood is an extremely important part of Leara's character, I did pick out a name for a possible child. If Leara and Astarion had a daughter, her name would be Ilmarien, derived from Quenya, Ilmarë, meaning “starlight”.

Because after all this time, Tolkien elves still make the most sense to me.

[bromcommie]

MAXX! :))) hope you are well.

for the emoji fanfic ask game ;)

👀🎶🎢❌🤲✅

Sorry for so many haha, you don't need to answer them all, but I'm very curious!

Hiii thank you for the abundant ask<3

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

This might not be a particularly interesting answer but the only thing that I’ve really been trying to work on has been the structure and pacing of the next few chapters of orpheus, since I have them all mostly written but can’t get to a place where I’m really happy with them. I might be overthinking it. Unfortunately I also just haven’t had the time + energy to sit myself down and really figure it out. :( Ergo all the snippets, which is the only way I can get something out at least.

In slightly better news: I kind of have the next two installments in the I clawed my way into the light series finished?? Sam and Steve and their collective and individual issues are finally getting their moment in the strange, poetry-question-mark spotlight!

However I’ve got some intense life stuff coming up so it might be a month or so until I post any of the aforementioned in full 😭

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

I usually do, and I have unhealthily elaborate playlists for all the characters + some fic-specific ones, but recently I’ve found listening to anything with distinct words in it messes with my concentration. But in terms of what’s being playing on loop: Dorma and to a lesser extent Marionette by Keaton Henson (all of his instrumentals are *chefs kiss* but in general I’ve just been having a Keaton renaissance when it comes to stevebucky. Welcome back 2016 I guess)

❌ What's a trope you will never write?

I’m a “never say never” kind of person, but… Hydra Trash Party. Which, I know, is ironic considering one of the very few fics I have up right now features Steve/Rumlow, but that one while still meant to be kinda fucked up is very much purposefully neither here nor there (and non-explicit). I just personally don’t enjoy reading HTP and it’d probably mess me up way more than I’d like to try and write. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

Answered this guy here!

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

This is…not even a snippet, tbh, but also I don’t know when I’ll actually have the time to rework/finish this, so. Just for you, a very long Natasha-focused (plus) wip half-scene under the cut:

“Most other animals only smile when they mean to attack. Did you know that? You should never hold your hand out to a dog whose gums you can see,” Ivan’d said, dabbing at the bloody bite on her chin with a towel that smelled like a distillery, impish twist to his thick mustache. “Or a man who smiles too much, for that matter.”

Natasha only saw the dog once after that. A month later Ivan hadn’t come back to the house for a week and she went out looking the next day, winding her way out of the dead-end street and all the way up Nevsky Prospekt, looping past the crowds gathering water out of shelling holes and the hospital that was now blackened by fresh, smoldering ruins. She walked until the light on the horizon had grown tired and purple, until her legs had almost given out and she had to sit down on the icy pavement. The body of a frail old man lay face down on the ground by the side of the road across from her, his cap thrown back a few meters away and the bald top of his head unnaturally caved in, matching the bruised coloring of the sunset.

It took her a long moment to notice the dog, its bent form and the crumpled body forming a singular silhouette.

The memory is transmuted, stretched thin and faded in places – from time, for a change, she thinks, instead of just manipulation. But she still remembers her hand closed around a solid weight in her pocket, a comfort against the deafening pounding of her heart. She remembers the dog with its lifted head, its snout soaked red and sickly gums anything but bloodless for the first time. Remembers that split second of hurling the brick at it with all the might her thin body could manage.

It wasn’t a thought-out act or even self-preservation, really. The dog had been far away and otherwise preoccupied. It wouldn’t have bothered her. The reasoning was bone-deep and nauseating: she hadn’t eaten in two days, the only person who had cared for her was gone, and the sight of the blood had made her stomach growl. That brick was her only defense against a world tilted entirely off its axis.

It was a while before she fully understood what Ivan had meant by that joking addendum to an otherwise plain instruction, too cryptic for her mind to decipher at that age. It took one too many broken bones and one too many greedy hands on her body and one too many lifetimes lived unwillingly for it to fully translate.

Now, looking at Rumlow grinning that familiar killer smile and thinking he’s hit gold, it’s crystal fucking clear.

It isn’t new, really. She’s met many men like him, often enough that the novelty of exposing them has worn off: ordinary men, utterly predictable in their enjoyment of violence and small in the way of not being able to shape their fear into something more useful. Men who thought their want for power made them anything other than a soft target. Men who thought that, when the time came, they'd be above begging for their life.

It gets boring, after a while, how quickly they all learn. She should know. It’s what gave her her name, back before she decided to hang up that particular title, trade it in for an upgraded version, a cleaner image. Black Widow, Avenger! has a far better ring to it than Black Widow, assassin.

Just because you stop calling a thing something doesn’t mean it stops being it, of course. It might forget, for a while, become domesticated; but the nature is still there.

The children of the Red Room all understood that from the time they could walk. The Soldier understood that, or at least well enough that they had to keep burning it out of him.

“Shit. Is that what this is, then? Really?" Rumlow is saying, still derisive through cracked teeth, still playing a game he thinks he knows the rules to. "You got yourself a spot on the five o’clock news under Captain fucking America and suddenly you think that makes you the guy with the bigger stick? That that changes fuck all for you?”

“Oh, no. Believe you me, I tried being that guy. It didn’t end well for me. Or anyone else, really.” She inches the chair forward, the scrape of the metal loud in the empty apartment, and makes her voice drop to a conspiratorial tone. “But you wanna know what I realized? There are always going to be little men with big sticks, and most of us will never get to be them. And it turns out it doesn’t matter all that much in the end.”

“Big or little, every stick has its breaking point. Every weapon has its expiration date. You live through a regime or two, and you start to catch onto that real quick.” She cocks her head at him with a pensive expression, fingers running absent over that same old thin line under her chin by habit.

In retrospect, the dog she came to understand much quicker than the advice. Natasha had been hungry and afraid most of her life, too.

It’s not the only scar she has by far, but it carries the most straightforward memory. For years it served as a reminder, as banal as it was, of what trust was worth; of what you could do when you got your grubby little hands on it.

“I suppose they wouldn't teach you this since the shelf life of your usefulness was never meant to be all that long, but let me tell you a secret, Brock,” she continues, flipping the knife back the right way around and leaning in. Sunny side up, Yelena used to call it, wry. Drive it in far back enough, right past the optic nerve, and everything spills right out. She doesn’t miss the way Rumlow’s eyes track the motion, the whites showing just enough; the first crack in the facade. "You don't beat the guy with a big stick by getting a bigger one. You do it by making him think he's got you under his boot, you understand? That he’s got you all figured out. You beat him by making your spine less breakable than the stick.”

Here’s the other thing about trust: if you keep yourself in the business of lying to earn it, that’s all people start to expect from you. Your loyalty is immediately suspect. So is your anger. You keep yourself leashed for long enough, everything becomes a dishonest front, even to yourself.

Like anything else in life, it becomes a habit. A very useful, easy one, at that. Or at least until one day you wake up and you realize that the parts of you you were working to protect are dying out; withering. They’re forgetting their own name.

The attempt at a headbutt is predictable at best. She backhands him for it, follows up with the handle of the knife on the second strike for good measure.

“Now that wasn’t very smart, was it?” She says, admonishing. “And to think we were getting somewhere.”

“Was that sermon meant to get me to talk?” Rumlow manages after a heaving moment. There’s a long gash down his cheek that’s deepened, bleeding steadily onto his front. It paints less than a pretty picture with the swelling that’s already pinkening up, bringing the angry criss-cross of scarring over the rest of his pale face into sharp relief, but it feels strangely at home. Not that artistic vision’s ever been her strong suit. “Because if you think getting smacked around some really counts for anything other than good foreplay, you’ve really lost your touch.” He looks back up to grin at her, a useless show of fearlessness. “Hell, ask Rogers. I’m sure that’ll be an interesting conversation.”

But fuck, it’s hard work, breaking a habit. Even harder work: honesty. Graceless and inarticulate and inefficient, like the feeling boiling back up in her now as she looks at Rumlow, the bloody flash of his canines in the dark, and thinks of that paralyzing feeling on the wrong side of an OR window, the shameful horror of letting the world be spun on its axis and pulled from under her again. Thinks of Rogers with his broad shoulders curling in and in and in, the whole of him turned inside out in a deserted parking lot. Trust given and earned.

The next blow has Rumlow spitting teeth.

"Nah. Just thinking out loud." The knife stops half an inch under his eye, makes a home in the oasis of bruised yet unmarred skin.

Rumlow doesn’t flinch. For all of his talk, he still knows better. But she can see how his whole body freezes up, an uninterrupted taut line; the exact moment it registers for him, just how much of the picture he’s missing.

Volchonok, Ivan had called her for a while, in those early days. It’d never stuck like Black Widow did, never had the same marketing potential, but it’d never really stopped applying, either. Hungry and afraid and alone and willing to kill for the things that made her less so.

The name might’ve changed, the circumstances. The nature didn’t.

Natasha smiles; too many teeth, bloodless. "How much can your spine handle, do you think?"

It’s all too easy, in the end, to let the leash go.

(I’m sorry??)