#even without specific plans!

[slothquisitor]

2024 Fic Wrapped

Thank you to @eraserspiral for the tag! This was fun!

What’s been your biggest learning point this past year?

Mostly that I can still write a lot of words if I'm doing it consistently? I was in such a writing slump before BG3. I've been pursuing traditional publication and had some cool wins but not quite...getting there? And then that on top of some personal life shit kind of broke me. It's been fun to get back to writing and let it be fun again and not something I *have* to do.

How has your writing developed this past year?

I think I've tried out some fun and cool things this year. I wrote HORROR! I wrote an homage to Emily Henry. It was fun to push myself into really different directions, and I think it's made me better or at least I hope so. That's the thing about writing! It's so subjective and difficult to really pinpoint the places where you may or may not be leveling up. But I feel like I grew this year, so I'll take it.

Good writing habits?

Writing every day. Even if I'm traveling or even if it's only for five minutes on my phone before bed, I try to do a little bit. It helps me feel connected to whatever I'm working on, but also I'm the type of person who really struggles with feeling productive without clear goal posts. So, being able to look at actual words on a page helps me feel I've done something, you know? Also just generally reading widely. I think being a good writer is about being a good reader too!

Bad writing habits?

Impatience. I have the same issue with my art. My best pieces are always the ones I didn't rush. I have this like...desire to push things out into the world so that they don't clutter up my head anymore, and sometimes I think that means I'm publishing before things are strictly ready. My goal in 2025 is to do this less. But also, sometimes I'm excited!

Favorite thing you wrote?

Probably What Moves in the Dark though Invisible String is a close second. I loved the overall story of What Moves in the Dark, and I think it's technically plotted better than Invisible String where I was just like...coasting on vibes.

Favorite reads?

She's not on here, but TheWyvernRising is my writing partner, and honestly, her work is severely underrated. She's got a great Ghost AU featuring Halsin and her oc Rowan, plus our OCs are besties in every universe. What else is fanfic for?

Biggest win?

Finishing not one but two longfics in a year! Also, the response to Invisible String genuinely surprises and delights me. Someone called me diabolical, and I've never been more pleased with myself.

Goals for the new year?

Just keep writing things that make me happy. I'd like to maybe return to the original work, but I'm also just like...not pressed about it? I'm having fun and I think that maybe that's enough for right now.

Your favorite words of the year, aka the words you check each chapter for, making sure you didn’t repeat them 788 times?

Oh god. I overuse a lot of words or phrases and I know it! It just sometimes is hard to notice until I like...reread after posting and I'm like...whoa Sloth...did you use 'gaze' and 'smile' enough? lol

What are you excited for in the new year?

To not have a fic that's posting on a weekly basis so I can return to my chaos gremlin ways. I've been posting a fic update every weekend since Febraury (with a few exceptions), and don't get me wrong...when I'm working on a longfic I need that structure. However, it's nice to get a break from that. I'll probably let myself get too chaotic in a month or two and return to some sort of schedule, but for now, it's nice. I'm excited to keep working on Veilguard stuff too. I don't have any fic plans beyond that right now, but I'm sure the plot bunnies will find me. They always do.

I've been either skiing or painting my house, and I've been very not here. So I'm not sure who has done this....so if you see this and want to participate, consider yourself tagged! <3

[starry-bi-sky]

danny and officer martinez's relationship in "late at night, when the nightingale sings" in a nutshell:

Martinez: FREAK! GET YOUR FUCKING KID!

Battinson, on the other side of the crime scene: he don't bite

Martinez, with Nightingale firmly attached his arm, visibly biting him: YES HE DO!

*points at them* Danny is the Bugs Bunny to Martinez's Elmer Fudd.

Another Officer: i can't believe you're fighting with an actual twelve year old. Martinez: i swear to god that is not a twelve year old, that is a little hellion that crawled out of batman's shadow one dark and stormy night and decided to dedicate his existence to tormenting me. Officer: Are you really that mad about him putting a sticky note on your back-- Martinez: thats not the point

in danny's defense: the word "freak" is. a mini beserker button for him for.... obvious ghostly reasons, so like, even if its not directed at him, he still very much unappreciates Martinez's insults at Battinson. Danny may or may not be projecting.

he's not going to hurt the guy! not in any serious or permanently disfiguring way at least! But he is going to leave mean sticky notes on the square part of his spine that he can't reach, and stick salt in his 3AM Late Night Crime Scene Coffee, and kick the bottom of his heel while he's walking so he stumbles. And other petty, infuriating things that tally up and boil over, over time.

[momentomori24]

I don't believe liking immoral and downright evil characters says anything about you as a person, but I think acting like this definitely does.

"The HH fanbase will defend Valentinoto the moon and back" this and "Val is praised by a majority of the fandom" that, except said majority of the fandom fucking HATES that moth and fans have been harassed, had their art scribbled on to "fix" it, repeatedly called "rapist apologists" and "abuse romanticisers", get questioned or accused about condoning him irl, received graphic death/rape threats and are in general mistreated by the fandom. A Val cosplayer was mistreated and had a gun pulled on them IN REAL LIFE not even a year ago. Even the VA got repeatedly asked or assumed to be like the character he plays because "why else would he want to voice a rapist??" and told they deserve for choosing that role (fucking WILD btw). People that like Valentino as a character are the minority of the fandom, and even there NO ONE defends him. We all realise he's a disgusting individual whose actions shouldn't be defended in any capacity. What kinda bullshit lie is that?

I'm also in the Mouthwashing fandom, and it too has a bunch of issues. Infantilising Curly and minimising his actions, making Swansea to be better than he actually is and ignoring that he knew of the SA, people still debating or not realising that Jimmy raped Anya in the first place, shipping Jimmy and Curly (which isn't even a bad thing or a real problem but this person would see it that way), ect. But sure, conveniently don't bring that up. Anything for the Hazbin Hotel hate, right 💀

These next comments especially piss me off (nevermind how they're talking about an abuse survivor which is gross already). This might be a hot take and I don't care if that's the case, but I think people refusing to call Jimmy by name and excluding him from the cast is not show of a "good" fandom, actually. Jimmy has a lot more to him besides being a rapist. Rape culture, toxic masculinity, capitalistic exploitation, misogyny, male dominance-- there's sooo much more to explore and discuss about his character besides him being a rapist. And he's an incredibly disturbing character in a fucking horror game. If you can only refer to him by some stupid nickname (which takes away the seriousness of his character imo), ignore the significance of his role and themes in the story and the rest of his character and reduce him to a single trait that's BAD. That's not a good thing, and in fact, probably makes you worse than the people that do like his character because they can at least separate fiction and reality and not scrap well written disturbing characters for the sake of "comfort" or moral standing (again, in a horror game of all things). People shouldn't feel bad for liking Jimmy because he's a very good character, and ignoring that completely and acting like there aren't people who could like him... kinda sucks?

Moving over, Valentino is not and has NEVER been portrayed in a positive light in the show. I can't wrap my head around people that genuinely think that. Whenever I hear people say that the arguments I always see are "he shouldn't be attractive" and "he's just a cartoon villain" and "he acts silly and quirky even tho he's a rapist" among other things, and I don't think these people realise they're spouting eugenics bullshit and demonstrating that they don't know anything about his character simultaneously. No, Valentino isn't a "positive" portrayal of a rapist because he's attractive (way to tie morality to appearance btw). No, Valentino isn't a positive portrayal of a rapist because he acts goofy and funny and silly. Those traits are intentional and important to his character. Val is the Overlord of lust and depravity, hell's most famous pimp. His beauty is how he lures in unsuspecting sinners, and his personality is how he gains their trust and gets them to sell their souls for him to exploit (notice how Angel signed his soul away willingly). He's supposed to be appealing. He's supposed to be charming. He's entire persona is meant to be disarming. If he were like Jimmy or just a one-note unlikeable guy, his position in the show and his relationships with the characters wouldn't make sense, so he isn't. That doesn't make him a more positive portrayal or anything, it just means he's more fleshed out and written more complex than you want him to be. He's a very real depiction of an abuser, of their two-faced nature and how being attractive and charming to others doesn't make you less of an abusive monster to someone else. For context, I have been abused by someone extremely similar to Val, so his depiction feels very real to me and it's extremely tiring seeing a bunch of assholes who have probably not even seen the show or have been abused act like he's "romanticised" or "unrealistic" or "bad" simply because he was written by Vivziepop (who's ALSO an SA survivor like what is wrong with you 💀).

This is a broader point and not entirely related to this specific case, but we don't give people shit like this over people liking murderers and serial killers-- acting like all a sudden liking a rapist character says something negative about their writing or about the people that like them is INCREDIBLY stupid. People don't talk like this about Alastor and Vox-- who are both VERY despicable people. Both of them are also abusers among other horrible things, but they're not (or at least Alastor isn't) rapists so they're "not as bad". This is a sentiment I see all the time in both the fandom and hatedom whenever Valentino discourse comes back up, and this line of logic that rapists are a unique evil that can't be liked as characters in fiction but murderers and cannibals and serial killers are totally Ok is so dangerous and backwards. Liking evil characters says nothing about you as a person aside from the fact that you're a freak in the fun way. Liking evil characters but then going after others who do as well because you consider their character "too evil" and watering down the crimes of yours to justify liking them says a lot about you tho. Saying that the characters you like says something negative you in general does too.

We seriously need to stop bringing morality into fiction and saying that "normal" people wouldn't like certain immoral characters. We need to stop ostracising people for their "problematic" ships, proudly brag about ostracising them and justify it by calling them "weirdos". We need to stop saying villains are "badly written" because they're not written how YOU want them to be written, regardless of whether or not that opinion is valid (which in this case it isn't). We need to stop putting fandoms in some weird competition with each other about how characters are written and spit on people who actually enjoy them, are comforted by them or felt seen by them (gestures at the whole Angel dust situation barely a week ago). And honestly we need to stop giving attention to people like this, who spread a false narrative and kick others down for being fans of a media they don't like or know squat about for whatever reason. Who spread lies about the media or fandom in question in way that's blatantly in bad faith.

This crappy post is sitting a 17k while I'm typing this. The way people can just say ANYTHING about Hazbin Hotel and its fandom-- doesn't matter if it's valid or true or if they watched the show or know anything about the fandom at all, it just has to be negative-- and others will eat it up no questions asked needs to be studied at this point. We saw that in the months the show first aired. We saw that with the Angel Dust video. We're seeing this again here. I don't think we should be harassing anybody over fiction and in general (and needless to say don't harass any of these people) but calling out bad actors who pull shit like this more often and making it uncool to shittalk Hazbin Hotel and its fandom (and any fandom from unapologetically dark media where the people deal with enough bullshit already) for no reason and in bad faith is a change I'd be down with. Like, wash your mouth of its name and disappear into the shadow realm, goddamnit.

[minglana]

yeah its been like 2 months already but the comment of me being in the closet being one of the reasons they cant be w me rly stuck. and i would be lying if i didnt think abt it at least once a week lol

[guinevereslancelot]

starting to kind of date someone right before christmas is so stressful fr. do i get him a gift or what we've been on two dates but i'm seeing him tonight n it's christmas eve.....but what if he didn't get me anything then it will be weird.....

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also "textless" versions of these, wahooo

[sgt-celestial]

to the person who left critical feedback on my bob dylan study I love you . I do plan to mention that in the discussion following the results section because it was SUCH a blunder that I was kicking myself for midway through collecting results but I didn't want to change horses in midstream so I just left the survey as it was. But there were so many little gender-related caveats I forgot to consider to be honest so I'm just rolling with the punches

[lilworms]

so

[sysig]

UI Special Feature! (Patreon)

[magnusmodig]

ovo whispers menacingly abt his grandstanding .

[lvmbien]

I spent a few days hyper focusing on this because I wanted to make a reference sheet of sorts for myself. And then I gave him actual clothes that aren't built into him because i think the mechanical built in clothes look... really dumb. (sorry <//3)

I adore him to absolute bits. I seriously don't know how or when it happened but he snuck his way into my comfort characters list and now I'm fighting Idia for title of favorite brother.

[kushamisaru]

Been seeing way less people talk about shit republicans are doing in their quest to demonize democrats (shut up for five minutes, this post ain't about them and I already know why you're mad at them, I am too). And I don't think people are taking the fact that republicans will have majority in EVERY branch of government seriously come January 2025. Anything that gets passed has to go through them, whether democrats help or not. So maybe try remembering you have two feet to step on two necks. Just some food for thought.

[seven-oomen]

Listen I get that you have BPD. I get that you have a mental illness. But that doesn't excuse rude or shitty behavior.

I kinda get why people are fed up with you.

[featheredomen]

...wondering how dramatic it would be to buy a mini fridge and stick it in my room because my brother refuses to understand that sometimes I purchase food and drinks that are specifically meant for me, and when I write my name on them that means that they are in fact, not for him

[o4o41]

it would have been good if Cindrella was more outspoken. And call out her family on not feeling **regretful and apologizing** after insults, ridicule and abuse.

[sysig]

What you’d least like to hear (Patreon)