#finishing my projects is the reason I am writing a little less lately

[poesielibre]

I finished my last knitting project Saturday morning, in time to wear it for the first time. I don't have good pictures yet but maybe I'll post them later.

I am now back to my neglected knitting project, a shawl with a 16 row cable repeat. Funnily enough both projects are made with purple yarn. Do I like purple ? Yeah ! But also the two yarns are completely different. The just finished project (a cowl/ shawl hybrid) is made with Han dyed variegated purple yarn while the shawl is made with a dusty and slightly heatered purple yarn.

I also finished my most frustrating project ever yesterday, my first and last woven scarf. I can barely look at it because of how much grief, anger and frustration this thing has given me. Hopefully those feelings will fade when fall comes so I can start using it. It is objectively a good project, a nice long, wide and soft wool scarf.

[drones-of-innocence]

Hi,

The TL;DR of this post is this will no longer be a Mario blog, and I won't be participating in any kind of fandom here anymore.

This is for anyone who keeps tabs on me for any reason, but specifically my fanfiction I guess. I'm a writer so this will be a little long winded lol, but feel free to read what you want.

First I want to thank everyone who kept up with and read my story I'll Never Let You Go. At the time of writing, it was my best work and existed quietly in my drafts for seven or eight years as I built and built it up. It's the longest story I have ever completed, the eclipse of my skills and experiences at a time when all I wanted was to carry across a story about star-crossed lovers while I myself longed for such a fairytale love. While publishing, I invited artists to participate in a small challenge, which resulted in these lovely posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), and set the stage beautifully for me to reveal the major twist of the story. I thank everyone who participated in making that moment so special for me. I'm very proud of the story and how it turned out after all this time. But I'm ready to move onto greater things.

And to anyone who has read any of my other works, thank you. My muse is an impulsive creature and I followed it toward many stories which sometimes had strange methods behind them but ultimately turned into projects I could be proud of. It means the world that my random explorations met any kind of audience with such positive reception.

Fandom has become a problem for me. What used to feel relaxed and creatively exciting now feels like a source of pressure. I caved into it once or twice and posted stories or art or whatever in the past specifically designed to heighten attention or exposure to my work. It never worked quite like I thought and always made me feel a little gross afterward. I may erase these works once I track them down. But now the pressure isn't even creative, it's become more or less of a social performance for me which I am not willing to participate in anymore.

So from now on, I'm going to blog what I want to and write whatever comes to me. Mario or not, fanwork or not. There are still some Mario stories mostly done that I want to share and I may do that in my own time, but it will not be with any intention except to please myself.

I think I'm moving towards more original ideas. There are fan concepts I want to finish out, and if I do it will take time.

Anyway. If any of this doesn't resonate with you, that's fine. Most of my stories will remain up and I'm happy to interact regarding those, but otherwise I would appreciate to not be included in the fandom community on Tumblr anymore. I'll hopefully occasionally find the will to browse for fanfic myself, though lately I haven't been much in the mood to read it. Feel free to unfollow or block or whatever you need to do. I wish you luck. I'm looking forward to being more active on my terms.

Thank you 💙

[masochist-marmot]

Just finished watching MHA season 7

I am not okay. I am in shambles. A shallow husk of a human being. I have exhausted all my emotions and have nothing left to give. I'm sitting right there in the middle of charred earth and ash with tears frozen on my face. I might need a hero to sacrifice themselves to stitch my destroyed heart back together.

The level of character writing in this series is amazing. I stand by my (probably controversial) take that there are some issues with pacing and setup/payoff, though I haven't read the manga so I can't tell how much of that is an issue with the adaptation. But what the show does excel at is portraying a large cast of characters with deep and diverse motivations, and it somehow manages to build on them in a deliberate, believable manner. (Let me piss off another fandom real quick: JJK could never.)

I was spoiled on the Dabi reveal before I started watching the show. In fact, that spoiler got me interested in watching it in the first place. I picked up on the tiny hints that were sprinkled in from very early on and was interested to see how they pull the reveal off. I was a little disappointed with how one-note Dabi was for the entire time up until that point, and the reveal itself was far less effective without the intended shock value. I almost wrote it off as missed potential. However, the seeds that were sown were not in Dabi himself, but the Todoroki family dynamic. Once we get to the flashbacks and eventually the grand emotional showdown, we have already gone through a character arc with Shouto, Endeavor and the rest of the family, and we have seen how All For One grooms vulnerable youth to his cause. In the present, Dabi is only fueled by hatred and revenge. In the past, we see a sad little boy who is raised to believe that his value comes from the strength of his quirk, and who is then told he can't use it (thus stripping him of his value). He's practically abandoned as a failed project, and Endeavor's misguided attempts at discouraging him by distancing himself instead of showing him he's got value beyond his strength and usefulness drives poor Touya even further along his doomed path. And this is incredibly fertile soil for All For One's grooming. It's heartbreaking. The reason Dabi is so one-note is that there's nothing else left in him. He's too far gone to be saved. We can bring the entire Todoroki family together to finally see his cries for help and acknowledgment, but it's simply too late. Sometimes it's just not possible to bring the "black sheep" of the family back from the edge of self-destruction. God, it's too real, and devastating, and narratively satisfying.

And then we have our misguided pansexual queen Himiko Toga. I was pretty neutral on Toga for most of the series, because the yandere archetype never really appeals to me. Turns out there's a lot more to her than that. For her entire childhood, she was ostracised and derided for being different and gross. I see an interesting mix of autism-coding/queercoding in how her innate ways to approach love and affection are seen as wrong and abnormal, and how she fails to conform to social norms because nobody's explaining them to her. I do like how neither allegory is one-to-one, and how it's internally consistent with how the world and Toga as a character work. Her childhood environment stunts her emotional development and leaves her with a black-and-white thinking, where you are either good or evil, cute or gross, completely accepted or completely rejected... a hero or a villain (boy, the society desperately needs reconstruction). It leaves her desperate for deep connections, and the deepest connection she can get is from becoming the target of her affection with her quirk. It's a selfish kind of affection that literally weakens the other party. At the same time, she's sabotaging her relationships by intentionally showing her ugly side and looking for signs of rejection to enforce her expectation of not being accepted for who she is. As someone who's struggled with (and, through therapy, learned to manage) traits of borderline personality disorder, I can relate to her chaotic approach to interpersonal relationships and powerful but volatile emotions. When both Deku and Uraraka very reasonably condemn her actions as a villain, she takes that as a total and complete rejection of her as a person. This is an especially heavy blow to her after the loss of Twice has brought her entire worldview into question. Then, when Uraraka reflects on this more and tries to reach out to her again, she's in full defence mode. She can't risk being rejected again, so she lashes out to keep Uraraka at an arm's length. Yet despite all the maliciousness, despite being stabbed, Uraraka fights to get through to Toga and show her that she sees the beauty in her and is willing to accept her in spite of her flaws. And then, after being properly seen and accepted by someone she loves, she's able to commit a purely selfless act of affection by giving away her own blood to keep Uraraka alive. Blood is her love language, and for once she's able to give instead of taking. It's hauntingly beautiful, and it's heartbreaking, and it closes her character arc wonderfully. (Mind you, I think their relationship would have been toxic and codependent, but I don't care. I'll be a Togachako truther from this moment until the day I die.)

This season alone had a lot of effective (and also some less effective) character moments that I won't touch on because this post is already too long and rambling. I especially have a lot more thoughts about best boi Kacchan, but I'll leave that for another day.

[darkkitty1208]

on fic writing and fandom: where am i going forward?

So. It's a bloody dull Friday and I'm writing this post--have been meaning to, for a while--because I can't stop thinking about it. It's just a few (a lot, actually) thoughts I've had in my mind the past few days that I've decided to spill into a single post, which turned out far longer than it needed to be, but nothing too important. Under the cut.

I've been a fanfic writer for a while now. Not a long time by any means, but a while nonetheless. My first fic--which is now orphaned like a few of its brothers for undisclosed reasons, though if you're an og you might be able to guess why--was dated back to the 18th of November 2021. 3 years later and I've got a humble 89 works and counting (the orphaned works and unposted wips unincluded). I can safely say I've improved quite a lot since then.

Where are you going with this, then, Kitty? Surely you aren't here just to brag about your writing progress?

Well. Not exactly. But I'll start with this: I guess what I'm trying to say is I've lost the spark.

You know. The old feeling. That boost of serotonin you get after you finish a piece you're proud of, or when you get lovely reviews on ao3, or when you get a kudos email, or a new mutual, or some wild tags under your silly post. The spark. I haven't felt it in a long time, now. The last time it's been so palpable was... I'm not sure. Probably last year's October. That was a lot of fun. I was most prolific in fic writing, that year. It shouldn't feel like a long time ago. Because it wasn't.

Don't get me wrong. I love all this. All that's going on right now. The comments I'm getting--even if fewer than I had before--and all the other interactions, I appreciate and enjoy and love them so, so much. And writing my newer fic projects are well exciting. But it just isn't the same anymore. I'm afraid it never will be.

(Maybe it has something to do with the lack of interactions lately. Maybe? I don't really know, either. I'm sure we're all well aware the fandom is past its peak, and with the current developments in the MCU I am frankly unsurprised, but I dunno.)

I guess that's part of the reason I've been less active lately. I've been inactive as a whole this year, admittedly, and disappearing far too often for far too long (and I notice some of my friends are, too). I just didn't get the same joy from being in a fandom like I had when I first started this blog, or my ao3 account.

In hindsight, I've probably been a little too dependent on fandom to provide me serotonin. The past few years have been hard, the years before that, too. Life just keeps kicking me in the arse time and time again. I guess I've been using fandom and fic writing as a coping mechanism, and once I've had my fill, the joy dies off to something a little more dull. Like a gum I've been chewing for too long that the sweetness has since worn off.

Honestly? I don't want it to be this way. I want to live without being so dependent on my presence online. I want to live without only knowing joy through internet interactions. I've got to learn to. It sounds silly, but it's true. (I think I may be slightly chronically online, oh no. x'D)

So naturally my first instinct is to distance myself a little. I contemplated quitting, but I can't do that. I don't see myself ever doing that, no matter how many times my brain convinces me that I might.

When this year started, I had set some goals for writing. One of them was to write for more whumptober prompts than I did last year or complete them all. I did like 21 prompts or something last year. Of 31. Within a little more than a month. While still balancing all the life stuff I had going on. This is, if not obvious, an extremely ambitious goal. I am not insane. I don't know what I was thinking. I can't possibly do that now, can I? Not with all the stuff that's been happening.

...

Can I?

...

Yeah, no. Definitely not.

See, that's another thing: writing. Probably the thing I'm trying to get at in this post but otherwise derailed completely from. Fuck my brain.

I'm sure many of you have noticed that I've been writing significantly less. I still post, obviously, but not as much as like, last year when the number of works I had went from a few to far too much. That had helped me improve quite a lot, actually, but those days I barely slept because I just insisted to replace my sleep time with Writing Shit For The Gays. It was pretty unhealthy now that I look back at it. My sleep schedule is still shit now but, yk. Some things just never change.

I was really, really caught up on wanting to be good at writing. Like, really good. I wanted to make awesome things. I wanted to write like a real fucking pro. Like all the more popular fandom authors I look up to. I want to be like the big dogs in fandom. It sounds so silly. I did everything; sprinting daily, setting a minimum of 500 words writing sessions every day, trying new writing styles, churning out works after works, writing for prompts and events and gifts and the like. I was enjoying it, yes, but was it really something I did for myself? Or was it because I wanted to please other people or impress other people for their validation, which is something I'm entirely too dependent of? Was it for the numbers?

Well. It was more for that than for me, I realised a little too late.

So yeah. Fuck wanting to be good. I want to write for the hell of it. I want to write something that's for me. Not what the majority of the fandom or other people want to read, but for me. Which is why I absolutely loved writing works like just a matter of time, how to kill a god, or how to become a god, because they're not meant for other people but myself. (Ironically that last work is a gift but, yk. I still liked it.) I know I joke about self-projecting a lot, but it's been seriously helping me rediscover the joy of writing that doesn't come from the incessant need to be good or perfect or focus on producing more and more and more. It makes me feel like a kid again. Also, I'm only realising this now but I'd rather get like 5 people who enjoy reading my works so much and express them to me rather than 100 people who silently thumbs up at me and then go away to consume another fic or demand more. (All this to say I still love interactions, it just shouldn't be my no. 1 priority to get them when writing fanfics.)

But yeah. None of those works are perfect. They're not meant to be. But they're mine. They're me. They represent me. And it's so, so great to feel that in writing. I've been so stuck up on being some sort of content machine. I'm doing this for myself, how could I forget? I've been saying this since the beginning, I don't know why I'm still struggling to do it. God. It's ridiculous.

Anyway. That's that. This has become a very long ramble. Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk. And for letting me waste your time, if you make it to the end of this post.

[suddencolds]

Loose Ends | Genshin Impact

Happy (late now, I'm sorry!) birthday, @caughtintherain!! I hope it was a good one! :) ❤️

I am hopelessly behind on archon quests (I haven't officially met Kaveh or exchanged more than a few sentences with Al-Haitham) and Genshin as a whole; hence, I feel super unqualified to be writing this. (The last time I wrote anything for Genshin was over a year ago—how time flies!)

That said, please take this Kavetham / Haikaveh fic ft. sick Kaveh—it was fun to try my hand at writing new characters after so long; I hope this is okay!

—

It is only, as far as Kaveh is concerned, a mild cold.

It starts off with a slight twinge in his throat, a rasp to his voice, a headache that a daytime nap can’t shake off. Small annoyances, but nothing more than an inconvenience—the slight hoarseness to his voice is barely noticeable after he clears his throat, and the good thing about the headache and the sore throat are that they don’t show, which means that while he takes extra care to keep his distance with clients, he looks no less presentable than usual.

It’s not exactly his intention to push himself, but he doesn’t go out of his way to take things easy, either. He has plenty of things to worry about already—a meeting with a client to go over a second round of design proposals, and before that, several new alternative proposals to sketch out, in light of the client’s feedback on his initial sketches. Then there’s the delivery of materials to worry about for a different project—he needs to go through the materials to make sure that they line up with the load-bearing calculations he’s done and then, in the following few days, supervise the construction of its most basic foundations. Everything—the delivery, the work he’s paid for in construction, the meetings he’s added to his calendar—is on a tight schedule, and Kaveh has no intention of going back on his promises.

It’s for that reason that he stays up a couple nights in a row finishing the sketches. Kaveh is nothing if not thorough—he considers both aesthetic presentation and practicality in tandem, makes small adjustments to the building at hand, from its most basic foundations to its exterior qualities—sloping roofs and high, curved windows, its circular stairwells and wide, elegant columns. He thinks, too, on how to present his work—his client had said that the first round of designs had seemed too extravagant and asked for something more subtle and understated, but Kaveh believes that even buildings which appear unremarkable can be thoughtful and elegant in their subtleties. The challenge is just in the execution.

And it’s for that reason that he ignores the harsh, grating cough that develops, the headache which only seems to worsen, the exhaustion that he can’t quite seem to shake—then again, is that not just to be expected, when it’s been days since he’s had a proper night’s rest? He’d certainly had his fair share of late night work at the Academiya, back when he’d frequently stay up late to help other students with their work—a little tiredness isn’t anything he’s not accustomed to.

On the third day, when he wakes up congested and shivering, when every subsequent sneeze scrapes at his throat, when he finds himself dizzy and too-hot in such a manner that suggests he might be running a fever, he waves off all of these things, gathers his latest sketches, and heads out into town just before dawn for the meeting.

It goes well enough—he can tell his client takes well to the new sketches for the way she surveys his designs, her eyes bright, and asks him about the feasibility of several new features. The new adjustments will be more work—more work with a quick turnaround, if he intends to keep everything up to their initial schedule—but that doesn’t bother him. If anything, he takes a little pride in the fact that the sketch she’s picked out is one that she is interested enough in to consider adding to it.

Their back and forth takes longer than planned, and by the time he leaves, his voice is slightly hoarse from overuse, his throat so sore that just speaking is enough to make him cough. His client wishes him well—actually, she tells him to get some rest, and to take his time on his next round of drafts, but also taking into account the work he has with supervising construction, he really ought to hurry things up to keep both projects coming along.

When Kaveh finally steps out from the building, it’s raining hard.

Of course today, of all days, he doesn’t have an umbrella on him. Just his luck. Al-Haitham will laugh him into his grave. But he can’t exactly wait out the rain, even if he wishes to—he has lots to do, preferably in the quiet space of his own study, and there’s no guarantee that this inclement weather will let up anytime soon.

So Kaveh does all he can, in this situation—he makes sure his manuscripts are all securely locked up in his briefcase. Then he books it. 

It’s not a long run, but it’s raining hard enough that by the time he arrives before the front door, his clothes are soaked. He wrings the rainwater out of his cape, sets his briefcase down gingerly, and reaches for his keys.

The house—Al-Haitham’s house, technically, though Kaveh doesn’t like to refer to it as such—is very quiet when he steps inside. The lights are off in the central living room, and as far as he can see, there’s no one in the kitchen, or Al-Haitham’s bedroom, or the study. Probably Al-Haitham is out, still, finishing up the day’s work.

Kaveh gets changed.

It’s a good thing, he thinks, that Al-Haitham isn’t home to see how he’s shivering so hard that it takes longer than usual to loosen his cape, to unclasp his belt, to pull his shirt over his head. It’s a good thing that Al-Haitham isn’t home to hear the loud—terribly loud—sneezes that tear through him (too loud, he thinks, to be neatly contained within the four walls of his bedroom), nor the harsh, fitful coughs that he’s been muffling into his elbow all morning. if he were, surely Kaveh would never hear the end of it.

It’s a small consolation that his sketches are dry, at least—safely locked up inside his briefcase, which at least offers the most basic protection against the elements. The new, dry clothes he picks out are a relief, too, once he changes into them. But his hair is still wet, and even though he’s changed, he finds he can’t stop shivering.

He really is a mess, he thinks.

But no one has to know. Not his clients, nor the agencies he’s worked with, nor his mentors and his peers from the Academiya, and certainly not Al-Haitham, so long as Kaveh resolves to stay out of his way. If he can produce a sketch of the building’s layout which exceeds his client’s layout expectations, his situation is irrelevant; the head cold he feels brewing is entirely inconsequential.

So he takes a seat at his desk, reviews his notes from today’s meeting, and gets to work.

—

The next few hours are less than optimal. More than once, he finds himself on the verge of dozing off, snaps awake from the pencil in his hand arcing from a steady, intentional line to a shaky tangent. Eventually, he resigns himself to keeping his head propped up on one hand as he works, if only to keep himself awake.

His head hurts fiercely. There’s a small part of him—a part which he diligently elects to ignore—which tells him that it’d probably go away much faster if he’d allowed himself some proper rest. He can rest when he’s finished, he tells himself, but judging by his current progress, that won’t be anytime soon. 

He’s so focused on his work—or, rather, so distracted by the headache, with the chills he can’t quite seem to shake—that he barely hears the front door open.

Barely, which is to say, he notices it still. Al-Haitham had advised him last night to get some rest—a thoughtful enough remark taken alone, if only it were not immediately followed with something along the lines of, It is in my own best interest if you don’t keep me up all night coughing. As if his noise-canceling headphones would not be a suitable—convenient, even—solution to that.

Just for that, Kaveh resolves to keep quiet, now. Just for that, he stifles each subsequent sneeze, muffles every ensuing cough as quietly as possible into his arm. If Al-Haitham has any complaints for all the noise he’s making, at least he can say he’d attempted to be quiet.

Barely half an hour goes by before he hears the knock on his door.

Kaveh clears his throat. “Come in,” he says. 

Al-Haitham does—he steps fully inside and shuts the door behind him. “Kaveh,” he says.

Kaveh sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Let me guess. I’m being too loud,” he says.

“I can’t help it if I— if I have to— hEHh-!” Ironically, he feels the all-too-familiar prickle settle in his nose. He’s felt it enough times over the past few days to know exactly what it precedes. “Hheh…. HEhH’eEZSCHhhEW!” It’s already humiliating enough to have to be doing this while Al-Haitham is watching. It’s with an awful sense of certainty that he realizes that he isn’t done. “hHEH… hh-HhH-hEHh’iSSCHH-YuE!”

It’s a relief, really, to let out a sneeze properly after he’s stifled so many, though it’s loud, especially in the enclosed space of his room. Kaveh sniffles, rubs his nose on the back of his hand. “Believe me,” he says, clearing his throat, though he thinks his voice doesn’t sound any less hoarse when he speaks up again, “I don’t want this cold any more than you do.”

“You sound awful,” Al-Haitham says, as if he’s merely stating a fact.

“You wouldn’t sound any better if you spent all morning talking to clients,” Kaveh says, with a huff, which—to his great dismay—turns into an untimely fit of coughs. 

“I distinctly recall telling you to get some rest,” Al-Haitham says.

“And I remember telling you it was none of your business when I sleep,” Kaveh says. “I can— hHEHh-!” he turns away—from Al-Haitham, from the desk with all of his papers—to catch a “hH-hhEH-HEh’IISSCHh-yUe!” in one cupped hand. He sniffles again, rubbing his nose, and levels as convincing of a glare as he can muster. “I can take care of myself.”

Al-Haitham frowns, seemlingly unbothered by Kaveh’s… well, rather unsubtle display. “If that was true, you’d already be on the mend by now.”

“It’s only a cold, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, with a sniffle. “I just have to let it run its course.”

“That sort of negligent attitude is what landed you in this very position in the first place.”

Kaveh’s head hurts. Whatever reasoning Al-Haitham has for why he’s caught this cold, he doesn’t want to hear it. He needs to finish up his sketches, needs to perform the necessary calculations to ensure the foundations he’s drawn are spatially optimized and will take well to any structural or environmental pressure. “Is that all?”

“No,” Al-Haitham says.

Kaveh shuts his eyes, braces himself for an earful. But whatever Al-Haitham is planning to say, he doesn’t get to hear it before he’s veering away again, sharply, burying his nose into his elbow just in time for—

“hhH… hEHh- hHEh’EZSCHhh’ew! HHEH’iIKSHhhEW! Excuse mbe… hh… HEHH’DZSCHh-iEEw!” 

He emerges, slightly teary-eyed, disoriented and blinking, which is why he doesn’t have time to intercept the hand that Al-Haitham presses to his forehead.

It is there only for a moment. Al-Haitham’s hand is surprisingly warm—it’s soft, a little calloused.

Then it’s gone. It takes Kaveh a few moments to parse the feeling in his chest as disappointment.

“You’d better keep your distance,” he says. “If you come down with this in a few days, I want it on the record that I wasn’t the one who told you to step foot inside my room.”

He expects a snappy response, as usual—sometimes, he thinks Al-Haitham has made a hobby solely out of being disagreeable. But Al-Haitham only frowns, watching him with such scrutiny that Kaveh wants to shrink away under it, knowing that Al-Haitham—now, as always—sees him so clearly. “Have you taken anything for your headache?”

It’s not a question he expects. Kaveh must not do a good job at keeping the surprise off his face. “What?” 

“Nothing yet, then,” Al-Haitham says, interpreting his hesitation as a proper response (which is infuriating, Kaveh thinks—he hasn’t even said anything). “How about for your fever?”

“I don’t—”

“If you are going to attempt to deny it,” Al-Haitham says, “You’d have much better luck with something that I haven’t just verified for myself.”

Kaveh rolls his eyes, sniffling. “You wouldn’t have believed me regardless.”

“Probably not.”

At least they agree on that.

Al-Haitham steps behind him, reaches over the desk to snag the papers he’s laid out over it—sketches, meeting notes, architectural blueprints, scratch paper. In one swift motion, he gathers the papers and lifts them out of reach.

“Haitham,” Kaveh hisses, scrambling to his feet. “Those are for a client.”

“I will give them back to you once you’ve recovered fully,” Al-Haitham says, turning on his heels to head for the door. “Subject to my discretion.”

“You can’t just take them! I… n-need…  hEHh… them for… hehH… my… hH-HheHH-hHEH’TZSCHh’YYUE! snf-!”

“Bless you. If you lay down, I’ll consider giving them back sooner.”

Al-Haitham is truly insufferable. Kaveh is truly, never forgiving him, (though later, when Al-Haitham comes back carrying steaming hot tea, which he says has medicinal properties that should help with headaches—procured helpfully from Tighnari, which is why he was out later than usual; later, when Kaveh wakes to a hand on his forehead, a familiar voice uncharacteristically soft, an extra blanket tucked neatly around him; Kaveh finds himself nearly convinced).

[yoonia]

What's your writing schedule like? Especially how you balance writing multiple fics,

And you do like have advice for trying to balance out writing multiple fics.

❤

My writing schedule hasn't really changed for a long time, and I've adjusted it in a way that it won't be getting in the way of my main daily schedules.

For example, I usually work on the weekends, and to compensate this, I'll either get Monday and Thursday completely free or I'm often scheduled to work from home. That's why you'll see me either posting a fic or at least focusing on finishing something during those days. I work from 10 AM to 3-4 PM (this is the official working hours from my office, but I often work until late at night when I'm working on a project) so I often have to steal chances during the free time I have left to write. I usually write super early in the morning for an hour when I can before work, and then go back to writing at night (I don't set how many hours to spare to write at night but use a word count goal to set the time). If I don't have to work on the weekends, I'll be using those days to write all day with the goal of having my Monday posting schedule filled.

I mostly write at night because that's when I can have better focus. Just don't do what I often do, which is losing sleep to write. You'll write better with a fresh mind, which is the reason why I often write early morning before work lately, when my mind has gotten enough rest and hasn't been corrupted by all the stress from the rest of the day heheh

How I balance writing multiple fics at a time: I usually set myself a daily writing goal to help stay focus.

My daily word count goal is 500 words/day. Whether it means I'll have to reach 500 words in total for a day or 500 words per fic in a day depends on when I'm planning to post the fic(s) I'm focusing on. 500 words might sound a lot, if you have a long, busy day and less time to write, but it has worked for me really well so far. 500 words can turn to be a full dialogue scene/back to back between characters, a prologue, sometimes even a short scene. Either way, it gives me a definite progress each day to make sure I can finish something at the end of the week. If I want to finish something faster, I'd switch my writing goal to one scene/day. This works mostly when I need to finish a long fic while working on my ongoing series.

A couple of advice that I can give you for trying to balance out writing multiple fics:

— filter the fics you need to work on and try not to do too much at once Let's say you have 27 WIPs (I have more lol..), try to limit yourself to a small number to focus on at a time. For me, 3 WIPs at a time/on one sitting is my limit. You can decide your own limit based on your capability. Just try not to do too much at once because it gets overwhelming. Try to categorize your WIPs and determine which fics take first priority when you're writing and which ones you can consider as your side projects. This will help you decide which ones to focus on as your main project and which ones you can work on together/at the same time every time you need to sit down and write. I often take some time on the beginning of each month to list out the fics that I want to work on that month, splitting them between the ones that take first priority (eg. ongoing series, collab fics, commission/request) and which ones I consider as 'side projects' (eg. epilogues, one-shots, drabbles). Focusing on different fics that hold the same importance at once can be draining, so doing this will help ease your weight a little bit more. You can do the same each week by limiting your WIPs further. Say you have one fic as your main focus for a whole week while working on one or two smaller ones on the side as you go.

— set up a goal for yourself to help you focus You can set a daily goal, weekly, or monthly. Choose what works for you the best. Writers who are experienced in joining events like NanoWriMo are used to setting a word count goal for themselves (eg. for NaNo in November, the goal's usually set at 50k words), so you can try and do the same but with less word counts to reach each month. For me, I set my monthly goal to write 30k to 40k words regardless of which fic(s) I'm working on or how many I have to focus on, but that's only because I can't always set a goal of finishing one long fic a month and I'm currently prioritising my ongoing series which has different lengths each chapter. If big numbers seem too intimidating, go small. Smaller goals, like setting up to 500 words/day or one scene/day can help give you constant progress with your writing, and it might not seem too overwhelming if you look at it in a smaller form. If it's possible for you to set a regular posting schedule each week, you can use that specific posting day as your weekly goal to always be able to finish something within a week.

— you can also set a time as your goal. For example, you can try to write non-stop for an hour a day, during your free time. If you're familiar with writing sprints, you can use this setup to help you focus on your writing for a time. If you're not familiar with it, this is some sort of a program with time simulation which can help you remain focus for a set time to write. Look at it as a marathon, but with writing instead of running. A few writing networks that run through discord chats often have this program set up in the chat which members can use to write together. For me personally, I use ohwrite app to do my writing sprints. The app set up an automatic countdown for 25 minutes to write with 5 minutes break in between. Using this app allows you to either write on your own, or set up a room to write together with friends, or join a global room to write with others (idk if this is still available, I just use my own room lol) Setting a time goal helps for someone like me who has a daily schedule set for work and other activities to make sure that I always spare that timeframe I've scheduled specifically to write something (or a few things). And watching my word count rising and building up as the time is counting down to a stop can be really motivating me to continue writing.

— take breaks in between Setting up a goal doesn't mean it has to be your final limit. It's not uncommon to go over and keep on going once you've reached your goal and you're still motivated to continue writing. But always remember to take breaks. Once you have a writing goal set, you can even use that goal to remind you when to take a break. For example, you're aiming to write 500 words today, and you have, but you want to keep going. Take a moment to rest first, then write again until you reach 500 words, and take another break. Writing multiple fics can also mean you are writing multiple themes, different characters each fic, and even different narrative voices. Sometimes when we're working on multiple stuff at once, we're jumping between fics and going back and forth, switching focus and changing POVs, etc. Doing this continuously can be one of the reasons a writer fall into a burnout. Try to take short breaks in between each fic instead of jumping simultaneously. For example, let's say you're working on fic A as your top priority this week, and you've chosen B and C as your side projects. Say you're done working on A or find yourself stuck on it, you want to jump to B and work a little from it for a while before going back. Try not to jump right away, but take a moment to rest. Go read, watch one video from YouTube, etc. Make sure you have a fresh mind when you jump into a new fic and do the same when you want to jump back. This might take a bit longer for the writing process to finish, but it often wastes less energy because you're allowing your mind to take it easy while working on multiple stuff at once. If you're using the writing sprint mentioned above while working on several WIPs, you can use the time simulation to help you jump between fics. Say you want to use 25 minutes to finish one fic, take a 5 minutes break as suggested by the app, then open a different WIP to focus on for the next 25 minutes, and so on.

I'm sorry this got so long. I'm not sure how much of this helps, but I hope this answers at least a small part of your question and you can try out if any of this works for you. Feel free to come back and ask me more if you still have any questions!

Good luck!

[ask-the-bone-boys]

I have enjoyed this series SO much. It really shows how much work and love you've put into it and how much it means to you; I'll absolutely keep following it along through its completion. I look forward to its return in any form!

With that said, here's a proposal for you (and this is not me trying to sway what you decide; it's simply an idea I had after reading your post): since you DO enjoy the asking interactions, you could always continue doing that (obviously much less often so you're not burning yourself out) in the form of an OOC accompaniment to the fics! And by that, I mean, people could ask you or the characters about their thoughts on specific (non spoiler) things happening in the plot that wouldn't be actually happening in the fic itself. That would both let you continue to do some of the answering asks, AND it would mean you would need to do a lot less of it since you can progress the plot and provide answers to spoiler related asks at your leisure with writing, which wouldn't depend on the ask feature itself since it's already a planned part of the story.

P.S: I hope your winter break and next semester go great!

I'm glad you've liked it so much!! It's funny, this blog was originally meant to be a much smaller project that'd just give me something to do when I was bored, but now it's really grown into something I love working on just for the sake of creating! its such a weird mix of personal-to-me and just fucking around and its so so fun even if I have to change it up a lot!

that's a pretty cool idea, and I have seen others do it before, but sadly i don't really think it's very feasible at the moment :( ask culture itself has honestly been suffering a Ton on tumblr lately already, which was a big reason I stopped enjoying the ask blog format in the first place. But even besides that, there are. a LOT of things that happen in this story!!! And I know myself well enough to know that I would Not be satisfied by using character portraits that don't match the setting of whatever update they're commenting on. Meaning, I would likely end up putting in the work to draw a bunch of stuff anyway.

I'm trying to get this final event set up in time for me to get a large portion of it finished before I go back to school, because I know that once I get into the meat of the semester and living with roommates again I won't have nearly as much time or energy to put into answering asks in-character. It is very difficult to be constantly drawing the same character in 532 different outfits when your roommate is constantly sitting directly behind you !!!!! (and also i'll have homework and classes taking up my time too i guess)

So as sad as I am about it, once this event is wrapped up I really do think it'll be time I'll have to let the ask blog format go. I've been thinking on it for a really long time, honestly I think right after I posted that very last comic update, even before I went on hiatus, a part of me knew that I just couldn't keep doing this.

But I still love remembering it for what it was! That's the entire reason I'm setting up a send-off event in the first place, so we can have one last taste of that fun that comes with working on a story with other people! I'll admit I'm a little scared, but hopefully it'll be a blast!!!!

[writeious-hand]

Holding Out for a Hero: Part 3

I agree with the comment, the last part got very serious. I have time, here is a little Easter gift for anyone who has liked the story thus far. I've started rolling a die for characters making checks (you'll see later) and using that for writing.

This section is more about Alariel and Xenk's past, do enjoy less angst. Links to earlier parts under the cut.

Xenk X Cleric!OC

No Beta, we die like men.

______________________________________________________________

"If it makes you feel any better, both Edgin AND Doric chewed him out."

Alariel looked up to see the muscle-bound woman, Holga, standing at the entrance to her tent. It had been an hour or so since she had met the barbarian.

"I stand by what I said. I cannot travel with you, not with him. Besides, with him here you really don't need me."

"I didn't come here to ask you to help us again." Alariel looked up at her in confusion. Holga sat down beside her on the cot. "I wanted to make sure you were okay. I know how shitty it can be running into your ex."

"Oh." She didn't know what to say. Maybe it was because she was used to doing all of the looking after. Alariel hadn't had someone to look after her in quite some time.

"So should we be calling you Alariel or Lyra?" Holga offered her one of the rolled calligrapher's tool sets that had been set out to be placed into her bag of holding.

"Either is fine. One of the younger children had some difficulty pronouncing my name, and it sort of stuck with the people of the community. It was sweet." Her hands stilled in packing as she smoothed the leather cover of a journal.

"You don't have to leave since we showed up. Don't wanna chase you out of your home." Holga looked closer at the young woman. She appeared to be younger than her, but it was always hard to tell with elves. If this one knew Xenk, she was at least 100 years older than her.

"No, this just gives me a reason to finally move on. Like I had said, I lingered here too long anyway." She took a stack of her journals in hand and continued her packing.

"If you don't mind me asking, where will you go?"

"I've been heading to the Sword Coast for a while now. I haven't been in a city in some time, so perhaps I will make my next stop in Waterdeep before heading up to Neverwinter. I know I could spend the next century in either place and never hear the same story twice."

"It's funny you mention that..."

And that was how Alariel learned that the odd band of adventurers who were looking for her help were actually the heroes of Neverwinter. By the time Holga had finished telling her version of the story, Alariel had to set out her Orb of Light and had practically filled a scroll with the details.

"This still doesn't make sense..." Lyra's brow was furrowed. "You are still being chased by these assassins?"

"We lost them most recently around the Goldfields. I chopped one up real good and threw the parts in the river." Lyra was both disgusted and impressed at the barbarian's work.

"But why isn't Xenk just smiting them?"

"Doing what?"

"Smiting. You know, holy radiance on the blade... thundering force... banishing fiends?" Holga still gave her a blank stare.

"I mean, his sword-dagger glowed when he was fighting that assassin in the Underdark?" Alariel gave a small shake of her head. Why wasn't Xenk using his paladin abilities? A soft glow to his blade could be compelled duel, but she had seen firsthand the brilliance of his devotion. Why wouldn't he have killed them the first time? Destroying the undead was part of his mission.

"Anyway-" Alariel knew she couldn't get invested in this new mystery, no matter how much she wanted to, "I think I've kept you up late enough as is. Humans need more sleep than elves do, yes? Thank you again for letting me record your story."

"No problem. I was curious after seeing how many books you had in your tent. What the fuck is up with that?"

Lyra shook her head, and laughed at the crude language of her new friend. "No wonder you all are so confident in my abilities to defeat Thay assassins. I'm no war cleric, I am a follower of Deneir."

"The Scribe of Oghma?"

"The God of Glyphs and Images?"

Holga's eyes lit up with recognition. "The candle with the eyeball!"

Lyra deflated and looked at Holga confused and a bit concerned. "How in Oghma's name did you know that, but not his domains?"

"My ex-husband used to frequent this bookstore, and it had a little shrine in the window. I asked one day who it was for."

Not long after their discussion, Holga left to meet with the other members of her makeshift family. They had found a section of the shanty town where they were allowed to pitch a tent. While Simon, Kira, and Doric were trying to get the tent out of the opening in Simon's bag of holding, Edgin still was pacing back and forth in front of Xenk, who looked to be meditating on a bare patch of ground.

"A note!? You left her alone with a note-"

Xenk seemed to be ignoring him at this point, but Edgin had said the same speech about 9 times.

"-You were engaged! How does this not come up in conversation, I mean really you think you know a guy.-"

Holga walked up to the tent-pitching group. "Hey bug, think your old man will run out of steam any time soon?"

"I don't think so." Kira looked between the paladin and her father, "Not only did he royally embarrass himself, but with love you know he's always had this sense of self-righteous honor."

"Well I for one," Simon interrupted, "would love it if he would stop. Maybe then I could finally concentrate on getting these poles to stay up."

Doric rolled their eyes, "Sure like that's the issue."

Suddenly, Xenk turned toward the outside of the village. Standing, he drew in a deep breath. Glancing around, he drew his sword,

"They have found us."

[thecurioustale]

Started reading your work recently and am impressed. How long do you think your current two projects will be when finished, in terms of word count?

Thank you for the kind words, anon! You're the first anonymous ask I've ever gotten that wasn't either spam or hating on me. :3

This is a good question, and one that I think about myself. My answer is kind of long so I'm putting the bottom line up top, and please take this with an enormous grain of salt because my crystal ball is a muddy one and so many things can change (up or down) in the editing:

The Galaxy Federal Inaugural Novel (working title) will probably be between 300,000 and 3 million words. If I really had to take a wild guess and narrow it down further, probably a little shy of the 1 million mark i.e. the 800,000 – 900,000 range.

Chapter 1 of After The Hero: A Curious Tale is harder to estimate for various reasons but is "probably" going to end up in the 200,000 – 700,000 range.

Okay, so that's the TL;DR. Now for the nitty gritty:

I have no friggin' clue! I have found with past experience that my estimates for this kind of thing are usually bad (and not in a specific direction or way).

A natural pair of questions to ask is: "What word count currently exists?" and "Roughly what percent of completion are these books at?"

The difficulty in my answering the first question is that, with the way my writing process works, I'd have to go and manually look at a bunch of different Word files and add it all up—an attainable chore but definitely a chore, as there are dozens and dozens of these files.

I've been working a lot on Galaxy Federal lately, adding a low tens of thousands of new words to the text just in the past three months. I am noticing lately that I am getting tantalizingly close to being able to stitch together a lot of material into a single manuscript document (or a couple documents), which will give me a much better impression both of my progress this year and much better estimating power as to what the finished book is likely to end up being in terms of length.

I had been holding off on looking at the word count till then, as a milestone reward. However, since I've been curious about this myself, and since someone has asked, I went and did a (very!) rough estimate of the existing manuscript text in the Galaxy Federal Inaugural Novel. This does not include supporting documentation, worldbuilding documents, etc.—just manuscript text.

As of today that number is currently 192,235 words (in 38 different documents). However, this is high, because I know there is some abandoned text in there as well as some other detritus inside the various manuscript documents that would be very time-consuming to factor out. I'm pretty confident in saying that the true number is close to 170,000, albeit with the caveat that not all of that, by any means, is going to make it into the final book.

The difficulty in my answering the second question—about the completion percentage—is that the Galaxy Federal Inaugural Novel still has some pretty fundamental unanswered questions and blank zones. I also don't really have a clue yet just how much cutting of existing text is likely to happen in the main editing phase. Probably quite a fair bit. ATH Chapter 1 has far fewer fundamental unanswered questions, but there are still huge areas of the text that haven't begun to get written. Less of it will be cut in editing than with the Galaxy Federal novel, as I have a much tighter grip on the ATH Chapter 1 story and am not writing many sections that are never likely to see the light of day.

A very wild shot in the dark for the percent completion on the Galaxy Federal Novel is that I am between one-ninth and one-half of the way there in terms of the entire project. The more optimistic "one-half" leans heavily on the extensive progress I have already made in world conceptualization, story construction, and the existing word count. The less optimistic "one-ninth" leans heavily on word count projections alone. But I can't stress enough just how wild of a guess this is. As for ATH Chapter 1, an equally wild guess is that I am about one-fourth of the way there, maybe closer to one-half if I again heavily factor in the existing story development and worldbuilding work that isn't directly reflected in the word count.

The good news is that I don't foresee that these rather anemic completion percentage estimates are going to take correspondingly more time in the future than their respective projects have already taken in the past. This is due to so much of the worldbuilding and story construction already being done, and also due to the fact that I have been writing a lot more frequently in the past couple years. If I truly were only one-ninth of the way through the Galaxy Federal Inaugural Novel, and have been working on it for almost seven years, then at a linear rate it would take me another fifty-five years or so to finish, and that's just not going to be the case. I anticipate finishing both books in this decade, barring personal disaster in my life (which could easily happen), and at least one of these two books is likely to be finished well before the end of the decade.

That's good news for the Galaxy Federal Inaugural Novel, which is a standalone work, but obviously raises questions about my ability to complete ATH in its entirety in my lifetime. =[

[pinnadraws]

You already know that I rarely write about my thoughts on Twitter (X) and even less on tumblr, but lately I've been thinking a lot about the "artistic" aspects of my life.

Final Fantasy VIII has always been and always will be my comfort place. When I play it or write/draw about it I feel good because it's something I love and, in many ways, what defined me as a person in this world. That’s s the reason why I created this account.

Finally, after many years, I began to feel truly comfortable with social networks and with sharing my works online. Mostly thanks to you, my followers. You are few, but you are wonderful.

And yet, I feel a little frustrated (artistically speaking).

I don't feel "bad", in the strict sense of the word, because I’m aware of my own situation. Between work and the baby, I barely have time to draw and I have no choice but to invest practically 100% of that short time in the commissions. I wish I could have more time to invest in my FFVIII drawings or my own projects not related to that game. The list of ideas grows and grows and grows but I can never cross anything off.

I imagine that those of you who read my tweets already know that I have started and/or mentioned several projects and ideas to share on this account (and in the NSFW account) and that either I have not finished or, directly, I have not even been able to start. So, after much reflection, I have come to a conclusion.

At this point in my life I should not become obsessed with advancing and developing projects (Basically because it is becoming impossible for me XD) so I have to redirect my creative energies in another way.

Therefore, I have decided that, from now on, I am going to focus on practicing and improving, drawing more loosely, making a lot of sketches, instead of trying to make a final illustration. I will practice anatomy and, if my abilities allow, backgrounds. Maybe it's not as interesting as a full illustration (?) but I feel like right now it's the best decision I can make to not get stuck and frustrated.

With this I hope to improve and learn so that in the future I can be able to bring you higher quality FFVIII drawings.

All this does not mean that I will stop making commissions. Quite the opposite (diapers don't pay for themselves XD).

So, if you are interested, you already know how to contact me ;)

I hope this decision does not disappoint you. I will try to make the sketches as interesting as possible for you and, of course, they are gonna be of FFVIII. I still have drawings left to share here on Tumblr, but… you get the idea.

That's all for today. A big hug for everyone

[penname-artist]

“So, I went beyond...pluuuuuuuus ULTRA” (And other updates)

(Warning: unintentionally long)

Okay, but in all seriousness, I finally feel that I’ve progressed just far enough in the show to state that I got into My Hero Academia. Technically, I’d watched season one and like the first 2-3 episodes of two before, but I didn’t finish it, and now I’m trying to. At the moment I’m about halfway through season 2 and making steady progress. Side note: You SPOIL shit near me and you’re a DEAD MAN! Let me watttttch >:(

Honestly I am fucking loving the series right now, I think aside from Deku, my favorites are definitely Tsu (Froooooggie) and, well, Shoto. You saw that coming, I can understand why he’s an overrated favorite. Feel bad for the kid though, like damn, boi you got some serious daddy issues, would you like a popsicle?

And, having started back up on MHA, I’m getting *cough cough* ideas *cough* for potential AUs and such.

Which actually segues this into another thing, just general life updates.

We had a pretty bad freeze lately, but thank God we didn’t lose our entire state power grid this time around, so it was smooth sailing. Unless you count the fact that we had to go out because I needed to be at work while the roads were slippery as snot. Which, was only one day. So we’re fine.

I also had a fix on the house which has FINALLY deterred the Mystery Creature from showing up at night and disturbing my sleep. After months of restlessness, we found out that it was coming in through a vent outside under my bedroom, and we had it covered. That seemed to do the job, thank goodness.

For mental health and productivity, I can’t really say much on the case; things have been about as steady as they can be, but in that it hasn’t really gone anywhere up, and I’m afraid I might be teetering on top of another depressive slump. Which, at the very least I’m prepared for. I honestly thought it would have been sooner, I had a REALLY bad attack a couple weeks ago and I felt sure it was going to be lasting, but by some miracle, though the attack itself was horrendous, I managed to recover in a record time. The only big downside is that my trauma response seems to have “manifested” (for lack of a better word) into very severe body tremors and shaking. I can control it...somewhat...but it drains a lot out of me. Still, I suppose it’s become more manageable, in a tangible sense. I’m a little less worried about how I react mentally to triggers and more worried about how I react physically. That’s a much easier hurdle to take on, overall.

Though, mental barriers are just as much an issue, if for a slightly different reason, at the moment. I’m honestly really stuck, writing-wise. I have so much I want to work on and so much I try to work on, but just a few paragraphs in I get skeptical because the piece will become jarring and choppy, and hard to maintain. I’ve re-started the same baseline to a Clutch and Tyker fic about four times now.

I’m actually considering doing a deep-clean, throwing out concepts too old and too untouched to really go any further with. I will, of course, keep the important ones, and the pieces that are ongoing, but a lot of the stuff I have in the wings that hasn’t been released is just so fucking dead in the water, I either need to put it in the waiting room or drop it completely. So, not sure where that’s going yet.

Actually, come to think of it, the semi-annual is also coming up.

Been doing this for a few years now but as a re-reminder, I try to take social media times down significantly or else entirely 1-2 times a year, one in the spring and one in the autumn. April and September-October have been my best time frames for these, as they’re not only good distances apart, but they’re in relatively trauma-ey time periods that I need to focus on getting through rather than pushing past. Plus, it’s a great excuse to work on large scale projects and not feel any sort of production-line pressure I put on myself to get them out, because they’re all gonna get stacked in a corner to wait until my return.

So! In recap: I’m probably gonna stick around until April 10th (I wanna at LEAST get to have my 21st birthday in the company of my people) and then probably do a week or two heavily away from things, and then extended time kinda by the seat of my pants as needed. That’s still a ways out, but better prepared sooner than later!

That’s all the updates that I can think of for the time being, for now I’m kinda just trying to Vibe where I can. I want to work on things but my body is giving me a very big “no”, so. Sidelines week it is!

Hopefully you all have a relaxing and/or fun-filled weekend, and until the morrow!

[lavendertowerarchives]

I will always find something to stress about. Summer is the chillest part of the year, and I'm still worried about too much shit.

I haven't beaten terraria, it's getting on my nerves and making me aggravated with it's sheer difficulty (I'm playing master mode plus I'm just bad).

I haven't written enough of my latest literary fling. I can churn out twenty full pages in a single day, five on a worse day. Why can't I just write when I want to? Why do I have this massive mental block that lets me imagine and write the story in my head, but never through a keyboard?

I've eaten very little. I mean like less than I should, and I've eaten waaay less than I normally do. Today's breakfast was a burrito. Today's dinner was a single tortilla. That's it. I have paralysis when it comes to making food. I really don't want to get up and start a whole new project just to keep my stomach from wrenching itself every two minutes.

I haven't talked to AH all summer. I haven't talked to S all summer. I haven't talked to E all summer. I havent 100% isolated myself but I still need more contact. My parter is nice to be around, AK is nerdy as hell and fun to play games with, PP is lovely to talk to no matter the subject. I just need more. I'm too scared to hit people up so late in the summer. I didn't even wish JC a happy birthday because it had been so long since he talked to me, and he will likely never see me nor seattle ever again.

I intended to do a personal project with JH (her idea, not mine) but there's been barely any contact. I want to ask if we're still on but summer is halfway over. I might've waited too long. For this issue, I just haven't been doing well, and want to bring her a version of me that can code. I haven't written c++ in months.

I haven't watched Inuyasha, Ranma (new series woo), half of GDQ, and most of the stuff in my queue. I just need to devote my entire attention to them, and my attention is always split. Focusing on anime\youtube means not finishing kirby, proxying decks, reading manga...

I still gotta schedule my trip to see my brother, or else not go at all. Fuckin hell. Plane tickets are gonna be awful.

I can't stop focusing on finishing things. I see the halfway mark on some project and see it as nothing at all. I'm halfway through a kirby game (got stuck on boss four), and I feel no pride, no accomplishment, nothing but disappointment for the lack of visible progress. This view is applied to literally everything I do.

What happened to me enjoying things in the moment? Why can't I feel happy unless there's a little box to be ticked off? Why do I feel relief and exhaustion and not satisfaction when a thingy is done? Fuck if I know.

I'm too goal-oriented. I can't do something without fixating on whether it's done or not. The reason I care so much if it's done is it's another thing I have to come back to. I don't want to come back to anything, I want to explore it when it makes me happy and never think about it again.

For every unfinished task, I have to remember it exists. I have three writing projects that I can never let leave my mind, or else risk my fourth project overwriting my memories. One's fifty pages, one's twleve pages, and the other is fourteen. I hate that I measure them in pages. The number should mean nothing at all. It only matters whether I'll ever come back to them.

The only task I'm comfortable with not ever completing is conversing with someone. I will always want more, and sometimes I'll even get my shit together and grab it. That's one of the few things I can do just to do it. I am incapable of interacting with something if there isn't a way to prove I did it.

"What did you do over the summer, Lavender?"

I did half of many things. I have nothing to show for my efforts. Absolutely nothing. No pride, no satisfaction, not even rest.

[taylorgraymoore]

December 5, 2023

Below is one more day from my online diary thingy, which I'm posting more regularly on my website (www.taylorgraymoore.com). If you like it, please take a look :D

I'm going to take a break from chronicling Montreal for now and try to catch up to the present, which is getting forgotten. And that forgets the whole point of the project. I need to wait to talk to someone about the next bit, anyway, and have time to chew on it. So, a break.

Anyway, here you go:

Today has been an eventful day, easily the most eventful of the trip so far: it’s nearly 4AM on the 6th now, and the day hasn’t ended. I just got back. I am well and drunk, and it’s far too late to write about any of this. Let me try again tomorrow, or later. Perhaps on the plane. I don’t know when the next time will be: this end of the trip is so compressed, and there is so much happening that these last days, as I look back at them (I’m back in Vancouver now, I couldn’t even finish this on the plane), and it feels like it should have been most of the trip. It was not—it was only the last 50 some-odd hours of a week long visit.

…

Almost everything after this point, this day and the next one at least, I finished after the fact. It got that busy. … So, the texture of the narrative will therefore be somewhat different—I don’t know how, but if I’m writing most of it in Vancouver who knows how long later, that will probably happen. It’s a memoir now, not a diary. Although I’ll still try to pretend—

Today is the day I promised to visit Tom in Lachine. Lachine is far—still technically Montreal proper, although this is only recently the case, but so far west it’s almost the airport, and, apart from passing through making my way to a plane, I have never been there. So I had to look up how to get there, and what time I had to leave if I wanted to get there, hang out a bit, and then get back out with reasonable time left in the evening. I have plans to get out to Verdun in the evening, you see—there’s somebody I want to see.

.I check this. I’ve checked it before, but I want to check again to be sure, and be more exact about it. Seems I’ll have to leave the apartment by 10:45—the earliest I’ve left to go anywhere so far—walk to the metro, get off at Lionel-Groulx and change to a bus. Not so complicated. But it’s a long trip, about an hour, and I always dislike unknown transfers, especially when the bus only comes every half an hour.

(It’s Friday, December 15th right now—the fourth day of waking up at 5am, and I’ve been editing this stuff at about 5pm every day this week, after coming home from the early shift I’ve been waking up at 5 for and settling in. It’s starting to get hard to do this, just from accumulated fatigue. And the texture of these texts is starting to turn into something more uncertain, less spontaneous. I’m less sure if I like it any more; I’m not sure if it’s still—and I HATE using this word but it’s the only one I know that gets the idea across—authentic to what it was meant to be. It’s starting to feel too much like fiction. I’m starting to worry too much about the plot, about scenes, about what I want to convey, and I’m going back and editing too much. I’m going to try to quit that a bit.)

I hadn’t seen Tom in… when was the last time I saw Tom? I don’t even remember. We weren’t so close, but I liked him. I was not always nice enough to him. It would be good to see him again. I had promised to see him before I knew he lived way out in Lachine, but that was fine—I like a good, long journey into the unknown. Fleshing out the map of the city a little. I’m a wanderer at heart, at least when I can do it by bus.

He offered to sell me back the copy of Animal Crossing that I sold him back in 2018, during the worst days at the end when I was selling everything off, mostly old games that I had never wanted to get rid of and wish I still had. (Oh, hey, that must’ve been the last time I’d seen him. Standing across from the old bathhouse at Bagg and St-Laurent waiting to meet him and exchange the game for, what was it, about thirty bucks? It was outside where, in the wee hours of the next morning, I would find that Matvey was saying. The world goes in these circles and places find their meaning that way). I said sure. I would be pleased to get it back—I’d give it to my mom, who had played it more than me. I wasn’t happy to sell a single one of those, and the idea of getting one of them, any of them, back is intensely cathartic. Like the quiet sort of emotional resolution you get at the end of a lot of quiet postmodern novels—a little bit of Earthly perfection.

I want to finish editing the last chapter of the novella before I go, and I do that easily—it’s only a couple of pages long, and I don’t have so many notes to copy out. Want to do that so much because I strongly suspect I will have no more time after I heard out the door that morning.

I have another time after I’m done to finish my coffee and get a 20 from the ATM in the dep directly below me, and then I’m off towards Mont-Royal metro through the snow that I’m already used to again. Enough has fallen and been packed now that I don’t slip so easily anymore. Make a quick phone call to home as I go up Rachel, then I turn onto St-Denis, thinking about how I had always wanted to spend more time on the street and how nice it feels to be walking along it now, and then I slip onto the metro and begin the journey proper. I zip underneath downtown and then out the other side.

Lionel-Groulx is a place I’ve never gone to much except to pass through. It’s where the bus from the airport lets you off, and where you catch it if you’re going out again. Sometimes I also got off here to go to the Super C by the Atwater Market, but that’s about it. I know there’s stuff around here, just the pattern of my life. I think I did go to a cafe near here once, just to have done it. But I associate it with comings and goings.

When I first arrived back after five years in exile, last May, I got out here. It has a power to it if only for that.

It’s one of my favourite stations design wise—looks pretty nice, I like the strange twisted tree sculpture with the faces, and it’s highly functional: an exchange station, the obvious transfers are made by just crossing the platform. Refreshing compared to all the walking in Berri-UQAM and not to mention the twisted labyrinth inside Jean-Talon. (I don’t know Snowdon enough to have an opinion.) Matt raves about it on his website: it’s truly excellent. … Let’s not talk too much about who its named after, other than to say he’s got a nice name.

There’s a bit of confusion when I surface from it, because the bus stop I need had been moved for… some reason that was not clarified. I cross Atwater towards a stop I at first think is what I want, only to find another closed stop. I turn around and see the bus appearing and about to turn towards what I realize is definitely the place I’m supposed to be. But the light changes, I bolt back across Atwater, and I join the line with plenty of time. I board. I sit. The bus pulls away and I water the world go by out the window as we follow the same path as that fabled bus to the airport until pulling out to go to Lachine.

Like I said, have never really been to Lachine. The airport bus passes along the top of it, although on the expressway so you don’t really see it, and I did get a better view on Uber ride once, which went along the streets of Lachine while trying to get me through the airport in time to catch a flight while the expressway was backed up with traffic.

The bus followed the same route as that Uber had for a short while, then turned onto Provost. I enjoy seeing previously unknown streets: it looks like how a lot of Montreal looks, but there are more single-floor detached homes. It’s a little like the South Shore, but not nearly that suburban. I watched a TV show filmed here once, and it looks enough like the East End for you to not notice it isn’t. But it is certainly more out of the way than where I’ve spent most of my time.

I get off at the stop Maps told me to get off at, and begin the trek through the snow to my end destination—one long Montreal block away. I pass a stop for the 90 St-Jacques, which is closer to where I’m going and also goes back to the metro. Maybe a better way to leave—and it goes through NDG, where there’s a bookstore I want to visit. Let’s look into that.

The address I’m headed for is the first building around the corner, when I turn. I walk up the steps and ring the apartment number I’d been given, get buzzed in.

Tom is as I remember him, more or less. Which isn’t a bad thing. We do the exchange for the game, he gets his twenty and the Animal Crossing goes into my bag, and then we sit and play some steam games. for an hour or two. It’s the most relaxed I’ve been in days. I do better than I thought I would, and I wish I did stuff like this more often. I note to myself I should see how many of these I can find on the Switch when I’m back in Van.

But then it’s time to go—we promise to add each other on switch, and I leave to catch that 90 St-Jacques bus. Which runs every fifteen minutes, not every half hour like the other one, apart from just plain being closer, and Tom agrees it’s the better way to go. I leave the building, turn the corner. The buss appears, passes me, pulls up to the stop. I break into a run, dunking under one or two tree branches without slowing down and praying I don’t slip. It sits there. I make it. I sit down to catch my breath—my lungs are still not exactly super happy, so I’m suffering a little—and see the useful digital sign telling me that I had five more minutes and so didn’t need to run.

It’s a more interesting bus route: the same way back along Provost, and then down 1re and Georges-V the way I came, but then instead of joining the Autoroute it instead goes under it and takes me through more that I’d never seen—through Ville St-Pierre and the bottom of Montreal West, along St-Jacques until I recognize Cavendish and here we are in familiar lands again. NDG: I spent a lot of time here, I was in a relationship with someone who lived here for years, and then I even lived here for a week at the very end of things. Even after I had come back to Montreal, it seemed like another thing entirely to go back to NDG, and I didn’t honestly expect to do it. But here I am—for the bookstore.

At Upper Lachine and Melrose I get off the bus. I walk up Melrose, through the tunnel under the tracks, and then continue until I eventually reach Sherbrooke West—which is exactly as I remember it. Why does it seem impossible that it still exists preserved? It should have collapsed like a false vacuum after I last passed by here on the 105. Like a fantasy world one wakes up from, like Koholint Island, gone.

But that’s silly; and nothing has changed. My favourite cafe there closed down during lockdown, but even that is the same on the outside—the sign is still up and everything, just the windows are papered over. I know this because I pass it on the bus when I leave, later, and I’m shocked to see that even that is the same. It must have been held suspended for me, so I could see it again and leave it properly, without fear and without distortion.

The reason why I’m here at all: Encore Books & Records. The third and last bookstore I’m going to to find the Okri book. … have they have it! I hadn’t even planned to come here. Must be fate. They have it, plus a couple of other books I want—Achebe’s No Longer at Ease, which I read shortly thereafter, and then I forget the other one—and a couple of records—Ville Emard Blues Band, plus a Christmas gift for someone—and I make myself glad that I brought a reusable tote back. I prolong my visit a bit longer, because I really did not expect to ever be back here. I take some pictures and send them to Mark, who would love it. Then—I really don’t want to be too late getting back—I head onwards. Walk out to the stop for the 105, wait a good ten minutes for it. Take the trip I remember so well back towards Vendome and the outside world, passing the shuttered Shaika and a past life as I go.

A version of myself died here in 2018. For years after, it really was hard to believe that my life had not somehow ended, that the life I was living in my present was in any way still my own. This bus ride reattaches that death to my continuing life. I don’t think that, then; that’s the artistry brought on by a later week’s reflection; when I disembark outside the totally reconstructed and unrecognizable Vendome, I’m only thinking of how hungry I am.

Back in the Plateau, I get off at Sherbrooke rather than Mont-Royal, so that, on the way back, I can stop off at Le Vieux Europe and get one of their sandwiches. It was on my list of places that I’d always wanted to go to but never did. I also like the walk better: I’m sick of the walk from Mont-Royal, and I want to see Carré St-Louis and the lower bits of the Plateau, I am happy to get to walk along des Pins E and along Roy, go past a not-yet-open Else’s and remember the good and the bad times had in there (mostly good; I only haven’t been there yet because I have decided to wait for Matvey, because it was his place more than mine…)

[kinetic-elaboration]

October 19: Writing Plans for the Rest of the Year

I had a very nice autumnal hour sitting outside the new Starbucks with a pumpkin spice latte and pumpkin bread after work. The Starbucks is in such a weird location: it itself is pretty adorable but it's literally right on the road and there's a fair amount of traffic, which is kind of disorienting. I realize that sounds very normal but my other coffee shops are in pedestrian only and partially closed off streets so I'm really not used to cars so close.

Anyway, I did some thinking about where I am writing wise. I can see a clear path ahead for about a month, then it gets murkier.

Here's where I am/the plan coming up.

Troped Horror Exchange: I've written about a third of this, probably a bit less. That's not great but I'm planning/hoping to get a big chunk done this weekend. Overall I'm not really worried about not finishing, I'm worried about not having time to do anything ELSE. I won't love if this is my sole contribution this Halloween but still the most important thing is honoring my commitments so it will remain prio #1 until it's finished. No matter what, this will be done by the time November rolls around.

Halloween Ficlets: I really, really wanted to write ficlets this year and I still do. I'm going to try. 'Hauntings' won my little poll, so I've been following that idea, brainstorming, and planning some things out. As I said, I think there's a possibility I'll need to go all the way to Halloween with Troped. Even if I don't, I'd still be writing these last minute, so most likely optimistic scenario is they all post on Halloween or over the 30th/31st. I've basically decided that if I start the series I'll let myself go into the beginning of November to finish it. I did that in 2019; it's unideal but fine. But if I haven't even started or if it's going really poorly, I'll scrap the whole thing. Again, in one way or another, this will be off my to-do list as of the beginning of November.

Make a Lot of Money and Feel Dead Inside: The plan was always to get back to this after I finish the Halloween stuff, make it my first priority, and finish it "as soon as possible." I've firmed that up a little bit. I want to use this project for CalmWriMo and set myself the completely reasonable and attainable goal of finishing it by the end of the month. I only have 10 scenes left to write. There's a lot of editing still, but the writing is, I think, not too bad. I think it might even be possible that I finish with time to spare (will I regret typing that? lol). But basically, this is my November project.

...And now it's late November/early December. Here's the thing about this part of the year. First off, I have a huge Thanksgiving break, so potentially a lot of writing time there. And I'm going to see my family for Christmas as usual, so there is free time there as well. But on the other hand, it's dark, it's cold, it's busy.... I don't know. It's hard to predict how much writing energy I'll have.

And the second thing: it's a heavy 'event time.' Last year I had literally zero events for the first time in years and I anticipate 2023 will be the same. I still become very tempted to do, like, personal holiday events like a ficmas or an end of year thing but LBR fluff is not my strong suit as a writer. I can do it, I'm not being disparaging about myself, but I don't really care to churn out happy, sappy, romantic, conflict-less narratives. So, objectively, it would be better to just go back to the WIPs at this point.

But I like events, I like the holidays, I like special things. I don't know. I'll probably mull that over more starting in November, if I want to do SOMETHING, maybe a look to next year's projects or like some small fics or something, I don't know, or if I just want to go back to some other project to get a head start on 2024.

I like having a plan ahead of time because I really get stuck with the tyranny of choice. Like, I can't double think anything in my life. I have to just do things without thinking or I'll cease to want to do them. Writing included. So I don't want to finish Money and go like ??? what now? But I also don't want to plan too far ahead and tell myself I have to do or should do such-and-such a project and then I'm not remotely in that mood when the end of November rolls around. So.

But it will be nice to kind of have a blank slate again? Like a blank slate of my 50-ish ideas? I don't know. Money came out of nowhere and hit me in the face and I love it and am proud of it but it also just completely took over my life for about 9 weeks? And now I'm frantically trying to make horror season work. So really the last time I thought about the WIPs was mid-July. It has...been a while.

[clevermird]

New one-shot!

Title: Hammershot

Prompt: Hidden Talents @shortfictionweeklychallenge

Rating: All ages

Characters: Mallena Dayne, (female Republic Trooper), Aric Jorgan

Pairing(s): None

After finishing her business on Coruscant, Mallena takes the time to write a letter to her mother - and make a special request

text under cut

From: Lieutenant Mallena Dayne, Havoc Squad, Republic Army, Coruscant

To: Karinda Dayne, Mirial

Subject: Update – sorry it took so long!

Hi, Mom!

How are you doing? How are the boys? Have you heard from Nalin lately?

Sorry it took so long to reply, but things have been crazy since I left Ord Mantell. Sgt. Jorgan and I are still on mission and it will probably be a while before we finish. Wish I could tell you more about it, but it’s still classified. I’m sure you understand.

I can tell you that I met General Garza a few days ago! All the rumors you’ve heard about her are probably true. Still not sure if I admire her or am terrified of her, but either way, I’m glad she’s on our side. Oh, and would you believe it? Your little girl got to testify about her missions in front of the Senate. It was terrible.

I can’t give you much more, but if the younger boys ask, tell them that I’m still on my secret mission, but I’m OK and I send my love.

Now for some good news. First, Procurement finally sorted out the equipment situation, so I have my armor plates back. They’re apparently trying to rebrand Havoc Squad or something. Orange is gone, green is in. I like this color better, though, and it stands out a bit less on the battlefield. They even sent us new weapons! You should see my new rifle – nice long barrel, trigger perfectly smooth, stock fits right in my shoulder. And they’ve started adding something new to their blaster gas that makes them it slightly faster.

I thought the sergeant was going to kiss his new assault cannon. Whatever issues we’ve had, he has at least one redeeming quality. Man loves his tech as much as I do. Maybe we won’t kill each other on our trip across the galaxy after all ;)

Seriously, though, he’s not as bad to have around as I thought he would be. I guess sitting in a bunker all day dealing with stupid recruits and idiotic Procurement would put a stick up anyone’s butt. At least I’ve got him to start calling me “Lieutenant”, which is better than “Sir”. I’m not Dad yet! Lol.

Oh, I’m almost forgetting the best news. Since our mission is going to take a while, the general has assigned us our own ship! Who knows for how long,  but I’m hoping if we do well on this assignment, that they’ll let us keep it. It’s a brand-new BT-7 Thunderclap, big guy, with room to house half a dozen and transport twice that. Not the prettiest ship, though. For some reason, all I can think of when I look at it is that it looks like a hammer, even though it really doesn’t. So I named it Hammershot, which doesn’t sound quite as stupid as The Hammer.

If I can catch you on the holo sometime, I’ll give you and Dad and the boys a tour. I’m surprised how nice it is – my cabin is bigger than my bedroom was in any of the houses we’ve lived in. Not sure what I’ll do with all of the space, lol.

Would you mind sending along some of the stuff I left at home? I probably don’t have room for everything, but if you could grab a box or two of civvie clothes and some holodisks or something? Oh, and the one marked “music stuff”.

Send my love to everyone,

Lena

2 days later:

Sergeant Aric Jorgan sat in Hammershot’s main workroom, finishing yet another pass on the already perfectly shiny assault cannon, when he heard music. No surprise there, the lieutenant was still onboard as far as he knew, but something sounded odd about it. He tightened the last piece in place and went to investigate.

The music grew louder as he approached her cabin. The door was ajar and as he raised his hand to knock, he caught sight of the lieutenant. She stood facing slightly away from the door with a look of dreamy concentration on her face. An open box with the words “music stuff” scrawled on the side sat at her feet and she held a viol. As she lifted the bow from the strings, the melody ended and after a brief pause, she began again, this time with a faster beat and a little foot tap.

Jorgan let his hand fall and returned to his quarters, smiling a little as the ship echoed with music.

[wanderingaldecaldo]

Poison Ivy and The Penguin

bodysuit mesh: @scumpatrol | hair & roses: @wingdeer

tattoos: comm | everything else: me

[click for better quality]

More after the cut because I am so fucking happy with how they both turned out. 😭😭😭

ETA: Whoops, hit post on accident but oh well, I'll reblog the hell out of it anyway.

I started working on these outfits back in August. I've been obsessed with the idea of Corpo!Val as Poison Ivy since almost her inception, and what better reason to make it happen than Halloween! For the bodysuit, I used Mel's base and used a custom microblend for the texture and found a green that looked perfect on her.

Then it was a matter of finding and recoloring the boots and sleeves, and the tattoo. The boots proved a learning opportunity as I either had to refit basically all of the mesh (they originally belonged to Evelyn) or I could use ArchiveXL to hide parts of her legs -- so ArchiveXL it was! I wasn't committed to the tattoo idea until fairly late in the whole process, but Katsigian was so helpful. They took my idea and turned it into something incredible, and it really is the proverbial icing.

For Mitch's Penguin costume, I was able to reuse the suit I'd already made for their corpo AU. I just to recolor and edit the shirt/vest mesh a touch. The top hat and closed umbrella are new assets imported into the game. The top hat I managed to make look good (enough) but the umbrella is a little bit of a mess, which is why you don't see it a whole lot. 😅 But that's okay, I'm super happy because before I started this journey, I'd never made a single prop, much less imported one into the game.

This is the biggest non-work, non-writing project I've finished in... well, I'm not sure tbh. It was a lot of fun, and I'm so proud of myself for getting it all done in time for the Moxtoberfest contest on the Lizzie's server.

And here is my submission for "Best Costume Award":