#found wips and this is what happened

[jenuinelycurious]

My brain is beginning to turn into turtle soup 🐢

Here's how it went down:

So, this year I've decided to focus on completing my outline WIPs for NaNo this year (failed miserably btw, work ended up souping my brain by week 2 🫠).

Anywho--In my hunt to make sure I've gathered all my outline WIPs, I rediscovered my long list (count it, 13) of TMNT stories I sat down and thought up from almost ten years ago. Some are rather decent and some are....uh... Let's just say they're marked red for "DNC" for a reason haha

But there were a handful that I've found myself thinking "gawd damn, what happens next??" And y'all. I usually pick the story back up to continue writing if that happens, especially if the stories were from years ago prior to focusing on writing.

I wasn't sure if I should continue these stories, cause I've been out of the TMNT loop since 2018. So, I decided to reiterate the basis of one story (a series of 4 novelette formats that blend together) to my friends the other night, just to see what they'd say in terms of engaging story. I recieved full marks of approval to write and share it. Even had one friend actually describe the story in one sentence with her vote:

"It's like Mystery Corp. meets TMNT. I like it."

The reason I decided to reiterate that story and not the other few to them was because, out of the handful, this one (to me) was the most random I had thought up for the Hamato clan. With full marks spreading from my friends on that random story, I'm going to see about writing and finishing all of my selected TMNT fics.

Y'all, I'm fucking nervous as hell about this. Not only have I've been out of the TMNT line for going over 5 years, but I've been out of the fanfic writing world for much, much longer. My last username was on fanfic.Net of Mytho_G--I think my last update there was like...2010? Maybe? I dunno, I lost the email for the account info and tried to make a new one but yeah. Just didn't pan out.

So! Got dem turtle bois on the brain and decided I'm going to start over on AO3 (with current blog username) with my collection of TMNT stories to share. They were made just for fun, something that I wanted to write and read but never got the chance to finish. Let's see how it goes, yeah?

[jessicas-pi]

Ben has kind of been having the worst day of his life, what with the dying and all.

It’s a marked improvement when he’s tramping through the forests of Takodana and a familiar voice demands, “Would you believe me if I told you Palpatine was my grandfather?”

He turns around.

Stares.

Rey stands ten feet away, her blaster pointed at him, a challenge in her eyes.

“Would you believe me if I told you Han Solo was my father?” he says, answering the question with a question.

“Yes,” she says, lowering the blaster.

“Well, that answers that,” he replies, turning off his lightsaber.

The silence stretches on.

Takodana is unpleasantly hot.

Why did he ever think wearing all-black was a suitable fashion choice?

Rey falters, apparently not having planned what to say if she got this far. “I suppose this is where we save the galaxy.”

“I suppose so,” he agrees. “To Exogol, then?”

“Have you got the Wayfinder already?” she asks, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

“Picked it up on the way here.”

“Ah. That simplifies things.” She holsters her blaster and sets off at a brisk pace, adding as she brushes past him: “And try not to die this time. It was so inconvenient.”

“You died first,” he mutters.

[ghostrob]

[novella-november]

Is this fanfic friendly? I feel like an outlier.

I guess this is my sign it's time to throw together a FAQ post to link to lol.

Yes, every event for this blog is fanfic friendly :D

Though as I mentioned on my Ominous October post, for events that include multiple short stories, I encourage everyone to flex their creativity and take one of their planned short story fanfics, and at least *attempt* to turn one of them into something entirely original; rebuilding a character and story from the ground up to stand on its own two legs is no easy feat, and that is what makes it so fun!

It really gets your creative gears turning, to make an "au of an existing material" to be something entirely original, and you can be pleasantly surprised about the things you come up with!

As a few people say, its not just a matter of "filing the serial numbers off" -- you have to add in just as much *or more* as what you take out when you are turning a fanfiction into something that is original and completely divorced from its original source material / inspiration, and that is a hard, but very rewarding challenge!

Obviously, this is not a requirement (there's no hard requirements for any of the challenges, other than no cheating, including no using AI),

but if you would like an extra challenge for the short story events and you're planning on doing entirely fan-fiction, I highly recommend trying it out at least once, and seeing where it leads you--

you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by what you find down that rabbit hole!

[semi-sketchy]

Metropolis is one of the prettiest Sonic stages

[bf-rally]

okay so im back in navbar hell (when i thought i escaped...!!!) but ive managed to get this set up today :D

[ichorblossoms]

wip wednesday three (nothing wrong with me)

thinking of mmmaybe doing these every other wednesday....? we'll see. it honestly just may be whatever wednesday i feel like. i'm balling

usual caveats apply. this is basically the first pass of things, and this snippet in particular is a bit older and now i'm waffling abt when lucy is introduced in-canon so this is one of those scene's that's definitely teetering between actual canon and a character exploration

--- [P3- Grimm POV, it/its for Grimm, they/them for Yarrow]

Have I started a family? Grimm didn’t know where Lucy was going to end up. She was sticking with the two of them for sure, at least until they no longer had to look over their shoulders constantly, but after that? Would she be adopted by someone else? Would Yarrow and it become her parents? It didn’t think it could raise a child, Yarrow had some sort of inclination towards nurturing a kid, but Grimm? Grimm was good at wrangling animals, sneaking around, and aiming a gun. 

Its thoughts shifted to its own parents. They had been good parents, loving, the kind that wanted to have children for the sake of sharing the joy of life with others. Things had been peaceful for the first twelve years of its life, really. A lot of places, a lot of music. But they had died more than half its life ago, how much of what Grimm missed was actually real?

Yarrow would never get to meet them. Then again, Grimm didn’t think it would ever meet Yarrow’s parents either, but from what little they knew, they were still alive—a rope severed instead of snapped. It had a feeling they would have taken a liking to Yarrow. He was charming, and hard to dislike at first meeting. He was also still awake, and shifted to kiss Grimm on the underside of their jaw.

“Everythin’ alright?” Yarrow murmured into its neck.

[the two of them laying there, possibly other flourish details]

“I’ve never told you the name my parents gave me.”

Yarrow stilled. Fully stilled in the way they usually were only in sleep. Grimm couldn’t tell how Yarrow had been fidgeting with their hands or their feet a moment before, only that the whole world had stopped and turned its eyes toward Grimm. All six of them.

“You can’t tell anyone.” Was it too late to back out? No, but it shouldn't.

“Never.”

“And it’s not my name.” It belonged to a dead kid, Grimm only carried it with them for sentimental reasons. 

Yarrow nodded. A blanket of quiet settled on the two of them before he spoke, “You don’t have to tell me, Grimm. I don’t mind if you keep it for yourself.”

It didn’t want to keep it to itself, not with Yarrow, who knew almost everything else about it. Who had given them so much with no expectations in return. Grimm would only die with Yarrow, for Yarrow, or by Yarrow’s hand.

And so it spoke that name, the only gift it still had from its parents, the one that hadn’t been said in years.

“You have a saint’s name,” Yarrow said, amused, “That’s fitting, in a way.”

"What does that mean," Grimm asked flatly.

[cream-and-tea]

i love love looooove doing whatever tf i want with structure in lay me down BEYOND belief. have just decided that chapter eleven is basically a romcom montage except it’s set in the evil apocalypse library and also there’s no romance and it also uhhhhhhh makes me want to cry ❤️

[void-botanist]

Sheri: A Powerpoint Intro

It is here! A tiny bit of background: Sheri is sort of a companion to Triad, in the sense that it shows some of what happened to the other ex-heir to the Navaren throne, but it takes place after it (by at least 3 months). Also maybe someday I'll come up with a better title for it.

Anyway please enjoy this introduction to fantasy disaster gays.

[thursdayinspace]

Having too many wips sometimes means sitting down to work on one thing and then getting up an hour later realizing you worked on something completely different instead.

[keeps-ache]

ggghhg i hate vehiclessssssss ghghghhghhhhh [dies dies dies forever]

[i-miss-lotor]

My third eye suddenly opened and now I'm stuck thinking about a crossover between Stranger Things and Voltron, specifically the parallels between Billy, Max and Lotor

I mean. Just think about it. They had Neil and Zarkon as abusive fathers. Lotor had to kill his own dad, since Zarkon did try to enslave or kill everyone who didn't agree with his species, and all he got that it was for the greater good. No one said anything, not a 'sorry you had to go through that', not a question about his feelings on the matter. Just a 'good job, moving on'.

And Lotor spent so much time trying to be good. Trying to connect with others, trying to be better than his dad. He thought he finally had a place in the world, had people who understood and loved him. Only to get betrayed again and again and no one was even willing to hear him out. Between the pressure and the quintessence, of course he snapped. And they didn't try to save him.

Billy, on the other hand, didn’t try to be good, because he knew there was no point. He knew he was never going to be good enough even though part of him wanted to. He couldn’t keep inside all that hurt and he tried to be more like his dad, he wanted to feel like he has power and not just some weakling, so he took his anger out on others all the time. Of course people didn't like him. Of course they hated him. He was a mean asshole.

So when he died, I wonder what the others told Max. I wonder if Max got the same treatment Lotor did about Zarkon's death, because Billy was mean and killed people (possessed or not) even if he did die a heroic death, I wonder if she had to hear things like 'it's for the better', 'he deserved it'.

And it hurts to think about that Max saw Billy as he was, late or not, that Max was willing to be there for him, while Lotor didn't have a Max. He should have had people to care for him and hear him out, he thought he did, but well. There are no happy endings for them.

[apocellipse]

i’m losing my mind!!!!!!

[kudamono94]

At this point I can't help but think that the people like the original anon are being either willfully ignorant to the damage AI has caused artists or that they just don't give a fuck so long as they got theirs...

Like, what the hell do you even mean by saying 'oh, well I thought even though I was stealing this other person's work and putting it into a machine that is literally designed to both steal and replicate the work of others without the OG writer's permission would be ok because I didn't publish my results online'???

As if having asked the author to begin with would have made shit better seeing as you couldn't be bothered to respect their art to begin with anyways.

I swear I'm so Fucking Tired of seeing this on both here and Twitter...

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF NOT JUST FANDOM BUT OUT OF BASIC HUMAN DECENCY DO NOT:

TAKE FANFIC THAT DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU AND ALTER IT IN ANYWAY SHAPE OR FORM, REGARDLESS OF IT'S OVER 15 YEARS OLD OR WAS JUST WRITTEN YESTERDAY AT 5 IN THE MORNING

PROCEDE TO THEN PUT THAT WORK INTO A SYSTEM DESIGNED TO PLAGERIZE AND DESTROY ANY SEMBLANCE OF ARTISTIC VALUE IT ONCE HAD JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T WAIT FOR AN UPDATE OR FAIL TO UNDERSTAND ARTISTIC INTEGRITY :)

Seriously, it's not hard to act like a decent human being. Just use some common sense and maybe think about the consequences of your selfish actions is all I ask because while I hope this is just another stupid trend that dies down soon, it doesn't matter to the artists and writers who have already felt the brutal effects of AI on their own works.

All in all, please be respectful to both writers and artists and stay the hell away from Chatgpt and all the other crap like it; no amount of curiosity or boredom is worth the suffering and pain they have caused, and I for one, think we should be able to do better but than again that's just me...

(And, if you really must put anything in it why don't you put your own works in you published and see how it feels :) )

oh I wasn’t aware it was feeding the ai. I’ve inserted hundreds of fics into chatgpt for their continuation or for a different plot within the same context just for fun and out of curiosity… but I’ve never posted any of them…

Indeed, anything that is given to AI it can use later to draw from. That's why it doesn't matter if you post them or not as it has now access to those writers' texts without their permission.

~Mod L

[cepheusgalaxy]

OMG I JUST REMEMBERED A DETAIL FROM AN OUTDATED VERSION OF EIN

kaiki was supposed to have a small crush on arielle when they first met XD

[allwaswell16]

I just want to talk about the power of commenting on fics for a minute.

I have my main fandom, but when I read in other fandoms, I don't know many of the writers. So I usually just find fics by looking through the tag I want. And if it's a tag I'm really interested in, I'll read every fic in the tag. And if there's a fic I really liked in there, I'll start reading everything by that writer.

So what this means is I'm sometimes reading fics or writers that don't have tons of hits/kudos/comments on their fics, but I found them through some obscure tag I wanted to read. And so I'll get back some really incredibly sweet replies to my comments.

But then, something even more incredible started happening. I'd be reading WIPs by some of these writers and they'd literally start writing the rest of the fic for me. They started asking me what I hoped to see happen or if I had any requests. And when the fic was finished, one of them said the only reason they kept writing the fic was for me.

Sometimes there can be such a lovely connection between the writer and the reader just because you decided to leave a comment. And sometimes you as the commenting reader can become the lone reason why a fic makes its way into the world for all the other readers who come after you.