#gonna force myself to not reread that book or rewatch the movie again

[to-dance-beneath-the-diamond-sky]

You ever read a book or watch a movie and relate to a character so hard that it scares the crap out of you and then proceeds to trigger a full on mental breakdown? because that was Brian Lackey from Mysterious Skin for me

[bronanlynch]

trying to get back into writing weekly roundup posts inspired by @/girlfriendofthegalaxy's tuesday again no problem series so here goes (disclaimer that these are not recommendations, as a rule I don't like recommending things to people because taste is so subjective and also because I enjoy doing analysis on things that are not good)

listening (podcast): making my way through the Gundam Wing episodes of Great Gundam Project. love to hear queer leftists talk about Gundam. it's fun to listen to now that I know more about Gundam, because when I watched Wing myself I knew literally nothing, and it's cool to get extra context but also cool to hear that some of my initial analysis still holds up. has the (un?)fortunate side effect of constantly making me wish I were watching Gundam

also obligatory shout out to Media Club Plus, a Hunter x Hunter rewatch podcast just started by some of the Friends at the Table folks, which I'm also enjoying a lot (this *is* a recommendation. please listen to Media Club Plus)

listening (music): so turns out I mostly listen to music when I'm driving these days, and right now the cd in my car's cd player is Avril Lavigne's Let Go, which is causing me to think a lot about a world in which Fire Emblem 3 Houses was an anime and there could be a sylvix+dimilix amv set to Complicated. also I've been fondly remembering that one wangxian sk8er boi amv that makes me cry every time I watch it

reading: recently finished The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon. lots of divine-mechanical body horror and also a big win for fans of body sharing. very tasty, lots to chew on. I think I would have more to say about this one if I'd read it more quickly, but it was the book that I read a chapter or two every night before bed because that's a load-bearing part of my routine, and I think that meant that I sometimes lost track of some of the plot threads and shifting allegiances & motivations

currently reading The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang, which I'm not far into but it's fun so far, and. sighs. Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo. unfortunately because I couldn't remember exactly what happened in the books to properly compare it to the second season of Shadow & Bone I committed to rereading the whole series and, well, this could be compelling political intrigue except that's not where the focus is (it feels like there's a lot of words wasted on reiterating who the main characters are but not in particularly interesting ways or ways that show them changing very much, at least so far) so it's just simply not compelling to me

watching: rewatching Hunter x Hunter (2011) along with the Media Club Plus coverage. only on episode 6 so far but man what a good show

with my roommate, we've been slowly making our way through Elementary, because it's good to have on in the background while working on other things, and I do enjoy a competently written mystery. we also watched. uh. the Bionicle movies. those sure are movies that exist to sell toys to children. like, there's stuff in there that could be really interesting. as a kid I probably would've been obsessed. I'm glad I've seen them. they're not ""good movies""

now, this past weekend, instead of making any progress in any of the shows I was already watching, or fic I was writing, or anything like that, I saw a tumblr post that made a very compelling argument for spending the entire weekend watching all 16 episodes of 2021 k-drama The Devil Judge. this is a show for people who watched Tiger & Bunny and wanted Yuri (you know, everyone's favorite T&B side character, the guy who's a vigilante murderer and also a judge and also very sad) to be the main character (it's me. I wanted that.) anyway. this one's gonna be rattling around in my brain for a while. it's a dystopian legal drama with a significant helping of the gothic (gothic is here defined as when you're forced by circumstance to stay at the mysterious big house of an older wealthy man with secrets). it's about, among other things, corporate greed, the rise of fascism, systemic judicial inequality, the self-destructive catharsis of revenge, whether justice is possible in an unjust society, and having an intense homoerotic bond with your hot morally dubious coworker

oh yeah I'm also keeping up with the Ahsoka show because I was cursed at birth to care about Star Wars. I wish I liked it because I love Ahsoka and Sabine as characters but it's just simply not a well-made television show. really suffers from over-reliance on their Volume soundstage and various other issues that seem to stem from uninspired direction, but I've been especially disappointed with so many of the blocking choices

playing: finally getting back into playing Ace Attorney 5, which I paused literally three months ago and didn't pick up again until this week. there are parts of the game I've enjoyed (Athena is a cool character even if I dislike her mood matrix thing both mechanically and thematically; the mock trial conceit of 5-3 is fun; I like Blackquill & his bird) but other parts I do not enjoy (the transphobia oh my god I hoped I was free after getting past the homophobia & transmisogyny in 5-2 and then got hit with whatever the fuck they were doing with Robin in 5-3 please Ace Attorney be normal about trans people I am begging you)

making: we recently got B. Dylan Hollis's cookbook Baking Yesteryear, and made some maple-squash gems from the 1920s. not too much to say about these, they're nice muffins, tasty, not too hard to make. I think I would probably double the amount of cinnamon next time though

drinking: it's nog season which means it's time for the return of one of my favorite seasonal mixed drinks: eggnog (pumpkin, since that felt the Most seasonal) with a splash of Kraken spiced rum

writing: picking away at editing my t4t yurivain fic that was originally meant to be for Fire Emblem Trans Week, which was like a month and a half ago now. it's fine. everything is fine. anyway here's some lines:

“This feels like a test,” said Sylvain. “Is that your subtle way of telling me that I have to order our next round?” “Depends,” Yuri said, suppressing a laugh at the expression on Sylvain’s face, like he’d forgotten an answer during an exam. “What would you order for me?”

[inktrailing]

I stole this from @the-kaedageist because it looked fun.

(Also me: “I’ll do this meme quickly...” ... *loses track of time*)

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

78 to my greatest surprise. I guess the only favor 2020 did for me was in writing.

2) What’s you total AO3 word count?

355,868. Holy...

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

10. Critical Role, CWDC, Men in Black (movies), Supernatural, Doctor Who, PotC. Spattering of some other stuff.

4) What are your top five fics by Kudos?

Unconventional, Men in Black, Jay/Kay, 1211 kudos... somehow

Fish Tales, Men in Black, Jay/Kay, 336 kudos

meet us where the night ends, Critical Role, Essek/Caleb, 298 kudos

I see death cresting over the hill, Critical Role, Essek/Caleb, 276 kudos

message, Critical Role, Essek/Caleb, 273 kudos

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I AM REALLY BAD ABOUT THIS. It’s literally on my AO3 profile that I’m bad about it. I try every now and then but I so often just get flustered and then don’t end up responding. Oftentimes I’m at work and just flailing during the rest of my shift and yeah /)_(\ Words Are Hard, says the writer.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

OH THERE’S A COUPLE. I would say Caught in the Wires (MIB, Jay/Kay); and you know my soul (CRc2, Essek/Caleb) probably are the two worst for bad end future fics. follow me into the golden wild (DW, Rose & the Moment) is my favorite of my bad end fics though lol. I fucking love that fic hahaha, and it’s one of my least read stories XD

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I don’t really. Not fic wise. A lot of my thought processing goes through basically using an RP format with myself (because I like icons, okay) so sometimes I’ll take wild concepts and play out scenarios with a bunch of characters and sometimes I’ll get shit out of it that I can actually use but other times I’ll have fun things that will not translate well to fic.

My fav of those was a Pokemon AU that y’know basically dragged a bunch of characters in and eventually they had to deal with a Problem like ya do while still ending up stranded. I enjoyed throwing Dean/Lucifer at that because Dean just ended up “ghost hunting” aka freeing/helping/catching ghosts and ending up with 70+ and Lucifer really only traveling around with a Zoroark and still hating humanity but helping mistreated and scapegoated pokemon.

I just really like Dean and his ghost army lmfao.

An actual crossover fic I have (and maybe one day could finish) was Arrow/The Dresden Files only because Paul Blackthorne except it uses book canon instead of TV canon because of Winter Court Bullshit so like whatever, I do what I want some days I guess \o_O/

8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don’t... think so? I sometimes get minor disagreements on characterization but I typically write for myself and am pretty set in my ways so it’s like okay I accept your opinion but it’s not going to change anything.

9) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I cannot write smut to save my life.

10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

If I have I definitely haven’t noticed.

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

stood too close to the flames (LoT, Mick/Len) was translated.

12) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No.

13) What’s you all-time favorite ship?

I ship so many things at the drop of a hat and so frequently go back to old ships to find new things to read even if it’s been a looooong time. I would say Jay/Kay since I’ve shipped and written them for the greatest length of time without it fading.

I do genuinely enjoy writing Dean/Lucifer though so go rarepairs I guess.

14) What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I fucking love I’ll Stop the Whole World (DW, Doctor/Master, 47k words) as I’ve pulled it up again after idk months to skim through but I suppose I learned a lot from writing lost in the lapse again and going backwards to any of my longer WIPs just hurts a bit? I want to figure it out because there’s so much I adore in it but there’s a lot of work to be done and having two monitors helps now but... I don’t have the energy to tear it apart and sew it back together.

15) What are your writing strength?

god idk

I’d like to say I’ve gotten better at I guess... balance? Juggling dialogue and action and scenery. I forced myself to work on scenery descriptions awhile back and I think it paid off?

I learned to take good notes, especially if it’s something with multiple plot threads that I need to keep track of. That’s what has made some of my older WIPs such a bitch because I didn’t do that and I’m like ????? Hey? Past Me? WHAT?!?! And retroactively trying to build a timeline is REALLY DIFFICULT ACTUALLY.

I do also think I keep my narrative parallels pretty tight. I’m sure a lot get missed because people aren’t staring at the same story that I am for months combing things over, but it delights me okay ;)

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

Finishing shit?! Well, I’ve gotten better at that over the course of the last year. Critical Role reaction fics helped A TON with that. Just spitting things out immediately after an episode.

I am a fucking perfectionist though. Like I’ll canon divergence all I want but mentally I need the basis of canon to weave into my writing even if it’s just for a single line. I like willfully breaking canon not ignorantly.

This means I either never get things done because I need to rewatch or I too meticulously obsess over something.

While I think I’m good with writing scenery I’m SUPER BAD at character descriptions?? I’m trying to?? Work on it?? But that’s one thing I’ve finally just been like okay I know I’m bad at this I just need to accept it and go on because if I get hung up on it then again, nothing’s gonna get posted.

I’ve learned that I vehemently hate the words “still” and “probably” because I white noise them even when doing intensive editing and I use them so damn much and now that I realize going back to read old things hurts my soul.

17) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Look I grew up primarily on writing Yu-Gi-Oh! fic. I had my Time with poor use of Japanese in fic. While I don’t have any fandoms now that I write for that it would be relevant... I can’t do it anymore. However, reading it doesn’t bother me, and it generally doesn’t jar me out of anything. Like it feels normal reading it in MDZS fics for one thing.

18) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I want to say some super wonky ~new cards~ Cardcaptor Sakura fic. But I think the first fandom I published for on FFN was likely YGO. Anything early than that I would have blacked out of my memory ahahaha.

19) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

lost in the lapse again took up my life for MONTHS and was really my pride and joy. It was the longest thing I’ve ever written and edited to my liking. I’m so so happy with how it came out and I’m shocked honestly that it has 118 kudos now because I really expected it to get maybe half that, tops. But it was definitely one of those I’m writing this for me, this encompasses what I want, and if others enjoy it that would be really nice!

Otherwise I think I’d say I see death cresting over the hill because it has so many elements I just enjoy rereading. I think it’s my favorite of my Critical Role fics too.