#i was only gonna write three paragraphs tops

[hypewinter]

This is a Danny POV tidbit from this right here. I didn't put it with the rest because I felt it might be a little jarring to suddenly switch to it. Plus it got way longer than anticipated.

Also tw warning for possible body horror and vivisection.

Anyway here we go!

--------

Danny's life was finally looking up. His rogues had calmed down with their attacks (They were now more like sparring matches than anything) and he was finally getting sleep which of course meant he was doing better in school. But the best part was his parents had accepted him!

It had taken him a lot of courage to talk to them. So many different scenarios had ran through his mind and his knew it was risky without any backup. He was just so tired though. Tired of hiding his secret, tired of dismantling their weapons behind their backs, tired of running from them, his own parents. So he had made the decision to tell them.

It was a little... rocky at first sure. His dad wouldn't stop spontaneously hugging him for a week and it didn't take an expert to know his mom still had her reservations. But his dad had assured him she was coming around and Danny trusted his dad.

That's why when Maddie came into his room one evening, with Jack out doing something, asking for help with something in the basement, he hadn't suspected anything. This was just her trying to bond after everything that went down right? That's what Danny told himself to ease the growing pit in his stomach.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs and painful electricity coursed through his body, Danny cursed himself for not listening to his instincts, the very things that had allowed him to survive for so long. Then everything went black.

--------

When Danny came to, he was strapped to a table. The lights overhead blinded him and made his growing headache much worse. Then he heard shuffling as someone got closer.

Danny craned his neck to see who it was, the guys in white perhaps? No, it was much worse.

"Mom?"

"Don't call me that ghost!" She snarled, "You may have somehow fooled my husband but you won't trick me." As she said this, she fixed her gloves and pulled a little table towards her.

Danny couldn't see what was on the table, but he didn't have to.

"Mom." He whimpered, "mom it's me, it's Danny. I swear it's me please."

But his words fell on deaf ears. Maddie plucked a scalpel off the table. "Once I expose you for the imposter you are, we'll be able to get back to our work."

"No. No no no no no no NO!" Danny jerked against his restraints. Tried everything, anything to get free. But it was no use. He couldn't transform, couldn't even go intangible. All he could do was look in horror as the scalpel descended towards his chest.

--------

He could vaguely hear his mother scribbling things down on a clipboard as she cut out his organs one by one. She also seemed to be muttering something. To herself or to a recording device Danny wasn't sure. All he could feel was pain.

He desperately wanted it to stop but he had long since exhausted his strength. Too weak to do anything about his predicament, Danny's mind instead tried to search for comfort inward.

In his mind, big strong arms surrounded him, protecting him from danger. His dad. He wanted his dad. He wanted Jack Fenton to wrap him in his arms and tell him everything was going to be alright.

He wanted to go back to a time where he would have believed that.

--------

Danny's first memory was of voices. Well he thinks that's his first memory. He gets a feel that there was a memory before that. One of...pain? But it was so distant and blurry, Danny decided that was a dream.

Danny was snapped out of his thoughts by the voices getting closer. One was loud and frantic. He didn't like that voice. The other was... tired maybe even sad or angry. Regardless it was much softer than the first voice.

The voices got closer and closer until Danny felt himself being picked up and embraced. He liked the embrace. It was warm and comforting. Somehow Danny knew, now that he was in these arms, he was safe. And so, he fell asleep, content to be enveloped in these warm, safe arms.

--------

There was a noise that startled Danny awake. He blinked at the white door in front of him. Strange, the last thing he remembered was a dark room. A scary room. The door opened to reveal a man. The man was weird with long hair pulled back into a ponytail. The weird man had a funny look on his face , as if he didn't want to see Danny or the Safe Arms. Then that man's face changed as Safe Arms spoke. He looked like he couldn't settle on which emotion to show was trying to show all of them. Danny concluded the weird man was in fact a funny man.

The man let them instead and the two began talking. Danny tried to stay awake but what they were talking about was sooooo boring and Safe Arm's hold was sooooo warm. In the end, Danny drifted off once again.

--------

They were moving, Danny knew that much. He also knew there was some sort of restraint keeping his still. Danny didn't like that. He wasn't sure why, he just didn't. So he tugged and fussed at it.

Next thing he knew, hands reached down and unclasped his restraints. Then the big strong hands pulled him up.

"Don't worry Danno." The voice said, "You're dad's got you and I'll protect you."

Dad. That's right, this was his dad. Danny cooed as he snuggled into his chest.

--------

Danny liked being with his dad but he wasn't sure he liked being in this city. It was stinky and the people were all weird. Then again it had a lot of ectoplasm and Danny loved ectoplasm. Plus he was able to play fun games with his dad here so maybe it wasn't all bad.

If only the weird people in costumes would stop staring at him through the window.

Next POV!

Edit: A paragraph was out of place. No idea how that happened.

[mishy-mashy]

You will do a character/personality analysis of Shinomori, Banjo and En?

I already did some analyses of these guys, but I think I'm gonna put down this masterlist of what I can pull off the top of my head so far

In relation to posts I made, got asked about, or reblogs about the vestiges and analysis/reading comprehension, from what I can remember,

(Edit: this is a list I'm updating as time goes. Does not include the AFO posts I make [I also like that guy])

En being a product of the time he grew up in

En being cut in half by AFO and not OFA

This ask about if I think En has an anxiety disorder

En and Shinomori's vol 41 illustrations

Shinomori being cute and also some character stuff

Shinomori and Hood should've been the same person

Shinomori was a weirdo

Shinomori and Bruce can be related (appearance and similar character/habits)

This ask about Shinomori being Bruce's nephew

Banjo is a Vigilante, not a Pro Hero

Banjo is where AFO realized taking OFA needed more

Banjo word vomit from an ask asking if he wears a clown mask over his problems

Kudo's really kind

Kudo and Lady Nagant

(Extra point to Kudo-Nagant parallels- THEIR QUIRKS. When they used them, they shot bullets FROM THEIR ARMS and could make the bullet go WHERE THEY WANTED. Nagant by skill, Kudo by Ability)

Kudo, OFA, and "San-San-Kudo" symbolism

Kudo and Bakugo look alike

Kudo and Bakugo resemble each other in s7 too

Kudo and Bruce have eyebags

Kudo smiles like a muppet

Kudo makes funny expressions

Kudo is so short he tucks his pants in

The temptation to write about Kudo knowing nothing about babies and getting one thrown on him in the Resistance era + opening paragraphs

AFO hating Kudo while also being scared shitless

Me over a Kudo cameo

How Kudo fell when Yoichi died, and Kudo and Bruce's different reactions

The foreshadowing of why AFO can't hate strongly, with reference to Kudo

Just a mention in tags about what if Kudo was AFO's soulmate in a Soulmate AU

The Resistance were squatters

Me realizing Kudo's anti-AFO group is actually nameless

Bruce is hot but also has great character

This ask about Bruce's smile

The contrast between the only two times we see Bruce smile (as of ch 424)

Baby u r my angel (Bruce) + tags about being in Bruce's shoes

Some pics of Bruce at bad angles (+ he got the Ojiro treatment)

Me in the tags over Bruce fanart

Why Yoichi can be considered the older twin

Me in the tags when Yoichi shows up as a vestige in s7 ep 12

Some Yoichi-Midoriya parallels

AFO seeing Yoichi in Mineta of all people

Me mentioning people should consider Yoichi, AFO, and their mom in a red light district AU setting

3 reasons for why All Might couldn't find information on the first Three (Yoichi, Kudo, Bruce)

Me going buckwild over a Yoichi and Kudo gif and breaking tag containment

Yoichi + Kudo to Midoriya + Bakugo parallels in the [holding out a hand] scenes

Even as a vestige, Yoichi couldn't look AFO in the eye until Kudo was with Yoichi

The first Three's appearances in s7 ep 13

S7 ep 13 and Midoriya punches AFO with the power of rainbows, right after Yoichi and Kudo appear

*COUGH* Kudo Yoichi Bruce dynamic reblog *COUGH*

Me in the tags looking for rare content about the first Three

Me in the tags over the parallels of Orpheus and Eurydice, to Yoichi, AFO, and Kudo

Me asking if OC-centric fics exist, set in the times of vestiges

Chronological events based off AFO's chase of the past vestiges

Why OFA users are good bases for High-Ends

When the vestiges are smiling without any stressors. Just. Smiling. Oh my gosh-

A point in this post about how determination to beat AFO was what remained of the vestiges

Reblog of post that showed Bruce was crying when he fought AFO

Reblog of a post where Midoriya manages to kill 7 dead people (the vestiges)

Me in the tags wishing Ultra Analysis had pages of the other vestiges

Me in the tags about Horikoshi having detailed backstories for the vestiges and not giving them

My pinned post, which involves a masterlist for my BNHA OC fic stuff (all involve the vestiges, and set in their time periods)

[facelessoldgargoyle]

Amy Dallon as the Minotaur

The Metatextual Monster: how reading Amy Dallon on multiple levels is necessary to understanding her.

I'm gonna be real, this started out as a daydream about drawing Taylor as Icarus, but I care way more about the Minotaur, and Taylor isn't the Minotaur. Possibly some art about this to follow, but I type faster than I draw. ~700 words.

How many of you have read House of Leaves? Wikipedia. The most important thing to know is that House of Leaves is three stories, which occur nested within each other. The story at the heart is a documentary about a house in which a closet door suddenly appears, which eventually grows into a hallway and then a labyrinth. The next layer is a blind professor's commentary on this documentary, which was discovered scattered around his apartment after his death. The top layer is the chronicle of a tattoo artist trying to reconstruct the commentary. All this to say: it is a book about meta-commentary, which makes describing its themes difficult.

In House of Leaves, the professor has tried to remove all references to the Minotaur by burning the pages of his notes about him. The tattoo artist writes down everything that failed to burn, and indicates that it was burned using red, struck through text. The Minotaur is a character which does not exist, but he haunts the book.

On the top level, he represents the constant editing, rewriting, and destruction of the book itself. Down a level, he is a monster who is stalking the characters in their minds. A claw mark is found next to the professors dead body. Down a level, he's the guilt and shame growing within each author which they project into the house. The labyrinth in the house is a black hole, it signifies nothing, but the human mind impresses its own ideas and image into it.

I'm now realizing that I've written three paragraphs without mentioning Amy once. Shit. Ok. The good stuff.

On the level closest to the text, Amy the character is the malformed, rejected child. When her malformation makes itself known, she is permanently rejected and confined in an inescapable prison. Like the Minotaur in House of Leaves, her ghost haunts the people who fear her and obsess over her. They can't stop thinking about her (Victoria) despite how that obsession only hurts them. When Amy's status as monster can be instrumentalized, it is, like how the Minotaur of myth was used as a method of execution for the youth of Athens. She's set free and used once again.

On another level, Amy Dallon haunts Worm. Her arc is fully fleshed out, and it is tragedy. Like the Minotaur, on one level she must been seen as symbolic. She represents the self-destruction of the nuclear family. In one version of the myth, the Minotaur is the bastard son of Minos. The king did not sacrifice a bull sent to him by Poseidon, and so the queen was cursed to fall in love with the bull. Here, the Minotaur represents the ultimate perversion of the natural order. The king did not honor the god, and so the wife did not honor her husband, and so the child did not honor his mother. Amy represent the same overturning of the natural order. Carol hated the daughter, and so the daughter destroyed her sister. These stories suggest that the so-called natural order actually has something deeply wrong with it!

On the top level, Amy is a scapegoat for the audience. Like the Minotaur in House of Leaves, the reader projects their own hatred on her; they treat her with the same lesbophobia as the text does, if you read her a layer below the symbolic critique of the family, if you read her as a character. People consistently write about her as having an incest kink, or other deviant, highly stigmatized fetish. People post about her being dirty, or ill-intentioned. This reading accepts her as ontologically evil, rather than a product of an oppressive structure. The exact form of the Minotaur (deviant, dirty, ill-intentioned) varies from person to person. He acts as a Rorschach, illuminating what the observer finds offensive.

Like the Minotaur in House of Leaves, Amy must be read on multiple levels. She is a character, she is a metaphor, she is a mirror. Isolate any of these levels from the other, and they fail to make sense. Separating the symbolic from the personal is often what leads people to falling into the trap of projecting lesbophobic narratives onto her!

The Minotaur is out to get you, and Amy is too.

[affectionatelyrs]

Year In Review - Favorite Lines

Thank you to @kiwiana-writes @happiness-of-the-pursuit @anincompletelist @littlemisskittentoes @rockyroadkylers @firenati0n and @gayrootvegetable for the tags! :) I'm very excited for this game

RULES: Feel free to share your top three/top five/however many favorite snippet(s)/line/quotes/paragraphs from your published fics (or wips, I don't care!) and don't forget to share the link of course!

I only have 8 fics, so I'll just go through most of them in reverse chronological order because why not (except for my first fic, she isn't real to me) - it's mostly either a fuck ton of feelings or me trying to be funny

Gonna Give You Something (So You Know What’s on My Mind)

Alex traces his finger from start to finish, over all the points where his fingers pressed into, and it’s not until then that Henry realizes what Alex has been doing—paving his own path to follow through the points where they’ve touched, connected into a complex constellation; Henry, a celestial body, and Alex, his renowned cartographer; the North Star that Henry found in Alex’s eyes likely reflected in his own, allowing them to find their way to each other with something as simple as a passing glance.

and

It’s soft and slow, but it’s everything—the all-encompassing sensation that surrounds him like a swirling galaxy, Alex pulling him into the center of it. He can feel it, the way that Alex’s divinity transforms him, rays of warmth spreading through his entire being. It’s something wholly bigger than himself, and yet, as Henry lets his lips drift down to Alex’s neck, helpless to avoid the gravity that draws him in there, it’s also something that he thinks he could pinpoint; make tangible. If Henry has always found value in the night sky, then maybe he could find some in the place where he sucks a mark into the crook of Alex’s neck, too—swirling shades of mauve and cobalt, bursting capillaries forming the silhouette of stars.

alright one more for the comedy

Nora shrugs. “Eh, it’s fine. I just really hate the male gaze sometimes.” At that, Alex gasps rather dramatically. “What do you have against the male gays?” “What? No, that’s not—” “Look! There’s one right there!” Alex cries, pointing directly at Henry. He finds Henry’s eyes, tilting his head with calculated consideration before— Christ, before crawling over to Henry on all fours.

Help Me Hold On to You

Alex is fine. Alex remains in his spot on the couch. The couch is good and soft and comfortable and fine. There’s air in his lungs and the bees in his brain are only slightly buzzing. They haven’t moved from their hive. But then, a faint click sounds from upstairs. One door closes, and another one opens; the fault shifts, and Alex gets swept under by the flood. The bees hate water, and they hate Alex even more for getting their feet soaked, so they try to escape. They swarm about in every direction, from the crown of Alex’s head to the pit of his stomach to the tips of his toes, but it’s a futile effort. They’re trapped, and they despise Alex for it, so the buzzing grows and grows and grows until Alex is buzzing too. Alex doesn’t realize this until he tries to move. He stands up, but his legs are shaking so much that it’s a fruitless endeavor; his knees buckle and he sinks to the floor. The bees are in his lungs too, now. They must be, because Alex can’t seem to be able to take a breath. The bees hate the water, so they try to push it out of Alex. They must be, because his throat is dry but his eyes are wet.

King of My Heart

Henry halts his ministrations and glances skeptically at Alex before picking up the jacket and reaching a hand into the inside pocket. A condom falls out, but when he pulls out a travel-sized bottle of lube, he lets out a bewildered laugh. “Have you been carrying this around all night?” “Locker lube,” Alex says in lieu of a response. Henry freezes. What? “Pardon, come again?” “But I haven’t even come once yet,” Alex pouts.

Baby, You're Gonna Lose Your Own Game

The jaw that scrapes against Alex’s neck is so sharp it could cut glass; the moan that escapes him is one of its collateral shards.

and

Considering he always assumed the perfect prince was made of porcelain, he’s surprised when he sees a thin line of perspiration building up at the crux of his forehead. Alex didn’t think that the fine glassware of Kensington Palace was capable of sweating.

All of This Silence and Patience (Pining and Anticipation)

So, Henry lets Pez drag him to parties. Maybe this time I’ll go up and talk to someone, he thinks. Maybe this time I’ll find someone who will stick. But the only thing that sticks are his Oxfords to the beer-covered floor, and the only thing he finds is himself wishing he hadn’t come at all.

and

“I didn’t know that you were—” he cuts himself off, sliding a hand over his face. “I, um. Shit, sorry. I just meant, uh… Christ—” Alex saves Henry some breath by cutting him off. “Bi? Sure am.” “Since when?” Is Henry’s only response. Apparently, being in dangerously close proximity to pretty boys makes him a bit dim. Whatever. He’ll have time to reflect on this and feel utterly mortified later.

You Came Out of Nowhere (And You Cut through All the Noise)

Like, here’s the thing. Alex knows a lot of words. He knows he does, given the fact that if babbling aimlessly was a college course, he’d not only get an A plus in it but a shiny fucking gold star too. He’d stick it on his forehead — he’s a show-off and a sucker for praise, sue him. So then, if a2+b2=c2 and 2+2=4 (Nora is the numbers person in their friendship, shocking), then why has his vocabulary suddenly been reduced down to the likes of shit, motherfucker, and mouth.

Tagging @inexplicablymine @read-and-write- @rmd-writes @welcometololaland @everwitch-magiks @raysletters @iboatedhere @orchidscript @onward--upward @daisymae-12 @dustratcentral @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @leaves-of-laurelin @cultofsappho @cricketnationrise @nocoastposts @myheartalivewrites and @matherines

[gayrootvegetable]

year in review: favorite lines :3

thank you to @songliili and @littlemisskittentoes for tagging me!

RULES: simply share your top three/top five/however many favorite snippet(s)/line/quotes/paragraphs from your published fics (or wips) and don't forget to share the link!

i didn't write too much this year (i say that but it's the most i've ever written ever lol), but i still wanted to scour my fics to see what i could find! let's go babeyyyy 🫡

heartstopper fics

from incriminating evidence:

Charlie: we need to flee the country Charlie: my mum found our lube Nick: Booking our plane tickets right fucking now.

from tooth hurty (2:30) in the morning:

Most people think the tooth fairy has magic powers, like being able to walk through walls or perhaps spawning into the correct bedroom. But, no, breaking and entering is standard practice.

(03:07) Nick: i think i’m in love with the tooth fairy (03:07) Nick: his eyes are so blue and his lips are so soft (08:16) Christian: Jesus Christ, mate. How strong were those painkillers?

rwrb fics

from i don't wanna look at anything else now that i saw you:

Their attention is pulled forward as the GSA meeting begins. Henry tries to pull his hand back, but Alex tightens his grip.  They hold hands for the rest of the meeting.

from too in love to think straight (rwrb drabble collection):

Alex attempts an explanation, but it only makes things worse. "Yeah, you know, sometimes in high school my friend Liam and I would make out during our sleepovers."  Henry doesn't know how to respond, so he starts with the obvious.  "I thought you were straight." "I am." Alex shrugs. There's so much to unpack here.

turns out i think i'm hilarious 🤭 for real though, i'm proud of what i was able to accomplish this year. i look forward to my brain thinking of more bangers in 2024 hehe

i have no idea who was already tagged so i'm just gonna wing it sjhfjshdgfj

no pressure tagging: @heartitinthesilence @tinyarmedtrex @affectionatelyrs @happiness-of-the-pursuit @read-and-write- @ssmtskw @14carrotghoul @mother-i-crave-rwrb @inexplicablymine @cultofsappho @firenati0n @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @kiwiana-writes @rmd-writes @msmarvelouswinchester @anincompletelist @matherines @benwvatt @bidoofenergy @leojfitz @adreamareads @rockyroadkylers @lizzie-bennetdarcy and anyone else who wants to participate !!

[plothooksinc]

Tagged by @loadthebases

Turns out if I search by mentions I can find it immediately! I'm so clever. (And yet. I only just went "oh hey".)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

22! I am not as prolific as some-- a lot of these are one shots. |D And most of them are ancient.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

475,671!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The fandoms I write for that are published are Rurouni Kenshin, Final Fantasy VII, and TMNT '03, '07, and ROTTMNT. Unpublished I also have One Piece, Tiger & Bunny, SPN, FFXIV, annnd The Untamed, most of these just being snippets etc etc. (And then RP is another bag entirely, writing in a different format-- you can include Blade of the Immortal that way.)

4. Top five fics by kudos?

It was only recently I managed to clock the 1000 mark, and I did it on two fics at once, lmao. Uhhh--

Underdark - 1089!

No Rest For The Weary - ....1089. (You guys really are neck and neck still.)

The Zaibatsu Project - 291

Some Rest For The Weary. As A Treat. - 221

Snowblind - 174

Not altogether that bad, considering Ruroken is such a dead fandom these days. /o/

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yup. Unless someone is leaving a whole stream of one word OMG/!!!!/EEEK in which I'll probably just answer the last one they left. I did go through a very long period where I did not because I was too tired, but I started again around the 2020 mark when I actually started reading fanfiction again. And started engaging, etc etc.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I write angsty endings? :|a 404 File Not Found. I think the closest I got was the tiny ficlet I wrote for Ruroken which was just Kenshin being depressed in the rain after Tomoe's death, and I'm not sure that really counts. That was like three paragraphs of "well my life sucks" lmao. It never made it to AO3. (It's on ff dot net still, though.)

...OH. But I can tell you which one's going to have the angstiest ending and that's The Legacy. Which given the last chapter I had finished with Raph holding onto his dead not!girlfriend, I would assume most readers are not gonna be surprised by this fact. (File Soon* To Be Found.)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Idk man I tend to angle for happy endings in general, so that is very hard to answer as it comes under YMMV - people have different views of happy endings, after all. Probably Underdark as the most distinct "Yes, everything is okay now" ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nah, not really. I did have one serial reviewer that reviewed every chapter of Tanabata Jasmine back in the day with a lot of backhanded compliments and condescending comments? And one person who started off reviewing Misconduct with "well my friend told me to read this" and two chapters later said "okay I'm bored now bye", but none of this is hate. The only actual "hate" I got given was not actually ...for me? I don't think? It was someone who literally said: Why did you delete your slave fics? BITCH!! And I'm like... I have not now nor will i ever write... one of those...? So yeah. Think they mistook me for another author or something. Maybe Kikide. EH. Not my division.

9. Do you write smut?

Nah.

10. Craziest crossover?

Zaibatsu Project is a Rurouni Kenshin/Cyberpunk 2020 crossover, so that's taking all your 19th century samurai types and ditching them wholesale into 2029 Tokyo. It's fun. Maybe one day I will even write more of it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Outright? I don't think so. Buuut I've certainly had people ping me in the past to tell me someone's lifted a chunk of it wholesale or "they've written Snowblind, only with smut!" or there was one person who wrote a BNHA fic which followed the same plot of Underdark complete with dialogue borrowed directly from the fic. That last one I contacted the author and they apologised and offered to take the fic down and I told them they could keep it up provided they credit me for the inspiration somewhere. I'm sure by now some AI has scraped my stuff, but largely I write in fandoms that don't get lifted and sold like others do. And honestly, the above examples are more kinda flattering than anything else.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I believe most of my longer works have been translated into Russian, at the very least. I found Tanabata Jasmine back in the day being re-released onto a Russian forum site and I had a lot of fun translating the site to read responses (and laugh a bit at the machine translations because they kept telling me the readers were legless). Underdark has for sure. I've also found Snowblind.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I wrote a few pages of one with @shadowbends at one point! But we didn't get far in and we both got distracted with other projects. And I also wrote half a fic to set up the other half for an author, but she didn't end up going ahead. Alas. So.... kind of?

14. All time favourite ship?

I'm honestly not much of a shipper. I mean-- actually, I ship a lot of different pairings, but only kind of superficially for the most part? Like I really enjoy reading ships but I still vastly prefer gen. I will very rarely read an outright romance fic, there's gotta be a plot. (Or at the very least some interesting smut, god.) It's easier for me to point out ships that make me go UGH GOD NO rather than a preference. (In RP I'll ship a little more if the dynamics between our characters work out really well, but I still won't be crushed if nothing comes from it. This is a hard question for me to answer. I definitely don't have an all time favourite in this lukewarm pile of ships, that's for sure.)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Any of the WIPs that I have that I never bothered publishing have been abandoned. Anything I want to finish will get finished. It will just take some time. This is assuming I have a long life; I mean, if I'm scheduled to die, say, three years from now, the only thing that might get finished is Infinite Ricochet, lmao.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Action scenes! /o/ Pacing and tension. The most common review I get is from people vibrating from delighted stress, lmao.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Connective tissue. I can get really bogged down in getting from A to B. You can really see it in the early days of a fic where I'm still writing set up and wondering how to scale up realistically to the things I really want to write. Once everything starts going wrong, it gets much easier, rofl.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Depends on context. Like many I started writing fanfic at the time people tried to pepper as much Japanese into their dialogue as possible for realism or brownie points or whathaveyou - you can see that in my first fic on ff dot net lmaooo. Don't do this. Not unless you have a foreign phrase that just loses its flavour when translated through to English. Or, alternatively, when you actually have a non-English character who keeps dropping into their own language, or some try hard teenager who keeps trying to show off how much Spanish they know, as an example. There are always reasons to do so and reasons it will work. But if you're just going "LOOK AT THE WORDS I KNOW"... I recommend not doing so, you will look back years later and go "oh god".

19. First fandom you wrote in?

....look, technically the first fandom I wrote in was Inspector Gadget self insert fic. But I was nine so I feel I should not be judged. /cough

First time I sat down to write an actual story that was based off a show was for the old Defenders of the Earth cartoon while I was ...15? And then when I moved out my one sofa chair was surrounded by notepads as I wrote out my first 1987 TMNT fanfic. I didn't know it was called fanfic back then. In fact I didn't know anyone else did it at all and I was just weird. Please understand that when I got onto the web proper in the late 90s and found fanfic sites I was over the moon.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

It's gotta be Underdark. That thing is its own island by now. It's closely followed by the more recent There Is No Gravy, which much like Underdark wrote itself and also ended up far longer than I intended. It was just fun. It was a soft warm hug for the Rise fandom, okay, I love it.

Thank you! This was fun to reminisce about tbh. :D

I tag: @calliopechild, @radishhqueen, and @bobtheacorn ♥ No pressure, have at it if you like

* please note that the author's definition of soon may vary to yours. She has 13 year breaks between chapters sometimes, after all.

[trollprincess]

Okay, so some of you might not know this because I did this before I returned to Tumblr from the bird site, BUT. Last year I dictated almost two entire books to my phone.

Let me explain. One of my jobs is a twelve-hour weekend night shift. Six PM to six AM Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so thirty-six hours with the other four hours paid just as long as we do the entire weekend. I first took it so I could have the rest of the week off, and then proceeded to go back to work at dog camp those days. For the most part, over the last five years, I have only have Mondays completely off solely because that’s when my therapy sessions are.

Anyway, my weekend job is full-time, dog camp is part-time. The weekend job is factory work, making helmets, a lot of which are for the military. (Which, as a pacifist, I manage to stomach because hey, it’s just protective gear.) The thing is, like a lot of manufacturing work, it’s boring and repetitive. Think about how bored you are after five or so hours of an eight-hour shift. Now imagine it’s one o’clock in the morning, you still have five hours to work, and you would literally rather shove nails in your eyes than work. It sucks.

Meanwhile, my free time is spent trying to work at my third job (making @disasterarea-podcast) and attempting to work on getting published. I had all these grand ideas about getting traditionally published back in my twenties, and now I’m 46 and I’m struggling just to come up with any ideas at all a lot of the time. Three jobs doesn’t help. Depression and anxiety don’t help. So for a while there, I had terrible writer’s block when it came to my novels.

So last year, I decided to try something. I have these massive baby-pink noise-canceling Bluetooth gaming headphones with a mic which I wear to work. Why not try dictating a first draft to my phone? Obviously it wouldn’t be exact, since voice-to-text dictation isn’t perfect under the best of situations, and certainly not with loud factory noises around you. But I tried it on dictating notes for my podcast a few times and it worked pretty well, all things considered. And a bad first draft is still a first draft.

So I figured, fuck it, and one night I just started dictating a story off the top of my head. No preparation, no outlining, no worldbuilding - just pantsing HARD with nothing but an annoyance following a Teen Wolf rewatch and a resolution not to edit until after I churned out a first draft.

It took fifty-one days.

Eighty thousand words or so later, I had a dreadful first draft which needed an absolute fuckton of editing and continuity correction and character work. BUT I had a finished first draft of a novel. Which is something I hadn’t had in a good long while.

So I tried it again for NaNoWriMo. I got up to 65k words. So I won NaNoWriMo, but I put the story aside because I hit a bit of a wall. Still! That’s almost two full fiction manuscripts in one year, AND the nonfiction memoir I wrote about my road trip to disaster sites during the pandemic. 2022 was a good writing year.

So I did what I do with first drafts and put them aside for a while. I knew they were awful. I knew they needed a ton of work. And maybe that was a tad intimidating, which is why I only JUST picked up the NaNoWriMo first draft to work on it and finish it off. It’s queer, it’s got time travel, it’s got disasters. It is right up my fucking alley. I may be just a tiny bit obsessed with that story.

Unsurprisingly, going through it now is taking more than a little while. I sit down, I spend an hour working on it, I maaaaaaybe get two paragraphs polished. If that.

But the fact that I’m working on ANY fiction is kind of remarkable. And fingers crossed, maybe I can get this damn thing, and the other manuscript, AND my road trip book, finished and polished over the next year so I can submit the fuck out of them.

NOW. Someone send me a twenty-pound bag of rooibos vanilla chai and ten pounds of red licorice laces. Mama’s gonna need it. *cracks knuckles*

[crochetedblorbos]

"Closure's for movies, mate. All we get are manky holes."

Character Name: Alice Dyer

Fandom: The Magnus Protocol [Podcast]

Voiced By: Billie Hindle

Yarn Used: Sandals: CraftSmart Value - Coffee Skin: CraftSmart Value - Peach Leggings: CraftSmart Value - Ivy Tunic: CraftSmart Value - Turquoise Mint Hair: CraftSmart Value - Curry Stripe: CraftSmart Value - Purple Mouth: Loops & Threads Soft Classic - Neon Pink Glasses: Ashland 12 Gauge Decorative Wire - Gold + Aunt Lydia’s Crochet Cotton - Wasabi

Basic pattern here.

Look. You can’t NOT love Alice. It’s basically illegal. She’ll be the first to tell you so, actually. I didn’t expect to love her as much as I do, let alone for her to be the first Protocol character I crocheted, but here we are. I’m working my ass off to get her done before the next mid-season hiatus, but we’ll see; I’m writing this paragraph after having only finished the first leg. Goddamn does she need a hug, though. [Crafter’s note: Not only did I finish her in time for the public release of Episode 20, I finished her in time for Pride Night at the local ballpark, so go me.]

I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to do her, actually; the podcast is still relatively new and we don’t know anything about her physically other than that she’s trans, so I’m still getting an idea in my head for how she looks. Or I thought I was. But as I crocheted, a design…emerged. She differs from the base pattern as follows:

Shoes: I decided to give Alice sandals. (Was I thinking of a clip I saw from an old game of Super Password where the clue someone gave was “those ugly shoes that lesbians wear” and the other person immediately got that the answer was “Birkenstocks”? Mmmmaybe.) They…didn’t turn out necessarily as well as I’d hoped, but they work. Sort of. Anyway, I stitched two stitches in the brown on either side of the toe, then at the top of the foot did an ankle strap to tie it all together. Should have given her painted toenails, in retrospect, but eh…

Leggings: Alice’s attire could go two ways, in my mind. She could wear neat, tailored, neutral-colored business attire at all opportunities, or she could be an OH THANK GOD THERE ARE ACTUAL COLOR OPTIONS IN MY CLOTHING kind of trans woman, and frankly I crochet enough neutral business suits. Besides, she very much gives off “what are you gonna do, fire me?” vibes, so she’s not going to worry about if there’s a dress code in the office. So, bright green leggings! I gave her a row of skin between the ankles and the leggings, but other than that they’re done exactly like Joseph’s pants.

Tunic: Okay, it’s somewhere between a tunic and a dress, but whatever. I did R36 in the front loops of R35, then R37 in the back loops of R36, then continued the same as normal for the upper torso. I did give her a little bit of a V-neck in the last couple rounds. The hem was done as follows: R1: Join yarn to middle back of R36, ch 1, sc in each front loop around, sl st in first sc (36 sc). R2-3: Ch 1, [sc in first 6 st, hdc in next st, dc in next st, trc in next st, dtrc in next st, trc in next st, dc in next st, hdc in next st, sc in next 5 st] 2 times, sl st in first sc (22 sc, 4 hdc, 4 dc, 4 trc, 2 dtrc). R4: Ch 1, sc in first 9 st, hdc in next st, sc in next 17 st, hdc in next st, sc in next 8 st, sl st in first sc (34 sc, 2 hdc). R5: [Sl st in first 9 st, ch 1, dc in next st, ch 1, sl st in next 7 st] 2 times. Fasten off.

Head: I caved. I didn’t want to bother with the fur stitch, so instead I just stitched her scalp on as normal and then went back and used the loop method to hook in individual colors. On the other hand, doing it that way meant I could give her some funky stripes in her hair, so I gave her a purple streak because why the fuck not. I also gave her ears so her glasses would stay on. Basically, I did two chains on either side of the head to anchor them, then did three hdcs in each ch, then sl st the outside edges and joined the lobes to the head. (Also, just as a side note - the mouth is technically the same yarn as the rest of Alice; it’s the Michaels store brand, essentially. They rebranded their yarn a couple months back.)

Arms: I was trying to give her bell sleeves, but I don’t think they turned out quite the way I had them in mind. Anyway, I worked her arms in the skin color up to R12, then switched to the tunic color and did R13 in front loops only, R14 in back loops only, and continued up the arm. Once they were done, I went back to R13, joined the yarn back onto the loop, and: R1: Ch 1, sc in front loop of each st around, sl st in first sc (12 sc). R2: Ch 1, sc in first 2 st, hdc in next 2 st, dc in next 4 st, hdc in next 2 st, sc in next 2 st, sl st in first sc (4 sc, 4 hdc, 4 dc). R3: Ch 1, sc in each st around, sl st in first sc (12 sc).

Glasses: They’re…wobblier than I would have liked, but that’s just because I was working with the wire for the first time and I kinda cut it shorter than I should have. (I wanted them to be square.) Anyway, I had skimmed a book of various doll parts that I will likely be obtaining at some point (it had a pattern for a wheelchair in it even!), and its suggestion for glasses was to make them out of wire and then wrap them in embroidery floss. I’m not sure what happened to my embroidery floss, but I have lots and lots of crochet thread handy leftover from last year’s still unfinished whoops shut up temperature blanket, so I grabbed one at random. It happened to be Wasabi, so Alice has green glasses and y’all are just going to have to live with that.

[darkangel1791]

Okay, y'all, I'm gonna need you to specify whether you are talking about Book!Louis (Loustat, Loumand, ect.) Or Show!Louis (Loustat, Loumand, etc.) when you go into any discussion, opinion, or deep meta about the character. Because in many cases, they are NOT the same (time frame, background, wealth, race, future) and some of you are doing my head in!

I love both. And I can understand, if you have read the books, you feel like you can take a guess at what will happen in the show. To an extent you can, but only with major plot points like character death that affects the entire plot, character relationships that must happen, events which move the plot along. But as far as actual dialogue, or narration in the books explaining how characters feel, or what they think, that is Book!Louis (or whomever) only.

Especially if you are doing a deep dive on the Loustat relationship, it is really important to distinguish them.

If you are going to discuss racism, either in a character, in society surrounding the characters, or in the series as a whole or the Chronicles as a whole, please explain at the top of the post which you are discussing. Cause that can be a total mindfuck when three paragraphs in, it turns out you're not writing about the one I thought!

I have two different Louises, Claudias, Daniels, Armands, Lestats, ect. in my head. So do others.

[salvatoraes]

knowing your partner can potentially make writing together a lot easier.

– BASICS.

✧ NAME: rissa / riss, if we're close. ✧ PRONOUNS: she + her. ✧  SEXUALITY: bi - sexual! ✧  TAKEN OR SINGLE: single. ( interested in someone though heh <3 )

– THREE FACTS.

✧ i have freckles on my face & my shoulders / arms but ... i have an extra rogue freckle above my top lip, kind of like cindy crawford. my mom used to call me her cause of it. ✧ i've been wearing the same ring on my right hand every day since 2017, my mom gave it to me & it says faith on it. ✧ i've never been out of the east coast, i'd love to visit california though.

– EXPERIENCE.

✧   HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?): god ... about 13 years. that's actually pretty crazy, holy shit. ✧   PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED: tumblr, aim ( rip aim </3 ) , twitter & discord. ✧   BEST EXPERIENCE: i've met most of my closest friends on this hellsite, even a couple in person ! one of my very best friends i started hang out with in person i met in 2017, shoutout to you lele, come back to indie bitch. i love my group of besties i met here, sobs.

– MUSE PREFERENCES.

✧   FEMALE OR MALE: i love writing both but for some reason i'm better with males, maybe being in stef's mindset for so long helped that lmao. ✧  FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT: i don't write smut often but it is fun to do ( which is usually only on discord these days ) fluff makes me happy & feel all warm & soft. but angst is probably my favorite. i love me some drama & pain, & since stefan is my main muse it's very easy to get angsty stuff lol. ✧   PLOTS OR MEMES: i'm gonna say plots, only because i tend to hoard my memes & get easily overwhelmed with how many are in my inbox heh. but when i do answer memes, i love it ! ✧   LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: i'd say medium replies, a couple paragraphs. short is nice & easy, can boost my motivation to want to write more. long is cool when i have the motivation but sometimes longer ones get me overwhelmed so they take me longer to reply to but i still like them. ✧   BEST TIME TO WRITE: usually evening or night, like when i should be asleep lmao. motivation for me always comes at weird times. ✧ ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): i'm kind of like stefan but not too much, he's too melancholy & broody for me but some of his attributes match my own. & for muses on my multi, i do have a few i feel like i relate to ... josie <3 peeta a lil bit, tara maclay, starfire & probably more i just can't think of.

TAGGED BY: stole it from @maimedaffair <3 TAGGING: @forbaes , @persefs , @chth0nia , @malka-lisitsa , @ofblackskies , @lupaeus , @feylived , @hellsurvivr , @agedrot , @fuckedhorror , @saintshe , @snnynatural , @greedaeye , @hollowvictory , @seerfawn , @heartsbreaking , @bu11seye & you, reading this !

[rose-riot-johnson]

Okay my Tumblr Peeps... Another treat is on is way😃👍I usually don't write about this, however I was requested about stoned reader and stoned Shinsou, while Denki Kaminari being in this fanfic, as well. So, it will definitely rare I write this type of fanfic, however I will definitely see how this type of fanfic turns out🌲

*Note: I only used the christmas tree emoji due to writing about Shinsou and the reader getting stoned for anyone curious on why the christmas tree emoji... And this fanfic contains 1 or more long paragraphs😅

🌲🍕This Is A Party Of Three, Bro🍕🌲((Adult) Hitoshi Shinsou x They/Them Reader)

⚡Featuring... (Adult) Denki Kaminari⚡

Genres: Comedy and Stoned Cuddling (Warning +18⚠️: Weed use and Language)

You, Hitoshi Shinsou, and Deni Kaminari have been good friends after you started attending UA as a student of (class of reader's choice). Aside from you being in (class of reader's choice), Shinsou being in class 1-C, and Denki in class 1-A, otherwise most part, all three of you are inseparable. Shinsou's life and Denki's life became more fun, eversince they met you.

After you, Shinsou, and Denki graduated from UA to become pro heroes, all three of you decided to do a joint agency together. Years later both you and Shinsou asked Denki out of curiosity on what was it like smoking weed and having CBD (medical marijuana) edibles, since both you and Shinsou have known for years that everyday Denki will smoke weed and/or eats something for a CBD edible. Both you and Shinsou have even seen Denki smoke weed and eat CBD edibles, often before he does his pro hero work and when all three of you were attending UA, Denki has needs of smoking weed and edibles, as both of you noticed him smoking weed outside of the UA building for his smoke breaks, while during lunch he eats edibles to help his brain function, especially while he's in the UA building. So after Denki realized the both of you are curious about trying out weed and CBD edibles, he decided on a three person party inside their very own joint hero agency.

Later that night, Denki brought over tons of weed and CBD edibles for the both of you to try smoking weed and eating CBD edibles, as he has plans on smoking some weed and eating some CBD edibles to try out. Denki then decided to order pizza and compromised with both you and Shinsou on pizza toppings. Once pizza was ordered he took his money with him to wait at the front door of the agency.

Once Denki went all the way to the front door, which is a couple floors away from where you and Shinsou are. The next thing the both of you did was try smoking weed and trying out the CBD edibles, the both of you just somehow kept smoking the weed and eating the CBD edibles, until there was no more weed to smoke and no more edibles to eat up. Both you and Shinsou were starting to feel stoned before the weed and CBD edibles are all gone.

Then the both of you cuddled together, while listening to Lil Peep together. Then they both pretty much whispered and snickered to eachother about whatever they were planning. They both just have something up their sleeves.

Once Denki came back with the pizza and walked in on you and Shinsou, he announced, "Okay Shinsou and (They/Them) Reader Name)... Pizza boy finally delivered pizza and it took him long enough... I'm starved!", as he then finally noticed that all of the weed and CBD edibles are all gone. He then complained, "What the fuck, you two?! The both of you smoked all of the weed and are the CBD edibles without me? Really, Shinsou and (They/Them)?". Shinsou smirked (trying not to snicker), as he replied, "Well, Denki... It's simple. You shouldn't have left all of the weed and CBD edibles here. If you didn't leave all of that weed and all those edibles here, we wouldn't have ate every edible up nor smoked all of the weed in sight right. You should know this.". Denki then replied back, "How was I supposed to know that both you and (They/Them Reader Name) were gonna smoke the whole supply up and eat all of the CBD edibles up on me, while I'm gone. It's not like I knew the both of you were gonna do this.". You then proceeded to laugh about Denki's complaints and Shinsou kind of making a joke about Denki's complaints, while Shinsou tries to do so with a straight face.

Denki was surprised you laughed about this, as soon as he caught on to you laughing, because you laughing was just unheard of. Like he never heard you laugh nor was told that you had even laughed about anything in your entire life. Shinsou actually found it funny that he heard you laugh for the first time ever and the fact Denki was surprised about hearing you laugh for the first time ever. Denki then smiled as he ended up being happy for you to even hear your laugh for the first time ever.

When both Shinsou and Denki complimented on hearing you laugh for the first time ever, you blushed, as you happily told them, "You both thought my laugh is cute? Thanks, guys! The reason why nobody heard me laugh before is, because I only laugh when I watched something funny or cute, when I'm all by myself actually. Now to change the topic... Since Shinsou and I have the munchies for the first time ever and you're very, hungry, let's eat the pizza up, til it's gone.". You then held the pizza with one hand, while giving both Shinsou and Denki a thumbs up with the opposite hand.

After that night of both you and Shinsou getting stoned for the first time ever, both you, your new boyfriend Shinsou, and the mutual best friend Denki, have known eachother much better, than before. That night was definitely how things happened in the weirdest way possible, in a good way. The joint pro hero agency you, Shinsou, and Denki has growing stronger, eversince then.

The End

I hope you enjoyed this fanfic my Tumblr Peeps😃👍While weed and CBD I don't usually talk about, especially on social media, I figured since it was requested I figured it would be fun to write about🌲😃👍I do hope you enjoyed this fanfic also, @hitoshislover and thank you for giving me opportunity to write a fanfic about what you requested me to write about with "this stoned" fanfic and i do hope you enjoyed reading this fanfic, just, as much as I had fun writing it😁👍

[eccentric-nucleus]

the game-thing i'm working on is getting to the point where i'm thinking about writing dialog & i am once again thinking about how difficult good game writing is to do. games sometimes have enormous amounts of text but a lot of it is just like, 'seven paragraphs of lore-appropriate justifications for fetching me 10 rat asses' or whatever. this is not text that is really doing anything from a thematic standpoint.

(okay lots of people seem to like the ffxiv writing so maybe i should take a look at that. but i don't know anything about that)

'visions of mana' came out recently & that got me thinking about 'legend of mana', which was for a very long time my favorite game of all time, and now might only not be in top place because it's been like 20 years since i played it and i'm a very different person from who i was then. but legend of mana's writing was like, deeply formative for me? it's just such a weird game. the main character is utterly uninvolved in all of the main quests. there are three separate main quests that are completely unrelated to each other, and you only need to complete one to trigger the end of the game. there are all these sidequests about the interiority of random villagers. more than any other game i've played, legend of mana reminds me of a fairy tale? some of the quests are just weird. there's a multi-part quest about a depressed kid who kills himself and is taken away to the underworld! there's a short, simple quest where a crazed mage is trying to get a world-destroying power that will make the stars fall, and when he gets it it's a fireworks display, and he's like "...oh", and then this never comes up again when you talk to him afterwards. he's a teacher at the magician's academy. there's such a broad spread of what a quest might be like that it's kind of impossible to tell where any one might go.

so, the mana series as a whole kind of has a recurring theme: mana power supports life. every time mana power resurges, in the form of the mana tree growing again, there are huge wars over who gets to control the flow of mana power. horrible death weapons get created to fight in those wars. civilizations are destroyed and the fighting only really stops when the mana tree is inevitably burned down. 'mana power' is kind of a representation of... the totality of existence. everything good and bad that people could possibly want. the final dungeon of legend of mana is the mana tree itself, verdant outside and consumed by luminous rot inside. the final boss is the mana goddess herself.

anyway visions of mana starts with the premise that there are all these little bucolic towns peaceably living together, and every so often they pick a random person in the town to go on a quest that ends with them being sacrificed at the mana tree, which consumes their soul. a little low-stakes compared to the mana tree's usual civilization-destroying power-struggle antics, but sure okay. the mana tree can absolutely be an evil soul-sucking thing. but it's so clearly poised for some mid-game reveal about something, & i'm concerned it's gonna go in a "actually we don't need to do all the sacrifice stuff" direction, & that would be kinda disappointing. "is a peaceful idylic existence worth the sacrifice of an innocent person", etc. something something those who walk away from omelas something something cursed child etc. it's a big swing to take! and i really do not have faith in a videogame to pull off something actually philosophical these days.

all that is to say i was thinking of replaying legend of mana for writing ideas but tbh i have no clue if it'll hold up.

[agent-troi]

20 fanfic questions

thanks for the tag @randomfoggytiger!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

95.

2. What’s your total Ao3 words count?

368,619

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The X-Files, Star Trek: TNG, Star Trek: Picard, the Star Trek novel-verse, and I just posted a fic for The West Wing

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Platonic Procreation, Eden, The MSR Files, Mother Knows Best, and Though the Heavens Fall (also I need to mention my current WIP Security Questions bc it's only three kudos away from a tie with fifth place!)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Most of the time! I usually respond to friends/ people I know well, or if someone pointed out something specific in my fic they liked. And I responded to every comment made on my West Wing fic so far bc I want the fandom to notice me😅

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

lol I don’t write many fics with angsty endings (I do like writing angst sometimes but I need things to end happily😅) but I guess this would be Baby Blue, If I Could Only Break the Sky, or When We Were Whole (not sure which one would be the most angsty)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

so many! lol but I wanna single out Coda bc it was my attempt at wrapping up the mytharc and giving Mulder and Scully a happy ending with William (and giving Samantha’s storyline some actual closure lmao) and I think I did a decent job of it🤗

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I did get a hateful comment on a fic not long ago (ironically, it was and still is my most popular fic by almost every metric so someone was clearly jelly lmao) and I’ve had a couple of comments in the past on different fics that weren’t quite hateful but more like critiquing/nitpicking character or writing choices.

9. Do you write smut?

no absolutely not never ugh

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I don’t think I’ve ever written one! But I have ideas for TXF/Star Trek and TXF/SVU crossovers that I might write someday if I ever find the time/energy/inspiration😅

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t think so but I hope not!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No idea!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! The gang and I have co-written quite a few fics, which can all be found in this collection🤗

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

MSR of course!! But I will always have a soft spot for Riker/Troi and joshdonna is beginning to take up more and more space in my brain lmao

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I have a Riker/Troi amnesia fic that has been sitting in my notes for three years, every chapter either written, partly written, or outlined, but I just can’t make myself sit down and sort it out😫 also I used to start publishing fics before I was certain where I was going with them, and For War Alone is a relic of that (and it has also been sitting there since 2020 lol)

16. What are your writing strengths?

I have been told I’m really good at dialogue, and I choose to take people at their word😅

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I’m addicted to adverbs, also I just love reusing the same words and phrases over and over- one time in a first draft I used the word ‘actually’ four times in a single paragraph!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I love reading that! I feel like it makes the setting and characters and everything seem more realistic, but for writing it I pretty much need to rely on google translate or multilingual moots lol

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I wrote a LotR fic a long time ago! But the first fic in my modern day stretch of fic writing was for the Star Trek novel-verse: Psi-Ops

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Oh gosh this is so hard but I’m gonna say Where A Million Stars Catch Fire bc I put in a lot of time and effort carefully constructing it as a tribute to Mulder’s birthday this year, and I’m really proud of how it ultimately turned out🥰

Tagging @tofuttim @katy-kt-katie @incidental-ao3 @cutemothman @mollybecameanengineer and whoever else who wants to do it!

[vividentropy]

Entry #1

The Entries Catalog | Monday, July 8, 2024

12:36 PM

I finally got my ass out of bed. Today, Hurricane Beryl decided to make its way here. We have no electricity, so I have no idea when this will be posted.

At least I charged my laptop so I can at least write what’s been going on. The back door suddenly opened from the wind. I ran over there to close and lock it. Figured my dad could just knock the shit out of the door when he needed to go in, but mom said to leave it unlocked and just make sure it was closed well. So, I did that. Then I told my cat he was a good boy for not running outside when the door was wide open. See, he’s a retired veteran from the outdoors. Usually, he would sprint the moment he sees his chance to relive his younger years but not this time. I take it the wind was too intimidating for him. I still called him a good boy for not running out.

My family got lucky. All we’re getting is high winds and no electricity. Some areas north and west of ours got flooding and worse damage. Don’t even want to think of the areas south of us. My far neighbor’s tree got split in half with some of the branches on top of the car. Three small parts of the fence in our backyard got toppled down. Those won’t be repaired until my parents come back from their trip. I can hear the rumble of a generator from a neighbor in another street. I wonder how they got their generator set up. It always powers on immediately when there’s no power and off when there is. I’ll ask my dad one day.

Currently, my mom is making homemade chili. We have a gas stove, so we can still cook food. We also have plenty of water. My family uses this water service this for our water dispenser thingy upstairs. They send several three-gallon things of water. I have some right now. My dad is working on our generator, wondering when my brother will get up. My mom is back to crocheting a shirt and my sis is reading this book on seeds. My cat is just laying on the floor all cute and stuff.

I’m not gonna lie, it is a tad humid in here. Thankfully, the sun is covered by the clouds, so we aren’t dying of the heat, but we do have light to see.  I do have a handheld fan that I’ll grab in a second. That and more water since I’m thirsty as fuck.

Off in the distance I hear someone using a chainsaw. Probably to cut down the tree branches they can cut off. That’s wild, to be honest. The wind is strong enough to push me aside like tumbleweed. I have to use force to push the door shut. It’s not as bad as Harvey or Ike (I do recall with Ike that the wind being so strong I could see the wind punching the door partially open). But I know there’s still others less fortunate out there than I.

Anyways, to better things.

Yesterday, I downloaded FFXIV Online. I downloaded the free trial. Definitely did not expect it to take over six hours to download, but it did. I spent all that time waiting watching YouTube videos from AstralSpiff and Chickeninja42. The moment everything was done downloading, I hopped on the game. I only got as far as character creation. Which is not far, to be honest. But I did finish the character! I customized her the same way as I do in every video game that I own that has character customization - white hair, red eyes, fair skin, and some muscle. Her hair had to pulled back. Funny enough, choosing the voice I wanted for her took longer than anything else. It was great having my sister helping me out though. Not that she plays the game, but I like having her input. If I have time and electricity, I’ll put a picture of her below this paragraph.

[I am absolutely not in my computer to screenshot. RIP.]

I hope we get electricity back soon, but my gut tells me it’ll be a good while before it comes back. Maybe tomorrow morning. Will I even work tomorrow?

Eyyy, my brother finally made it downstairs. I’ll take it as my cue to go write or do something else. Cause, to be honest, I can only type as long as this laptop battery will last me.

5:41 PM

Electricity isn’t back yet. I’ve spent the last several hours napping my life away after I ate. For some reason the tiredness washed over me. Could keep my eyes open. So far, my phone is on 80% because I haven’t been using it. I need to remember to call my boyfriend later because I want to hear his voice. We won’t be able to FaceTime today which sucks but that’s okay. I need him to know that I’m alright. I mean, he knows I’m okay, but I want him to hear it out of my mouth.

The sky is blue. Like nothing ever happened. My mom stuck her tongue out at it.

I did finally wash my hair. I didn’t put conditioner, just leave-in. My lower back pain flared up which made me cut my wash time in half. Let’s see how long my hair lasts. For now, I’ll just sit here and talk to my mom and sister.

7:10 PM

My dad and brother got the generator working. It’s working upstairs for sure. Got my phone charging. I think they’re trying to get the refrigerator and freezer to turn on. I’m just saying, we can do without the TV. And we could just keep the power downstairs instead of both. I can sleep on the floor that’s chill.

For now, my mom is going to find something for us to eat. I am going to try to cool down some more. All I want is to cool down. At least the A/C is on so the upstairs can cool down. There’s nothing much else to say.

I did talk to my boyfriend on the phone for a little bit, but the call dropped. It was nice hearing his voice. He’s more freaked out than me, but in his defense, I’m used to this.

Just talked to bro. He said the freezer and fridge are working. He’s going to turn off the A/C because we don’t have enough gas. That’s cool, to be honest. We can survive the heat for a little while. It could always be worse. I have my handheld fan, it’ll be okay.

8:11 PM

WE GOT POWER BACK, BABY! Wifi isn’t working but honestly, I don’t care.

I’d like to thank the hard workers who oversee the electricity shit because I know they’ve been working nonstop. I also like to thank my boyfriend for being patient with me. Honestly, just give it up to the electricians who were working honestly all-day getting shit done.

Now, I have to be real, I’m probably one of the lucky ones. While the storm was only during the day, there’s probably still well over a million people without power. I hope they get theirs soon. For now, I’m going to finally relax, maybe take a cup of decaf coffee, and continue playing minesweeper for the rest of the night. Hey, I might even get on YouTube. I’ll see what I’ll do.

Until next time,

Vivid Entropy

[an-aura-about-you]

starting in on Handbook for Mortals and I'm just going to cover all the miscellaneous beginning crap that this thing is wrapped in before actually starting on the story.

first thing I'm going to talk about is what's on the back of the book because not a lot of people talk about what was chosen for that. usually there's a brief blurb with the premise of the book or maybe some reviews, sometimes even a little paragraph directly from it to entice the reader. that last one is my standby when I need to put a summary for a fic.

Handbook for Mortals went the route of paragraph from the book as well as three quotes from romance author Skye Turner, who also wrote the foreword for the book, and the promise that this book will soon be turned into a movie. which was due to come out *checks my wrist* six years ago. this has not yet happened, but the author is still insisting it will.

anyway, the bit chosen from the book to highlight what we're getting into is a conversation between our main character and her love interest, which is meant to be some enemies to lovers stuff. but honestly I'm a bit uncomfortable at the, "looked like he might hit me, but I knew that wasn't really an option for him," in there. so, we are already setting up our love interest as a person who needs some kind of mental restraining bolt to refrain from violence instead of just, y'know, not being violent. really speaks to his morals right there. absolutely trustworthy, surely his resolve is ironclad.

this also speaks to the genre of the book because there's a lot of talk about this book having magic and being magical but it's the romance we're choosing to set up here. I think it's safe to say magic is going to be present in this book the way coffee is in a coffee shop au fanfic: it's technically true but it's not why we're reading the story and ultimately not important to it.

I'm not even gonna bother with the blurb on the inside of the dust jacket because it's literally just a synopsis of the entire book. even the ending. I'm not even kidding.

now I wanna talk about the autographs my copy came with. the book I bought for $2 off of Amazon was signed by both the author Lani Sarem and actor-potential producer of the movie Thomas Ian Nicholas, and both of them write some pretty weird things to the people they gave this book to. (there were two names in the personalizations as well as a post-it note with those same names. my best guess is one person in the couple preordered the book with Sarem, requested that it be signed, and then never picked it up. hilarious if true.)

I'll start with American Pie guy's dedication first:

"Be the magician who fools magicians."

like. what? what does that even mean?

Sarem's is both worse and funnier:

"Never forget those who do not believe in magick will never find it! Thanks for believing!"

well I guess they didn't believe too much if they never picked up their book. also that just feels so mean-spirited to me. had I written a similar dedication, I would phrase it as, "Never forget those who believe in magic will always find it!" then it's still exclusive without needlessly dragging others down for ~not being able to find the magic in their lives~. not to mention my own personal pet peeve with the whole magick thing, but that is a rant for considerably later.

there is a typo in the book's disclaimer:

"Any similarity to real persons, living or deal,"

but also that doesn't make sense because I know this book has the real life Plain White T's with their real names as well as Carrot Top and Wayne Newton.

there's also proof that Sarem had permission to use all the song lyrics she uses in the story, which are so copious that without thinking I originally wrote the word, "fic," in this sentence. because yeah, this reeks of songfic, the rare example of one where the person writing has permission to actually use the song. look, I've only seen song lyrics work in a book exactly once, and that was Good Omens. and Lani Sarem is not Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman.

(I should know, I just listened to the audiobook for Stardust as a sort of cleanser to remind me what a good book sounds like. it's shockingly refreshing listening to the work of an author who is actually good at their job.)

the dedication is also just. ugh:

"This is dedicated to: The granddaughters of the witches you could not burn and for all those who believe in Magic."

that exists in print in this book. I'm assuming seriously.

I took a peek at how long the foreword is but don't have time to get in on it before I start work today, so this is where I leave things for now.

[presumenothing]

assorted translation notes on the novel opening sprinkled with peanut gallery comments (or possibly vice versa, idk):

yes that is a cluedo reference in the case title i couldn't stop myself and i'm not sorry

"…of the sixth month": not july, because this is in lunar calendar

"lucky pattern lotus parlour": ok i spent like at least One Whole Minute considering whether or not to talk myself out of this one. still didn't, still not sorry, alliteration funny

"bingshan town": could also be pingshan, flip a coin

anyway li lianhua arriving in their main street with his wholeass house like. it's Free Real Estate

"town god/local shrine": original term here is 土地庙 for the record. anyway who's gonna write the crackfic where li lianhua wakes up one morning in some random town to find that the locals have set up an entire shrine offering right outside complete with massive incense burner and all

wait hang on li lianhua was spring cleaning for TEN DAYS STRAIGHT??

"surname Li, named Lianhua": if anyone has come up with a better way of rendering 姓李，叫莲花 please tell me because i haven't

pov you're swiping through tinder when suddenly one of the profiles is just like Jianghu's #1 Most Very Mystery every biodata field is We Just Don't Know, Man and the pic is a badly circled cryptid sighting (idk i don't use tinder)

(li lianhua voice) "excuse you i didn't do two things i just did the same thing twice. technically speaking"

"lifelong learner": well Actually what the results for 皓首穷经 kept insisting on giving me was "hoary head" but i didn't go with that, so there but for the grace of me goeth you, shi wenjue

im sorry but the true utter crack au where he picked 李乌龟 instead (because yknow. turtle. house and all) and we are forced to live with the consequences

yunhe my dude you should've just bought a roomba instead of wasting your money on that incense and letter paper

"precious softwood": specifically nanmu, which (to collective unsurprise) was also used for shipbuilding, among other things

just........ the sheer over-the-top hercule poirot short story energy of this entire intro part, really

"king of hell": none other than 阎罗王 ofc

"a sound of dismay": he straight up "aiya"s here. i just could not figure out how to work it in for the life of me

"dust and sawdust": curse this stupid language that made both of these words contain dust this sounds So Awful

it has been 0 days since li lianhua last said "ah" (the counter never moves past zero)

toss em eggs, bystanders, we believe in you

(cheng yunhe walking in) you live like this??

"could only work with what he had, dead or otherwise": the original actually invokes 死马当活马医 (a saying which Literally means "treat a dead horse as a live one"), blast the english language for not having an equivalent

fang duobing's intro paragraphs? 10/10 sheer hilarity no notes

....why is "commit robbery"" up there on the list next to "plant crops"

"melancholic young master": 多愁公子 (he's got 99 worries and somehow li lianhua is all 100 of them)

how HAS fang duobing known li lianhua for literally just as long as he's been in the jianghu tho

ok three crackfic proposals in one post is a bit much even for me but. the one where li lianhua keeps accidentally digging up non-dead people/lost treasure/unmentionable secrets when actually he just wanted to borrow some onions for tonight's soup. honest

(this may possibly just be canon)

aaaand fifty taels, welp