#i am writing like six different wips at once :')

[voxofthevoid]

Yo, it's Demon/Hunter Horror Wednesday #16—first WIP Wednesday of the year, technically, since the last week ended up being excerpt games.

I still don't have any straight-up porn to post (only two such scenes left in the whole fic, and the next two chapters should cover those), but I did write two interlinked scenes featuring Yuuji, Gojou, and Tōji that should be entertaining on their own—and maybe tease some of the missing context 👀

“So he did come,” Satoru murmurs. “We have a guest, Yuuji.”

Yuuji drags his mind to the present—and the man lounging on Satoru’s front steps. “Tōji-san?”

A lazy wave. “Yo. Playing favorites, Six Eyes?”

“H-huh?”

“Not you, kid.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Satoru says pleasantly. “I’m perfectly willing to involve Megumi. Are you?”

Tōji continues to stare up at them, his eyes narrow slits despite the angle. When Yuuji looks at Satoru, he finds a bland smile that gives nothing away.

“Involve Fushiguro in what?” Yuuji asks. “Guys?”

“Training.” Satoru’s the one who replies, and it’s the same tone as before but…different somehow. “Tōji here would make a better teacher for you than for Megumi, but I’m far more versatile. There’s a lot I could teach your cute little son—isn’t that right, Papa-san?”

“Don’t push it, you little shit.”

Satoru’s grin widens unsettlingly. “Is that a no?”

“You know damn well you’re not touching that brat for three more years. Or did you get fucked so hard you forgot to count?”

Heat rushes to Yuuji’s face, but Satoru only laughs.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he says.

“What the hell is going on?” Yuuji grits out.

Two pairs of unfairly intense eyes snap to him. Yuuji holds Tōji’s gaze and ignores Satoru’s. Both these men are intimidating, but Yuuji’s been surviving Sukuna and his freakshow for fucking months.

“Heh.” Tōji stands up—and up and up, unfolding his entire immense bulk. He finishes it off with a leisurely stretch of his arms above his head; the fabric around his biceps cries for help. “At least you’ll be more fun than all this grunt work. Don’t disappoint me too much, pinkie.”

“Careful,” Satoru chimes in. His hand comes to rest on Yuuji’s shoulder, the touch light but the weight heavy. “You’re not allowed to break Yuuji.”

“How stupid do you think I am?”

“Stupid?” Satoru tilts his head, the movement oddly liquid. “Not at all. You do, however, have a track record of trying to kill hapless teenagers.”

Tōji snorts. “Hapless my ass. You and your dead boyfriend were monsters.”

Satoru’s hand flexes on Yuuji’s shoulder, tightening briefly before relaxing with a deliberation that makes Yuuji’s own knuckles ache. “Takes one to know one.”

“Sure does.” Tōji’s eyes sweep back to Yuuji. “Let’s see where you fall on the spectrum. Training wheels are off, kiddo. You’re playing with the big boys now.”

“Uh…” Yuuji looks between the two of them; Satoru’s smile tells him as much as Tōji’s sneer does—absolutely nothing. “I have no idea what you two are talking about.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll do fine. Tōji’s here to train your body. I’ll take over later to hone your spiritual senses. Ideally, I’d do both, but I have a demon to corral—and you two get along well enough. Still, don’t let him bully you, Yuuji.”

“You’re one to talk,” Tōji drawls. “The kid looks like he’d crawl out of his skin to get away from you.”

Yuuji freezes.

At his side, Satoru does too. Then the hand on Yuuji’s shoulder falls away.

Yuuji doesn’t miss it; he doesn’t.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Satoru says blandly, stepping back and out of Yuuji’s peripheral vision. “Yuuji has a key. I’ll be back before nightfall.”

There’s a soft, strange noise—displaced air, with an electric crackle. Yuuji’s heard it exactly once before, in that deserted road in front of Sukuna’s church a second before Satoru showed him it wasn’t so deserted after all.

When he turns around, Satoru’s gone.

“Idiot,” Tōji scoffs behind him. “Come on, pinkie. Let’s beat you into shape.”

-

The spar with Tōji ends very predictably.

There was a moment there at the start when Yuuji thought he might be able to put up a better fight. Sukuna is a lot more formidable than the high school bullies and yakuza wannabes who had been the extent of Yuuji’s fighting experience the last time he’d tangled with Tōji, and Yuuji’s never once won against Sukuna either, but he’s learned a lot.

He’s changed, in ways he can sometimes feel like stains in his soul.

But one second was all it took for Yuuji to realize just how much Tōji had been holding back the first and no-longer-only time they’d done this, and then he was getting real closely acquainted with the bark of a tree.

That first and no-longer-only fight feels like a joke now. It must have felt like one to Tōji. And it’s not like Yuuji had walked away from that either, but he’d felt all warm about Tōji’s appraisal afterward, and there’d been a fun thrill to the way Fushiguro had looked at him, his expression grudgingly impressed despite how he’d warned Yuuji away from his dad’s antics.

What just happened feels more like utter slaughter. Yuuji’s bones are unbroken and there are no holes in his body, but even the worst Sukuna had done to him hadn’t been so one-sided.

A pair of feet enter his peripheral vision.

Tōji’s dark eyes peer down at him. His expression is…no different than what he wears when he greets Yuuji at the door. Boredom, mostly, but with an edge to it that warrants straightened spines and ready hands.

He says, “You fight differently.”

Yuuji tries to ask a question, but all that comes out is a weak croak.

Tōji lets out an amused huff and raises a hand. It’s clutching a bottle of water. When did he—

“Ack—” Yuuji gasps and sputters as the water is poured onto his hot, swollen face, and some of it goes inside, soothing his throat almost by accident. It’s a miracle none of it ends up in his windpipe. “Tōji-san! Cut it out!”

“Look at that, you’re alive,” Tōji drawls, but the stream of water cuts off. “Just watering you. Hydration is important.”

Yuuji glares up at him. “I’m not a plant.”

“You’re about as useless as one right now.” Tōji crouches down, and Yuuji tries to brace himself, an instinct violently obtained in the last handful of minutes, but those hands don’t reach for him with the intent to hurt, just dangle between Tōji’s spread legs while he surveys Yuuji with unreadable eyes. “Eh, I guess you’ll do.”

“What did you mean?” Yuuji asks, blinking hard to make his eyes stop stinging from the water assault. The cuts all over his face and neck burn, but that’s easy enough to ignore. The rest of his body feels like one big bruise. “How am I fighting differently?”

“You’ve learned what real pain feels like.” Tōji’s voice is low, his eyes unblinking. “And it doesn’t bother you much. It shows. It always does.”

“…Oh.”

“Don’t let it get to your head. You’ve still got a ways to go.” Tōji cracks his neck, veins bulging along the thick column of it. “At least training you won’t be a total waste.”

Yuuji bites his lip, reminded of something he’d thought of in scattered bursts in the couple of minutes between Satoru leaving and Tōji laying into him. “Tōji-san, is it really alright to leave Fushiguro out of this?”

“Out of what? This ain’t some super cool club, pinkie. You’re here to get beaten up till you’re a little less likely to shit yourself and die if one of those fuckers that go bump in the night looks at you wrong. What, you want company in your misery?”

“No, that’s not—” Yuuji takes a deep breath, trying to figure out what he does want to say. “It’s nothing like that. I’m just worried. Sukuna knows him, he’s—sorry, it’s my fault, I should’ve—”

“Can it.” Tōji pulls a face, blowing out an explosive breath. “Kids these days. You didn’t do shit. This is just the ugly, festering face of reality. Most people just can’t see it. Sometimes, they’re lucky for it. Sometimes, they’re just dumb cattle. That’s the way it is.”

Yuuji can’t help thinking of what Satoru said yesterday about monsters and people—about food and feasting.

“Won’t he be safer,” he asks quietly, “if he can protect himself better?”

Tōji blinks, a languid motion that leaves his eyes heavy-lidded. “Is that what you think he’s doing with you?”

“H-huh?”

“Gojou,” Tōji clarifies, except it doesn’t explain anything at all.

“I don’t—”

“Make no mistake, kid—this is a farce. I don’t know why he’s bothering. I can guess, but I don’t really give a fuck. Just take what you’re given and hope you’ll live long enough to use it. It won’t be here. It won’t even be this year. I know too well what it takes to make a hunter worth the air they waste.” The base of the plastic bottle, still heavy with water, is brought to rest against Yuuji’s stomach. It taps idly, once. Then it presses unerringly into a bruise, and Yuuji’s left breathing slow and soft past the burst of pain. “At least you’ve got a good body. You even know how to use it. It’s still not enough. Megumi? He’d need to eat the thing in the church to even taste his own damn power. Now call that a fucking birthright.”

Yuuji swallows, tasting blood, and that’s just the cut inside his mouth from when a punch shoved his flesh against his own canine, but the undertone of rot is something else, isn’t it?

“Tōji-san…”

“You’re just brats who’d be useless in this fight.” Tōji rises to his feet in one fluid motion, turning away from Yuuji. “So stay brats.”

Yuuji breathlessly watches him take a few steps toward the open back door of Gojou’s house.

Then— “Satoru said you tried to kill him.”

Tōji pauses, doesn’t look back. “Sure did.”

And Yuuji’s not surprised, not really. He heard what these two said. But it was a lot, and he still doesn’t know what to feel about hapless teenagers and dead boyfriends and monsters.

He can still see the shape of a story; it’s not a good one.

“Was he my age then?”

“Who knows.”

“He was still young.”

“He was a brat too, if that’s what you’re getting at. Should’ve been an easy kill. Would’ve saved us all some trouble if I’d finished the damn job.” Tōji sticks a finger in his ear, giving it a violent shake. “Whatever. This pays better.”

[saturdaysky]

Creepin on your tags… Mayfic? Mayhew fic?? Mayhew fic for us Mayhew lovers???

Is it is a WIP or is there anything published so far?

Mayhew fic for us Mayhew lovers!!!

Nothing is published yet. I will be completing the fic first, and publishing it weekly once it's done and edited. I also am hoping to illustrate it like I did for my friend's critrole mercaleb fic! (like so: one, two)

The premise

After events of the game, Gale leaves to become a god (but pinky promises he'll come back), while Wyll, Karlach, and Mayhew (now a very grudging mind flayer) go to Avernus to find a cure for Karlach. All four of these people have just leapt into the crucible. What shape do they choose to become?

I'm exploring what actually happens in those six months between the endgame and the epilogue party.

Mayhew/Flayhew: What is it actually like to become a mind flayer, and how long can you ignore the fact that you did? What if it gives you the power you've always wanted? It will cost you the better self you're trying to be, but your clock is ticking. How much faith can you put in promises made by someone who left you behind?

Karlach: What is it actually like to walk back into Hell with only trust and wishes in your pockets? How do you keep going when those wishes run out? The friend who wouldn't let you die is now slowly dying inside himself, so what do you do now that the shoe is on the other foot?

Wyll: What is it actually like to be a powerless warlock who swore to protect your friends? Hell will kill all of you if any one of you is the weak link, but you're not trapping yourself into another pact. How do you make up the difference? In your duty of protection, when does a friend become a monster, and when does a monster become a threat?

Gale: What is it actually like to become a god? What do you do when you play for ultimate power and win? Your divine future awaits, and mortality already seems distant and petty. You can leave everything behind to claim perfection, right now, and no one can stop you. So...do you keep those old, mortal promises you made?

Altogether, these are novel-length ideas to chew on, and the word count reflects it. It's novel-length already 😂 but this is because I want the fic to be robust enough to stand on its own and prove its own points, like a novel must do. I also want it to be readable even if you haven't played BG3. It's a ton of work to write, but it's very fun.

The shorter premise is: sometimes, just sometimes, if you play out two bad endings long enough, they can become one good ending.

[blossomwritesthings]

𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝? 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞. | 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭

part two of do you feel my hand? it is there. | part one | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven | part twelve

pairing: minho x fem!reader (afab)

genre: veterinarian!minho (this includes a few of the skz members working in his clinic). client!reader. hurt/comfort. angst. fluff. smut - MDNI, 18+ only. reader pov. strangers to lovers au. slowburn romance. lots of pining.

content & warnings: explicit & strong language. very thematic elements. minho is reader's vet. reader's childhood cat suddenly gets diagnosed with cancer, and she has to make a big decision about what to do. this fanfic includes heavy topics like: pet euthanasia, extreme loss/grief, depression, the problems with pet healthcare, and more. there will be some humor/fluff placed throughout, and also smut somewhere along the way. :))

18+ warnings: masterbation. sexual fantasies. kinda perv behavior but not really??

word count: 3.0k

summary: dr. lee minho is known throughout your area as the city's hottest veterinarian, and he's also the very man that's been taking good care of your two cats for the past three years. but one day, you're thrown down a dark path of heartache when the cat that you've grown up with - nyx - is diagnosed with an acute form of bone cancer. burdened with the hardest decision of your entire life, you come at a crossroads of what to do. and throughout it all, minho is the single most person who continually stays by your side.

a/n: i seriously contemplated on whether or not I should post this chapter, after all of the events of this week. I want to make sure that I am cautious and sensitive to everyone during such a painful time. but in the end, I decided to post this since perhaps, it might help a few of you out there who are dealing with so many emotions right now. I cried while I was writing this last week because it brought up so many feelings that I felt when I had to put down my dog almost 2 years ago. so if this chapter make you sad, please don't feel bad about that or think that you're alone, because I swear that you're not. next week's chapter will be a little bit on the lighter side of things (but just barely). take care of yourselves, okay?? take everything one day at a time. allow yourself to feel a plethora of things, or nothing at all. everyone is different and processes things at a variety of paces. this isn't a race, this is life. and as always, my asks/dms are always open if you just need to vent to a listening ear. I love you guys, and... stay strong, yeah?? ❤️

🐈‍⬛ - ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ other cool stuff ❜┊˚ ̥۪͙۪◌! ࿐ྂ

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋread my rules & guidelines here! ࿐ྂ

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋcheck out my skz masterlist! ࿐ྂ

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋmy wip list! ࿐ྂ

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋ skz fic recs [sfw ver]! ࿐ྂ

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋskz fic recs [nsfw ver]! :: 18+, MDNI! ࿐ྂ

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋback to navigation! ࿐ྂ

ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʀᴇᴘᴏsᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ sɪᴛᴇs (ᴛʜɪs ɪɴᴄʟᴜᴅᴇs ᴛʀᴀɴsʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴs). ©ʙʟᴏssᴏᴍᴡʀɪᴛᴇsᴛʜɪɴɢs ⤐ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛs ʀᴇsᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ

You decided to schedule the appointment on a Sunday afternoon, that way you’d be off of work. Since the night you had spent with Dr. Lee in the waiting room after hours three weeks before, he had continually checked up on you throughout the weeks by way of numerous phone calls. And it felt like, with each one that passed, they seemed to grow longer, as the two of you talked about everything and nothing - all in hopes of trying to get your mind off of the imminent date. 

 From your daily phone calls, you had gleaned some valuable information from Dr. Lee - like the fact that he had been single since he opened up the clinic three years prior since it was pretty hard to keep up a long-term relationship when he was so busy with clients and managing a successful business. 

 You didn’t even know how the topic of romantic adventures came up in your daily wellness calls, but all at once, you were confiding in Dr. Lee about your most recent boyfriend which had broken up with back in university. But you didn’t go into too much detail about the relationship, and you skimmed over the… bad parts of it all. 

  You alluded to your horrible breakup with your ex during the conversation, and you briefly mentioned your ex’s awful treatment of you at the very end of the relationship - but you never crossed the line of professionalism and confessed to all the bitterness you still held for your ex. No, you didn’t think Dr. Lee needed to know such intimate details about your life. But also, he probably wouldn’t care. After all, the phone calls were only a means to an end… 

 And besides, no one else in the entire world knew the extent of your old relationship, so you didn’t see any point in telling a random veterinarian about such a dark part of your past.

 The calls seemed to help somewhat - if only to take your mind off of the looming date. But then, as soon as Dr. Lee hung up, your thoughts were clouded with the pain of losing Nyx all over again. 

 Slowly, you were watching her deteriorate. Dr. Lee warned you that things would go downhill quite fast, and fast they did - since Nyx hardly wanted to eat her meals anymore, even when you’d try to coax her with her favorite treat of a fresh sardine. She was incredibly lethargic and because of the weight loss that she experienced from the lack of an appetite, her thinness only caused more pressure to be put on her legs, which was where the cancer was located. 

 Throughout it all, Dr. Lee did a tremendous job of preparing you for the day - the day that you were expecting to take the place in your mind as the worst moment in your entire life. The two of you planned it so that his schedule was completely free for the procedure. Originally, he told you that he usually doesn't accompany his clients into the euthanization room, and instead leaves it up to the vet techs to take care of the protocol. But without you even having to ask him, he assured you that he’d be with you the entire time - that he’d be the administer of the drug. Because he already knew, that having anyone else there with you wouldn’t help, not in the least bit. Sure, Yongbok and Hyunjin and Seungmin were good techs, but nothing could compare to the utterly calming presence that Dr. Lee alluded… with his soft, brown eyes and his slight smile and- 

 You were thinking about him again- damn it. 

 Because besides being cluttered with the pain of losing Nyx, your mind was also full of so many thoughts about… him. 

 And how, ever since that night in the clinic, he had continued to call you by your first name. No honorifics, no pretense. And even though he felt familiar and warm to you, you still felt somewhat uncomfortable to drop the doctor title. You wondered if he thought it was odd, how he was addressing you informally, and yet you were still doing the ‘keep it professional’ bit.

 When you were busy working at your desk throughout the day, you found your eyes constantly moving over to the side to check your phone. To see if he had called you.

 While you were eating your packed lunch by yourself in your office’s break room, your mind kept replaying the way that it had felt, when he had touched you that night - with those slender fingers and warm palms of his. 

 When you were lounging on your apartment’s small sofa, watching tv before you went to bed, your thoughts drifted off to the sound of his voice, and the way that he always said your name so delicately. 

 But perhaps worse of them all, is what you would do late at night, when you lay wide awake wrapped up in your duvet covers in bed. Because instead of thinking about Nyx, your musings drifted off to him, yet again.

 And perhaps it had something to do with your exhaustion from the end of the day, 

 Or the fact that it was so very dark in your bedroom, 

 But more often than not, your imagination would get the best of you, and all at once, things were turning deeper, dimmer…

 Flashes of him, and that smile that he always gave you when he first saw you during a visit, danced across your vision, 

 As you imagined what he’d look like, staring you down, bright eyes glued to your exposed self. 

 You dreamed about that pretty, red mouth of his, lips turning kiss-swollen and sticky from your very essence. 

 You wondered how it’d feel, to have him towering over you, whispering sinful words into your ear with that sly tongue of his, as he pressed you further down into the bedsheets. 

 And when those thoughts came upon you, you just… couldn’t help yourself. 

 Hand playing with yourself- 

 Grazing over pert buds, 

 Tickling a sensitive waist, 

 Spreading swollen lips, 

 Brushing against a throbbing knot, 

 Pushing past folds and curving inward. 

 And every time, the only thing that crossed your mind, was him. 

 Him - and his smell and his voice and his built frame. 

 In those heated moments of twilight, you only ever made one single sound as you thrashed about between your thick duvet covers…

 “Minho.” 

 The name fell from your bitten-raw lips in whispers, cries, and pleas. 

 Maybe it was because you hadn’t been with a man in so long, 

 Or maybe it was because you were a grown woman and so naturally, you were extremely horny most of the time. 

 But all at once, as you delved into such fantasies late at night, you realized that the attraction to him had always been there. 

 You had just tried to mask it with honorifics and professionalism since you didn’t want to cross any lines. Since you figured that a man of his stature - of wealth and success - would never stoop so low to date a woman like yourself. 

 Even still, none of that stopped you. 

 Stopped your midnight explorations or the way that he seemed to inherently infect your very being with every breath that you took throughout the day. 

 But eventually, the crest of sadness took over everything again, as the day finally came to a head. To your relief, the weather outside on that Sunday afternoon was bright and sunny. You didn’t know what you’d do with yourself if it had been grey and drizzling. 

 You stopped just outside of the clinic’s doors, forcing yourself to take a good look at it all, as you held Nyx in her carrier at your side. It’d be the last time that you stepped through these doors with her in hand. 

 And that’s when the tears started. They silently traced down your cheeks, even as you shuffled through the clinic’s front doors slowly. The bell above your head signaled your arrival, and as if on cue, Jisung and Chan’s heads turned in unison from their computers at the front desk to where you stood at the entrance of the clinic. 

 In an instant, Jisung was getting out of his chair and flitting over to you. “Hi, Y/N,” he said in a soft voice, offering you a gentle smile. “Hi, Nyx.” He bent down in front of you, peering into the black carrier and cooing at your cat. 

 “How long is the wait time?” You asked, voice shaky as you clutched a little harder on the handle of the carrier. 

 Jisung peered up at you then, his big, doe-like brown eyes shining with compassion. “About ten minutes.” 

 You nodded without saying another word, as you began to make your way over to the front desk to check in for your appointment. The entire time you spoke with Jisung, Chan had been watching the two of you in silence, assessing the atmosphere and displaying a compassionate face.

 “Ji said it’s gonna be ten minutes.” Is all you said, as you stood in front of the wooden front desk. You couldn’t meet their eyes anymore, your vision too blurry with tears. And frankly, their pity just made you feel even worse just then.  

 “Yeah, that’s about right,” Chan began, typing away at his computer. Then he slid over a clipboard and had you sign your name at the end of the document. Signing away on the procedure. Signing away on Nyx’s life. “And… I’m so sorry, Y/N.” 

 “Me too.” You whispered before you were pulling away from them and taking a seat near the doors to the back of the clinic. Usually, while you waited for your appointment, you’d scroll through social media on your phone or pick up a nearby magazine and peruse the articles. 

 This time, you just sat there. You sat there in utter despair and silence, before deciding to pull out Nyx from her carrier. She was a little less warm than she had always been, and the thinnest you had ever seen her. Even still, she looked beautiful to you. You pressed your face into her midnight-black fur, taking in the sweet smell of her and nuzzling into her pliable skin. 

 “I love you so much, girl,” you muttered into her coat, before giving her a few kisses. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you…” 

 The minutes ticked by slowly after that, as you clutched on protectively to Nyx. As you kissed your childhood best friend. As you fought for the last seconds spent with the single most stable thing in your entire life. 

 And then, you heard the fateful call of your name ring out across the waiting room. You stood from your chair, muscles moving like they were trapped in a vat of sticky molasses. Your gaze was fixated on the ground at your feet, so you didn’t see who had called your name. 

 “Right this way,” it was Hyunjin’s angelic-like voice that graced your ears, as you walked through the threshold and into the back hallway of the clinic. You felt his hand land atop your shoulder, his slender fingers gently squeezing there in a soothing gesture. 

 Then he was leading you through the back hallways, past the examination rooms that you had sat in with Nyx countless times. Finally, he stopped just in front of a door that was painted in a baby-blue color. 

 “The doctor will be right with you,” Hyunjin began, his tone ghostly-faint and fading away behind you as your eyes locked with the room you were about to be left alone in. “I’ll be right here when you’re done.” 

 You didn’t even register the door being shut closed behind you, too focused on the decorations that were placed throughout the room. The walls were painted a sky-blue, with a beautiful stain-glass window in the center of the room. The scene depicted a magnificent sunset, bursting with colors that were burnt cayennes and violets. The room was quite small, but the bright, real flowers placed throughout the area helped to add life to the otherwise depressing atmosphere - with their brilliant yellows and reds. Just underneath the stained glass window was a small pedestal that was covered in a thick duvet and plastic rap, and off in the corner of the room was a sliding glass window with a curtain shielding the other side of the glass. 

 You sat down on the nearby bench, looking at everything around you. Looking at the pedestal that was before you - where Nyx would be laid to rest. And it felt like your heart was bleeding irrevocably inside of your chest, straining and pumping at the same time as you tried to come to terms with the situation at hand. 

 At least she was going to join the afterlife in a safe space - at least it was beautiful looking and- 

 Your thoughts were interrupted by the shutting of the door that you had originally walked through. Lifting your head from Nyx who was peacefully dozing in your arms, you came face-to-face with Dr. Lee. He was dressed in his usual garb of black slacks and a white doctor's coat. 

 “How are you doing, Y/N?” Was the first thing he asked, as he shut the door behind him and neared you. He knelt in front of your knees, taking both of your hands in his and giving them a gentle squeeze. 

 That’s when you managed to find the courage to look up into his eyes finally, and the heartache and pain that you found there just made it hurt a little bit more. You felt your bottom lip quake, as the sobs freely flowed from you. You didn’t even have to reply since he already knew how difficult this was for you. So he kept quiet, not moving from his position in front of you and holding onto you as you cried yourself to exhaustion. 

 “I-I’m ready,” you finally said, roughly scrubbing at your eyes with the palm of one of your hands to try and knock some sense into yourself. 

 “Are you sure?” He questioned, the concern dripping in his voice from the way that it deepened somewhat. 

 You nodded furiously, heart hurting so much that it felt like you were going to drop dead from a heart attack any minute. “Y-Yeah.” 

 Then his hands were slipping away from yours, leaving a fierce shiver to course down the length of your spine at the absence of his touch. He stood close to the curtained window and tapped on the glass once, and you turned your head to the side just in time to glimpse Yongbok pushing the glass aside before he handed over a metal dish that had a small syringe placed in it. 

 You swallowed around the huge lump that was forming in your dry throat. And when Yongbok offered you a sincere, comforting smile, all you could do was nod once before he was shutting the glass door again, pulling the curtain closed to give you and Dr. Lee some privacy. 

 Then it was all happening at once - too quickly for you to even grasp - as Dr. Lee was gently taking Nyx from your grasp and laying her down on the cushioned pedestal. She put up no resistance and nudged her little black nose into the palm of his hands, purring in satisfaction. She had always had a soft spot for the doctor. 

 You stumbled over to her, grabbing hold of one of her paws and squeezing it delicately. You peered up at Dr. Lee through hazy eyes, his face a blotch of color shining through your tear-stained vision. “P-Promise me it’ll be painless, doctor. You- you have to promise me…” Your voice broke off at the end of your words, as you leaned down into Nyx and pressed kiss after kiss into her silky fur. 

 “She won’t feel a thing, Y/N. I promise.” You heard Dr. Lee say before he was moving again, picking up one of her paws in bated silence. You felt his eyes on you, as you cried into Nyx’s warm skin for the last time. 

 “I love you so much, girl…” You whispered, voice barely audible to your ears. Cracking irrevocably. “I’ll see you again someday- so... just wait for me there, yeah?” 

 Then, almost like she could understand your words, Nyx moved her head over to your neck and nuzzled into you, purring lowly. The sobs wracked through your body, as you felt Dr. Lee leaning into her at the same time as you held her close. 

 You squeezed your eyes shut, like if you closed them long enough, everything would disappear. 

 The pain, 

 The loss, 

 The fear. 

And then just like that, Dr. Lee was sighing heavily, a metric ton of agonizing weight in just his breathing alone. “It’s done.” 

 In the blink of an eye, it was all over. 

 You clutched onto Nyx’s languid body, holding onto her for dear life. Perhaps, if you held her long enough, she’d come back. 

 But nothing happened. 

 There was no more purring, 

 Or meowing, 

 Or scratching. 

 Just… 

 Utterly nothing. 

 Silence. 

 And that was the worst part about it all. 

“It hurts,” you began, voice not even sounding like your own from all of the dryness and the crying, “it hurts so fucking much.” 

 You were shaking your head then, still clutching at one of Nyx’s little pink paws. Then you felt arms wrap around your waist, pulling you against a firm chest. Hands clutched at your sides, and you all but turned around to bury your face into the warmth of Dr. Lee. 

 “I know,” he said in a hushed tone, his deep, melodic voice so close to your ear that it sent a ripple of shivers across your skin. “I know it hurts, Y/N, but I’m here…” 

 And then you could do nothing more, 

 As a new wave of grief washed over you, 

 Suffocating the very air right out of your lungs, 

 Drying out your entire being, 

 Causing the dull pain of a bad headache to bloom across either of your temples. 

 All you could do at that point was cry and cry and cry, your entire body violently shaking as you held onto Dr. Lee for dear life. And he made no point of pulling away from you. Almost like, he had planned to be there all along. 

To be continued...

taglist: want to be added onto my taglist so that you always get notified when i post a new work? well then, comment below on this post/reblog it, and indicate your interest in my taglist and i'll add you... or, you can simply send me a msg and request to be added that way~

🌾 tags: @sleepyleeji :: @if-spearb :: @hyunes4ngel :: @drhsthl :: @seosalad

©ʙʟᴏssᴏᴍᴡʀɪᴛᴇsᴛʜɪɴɢs⤐ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛs ʀᴇsᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ

[writeblrfantasy]

around six years ago, i started writing seriously for the first time. it was fanfiction. (glee fanfiction if you're curious.) i wouldn't write something original for the first time for another year.

i loved writing fanfiction--i put my whole unashamed heart into it, i didn't even think about whether it was good or not, because i was having a blast. i wrote for many different fandoms, i wrote one (short) fanfic a day during december based on one word prompts, and i would send them to my friend each night--a routine which got me through a very hard week of my life. i wrote buckets and buckets of fanfiction.

and then, i'm not sure when and why that changed--i read and still do read something on ao3 almost every night for dozens and dozens of fandoms, after all. but the more i wrote original books, i stopped writing fanfiction, and over the years, writing fanfiction seemed like an impossible task.

i tried a few times, i wrote a customized fic for my bestie's birthday, but i could never get far usually. it felt alien and intrusive to try and write someone else's characters. it would always end in shame and this feeling of wrong, wrong, wrong.

i don't have any of those early fanfictions from six years ago because i deleted them, convinced they were hot garbage (and they were, but i still would've liked to have them!)

i continued to write originally, still reading fanfiction almost every night and participating in fandom in other ways. and then in late 2021, i wrote and finished a good fic as a herculean labor of love. in spring of 22, it took me an incredible effort, but i took one of my old surviving fanfics and edited it to new standards, and then encouraged by my victory, i wrote 2 more fics and started a bunch of others.

i made an ao3 account and posted these all, and was encouraged like never before by the comments i received, the love i had never received because i'd never posted my fanfics before. slowly, the shame wore off. i could write fanfiction again. it became something i could do while sitting on my phone in a waiting room having an anxiety attack, something to do before i went to bed, something i could do when a fic i wanted didn't exist--i could finally just write it!

and now, we come to this year. in 23 so far, i've written and posted 11 fanfics adding up to 100,805 words in total, in two fandoms, with several fanfic wips in the works. two weeks ago i wrote, without meaning to, 7k of a fic in one day to finish it, a week after finishing the source material. i'm still hesitant to share snippets of fics with friends not in those fandoms, but i did in this case and was told by a friend that it was some of my best writing ever--original and fanfic combined. period.

in january when i watched my favorite movie too many times to get anything more out of it, i turned to fanfiction, where i had a fic i mentioned was inspired by my favorite fic in the tiny ass fandom, which the creator then saw and was flattered by, and continued to read all my fics in that fandom!

this would turn into a 7 part series which i would post once a week, whipping up 5k minimum fics in a matter of days. i was shameless. i was carefree. i was living for the familiar usernames in my comments, and the serotonin of pushing that "new post" button. i was having fun.

in moments where i would wonder if the fic i was writing was cringe, if anyone would like it if i posted it, i reminded myself that i read fic every night. fic is often the first place i turn after finishing a source material, and what i look forward to while consuming that material. if everyone who thought like me about their fics didn't post, i would be without fanfics to get me through my fandom experience, and i would hate that. so i kept writing and posting.

now: my relationship with writing fanfiction has never been healthier. i am better than where i was at six years ago, because my overall writing skills have improved about 1000%, and because i'm posting now. writing fanfiction now often provides me a break from the stress and complexity of writing original novels, and it's a lovely wind down bedtime activity.

so, i suppose if there's a takeaway from this post, it's that fan content creators, no matter what you create, and no matter how small the fandom you're creating for, even if you're the first work in your fandom, keep creating. what you're doing is real and worthy and just as important as original content, and keeps the heart of fandom alive. i am so happy i repaired my relationship with writing fanfic, and it's made me happier this year than i thought possible, due in large part to the incredible commenting communities in fandom. i wish the same for all of you <3

[havenesc]

✨🥕💥🛏️ for the ask game!!!

(writer goal ask list for new year)

THANK U FOR THE ASKS BIRDIE <3333

✨What's one area of your writing that you think needs the least amount of improvement?

Honestly I usually like how I write action or how I write tension! I write a lot of sports/combat sequences and I feel like they've always flowed fairly well.

Also pining. Lmao. I feel very confident in writing pining -- and that goes for more than romance! Just the emotion/sensation of "want!"

🥕 What's one area of your writing that you think needs the most amount of improvement?

OOGH I think general... prose?? Sometimes my writing "voice" fluctuates and I think I want to work on getting more consistency with how I write in general!

💥Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you're most excited to write? Share a snippet or tell us about it!

I'm going to put both.... because there's no rules I do what I wANT.

like someone else I know, cmatdsdw has grabbed me by the neck and shook me around!! I'm very excited to write one-shots of various immortal jason struggles, bonus if it's from sofia's perspective.

“It’s a long story — alright, alright,” He grimaces as Sofia takes one step closer, personal space broached, and presses the gun to his head harder. “Look, if you’re asking for a complete Jason Todd Compendium, I don’t remember half of it. I was dead and then I wasn’t; I only — really, christ, Sofia, put the gun down. You’re giving me six different options to break your fucking arm right now.” Sofia doesn’t move, her finger a ghost on the trigger. “I don’t believe you.” “Believe me about the arm? Or believe me about—“ “Jason Todd has been dead for four years.” Sofia stares up at him, trying to reconcile the mass of a human in front of her with the boy she had met at a gala Selina had managed an invite to. He would have been thirteen at the time. Sofia remembers him; he had been small for his age. A byproduct of his earlier years, Selina would later tell her.  Jason had sidled right up next to her at the dessert table, helped himself to the baklava, and smiled around a too-big bite. “You’re Sofia Gigante,” The boy had said, matter-of-fact, but without the usual malice or wariness that accompanied any recognition of Sofia.  She remembers Bruce Wayne’s stare, heavy and piercing from all the way across the floor. The biggest don’t talk to him she had ever seen, a warning shot at her feet. She remembers looking back at the boy with a polite, sly smile. “So I am.”

and my jason rancher au!! i am working on a lot of different sections of this all at once, but it's really half and half: jason, who gets to find a life outside of vigilantism while he tries to figure out where to go from the situation he's been put in, and dick, still in gotham/bludhaven, trying to pick up the trail on the disappearance of jason todd.

“He murdered over two dozen men!” Bruce is trying to shout him down but Dick has always known how to handle men bigger than him, has always known how to handle Bruce—  “So what did you do?!” Dick roars back, as powerful as all the lions in Haly’s circus, bone-rattling as it echoes. Bruce’s pause is enough for Dick’s foot in the door. “What did you do to him that night? Why was his helmet accessible to some asshole on the street? Why are they saying you killed him?” Dick knows, in the game of logic and emotion, that there has been no filicide. He’s known since the day he read in the Gazette that Batman had sent Joker back to Arkham in a body cast instead of a body bag that very first time that no matter the pomp and circumstance, Bruce is incapable of killing. Jason has done so much worse. Jason could do so much worse, if he wanted to.  But so could Bruce, too.  Bruce is looking back at Dick like they’ve already come to blows, like he’s nursing grave wounds and trying to push through. Dick hates fighting with him — hates that it comes so easily, after all these years spent together, and even worse, Dick knows how to be efficient about it. He knows what words hurt, which ones force Bruce to look at his actions from a different angle, how to turn field necessities into the tragedies they really are.  “I didn’t see him,” Bruce says, hard-edged. He’s good at hiding. “Jason escaped before I reached the safehouse. He didn’t leave anything behind.”

🛏️ Is there a new trope you'd like to write this year?

AAAH man good question!!! I don't have a specific trope in mind, I have overarching plots I'm usually gnawing on in my brain. Probably finishing the 5+1 I started with Dick and Jason brotherisms!

[letmelickyoureyeballs]

Beta Reader About Me

This is going to be a more in-depth post about me as a beta reader, which will be linked in my pinned post.

First off, hello call me Shark or Spruce! I'm 19 and go by they/he/she pronouns. I am open to beta reading for people, whether that's stuff on here or AO3.

What I'm willing to do:

Grammer/Capitalization/Punctuation

Cheer reading(pointing out what you did well and what I'm excited to see)

Identify plot inconstancies/where something needs to be clarified

Help with canon/characterization(if I know what/who it is)

American/Midwest information and more specifically Wisconsin information

Pretty much anything else you wish me to help with

*Depending on the fandom and length of fics, some of these will differ in doability*

I am generally ok with any kind of content that you write, but I do have some fic turn-offs. *Note that not everything on this list means I won't beta read for you, but I would like more info/details around them if they are in your fic to see if I'm still comfortable helping*

Mpreg/Anything pregnancy-related

Kid fics(when the main pairing has a kid, not kid-focused fics)

Really dark stories with no happy endings(depends on the story, but I'd prefer a happy/fulfilling ending)

Major Character death

Anything that is meant to hate a certain group/subgroup of people

Really long fics over 100k words

Some things that I am comfortable reading. *Not a comprehensive list*

Omegaverse

Reader Insert

G-E rated fics

Original characters

Canonverse

Alternate Universe

Gore and violence

Potentially triggering topics

I will again read pretty much any fandom you write for including original works, but here are some fandoms that I would be able to help more in-depth with:

The Witcher(Show, Third game, All the books), The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Halo(Game series), Marvel, Venom, Star Wars/The Mandalorian, Transformers, Call of Duty, How to Train Your Dragon(Iffy on third movie), Spider-Man/Deadpool(Spideypool), Percy Jackson/The Heroes of Olympus, The Hunger Games, The Divergent Series, Maze Runner, Narnia(Movies only, I don't know anything in the books), Pride and Prejudice/Emma, Disney/Pixar movies, The 100, NBC Hannibal, Rise of the Guardians, Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, Beastars, Titanfall 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, Baldurs Gate 3, Divinity Original Sin 2, Hazbin Hotel, Critical Role, Once Upon a Time, Anne with an E, Harry Potter, Six of Crows, Twilight, Star Trek, The Conjuring series, Descendants/High school Musical, Guardians of the Galaxy, Oceans Trilogy, Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man, Top Gun, Stranger Things, Fast and Furious, Moon Knight, Bridgerton(Show only), Arcane(TV series), Teen Wolf(Halfway through)

I will read WIPs/completed works, multi/single chapter works, original works, and anything in between.

If you are interested or have any questions you may DM me. If you do, please provide whether I would be helping with a WIP or completed work, and whether there are any deadlines I need to be aware of. Please also include any warnings I should know about, and what you would want me to help with. I would also prefer to work on Google Docs or Word if possible.

*Even if you are not interested, please reblog for others to see*

Edited January 21, 2025

[avalonia320]

WIP Wednesday - Darkest Before the Dawn

Chapter six of Darkest Before the Dawn is almost done! Writing Lillie's POV for the first time was fun - this chapter will be split between her and Louis. Initially, I wasn't going to have anyone else but Louis and Daniel narrating the story but it didn't seem right to have Lillie's first moments as a fledgling told through someone else's eyes. Have a sneak peek!

***

But now she was awake. 

Her eyes were still closed and she wasn’t ready to open them yet, still assessing, until finally, she pulled herself upright. It was easier than she’d expected; her memories of what had happened were foggy and porous but she knew she’d been broken, felt her body crumbling, felt herself dying. She still remembered the sound her head had made when it had hit the wall and the brutal shock of pain that only lasted for a second before she could feel nothing at all.

But now…she stretched her limbs, assessing. She wasn’t numb anymore. She felt…strong. Energetic. A live wire zigzagging through her veins, energizing her. The only thing that still hurt was her head. Tentatively, she touched the back of it, wincing at the tenderness. It felt soft, too soft, and she had a horrifying feeling that if she pressed too hard her fingers would go right through her skull. 

She pulled back her fingers, looking at the drying blood on her hand and it all came back to her in a rush, no need to reach through the brain fog to put the pieces together because they were replaying in shocking 3D clarity. She’d come with Louis to his old house to try and communicate with Claudia. He’d taught her the Fire Gift. She’d fallen into a trance. Something had taken her over, stripping her of all control even as she huddled in a corner of her own mind, terrified and helpless. Louis had -

“Oh God,” Lillie was on her feet in a second, turning to look at the cracked wall, the blood pooled and drying on the floor. “Am I a vampire? Louis - am I a fucking vampire?!”

Louis was still on the floor, slumped against the wall. He was staring blankly ahead. “Louis!”

Finally, as if it took an incredible effort, he raised his head to look at her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his red rimmed green eyes only meeting hers for a moment before his head dropped and he was staring at the ground once again.

“Oh my God,” she was whispering it over and over, staring in wonder at her hands. Her short, broken fingernails had grown into sharp, opaque talons.

A mirror. She wanted to find a mirror. 

But apparently thought and movement were bonded together in this new body of hers, because even as she thought it, she was across the room, too fast, slamming into the opposite wall. Not nearly as hard as her fatal launch via Louis earlier, but still, the house shook for a moment and a large crack zagged from the floorboards up to the ceiling.

So she was a vampire and she was still clumsy. That wasn’t very Bella Swan of her. 

Well, here was some good news. Her mind was extraordinarily clear - it felt clean, like a new notebook. It refused to be sidetracked as her human mind so easily had been. She’d been looking for a mirror. There was one on the wall to her left. 

Lillie took a deep breath and forced herself to turn slowly instead of launching herself accidentally once again. Walk like a human, she told herself and the giggles burst out of her, strange euphoria taking her over, as she took an exaggeratedly slow step and then another.

Well, she thought they’d been slow but she was now face to face with the mirror. At least she hadn’t crashed into it and brought her and Louis seven years of bad luck they most definitely did not need.

She didn’t look as strange or as different as she feared. Her skin looked smoother, more luminescent - she could blame it on the light but it wasn’t. She could see the sheen, see how tiny imperfections had been smoothed away, like a dream foundation that would never rub off. 

It was her eyes that took her breath away. They were normally hazel, leaning more towards brown than green, but now…she touched her face hesitantly, leaning forward. They were shockingly bright - all green now, just a shade or two darker than Louis’s. Huh. Maybe he’d had hazel eyes like her when he was human.

She turned to ask him and some of her euphoria faded when she saw him still slumped there, staring hopelessly at the ground, eyes fixed on the drying pool of blood.

“Louis, are you ok?”

He didn’t answer. Concern had her propelled back to him before she realized it, though this time she came to a halt just before smacking into the wall she’d already damaged so badly. Hmm. Maybe she’d get the hang of this after all.

[chipped-chimera]

WIP WEDNESDAY - 21/06/23

(I mean it’s technically Friday now between timezones and spoons but have this otherwise I’ll keep forgetting) My first WIP Wednesday! Thanks @theviridianbunny​ for the tag! I’ve been really getting stuck into modding - as well as falling into my usual mod habit of ‘start like six project at once and end up with a million WIP files' but I guess I’ll talk about the major ones.

Graphic design is my passion ...

(Long) rambling about mods I'm making + things I've learned below the cut~

My V’s tatt project is still ongoing, and I’ve (somewhat begrudgingly) been trying out Substance Painter to work on bits of it, mainly polishing seams between UV maps. It’s definitely got a lot of benefits, especially for graphic placement in really tricky areas (like anywhere in the entire head mesh region for example) but I still think a lot of the heavy work will still be done in Photoshop so I’ll probably be writing up both experiences with them when I do that tutorial I keep hinting at for complex tatt work. I’ve started drafting a tumblr tutorial but I wonder if that’s the best format, maybe a PDF? Google doc? Github wikis look cool? (tho I think I need to pay for that) - if y’all got suggestions for tutorial formats pls let me know!

As for the other arguably overly-ambitious-project-where-I-bit-off-more-than-I-could-chew ...

H A I R.

Hair has been the bane of my existence for about the past week( ... weeks? Maybe two?), most of it involving cursing, a lot of reverse-engineering game meshes and smashing my head against blender. But if not already evident from my monowire post - I am a stubborn bitch with too much time on my hands so even though there were at least two moments where I wanted to curl up on the floor under my desk and just stay there - we got there.

This all started because my favourite hair mod which I cannot split from my V’s identity was acting funky and the shape of it had been altered since a physics update. It wasn’t her anymore. So I needed new hair. I tried editing the existing hair. I tried importing the old hair mesh. I tried so many things and they didn’t work out one way or they threw a million errors or there were an obnoxious amount of verts.

I even tried looking for replacement mod hair. None of them fit, all of them felt too ‘clean’ for my V. So I just concluded: FINE. I’ll make my own damn hair. From scratch. At least then I’ll actually KNOW what’s going on with the mesh, right?

Problem with hair is tutorials are very limited in respect to Cyberpunk, so I had to learn a lot of this by myself and looking at other processes used for building game hair. I’ve had a previous stint in game design at uni but it was very introductory and more broad-strokes concepts not specific stuff like what ‘real time hair’ is and how you actually go about placing hair-cards (there’s a million different ways btw) but after another 3 days smashing my head against blender I finally got shit to work to a satisfactory level using hair tools for blender and the particle hair grooming system (not the 3.5 blender system, maybe more on that at some point).

Putting together the hair cards I was 120% convinced this was going to blow up in my face, primarily through vert count. But this hair tool plugin? Alarmingly efficient. I was frequently checking my work against Alt's hair mesh (one I was planning on rigging to) and here's the final-ish stats -

This is with only Alt's hair mesh selected (no cap) and then only my mesh(s - lots of layering to build it up), and by comparison I felt I'd built up the density of a chinchilla. This is not a brag, this is mostly genuine confusion over how efficient this plugin is, all I did was smack around hair curves. It did all the UV mapping junk on the fly.

Although structurally complete, I still consider this a WIP (yes I know there's a reeeeal fun vert funkiness in that second render, it's been fixed) since I'm having to go back and fine-tune some of the UV's the plugins mapped that I'm not happy with and generally figuring out my density problem because if anything, after putting it in-game it felt too dense.

Because yes, somehow I got it in game.

WITH. PHYSICS.

This may have driven me absolutely up the wall between having to learn blender from scratch then what the heck real time hair is and how that works etc. etc. but ... god, seeing her move back from the mirror and just feeling that instant catharsis of 'IT'S HER!' made it so. Damn. Worth it.

It looks too thick - this might be because I chucked in the 'doubled' feature Wolvenkit comes with because I hadn't spent any time doing backfaces. But it also might be because it's black? That's going to need investigating.

The physics need a lot of work too, I did a pretty rushed weight painting job last night on a merged version of the mesh because I was worried whether it was even viable and I'd already dumped an insane amount of hours into this between trying to salvage the old hair and building a new one (with some more bells and whistles. Mainly - curly). That wasn't without it's issues -

This almost fucking cracked me, given this was one of the issues I was experiencing before trying to fix an existing mesh mod. Turns out I was just being dumb and forgetting to export the armature, which I'd thought I wasn't supposed to do after having blender throw a bunch of errors on other hair attempts. I gave it a try after one last shot and boom. Worked. (I dunno what those errors were about man but now I know armature? very important).

Will I release this hair? no damn clue, depends on if I can get it to a level I feel is 'releasable'. I already know what I'm calling it though - Venatrix her side-handle I've decided on.

I look forward to adapting it into maybe a comb-back version, as well as a tied up version, so I can show off both her undercut + have the option of NOT hiding every damn tatt I've obsessed over placing on her neck haha.

In other news -

My much-needed wacom tablet replacement arrived (as well as other things I was looking forward to 👀) meaning my Wacom Cintiq, workhorse of ten years can finally enjoy her retirement. Her controls were getting funky, she had a few dead pixels but man. I'm convinced they won't make them like her ever again. Either way she's done unfortunately - upgrading my monitor to 2k made this painfully obvious. I don't think it's even running in full HD, it's that old. And with Phantom Liberty coming out this year? I'm probably going to need a new videocard and DVI compatibility isn't really a thing anymore.

So for future I think I'll just stick to the basic tablet set up, invest in screens. Also now I FINALLY know what her hair is gonna look like and with the tablet here, I can get back to work on the tattoo bodysuit.

Anyways, that's it for now! (Jesus Christ did you really read all of this? If you did you're a fucking trooper). Sorry for the extended ramble but MAN I did a lot, I needed to yell.

Till next time Chooms! Thanks again @theviridianbunny for the tag~ <3

Oh shit wait, have the blender renders before I forget because hahah I figured out how to do that too lol -

[bedlamsbard]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @thatgirlnevershutsup

How many works do you have on AO3? 42, but a lot of those are podfic that has me as co-author -- 33 not counting podfic.

What's your total AO3 word count? normal amount. 1,710,483

What fandoms do you write for? I am serially monofannish. Right now I only write for the MCU, but before that my main fandom for YEARS was Star Wars, then prior to that Narnia (most of my Narnia fic isn't on AO3). There are a few stray other fandoms on there.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Immutable, or, 5 Times Obi-Wan Kenobi Compromised His Jedi Ethics for Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars, 5907), Wake the Storm (Star Wars, 5163), Queen's Gambit (Star Wars, 2632), On the Edge of the Devil's Backbone (Star Wars Rebels, 1839), On Yonder Hill (MCU, 1656). yes I'm aware that there is an enormous drop-off between Wake and Gambit lol, but I'm very glad one of my Marvel fics snuck in there.

Do you respond to comments? No, I have a policy about not replying to comments unless I get a direct question.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Almost definitely Gambit, since it ends on a cliffhanger with the main trio separated in another universe, Rex left behind in the Gambitverse, and the Gambitverse a mess. Made more angsty by the fact that I refuse to touch that series ever again.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I'm going to go with On Yonder Hill. It ends with a party! Thor and Loki and the Avengers (except Wanda) are happy! I forcibly strangled my automatic reflex to set up a sequel like six times while writing it.

Do you get hate on fics? HA HA HA HA yes.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? If you are very lucky you will get one semi-explicit sex scene from me every few years. I'm not very good at writing smut and I tend to get bored writing it, which is why I don't do it very often.

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Not recently because I'm not really that interested in them, but I have in the past. I once wrote Susan Pevensie/Willy Wonka, which is probably up there.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? uh, maybe, but I don't think so.

Have you ever had a fic translated? I've had a lot of requests, but I don't think I've ever said yes.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, in the past. I'm very unlikely to ever do so again due to Some Trauma.

What’s your all time favorite ship? Odysseus/Penelope but if you meant, like, in a fannish sense, probably Kanan/Hera.

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I'd love to finish Dust in the Air, my big Narnia TLB AU, but I'd have to completely rewrite it because I'm such a different writer now than I was when I was still working on it.

What are your writing strengths? I'm very good at plot, I'm probably one of the best action writers in fandom, I'm great worldbuilding, and I like to think I'm pretty decent at character voice and dialogue.

What are your writing weaknesses? I don't do brevity and I get bored writing sex scenes. I cannot write a one-shot. I do not remember the last time I wrote a story under 50K.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I wouldn't do extended dialogue (because I don't speak any other languages well enough to be comfortable doing so), but there are words and the occasional sentence in there.

First fandom you wrote for? well, it was before I knew what fandom was, but it was either The Mummy or The 10th Kingdom

Favorite fic you’ve written? I really loved The Horizon Line, but usually the answer is whatever I'm working on now.

I don't tag people so go for if you want!

[thepartyresponsible]

Hey there! I've read all the way through your fics masterlist (for the second time this year) and am craving more (who wouldn't?!). I was just wondering, since I'd hate to impose asking for something new, if you'd consider posting a snippet of one of your wips (maybe something with Clint)? Any scrap of material you'd be willing to release into the world again would be like a holy grail, a balm to soothe savage readers. Love your writing so much!!

hello! i'm not working on much right now, but i've been reading something is killing the children, and, naturally, trying to figure out how to write a dc/marvel crossover in that universe.

so here's a little snippet of a something is killing the children dc/marvel au, where jason todd and clint barton are young, feral, and murderous.

warnings for graphic violence, dead parents, and gore.

- - -

The White Masks clean up after a feeding frenzy at a circus, and, afterwards, they bring home a pair of blonde brothers still spotted with blood. Circus kids, just like Dick, but skinnier. The youngest is wearing a costume, bright purple and garish, an embarrassment in the predawn light. He’s clutching a bow like a teddy bear, has that pale, rolling-eyed look of fresh trauma.

The story, when it filters to them, is that a brood of Oscuratypes feasted their way through a late-night performance. The monsters started in the stands, ate their way to the stage. It was a spectacle, Jason hears. A real, once-in-a-lifetime sort of show.

Whole families dismembered and consumed alive. Pieces of acrobats raining down from the trapeze. Blood and guts and sequins and screams.

The baby brother, that five foot nothing bit of dandelion fluff on legs, killed three of the babies with blunted arrows. Three of the damn things.

“I mean,” Jason says, at dinner, “it’s bullshit. Kid shows up with three kills. That’s not fair.”

“Yeah.” Dick looks disappointed in him, which is how he usually looks these days. “That’s absolutely the point here, Jason. That’s what we’re all focusing on. He has more kills than you.”

“He hasn’t been initiated,” Jason continues. “He doesn’t even have a totem. He’s got three kills and--”

“And,” Bruce intones, “twenty-six people are dead.”

It should be more. One adult and five babies, a crowd of hundreds of people. Should be dozens upon dozens. Should be a fucking mess.

A twelve-year-old kid with blunt arrows and a spangly purple leotard. “And,” Jason says, as he shoves to his feet, “he’s too fucking old for this.”

- -

Jason was eleven when he watched a monster rip his mother into meat. He remembers the teeth.

He remembers her high-pitched, dying-rabbit shrieks, remembers that awful wet slurping. He remembers everything, every sound, the arc of blood, angle dropping rapidly, pressure failing. The way she looked at him, the way she stopped.

He remembers the weight of the knife from the kitchen, shitty and dull like everything they owned. The useless dredge of terror in his chest, all that stupid, howling grief.

Twelve’s too fucking old. A younger brain’s more malleable, sieves that shit right out of you, kicks it to the backburner of your subconscious mind. Jason knows plenty of White Masks who showed up when they were six or seven, and he almost wouldn’t clock them as Knights if he never saw them work.

But he can always tell the older ones. The cracks never quite fuse up right.

Black Masks are different, but they always are.

The point is, the kid had a chance. It’s just too damn bad his monsters showed up so late.

- -

“They’re gonna kill you,” Jason tells him. Out after curfew, unmasked with an uninitiated stray. Rules are for breaking, like laws and promises and necks.

If Bruce didn’t want him here, he should’ve nailed his bedroom window shut.

If the house didn’t want him talking to the stray, they should’ve nailed his window shut too.

“Loose ends,” Jason says.

The blonde shrugs. His name is Clint. His brother disappeared less than six hours after they brought him here, stole out sometime during lunch, and everybody’s shocked as hell except the brother he left behind. “Seems like,” he says, slow and kinda rambling, picking through his words, “everything’s been trying. But nothing’s done it yet.”

That white mask looks terrible on him, covers him from cheekbones to jaw, washes him out. He’d look better in black, but God knows Bruce wasn’t going to risk going to another circus. Look what happened last time.

Bruce Wayne, the so-called last of the Dark Knights, all his good, solitary intentions shattered apart at the feet of the bloodily orphaned Dick Grayson. And then Jason, and then Steph, and then Tim. Maybe Bruce will be the last in the end, but he has some graves to dig first.

“Take that stupid thing off,” Jason says, reaching for the mask.

Clint dodges away from his hand. Not like a flinch, like a habit. “Supposed to keep it on,” he says. “They told me. Coulson said. Whenever we’re out of our rooms, mask on.”

“Fucking Coulson,” Jason sneers. “What the fuck would he know? He’s new to being in charge. Yesterday, he was just one of us.”

“Hey,” Clint says, finally looking him in the eyes. “He’s nice.”

He says it soft, but those blunted arrows were soft too. He killed three monsters, saved dozens, and there was Jason, at damn near the same age, and he saved nobody, killed nothing.

Jason’s fourteen now. Sometimes he can feel the hunt like a shiver behind his eyes. He remembers, always, forever. The way his mother looked at him, the pathetic stretch of his open hand, the time he wasted screaming when he should’ve been going for a knife.

He keeps that monster caged in a stuffed bat, identical to Dick’s except for the red stitching. The first gift Bruce Wayne ever gave him.

Well, the second, if you count his life.

“That monster you couldn’t kill,” Jason says, “that big one. The mother. They’re gonna tell you they want you tame it. But it’s a lie. You’re too old. You’re an outsider. That’s not how the White Knights work. They’re gonna let it eat you.”

The Dark Knights are different, always have been. But White Knights fall in line. White Knights turn inward.

Clint looks at him, white mask blank and toothless against his face, erasing him until he’s just a pair of bloodshot blue eyes and hair so blonde that patches of it are still dyed faintly red. Three dead monsters, and a skinny wide-eyed kid. Just bait, Jason thought. Just a corpse still walking.

Looking at him now, there’s no bait, there’s no corpse. There’s a killer, staring back. The hunt that hums in Jason’s chest is an itch in his teeth. He feels like it’s humming in Clint, too. Not quite an echo, but a harmony, maybe.

Three dead monsters. It could be so many more.

“I want you to live,” Jason says. “We could kill so many of those bastards.”

Clint tilts his head. “I thought,” he says, still drawling through his vowels like he’s got time to waste, “that we were trying to save people.”

“Yeah,” Jason says, “sure. Whatever.”

That’s probably how the White Knights spin it. But Jason’s mask is black, and he doesn’t care how many people they save. The only person who mattered is already dead.

“C’mon,” Jason says, and this time, when he grabs Clint by the arm, he doesn’t dodge away. “I’m gonna teach you how to live.”

[inexplicablymine]

IM ATTACKING YOU RIGHT BACK 🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️ how did you get into fandom/writing fic and how do you come up with inspiration for fic ideas? is there a specific place or time of day that strikes you?

Ahem… BUCKLE IN FOLKS this is a long af answer but I have the time. So sit down with your popcorn. Lola this all your fault 🥰

How did you get into fandom: I have (brace yourselves) read in fandom for over 15 years before participating in any way shape or form outside of just enjoying it from the comfort of my screen. I read or watched something many moons ago and said I want more and tada I was initiated. But I stuck around for so long because of the sheer creativity, and talent, and ingenuity of people globally to come together and say “we want more and if you won’t give us more we will do it ourselves.”

I was that reader that lurked with guest kudos and left random inane comments from accounts you could never trace back to one place. When I mean read I mean… if I did have an AO3 account or an ffnet account during that period of time, the sheer number of works in the history would be of concern to everyone.

How did you get into writing fic: As for writing in general, I have a stack of journals I’ve kept since middle school, and an itch in my fingers that feels like I am broken if I am not writing. From the minute I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up “author” was the answer and it’s always sat at the back of my subconscious like one of those rocks in the bottom of your shoe. There are too many stories rattling around in my head that want to get out, but I took a break for 8 years of writing anything except my journal entries because the world can be a cruel place.

I started writing again just this year in June, and it was really a case of “write the things you want to see in the world,” + it’s time to get back on the horse + the thirst to participate more than just sit on the outside peering in at the inside jokes of chapter end notes and tumblr links I never clicked on. I joined a single discord, had a breakdown, and bon appetite here we are 3 months later with an actual AO3 account, a Tumblr, and a WIP list that is at least 15 works long 4 of which are 25+ chapter outlines.

(This truly was fueled by an idea I had this March for a RWRB full length mystery novel law-case thriller that I could NOT get out of my head, it now has 37 chapters outlined and is getting written this fall/winter to be posted next year)

Where does your inspiration come from: My inspiration comes from everything everywhere all at once. (Not meant to be a reference but it was too good not to use). A not so succinct list of places I’ve found inspiration:

the truth is stranger than fiction: my first day post for FirstPrince week is a “there was only one tent” situation that actually happened on a camping trip this summer. I screamed internally the entire time it was going down.

Songs: I could never write while listening to music except I absolutely will imagine storylines from it. The song Delilah by Mikolas Josef and Mark Neve is going to produce a smutty RWRB one shot of a ski weekend hookup

Co-Authoring: I am currently working on two different co-authored fics. One with @celaestis1 that was just us lovingly yelling at eachother in the DM’s until an outline was made and now every chapter we write makes me more and more giddy. The other is a RWRB x PJO au with @read-and-write- and @userd0esn0texist that is genuinely the most ridiculous fun I have ever had plotting. There is a full blown super six prophecy y’all are not ready.

Prompts: my first two works ever (ever!) were based off of the same prompt for a gift fic exchange. “Don’t look at me I thought we were getting ice cream” (you can read the results of that prompt here or here) I’m participating in @thebrownstone FirstPrince Week which has 7 prompts and @halloweenhuh with two different prompts as well. Sometimes it’s the best way to get the juices flowing.

Asking for it: if someone asks “hey is there a fic that does this” and I haven’t found it, it is really easy to think “hmmm but maybe I could write it” and then the dominos fall and I’m stuck with a problem of my own creation

Fulfilling a need or gap in the fandom: honestly, my current WIP I’m posting is an Ace!Alex fic because well… we need more ace fic in general, but also more ace fic that is happy, and positive, and loving. I love a good whump fic as much as the next person, but sometimes you just need some serious fluff. (Also my first two fics are Demi!Alex so maybe I have just stumbled into this on accident though many of my upcoming fics differ from this pattern)

I want it I got it: truly most of my WIP’s started from a “wouldn’t it be funny” idea that then morphed very quickly into an out of control spiral in my notes app.

Betas: the backbone of fandom and honestly the people who help me take incoherent ramblings and make them something readable. So many amazing ideas come from betas leaving comments in my gdocs and for that I am forever thankful

Is there a specific place or time of day that strikes you?: HA I uhhhhhh will wake up in a cold sweat at 4:37 in the morning with a fic idea, I’ll come up with one walking to work, I’ll get an idea standing in like for groceries. Genuinely my notes app is always open. All of the random ideas I get from a line, to a more fleshed out plot idea go into a note or the matching doc called “table scraps” and then if they evolve from there they get their own note or document for them.

First 🧚🧚 Nice Ask Day 🧚🧚 answer and I can’t wait to ask/answer more

[lu-sn]

thank you @veliseraptor for tagging me ❤️ i had a lot of fun with this one

Rules: Go to your published works on AO3 and list the first fic you ever published there, the last fic you published, any fic that you wrote for a fandom/ship only once, your favorite fic you wrote in the fandom/ship that has the most works, the fic you wish more people read, the fic you agonized over the most, the fic that sprang fully formed from your mind without any effort, and a work you are proud of—for whatever reason.

--

first fic ever published: prickly hearts

my beloved!!! this story is extra funny to me because before this i was all "it would be hubris to try to write vp they're too NUANCED i'll mess them up" and then the ghost of khun spikes whacked me on the head with a crackfic idea and the rest is history

last fic published: warm-blooded

cue me from almost exactly a year ago telling my roommate i could "never write porn" skjdfksadfkjhdsfjkhf where's my clown nose

any fic i wrote for a ship only once: press F to pay respects

my one and only kinn/porsche fic. but the real crime here is that it's my one and only macau & chay fic 😭 I'LL GET TO IT ONE DAY

favorite fic for ship with most works: you can't make me choose

i love so many of them! and i'm fond of them for different reasons, so it's really hard to pick one over the rest. breathtaking might be some of my best writing. vivace has characterization i'm very happy with, and i'm proud that i managed to do that while keeping it lighthearted. but if we're talking favorite fic for me to read... god this is hard!!!!! i love reading my funnier stuff. so maybe it really still is prickly hearts

fic i wish more people read: have u heard of the f/f vp agenda–

here is my running theory: if more people read f/f vp then more people will write it and then there will be more of it for ME to read. this is a flawless plan. i will take no criticism

fic i agonized over the most: [redacted]

i could pick a published fic for this but i don't tend to agonize too much over oneshots when i'm writing them and anyway you could add up all of the agony over all of my published fics and it would not even be 1/100th of the agonizing i am doing over my current wip. longfics SUCK. "it'll just be 3 chapters that's not so bad" "ah shit this wasn't in the outline" "why does the halfway mark keep getting FURTHER away" 0/10 would not recommend i am blinking twice please airlift me out of here

fic that sprang fully formed from my mind: blindside

this is kind of a stretch in that i had had a couple of stray macau thoughts hanging around my head for months. things like "macau goes off at korn and it's heartwrenching and futile and pete has to drag him away" or "pete and macau have a days-long staring match over vegas's comatose body" but let's be real it was mostly a giant metaphorical whiteboard in my brain with the words "PETE AND MACAU????!!!" written on it and underlined six times. it didn't coalesce into "pete holds a gun to macau's head and it somehow ruins all of korn's plans" until i was standing in the middle of a crosswalk on my way home going oh my GOD THAT WOULD BE INSANE PETE WOULD BE THAT INSANE!!!! then i blacked out and it was written

work i am proud of: reignite

i reread this recently and it reads like it was written by someone who was not me. i would not in a million years have imagined i was capable of writing like that. so i love it very much, and i feel like i did namphueng justice, and she fucking deserves it.

--

hmmm tagging @ghost--houses and @fanonplussed and @magicaldreamfox1 if you're feeling it!

[hallowgracie]

Origin of "Liberation of an Ex-Magical Girl"

Author's Note: The Liberation of an Ex-Magical Girl started as a short story opening assignment in my creative writing classes. Like the other creative writing projects that grew beyond their original parameters, the novella in the works is almost completely different from this original concept.

Still, I think it's been fun to share them, and these do establish some of the themes and ideas I intend to explore in the actual novella, and are ultimately the core of the project. I hope you enjoy this insight into the origins of one of my wips.

...

No one ever tells you what happens next, when you defeat the Big Evil. Everyone has opinions up to that point, and no problems telling you what they think you should be doing. But once the deed is done, the sword plunged through the heart and the world free of some meglomaniac in a cape? That’s when the quiet comes in.

It first came with her last breath, when she went still under the holy blade. My ears rang, and I couldn’t even hear my own heartbeat. It came with the end of spells ricocheting off of the lair’s walls, the breaking of glass and the crackling of fire. Even the screams in the city stopped, with the final wave of my wand.

Even he was quiet, I realized as I’d turned my back to what I’d done, to the broken skyscraper window over the city I’d saved. My knight in shining armor, my one true companion in this, the one who always had some terrible joke or witty passive-aggressive comment to keep us from really thinking about what we were doing—he was silent.

He just stood there like that, looking at me.

I looked down at myself—the mythic incarnation of evil or whatever didn’t leave any blood stains on my gloves or glittery magical girl gown. But I couldn’t shake the feeling, the illusion of it being there all the same.

I should have said something then. Some cheesy line, like we were in a kids’ cartoon or a Disney movie or my favorite manga.

“It’s done, it’s over. We did it, my love—let’s go home.”

But I was never the smooth-talker, the speech-giver. Unfortunately, he was. And even he was at a loss for words.

Well, I’d never been the protagonist-y type, and I wasn’t going to start then.

So I just kicked the ground and said, “I guess that’s it, then.”

Before he could say anything, I waved my wand. In a shower of pink petals and a tween girl’s idea of the best perfume, I was back in my own apartment.

And the quiet washed over me again, leaving me with only my own thoughts and that steady, faithful heartbeat.

The morning after I’d completed the mission I’d sacrificed my teen and tween years for, I decided to get a scrapbooking kit. 

...

The decision was made at 4 AM, when I’d finally had enough. I knew then that I wasn’t going to get any sleep, and this couldn’t happen again. So I did the only thing I could—I got up and started my morning routine to bide my time until the craft store two stops from the apartment opened for the day. 

I started with brewing a pot of extra-strong coffee. I made sure there was enough for my roommate—it would only be a few hours before Gwen would be up for her 8 AM class. Then it was time to hit the shower. I winced as I felt the hot water hit the parts of my body stained black and blue, hissing when it rushed over the cuts. I’d never gotten entirely used to it, after so many mornings of the same. I dabbled concealer over my under eye-bags and scar with all the artistry that eight years of practice provided.

By the time I emerged from the bathroom, Gwen was waiting for me. 

“What are you doing up so early?” She demanded, a mug of pitch-black coffee in her hand. 

“I’m taking the T down to the craft store.” I shrugged. “It opens at like, six, right?”

Her eyebrows shot into her bangs. “You’ve finally lost it. You’re crazy, you know that?”

“You’ve been saying that ever since I moved in.”

“Yeah, because you talk to yourself in squeaky voices, it’s demented,” she shot back. 

I winced. “I didn’t know you could hear that.”

“Obviously.” She sipped her coffee. “How do you do that, by the way? That voice is super grating.”

I couldn’t help it—I snorted. I’d long thought that Dwija’s voice was annoying. Or at least, ever since I passed puberty. 

“I don’t know.” I shrugged again. “It’s a talent, I guess.”

“It’s something,” Gwen muttered. “Well, wait for me, then.”

“Huh?” I adjusted a barrette in my hair, as it had been slowly sliding out over the course of our brief conversation. 

“Well, I’m not letting you go out like this alone,” she huffed. “After all, what if you snap and lose it on the T?”

It was my turn for raised eyebrows. “Talking to myself in silly voices and morning crafting impulses does not a serial killer make.”

“Whatever, just stay there until I’m at least decent enough for the T.” Gwen waved her miraculously already-empty coffee cup at me. 

“Okay.” I’d long learned not to fight my roommate on certain things. 

It somehow surprised me to see the sun still rose when we left the underground station. First, because I didn’t realize it was already doing it this early again. But also because it felt too normal, after all that had happened the night before. 

It shouldn’t have surprised me, that the world would go on turning like nothing ever happened. As far as anyone was concerned, nothing ever happened when it came to the magical girl. Lumina was a curiosity, a source of excitement, a local celebrity who rode on parade floats during St. Patrick’s Day. But everyone was careful to treat her as never truly real. That way, the threats she faced weren’t either. 

Because that would mean opening your mind up to a host of phenomena beyond heaven or earth, or whatever it was that Hamlet said to Horatio.

Which leads me back to scrapbooking. 

“I still don’t understand.” Gwen tilted her head as she followed me down the scrapbooking aisle. “What made you decide at four in the morning that you wanted to take up scrapbooking, of all things?”

I shrugged and filled my basket with scrapbook papers, stickers, and textured ribbons. “I just felt like doing something new.”

“But you’re always so busy!” She followed me to the end-cap, where discounted scrapbooks lay in a hastily-thrown together heap. “You never had time for anything but studying!”

I just scooped up a book and headed toward the cash register. “I’ve got some free time now. Might as well keep my mind occupied.”

It was better than facing the silence. 

Yet it was in silence that the cashier scanned the items. It wasn’t until we were walking out of the craft shop that Gwen spoke again.

“You’re going out with me on Friday night.” There was no room for argument. 

I still was going to try, until I was interrupted by the chime of my phone. Not the iPhone in my right pocket. 

“Go on ahead, I have to take this.”

She gave me a funny look, but continued down underground, apparently satisfied that I was only partially out of my mind. I waited until she was gone. Then I removed from my left pocket the pink shell of a cellphone from a prior era. 

It was a rounded device with bright buttons and glitter inlaid in the surface, the smaller screen like an obsidian mirror. It made chiming, musical noises that brought on a sense of nostalgia and alienness at the same time. I knew it wasn’t really a cellphone, but rather the gadget of the realm parallel our own, the main tool of Lumina. 

Iridescent runes appeared across the black mirror screen. 

My stomach sank. I knew the name, even if I’d never come to understand their language. 

Altalune.

I knew what he wanted. A part of me wanted to reach out, to hear his voice again, because I wanted it too. But that would be a moment of weakness. One that I couldn’t afford, and I was now realizing I never would. I slipped it back in my pocket. 

Sorry. 

...

The possibilities of the evening stretched endlessly before me. I was twelve years old, the last time I had freedom like this. No responsibilities, no immediate homework, no need to remove the cellphone from my left pocket and transform into the champion of the Lost Realm, the imitation of a warrior princess of long ago. 

Instead of high heels and a fluffy dress, it was booty shorts and flip-flops for me. My scrapbook lay open on the desktop, all my newfound supplies scattered around so I could see them. The sky was the limit, and my blood hummed at the idea of creating something. 

It would be an awesome scrapbook, a work of art as an autobiography. 

Now all I had to do was make it. 

Well, to start it off, I’d need to ask Mom for the hospital photos and a picture of the old little house where the first formative years of my childhood were spent. Then there would be elementary school pictures from Field Day and pool parties and the Natural Science Museum field trips. 

But what about after that?

There were less photographs of me at my parents’ house around middle school. Beyond a few sleepovers and vacations and every year’s school picture, there was little to have documented. I didn’t have time for clubs, or birthday parties. My friendships never lasted long, always cut off in fear of them discovering my secrets, getting too close. 

It was around high school when only the yearbook photos were left, when I pushed my parents away too. 

There were plenty of pictures of Lumina over the years. 

But this wasn’t about her. Or at least, I didn’t want it to be. But she had taken over my life, I was realizing as I stared down the blank pages. She’d come into my life and stolen several years, and for what? 

To avenge a kingdom I never knew? For the defeat of a primeval evil that still wouldn’t stop simple human greed and malice? 

How much of my life have I wasted?

Before I could have my mental breakdown in peace, a light pierced the warm darkness of my room, scattering sparks of glitter all over the paper. As the light faded, the shape of a rounded cat-like creature floated over my desk.

  I scowled and crossed my arms over my chest. “What do you want, Dwija?”

“Oh, don’t be like that!” I couldn’t help but wince as her high-pitched, tinny voice. “Dwija just wants to make sure you’re alright!”

I sighed. Getting mad at the little cat fey from the Lost Realm was like getting mad at a child. For all that she might be the reason I was in this mess, and how she’d conveniently left out a lot of things over the years, she was extremely sensitive. And she meant well. That still counted for something, even after all this time. 

“I’m as okay as I can be.” I pulled out the cellphone. “Are you back here looking for this?”

Dwija blinked at me, her eyes as big and shiny as a new Beanie Baby’s. “Dwija meant what Dwija said all those years ago. You used to be Princess Lumina, back in the Lost Realm. It belongs to you, even after the mission is done.”

“Fine.” I tossed it onto my desk—I didn’t care if it broke now. 

Dwija winced, even though it was fine. That thing had survived falling to the street at a height that would kill a person and then getting run over by a bus. A little tossing and throwing wasn’t going to be what did it in. 

“You’re not okay, are you?”

“No shit, Sherlock.” I closed my eyes and forced myself to exhale. “Sorry. But really, what was your first clue?”

Dwija tilted her head. “Dwija didn’t mean to make you angry. Dwija thought you would be really happy now! Delmore is defeated and the evil from the Lost Realm has been destroyed, meaning she has no hold over this world anymore.”

“The Lost Realm is still destroyed,” I reminded her. “Or at least, that’s what you told me. And it’s not like I can remember being Princess Lumina anyway. So who cares?”

“But Delmore was affecting your realm, forcing men to do bad things!” Dwija’s voice inched up an octave. “Don’t you care about that? Don’t you care that she was going to destroy this realm too?”

My stomach squirmed. “I guess I do. You didn’t tell me it would only end with me killing her, though.”

“Dwija doesn’t think of it as killing a person,” Dwija said. “Delmore wasn’t really a person, she was the incarnation of all the evil in peoples’s hearts in the Lost Realm. She was never really alive and you shouldn’t feel bad about it.”

“That’s the thing.” I was surprised at how soft and hoarse my own voice was. “She was still a person, on some level. And I wanted to stop her—but I never wanted to kill her. I never would have agreed to it, if that was the end.”

“Then Dwija is glad that Dwija never explained it.” Dwija’s tail flicked. It started to swish, casting magenta glitter all over my desk. “You had to do it to save this world and many others. Dwija is sorry that no one from the Old World will be able to remember it. But you can still have lots of fun and adventures now!”

She shifted position midair and took on a less chiding tone. “Besides, Dwija would have thought that you would be looking forward to seeing Altalune now.”

[sxnshxnxxnddxxsxxs]

so i have absolutely decided to make a director’s cut version of my current wip that will be published when it’s finished because of that one post about making directors cuts.

so i’m just gonna post a couple of examples of the range of commentary you can expect from me when i’m not limited to ao3 end notes.

everything below the cut is from chapter 25 of and your heart love has such darkness so don’t read it if you’re not up to date on chapter 25 and care about spoilers.

This was bad. This was very bad.

*in the voice of eric effiong*: very bad, very very bad

Grandfather cut him off before he could get any further, “Cornelius, what in the name of Merlin, Morgana and Hecate made you think that an appropriate course of action was to not inform me that a member of my House, my previous Heir no less, escaped Azkaban, before running your mouth to the Prophet.”

this i think really highlights a clear difference in how wizarding society is organised as compared to ‘general western government’ or even than extent compared to other governments in the wizarding world though as of writing this i really haven’t fleshed that out.

but fudge is only the head of one branch of government even though he’s the head of state. but beyond that fudge is a new house. so technically it’s not disrespectful for arcturus to address fudge by his given name since arcturus is the very top of the social hierarchy. but at the same time there is a blatant disrespect considering the fact that they are in the ministers office and fudge just addressed them by their titles. it’s the fact that arcturus can do this and face no backlash that illustrates the position in society he holds.

Once he had accounted for everyone, he had summoned Lord Black engaged the wards of Black Manor making it so that no one could move beyond the perimeter of the dining room without his express permission. The silence broke at the realisation of what he had done, an eruption of indignance of complaints of how he had trapped them, Arcturus took stock of who had joined the three residents of Black Manor: Lucretia Prewett, Phineas Black, Callidora Longbottom, Cedrella Weasley, Cygnus Black, Marius Black, Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, Andromeda and Nymphodora Tonks. Merlin’s balls the state of his House, laden with Blood Traitors and the elderly and decrepit, it was disgusting.

this definitely wasn’t an original thought i had this is definitely a concept i’ve seen in fics over the years.

the duality of man guys. some of this is genuine literary analysis, some of this is just jokes, some of this is just me being like i read this concept once 10 years ago and now i’m incorporating it. some of this is just anecdotes from my life like i start waxing poetic about peafowl in chapter six.

so this is the type of thing you can expect from the directors cut it really is just my normal a/n’s but on crack and with colour coded line references. and i am writing this whether or not anyone wants to read it because i genuinely find literary analysis to be really fun but whether it sees the light of day is down to you guys as my readers letting me know if this is the type of thing you want.

and on the off chance someone who is not a reader of mine and has got this far and has decided that they want to read my fic from this:

obligatory fuck jkr for transphobia, racism, holocaust denial, anti semitism, misogyny and the rest of her sins the old bitch can do one.

[tameila]

if the story's over, why am i still writing pages.... i am 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

Ah, this is an AU that is very near and dear to my heart. It's a high school Pikelan AU based off of this prompt that I answered.

The main premise is that, at the end of junior year, right before summer break, Scanlan wrote a letter of confession to Pike. She did not have the time before he left all summer to answer him, but, honestly? She doesn't know if she would have had an answer even if she'd had all the time in the world.

Now, it's senior year, and Pike is taking a creative writing elective...inspired by a certain letter, mayhaps? and Scanlan is in her class. She keeps trying to confess to him via poem. Scanlan keeps thinking that she's asking him to proofread up until he wrongly assumes that she's writing them for someone else.

It's a whole thing.

Can she properly convey her feelings before high school is over? If she confesses, will it even matter as her and all her friends drift in different directions? Why does anything have to change? Pike doesn't want anything to change.

....It is absolutely on the same level of TSAR in the sense that I'm like,"hehe teehee here's a cute lil teenaged romp" and then once I've lulled you into a false sense of security...WA-BAM!!! The grief of growing up, of "leaving" childhood behind, of loving people so much that you may inevitably lose to distance and time. It won't be your fault. It won't be theirs. That's just life. Why does anything have to change? How do you hold on when there's no way to stop it?

As I mentioned, it's a WIP that I cradle very fondly and that I have mostly plotted out in bullet points.

Here's some scenes:

SCENE FIVE (Homecoming week, mid-October)

In middle school, the girls always went as a group to dances. Then, freshman year, Vex started dating and, since then, has never gone to a dance without a date. Pike would have been happy to just go with Keyleth as a dynamic duo, but Vax asked her. As friends. Though there was a whole drama when apparently he hadn’t wanted to go as friends and Keyleth started dating Kash two weeks after Homecoming. But - That’s a whole other thing. With Vex and Keyleth all dated up, Pike agreed to go as friends with Scanlan when he asked.

Some details about her ridiculous hair she got done and the dress she bought

A sense of childhood being “lost”/”left behind” as they ditched the sleepover and girl’s day that Homecoming used to be

Since then, she’s always gone to any dance with Scanlan as friends. It’s an unspoken agreement. Grog tagging along with them if he’s not currently hooking up with someone.

Pike figured this year would be no different.

A naive thought, in retrospect.

In years before, he’s always asked. Even though they're only going as friends, Scanlan loves the theatrics and planning of The Asking. Still, it's an unspoken thing. Pike assumes he’s just been busy.

The girls went dress shopping over the weekend and Pike sends a picture of her dress to Scanlan. He answers in his usual poetic manner. Pike replies back something about what color bowtie/tie she thinks would look best and Scanlan comes back with: “Oh. We’re going together?”

It’s a whole back and forth.

“You don’t want to go?” “I think there’s somebody else you need to ask.” He sends a few more encouraging texts. Pike throws her phone aside, curls up in bed, and has a good ol’ fashion cry about it. Boys are dumb.

[POEM FIFTEEN]

SCENE SIX (night of Homecoming)

Pike does not ask anyone, and no one asks her. An unsurprising fact. Despite the fact that Scanlan and her have always made it clear that they’re only friends, the rumor mill will say what it pleases. She’s lost out on a couple dates because of it. Like, when she had a crush on that girl in her sophomore year, the one with the colored skinny jeans and colored highlights, who later admitted (long after Pike’s crush had gone) that she’d wanted to ask Pike to the dance but thought she was with Scanlan.

She almost doesn’t want to go anymore, figures she can save the dress for something else, but! Scanlan says he’ll be going, so she goes.

She dresses up, meeting with Keyleth and Vex at Vex’s house. She poses for pictures, alone. Stands awkwardly to the side of her friends as they dance with their dates. She constantly checks her phone. Eventually, she ends up on a stone bench at the front of the school, calling him.

Scanlan says that his mom wasn’t feeling well. He stayed home to take care of her and didn’t think anyone would miss him.

“I always miss you, Scanlan.”

A long, emotionally charged pause.

She says she’ll walk over. Scanlan says he’ll come get her. Pike sneaks out some food and gets into the car when Scanlan rolls up

Pike brushes his hair away from his eyes, taking in his haggard appearance. She asks him if he wants to go get some Dairy Queen sundaes - her treat. Scanlan shakes his head. His mom still needs him back at home. She understands.

Scanlan goes to pull away from the curb but stops one last time to tell her how beautiful she looks. Another pause. Pike almost begs him to just DRIVE, but after another second with no answer, he does on his own.

SCENE EIGHT (Friday before Scanlan’s show?, sleepover)

Keyleth’s house. A bit about Keyleth’s house and living situation.

Some dumb sleepover shenanigans

But also getting real talk. Talking about college. Percy’s guaranteed some full ride to somewhere and a spot in his family’s company. Vex plans to go there too. She dreams about leaving her father’s house and the big fluffy dog she’s gonna adopt when she does.

Keyleth remarks that her and Kash are breaking up. Probably. Differing priorities. She’s not sad, really.

Pike thinks about Scanlan. Even if she tells him how she feels, would they endure? It feels like everything’s moving and changing and they’re all gonna forget about each other.

As they lay there in the dark, quietening, Pike shudders a sob

Keyleth and Vex propose a cuddle pile

Pike doesn’t want them to move on

[lespetitesmortsde]

For the asks thing: 4, 7, 8, 13, 15, 16, 20, 22?

A couple of these I've already answered, so I'll link the previous answers - that's on me because I was slow responding to these asks!

4. How many WIPs do you have right now?

Oh god, actual WIPs? Well, posted I have... six for Imodna and one for supercorp. If we include docs that have chapters partially written? Then it goes up to I think 11 for imodna and four for supercorp.

TECHNICALLY. However, I am lowkey working on new chapters for Eyes on Me and Let the Pieces Fall into Place which make it eight posted WIPs for imodna, or 13 total WIPs for imodna.

7. How many ideas for fics do you have right now?

Answered here!

8. What project(s) are you currently working on?

Imodna first:

All the posted WIPs: When the Stars Go Out, Dolcissimo, Set the World on Fire, Before the Body Decays, All I Want for Winter's Crest, and Let's Get Out of This Town.

Then there's Eyes on Me and Let the Pieces Fall into Place which are unofficial WIPs. Technically, they're oneshots and complete, but their docs have new content under new chapters so. We'll see.

Finally, the secret ones I'm working on:

Supercorp-wise:

Slow It Down (the only one posted so far), Shatter Me (just needs another round of editing), En Garde (sidenote I love fencing and I hope to find a different title), Three, Working Title I (I'll just say: tattoos), and Working Title II (angst. much angst).

13. How much planning do you do before writing?

Depends on the fic and depends on the chapter. When I first start a fic, sometimes I need an outline doc right away and I'll work on that until I've exhausted the initial idea and spark, just try to use that fire while I can. Sometimes the fic gets away from me and then I need to make an outline doc later instead of a handful of notes at the end of the fic doc.

In terms of sitting down to write a chapter, sometimes I have a series of bullet points of things to hit in the chapter, but more often than not, there's a line or two of notes at the end of the doc to remind me what I want to include/where I'm going and that's enough.

Lots of research happens as I go, though, which I think some people do in advance and thus might constitute planning, but I prefer to do in the moment.

15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters?

Answered here!

16. At what point in the process do you come up with titles?

Oh boy. Okay. The rarest point of all is at the beginning, but once in a blue moon it happens. In general, I prefer to come up with them at the end - harder for a multi-chapter situation where I try to find something that embodies the overall vibe. When the Stars Go Out is such a long title, but it fit the vibe of what I want the fic to be, and I stumbled into it trying to think romantic and philosophical thoughts when I'd finished the first chapter. Dolcissimo on the other hand has been titled since the outlining stage where I got deep into a glossary of music notation terms and promptly titled the fic, each chapter, and the sequel and its chapters.

20. What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written?

If/Then for sure because it kind of fell into my lap after some trial and error and it fits SO WELL. In my humble opinion, of course.

22. Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

In general, yes. Some fics I have a specific vision and others there might be a particular scene or an emotion I want the reader to come away with. Do I know every detail about the ending? Absolutely not. I haven't seen in-depth a ton of others' processes, but I think I write from a fairly bare bones outline. The act of writing - the typing and the finding the words as I go - really impacts and shapes what comes out. Like. Something happens during the times where my fingers clicky clack against the keyboard and I can't really explain it, but I have, often, a vague goal and my keystrokes get me there. Sometimes far later or after many more words than anticipated.

Are you curious about something? You can ask me stuff, too! Here's the list of questions, but my ask box is always open!