#i do not even think this can be called a fic its like 2 paragraphs whatever

[shivroy]

can i togan. will you let me togan. full image and a tiny fic in the link

[all444miles]

hi this is my first time requesting! can you do e42 miles and his girlfriend on her quinceañera please and ty <3

— PRINCESA

pairing: earth 42!miles x fem!afro-hispanic!reader genre: fluff summary: it's your quince, your big day, and your boyfriend is right there with you, dancing with you (and shi, he can dance) reveling in your beauty ‹3 a/n: this is your first time requesting? this is my first request, so, im honored!! this was acc like, really fun to write 😭 the fact this isnt even long but i still took so long is SILLYY, im rlly rlly sorry for that.. + if these translations r wrong PLEAAASEEE CORRECT ME bc ion wanna mess up on this at all

a/n 2: anything underlined with probably have a link to give you a ref to wtv the context is, (e.g, your makeup), the nails, dress, n bouqet are in the three pics above!! also, the large spaces between paragraphs is js basically a lil skip to the next part (like the entrance to the last doll !) please do listen to the song shown in the fic when the waltz happens to feel how the reader did, n i tried my best to describe what was happening but this quince vals kinda shows it best, js imagine more men around em n the start of this for the surprise dance, i think its called wepa? (MILES HAS A COWBOY HAT ON AGGGHHGHH) 😭 enjoy!

It was your day. the day you turned 15, the day you transitioned from girlhood to womanhood, and God, you were estatic. It was all planned perfectly.

You were outside the hall, and it was time for your entrance. Your mother and Rio were adding the finishing touches to your hair, while your lover carefully put on your necklace for you, as you didn’t want to mess up your nails. He paid for them, after all.

“Mi amor, you look like proper royalty right now, y’know that?” he says to you, making your heart feel warm as he speaks. You smile at him, “Thank you, Miles. Ma, are you sure everything is gonna go okay?” you look at your mother with slight concern, fidgeting with your fingers. “¡Cálma, cielo! Te ves goregous, y me he asegurado de que todo salga perfecto, ¿de acuerdo?” (take it easy, angel! You look gorgeous, and i’ve made sure everything goes perfectly fine, alright?). You nodded your head, as Rio motioned you to take two deep breaths, Miles chuckling in amusement.

Your father stepped in and announced, “Es hora princesa, ¿estás lista?” (it’s time princess, are you ready?). You smiled, your nervousness fading and your excitement overtaking as you quickly fixed your dress. “Mhm!” And with that, you walked into the court as Lo que paso, paso by Daddy Yankee played, your left hand in your mothers and your right in your fathers, as four of your cousins, as your chambelanes, (including Miles, the chambelan de honor), danced behind you as the three of you danced into the court, the MC announcing your arrival.

You sat down on your “throne” as your little sister came up to you, twirling before stopping to face you and handed you your last doll, a smile on her face. “Gracias, hermanita” (Thank you, baby sister) you whispered to her as you kissed her forehead and she hugged you, giggling before walking off back to your mother.

After your crowning, changing of shoes and your father daughter dance, it was time to do your waltz. The setting faded as a light shon on you and Miles, a smirk on his face, Golden Hour by JVKE playing in as your chambelanes moved around you two.

She’s got glitter for skin, my radiant beam in the night..

Your boyfriend had your hand in his, close to eachother, a loving smile imprinted on the both of your faces. “Ya sabes, cariño, puedes bailar bastante bien.” (You know, baby, you can dance pretty well.)” He chuckled and slightly put his head down and shook his head, “Por supuesto que puedo, ma, lo aprendí de y para mejor.” (Course I can, ma, I learnt from and for the best.)

As the incoming line came in, Miles spun you three times, then your primos (cousins) and your boyfriend circled around you before lifting you up and spinning you, your dress flowing.

It’s your golden hour..

A grin from ear to ear, you watched everybody around you looking up at you astonishment as you spun, hearing cheers from your aunties and your mother (Rio included). They put you down, as the song continued, your chambelanes on one knee around you, you in the middle taking a curtsy, before continuing your dance.

The song faded, it had ended, but it was time for your surprise dance. The loud blasts of el mariachi and fizzing of the indoor pyrotechnics could be heard from every angle of the room; the boys on stage as you stood back till it your signal to come in.

Your primos and Miles’ stomps echoed through the court—holding onto their hats as their body’s moved, to the flow of the music. Miles was actually better than you expected at this, and he looked quite fine with that hat on too, you thought. You heard whistles coming from your tios, and a small shout of encouragement from Rio to her son, which make you chuckle. She patted your back and motioned you to step in.

You walked into the middle as the boys stepped back, sprinkling roses onto you as you spread out your arms. As you stepped in and stepped out, Miles on one knee as you circled around him, your cousins stomping once again to the beat of the sound. He stood up as you held your dress to dance along with them, them picking you up one last time, earning trills and cheers from the people sitting down.

The very last song came in, and it was just you and Miles, dancing cumbia together, your cousins stepped back hyping you two up. You kicked forward as he kicked back, you two dancing in pure sync, the whole court cheering your names while you two tried to hide your laughs. It was one of the best nights of your life, a smile on everybody’s face the entire time.

At the end of your quince, you and Miles were talking in a corner. You looked up at him, pupils dilated “Te ves muy guapo con ese sombrero puesto.” (You look pretty handsome with that hat on.)

He laughed to himself, shaking his head. “Oh, word? Aight, i’ll keep it on then.” You pressed your forehead with his, “Gracias por hacer que esta noche sea tan divertida para mí, cariño.” (Thank you for making this night so fun for me, baby). He kissed your forehead, “No hay nada que agradecerme, mi reina, fue muy divertido ser promocionado por tus primos.” (There is nothing to thank me, my queen, it was a lotta fun to be cheered on by your cousins.)

He planted a kiss to your lips, “I love you, mami.”

“You know I love you too.”

© all444miles 2023. do not plagerize, copy, or repost my work in any way shape or form, without my permission.

likes, reblogs, comments and asks are always appreciated !

[curtins]

hey mamas 🙇‍♀️ for the “get to know your fic writer” — 3 , 4 , 6 , 11 (cause i need YOU to put me on YOUR fics 🤭) , 13 , 16 (cause im nosy….) , 21 , 23 & 24 (help a hg out), 25 (so i can glaze you), 32 , 39 , 59 , 60 , 64 , 65 (!!!)

okay i’ll get out of here now…

HEYY 🤩 ...i got this notif earlier and saw the no. of questions and decided to eat dinner first bc i needed to be SEATED and with my laptop out ❤️ you came to the right place bc im president and mayor of yap city

— 3. describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

i have like a little template in my drafts with my basic layout (like title, prologue, warnings, pairing etc and so on) and i just keep it to copy and paste for a new fic. and underneath the header and info section, i just outline messy dot points. and each dot point gets turned into a few paragraphs or a scene. and i always have some typa thesaurus open 😭

— 4. where do you find inspiration for ideas

oouh!! mostly song titles i think, i always use them as a jumping point. or actually i really love pinterest, and web-weaving type of posts when it comes to themes i wanna explore (mostly in sfw fics, as opposed to like short smut) 😁

— 6. do you have your work beta'd / how is this important to your process?

nope 😭 my drafts are always super messy and all over the place and im always a little self conscious esp since i jump between ideas and dialogue. BUT i am always yapping in peoples dms and talking abt ideas anyway or getting dialogue checked for clarity...

— 11. link your three favourite fics rn

omg! rent-a-dilf by @screampied i found it sooo charming and effortlessly engaging and also super fun even tho i've never played the sims.

i forgot to like this and add it to my queue so i took an hour to find this particular one, but what you know by @starmapz sukuna and reader are so well characterised and incredibly written! i also loved little yuuji and choso's cameos :(

and they were roommates by @sugoroo i loved it so bad, so EXCELLENT and the tension and smut had me on the edge of my seat. choso's made me laugh 😭

— 13. whats a common writing tip you always follow?

honestly it feels like a cop-out answer but i always try to remember 'unlearn shame' in my head. like when im writing, like for no reason, i get a bit embarrassed or self aware or im overthinking a sentence?? i just have to remember that it is just never that deep....😭

however, a better answer i think would be that for 99% of my fics (so excluding very short fluff, or straight up jackhammering smut) i always always do worldbuilding first. my favourite authors are j.r.r tolkien and george rr martin so middle earth/westerosi levels of high fantasy are massive inspirations when it comes to the grand scheme of creating a world for my characters to interact in.

also i rlly love mythology, folktales and medieval history so they always play a role in how i write or treat common themes. i think its super interesting and poignant at how some stories survive thousands of years and resonate across different cultures, and they remain classics for a reason <333 if that makes sense

like okay say! even in fics that aren't a part of some royal/fantasy/myth au right, like idk say im writing about gojo dying (rip king 😰) its obviously set within the jjk world in 2018, but i would try to see how the following works express the same theme of grief, battle, leaving a loved one behind:

the death of sigurd in the volsunga saga in norse myths

patroclus and achilles in the illiad

a medieval french epic called the song of roland, where roland's death is felt so strongly by his fiancee that she dies

tristan and isolde (tristan being mortally wounded n knowing that he will leave isolde behind, and she succumbs to grief)

the japanese folklore tale of the warrior tomoe gozen, and how she mourns her lord and lover

— 16. how many fic ideas are u nurturing? share one of them!

29! at the moment 😭 and watch me genuinely write like...2... but one of them that i havent even drafted much out yet, towards the end of the list is like geto x reader long fic (prob will have smut bc 😇) but its gonna be an alternative universe where reader is considered a saint/icon/mouthpiece of the gods and he's been marked for death (a warrior? or smth idk)

— 21. would you ever collaborate with another writer for a story?

i've never done it before but ofc! is this the start of user curtins and user creamflix collab.....

— 23. best writing advice for other writers?

sometimes u have to make sure you're sitting on your own and reading that dialogue out loud, or mouthing it. i'm writing shit and then speaking it afterwards. and i cant even stand to hear it bc no way would anyone ever say that.

— 24. worst writing advice anyone ever gave you?

you can't start a sentence with 'and' like wtf okay....who said that. english is made up, all words are made up no one gaf if its not proper english, im allowed to do desi repatriations like this ig

— 25. what fic do you wish you got more of a response one?

hmm honestly, i did have an answer for this at first like 'oh yeah this one xyz i wish it got more notes' but that being said i feel like there's none that i feel truly flopped on par with how im improving writing and getting more comfortable. but! if i had to choose: goo goo muck #1 with the minotaur au because i rlly put some thought into how i could incorporate sukuna, yuji, and yuji's execution with the myth of the beast trapped in the maze.

and ditto! i think its my longest fic so far 😭 and it took me so long to plan out a timeline from childhood to gojo's death

— 32. name three of your favourite fanfic writers?

it would be poor form and incredibly remiss of me to not say user @creamflix 🤭 i really love how ur dialogue flows, and the way you describe scenes make me feel like i'm really there (a+ for me)

also @tonycries simply because every time i try my hand at smut, it takes me 4 days to think of something new, and i'm always wondering on how to reword shit so i'm not writing the same thing over and over, but they keep it soooo fresh and new with every fic and soooo well written!!

@kurooh i always find their smut fics sooo creative and fun, and their recent double fantasy fic was SAUUUUUR good!

— 39. share a snippet from a wip!

nay! mind you, this isn't even proofread so its still incredibly basic and thesaurus.com has not come out....but i tried a mildly different inspo approach and header. its very backstory and angst based for sukuna regarding his childhood, but sweet at the end i promise :(( IM CRYING. im seeing mistakes in this already, but i needed to give uraume my they/them baddie a cameo later in it

— 59. does anyone in your personal life know that you write fic? if not, would you tell anyone?

im cryinggggg. def not, unfortunately i can't let this get in the way of the public brand #coolgirl but it would go something like this

— 60. have you had a writer that you admire comment on your fic?

🫡 @madamechrissy who's writing my fave bridgerton fic, with duke!gojo commented on my vacation fic and i really did a giggle and kick in the air 😭

— 64. something you love to see in smut?

hmmmm my favourite thing is like when it isn't just pure smut if that makes sense, like setting, atmosphere, or cute banter is incorporated or clever wordplay. like you can feel the vibe of like where its set idk 😭

— 65. tell us what you're most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project?

i really want to improve and become more confident in different genres, like better smut that flows more without me having to stop and stare at a wall for ten minutes each time, or super cute fluff <333333

[claryshifts]

Making American Horror Story DRs "Safe"

I'll update this with each season I watch! Most of this will focus on one of the "Evans" bc I know a lot of yall horny bastards wanna hop on him (real) Each section will have an "ultra safe" paragraph and a "safe as possible?" paragraph. idk -Murder House: Option One: The house isn't possessed or whatever you want to call it. Hell, you don't even have to live in it. Though Tate has problems with his mom (that adds a lot to his character, so I'd still 'keep that'), he's never had terrible thoughts of doing what he did at that school or any other gross things. I personally would still 'script out' the self-harm. Wouldn't want my partner to suffer that Option Two: If you still want that ghostly experience, then sure, by all means, live in the haunted house. but maybe cut out the satan part... Also script the ghosts don't have shitty timing (they don't bother you in the bathroom or when you're sleeping, for ex). If you want Tate as a ghost and not alive, still, don't date a ghost mass yknow what  😭  😭  BONUS: instead of tate, date violet 🥰🥰 -Asylum: Option One: You can live a nice quiet life with Kit. it's the 60s though, so if you're fem/poc/lgbt/etc, keep that in mind. whenever I go to a reality in the past I script I don't get bored without technology lol Option Two: have fun at the asylum, ig, boo. If you want some edgy lore, pls don't script you're a psycho killer or something omg 😭. Script none of the people in charge inflect punishments on you. If you really wanna get freaky in that musty place, script you don't get caught... and that its not all musty... -Coven: I got a lot to say bc I think Imma make a script for this too haha Option One: no scary demon devils or whatever. Uh, Kyle isn't treated like a sex object???? Nothing bad happens to Nan (she deserves better). If Kyle has to die (that sounds so weird to say) for your lore or whatever, don't purposely give him a traumatizing experience. this isn't a fan fic,, that's your REALITY. Honestly you could just script you're a silly little witch hanging out in New Orleans and call it a day. Madison isn't annoying af. No Axe Man. LaLaurie being Queenie's "slave" was deserved but maybe just script her 'out' altogether... Option Two: Okay, so you want the drama. Have the drama! Still no demon devils though cuz that does NOT sound fun. Script you and the people you care about are all safe from harm. If Kyle HAS to go through that terrible experience (I'm his biggest defender as you can tell), at least keep Madison and Zoe away or at bay bc seeing them fight over a guy who can't even say "food" and OBVIOUSLY can't verbally consent was so uncomfy, for me at least. -Freak Show: Option One: no scary clowns. The "freaks" aren't treated like shit. Neal Patrick Harris doesn't show up with his puppet??? No one is trying to make money off of the freaks. None of them are murdered or harmed. Option Two: Ig if you still want the plot they still have to be treated pretty shitty. Still would apply everything else though, as well as the fact nothing happens to you.

-Hotel: Option One: Ok look James March. Wonderful man. Make him NOT a serial killer omg. If you get with him I'm convinced a relationship with him would be straight up Morticia and Gomez uishfuihfjsf I want him so bad. Anyway, if he's your man keep the countess off your back, if you keep her there at all. I wouldn't recommend making yourself a ghost bc idk WTFFF that would mean for you spiritually. You could be sexy March's sexy human partner. Or the countess' partner. Anyone's partner. but alive. Um no 10 commandment killings of any sort, and no vampire children???

Option Two: ngl idk how else to put this?? idk if there should be an option 2 ;-;

Currently on Roanoke! this season is so boring I might not write anything for it

[scover-va]

I need to know more about Michael's mom... Is she a cool mom?

SHE IS A VERY COOL MOM janet afton you will always be famous. to me

Im taking this as a chance to finally ramble abt her anyways so Janet's core inspo when designing her was to avoid 2 key things. Don't make her like Immortal & Th Restless's Clara (due to clara representing michael, not mrs afton, so i wanted to avoid that), and don't base her too heavily off of Ballora. I still have ties to Ballora's character (a music-based theme, blue-centric colour palette, im sure there were more basic ideas but everything else is more hc than themes to keep up) due to my hc thingy of each Funtime having ties to William's wife + kids, but yknow.

But yeah. Funky lady who played bass guitar + did backup vocals in a band during her high school and college years. Literally her and William dating can be summed up by "Seriously, what do you see in that guy?!" "He makes me laugh." bc she was and is WAY out of his goddamn league. Not just bc of the whole serial killer thing he was just an even bigger loser in college. Normal people dont develop a crush on a woman after she nearly breaks your nose and makes you bleed, William /j

But yeah uhh. I also dont like the idea of her being absent or neglectful purely because I got way too attached to her (i was originally gonna do that just to make things easy for myself but. Pretty lady,,, I am a very simple lesbian what can i say) so like. She obviously wasnt the greatest, most fantastic mom to ever exist given she was kinda maybe sorta well aware William was making some weird fucking clowns, but like. Hey. She tried. Also side note my reasoning for her being absent during the whole. Yknow. '83 event (and just evan's bday in general) is bc Evan + Elizabeth are twins and Elizabeth demanded a girls-only trip for her bday, and Janet promised Evan she'd do something just as special for him when she got back. That never happened bc he died lmao loser /j

But yeah uhh. Shes got a lot of regrets. Wishes she coulda done a lot of things better. Kinda dies with those regrets. Ive seen people say that one of fnaf's charms is that no character is 100% good and i LOVE that, and wanted to keep it up with Janet. Good mom and overall a good person, however made some bad decisions along the way and whatnot.

Im still working out specifics (ive been slowly working on a lil private fic abt her and william meeting + their early relationship) but uhhh. Minor notes that dont get their own paragraphs is that William sampled her voice for Ballora so yay easy voice claim, she had an on and off relationship with her band's lead singer (her name's Bev), her birth name is actually Janice Schmidt but if you call her Janice she'll knock at least 2 of ur teeth out, she's a runaway teen and got adopted by this older couple bc her home life kinda sucked (idk specifics yet), and also girlie has an extensive criminal record of minor angsty teen type charges. Also teen Mike dying his hair and then 2020's Michael's hairstyle are both kinda references to Janet's hair because he wnated to look less like his father. Thats all ty. No read more bc you WILL look at my mrs afton post, boy /j

Actually no theres more that im remembering as i write the tags and edit a few details. Back to her and William because god im insane about them. So for starters it. Well i was gonna say Janet was def the first to flirt but i think William definitely developed a crush first and they only kept talking bc of said crush so its kinda up for debate. Anyways yeah at first it was a HUGE sorta like "Well he's funny especially when I fluster him so this can be just a fun lil thing" but because they chatted more they def kinda like. Clicked more. William was a huge fan of listening to her music (from. a distance. he looked kinda like a creep but at least janet only misinterpreted it once) but like *specifically* janet he didnt give a fucking shit abt the rest of the band. Uhh. They had their first run-in and janet kinda. Well. Punched him in the nose before he cleared up that he is NOT a pervert or anything weird like that (bc a guy that looks older than he is staring from a distance when there is a clear crowd he could join kinda gave janet the Wrong idea), then they later bumped into each other in the hall and chatted for a bit, then they kinda just kept "accidentally" running into one another. Uhhh. Some cigaerette-themed flirting and a house party later, yay dating :] can you tell where the current cut-off of the fic is /j Also idk how to put this down properly but they are both runaways and can kinda. Get that vibe from one another. Literally Michael is like some fucked up abomination of the both of them between the troubled past + weird situationship thing + runaway stuff + a lot of minor details that arent important rn. I just. Yeah Janet means the world to me go thru her tag on my blog for some art. Not all of my janet art is posted but the non-posted stuff is all concept work/doodles or just. Shit im too embarrassed to post lmao. Anyways NOW im done ty for reading

[star-girl69]

DUDEEEEEE. She calls me baby youuuuu ate that harrrrrrrd. Like I had to go back in for seconds and thirds and fourths fr fr. Cause are we even surprised or are we just grateful that you give us mortals a second of your time and talent????

Babe you are so incredibly talented. The way you write is sooooooo amazing its like you just know how to manipulate your words into something that will and has had me in tears in like 2 seconds. Don't even get me started on how you write your characters. Like I don't know how I can fully and most genuinely express the astonishment you leave me in all the time.

I believe that you are one of a kind and a treasure to be cherished. I know that doubting is inevitable but I hope that you know that I'm always gonna be in the obsessed with addie corner no matter what. Like I meant it when I said that there won't be a time when you have no fans. Ever. You will forever be my favourite gorgeous goddess❤️❤️❤️.

-❤️

(I'm sorry I've been so absent school has been actually eating me alive)

(I think about you everyday though and it makes life just that much better)

(I hope you don't think I'm exaggerating😭😭😭😭All of this that I've been feeling without releasing had to be sent in a long ask my bad)

(I missed your little bonuses though, I hope you're doing okay)

(I'm always here for anything you may need, even if its literally just to tell you how amazing you are)

(love you ❤️)

#jealousclarissesupremacy

I WAS WONDERING WHERE YOU WERE I WAS SO WORRIED I SMILED SO HARD WHEN I GOT THIS ASK 🤭🤭

I CANT THAT WHOLE SECOND PARAGRAPH LIKE I CANT LIKE WOWWWW YOU THINK THAT???? ABOUT MEEE??!!!!??!?!?!?!!

TREASURE IS INSANE BTW 🤭 anyways omg. i’m so grateful wtf like i’m sorry i cant come up w something more poetic like you i just love these asks so much i get so happy and idk how to express that other than ilysm and i’m just so happy and so so grateful

also gorgeous goddess… i giggled 🤭🤭🤭

(ITS OKAYYYYY IM GLAD YOUR BACK SCHOOL HAS BEEN COOKING ME TOO 💔💔)

(EVERYDAY??!?!?!?! i think about you everyday too tho….. thinking about that one day you were so active and i got like 5 asks from you… BEST DAY OF MY LIFEEE) (also pls don’t take this as me pressuring you TRUST i am grateful for whatever you give me 🙏🙏)

(STOP. I. LOVE. LONG. ASKS. DONT ANNOY ME BY DOUBTING MY LOVE FOR YOU!!!!!!!)

(idk i’m okay i’ve just been really feeling pressured to write stuff bc the fandom is dying down (guys pls come back) and i am now firmly addicted to the praise and number of notifs i get…. lol. the bonuses have always been weird bc sometimes they come so easily to me like the first one i did was so it goes and i didn’t even have to think about it and then someone said they liked it so i went back and did it to my other fics and started doing it and idk yeah basically what i’m saying is sometimes they’re so easy and other times i have to force myself to come up w something which sucks but people like them so i’m happy to do it!!!!)

(tbh i’ll probably go back and add a bonus to she calls me baby bc i have just a little teeny bit of ocd and it will bother me but also i’m trying to let the little things go but idk we’ll see how strong i am 😭😭)

(sorry i will stop ranting now) (shoutout to anyone who actually reads that incoherent ramble)

(i need to be told how amazing i am 24/7 so that will be hard 😔) (BUT I APPRECIATE YOU SAYING THAT)

(LOVE YOU TOOOOO 💋💋💋)

#iagreesobad

[tojikai]

it was the way i hoped for toji and then rubbed my hands cackling when my wish came true and then instantly started squealing and kicking my feet for me 🥹😈

i liked seeing gojo’s perspective and while i can see now what the mind process was i still felt like he’s so dense and egotistical. i felt a little bad but it lasted about 2 minutes and then said fuck it we ball not enough to root for him so he can choke 🥰🫶🏽

baby megs putting naohoemi (i know what i said in the first ask about her being nice to yui but i was trying to be positive lmao but i couldn’t do it after reading it a second time) in her place and toji dealing the finishing blow had me smiling like the grinch and me monologuing about giving that man the sloppiest toppiest guack guack 9000 at the house 😤🤣

when n**mi said we can all fix it together i said out loud “i think tf not you trick ass bitch” bc i’m just so tired of her lmao pls exit stage left and stop inserting yourself the martyr complex is irking me

also wanted to mention that toji having money and being a present dad is so heartwarming and i love that despite mamaguro there’s room in his heart for reader (fix you put me through it at the time lmao) and the sims are so cute 🥰 since i’m a woc (black) i already imagined yui to look like the sim except for my skin and hair texture so seeing it had me like kai, your mind ☺️ but also imagining braiding her hair and putting beads in them 🥹😭

me 🤝 kai = same brain

i am highkey rooting for toji bc despite maybe seeing him as ooc may be a thought for others some part of me likes to think that he could have had that in canonverse had things been different which is why the characterization feels right for me. he’s so sweet to reader but also nasty 🤪😂 and the kids get along too so i am heavily invested in that. also when it was mentioned reader wanted three kids she already has yui and if toji is endgame then megumi is added. would she want more kids even if she had one with toji? i also want to see megumi accidentally call reader mom (despite mothergate with “n***mi”) but at the same time have both megs and toji being shocked but liking the new dynamic since reader isn’t taking anyone’s spot or icing out others

now idk if you’re going to do an epilogue for sundered or a different piece set in the au (and honestly i’m just down for the ride either way) but the way you explore the family dynamics and reveal the psychological aspects just tickles my brain so i’d like to see yui’s thoughts and perspective and just her being mommy’s little angel menace to society and delivering the karma to both of them. whether its naomi and satoru and his mom being ripped a third buttcheck bc she’s over it or just her reading them all for filth bc she knows the truth

i think to make it easier for my thoughts on each chapter i will do separate ones with slight commentary that way i don’t spam your ask box lmao (meaning i will redo reviews on each chapter bc i genuinely love talking about the fics with you! you make it fun and also you don’t get annoyed when i’m constantly standing outside your askbox or when i’m cussing out the characters on main lmfao 😂💕

i also think that ill do it for the rest of the series i’ve read from you just bc i know you’re an author im comfortable with talking to and ive been around even before permanent mark despite that being the start of reaching out. i think it’ll be fun for me and maybe to you but honestly maybe its just bc i talk a lot lmao and that we both are down bad astronomically for toji. also off topic bc this was a review and turned into a platonic confession/appreciation post but i saw you are a leo and it made my heart feel full bc my mom is a leo too lmao

- paragraph/theory aka paratheory anon

that statement abt how you feel abt satoru is just the way i feel abt him whenever i write. i just start scolding him like im not the one making him say or do those things, it's funny when i think abt it now LMAO and toji being ooc JDKSLSL that's true😭 but for me, it's bc i headcanon him as being really good w kids and family stuff. his life in jjk's just ...not the right place to show that side of him and it makes me hurt for him so bad bc where is he gonna put that soft side now😭 i enjoy writing him like that, ngl. and yui's pov would be so interesting and cute😭 depending on how it'll end, it'd be fun to see what she thinks and how she acts abt it as she grows !! anwww omg yess im a leo, that made me feel warm, paratheory anon, thanks so much 🥺♥️ your asks are always great reads<33

[sorcerous-caress]

I just wanna thank you so much for your completely earned deconstruction of the writer/reader relationship. I have 2 separate writing blogs, and one, my main in fact, I've all but completely given up on until I want to write again. The other is being transferred to be my new main, and I'm not sure if I'll take requests. I've been debating just taking commissions that I'm comfortable with, and posting my own writing when the mood strikes. You've really made me think, and I appreciate that so much! ❤️

I'm not sure if you've had a similar experience, but basically one of my works exploded somewhat and another did to a lesser extent. I was working on other things and all anyone cared about was those two fics.

When I tell you I pored hours upon hours into this super high fantasy rewrite crossover of my favorite game with the same characters, I mean it. My first chapter was over 8k and I made sure I did a bunch of research to nail both the combat, and dialouge.

I posted it, initially meant to be posted between that and one of the fics- only for it to be ignored and instead all I got was update asks. No-one cared when it was right in my rules that it gave me anxiety and made me not want to write.

It got so bad, I literally dropped the blog. I haven't updated my most popular work since 2019 and I've only the past 6 months got inspired for the secondary popular fic. I got so in my head- desperate to do what my readers wanted and not upset anyone. To this day the next chapter sits half written, with me still torn to rewrite it entirely, or just finish it the way I want to and go from there. Yet it's so soured for me. I still love my concept. I still kind of want to repurpose it and flesh it out but I just get such a bitter taste in my mouth and I freeze and get anxiety even now when I re-read it.

Ironically the lack of reception to my passion project was my wake up call. I was genuinely devastated. I had one thankfully amazing commenter(of course on Archive of Our Own), who didn't know my niche little fantasy video game save its very opening hours(It's Final Fantasy 4, in case you're curious), but clicked anyway and gushed about my execution. A whole 4-5 paragraphs. I cried when I read it, beaming ear to ear grin.

If it wasn't for her? I very well may have quit posting my writing altogether and you know what? I still post that fic. Slowly, granted. My 2nd chapter was 9k+ and the 3rd is looking to be over 10k and has taken over 2 years thanks to a lot going on. She posted again on that 2nd chapter though! And I go back and read it when I need inspiration. I'm basically solely posting it for her.

Just...thanks. For sharing how you feel on this. I've always really struggled with feeling selfish, or like I have no right to ask for a comment. I still can put myself down and feel incredibly guilty, especially about that constantly asked about fic. Feel like I should take the likes and update asks with a smile because "that means they like it, obviously, they're asking for more, right?" I don't think people not actively creating and posting get it, and you truly put it into words in a way I've struggled with for years.

I'm new here, and still playing through the game and all, but please know at least I see you. I appreciate all the hard work you do and put in. You don't owe any of anything, and I'm so grateful for anything you choose to share with us. I think a lot of people underestimate how intimate sharing our writing is.

Also appreciate you mentioning the difference in respect between fanartists and fanwriters. SO many people think "Anyone can write." and we get belittled so much faster for offering commissions too. It takes just as much skill, whether people believe that or not.

Just...thanks. For real. You've given me a lot to consider as I work on transferring my new blog over and I appreciate it more than you know. ❤️ -S

That genuinely means a lot, it's an honour to have even meant something to anyone at all.

Especially someone struggling with the same thing I am. Thank you for taking the time to write and tell me this, i never thought anyone would bother to read my rant or take it seriously.

I relate to a lot of the things you've just described, it's really horrible how the world can twist something we love and are passionate for into something that hurts us instead. I'm never forgiving anyone who made me feel anxious about writing a story I was excited about or for posting something knowing instead of feedback I'd be met with asks about updating the more popular story.

And I'm happy to hear that you take commissions, just to make it clear I'm totally against the whole "mixing money with art makes it lose meaning" fiasco. I think it's stupid and people who claim that they don't understand that you can never put art in a box or steal its meaning away, that artists are people who need to eat and pay their bills too.

Your writing more than deserves money, it's something intimate that we pour our heart into, that we take parts of our life experience and memories and put it in the story to give it its own life.

Fuck anyone who thinks writing is below art, just because it's written words. They never consider the planning, creativity, writing style and experience, the research, plot and energy it takes.

If anything at least you can draw and paint while listening to music or watching youtube, you can let your hand go on autopilot every now and then. With writing it's one of those jobs you can't distract your mind from, you have to be present and you have to focus on every word and line, consider every dialogue option and every descriptive word, it's draining mentally and takes so much focus.

Both art and writing are important, all artists deserve respect and compensation for their work. People are getting too comfortable demanding work that takes literal hours from your life for free or a low price, a work they'll consume so quickly and never give a second thought to.

I hope things get better for both you and me, I hope we find readers who appreciate us for who we are, who actually respect and value our work instead of consuming it mindlessly, who understand what it takes to create and the amount of time we're giving out for free.

Who realise that taking 10 or 5 minutes to write a comment under a fic and phrase it politely isn't that hard, how it's literally all we ask for because it means the world to see someone appreciate our effort.

Good luck on your new blog <3 Close the requests whenever you want and open them whenever you want. Write how you want to, and please don't let anyone steal the joy of writing away from you.

[rayasland]

I'm sorry but your post about Aging Up characters delegitimises hundreds upon thousands of fanfictions across all fandoms and is a ridiculous ask. You're basically asking all fans to only write about the adult characters in NSFW situations - even if the teen character is now an adult in the fic??? So we can't explore how the teen now struggles with life as an adult, including new adventures or settings, because its somehow problematic??? I can assure you authors aren't picturing kids when writing Aged Up fics, the point and the intent is to explore how they'd function in different/challenging situations, not if their homework needs to be in on time. I understand your intent- you're coming at this topic from a place of worry- but bullying fanfic writers is just going to silence all forms of fandom. We're cannibalising each other enough as it is, and your words are doing more harm than good

uve completely got it all wrong. ur saying u understand but ur sending this long ass paragraph and that says otherwise. im actually getting pissed.

how is bringing attention to smth thats been happening for a while now gonna be labelled as “bullying..?” a bit confusing. im not forcing no one to stop writing abt minors, if u wanna live ur life writing about kids despite knowing its pedophilic, do as u wish. like i said im 1. bringing to light how wrong it is 2. seeing how many ppl will agree. im not bullying anyone either so idk wtf ur on abt. all i can say abt that is that u must be real fucking sensitive if u think that was bullying bro. cannot wait to see how u react to real life bullying!

i cant even lie how u gon write a paragraph of pure yap😭😭

its okay to write kid characters experiencing real life things that could happen to literally anyone(non-sexual), i never said u couldnt. whats not okay and what i completely disagree on is blatantly writing porn about them. "i understand your intent!" mm sure, and i understand what you’re saying is that its okay to write them having sex?? bc it's something that they can "explore as an adult"? you’re okay with a child experiencing that? regardless of whether they're real or not??? honestly you’re js trying to justify ur weird ass behaviour and its as clear as day. also… tbh, why r u acting as if sexual activities are the only ways a minor aged up as an adult can explore or wtf that means??? pretty sure theres a million other ways so maybe get ur mind out of the gutter.

tf was the point of that message? that why you asked anonymously? bc YOU YOURSELF know posting that is pedophilic behavior disguised behind ur so called moral ambiguity by bringing in other shit that only justifies writing porn about A CHILD??

u wanna be dramatic about "bullying fanfic writers," "cannibalizing each other," and my words doing more harm than good? how about you get a fucking life you self righteous pedophile. like okay, sure fine we'll let it slide. and then we should let real-person fictional literature porn about a child slide. and then we should let porn videos and drawings of little kids slide. and then we should normalize minor + adult relationships so that everyone can have a chance regardless of their age because experiencing something is better because it makes both parties understand!

in all forms!! incest, pedophilic, power imbalances, rape from randoms on the street, in our schools, in the transports, out in public, in private, in our homes, when we're young! when we're old! when we don't know what's between anyone else's legs! they a boy? they a girl? they both? they none? even better! honestly if ur reading that kinda shit and r actually getting off to it, please seek help. and if u STILL after reading all this have no idea why its not okay, use google or read the comments and reblogs on the actual post and go talk nonsense at them bc im not going to be responding to whatever bs u have to say in response.

[dude-why-3]

Hiii, I'm here for Aruani writer game!

1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 14, 15

Hi Anna, thank you for the ask!! I'm sorry it took this long to answer but here we go:

Share your favorite part of your latest fic. And since the latest is chapter 11 of wpts, it would be this paragraph:

"What?" His eyes search hers for a few seconds before he says, “We’ll be alright."  Annie’s eyes narrow at his statement. “I know." Armin presses his lips together. He searches Annie's face, takes in her eyes, the black circles that seem to have gotten bigger in the past few days, the way she bites her lips and chews on the inside of her cheeks. The way she digs her nails into her palms, he's concerned she'd soon draw blood. He hesitantly reaches his hand out and brushes his little finger against hers. Annie sighs heavily, letting her shoulders slump and fist unclench. Armin’s eyes trail down to her palm, finding that she's only left a few marks. He sneaks his hand into hers, gives it a slight squeeze, interlaces his fingers with hers.  "We'll be fine," Annie repeats his words, her voice barely above a whisper.  "We will be." He gives her hand another squeeze, and this time Annie reciprocates it. She gives him a small smile before returning to her water droplets, her hand not leaving his.

2. Share your favorite part of your first ever fic

Thing is, I no longer have the original document of my first fic and I have deleted it off of the face of the internet, so I can't really do this one. But it was the scene where Armin and Annie were trying to get closer and he told her he really liked ducks and that they reminded him of her. It was written in 2020 and I think it's the thing that started the whole duck thingy lmao. I later recycled the scene in 'Who painted the sky?' so there's that.

5. Write about Armin and Annie's first meeting (in an au, i'll let you guess which one hehe):

He hears rustling from behind, and for a second thinks it’s an animal, but then the sound of shoes against dirt makes him reconsider. He gazes at his bare dirty feet as he continues his work, dreading whatever interaction might follow. He can only hope it’s just a passerby. That thought disappears when he hears a quiet, whispery voice calling his name. He doesn’t have to turn around to know it’s the mayor’s daughter. He keeps his head low, acknowledging her with a nod but not raising his eyes. Getting in trouble for even daring to be in her immediate proximity is not something he's willing to do today, so he keeps doing his work, raising the scythe and slamming it back onto the ground, dragging it towards him.  The girl doesn’t move one inch, her eyes burning holes in the back of his head. Suddenly, Armin is very aware of his scrawny figure, unprotected by the shirt he's abandoned by the side of the property when the sun got too unbearable. Eventually, he sighs and raises his eyes to her level. 

7. What was the inspiration behind your shortest fic?

My shortest fic is "The stars are beautiful tonight". The inspiration behind it is a winter night with a clear sky and thousands of stars. I tried putting the stars into constellations and then this idea came to me.

9. Which of your fics is your favourite? Why?

It must be Long ago, before we were born, not only because it's inspired by my favourite song from my favourite singer, but also because I wrote while being around my favourite people, so this fic is something really special to me. Also, I really love how I wrote it! Every word fits in its place so perfectly and it feels so intentional and I like the suspense I created in the beggining, when you don't really know what going on.

14. Tell us a detail you wrote that nobody commented on yet

It's a quite important plot point and I'm still hoping someone will figure it out lmao, so I can't do this one, sorry :3

15. Write a hurt/comfort/angst moment between them:

Annie storms out into the hallway. "I got no one!" she berates, her voice almost breaking, as she turns to face him. "I can literally count everyone who gives a shit about me on my fingers!" "Do it then!" Armin says. Annie holds out her hands, her palms facing him, her fingers extended outwards. Then, slowly, one by one, she lets her fingertips touch her palm, her hands forming fists. Her eyes, glassy, pierce through him, going right through his heart, breaking it in tiny little pieces. His eyes widen, and then they narrow.  "Zero," Annie says, her hands now trembling the slightest bit. "I got no one." Armin reaches out and takes her hand in his, caressing it with his fingertips before straightening one of her fingers. Her eyes narrow in confusion.  "You've got me."

[doggernaut]

5 and 20 ?

5. What's a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies?

I've never considered not using a tag simply because I don't like it, and in fact I can't think of a tag that I'd be hesitant to use. The purpose of tags is to 1) make your story findable to readers who are interested in those things and 2) inform readers of the story's content. I want people to be able to find my fic, and I don't want to mislead them about its content, so I use as many tags that apply. (Sometimes I forget a tag and add it later.) (In my head I have a system for the order in which I use tags, but I literally don't care how others order their tags.)

*Note: I'm currently in library school, which may or may not inform my opinions on tagging. It's a real chicken and egg situation. Do I tag the way I do because I'm in library school, or am I in library school because I like order?

20. Do you work on a single project or many at the same time? How does that work for you?

I feel called out here. I always have multiple WIPs. Often, when I'm in the middle of a long, multi-chapter fic, I'll bang out a couple one shots simply because writing at a faster pace provides an endorphin hit that struggling with the same few paragraphs doesn't. Other times I just can't get momentum on anything and bounce around until something clicks. And then I'll get another idea and jot notes down so I don't forget.

Also, sometimes I'll have an idea and realize in the middle of writing that it's going nowhere so I'll move to something else until I can get a better grasp on it.

writing asks

[alpinelogy]

helloo! i’d love to hear your commentary about any of the timeloop chapters so far! since you’re getting closer to finishing the fic, are any details from the previous chapters standing out to you? are there important moments we should pay attention to?? <33

(slams down the 80+ pages the timeloop doc has rn) well we have a lot to go through, sorry this took so long asfdfgh, thank you for asking I love talking about the fic <33

I ended up going through the entire fic but there are few bits that I may go back and break down separately :3c

First of all, the way out of the loop is there already, Alex just has yet to put two and two together. It is not very clear but in hindsight I think it will be

Specifically: why did the arguably two best loops were when Charles tried to help him and when Alex decided to fight Charles?

What is going on with Charles is I think at this point pretty obvious. I wont say it just cause its a spoiler for next chapter but the obvious answer is in fact the correct one

The George scenes are some of the most important ones. They tend to be the catalyst for Alex's actions even further down the line than just Melbourne, especially the Chapter 4 one. They are also the only scenes I have actively referenced while writing always, down to copying bits of dialogue

(One of these days I will go and specifically break down those scenes hopefully because they are some of my favorite bits in the entire fic)

Funny how most scenes have returned even if they are different except for the bathroom scene from Chapter 1. Strange huh?

As a general rule of thumb, I can get very melodramatic. The more a scene screams melodrama the more relevant it is to the fic

I like my parallels and foils, consider George, his behavior, how Alex bases this ideas about him based on their shared history. Now consider that he has a lot of shared history with Charles as well

Also the ghost of Max Verstappen that hangs over the entire fic. Alex thinks there is a difference between drivers like him and George and driver like Charles and Max. What is the arbitrary set of values that splits them apart? Obviously it isn't how a driver performs since Alex did very well in Ch4 yet he was trying to be like Max and Charles, was not like them. Generally Alex's inner monologue in the second half of Ch4 is very important to his outlook on racing in this fic I think

(Just like with the George scenes I could probably write an entire breakdown of just this. Actually I might do that at some point)

Under the cut paragraphs and bits that particularly stand out to me as important. Not all especially with Chapter 4 cause I ran out of image space:

Lets put a pin in how exactly Charles treats Ferrari vs how Alex sees it as (Chapter 1)

And how Charles treats Alex (Chapter 1 & 2 & 4)

Yeah... (Chapter 2)

Put a pin in this for chapter 5 (Chapter 2 & 3)

A series of ey Charles what the fuck moments. Not exhaustive (Chapter 2 & 3 & 4)

Hey Alex wanna revisit this train of thought? (Chapter 3)

The last time something was called a nightmare- (Chapter 3)

Parallels parallels (Chapter 1 & 3)

Consider in context of Chapter 4 (Chapter 3)

Interesting train of thought you've got going there (Chapter 4)

George isn't the only one capable of doing that, he isn't the only childhood friend Alex has in the paddock (Chapter 4)

Okay but why do you think Charles is like that. Why does George have to be the outlier. And why does he have to play it? Non exhaustive (Chapter 4)

Okay this was 50% very self indulgent but also, yeah... (Chapter 4)

[bonesandthebees]

Okay longer review for glass ch18 time :DD man what an amazing chapter. Got duped waking up thinking im gonna get crimeboys, and then i got both crimeboys AND sandduo

Im gonna skim reread it as i review

hES USING WILBUR?!?#$ HELP BROO ITS SO SMOOTH AT THIS POINT

There was like one chapter where i caught it and i felt so proud of myself, but after that i just get so invested that i dont even notice until someone points it out lmaooo

I think I did notice when it switched to Pythia, at least subconsciously bc I paused at it and scrolled up a bit to see if it'd always been Pythia but ig I didnt scroll up enough lmaoooo

Ohkygod he switches to Pythia the minute Phil enters the room ohkgyfo u cant be playing around with the narrative like this bee, u are way too smart wtf... I'm still in awe with how flawlessly you play around with the change of name. It's always intentional, and yet it feels so natural when you read it. It doesn't feel like a conscious decision from Wilbur at all, ughh it's so good!!!!

Goddddd I love codependent crimeboys so much bro ohmgydo and u always write it Perfectly ty amen

I think ive said this before but ur just so good at characterization man like helloooo

Each fic!crimeboys are so unique to each other, but you could remove their names and I'd still know they were crimeboys. They still feel like them and ahhh i love them so much

Also bro i totally called Phil waiting for them 😭 it made me so tense LMAOOO

Wilbur fr was like "We're quiet we r chilling!!" Like no sir. No u are not

Its the fact that Phil knew the answer to all his questions, he knew Tommy left him alone aaaaaaaaaaa

I cant do this man theyre all so wheofidbekdhdlkflfek

The fact that neither of them told Phil about the sketchy guy who saw Wilbur is making me so scared tho like noooo guyssss ur already in trouble, just be safe about it and tell the truth noooooo 😭😭😭

Phil is such a dad in this scene ohmygod

Also im laughing, their punishment is they cant talk to each other 😭😭

“Then just close your eyes,” Phil said, almost in the exact same way Tommy had.

Like father, like son [bawls]

Although the Pythia was desperate to know why Phil had paused for so long after seeing his face, he simply nodded, and tried not to flinch when Phil’s free hand grabbed his chin to hold his head still.

Not my dumbass's first thought being "HES HIS SECRET LONG LOST SON" LMFAO FHFJFK

Then i was like "okay no its definitely bc of his age"

Brooo i just want the moment where they see each other without him closing his eyes rahhhhhhhhhssss

Also

I realize i said i was gonna skim reread this chap, but nope im just rereading it properly lmfao 😭😭😭 slow and steady pfff

Its so goood

Now I'll have 2 chapters from glass on speeddial for sure

God every moment of sandduo in this fic is just a parallel of their relationships with their gods im soooo 😭😭😭

When i first started this fic i was so certain that the majority of all Clara's things were just misinterpretations from her followers that got passed down century to century but now atp idek. Im skipping ahead and I'll probs talk more about it at the end of the chapter but like Kristin literally touched Wilbur- Clara's never gotten that close to him. Though maybe it's bc she's not as strongly connected? On both ends... Im rambling here as I theorize so I might not phrase this correctly but, like. My first thought was Phil said blood helped her connect better to the living world, so maybe that's why she can be physically here and not Clara, but I also thought about how maybe it does affect the relationship whether it's mutual or not, right? Cause Phil chose to be with her, there's trust on both ends. Wilbur got thrown into it, and maybe that affects the magic of the connection or smth. Or Clara's a bitch lmaoooo. I always appreciate seeing the god of life being the antagonist. I feel like it's not gonna be black and white though, things are not often with you hahahaha.

God that was a large paragraph whoops. I am certain though, that at least a large portion of the traditions they have (cough not being able to see the face cough) (just being treated as not a person lol), are things both misinterpreted or just plain ol made up to be able to better control the Pythia. Because, who wouldn't want to be able to fully control someone who can see the future? Idk how they'll ever find that out for sure but damn yeah, it's sad. Look at what you've done Bee, you've traumatized a perfectly good boy

Lmaoooo

Is there a limit to how long these things can get?? Spruce how do u separate them into diff parts, do u go by vibes or is there a limit LMFAOOO

Anyways

God. The way Phil knows what Wilburs thinking 😭😭😭 im gonna cryyyy theyre sooo ahdjfkfld

The way you describe all the tiny details, god, your writing feels so real. It feels like it breathes. I feel so immersed in it. I can not only see everything happening around me, I can feel it, as if I were there. I dunno, I just really appreciate all the tiny details you mention, and how you take care to remind us that his eyes are closed by describing the sounds around him, and how you mention him feeling odd when he winces bc of his face being numbed, like ik theyre not a big deal, but those details mean so much to me. They make everything feel so much more alive.

And the way you describe people's thoughts, they're so realistic rahhhhhhss. Your characters always feel truly human

I love your writing so much aaahhh

The cheer i let out when i saw the mate at their 2nd meeting when i read this chap for the first time LMFAOOO

It was at that moment vey knew they were getting a truck load of sandduo--

I had also already forgotten that Phil had told Wilbur he was gonna show him smth lmfaooo

I am starting to get tired fr (it's been almost an hour Oops) so i think i will pull a spruce and split this into two parts and continue after some breakfast or smth LMAOO (pst gang ftw 👆)

Dudududus away into the sunset

I was definitely debating whether or not to start the chapter with him using wilbur, but it just felt right so I went with it and I'm very happy with the tone it gave because it provided such a good tone shift when phil showed up and wilbur switched back to using 'the pythia'. it's such a fun narrative tool to use, though it's definitely a bit exhausting to remember every time i refer to wilbur in narration i'm making a choice with how i refer to him. fun, but a lot to keep in my head

ty I'm so glad my crimeboys feel that distinctive <3

lmao phil was so pissed when they got back. he figured a lot out on his own but wanted to hear it from tommy himself. they really should've told phil about the guy wilbur bumped into tho rip :/

yeah no phil is not wilbur's long lost father or anything. I only think those kinds of twists work in very specific stories, otherwise it just feels like a cheap way to be like "look now these two have a biological reason to care about each other!" and really gives off the vibes of found family being less important than blood family

the thing is regarding wilbur's relationship to clara is that when contrasted with phil's relationship to kristin, i want it to be obvious that it's a two-way relationship. you have to put in what you wanna get out.

LMAO spruce pls share with the class how you split up your asks

ldksjfkl aaa that's so sweet. I love including tiny details like those because I try to make my stories as easy to visualize as possible. I know that when I read something, I want to be able to see the scene perfectly in my head, so I try to emphasize the facial expressions and body language and the setting they're in and all that to really immerse the reader in it

tysm i'm so glad you enjoyed!

[mondaymelon]

As a writer for writing Tumblr short fanfic(is that what they called?)

Where did you get the energy/motivation from?

Like, how are you still able to write all of that?

That has so many words! Don't you ever get burn out?

(I am saying this be because I'm impressed seeing Tumblr fanfiction maker are this.... dedicated to their Tumblr, You guy's have a strong will, I must say...)

i call short fanfics oneshots, but its mostly based on the person :))

oh, motivation?

to be completely fair, i have surges of energy - pretty much just on and off

usually, if i read a particularly scrumptious fic prompt or see a very nice piece of fanart, i get inspired

the reason im able to write all of that is probably bc of my productivity. i can type fast. like pretty damn fast

my last recorded speed was... i think, 149? that's like my highest though so base while writing is probably 100-120 wpm

i like to write how i speak - how'd i describe a story to another person and i tend to use the words "just" and more... like fodder words, that don't really need to be there, but add to the story the slightest tad and just add the sense of personalization

and yes. i think on this acc, ive been burnt out twice

the first time was when i got shadowbanned, (at the time, i didnt know what it even was), so my posts didnt show up in any tags. this was about 2 weeks after i started my account, and the lack of activity hit me. like. a fucking truck. that was when i stopped writing so much, but eventually, after requesting help from tumblr support many times, they got it fixed!!

the second time my mental state went "wooh waa" and dipped. dropped. fell completely. and i was in no position to be writing, so i stopped :) only for a week though

and i do do a little bit of tricks to try and get me more motivated/write more words!! main one is just to have one prompt, and include multiple characters within that prompt, with each passage ranging from about 400-500 words, though it can go much lower depending on how many characters are featured. that way, it

shows up in tags better (more x reader tags)

you can change characters, write less :))

and also that way you dont have to write seperate fics for all of your faves!!

this was one hell of a paragraph post but if you made it this far thank you!! mwah mwah <33

okay byebye! have a nice day nonnie :)

[alsey]

Author's Commentary – Prench Tale Part 1 (spoilers)

Chp.0 | Section 1

    • ‌This was my third novel-grade production, and the first one written in English. No wonder these first chapters can get pretty rough around the edges, I'm always tempted to just go and edit it all into something a bit closer to my current standards.

    • ‌Writing in 1st person wasn't something I had much experience with before this story, and not much more with present tense either; I've improved quite a bit since then, but here there's still a lot of characters just describing what they're doing or thinking instead of just... *doing* and *thinking*. This story was focusing on how each character was perceiving their own change, so being privy to their inner thoughts, and how they were being altered, felt like the better option. I suppose it does mesh with other Five Score stories, too.

    • ‌"*Focus*, dammit..." – This was a real gamble in my eyes. I knew I'd probably lose a number of readers with lines like this one, but that way those who stayed knew what they were getting into.

    • ‌Each of the three characters has its own little language idiosyncrasies, like saying 'toward' instead of 'towards', 'I suppose' instead of 'I guess', en-dash instead of semicolon, and so on. In this little introductory flash-forward, I tried to stay relatively vague on these so that it wouldn't be immediately obvious which of them was speaking.

    • ‌I know it's pretty stupid, but my focus on avoiding repeating words extends to avoiding beginning subsequent paragraphs with the same letter. I've tried to be a little more lax with this rule since then.

    • ‌All of Part 1 was planned, scene by scene, before I started writing. Therefore it wasn't too problematic to include in the Prologue this scene from a later chapter, but I was still a bit nervous if it would really feel natural once back in its 'native environment'.

    • ‌A great, great many more ellipses yet to come...

    • ‌The goal of putting this scene here was simple: reassuring readers that yes there *would* be ponies, even if the next few thousands words would be pretty human-centric; and that even though the following chapters would be very character-focused and kinda slow, there *would* be action and danger and excitement to come.

    • ‌"*sigh*" – Another gamble here, with these 'stage direction'-like inclusions. Not making as much use of them as I could.

Chp.0 | Section 2, Ambre

    • ‌Ah Ambre. Silly, silly Ambre. Wasn't sure how well that'd work for readers, but I liked giving a clear personality to her prose.

    • ‌Trans Ambre: I was purposefully indirect in how I revealed Ambre's transness here. My hope was that readers that wouldn't catch the significance of her 'treatment' would get to know her a little bit more before the fact is laid out plainly later on.

    • ‌Here we can see how much I was breaking with the conventions of present tense 1st person, having Ambre detailing her backstory in such an unnatural way. Sadly this wouldn't really improve until later in the fic... At least I was somewhat aware of the issue, hence the ‘I’m thinking to myself about how I’m thinking to myself’ bit as a way to give some kind of explanation for it.

Ch.0 | Section 3, Sarah

    • ‌Fun fact: Sarah was initially called Soraya, her name changing shortly before publication (her pony name and design changed a bit too).

Ch.0 | Section 4, Laurence

    • ‌Of the three characters, by far the easiest one to write for – the grumpiness helps, a lot.

    • ‌Generally speaking, it's pretty wild to read this first chapter, to reacquaint myself with these initial versions of the characters, so different from what they've all become now!

Ch.1 | Section 1, Ambre

    • ‌I'm currently working on an updated version of this cover art, which will become the cover for the whole of Volume 1. This first Part will have a brand-new cover instead. The cutie mark point-of-view markers will also receive an update.

    • ‌I must admit that the info-dumping, though far from elegant or pleasing to my current ways of writing *Prench Tale*, has the advantage of getting the reader up to speed on the characters' state of mind early in the narrative. A necessity, considering I wanted a strong base for the human characters before the change would start – it's all a question of contrasts, so you need to have a clear idea of who these people are.

    • ‌It's been noted, and I can't avoid seeing it now: there's a *lot* of French loanwords all over the place. It's possible I may have pushed for it because of the 'haha, French' aspect, but it could be just as well that I was just limited in my vocabulary (despite extensive use of a thesaurus). In this specific case, Ambre is supposed to have a more upper-class speech compared to the others, sure, but that's still stretching it a little.

    • ‌The whole 'limits of transhumanism' discussion is of course a nod to the main themes of the story... And may event hint at some future developments.

    • ‌Gosh that prose can be so clunky and lame and overcomplicated at times, past-me would really benefit from a good editing pass from now-me...

    • ‌“It doesn't even look like a tattoo... The lines are too regular, the colors too uniform... Actually that's...” – Here, as you may've guessed, Sébastien was about to suggest it looked like a cutie mark, but he stopped himself. He's more of a closet brony at that point.

    • ‌Ambre behaves pretty maturely, and seems to have a good head on her shoulders, don't you think?

    • ‌There may be a pattern to Ambre deciding to stay behind to help Sarah out, and Sarah feeling despondent and unsure what to do in a difficult situation... As well as Laurence just checking out.

Ch.1 | Section 2, Laurence

    • ‌"Stupid Sarah and her stupid drinks and stupid Séb and stupid Amber for making me talk so much I had to drink and stupid me for..." – A proof if there ever was one that I use 'stupid' as an insult far too often in my writing.

Ch.1 | Section 3, Ambre

    • ‌"Hers are clearly less abstruse" – Seriously, who use words like 'abstruse'..? That thesaurus was a mistake! More seriously, this is a consequence of me having a very long-and-complex-and-unusual-words-skewed vocabulary in French, and simply checking translations when I want a specific word. Nowadays I try to write a bit more ‘naturally” ‘cause it’s just more believable, instead of how *I* would say it.

    • ‌All this prose feels so *heavy* with unnecessary words and complicated sentences... I remember why: always afraid that I wouldn't be able to convey precisely what I wanted to convey, that the reader wouldn't get a perfectly clear picture of what I was seeing, so no choice but being extremely precise. And it makes for poor prose. I've got more trust in my readers' deductive abilities now, fortunately; it also makes for more dynamic, ‘punchy’ prose.

    • Beetroot. Yeah I know it’s usually just ‘beet’ in US-English, but just saying ‘beet’ feels... lacking. Maybe I should just use ‘beets’, plural, that could work.

    • “Does yours mean anything to you, Ambre? I don't know, likes or dislikes, past history, special talent..?” – More signs that Sébastien is suspecting cutie marks, even if he’s not ready to admit it.

Ch.1 | Section 4, Laurence

    • “Pff... Smoke smells even worse than usual.” – Just like Ambre feeling antsy about being left alone during the previous scene, this is another sign that their brains have started to transition towards their pony selves’ – Laurence’s pony brain isn’t used to cigarette, and so the positive association between smoke and nicotine high has been lessened.

    • “fioriture” – This right here is a word I commonly use in day-to-day life, in French, but that isn’t really seen as ‘common’ for most people. It feels even more bizarre in English, seriously what was I thinking? I mean, it conveys *precisely* what I wanted to convey, but it’s far from reader-friendly.

    • “even if for some reason I feel slightly off-balance” – Same as earlier; her handedness is changing, which conflicts with her usual stances.

    • ‘Professeur’ and ‘tireur’ are official terms for teachers and practitioners of French-style boxing.

    • “But I know I've found my equilibrium, and it would be unwise to upend it.” – Portend of things to come...

    • This whole boxing scene may not advance the plot much, if at all, but it’s important for laying some more groundwork for Laurence’s character. We’ve seen her grumpy in the Prologue, then asocial/introverted plus emotionally vulnerable earlier in this chapter, now we see some of her strength.

Ch.1 | Section 5, Sarah

    • I’d been tempted to add an earlier scene, either during the Prologue or in this chapter, with Laurence catching a glimpse of some kind of altercation, but not intervening despite her justice sense tingling because of anxiety and such – to contrast it with this here scene of Sarah being ‘saved’ by Laurence. It didn’t really have a natural place though, and I felt her character was going to be controversial enough as it was.

    • ““Your eyes are not supposed to be magenta.”, Laurence states bluntly.” – Laurence is my vehicle to convey the *precise* colors of things, she likes to be precise (and helpful) like that. Ambre could’ve identified the color too, if it’s ‘common’ enough, but for Sarah it’d only be ‘light purple’ or something like this.

    • It’s funny how even for the Sarah scenes I end up talking more about the other characters than herself. Not too surprising, as she’s the character I’ve got the less affinity with, and the hardest to write for.

Ch.2 | Section 1, Ambre

    • “my night was plagued by vague nightmares, full of a sense of danger, or helplessness...” – I’ve stayed purposefully vague on the content of these nightmares at first (see also previous chapter, mention of having had a rough night for the same reason). This is in part because the dream of one character will be plot-relevant, and will thus need to be directly shown, so I didn’t want to get too repetitive. Also, I often start scenes with characters waking up, which is kind of fitting for 1st person narration I guess.

    • I’m honestly tempted now to depict Ambre’s troubles with a constantly growing super-mane while in the middle of serving customers their meal. Maybe that could make a fun mini-comic...

    • “Kilo” – Not so sure it was a good idea, but to add a little more Frenchie flavor to the whole thing I often use the metric system, and local currency. It can be seen as a sign that what we’re reading is originally in French, but then why would the units not be translated along with the rest? Maybe it’s also kind of revenge for being always confronted to inches and miles and pounds and so on when I just wanna read fanfic. ;P

    • “It also happened last evening. (recounting follows)” – Again with the direct, inellegant exposition dumb. We could maybe imagine it more as Ambre *picturing* the memories, rather than verbalizing them as written, I guess. Getting more creative in how I’d convey ‘known exposition’ may be one of the factors that contributed to increasing wordcounts.

    • “I remove my glasses, looking over the object that helped me see the world as it should be seen, something that could, in a sense, be considered a part of me just as much as my natural kinky hair... I will have to relinquish them to their case, for now...” – Not so subtle parallel here between the glasses and Ambre’s whole human existence, of course.

    • “*Ambre, you alright? You had us worried here!*” – Putting ‘non-standard’ speech in italics isn’t fully satisfying as a solution, but it’s better than nothing. As it is, italics have been, or will be, used to mark dialogue heard through a phone’s speakers (like here), or said in another language, especially English.

    • “*We got weird eyes and hair yesterday, and freaky ears and tail during the night.*” – It was fun to scour the original story for exact times when the Mane6 had their changes occur, and take into account time zones to determine a general timeframe for our French characters’ transformation. Moreover, I considered that mainland Equestria shared the same time zone as Dubuque; I based this on the facts that Rainbow is cursed late at night, and that Dave’s birthday is similarly late at night – suggesting very similar timeframes. Consequence: the Prench crew can be awake and aware of some of the changes that occurred while the Mane6 were asleep, and vice-versa.

Ch.2 | Section 2, Sarah

    • Another gamble: none of the main characters are knowledgeable in pony matters. This is in part to contrast with the original story, but also to represent how FiM just wasn’t as much of a thing in France. This is also the first element of one of the big thematic through-lines of the whole fic, which could be boiled down to ‘Know Thyself’ – they have everything to learn, about themselves, about their place in the world, and have to contend with what the world tells them, or doesn’t tell them, they are or how they should act/be.

    • Sarah clearly hadn’t fully found her voice yet back then; nowadays she would be using much more ‘down to earth’ vocabulary and expressions, and I would know how to better avoid using uncommon words just to avoid repetitions.

    • I actually don’t remember if the ‘being easily transfixed by the show on first exposure’ was something I’d found somewhere or if I came up with it... The idea behind it wouldn’t be that the visuals by themselves would hold some kind of mind power or anything, but instead that being exposed to a bunch of little authentic details in short succession – names, concepts, events, some aspects of look/animation of places and creatures – would evoke some inscrutable feeling akin to nostalgia or yearning or simple subconscious recognition, *especially* once the ‘memory gates’ have been reopened following the cutie marks reappearing. This could be used to explain why many of the Five Score protagonists are fans of MLP – they went through a similar, maybe less powerful variant of this effect, that got them into following the show and/or fan productions, or helped them keep on being fans after the show’s end. Of course, this is a mostly ‘first exposure’ thing, the effect lessens more and more with exposure as the brain can relies on fresher, more easily-explainable memories of pony stuff, and Equestrians-in-human-form don’t necessarily have the same ‘threshold’ for the effect to kick-in in the first place, depending on the nature of the stimuli and how much they correlate with what little buried memories manage to percolate closer to the surface. Here specifically, Ambre and Laurence got drawn in early by aspects of Canterlot and Royal Guards, while for Sarah it happened a little later once we got to the more agrarian Ponyville.

    • “I ball my fists, ready to jump to my feet” – Sarah feels a bit aggressive, huh? She may be playing up the nonchalance most of the time, trying to avoid thinking too deeply about the situation, but clearly the uncertainty and upended normalcy still affect her. Maybe there’s also some new hormones starting to brew inside... Well, that’s one way to see it; if I were to edit all this again, I’d tone it down, make it more natural and understandable; I don’t like the implication that she’s somehow more aggressive or violent than the others, *especially* as it’s a frequent stereotype, when it’s mostly supposed to be impulsiveness.

    • “neither of our symbols are present in the show itself” – Gambling once again, with the main characters being OCs and thus inherently less relatable/engaging from the get-go, as they don’t come with a preexisting rapport to the reader. Multiple reasons for this: first off, I enjoyed the high degree of freedom this afforded me in crafting the looks and background of the pony characters; second, it played again with the ‘Know Thyself’ theme, this time with both characters *and* readers – they don’t know who they’re turning into, and we don’t know what to expect, adding another kind of mystery dynamic to the plot; and third, even if, as one reviewer put it, most of the cool ponies were already taken, I just wouldn’t have felt comfortable making heavy use of a canon character, with all the expectations that’d come with them. Hence, OCs. Though as we’ll see later on, I did find ways to go around some of these issues...

Ch.3 | Section 1, Ambre

    • First of the ‘Content Warning’ mentions. I was unsure if it were really needed, if maybe it spoiled a bit too much what was gonna happen, but I didn’t want to take any chances – we’re depicting pretty heavy stuff, with just a Teen rating. Plus, the vague warning can also help build up suspense.

    • Interesting how brash and impulsive Sarah suddenly becomes all ‘huh, neat’ seeing this gruesome physical change happening on her in real time, no? This kind of response to overwhelming events/situations will have its consequences...

    • The switch from Sarah’s to Ambre’s perspective here is very purposeful; like mentioned just above, the way Sarah reacts to this type of event would make for a very ‘succinct’ description, if any description at all, while Ambre stays a lot more lucid and can thus tell us what’s happening with some details. In fact, for this same reason we won’t have much of Sarah’s internal perspective on her transformation at all – denial’s setting in thick. As for Laurence’s perspective, well...

    • “She stutters incoherently, eyes wide, staring in turn at Sarah's hooves, my own hooves-to-be, and her slippers-clad feet” – Laurence noticed what was implied earlier – there’s a specific sequence to how the changes play out, first Sarah, then Ambre, and Laurence last – and seeing her fate galloping towards her, she panics. Better to *choose* to harm herself and rob the change of a target, than to see herself be harmed without any way to stop it, in her eyes. We’ll come back often to this issue of control with her.

    • Sarah’s denial, Laurence’s control, what of Ambre then? Well she has both enough introspection, like Laurence, and enough flexibility, like Sarah, to navigate this situation without falling down into one extreme or another. It’s also why she’s our main viewpoint character, wordcount- and scenes-wise: aware enough to describe what’s happening, functional enough to not break down from it.

    • “Sarah looks dazed, and unsure, leaning against a wall, fiddling idly with her pants' waistband.”/“(...), concurs Sarah as she keeps twiddling with her pants” – For those familiar with the sequence of Five Score changes, you may have a guess what could make her feel slightly uncomfortable in her pants right now... The implication gets even more overt a bit later on.

    • “Poor guy looks drained, and I doubt it's only because of his injury” – Sébastien is awesome, but he's only human; felt important to still acknowledge that for all the strength of his friendship, he's still affected by what's happening. Ambre can see it too, and thus tries to give him some respite.

    • “I force the shoe to accept my changed foot with a brief ripping sound and fasten the laces; it'll do!” – A metaphor for how Ambre's trying to deal with things; trying to make things work, even if it's not easy and can't ever 'fit in' again.

    • Laurence opening up about her feelings over her self-harm attempt, how she must be stronger, not yield so easily, the stress of the situation being no excuse, being put against herself... It goes beyond a need for control, even though she hasn't learned the reason herself yet.

    • “a mad scientist and/or an exorcist” – I seriously spent a long time deciding if I'd dare use that slash or not.

    • For the scene of Ambre going to the bathroom, I tried to stay pretty vague, focus on her emotive response rather than on the physicality of it all, but it's still one of the two likely reasons I was asked to add the 'Sex' tag to this story before publishing.

Ch.3 | Section 2, Laurence

    • “The only upside of this insidious transformation is that it has sped up quite substantially the healing process” – Don’t remember if it’s something I came up with or not either. My rationale was that, basically, the curse reverting is coded to recreate the pony’s body in *exact* detail (which is the only way I can explain that it would give back ponies their exact same manestyle, age, and so on), and so as long as it’s still running its course, limited damage to a zone that is still in the process of being changed can be ‘healed’ as the transformation progresses. Not ‘healing’ *per se* then, and more the curse seeing the wound as more stuff to replace as to recreate the pony’s body. All this to say, that it gave me a convenient excuse so that Laurence’s injury wouldn’t matter much health-wise.

    • “at a rate of a little less than two centimeters every half-hour” – Yup, I did the math; it’s not a random number.

    • “Séb's warm voice pulls me back to the here and now” – In a lot of TF stories, including some Five Score ones, humans are to be avoided, or they’re antagonists. Human friends and family are often barely relevant, if at all mentioned. Here I really wanted to see what would happen if we kept a human friend of the protagonists right in the thick of it. I’m sure Laurence’s grateful at any rate.

    • Speaking of, I’ve heard from some reviews that Laurence’s despondence, constant grumbling and general passiveness in these chapters could get old pretty fast. Honestly I can see it; she’s passive and self-focused in chapters that are already action-free and focused on the characters’ inner conflicts, with a big dose of domestic trivialities. However, her behavior wouldn’t change much, if at all, if I were to go on my editing spree, first because of character growth reasons (we need to see her at her lowest), and second because these scenes of her struggle were the primordial seed from which this whole story grew, it all started with this vision of a Five Score transformee rejecting their fate. Maybe I just wasn’t a good enough writer back then to properly frame and convey my ideas. Maybe, like some of my characters, I should learn how to let go of the stuff that just doesn’t work.

    • “I didn't even recall bringing down my copy of *Old Man's War*” – For those unfamiliar with this great space military SF series by John Scalzi, it deals with, among other things, questions of an individual’s identity in a setting where it’s possible to switch bodies, a kind of technological reincarnation with imperfect or latent memories, and what makes one human. For example, in the first book the main character, the titular ‘old man’ finding himself into a new, youthful body, is confronted by a clone of his deceased wife, devoid of any of her memories.

    • I tried to not get too preachy with Ambre’s trans monologue, or have it take too much space – hence being heard from Laurence’s critical perspective. It’s only really relevant in the context of Ambre and Laurence bonding over shared pain, of deepening our understanding of Ambre’s character and where she’s coming from, and of laying down some more thematic parallels and distinctions between trans and TF dynamics, especially in the Five Score context, which was the initial seed of Ambre’s character.

    • This other book series mentioned by Ambre exists too, it's the *Tamír Triad* by Lynn Flewelling (which was split into six books instead and given a new title for the French edition, from what I've seen). It deals with prophecies, dark magic, ghosts, a usurper to the throne, and like she said, with a protagonist unknowingly living in a masculine body not her own, until her growth and the demands of the plot have her assume her feminine identity and her true destiny. Sounded fitting for helping crack the egg of a young trans person, among other things.

Ch.3 | Section 3, Sarah

    • I actually mapped episode runtimes on Sarah’s day activities to see how much of the show she could consume during this time, and it was a nice coincidence that this scene could occur as she was watching ‘*Sweet and Elite*’. Beyond the little tidbit of opinion on Canterlot elites, it was a fun opportunity to have this *very* subtle cameo of Jet Set and Upper Crust, considering their both have not-so-distant relationships with some of the original characters in this story’s continuity. On the other hoof, we missed Sarah’s live reaction to the two-part premiere of season 2...

    • “It's not because I've suddenly grown a pecker that I can't control myself!” – The *other* thing I suppose could’ve led to a mandatory ‘Sex’ tag. And beyond that, poor Sarah clearly needs a bit more time to get used to her new hormonal cocktail.

    • Right at the end we finally get a glimpse of Sarah’s true emotional state, now that she can’t focus on something else, like binge-watching the show.

Ch.4 | Section 1, Ambre

    • “Gosh Sarah snores like a train engine” – Sleeping while your nasal cavity is still being actively remodeled will do that to you, especially with the schnozzle she’s going to end up with.

    • Pony height: I did some research to determine the general height of ponies in the Five Score universe, and fortunately it wasn’t too hard to figure out – a good rule of thumb is that a medium-sized pony’s eye level is aligned with or slightly lower than the waistline of a medium-sized human, which makes a fully-rearing pony about as tall as a human. This is shorter than my personal headcanon, but it fits well for more easily describing proportion changes from TF, and for most ponies to still be able to wear some human clothes. In Ambre’s specific case, her “my new eye level reaches much higher than my [human] groin” comes from the fact she started pretty tall at 5′11″, while her pony form is ‘only’ 3′5″ at from the base of her hooves to the top of her head.

    • Pony proportions: I was still fiddling a bit with those when I wrote this part, but the generalities are still the same. I go for pretty horse-like ponies, in that their anatomy is as biologically believable as I could make it while maintaining that pony ‘feel’ we know and love.

    • “Pff, and I thought waiting for the Dejean's coffeemaker was tedious!? – ”The whole coffee-making scene drags on a little, but purposefully so – this is meant as calling back to the Prologue and Ambre fixing herself some coffee. Back then it only took a couple minutes, but now that she’s a pony, it requires a lot more time and efforts; she’ll need to get used to her new situation, and find how she can go back to being fully functional, if it’s at all possible.

    • “slowly stirring the dark liquid with my reddish spoon” – A very subtle hint that for all they’ll still have to learn and re-learn, our ponies still have some instincts to help – foreshadowing the end of this chapter. Because you see, Laurence doesn’t have colored spoons. But you know what’s red..?

    • Ambre really starting to mull over her situation; it’s precisely why I wanted a trans character to go through a Five Score transformation, though she doesn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet...

Ch.4 | Section 2, Sarah

    • Tried something here with the dream narration, being past tense instead of present tense like the usual narration. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a bit jarring, but I feel it’s thematically appropriate. And we’re finally getting a glimpse at the bad dreams and nightmares our characters have been mentioning for a couple chapters now.

    • “Well, as they say, *quand faut y aller, faut y aller!*” – I really don’t get why I thought putting a French phrase here was a good idea. It’s not like ‘when you gotta go, you gotta go!’ was on vacation and not available. Definitely something I’d edit out, it clashes with the implicit convention that non-italicized English counts as French.

    • Pony scents: a little bit of headcanon, probably not that original, with each pony having a personal scent, but beyond this simple fact, other ponies perceive this scent through some form of maybe-physiological, maybe-magical synesthesia. Here, Sarah likens Ambre’s scent to firecrackers, though like she says, more to the *idea* of firecrackers than any specific scent. And the thing is, another pony would probably describe Ambre’s scent differently, because it evokes slightly different things to them.

    • “from my lower position I catch sight of my poor snapped bracelet on the floor... Forgot to take it off in the end, it must've broke during the night.” – Another case of using items and such as metaphors for the character’s circumstances, past, present and/or future. Right then, the message is that staying in denial for too long (here ‘forgetting’ the situation, when one knew the potential consequences) leads to one’s human existence (represented here by this fruit of one’s hobby, and a gift to oneself to celebrate a personal milestone) being damaged.

    • In a previous chapter I mentioned how different the main trio felt so early in the story, but now with this first scene of them together, all ponied up, their group dynamic is really taking shape.

    • “Is it really *that* important if I feel good right now?” – It was very purposeful to have Sarah declaring that she didn’t really care about her potential gender issues. Is it denial? Is it plain truth? Who knows, in her eyes it’s not important right now so *we* won’t know for sure. The goal was to include this perspective that I’m usually pretty frustrated with in TG stories, that despite the characters changing in major ways they don’t seem to question their situation or think too much about the implications for their personal identity – just going with the flow. I suspect that it’s mainly a question of ‘don’t overcomplicate things when we could get to the good stuff quicker’, but when it’s almost *always* how it goes, yeah it gets frustrating. Thus Sarah, representing some of these aspects so that I can discuss them.

Ch.4 | Section 3, Laurence

    • “Sainfoin is at my side, ever faithful, enduring my clumsy attempts at petting him with my deformed right hand” – One of the boons of first person narration is that we can play with how each character sees the world; for Laurence, she perceives her body more as ‘what it should be’ than ‘what it currently is’, hence using ‘hands’ and other human-specific vocabulary to describe her body. It may be a bit confusing for the reader at times, but it is the intended effect – highlighting the profound disconnect between Laurence’s mind and body.

    • This idea that for most ponies the change isn’t that much of a big deal is meant to explain why we don’t have many characters like Laurence in Five Score (she’s not the only one though; thinking notably to this soon-to-be-pony who chose suicide rather than complete the transformation, briefly described somewhere in the Dust-verse). Basically, the fact that the brain changes along with the body ensures that some subconscious aspects come back, including the general feeling of ‘yes this is my body, nothing unusual’.

    • “That's the pragmatic thing to do” – One of Laurence’s catchphrases. The meaning she puts behind ‘pragmatic’ may not be the exact same as the dictionary definition though...

    • One of the goals of this ‘let’s go make lunch’ scene was actually to have a good excuse for literally putting our three characters side-to-side to compare them. I wanted to play around a bit with body types with my characters, considering it’s something that’s often forgotten about in both the show and fan works.

    • “an apple that she... somehow... holds with a hoof.” – Precisely because Sarah's not asking herself questions, she can manage better at using her hooves, letting subconscious muscle memory do the job.

    • “Just try not to change it into a carriage, or make it explode.” – *wink wink*

Ch.5 | Section 1, Laurence

    • “Oh just coming out of an episode with a character I really don't like, no big deal.” – As may be guessed, said episode was ‘Keep Calm and Flutter On’.

    • Our ponies spend lots of time in the kitchen, but it’s to better track their progress in managing to reclaim being functional after the change, through this pretty relatable activity. Besides, it allows me to give a little more weight to my little headcanon for how ponies built a civilization on par with humans, despite lacking hands: what one human with a pair of hands can do, two or more earth ponies may need to work together to accomplish; hence a greater emphasis on community and friendship.

    • The meat thing: I’ve always been curious about this idea that ponies would be strict vegetarians, to the point of getting sick from meat, that can be found in the fandom. It’s not *directly* suggested by canon, and it doesn’t make much sense from a physiological point of view... so I wanted to play a bit with it! I consider here it’s a deeply-ingrained cultural taboo, born from the centuries of ponies working closely with very smart animals but within a highly-curated ecosystem rather than someplace truly ‘wild’ like the Everfree. But more than that, we know that at least bovines are quite sentient in Equestria, so eating beef in particular would feel revolting from a purely ethical point of view (I do have a whole headcanon on the administrative and legislative aspects of ‘smart’ and ‘sentient’ animals in Equestrian society, but that’s neither here nor there). As Laurence proves, ponies are still perfectly able to eat meat products.

    • “Is this body making me dumber or what!?” – One of the first real signs of Laurence being more of a scatterbrain after the change. More generally, while still neurodivergent, she’s now so in slightly different ways that she’s only beginning to notice.

    • “shut up, it's magic” – The French (‘ta gueule, c'est magique’, or TGCM) equivalent of ‘a wizard did it’.

Ch.5 | Section 2, Sarah

    • ““Well then Fido,” Sébastien quips as he unties me, “knock yourself out!”” – ... I can *not* believe I didn't have a ‘hey, wasn't talking literally!’ after that... I *may* have decided to highlight more Sébastien’s concern than his wits? Still, such a missed opportunity.

    • “At the end of the fifth and last season of MLP... Discord takes over Equestria.” – This was written before the updated version of Five Score changed this to instead have the taking-over at the end of season 9, of course. At first I was thinking about updating in kind, but then, the change to the original didn't add much to the universe beyond some small contradictions, and went against pretty much all the universe that had been built around its original version. So I decided to keep to the 5-season thing. Two interesting consequences: I can now play with canon characters that the readers know about but the characters don't. And I like the potential surprise and foreboding feeling this could give readers who know the show isn't *supposed* to end so early.

Ch.5 | Section 3, Ambre

    • Getting precise with how magic works can easily backfire. There's lots of non-compatible headcanons on the subject. But considering where this fic will go, it was necessary to give details.

    • “it feels wrong to leave to their own devices somepony who's hurting” – As the pony names get more common, we're also seeing somepony/everypony crop up – but only in thoughts, to reflect that there's no equivalent of the words in the French dub of FiM (‘everypony’ is usually replaced by ‘my little ponies’), and so they don't have a French word to use while speaking either.

Ch.5 | Section 4, Chad

    • “Brian is in the kitchen” – Apparently this is, like, a stock phrase widely used during English classes in French schools, or at least it definitely has reached meme status as such, and is often used to comment on how French people are pretty bad at English in general (because it’s the only sentence they know and understand, you see).

    • And here we get the main reason for this chapter being titled ‘Fractious Impulses’ – beyond the tensions between the three that threaten to pull them apart, it's Chad's impulsiveness that manages to fracture the group and get them all in trouble. Other reason for the title: being the fifth chapter, and published on April 2nd, which is Five Score Day, hence starting with an ‘F’ for ‘Five (Score)’.

Ch.6 | Section 1, Ambre

    • “a freaking magical laser beam” – Thought it was interesting that many unicorns could obtain pretty advanced spells that way, just like Shining did in the original story, and that it could be used as a way to evaluate the reality of the dreams.

    • “Compared to my first day here, getting myself a glass is laughably easy – thanks magic!” – Those cheating unicorns! More seriously, it’s on this note that we end the succession of ‘kitchen moments’ for our characters, from their initial routine as humans to the trouble they had to adapt as ponies, and now the new normal, just as functional, only not in the same ways.

    • “Darn it, he *did*!!” – Through Volume 1 I tried to never italicize the punctuation following italicized words, but it doesn’t look especially pleasing visually; I’ve decided to change that come Volume 2.

    • “Laurence stomps a forehoof, cutting us off” – And here we are, the pivotal moment when Laurence shakes off the passivity; she’s got something to focus on, and she shall not dither.

    • “Oh, and the password is Je_Veux_Être_Ton_Oisillon.” – A pretty obscure reference, even more so translated in French, but I know some got it.

Ch.6 | Section 2, Chad

    • And here we’re really beginning to see how we end up with chapter with high wordcounts and number of sections: switching character perspectives often for advancing the overall plot.

Ch.6 | Section 3, Laurence

    • When I was working on Part 1’s structure, at first this Charles dude was just a random jerk for Laurence to ‘save’ Sarah from, but then his role extended quite a bit once I realized that he’d also fit naturally in this position in the plot.

Ch.6 | Section 4, Chad

    • And so we have our first song, yet another gamble! Gosh that was an ordeal... ‘Cause you see, I’m just plain bad at rhyming and I never had to write lyrics before. And I was rushing through this mammoth of a chapter to get it published on time. Not perfectly happy with it, and it’s a bit on the short side, but it does the job. Initially I was supposed to have a lot more time to work on it thanks to my buffer of two to three chapters, but after I’d been forced to publish everything I had, I only had the one week to get everything ready – or as much as I could, at any rate. I’d dreamed of actually producing the music (which is partly written), but alas.

    • Oh, and we meet Crispy! Probably not as much of a surprise as she could’ve been, her existence having been introduced in Chad’s dreams. Still, another meaning for the fourth chapter’s title, ‘Four on the Floor’, beyond ‘four hooves on the floor’: four *ponies* on the floor.

    • Sweetchard – or Chard. Like with Sarah/Soraya, the original name was ‘Bilberry’ (and his mane was blue instead of green).

Ch.6 | Section 5, Ambre

    • Our ponies spying on the Brigade meeting was a slightly clumsy way to have the antagonists’ motivations made a bit more clear to both characters and reader, something that’s sometimes a bit problematic when you keep to first person narration and don’t have the time for long, complex detective work for the information to come up more naturally. Rushing things also makes them sound maybe a bit cartoonishly evil, but they’re not the worst offenders in this chapter...

    • “Now, you all probably heard about what happened in Grenoble on Monday...” – These events are relevant for at least one other pony character in the story, though they probably won’t be discussed much in the future (though now that I think about it, I see how I could organically bring some light on these events...).

Ch.6 | Section 6, Sweetchard

    • Ah, old man Laterrade and his religious spiel... So cheesy, and not much time to make his ‘arguments’ breathe a little more. It would’ve been interesting to have earlier Crispy scenes, to see how he descended from a strict but well-meaning father figure to a broken shell of a man, holding on desperately to whatever absolute truth he thought he could fall back on, with his only son lost to such devilry...

    • Crispy putting herself between Chard and her father is also significant, though we won’t know why quite yet.

Ch.6 | Section 7, Ambre

    • Eeyup, that’s a car chase scene alright. Slow beginnings, but we’re rushing towards the conclusion with a good serving of action. I’ve tried to improve on that point later on.

Ch.6 | Section 8, Sweetchard

    • Laurence’s ‘running up a wall while beating wings’ was inspired by one of the hypotheses that had been proposed for how land-bound dinosaurs progressively developed arboreal habits and then flight.

    • Laurence’s choice can be disputed for sure. Unfortunately, her decision wasn’t motivated by tactical matters only.

Ch.6 | Section 9, Laurence

    • And here we’re back again, now with proper context...

    • This whole scene was written in one go, outside editing, something that’s unusual for me (it’s usually more bits and pieces that are then tied together). My first real fight scene, and thus once again a gamble. I hope it worked as intended.

Ch.6 | Section 10, Ambre

    • A somber note to end on, for sure... Especially as it was a full week before next chapter back then.

Ch.7 | Section 1, Laurence

    • “I push through the oneiric veil, tearing the dreamscape apart” – Must have been some nightmare...

    • The transfusion issue is another clue that the transformation wasn’t random, that the bodies came with a history of their own.

Ch.7 | Section 2, Sweetchard

    • This scene, outside of the ‘starting to put the pieces together’, was the beginning of my attempts to improve rhythm on a per-chapter basis – adding a little tense scene or some action to each one, so it’s not just all talking.

    • Interesting how these two seem to know each other so well, no?

Ch.7 | Section 3, Laurence

    • I wasn’t sure if I should include this scene here or in the next Part, but it fit well enough here, and was important for Laurence’s character.

Ch.7 | Section 4, Ambre

    • And at last our conclusion. Trying to put a little thematic bow on the previous events, so that Part 1 would feel like a slightly more cohesive whole, while still serving as the first step into the greater story. Very far from perfect, and perhaps not the best way to catch new readers’ interest, but it is what it is. Onward!

[pitchblackveins]

2022 Wrapped

Tagged by @nuatthebeach ! thank youuu im gonna do this even though i have only published two fics in my whole life

Oof, it's already 2023, isn't it? Oh, well.

Post the top 5 works you're most proud of that you released in 2022 (not necessarily your most popular)

again folks i have only released the two

writing letters addressed to the fire - my first ever fic, guys! the first one! i cant believe i actually wrote this. its only 2k but it was HARD and we all have to start somewhere, right? but it made me feel like i can do this! and the fact that anyone other than @takearisk-ao3 even read it makes my brain explode.

Just Not Home - my contribution to the yule bash that again is very short but im learning how to write here folks! and i do think this is a sweet lil christmas fic even though i wish i had worked on it a little more

your top 4 current WIPs that you're excited to release in the new year

once again i have only 2! but here they are:

the big one is a series of romione one-shots based on the great war by taylor swift--set mostly during dh but also some post war and some earlier hogwarts years i think? maybe 10 total? non-chronological, oscillates wildly from extreme angst to extreme fluff. i have written a first draft of one (1) scene so far.  i think it will be called “my hand was the one you reached for”

abstract concept of hinny fic. hopefully multichapter. possible plot. mostly an exploration of ginny’s trauma, i think. kind of inspired by @pebblysand‘s ginny in castles (one of my all time favorite ginny portrayals!) i dont know this is really just a series of bullet points currently, we’ll see what happens

your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year

i started writing! that’s the big one. honestly when i was 12 i was certain i’d be a novelist and now im actually returning to some form of creative writing almost 15 years later, and frankly im terrified, so im very proud that i started at all.

reining in my urge to write massive paragraph blocks of internal monologue and actually have dialogue, because i absolutely hate to write dialogue

ack i really have not written enough to even have three points but i guess if the first improvement is that i was brave enough to start writing i guess the second is that i was brave enough to post! which i did not think i was going to do i was just gonna sit on the fic i wrote and hide it away forever

your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year

to branch out from my comfortable hermione POV––she’s so like me that i can just feel her, and i want to figure out how to write perspectives that are more challenging. and im so scared to write any weasley on weasley interaction because they’re all so funny and i have never tried to be purposefully comedic in my life!

to figure out how to write something other than very short one-shots. my hinny fic is really gonna be the test of this i guess but even in my head it still feels like a series of one shots and i’d like to try to figure out how to write something longer.

and your number 1 favorite line you've written this year

ack i dont even know! here is something (although im not quite happy with it yet even so) from the first draft of my great war fic:

She dimly registered that Harry had covered her with blankets––except they were Ron’s blankets, smelling unmistakably of him, that woodsy-soapy scent that she had once smelled leaning over a cauldron of amortentia, and her freezing hands tugged them closer to her, burying her frozen face into them, the tears that would not stop dampening the scratchy fleece.

Tagging.....i feel like everyone i know has already done this! but i will tag @turanga4 @incalculablepower bc im not sure if i saw either of you post one. and @pebblysand not to tag you twice in one post lol