#i enjoyed writing all this shit down tho it's nice putting thoughts to concrete words

[drmazel]

Genevieve, 8, 35, and 92 for the number ask meme!!

o fuk you mean i gotta actually develop my characters??

8. What are their good and bad traits?

Good traits: She’s empathetic and patient. She embraces her own emotions and the emotions of others. She has few friends, but the ones she does have know that they can count on her to listen when they need it, or offer sympathy/advice when they want it. Also she’s a good singer, but that’s a secret.

Bad traits: I know I just said she’s patient and kind but she’s also a terrible hot-head. She won’t tolerate an ounce of disrespect, and for someone that can draw a sword in 0.05 seconds, that’s usually a recipe for disaster. She also carries her burdens alone, and with a single whiff of someone she cares for being put at risk because of her, she will try to run away to save them.

35. Do they own a plant?

Travel too much, nowhere to put a plant, usually. She’ll never turn down a flower though, and will care for it until it naturally wilts away due to being plucked away from its roots. It deserves that much.

92. What was their childhood like?

Fucked up dude.

On the second moodboard post I had the quote she’ll say about being a “child of surprise thrice over.” That’s some crazy shit. I’ll list out the three instances.

1. Her mother and her mother’s husband tried and tried and tried and failed to have children. Her mother’s husband died from disease, and her mother was now a widow and completely unable to even attempt to have any children. Now with nothing to lose, her mother took desperate measures to try to make it happen. Best case scenario, something would work. Worst case scenario, she would die alone, which was going to happen anyway. 

But soon after her mother thought she had given up hope, she returned home from the market to find the means through which her wish could be granted. That was the first surprise.

2. A classic child of surprise story: Her mother was fairly far along in her pregnancy with Genevieve, and while out in the fields collecting berries for food and flowers for selling at the market, a forktail caught her by surprise. She had absolutely no skill or means to protect herself and absolutely would have died if not for the incredible luck of a witcher from the School of the Fox being in very close proximity. But she was penniless, so in return for the witcher’s services, she was asked to pay with the first thing she encountered at home that she did not expect. 

And since fate likes to play cruel jokes, nearly the instant Genevieve’s mother crossed the threshold into her home, she felt the unmistakable sensation of a child preparing itself to enter the world a month and a half too early. That was the second surprise.

3. Finally, when Genevieve was 14, after 8 years of training and preparation, she was deemed fit to undergo the trials and mutations to become a full-fledged witcher. She, of course, survived, but only, of course, just barely. After she recovered from the physical torment of the trials, Genevieve knew she had to see her mother and assure her she was alright. She hadn’t seen her mother in years, and she knew her mother had to be sick with worry knowing she was now old enough to undergo the trials that only had a 40% survival rate. 

She could not have possibly known, however, that just that morning her mother had encountered the one who had brought Genevieve into existence, claiming it was now time to pay back her due. Knowing her mother was destitute, this individual decided to revel in the beauty of irony, and ask for that unexpected encounter once again. And thus when Genevieve’s mother walked into her home and saw her daughter, now teetering on the brink of humanhood yet alive, Genevieve was not met with elation and embraces as she had hoped. 

Instead, she was met with a quiet acknowledgement of, “I didn’t expect to see you here.” And then her hand felt as though it was on fire. That was the third surprise.

[lostlegendaerie]

Six Fics of 2016

someone. someone tagged me in this. multiple someones tagged me in this while my PC was broken as shit so fuck. i dont know but i Wanted This, so. originally by @secretlystephaniebrown​ !

So I thought I’d pick 6 fics of mine written during this year, grab a favorite quote from each of them, give a short explanation of why it’s one of my favorites, and then tag 6 people to do the same! Let’s get some self love rolling as we head towards the end of this year!

and yeah i did write other fandoms this year but its like mostly RvB and Entirely in space, so.

6. Save and Restore - York & Delta, canon compliant

“That’s a-- dirty word, D.” A light, airy chuckle follows; one he remembers following an exchange with Carolina years ago. It sounds so much younger than the rest of York’s words, and he realizes he may not have anything more recent. “Better-- clean it off.”

“I… beg your pardon?”

“Nah, it’s free.”

i mean im Mostly so fond of this one because it was how I met @agentyorkdakota​ my moon and stars, but i also really enjoyed just getting to play with language a lot with this? like i’m pretty sure i’ve discussed this before but for a senior year project i worked a lot on a play called The Skriker where the title character kind of... used mixed metaphors and all sorts of jumbled language to communicate and it just. stuck with me. this language that was kind of cobbled together and makes sense but doesn't and yet does? so that was def a highlight of mine working on this fic. (also it placed me in the Angst War, a feather in my cap if there ever was one)

5. blow you like a popsicle stand - Tucker/Wash, canon compliant

He swallows his fear and creeping horror and lifts the lid. Buried under the crystalline ice of the remarkably still-functioning freezer is a collection of brightly colored little packages, all about the size of his hand.

“What.”

“I know!” Tucker replies, with exactly the kind of enthusiasm than ensures Wash he does not know, “I can’t believe it either. Ice cream! Here! On Chorus! Man, Caboose is gonna flip out when he sees this.”

Wash is tired, and adrenaline-tingly, and by this time he should just always expect to be betrayed and disappointed but here he is. He pulled a door out of a crumbling concrete wall for decades old ice cream sandwiches. Couldn’t save the lives of kids under his command, but sure. He can demolish a building in a fit of panic.

“What,” he repeats again, trying to shove all of his feelings into one ambiguous syllable. But Tucker just hip-checks him out of the way, flourishes his sword with a buzz of light, and carves a path through the ice to a red and blue package.

this one was done in a swap for @playerprophet​ (whom i also love and tag in this, there you go) and was just. okay. listen. l i s t e n. if i’m gonna write porn im gonna write specific porn. i’m gonna write mildly kinky porn with new shit y’all aint even knew you liked so someone can find me at a con and tell me to my face “oh yeah you wrote the iceplay fic” and i can be like “y e s” but also i can barely scrub the Feelings out of anything i write, so. SO. this was a pretty lighthearted excuse for Porn and it went over really, really well. so im Happy.

4. Golden Boy - York-centric, semi-canon compliant

Not that York can go back, now; not that there's anything left to go back to, with the entire project turning on itself in a disjointed, cumulative sort of cannibalism as every man, woman, or construct fights for themselves. And he’s not entirely blind to the fact that being wired to Delta on a neurological level makes the Director’s treatment of the AI feel infinitely more personal; makes it easier than it should have been to turn his guns on people he’d worked with for years. No. He’s not blind, not in that sense anyway.

But if he’s going forward, he wants to understand in full what he did in the name of science and progress.

this fic once shared a name with @littlefists​ ‘s epic because it was literally the first thing I wrote in the fandom and I Wasn’t Into Tuckington So I Didn’t Know, and i swear to GOD this is the last time i bring this up but i worked so fucking hard on it, it has Combat and Betrayal and Introspection and World Building and while i’ve gotta better grip on canon now I still really, really enjoyed this fic as an explanation for how York, of all people, could have gone so low in OOM

3. Overflow - Tucker/Wash, canon compliant

His thoughts about Tucker have often felt like a glass of water that’s just a little too full. He moves carefully so they don’t slosh around and make a mess of the place, barely keeping it all inside . And he’d thought that, once the newness of the whole ‘ sure we’ll risk lying to the faces of UNSC police to keep you out of prison even though you’ve done next to nothing nice for us your entire life ’ gratitude thing wore off (it didn’t, not entirely, it still pops up sometimes in the worst of moments and chokes him like the noose he should have gotten) the level would go down.

[...]

Tucker does something to him. Tucker finds ways to make him forget, at least for a little while, all the ways he’s fucked up. Even if it’s just finding more tolerable faults, like how the stick Washington has got shoved up his ass does wonders for keeping his back straight. Tucker talks loud enough to drown out the ghosts of everyone he underranked but outlived, listens enough to make his hard-won experience and advice mean something, and he is terrified for the day that everything overflows.

this was birthday fic for @strangestquiet that i actually took a day off from work to ensure i completed it in time but just. anyway. i’m pretty proud of it because it’s Big and it’s Coherent Mission Fic that managed somehow to tie into a little bit of preexisting lore. i’m also unfortunately very fond of all the little OC children bc i’ve constantly had tons of trouble with original characters and even tho no one else seemed to notice them i had fun and i love them all. but just in general i feel like i had a good balance of humor and feelings and also imagery? but as far as the latter goes it falls short of...

2. gethsemane - implied Shepard/Vakarian, Archangel-centric, game-compliant

On his last trip out of the Citadel, tying off loose ends, he bought a pack of playing cards from a human vendor. He had memories - they’d been fond once, but were souring like milk left in the sun - of losing miserably to Shepard and Williams at some gambling game. Leaving gifts on the graves of the departed wasn’t exactly the norm for turian culture, but neither was it strictly a human one either.

The flowers around the small crystal pillar were already wilting with neglect when he arrived. There might have been other tributes left there, but security had loosened until it fell away, slack like discarded clothes. Garrus left the cards there, under the shimmering list of names of casualties from the attack on the Citadel, and took the next transport ship as far away from Widow as possible.

okay so like. whenever possible i love to put good imagery in fic and like. understate emotions when i can and just in general do the literary version of the color saturated wide shot, you feel me? like the pullback with the characters in silhouette but you can still understand everything they’re feeling? anyway i feel like this fic really nailed a lot of my own personal goals for just Vivid fics. can’t wait to write more mass effect fic but it’s gonna be Hard to meet the standards i set for myself with this one.

1. Throw Away the Key - York/Carolina, Alternate Universe

Carolina fights to find the best angle for her umbrella as gusts of wind swat rain at them in little bursts, but by the time her car gives a satisfying click they’re both uncomfortably wet and she’s run out of things to say. Thankfully, he hasn’t.

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” York reflects as he withdraws the metal blade, inch by careful inch. “This is getting a little absurd. Like, bad soulmate romcom Hallmark movie levels of coincidence.”

“Not my fault if you keep breaking the law.” She’s a little surprised by the movie analogy, but decides against teasing him for his choice in films.

“I am bending it, at best.”

listen i’m fucking neck deep in all the complexities of longfic hell and this sure isn’t the artsy stylistic stuff that i can be proud of (or regret) later on down the road but i’m trying. i’m trying to write something massive and happy and so far it’s working. i can’t say for sure if it’s actually Good because i get to see all my messy drafts and stops and starts that the rest of you are spared, but I wanted so badly to write A Good Longfic for the Y/C fandom and with that, at least, I feel like I’m doing well. if nothing else, literally nothing else at all, i am proud of myself for trying this and i hope that it can continue to give people joy long after it’s done and i’m gone.

i’m gonna go ahead and tag @therewithasmile @sinelanguage @lady-of-rohan @flecksofpoppy @owaire and of course @playerprophet but if you’re reading this and wanna do it go right ahead!