#i have like six original story ideas in my brain at the same time and they fight for dominance like a demented game of king of the hill

[twilidramon]

trying to write original stories more like fighting my urge to scream and re-do everything because my brain is being gnawed on by idea ants

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (XVI)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and the prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

PART ONE is here PART TWOis here PART THREE is here PART FOUR is here and PART FIVE is here PART SIX is here and PART SEVEN is here PART EIGHT is here PART NINE is here PART TEN is here PART ELEVEN is here PART TWELVE is here PART THIRTEEN is here PART FOURTEEN is here PART FIFTEEN is here and this is sixteen *SixTeen theme plays*

💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts

Where we last left off... Martian Manhunter finds out that,yeah, dude, when your brain is missing chunks, you can't write or access data without the hardware to store it. My dude remembers nothing.

Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my nonexistent attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚

Days pass. Nights pass.

(He thinks.)

He gets a new room. This one has a window. He can’t stare at it all the time, but when he does, he can feel himself growing stronger. Steadier. The change in his body is borderline tangible.

If only it was physical. He’s still too weak to lift anything but his arms, and not even all the way. Moving his head is tiring. Lifting his head is impossible.

But he tries.

A lot.

The doctors and the lady have to make upset noises with him when he does, but he wants to be able to see everything they’re doing to him. So far it’s a lot of tubes and needles, but what if they become scalpels and clamps?

…Danny tries to assure himself that they probably won’t be.

But they might. Things could change.

And that eats at him constantly.

Someone puts a big circle on the wall in his room. It’s large. It’s a little fuzzy at its distance on the far wall, but it’s got little arms on it, and little dots in equal degrees around the circumference. It takes him almost two napping periods to realize that it’s a clock.  

Danny squints. He can...almost read analog. (Probably.) It sure doesn’t help that he has no idea when night is and when day is, though. He sleeps at one hour and wakes up at another, and the room will look entirely the same. Was it a few hours’ sleep, or a day’s? Was it longer? The world spins outside his window, big and blue, and he spins against it in a station on a lonely moon. There’s no way to tell.

Someone eventually notices that he’s bored, though, because he gets a television and a remote.

It’s a super thin television. At first, Danny spends time wondering why they put a screen with no system in his room, and then hour later the lady starts pressing buttons on the remote, and the screen lights up with a news program.

…The TV is too far away to see all that clearly. He can see some of it when he squints, but then all the colors turn lime green.

The banner on the bottom of the screen scrolls with headlines, and cool, it looks like they invented new letters while Danny was asleep. Fantastic. His head hurts from trying to squint to read, but it kind of looks like a kindergartener scribbled all over an otherwise serious news report.

Great. Now he’s getting a headache.

But the noise is…nice. It’s distracting. The news anchors chatter seriously as Danny gets yet another IV swapped out in his arm, and the heavily geared-up doctors have started telling Danny things he doesn’t like to listen to too much because if it is threats, great, he should ignore that; if it’s not threats, then, well, Danny’s bored of it all anyway.

“—Wel?”

Danny blinks. Well. That sounds like ‘Well’.

He shifts just enough to make eye contact. A doctor looks down at him from their place at his bedside. Their scrubs are kind of blue-green, with little flowers on the trim.

They have human eyes. The sight of soft, brown eyes probably ought to be reassuring, but they just make Danny more nervous.

“Eow eart wel?” They ask again, soft and slow. That middle bit sounds kind of like ‘art’. Ha. Old timey Shakespeare. ‘Art well,’ like ‘you art well—‘

Wait. Danny takes a deep breath. Blinks. His chest arcs up, just a little—just enough for the doctor to realize that Danny’s more than just looking, he’s paying attention. Are they asking him if he’s well?

Danny reflexively opens his mouth and flexes his throat, tries to answer—

Nope. Ow. The noise he makes sounds like the garbage disposal is backed up with angry blob ghosts. It hurts just to make. But the sound makes the doctor look at him; they see him.

“Inne cwic tima!” Danny hears, and then they’re jogging out of the room, and Danny is left alone. His throat hurts.

His head thumps back onto his pillow. The news program plays on. There’s a damaged city he’s never seen before on the news.

…And then the doctor comes back. Danny’s head is swimming, so he almost doesn’t notice their return, but they’re holding something, and that something has a sippy straw.

Danny is perfectly happy with a sippy straw.

The straw is put into his mouth. Danny goes sippy sippy.

…The water sloshes a little weirdly through his throat. Some of his tubes might not be where they ought to be, which is weird. Isn’t he supposed to be human right now? Or. Uh. Kind of human? Human equivalent? …Close enough…?

Danny drinks. When the pain in his throat goes to normal pain levels instead of new and angry pain levels, he lets go of the straw, and the doctor lets him.

Their fingers carefully brush Danny’s hair. Not very hard. A little too slowly. Just at the hairline. But it reminds Danny so much of sitting at home with Dad on the couch, home from school with a fever as Muppets tapes play in the background, that tears leak out of his busted eyes. The tears are probably just as green.

“Eow eart wel?” the doctor asks again. So gently. So careful.

“I’m tired,” Danny rasps.

The effort of speaking crashes into him in seconds. If things are happening around him, he doesn’t understand any of it. Nothing reaches him. He’s so tired.

He’s out before he knows it.

[thebestofoneshots]

✩ Star :

very funny/makes jokes, sarcastic, can be closed off but only about backstory, sweet, can be cute but mainly sarcastic

slim with freckles on my back, 5’6-5’7ish [people putting they’re elbows on my shoulders like they’re a table or stand is shockingly hot okay 😭], short black hair, shockingly blue eyes that are apparently pretty

writing [fanfiction omfg], reading [romance novels]

open to polyamorous relationships

If you want to participate in "TBOS' 400 Followers Celebration" too, you can look at this post for all the options of prompts you can choose from <3

I ship you with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. You have been friends with the boys since you started Hogwarts. You really enjoy hanging out with them, and they equally enjoy your company, especially because they find you absolutely hilarious, yet also very small? Sirius used to say you were like an evil squirrel, too cute to pose a threat, but with claws sharp enough to blind someone.

"Hey Moons," you said one day while chilling with him, both of you engrossed in reading your respective books, both of your feet rested on the boy's lap. Sirius lounged nearby, lost in his music.

"Yes, dove?"

"What do you think about poly relationships?"

"Poly… what?!" Remus asked, confused, peering up from his book.

Sirius laughed from the side, “Means you’re dating more than one person at the same time. Of course everyone is aware of it,” he explained. "Why the sudden interest, Fluffs?"

Sirius had playfully given you the nickname shortly after likening you to a squirrel. Originally it had been "Flufftail," but he thought it sounded to much like Wormtail and he didn’t want to aoscieate you with him, so he switched it to Fluffs.

"Oh, it's just this book," you said, indicating the one you held, "It's about a poly relationship. Seemed like an intriguing conversation starter."

"Well, I'd give it a shot," Sirius chimed in.

"Shocking!" you teased.

"Only with the right people, though."

"I've seen you hook up with plenty of girls, what do you mean 'the right people'?"

"Hooking up isn't the same as having a relationship, Fluffs. You'd know if you tried," he said, smirking and gesturing for you to come closer with a suggestive smile. Instead, you threw a pillow at his face.

"I guess I’d have to test it to give my opinion," Remus replied with a nonchalant shrug, returning to his book.

"I guess it's the same for me," you mused.

Suddenly, Sirius had an idea, a metaphorical lightbulb illuminating his brain. "Let's do it!"

"Do what?" you asked, perplexed.

"Let's test it, the three of us."

"Like a throuple?" you questioned with a slight frown.

"Exactly, a throuple!" he affirmed. "We'd be exclusive with each other and see how it goes."

"For how long?" you inquired, setting aside your book.

"Three months."

"You won't last three months without hooking up with someone."

"What do you mean without hooking up? I'd have both Remus and you! I could kiss your pretty faces whenever I want. Sounds perfect to me."

"Now you're just trying to charm me into it."

"And is it working?"

"A little," you admitted, smiling. "What about you, Remus?"

"Count me in," the boy responded, a playful smirk gracing his lips.

Long story short, those three moths extended into six, and those 6 into a year, and eventually you all decided that you'd just stay together, you just didn't want to go back to how things were before. Becasue this, this was perfect.

A/N: Hope you like this darling, I had lot's of fun writting it!

Sending you great vibes, Lilly xxx

MASTERLIST

[sporksaber]

This idea has not fully formed in my brain yet, but dpxdc time reversal isekai. This'll be a bit disjointed so bear with me.

Danny phantom and DC are the same universe to start with. Danny goes darkest timeline (not in the dan way. Dan is boring. He does not exist for this purpose) after years of being legally not human and trying to run from the giw while the organizations that should of helped didn't.

In the original timeline he is found out in some horrible way and has to run. He is kidnapped by the giw. He frees himself and finds himself entangled with the batfam. Everything goes wrong, his tenuous relationship with them gets super messed up as none of them are in a good place, and danny is slowly dying. Eventually it all gets broken off.

Danny, completing his journey into insanity, kind of destroyes the universe. And on a little related tangent, when writing these kind of stories all powerful characters are hard to deal with. Characters like clockwork give me the ick because their pulling at the strings robs the characters of their agency and they often fall apart when you look at them critically. So I'm nerfing clockwork. He can see all the timelines, he can watch over them and prevent major fuckery, but he isn't just able to meddle as he pleases.

Like I said, Dan doesn't exist and the whole bit never happened (originally I said that because it's a lame plotline but now it has real reasons) so Danny's never met clockwork. Clockwork takes the burst of power from danny going nuclear and reverses the time stream.

Danny wakes up on the day the event that leads his parents to find out happens. He's unable to avoid it as he's confused and dissriented with a bunch of strange thoughts and images making his head feel fit to burst, but does avoid the giw while running away.

Onto discussions of a main plot point: the romance bc it's always there with time reversal isekais (and with my fics in general tbh). As I'm thinking about it it's hard to decide bc I recently read a bunch that annoyed me into disliking them all and made me step away from the cross over for awhile. But as I was thinking of what to write I came to a decision. I already have one of these for Tim, having it be damian would make all the other characters older than him and it doesn't fit the vibe I'm going for to have danny surrounded by a bunch of adults when he isn't quite one, Jason just isn't fitting in my head rn, so I'm making it Dick. (I did also consider bruce, but I didn't...

The ages I'm going off of: bruce 37 (27), dick 21 (11), Jason 18 (8), Tim 15 (5), Damien 10 (fetus.)

I'm torn. I like the concept of Bruce being the love interest better but i dont know if i like it more than Dick. Like I said, this idea came to me and I immidiently opened a a draft. The idea is not solidified. And as I think more about it, maybe bruce would be better. Because with crossover ships you can slap the timelines together however you want you can change the ages and ship characters as you see fit. My initial reason for not considering bruce was the ages and wanting all the kids to be around for the plot. So I'm going to do the math.

Danny gets his powers at 14. Gets away with only monsters of the week to deal with for the first year. Giw gets new funding and becomes a consistent problem into when he's 16. It's manageable for awhile. I'm going to say he deals with it well enough for them to pull back and regroup around when he turns 17. Six months later and The Incident happens and he's outed. He runs and in his panicked gets captured by the giw.

My initial plan (initial meaning first thought that occurred less than an hour ago) was for him to be kidnapped long enough to be thoroughly traumatized but not super long. Like a few months. And I'd thought his freeing himself might have somthing to do with them kidnapping Jason or somthing. And if I stick to that Dick works really well and I feel like there's some really good content in dick and danny ending up together.

With Bruce I'd have to adjust the timeline more. Both for my batfam agenda and to make it not icky. If bruce is going to be in his mid thirties danny needs to be a minimum of his mid 20s. So I think if I were to go with Bruce I'd extend the kidnapped time to like 2 years (so Danny's like 20) and have him spend some time in the ghost zone before coming back to mess up the giw? I don't know. I'm going to have to write some stuff physically.

This has gotten out of hand and now I'm confused and my head hurts. I think the difference in the decision in unstable young adult danny vs unhinged adult danny in the original time line.

And the other thing I have to consider is not just main timeline but post rewind attempt 2 timeline and how those ages fall.

Dick is easier because it'd be easier to not have to handle that mess. I could have what I want without worrying about an age gap. And I think they could be really compelling. Especially with the idea of Dick seeking out Danny to help Jason, the brother he thinks he failed. Their relationship is originally a will they won't they as Dick has to deal with his family being a mess and desperately not wanting to lose anyone again while danny is in a limbo between who he is and if he's human. And it doesn't work out. It blows up in their faces as circumstances tear them apart and force them to let go of eachother. And you get the forbidden romance trope as batman doesn't trust danny. And then danny loses his shit and everyone dies before the rewind.

I think after the rewind they'd restart quieter. Danny searches out a familiar person after running away. Dick had just become nightwing and set up in bludhaven. Jason is 14 and hasn't died yet. Maybe they'd meet organically. Danny is drawn to Gotham and ends up in bludhaven while skirting around it. He meets the new vigilante who he knows but he also knows he doesn't (his core remembers. The core always remembers). Dick finds himself drawn to this haunted guy he keeps running into, maybe it's his savior complex, maybe it's somthing else entirely. He figures he's some kind of meta, jumpy from escaping someone's experiments.

Eventually Danny will remember Jason. Dick brings him up and Danny's filled with dread. Dick thinks his reaction is wierd. But Jason is eventually saved.

If I were to write it this way I think I'd have a couple of different mystery plot likes that connect thematically but aren't actually connected. (A nightwing vigilante based one of mob bosses or whatever, Danny's whole deal, what the giw is up to, where their money comes from and how that's gotten on the jl radar). But that's all on that for now.

To summarize: they have a very turbulent relationship initially. Dick will eventually be forced to chose the bats over danny. Danny has not properly healed from the giw and slowly spins out of control. After the rewind it's a lot of Dick solving mysteries as Danny tries to heal. The plot would be majorly driven by Dick, Danny's is mostly internal.

Back to the bruce concept (reminder that these two concepts are not connected at all).

The thing with time reversals is that you have to decide in the beginning whether or not the reversal is seperate from the main characters original timeline or if it's continuous. Are they the age they were pre reversal or the age they were reversed to? How much of it do they retain?

With the Bruce option I matched it to bruce being like 6 years older than danny. So pre reversal danny shows up to investigate bruce when his connection to the al ghuls (10yo damien) is established. Danny is 30, jaded, and less human than the other version. He's been warped in a way. The torture was longer and he recovered in the zone. A lot of his friends and family died.

Some relationship stuff happens, some al ghul caused demon stuff happens, the world is destroyed, time is reversed.

I'm fudging the previous timeline a bit. Danny's reveal happens at 19 while he's still in amity taking a gap year to weigh his dreams against his responsibilities. The Incident happens. He's kidnapped for a few years. Escapes durring an expierenment that allows him to slip into the zone. Dedicates himself to destroying the giw.

Danny post reversal retains skills and knowledge but is still his 19 year old self. He returns to the day of the incident, is confused, gets outed, dips but escapes the giw. Goes to Vlad and demands money, resources, and a contract that makes him heir without the downsides of his shady practices. It's important to not at this point, danny is basically bluffing. The kid has no idea what's going on or if it'll work, but he spooks vlad enough for him to agree now, plan how to spin it in his favor later.

So Danny takes a bit to decompress from that shitshow.

Flash forward, bruce wayne notices he has a bit of a (new) stalker problem. Some guy he doesn't know (and Brucie Wayne knows everyone) starts showing up at all his galas and the charity events he goes to. 20 year old Danny Fenton, heir to Masters Enterprises.

Cue Romcom.

This would have a drastically different tone from the other version. Very fun and much lower stakes.

Anyway I'm done for now. I hope you enjoyed this 2 hour unedited rant. Might expand on both separately, I like them both.

[moodybluemood]

truly wild to me that i first got the idea for that fic about six-to-eight years ago

i really do want to finish it one day, even if it might be awhile

unfortunately, getting wrapped up in fandom burned me out pretty bad. vento fandom was wild. i got over-invested in stupid shit and probably was kind of flippant at times. it made me feel like a bug under glass. i don't do well in fandoms. i get burned out really easily. there seemed to be constant drama going on and that really drags things down, man.

more importantly, i'm also just not that into jjba anymore. idk. maybe i need to do a reread. i do reread jojolands when it comes out. i got into jjba during a really weird, very stressful part of my life to have a distraction that didn't require a lot of brain energy, but i'm older now, out of that stressful situation, and don't really have the same motivations to write. i got dogs to pet. i have a partner who i love very much. i'm busy playing little games and talking to my friends.

mostly, as mentioned, jjba was something i started getting into because i needed something kind of silly at the time (that's not an insult) but i don't need that anymore. i'm getting into series i like on their own merits. it turns out i don't really like shonen as a whole.

i kind of lost track of what i was doing with some parts of it tbh. my original notes have vanished into the aether. i need to do a big reread but it's a huge commitment, so i haven't done it. there's storylines in there that i wish didn't overcomplicate the plot and pairings that i started setting up that i'm kind of meh on now. too many characters. some story beats that i don't think i executed well and some i don't think i was actually the best qualified to handle. fundamentally it does seem like an inherently silly thing to write an introspective fic series about depression and cycles of abuse under the guise of the funny punchghost anime but also existence is fundamentally silly, so like, whatever man, i don't really regret that part. might not have chosen abbacchio as the protagonist if i was going to write the whole thing today.

maybe i'll release a broadstrokes outline of what i was planning on doing some day idk. the series has been in progress so long that honestly if anyone ever finds this post and wants to know the spoilers, i'll just tell them. parts of it may seem anticlimatic and that's because the whole death fic was originally just a setup for the part that i really wanted to write.

i miss geun and stefano, my not-OCs. they are very dear to me. i want to do something with them but they're ultimately so tied to the canon fates of sorbet and gelato that it's hard to adapt them to other settings. like, they're technically not my ocs but let's be honest, they're OCs in every way but design and name.

i have more thoughts and feelings on my forays into writing here but also then i will ramble for five pages, so let's cut it down now. we're writing this stream of conscious style baby and this brain is t i r e d.

[pastafossa]

hey pasta! I don’t know if someone has asked this already but is TRT gonna go into Born Again or end at season 3?

So that's where I'm not sure! The current outline is as such:

All Major Arcs (including Cyrus James/Project Beagle fallout arc and psychic abilities arcs): scheduled to wrap up a bit after the end of S3 so that Matt and Jane's arcs/development neatly dovetail together. This will mark the official end of TRT's main fic.

Special Additional Arcs (chaptered fics not attached to main fic but still TRT canon, taking place after end of main fic) in no particular order: Endgame/The Snap arc, Spider-Man: NWH arc, Spoiler Removed arc, tentative She Hulk Shenanigans arc.

Oneshot Arcs: various domestic fluff arcs, interactions with major MCU events, a 'What Their Life Is Like When Old Cause GD It They're Going To Live To Old Age And Will Have Rocking Chairs' arc, a SINGLE take it or leave it 'What If?' fic of something funny with a possible daughter cause damn I had this idea for a hilarious scene and it won't leave me alone

Now, those are what are planned in the outline, and the main event with Project Beagle tie-ins and plotlines and all of that is something I'm still planning to end just after S3 because I really do want to have a finish line for that, and I feel like dragging that all out for Born Again wouldn't work for the... events that are going to happen, without saying too much. Once that's wrapped up, that's when you're going to see TRT finally marked as 'complete' on AO3, though there'll be more fics set in that universe (see special additional arcs and oneshot arcs) that I'll mark as in the Devil and Hound series along with drabbles on tumblr.

Once we're past that official endpoint and those special arcs, though, things get fluid and murky since when I was outlining all the major plotlines, there was no Daredevil: Born Again, nor was Matt even in the MCU officially (which is why Spider-Man pops in way sooner in TRT than he meets Matt in the MCU) and I specifically set up Jane's plotline to bookend with Matt's so their growth twined together and they both finally found peace around the same time. Outside that, I'd planned some shorter chaptered stories in the series post-mainline TRT like the Snap arc that I may now adjust (since it sure is looking like Matt was left behind for the snap) but nothing on the level of TRT's main plotline which is absolutely massive and took me years to fully outline and construct before coming back from hiatus in 2021 and pumping out chapters (Happy six year anniversary to TRT on Sept 15!).

ALL THAT BEING SAID.

I do have plans to write stuff for TRT's take on Born Again because I'm 100% married to writing for Matt at this point and there's no possible way I won't want to do something once I'm being fed Charlie!Matt scenes again. I'm not sure what those plans are just yet - I kinda wanna wait and see what happens in Born Again in case it sparks something. But I also want to make sure that no matter what I do, there's some sort of strong original plotline so that, much like mainline TRT, we'll be able to weave in and out of canonical events (especially since things like the Snap or a wedding or Jane and Matt's friendship with Peter will alter canon). I don't think I'm going to do something quite as huge as TRT's main plotline again, mostly because it takes a TON of time and work, and I'm planning to take the original TRT elements and morph them into an original series fit for publishing (different enough that I can leave TRT up for everyone to read, cause at this point the fic's part of DD fandom culture and I have no plans to take that away) which will also take a ton of time. But I'm definitely rattling my brain around, looking at different plotlines I could do knowing what I know about the ending, hunting for loose ends or canonical threads that I can weave in with TRT's world and create something new!

Then again, I never would have said I'd make something as massive as TRT before I started, either, so who knows.

So in short: YES, there will be TRT events for Born Again even if it's not as elaborate as TRT! I just have no idea what those will be yet. Fortunately, TRT mainline's only a little over halfway done so I've got time to plan!

[primewritessmut]

7, 11, 17, 18, 19 distracting you despite it being against my best interests

The way this post was for everyone but you. 💀

7. Favorite Character To Write?

This is probably going to sound weird and very niche, but my favorite character to write is Gwen from every star for you. I was re-reading it today (bc it's bot infested and I had to go comment deleting) and I love an unapologetic, mean, awful woman that fucks. For this same reason, I also really enjoy writing Harley Quinn (even though I don't do it very often) and most of my original work has some flavor of unlikeable woman in it.

11. Have Any Sneak Peeks Of A Current WIP?

You are insatiable. And I even told you that story about my awful cat terrorizing the neighborhood in the middle of the night! But, since I wrote 1500 words on my cat!Loki wip yesterday... I'll give you some of that.

Very little of what Loki had learned about the TVA before deciding to come here had prepared him for seeing his own face on a screen. Parts of his own life, fast-forwarded and rewound like just another movie committed to celluloid film. The idea that all the choices he’s ever made are simply steps on a predetermined path. Or that there’s been someone walking those steps with him the entire time. At least a little.

He arches his back and yawns, stretching his legs out as far as he can until one paw lands lightly on Mobius’s back.

“Sorry,” he mumbles in his sleep, scooting further away from Loki’s sprawl across the surprisingly luxurious mattress.

Loki rolls over and stretches again, pressing both front paws harder against Mobius’s spine. The analyst scoots away a second time, giving Loki all the room a feral little cat might need, and falling off the edge of the bed with a heavy thud in the process.

“Ow. Shit.” Mobius rustles around on the floor for a minute, then exhales loudly. “I guess I can just sleep down here?”

Loki slinks up to the head of the bed and burrows into the soft down of both pillows, flopping onto his back and flicking his tail side to side since it’s the closest he can get to laughing.

17. Your Favorite Writing Conditions?

I assume we're talking ideal writing conditions? Not just the wet rag I manage to wring out every day?

My favorite place I've ever written was in a cabin on a cliff overlooking the ocean (spirit box vibes) in a place with shitty wifi and phone service. I've gotten to do this TWICE and it's incredible. I stayed there for three days making sure I always had drinks in multiples of three and bounced around between writing, napping, hiking, and doing other hobbies.

So those are my ideal conditions, I guess. A few days to decompress from life, then a few more days alone in a cabin where the paint has been worn thin by wind and sun and salt water, and I can just write whenever I want and I don't have to give a shit about anyone but me.

My headphones are probably there, too.

18. Favorite Writing Style To Read?

Ugh. I'm a simple lad and I like simple fair. I like books that are irreverent and show an author's sense of humor even if it doesn't seem like the genre for it. I also think my tastes run toward... bubblegum is the best word I can think of for it. I don't want to have to bring a machete into a book with me just to be able to understand a third of the plot.

And there's also a soft spot in my heart for author's that take you by the hand and walk you through the book, showing you the sights as you read and when you get to the end and you're looking at the sunset, they shove you off a cliff. Love a good "fuck you, bye", truly.

19. Last Thing You Read?

The actual last thing I read was the third chapter of spirit box as you know. Which I love every time I get to read it. 🚨 FIC REC ALERT EVERYONE 🚨

The last book I read was I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman which is sort of stuck in my brain like a splinter. It's one of those books where you read it and you're like, "Huh. I guess that's over." and then six days later you're in the shower and it hits you again and you feel like you're going to cry or throw up. It's really bleak and really human, and I think I'll be thinking about it a lot.

I have a couple books that are in the "just started" phase that I think I might DNF so I'm not mentioning them. But I'll probably tell you later so you don't waste your time.

x

[thatgirlonstage]

Re:zéro asks!

What do you think would be the most interesting/hilarious crossover Subaru could stumble into. Either pre-canon or canon (or maybe even IF story), because he gets into situations, regardless of the timeline.

What ships do you like?

Do you ship rezero characters with characters of other series? If you do which ones?

And lastly, do you think Subaru deserves à vacation?

I don’t really do/think about crossovers so much unless I get particularly inspired for some reason—I’ve had some AU thoughts about Re:Zero but I’ve never really bothered considering crossovers for it. Subaru is a difficult character to transpose out of his setting & original plot without doing a LOT of work vis a vis how you manage his character arc. Though actually precisely bc of that maybe the most interesting crossover to me would be if canon Subaru got a glimpse of himself if he had been dropped in a more traditional isekai (I don’t know nearly enough about classic isekai to pick one though) and the kind of person he would’ve become if he was just handed a bunch of awesome powers and people who think he’s cool without ever being called on his shit (the absolute worst version of himself). Relatedly, to your third question, nah I p much never ship characters outside their franchise. Even if they don't directly interact I need them to at least exist in the same/similar enough context or interact with some of the same people in order to get the shipping tickle in my brain. Again unless something particularly inspires a crossover idea, but even then, I will at most do like, bullet point ideas that are mostly meant to be funny to me. I almost never read crossover fic and I’ve never written it.

On ships in general… okay look. I am a) multishipper galore and always one good piece of fanart from being interested in whatever ship idea you want to pitch to me, but b) not primarily into this show for ships and c) at most poking the Re:Zero fandom with a ten foot pole for pretty fanart and usually staying well away from it except to make posts for my own amusement and like six of my friends. I can’t go in the Ao3 tag for it. Every time I do I start wanting to stab things. My current strategy to make re:zero fandom for myself by slowly luring all my friends into watching re:zero is having a shockingly good success rate but yeah the fandom at large is…… holy lack of reading comprehension Batman.

For whatever it’s worth, just as, things I will yell the most about while watching, I am deeply invested in Rem and Subaru in whatever configuration of relationship you want to put them in, I like Rem/Ram because I’m me, and idk that I really know enough about Satella to have Thoughts but I am So Normal about Satella/Subaru Jesus fuck the love love love love love you bit. (NB: I’m anime only with this series so far, please no spoilers.) Emilia/Subaru do make me soft, Subaru and Otto should queerplatonically own a cottage and 37 pets together, and Crusch/Felis are a t4t couple and I shan’t be told otherwise. Actually the ship I’ve probably Thought the most about though is Julius/Subaru. Why did they put in a loop where they speedran an enemies to lovers tragic boyfriends arc. What was that about.

But all of that is secondary to my desire to watch Subaru get the shit beat out of him 😂 which, to your last question—does he DESERVE a vacation? I mean, sure, boy’s been through the biggest boatload of trauma one can imagine and he’s not a bad person even if he’s an asshole with a lot of baggage to unlearn. Do I want him to GET one? Absolutely not, that boy was made in a lab for me to squeeze him like a stress ball

[sibilansss]

On origins and measures of time

One of my favorite things to mention about Selrin is that the idea of her character started to take shape based on one random fact. While we were sitting on a park bench on a cloudy April day, my partner told me that one of the ways that plants measure and sense time is through the length of the night.

I don't know what it was that stuck with me about this, but I couldn't get it out of my head for the rest of our walk. Eventually, I pulled up my notes app and wrote it down. The thought evolved as the day went on, and I imagined what kind of person would perceive time in the same way. I added a new line to the note:

Her days were measured by the length of the night.

My BG3 obsession was in full swing at this point as I had been playing the game non-stop for nearly six months at that point. Naturally, my thoughts drifted to how I could create a character based on this small fact.

I had also been lurking in the fandom on twitter for some time, and I was inspired by the depth of the characters that people created and the care with which they told their stories. I had never put much effort into crafting a backstory for my original characters in games, but I wanted to give it a try.

My yet-unnamed nocturnal character went through a few different iterations. She was almost a rogue, she was almost a Durge, her name was almost Aniel. As I parsed out the details, another idea emerged: I wanted the character to be a reluctant hero and someone that HATES the idea of being called a hero but somehow ends up doing heroic things. I wanted someone that felt strongly about a few specific beliefs and subjects, but was otherwise quite neutral-leaning.

I don't quite remember when or how Kelemvor came into the picture or even how the idea of her being a cleric came to be, but I loved the idea of a kind of night-stalking undead hunter whose main job is going into the kind of eerie, unsettling places that most travelers (and perhaps even adventurers) would actively seek to avoid.

Selrin works under the cover of night because she can use the darkness to her advantage as a hunter and because it is when she is most alert. I will talk more about her relationship to the night and darkness in a separate post, but in short, Selrin’s days are measured by the length of the night in part because she fears it. In this sense, she has a complicated relationship to her own measures of time.

Just as plants have other means of sensing time, I like to think that Selrin's measures of time grow and evolve over the course of the events in-game. Days and weeks measured being measured by the length of battles, the number of days passed with a tadpole in the brain, the duration of evenings spent by the fire, and the hours (or perhaps minutes) since the last kiss.

[nowandajenn]

Blue Christmas -chapter 11

Summary: After almost three years of marriage, everyone would tell you that Chris and his wife Kelly are the most stable, solid couple they know. But behind closed doors, things are tense as they keep trying for a baby, to no avail. When a secret threatens to shake their solid marriage to it’s core, will they be able to pick up the pieces?

Series warnings: angst (like a lot), mentions of infidelity, language, family drama, pregnancy, sexual situations.

Author’s Note: I do not consent to have my content, whether it be this story or anything else of my creation, posted by a third party on any other platform other than right here without my permission. This blog is 18+ and is not intended for minors. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Heed the warnings.

January 8th (Six days post accident)

The pain meds they give people in the hospital following surgery pack a wallop, especially when given through an IV. They make me have crazy dreams, turn my attention span paper thin, and have the added bonus of turning my brain/mouth filter virtually non-existent.

I’m trying to pay attention to the conversation that Chris is trying to have with me. I really am. To be fair, he knew when he got here an hour ago that I had just gotten another dose. 

“What about this one?”

 Chris turns the iPad towards me so I can see yet another picture and resume’ of a home health nurse. It was an idea that he was originally against, but both Lisa and Andi, my main nurse, had both suggested that maybe having someone come in for a few hours a day a couple times a week would be a good thing. As much as he wants to do everything he possibly can for you, he also knows he’s only one person. After not hearing a response, and thinking maybe I had dozed off into a narcotic induced nap, he looks up to see me using my good hand to fiddle with the end of the braid that the nurse had put my hair into earlier after the shower that I’d finally been allowed to have after days of bed baths. 

Showers used to be glorious things. Water turned up to near scalding levels, music playing loud with me singing loudly (and badly) along, and nice shampoo and shower gel that smells amazing. This was not that. This was an entire process that took nearly an hour, starting with my casted leg and equally casted arm being wrapped in waterproof plastic and ending with me in tears because washing long hair takes two functional hands, and I only had one. There’s zero dignity in having another person give you a shower when you’re a grown woman who’s been showering and bathing by herself for many years now without issue. The nurse had been amazingly sweet and sympathetic and helped me with whatever I couldn’t do on my own (which was a lot), but the whole experience just left me feeling useless and depressed. 

 A soft touch to my hand brings me back to the present. 

“Where’d you go?” he asks softly. 

”My hair smells weird.” 

He leans forward a bit so he can get a whiff of my hair. “It smells okay to me.” 

“It’s not the same. It’s weird, clinical hospital shampoo. It doesn’t smell good like mine.” I lament. “I couldn’t even wash my own hair today. It’s too long, and I couldn’t do it with one hand. I can’t even-”

My voice starts to waver and I look down at my arm that’s laying useless in a sling across my chest. Even my fingers are so swollen and bruised that I couldn’t even put my rings on if I tried. My ring finger, which hasn’t been naked since Chris slipped my engagement ring on it some four and a half years ago, feels very bare and just wrong. Everything about the accident and my injuries keeps hitting me in different ways. 

I look over at Chris and then down at the iPad that he’s still holding. “Hire whoever you want. I honestly don’t care, and it’s not like I have any choice in the matter.”

He sighs softly, knowing that this conversation was never going to go over well. He knows that I know that I’m going to need as much help as I can get when I finally get released to go home, but he also knows that being as stubborn and self sufficient as I am, my worst nightmare is having someone have to help me do something as simple as get out of fucking bed. 

“This is the one thing that’s happened lately that you do get to choose. I want to get someone that you’re going to like and be comfortable with. I can’t imagine what this is like for you right now, and I’m just trying to make life as easy as it can get when you’re home.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to like someone from a goddamn resume’. As long as they can do the job without fucking me up more than I already am, great.” My back is starting to ache because of the position that I’m laying in, and when I go to slide further up the bed, I’m rewarded with a searing pain in my stomach from the movement pulling at my still healing splenectomy incisions. 

“Fuck, honey-”

I fall back on the pillows, irritated as hell and over this damn conversation, and the words fly out of my mouth before I can even think about stopping them. 

“Just pick someone! Maybe you’ll get lucky and you’ll get another girl who’s going to fall for the irresistible Chris Evans charm, who has no moral compass and no compunction about sleeping with married men. Then you can throw a shot into her too.”

I watch as his face falls, his hand pulling back from where it’s been resting on my arm and a lump the size of a golf ball forms in my throat. I didn’t mean to say that. I might as well just be wearing a name tag that says Hi, I’m: Here To Make Things Worse. I cover my mouth with my hand and glance up towards the ceiling, trying to blink the tears away before they can fully form. 

“I’m…..I’m sorry. I didn’t mean….” I start, but the words don’t want to come out. 

“It’s okay.” he tries to assure me. 

“No, it’s not.” I look down at the fluffy blue blanket that Chris brought me from home and I play with the slightly frayed edge, ashamed and unable to look at the broken look on his face. “This is a bad idea.” 

He pops a shoulder. “Could always hire a male nurse.” he says, raising his eyebrow. 

I let out a small snort, knowing he said it to try and lighten the mood, but all I can feel right now is trepidation at the thought of coming home with Chris to recover and him taking the brunt of all of my frustrations and emotional eruptions. 

He turns the iPad off and puts it on the side table and I watch as he stands up and grabs his jacket off the back of the chair, and my eyes widen.

“Don’t leave. Please, I-” I sputter out, trying to push down my panic. 

“I’m not. I’m just going to run down and get a coffee and check in with Shanna and see how Dodger’s doing. Are you getting hungry? You want me to grab you something?” 

I squint, trying to remember the dinner options on the meal sheet they give me every day and which one I might have picked. 

“Uhhhhh….no. I’ll be okay. They should be bringing whatever I picked out soon anyway. I’ll live.” 

“Okay. Text me if you change your mind. I’ll be back. No more than half an hour, I promise.” he says, resting his palm on the top of my head gently. 

When Chris gets back twenty or so minutes later, I’m honestly sort of surprised he came back instead of just going home and getting away from my emotional, broken ass for a while. And even more surprised that his mom is with him, since I didn’t know she was planning on coming by today. 

When they walk in, I’m sitting in one of the chairs in the room with my leg propped up, poking at a dish of red jello with a spoon. 

“What are you doing out of bed?” Chris asks, surprised. 

“I had to pee after you left, and being in bed was making my back hurt, so I asked if they could just park me here for a while. There’s not a ton of options when all you can really do is sit, so…I’ll be ready to get back in bed in a while.” 

Lisa starts towards me and I push the wheeled table away from me slightly so she can bend down and give me a hug, which I return with a strength that takes her by surprise a little bit. Knowing how hard the last few days (hell, weeks for that matter) have been and the fact that your mom isn’t around, she just had a feeling today that you could probably use a big dose of love that only a mama can provide, which is why she decided to pop by and surprise both you and Chris. 

She tilts my cheek to the side gently as she examines my face. “Your bruises are looking better.” 

“Mmm. Still hurts. Airbags will save your life, but you’re going to feel like you went twelve rounds with Mike Tyson after they go off in your face.”

“So, Chris and I were talking downstairs, and I had an idea.” I swallow my mouthful of jello and look towards Chris, really hoping that he didn’t tell her about what I said. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly and the anxiety in my gut loosens up a bit. 

“What would you think about me coming to stay with you guys for a bit when you got home?” 

“Chris, tell me you didn’t ask your mom to come home with us to be my babysitter.” I groan. Lisa snorts slightly. “He didn’t ask. I’m offering. I know you’re not crazy about someone you don’t know being in your house and….” she searches for the right words “helping you. And it wouldn’t be for too long; just until you guys get yourselves situated at home and get into a routine with things. It’s just to make the transition a little smoother.” she assures me. 

I look over at Chris and he shrugs, gesturing to me. “This is your call.” 

I sigh, looking over at my mother in law, who I adore more than anyone in the world. “I’m not great to be around lately. I’m still not convinced that coming home after this is the right thing to do, and I’m afraid it’s really just going to make things worse. I don’t want you both to have to deal with my psychotic mood swings.”

“Sweetheart, if your mood was completely stable after everything that’s happened, I’d be terrified. You’re hurt, and you can’t do the things that everyone else takes for granted without help, and everyone knows how frustrating that is. I know you’re angry and sad and frustrated. And that’s okay. We’re-” she gestures between herself and her eldest son “made of tough stuff. Well, I’m tougher than him. We all know he’s a big baby who cries at the drop of a Hallmark movie.” I sputter out a laugh while wiping my eyes. 

“We all love you, and we’re all here for you no matter what.”

January 17th (Fifteen days post accident)

“They would release you on the coldest day of the year.” Chris says as he makes a final sweep around the hospital room that I’ve called home for the last two weeks. 

I huff out a small laugh. “Let’s just get the hell out of here before they come back here and tell me that they’ve decided to keep me for another week.”

“They should be back any minute with your discharge papers, and then we’ll go. The doc said he was going to call in your prescriptions to Walgreens, so hopefully they’ll be ready by the time we get there. Or I can get you home and settled in and run back out and grab them.” 

“We can wait for them. It’s too cold to be running back and forth.”

I look down at my “going home” outfit and can’t help but feel completely ridiculous. A pair of pink flannel pajama pants with penguins on them (they’re the only thing besides sweats that I can get up over the cast on my leg), a long sleeved white shirt, and one of Chris’ hoodies that’s zipped up over my sling, leaving just my good arm in the sleeve. They removed the stitches from my arm yesterday, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at it. The compression bandage that I’ve been instructed to wear all the time (with the exception of showers) is a lot more comfortable than the layers of wrapping my arm was encased in, but still annoying. And it itches like the devil. My right foot is encased in fluffy socks and a shoe, and my left leg is of course still in a cast, a sock pulled down over my exposed toes so they don’t freeze off when I go outside. 

My eyes go to the small black wheelchair that’s coming home with me and I squeeze my eyes shut. Because I’ve been instructed not to use my damaged arm for ANYTHING more strenuous than moving it gently to maneuver a shirt on and off, I can’t use crutches. 

Chris finishes packing up my backpack, and stops when he sees me staring vacantly at the wheelchair. He frowns, and walks over slowly, sitting on his heels in front of me. 

“Hey.” he murmurs softly, snapping me out of my reverie. 

“Hmm?”

“This isn’t going to be forever. They said the cast is going to come off hopefully in a couple of weeks, and then they’re going to put you in a walking boot. At least then you’ll be able to get up and move around. I know, I know how much you hate this. I do. But it is not forever.”

“I know.” I hate how small my voice is. “I hate how I have to think about every move I make. I can’t reach for anything because I can’t use my arm. I have to be careful when I stretch or it hurts my stomach. I have to cough or sneeze as soft as I can or else my ribs hurt. It’s just….I feel like a prisoner in my own body right now.” 

“But you’re going to get the chance to get stronger and recover.” I look up at him and our eyes meet, and I know we’re both thinking about the fact that the driver of the car that hit me died four days ago from his injuries sustained in the crash, and how that could have been me instead. 

When the nurse comes in with my discharge papers and the litany of aftercare instructions, Chris takes them and heads downstairs with my stuff so he can bring the car around to the front entrance. The nurse helps me put my coat and hat on before helping me maneuver myself into the wheelchair and we head down to the first floor. 

“You excited you’re finally out of here?” she asks me with a smile. 

“And nervous. It was kind of comforting knowing that even though I was stuck in here, if anything went wrong, I was in the right place.”

I see Chris pull up at the curb, and the nurse wheels me outside, and I gasp at the biting cold. It’s the first time I’ve felt fresh air on my skin since the day of the accident, and although it’s beyond freezing, it still feels amazing to breathe it in. It isn’t until I get situated in the passenger seat and we’re ready to drive home that the panic sets in. 

“The last time I was in a car I almost died.”

Chris takes his hands off the steering wheel and reaches over to hold my right hand. 

“I know.”

“You drive like an insane person.” 

Despite the seriousness of the conversation, he snorts, because he knows the amount of speeding tickets he’s accumulated since he started driving is ridiculous. But he also knows that since the accident, he’s been almost hyper aware of his speed and everything going on around him, when he usually just goes on autopilot when he’s driving, like anyone else who drives every day. 

“I promise I won’t drive like an insane person with you in the car.” 

“Don’t drive like an insane person ever. You can’t control the way other idiots drive, but you can control how you do. I need you around.”

Those words make hope bloom in his chest. 

“I promise.”

When we get home, relief washes over me. As promised, Chris drove very carefully and obeyed the speed limit, but I was still a nervous wreck the whole 25 minute drive. Plus, being scrunched in the roomy, but limited space of the passenger seat isn’t very comfortable with my injuries. One the car is parked inside the garage and Chris has my door open, he realizes that he didn’t really think this part through very well. 

The furniture inside has been arranged and re-arranged about a dozen times in different configurations to accommodate the wheelchair in the house. He purchased a shower chair for me to make showers easier, he got cast wraps to keep the cast on my leg dry, he set up a perfect little nest with pillows and blankets on our sectional so I’d be comfortable, with remotes and chargers and books, and even a little cooler within reach. 

I notice the look on his face that he gets when he’s confused about something or trying to find a solution to a problem, and turn to him. 

“You’re trying to figure out how you’re going to get me in the house, aren’t you?”

The sheepish, yet slightly guilty look on his face tells me I’m right. “I have guys coming on Monday to put in a temporary ramp over the stairs in front. But I didn’t think about today.”

There’s two steps to get from the garage into the house, and the wheelchair isn’t going to make it up them. 

“You’re going to have to carry me in the house.”

“I was thinking that, but I don’t want to hurt you. You’re still really sore.” he says, gesturing to his chest and stomach. 

“I’m pretty sure everything I do for a while is going to be somewhat painful, but I think this is our only option. Why don’t you grab the wheelchair and bring it in, put Dodger in the bedroom until we get inside so he doesn’t knock me down when he sees me, and then come back out and grab me?”

He exhales slowly. “Okay. I’ll be right back. Just…..” he trails off, gesturing vaguely at me. 

“Trust me, I’m not going anywhere.” 

When Chris comes back out, he comes around to the passenger side and opens the door for me. I turn in the seat, angling myself as much as I can to make it easier for him to grab me and carry me inside. I’m slightly nervous about how much this is going to hurt, but I’m determined to not let it show. 

“You ready?” 

I take a deep breath and nod. He stoops down and slides his left arm around my back, while his right arm loops under my legs and he lifts me gently, my good arm going around his neck. He’s carried me like this about a million times in the years that we’ve been together, but for some reason, all I can think about is how he carried me (both of us slightly tipsy)  like this up to our hotel room after our wedding reception, and me laughing and telling him not to drop me or else I’d get our marriage annulled. I squeeze my eyes shut at the memory. 

I open them back up when I feel Chris setting me down on the end of the sofa and helping me get comfortable. 

“Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asks nervously. 

“I’m okay. Can you just grab a couple pillows so I can put my leg up though?” 

He hits the button on the side of the couch for the foot rest to come up and slides a couple throw pillows under my leg. 

“Can I get you anything? Are you hungry? Thirsty?” 

“I”m okay for right now. Can you go get Dodger though? I missed him like crazy.”

He smiles and goes to the bedroom to let the dog out, and a second later, I hear the sound of his nails clicking rapidly on the hardwood. 

“Hi, baby!” I exclaim, holding my arm out. 

“Dodge, be gentle, okay? Careful.” Chris warns. 

Dodger jumps up on the couch next to me and immediately snuggles into my side. Luckily enough, he’s on my good side so I can give him pets and belly rubs. 

“Mom’s going to be over in a few hours. She said she wanted to give us a little bit of time to get settled in and such. I’m gonna go and unpack our stuff and start some laundry. You have the remotes and your phone and charger nearby….if you need anything, just yell. Or tell Dodger to come get me.” 

“I will. I think I’m going to try and take a nap though, honestly. The trip home kind of took it out of me.”

“Okay.” He grabs a blanket from the back of the sofa and drapes it over me, dropping a kiss to my head before he leaves to go get started on unpacking our stuff. As he walks away, he stops to look back at me again, thinking to himself how it seems like it’s been a lifetime since the last time the both of us were in this house together, even though it’s only been about three weeks. As much as he wanted you back home, he never in a million years thought this would be how it happened. 

January 25th (23 days post accident)

“God, that feels nice.” I moan at the feeling of Chris’ fingers in my hair, massaging the shampoo in. 

“Why do you think I always beg you to wash my hair?” he says, smirking. I catch his use of the present tense, and try and think about how long it’s been since the last shower we took together before the accident. I’m damn near positive it was way different than the ones that have happened since I’ve been home, and probably ended in orgasms all around. 

“This is infinitely better than the showers in the hospital. The nurse who always used to do mine had long ass nails. I’m pretty sure one of them is still embedded in my brain somewhere.” 

He laughs as he rinses my hair with the detachable shower head. After working conditioner through my hair and helping me scrub myself down and even shaving my right leg and under my arms for me, he steps out of the shower and wraps a towel around his waist before grabbing another one to dry me off. I’m sitting on the toilet lid in my underwear while Chris smooths lotion on me, letting me do what I can reach with my good arm when I say his name softly. 

“Thank you.” I watch his eyebrow quirk up in confusion. 

“What for?”

“This. The- everything. When we got married, I bet you never imagined you’d have to help me shower and put on clean underwear and take me to go pee.”

He looks down as he continues to rub the lotion into my leg. “No, but I don’t think anyone goes in ever thinking about the worst case scenario where those things would ever come up. But that’s part of the deal, right? For better or worse? That covers everything; not just the good stuff. You don’t have to thank me. It’s my job.” 

“You could have just let my mom have her way and let them take me home.” I point out. 

He scoffs and shakes his head. 

“Absolutely not. For one thing, you and your mom would have ended up killing each other. And for another…..your head is giving you enough grief as it is right now, and being around her would have just made it worse. I couldn’t do that to you.” 

I see Chris reach for my shirt and groan, knowing how much it hurts my arm to put a damn shirt on. 

“How bad does it look?”

“Your arm?” 

I nod slightly and he sighs. “It’s still really raw and red. It’s going to fade, but it’s going to take some time. The doctor recommended some stuff that’s supposed to help with scars. Make them less visible over time.” 

“Can I see it?” I ask. 

“Are you sure?” he asks. I shrug a bit. 

He picks me up off the toilet seat and walks us in front of the bathroom mirror and turns so I can see my arm. I suck in a shuddering breath and close my eyes. It’s ugly. A roughly five inch or so vertical incision straight down my upper arm, red and raw and glaringly obvious. Even when it’s fully healed, it’s going to be ugly. 

“If you want, I can always talk to Josh. We can see if he can draw something up so you can cover it up once it’s fully healed.”

I nod as tears leak out of my eyes. Chris tilts my chin up. “It’s just a scar. It doesn’t define you and it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t make you any less beautiful.” He pivots so my ass is sat on the bathroom vanity and once I’m settled, he pulls the shirt over my head, being gentle with  my arm, and then helps me into a clean pair of pajama pants. 

“You know, we’re actually getting kind of good at this.” he says as he carries me out of the bathroom and sets me down in our bed. 

“I hate that that’s something to brag about.” I tell him, rolling my eyes. “Although, I guess after doing the same thing day after day for a couple weeks, it’s to be expected. You don’t look quite as terrified now as you did the first time we did this.” 

February 2nd (one month post accident)

“I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner….I was in a pretty serious car accident a month ago and things have been a little hectic since then. I haven’t been cleared by my doctor to fly yet, so there’s no way we can make it out there. Mmmmhmmm. Yeah, the reservation is under Kelly Evans.” 

Chris walks into the kitchen and starts making himself a cup of coffee while I’m on hold with the resort to cancel the Valentines Day reservations I had made back in November. I had a solid plan that I had cooked up with Meghan and his team so he wouldn’t have anything scheduled for the three days I had booked at Post Ranch Inn, but then between finding out about the affair and the accident, my carefully made plan got blown straight to hell, leaving me feeling a little (lot) angry. 

“Okay. Thank you again for all your help. I’m sorry again for the late notice.” 

I end the call and toss my cell phone onto the island, irritation bubbling up inside me. 

“Who was that?” 

“Canceling the reservation I made for us for Valentines Day at Post Ranch Inn. I made it before I found out about you fucking someone else. That kind of took the romance out of it a little bit. Well, that and the fact that my body’s still mostly useless.” 

My newly (as of two days ago) uncasted leg starts itching to high hell under the walking boot and compression sock I have on, and I start the process of unstrapping the boot one handed so I can enjoy scratching my leg to my heart’s content. I wish I could have gotten a picture of Chris and the doctor’s faces when my cast was finally cut off and a fork, two pens, and a plastic ruler came tumbling out of it, all lost in my attempt to wedge something down there to scratch the itch. 

He sighs lightly and turns so his back is to the counter, giving me what I’ve coined his “kicked puppy look.” Most of the time, I feel guilty for whatever I said to make that look appear, but today I’m just too agitated to care. 

“Don’t give me that look. You do it every single time I mention the fact that you had sex with someone else. You know what you did. You don’t get to make that face and look like I just told you that Disneyland is closing down forever.”

He walks over to where I’m sitting with a sigh, and reaches to help me with the straps on my boot. “Can we not fight? Please? I know that there’s an ocean of stuff we have to work through, and I know none of this is easy…I just don’t want to fight with you.” 

“Just stop. I can do it myself. You know, just because I still need you to help with most of my basic human functions doesn’t mean that I necessarily like being around you all the time. You’re my husband and for some God forsaken reason, even though you did what you did, I still love you, despite me calling you a cheating shitbag in my head at least once a day. So, just leave me alone for a little while, okay? I was really excited about having this trip happen, and it all got blown to hell in a really magnificent fashion, so let me just sit here and be pissed off and sad about it.” 

He holds his hands up and backs away. “Okay. I can do that. Just, we have your doctor’s appointment at 2, so let me know when you need me to come help you get ready.” I look up at him and nod, spinning my phone on the table. He starts to walk away, but then turns back towards me. 

“You know, when the accident happened and you were out of surgery, I kind of went into crisis mode. I called my team and canceled everything, because I knew that you were going to need someone to be there for you and help take care of you until you were stronger. And I know that you have a million people that are in our lives that would drop everything and do that for you, because you’re amazing and everyone loves you so much. The parade of people that have come and gone through here since you’ve been home is proof of that. I kind of just took charge, because I didn’t know what else to do….and I don’t think I took the time to stop and ask myself if you even wanted it to be me, given everything that happened.”

“Chris….I did. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable having anyone else do it.” 

He nods. “I know that it’s hard for you to be around me sometimes. I know that you’re still angry, and hurt and upset and you have every right to be. I know we’re a mess, but once things settle down a little bit, we’ll get in to go see that therapist that Carly told me about, and we’ll start working through it. That is, if you still want to.”

“I do.”

A few hours later, we’re sitting in the waiting room of my gynecologist’s office, and Chris is just staring around the room at the posters on the wall, and occasionally glancing at the couple of pregnant women that are in the waiting room with us. 

“Why did you need to see her?” he asks softly. 

“I’m overdue for my annual exam, and since all I do lately is go to the doctor, I figured I should probably just get it out of the way.” It’s a half truth. Well, ⅓ truth. If the doctor was right about my hcG levels when I was in the hospital, I’m about six weeks pregnant, and it’s probably time to get official confirmation in black and white. And if I am, Chris deserves to be there to hear it. But first, he needs to get something done himself. 

The nurse comes by and hands us both a clipboard with paperwork on it, and Chris’ eyebrows raise. “Why do I get paperwork?”

The nurse clears her throat nervously and taps a section on the paperwork. STD test, with the works. She walks away to let us fill out the papers, and his eyes shoot to mine. 

“Really? I told you, I used a condom.” he whispers. 

“I don’t care. I need to see it for myself, for my own peace of mind.”

He’s called back first, and with a nervous swallow and a look back at me, he follows the nurse. I’m called back shortly after, and after blood work, urine test, and the internal exam, Chris is allowed back into the exam room to wait with me while the results come back. 

“You want to grab something to eat after this? You didn’t have much for breakfast earlier.” he asks. 

“Uh, yeah, I-” I’m interrupted by a knock on the door followed by Dr. Hartman coming back in. By the look on her face, I just know. 

“Congratulations, you guys are pregnant.”

Chris is lucky that there’s a chair right behind him, or he would have been in a world of pain. When I see him basically collapse into the chair, I get worried. 

“Mr. Evans, are you okay?” Dr. Hartman asks, reaching for his wrist to check his pulse. His face is a look of pure shock, like he can’t begin to comprehend what he just heard. 

“Chris?” I ask, my own emotions threatening to spill out despite knowing this was coming. I instantly feel bad for not giving him a heads up that this was a very real chance. His eyes find mine and we just stare at each other. 

“I’m okay. I just- it’s- are you sure?” he asks, his voice unsteady. The doctor steps away, seemingly convinced that a movie star isn’t going to drop dead of shock in one of her exam rooms. “The tests are extremely accurate, but I’m going to go ahead and do a transvaginal ultrasound so we can take a look. If you’re far enough along, we should be able to hear the heartbeat.” 

Since I’m still in the gown and haven’t gotten dressed yet, I lay back on the table and assume the position again as she pulls the ultrasound machine towards her. Chris gets up on unsteady legs and stands next to me, still looking shell shocked. 

“Okay, this is going to be a little uncomfortable. Just take a nice deep breath.” she warns. I do as she says, but I still make a face when the probe is inserted. Chris is torn between watching my face and wanting to see what’s happening on the screen. Me, I’m too afraid to look anywhere but his face. For as much trepidation as I’m feeling over this pregnancy, I’m overcome with the sudden fear that she’s going to find the baby and there’s not going to be a heartbeat, just like last time, and I honestly don’t know if I can go through that twice.

“There it is.” I hear from next to me. I watch as his eyes move from mine to the screen, seeing the tiny blob in the middle of my uterus with the little flicker in the middle. A heartbeat. I still can’t bring myself to look though. Dr. Hartman, who was the one who told me that I had miscarried and performed my D&C, senses my fear, and quietly hits a button on the machine. The sound is almost overwhelming as it fills the room. I have a crazy thought that it almost sounds like clothes in the washer as it’s agitating. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. My eyes snap to the screen, and I immediately bring my hand to my mouth and burst into tears. 

“From the size, it looks like you’re about six or seven weeks. Which is going to put the due date at about….” she stops to put some numbers into the computer. September 23rd, give or take.”

After printing off some pictures and leaving the room to let me get cleaned up and get dressed, we leave the office feeling a million different emotions. We’re both quiet on the drive home, both lost in thought. How many times have we wished for this? How many negative pregnancy tests have we seen and tossed angrily into the trash, tears threatening to spill. How many times did we say “It’s okay. It’ll happen. I know it.” only for it to happen during the worst period in our marriage? 

When we get home, I slowly waddle into the house, still enjoying the feeling of being able to (somewhat) walk instead of being chained to that damn wheelchair. I make my way to the back door to let Dodger out, passing Lisa, who’s watching both Chris and I with a curious, careful gaze. 

I feel him behind me as I turn on the tap, filling a glass with water and downing it almost all in one gulp. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks softly. He can see my hand trembling slightly as I hold the glass, and he knows he has to tread lightly. 

“In general? Or about the fact that we found out I’m pregnant in the middle of our personal shit storm?” 

“Both.” I drop my head. Truth be told, I’m exhausted. My arm is killing me, the nerve pain making burning pins and needles radiate over my whole arm. My leg is aching from being on it for an extended amount of time. 

I’ve been trying to roll it over and around in my head for weeks. What to do if I really did have the shittiest luck in the world, and I did end up actually pregnant in this situation. I keep coming back to the bad joke that my brother made the night I found out about Chris about me not having to deal with all of this while I was pregnant. 

“I don’t know if I can do this.” My voice is soft, but he hears it like I’m screaming it. “I don’t know if I can have this baby. I don’t know if my body can handle it, and I don’t know if I can handle it emotionally.” 

The words punch through him like a hit from a prize fighter. He knows exactly when it happened; the night that you had come over to get a dress from your closet and we had ended up defling quite a few surfaces in the house. There’s a good chance that our baby was conceived on the dining room table. 

“Are you talking about-” he can’t even bring himself to say the words. He KNOWS this the worst timing for this to happen. He KNOWS that no matter what, it’s your choice. But the thought of not having this baby with you almost brings him to his knees. 

My breath hitches. “Chris, look at us. Take a good look at me, at my body. I’m broken. I’m still recovering. I’d have to be monitored more closely to make sure that everything is okay. Because we don’t know if it will be.” The thought of finally getting everything I wanted with my husband and then not having it makes my chest hurt. 

“I’ve wanted kids with you since the moment you told me you loved me for the first time, and that I was it for you. I knew that you were going to be the father of my kids one day. But now, with everything, I don’t know if that’s the case anymore.” 

The tears are burning my eyes, and I can feel the sobs starting to build in my throat, and I know if I don’t get out of this room right now, I’m going to lose it. I’m pretty sure that Lisa heard at least part of our conversation, and I can’t talk about it anymore without losing my mind. I set my glass in the sink and silently make my way upstairs, thinking that two of the worst conversations I’ve had in my life have taken place in the kitchen that I loved. Now I can barely stand to be in it. 

[hismercytomyjustice]

So I started writing this yesterday and then I got SO MANY FEELS and it was SO LATE but… 

Def got a little too into my own head earlier with the finale  approaching for my BG3 fic. So I reread the draft I have of the final three chapters. And I just…I’m so happy with them??? (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ) I don’t even feel like they need any major overhaul editing or anything either.

I have NEVER felt confident about writing endings, but I’m feeling alarmingly confident about this one??? Like, even my OCD doesn’t seem to have anything disparaging to say??? ( ˶°ㅁ°) !!??

I mean, I truly hope other folks feel the same way when they get to the end. But right now I’m just so fucking happy that I do?

Wildly long self-indulgent post about my BG3 fic and the writing process for it below, if that’s something you’re into.

Writing this fic has been such an unexpected rollercoaster of emotions for me. It’s taught me so much about how my OCD manifests and impacts my writing, in addition to building my writing confidence back up in general.

It’s the longest thing I’ve ever written (just about twice as long as the longest before that?!) and I feel like I’ve grown SO MUCH as a writer while working on it for the past six months. I went from thinking I would never write description well to finally feeling like I get it??? I mean I’m sure I still have loads more room for improvement, but I’ve always felt like description has been my biggest weakness as a writer and I finally don’t feel that way anymore??!!

Same with writing endings too!!! I def feel like I have a lot more progress to make on that front, but like…oh my god I actually wrote one I’m super proud of??!!

Not only that, but this fic taught me I actually can jump around while writing??? I’ve always written super linearly before and tbh I still do, but when I got stuck on chapter 12/13 for almost two months, I skipped to the very end because I had an idea spark for that part and because of that I’ve been able to lay more of the groundwork for what I hope is a satisfying wrap up.

God, I was so fucking mortified to bring up my struggles with fanfic writing to my therapist. In retrospect I realize that’s because my OCD spirals around it were getting out of fucking control…

Just a super fun refrain of:

“This isn’t a big deal, you’re doing it for fun. It’s ridiculous how upset you are over a literal hobby no one is forcing you to do. It’s just a fanfic. No one cares about it. It’s not even real writing. No one will even read it or like it anyway. You’re wasting your time. See? You can’t finish anything. You’re stuck at the 60k mark because you lack discipline and commitment. You can’t do this, so you’ll never get anything original published. How many things have you started now that you’ve never finished? You haven’t finished writing anything in almost a decade. You’re wasting your therapist’s time talking about something so absurd. She’s going to laugh in your face.”

And fucking on and on and on.

But like…none of that was true??? FUCKING SHOCKING THAT MY OCD WOULD LIE TO ME, AMIRITE?! When has it EVER done that?!

I just wound up sitting there telling my therapist I was stuck and I had lost the passion for the fic like I always did and I’d wasted three months and 60k words on a story that was never going anywhere because I wasn’t good enough to write it.

And she asked me “What would help you get unstuck?”

And I thought about it and was like: “Maybe if I start posting it, folks will read it or bare minimum I’ll get enough kudos and hits to make my brain go brr enough to finish it?” All I wanted at that point was to regain the drive to finish writing the story I’d put so much heart and time and effort into already.

I mean OF COURSE I hoped folks would read it and like it and leave kudos and omg maybe even leave a comment??!! And since BG3 was and is such a big/popular fandom I was also hoping maybe I could surpass the level of achievement I hit with my multichapter Cardcaptors fic a few years back, if nothing else.

And like, as of last night, this is where I was sitting with both:

And YES. I know that stats are NOT what I should focus on at the end of the day. But GOD IF I DON’T CRAVE THE EXTERNAL VALIDATION!!! Don’t we all…

And like, honest to god, this fic doesn’t have to surpass my CCS fic! One of the absolute (hehe) best things to come from this whole experience has been getting to interact with other cultured Bloodweave sommeliers (haha). I seriously cannot get over just how nice and encouraging and fucking amazing everyone has been with their comments!!! And that multiple people have taken the time to comment on each chapter as they come out??!! Like, I am living the fucking dream!!!  (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)

I get so fucking excited every week to share my newest chapter because I desperately want to know how my pressganged Bloodweave book club will react. Like, my HEART IS SO FULL OMG!!!! They are gonna make me cry frfr!!! 

I have personally been such a terrible commenter in the past on fics I’ve enjoyed (i.e. I didn’t fucking comment), but I am trying to become a reformed member of AO3 society because the support I’ve gotten (especially when the doubts start to creep in) has been incredible!!! 100/10, would definitely recommend!!!

And like, some other great stuff has happened that helped me so much along the way too! I read The Accountant’s Guide to Taking Down an Evil Vampire Lord (and maybe bagging Astarion while you are at it) by Cinnamontails. While I was reading it, writing description FINALLY FUCKING CLICKED for me! I was just like “Omfggg?! This is what people are talking about when they say description should do more than one thing!!!” Up to that point I pretty much believed that was like a sort of writing koan or something. Something everyone says, but that isn’t actually meant to be understood because it’s unknowable? Or something like that.

Lemme tell ya, I fucking love learning about writing. I’ve gone to countless writing panels at cons. I listened to podcasts on writing for YEARS (Writing Excuses, I Should be Writing, Ditch Diggers, etc). I’ve read so many books on writing. Watched YouTube videos, took a class, etc, etc! But for some reason the “description should do more than one thing” adage just did not compute. Until I read that fic!

Up to that point, description had always felt like something I threw in as padding around all of my dialogue and character navel gazing. And I fucking STRUGGLED with it as a result. It always felt SO FUCKING BORING to me. I hated it, especially because it never came easily. But now I FINALLY understand and I LOVE writing it!!!!

I went looking for some more tips on writing description and picked up Description: A Busy Writer’s Guide by Marcy Kennedy, which broke things down even further for me!

I felt personally attacked by this part in particular:

“Irrelevant description is what gives description a bad name.

You might think that’s obvious, but so often in my editing work, I’ve seen authors describe things in detail that have no bearing on the story at all. Usually they do it because they’ve been told at one time that they weren’t including enough description and no one told them what kind of description they needed to start including or how to properly include it.”

I am not exaggerating when I say, until very recently, to write description I would find photos of locations, buildings, character inspo, etc and try to focus on what someone more visually inclined would want described because I don’t have a super robust mental image generator. I’ve never had the “I see a movie in my head” while reading gift. Super jelly of folks who do tho! I get more like…flashes maybe? And I didn’t even realize that until I actually made myself pay attention to what was going on in my head while reading fairly recently. I sincerely thought I had aphantasia and people were exaggerating when they said they could picture things in their heads.

Like, when they’d tell you to look at something then close your eyes and envision what you remembered in school (was that just me?). And I’d be like “Okay so we’re just closing our eyes and trying to remember the individual things right? No one actually sees anything.” COLOR ME SURPRISED to find out that WAS NOT the case!

I don’t think I have aphantasia anymore, but like, on the scale from 0 (aphantasia) to 10 (see a movie in my head), I’d say I’m maybe a 3? I can’t envision a whole room or even like…a moving image? Moving images in my head are almost more like extremely short flip books. And the more I try to focus on them, the more out of focus they become. I also really struggle to envision things I’ve never seen before. Like, as a literal picture in my head I mean. It’s easier for me to imagine like…a picture I took of my dog than my actual dog? And like, if I try to do something like envision my bedroom or something, I just kind of pick a point and go from there like “Okay this is what my bed looks like, now it’s gone. This is what my dresser looks like, now it’s gone. This is what my end table looks like, now it’s gone.” It doesn’t form a bigger picture in my head. It’s more like a mental checklist where I think about the different attributes of something (like the color of my sheets, or how many pillows I have) rather than actually see something like the whole bed? Idk. That’s the best way I can think of to explain it.

Ngl, that might very well be part of why writing description like was so difficult and SO FUCKING BORING to me. I didn’t really see things in my head and I’m not a very visual person in general, so I don’t focus a ton on those details anyway as a reader or when I’m physically somewhere. So l felt like all my description was so hamfisted and awkward as a result, and I had absolutely no concept of how much was enough or too much.

But then she goes on in the book to say:

“All description filters through the viewpoint character and is colored by who they are as a person.” And I was just like…ohhhhhhh!!!! That’s exactly what that fanfic did!!!

And then:

“What they notice will also be largely influenced by their circumstances. A character heading into a job interview will be hyper aware of their own appearance, whereas a character who’s crawling around in a cave looking for hidden treasure won’t. A character who is running for their life will notice different things about their surroundings than will a character who isn’t in immediate danger.

If it’s not something they would notice, then we either have to leave it out or come up with a believable, realistic reason for them to notice it.”

Like. OF FUCKING COURSE?! THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE?! HOW DID I NEVER GRASP THIS BEFORE?!

Marcy Kennedy goes on to give other tips like “a good description is specific” and “a good description allows less to be more.” And about how it’s more important to focus on specific, unique details than to try and describe everything about the scene/character (like I would do before). Like, focusing on stuff readers will actually remember and that paints a clearer picture.

She also delves into the specifics of writing for the five senses (another thing I always heard suggested, but never felt I executed well). And on how people naturally notice things from bigger/more obvious to smaller/more specific. She also talks about the psychology behind the things people naturally notice and why and how it’s impacted by who they are as a person (ex. the career they have, their gender, etc).

She gets even more specific with stuff like:

“Description for the purpose of grounding should be quick and needs to happen within the first few paragraphs of a new scene.

If time is the only thing that’s changed, we’ll need to use even less description than if our characters also changed location.

As a general guideline, describe a place in the most depth the first time that setting shows up on the page. Later on, unless something important has changed, a brief re-orienting passage is enough.”

I have DESPERATELY been searching for something this specific. Like just PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL ME HOW MANY SENTENCES/PARAGRAPHS TO USE AND HOW FREQUENTLY TO USE DESCRIPTION. And ON GOD that’s exactly what this book does! ദ്ദി ꒦ິ꒳꒦ິ )✧

I still need to finish reading it but omfg I about lost my mind when I found the holy grail I’d been searching for.

And like, I’m sure my description still needs work and I’m using a sledgehammer instead of a regular hammer sometimes. But I’m learning and growing! And I’m sure it’ll become easier with practice! Hell, half the time I’ll write something and not realize until, oh I don’t know I’ve pretty much finished my fucking 100k word fanfic, that I fucking never really physically described my Tav?! I shouldn’t have said that… Now everyone will notice if they hadn’t already.. FUCK.

BUT! My absolute FAVORITE thing to write is character and being told “write description through the lens of your character” got me so fucking hype. I’m not sitting there anymore like “What’s in this room, what would a reader who sees what they read in their head (definitely not me) find most interesting?” and am instead like “What would Character A notice in this room? How are they feeling right now? What does X remind them of? What are they thinking about? What do they like and dislike, how does that impact what they pay attention to?” And I FUCKING LOVE IT!!!!

And I AM SURE this is not groundbreaking information for 99.9% of folks but IT WAS FOR ME!!!!! It has easily doubled my word count for everything I’ve written since then and I’m not stuck massively overthinking it all now! And I actually enjoy it! It doesn’t feel like a miserable slog anymore!

And this is THE MOST OBVIOUS in how my BG3 fic chapters literally DOUBLED OR TRIPLED in length after I got my hands on this book in the middle of writing the fic lol. Almost every shorter chapter in the first 75% of the fic was written prior to me reading this book. And the longer ones? Those were added after! 

Like, chapter two originally didn’t include the Owlbear scene. It just ended after Astarion walked out of the fortress. Meanwhile, chapter five and six DID NOT EXIST. I kinda panicked when I realized the story felt too Astarion heavy when it was supposed to be about both of them. I also felt like the pacing for the story in general was off (too fast). So I went back and added those. Leon and Victoria WERE NOT IN THE STORY until I went back to add chapter five.

Since I was doing alternating POV, if I added another chapter for Gale I needed to add another for Astarion. So I decided to make Astarion’s about them needing to find Gale an artefact in the Underdark. I started researching artefacts there that would satisfy the orb, but wanted to dig deeper and lay a little more groundwork for Astarion starting to care more about Gale and learning to be more kind/compassionate overall.

My headcanon for Astarion is that he’s always been a little selfish, or at least he thinks he is. I expanded on that later on in the fic by implying his parents weren’t the best of people. I felt like Cazador would smell blood in the water as far as folks with prior abuse of some kind were concerned, like a lot of abusers do. So Astarion spent his life up until he moved to Baldur’s Gate trying to be his own person despite the box his parents wanted to fit him in. That was my reason for why he left the Dalelands so young (by elf standards). He was still a grown ass man, but hadn’t reached maturity as far as his parents were concerned.

And like, why did he go as far away as Baldur’s Gate? Because it is like THE OPPOSITE SIDE of Faerun. And there’s no real info on his family anywhere, so I felt like maybe he wasn’t super close with them if he moved so far away. My idea was he felt he couldn’t escape their expectations without putting some real distance between them. And then, in the process, he winds up with Cazador, someone even more determined to mold him into what they want him to be rather than what he wants to be.

I feel like so much of Astarion’s arc in game is about finally being able to become his own person. And I thought it would pair really well with the tragedy of him being turned by Cazador if that happened just when he started take back control of his own life.

My headcanon is a lot of Astarion’s selfishness stems from no one ever being there for him or looking out for him, so he can only rely on himself and fuck everyone else as a result. Except he’s not nearly as callous as he pretends and deep down he genuinely wants to care about others. He just doesn’t know how to do it and feels like it can only come at the expense of his own autonomy/safety/happiness.

SO. What artefact would Astarion have that he could choose to give to Gale? Initially I thought maybe something small like the Ring of Color Spray. That didn’t feel significant enough though. Like, yes it would be something of his that he was choosing to part with, but it wasn’t a big enough of a statement to me. So then I tried to find a cool/powerful weapon or something else that he would be less inclined to part with. Whee, more time researching artefacts! But that didn’t feel right either, so  I decided it should be something with more personal significance because that’s the biggest kind of sacrifice he could make at this point.

So! What would Astarion have that would be powerful enough to satisfy the orb? And why??? Cazador doesn’t exactly seem like the type to give his spawn anything, not even the basics (i.e. Astarion’s 200 years of starvation). Especially not something like a powerful/helpful artefact. And I was like “well, I mentioned they traded favors before back in chapter four, so maybe Leon enchanted something for him?”

BUT WHY?! I really liked the bits and pieces we see of Leon in game. I feel like he’s the quickest to believe Astarion when he says Cazador plans to sacrifice them in the ritual. And he also has a human daughter! Which, yeah, that whole reveal in game gave me major brain worms. Because WHAT. There was a human child just running around Szarr Palace? WHY? What was her life like? What did the other spawn think of her? And I was also so sad we never really saw much in game about her and her father. Even though Leon loses Victoria to Dalyria. I was really surprised there was no follow up to that for him, but lord knows Larian already had 8 billion other things going on, so I get why it wasn’t something they delved further into.

But what would Leon ask for in return for such a big favor? Ooh, what if Victoria’s ill? Cazador doesn’t exactly seem like the type to be like “Oh, sorry, please take all the PTO you need and here’s some money for a healer!” I’d imagine resources suited to caring for a sick human child would be limited in Szarr Palace. And Dalyria has been looking at Victoria like she’s a literal snack for a while now (which is why she kills her in game), so what’s a vampire papa to do???

So then I had to figure out why the self-purported selfish Astarion would agree to help them. At great personal cost, no less. He never mentions Victoria in game and I don’t think there’s anything in game either that indicates he’s ever done her wrong. Leon certainly didn’t seem concerned about him in that regard, so I decided maybe he’s ambivalent toward Victoria. 

So why would he care?!

And then the Drizzt brain worms came back in full force. Because of that fucking phenomenal scene in the DND campaign with Neil fanboying, haha. So maybe Victoria has an interest in Drizzt too? Or maybe in his wife? Like, why wouldn’t a scared little girl who’s stuck in a nest of vampires look up to a strong female role model who is capable of fighting back and saving the day? And I figured Astarion hand’t exactly broadcasted his interest in Drizzt, so maybe this gives him an opportunity to actually connect with someone for once? I feel another major part of Astarion’s character is he is SO FUCKING LONELY. He doesn’t know how to establish actual relationships with people because he never has. And why would he, seeing as any new person he met would just wind up as Cazador’s dinner (as far as he knew anyway). I feel like he’s had to hardcore compartmentalize that part of him for the sake of his sanity.

But now here’s this sick little girl who he can actually help. And she understands what it’s like to dream a hero will swoop in and save the day. And she happens to be interested in stories about the same Drow Ranger  who he’s found his own escape from The Horrors™ in?

Idk if he still would have agreed to help Leon in the fic if he’d had much more time to think about it. So instead he has a moment of weakness where he desperately wants to do something good for once (the only other time having been his sparing his “darling boy”). Something that’s never been done for him, but that he could do for Victoria. He could pretend to be her hero for a little while and get something useful out of it in the process. Win-win!

And like, this doesn’t make them bffs or anything. It’s more like a pivotal moment that just started to lay the foundation for his “redemption” in my fic instead. Then I just kept thinking more and more about what his life was like after with Victoria, who’s already come to trust him a little since he doesn’t treat her poorly or look like he wants to eat her. Especially since I figure that’s probably a pretty novel experience for her given her circumstances.

But he and Gale are in the Underdark! Which has magical artefacts! So why couldn’t they just spend a few thousand words locating an artefact so he doesn’t have to give this ring up? Sure, I could make it imperative Gale needs an artefact like yesterday, but that didn’t feel like enough. Thus Tav’s sister was born, lol! And my Tav became much more of a character in the fic because I did WAAAAY too much research on the Drow for chapter five and was completely fascinated by them.

My Tav was never supposed to feature as much as they did in my fic. They’re literally my Tav from in game, though I didn’t really have an in-game backstory for them. They were just supposed to show up in my fic to help with some scenes/dialogue in lieu of me having to write more interactions with the companions I didn’t feel super confident writing because I didn’t feel like I knew them/their unique voices well enough. To my own detriment, I am obsessed with being as IC as possible when I write fic. Just my personal preference in my writing!

This was my basic ass outline from back in April when I realized I needed to add extra chapters. The checkboxes are chapters drafts I’d finished by that point:

I was about 42k words in when I made it. And the outline changed a little too! I combined my planned chapters for 15 and 16 into one and wrote something else for 16.

And then I got to the bane of my existence, Chapter 13… (≖_≖ ). That was around the 60k mark.

Originally I planned for Astarion to be kidnapped by the spawn and get tortured (a little) and then be rescued by Gale & Co. But it just didn’t feel right. So then I thought “Gale should get kidnapped too, that’ll be more interesting!” And THEN I had Cazador show up. But he was being too…nice? Maybe not nice, but like…too chill/accommodating? Because I didn’t want the fic to get EVEN LONGER by setting Astarion’s progress with his trauma back to the stone ages with prolonged exposure to his abuser.

Originally I had Cazador show up, throw Astarion around a little and then Leon was like “Mister Cazador, sir, he has a tadpole, can we all go somewhere you aren’t so I can take a look at it?” And Cazador was just like “HMPF. OKAY, I GUESS. BUT DON’T FORGET I’M ~EVIL~, even though I’m acting pretty blasé right now!” Cut to Gale, Astarion, and Leon chitchatting in the Favored Spawn room.

And it just…was not fucking working. I felt it didn’t make sense for Cazador. It wasn’t boogeyman enough. Like…no way would he just let them traipse off, even with the tadpole as the reason. Something else needed to happen. Something that would give him an actual reason to have to put Astarion on the back burner. Something BIG!

But fucking WHAT???

My OCD chimed in with: “So happy you asked! Remember that other insecurity you have about being fucking terrible at writing villains? Surprise! It’s true! You’ve hit the biggest part of this fic and now it’s all pointless because you don’t know how to make Cazador be believably mean! Aren’t you glad you wasted three months and 60k words on it? You never finish anything anyway, so why should this be any different?” 

Which is why I brought all of this up to my therapist in the first place. Because I was so fucking disappointed in and frustrated with myself and had all but given up on this fic. I didn’t know what to do next or how to fix what I broke and my motivation to keep writing it was long gone. But if I stopped writing it now, I was 1000% convinced I’d never finish it and I fucking hated that. I was so excited about this story for so long and it felt like it was all over because I “sucked as a writer, lacked commitment, etc.”

It took a while. Like two fucking months, to get out of my own head enough to finally write something I was happy with for chapter 13. I firmly believe I finally got to that point because of how much support and kindness I received from the folks reading my fanfic (who hadn’t found out I was a fraud yet - actual quote from my OCD). I cannot thank all of them enough for helping bolster my self-esteem and helping me get my motivation back! And also because my therapist helped me kill off my own boogeyman of sorts (my OCD around writing)!

Originally I wasn’t going to post this fic until the first draft was completely done. Didn’t matter that I was at 60k words. It wasn’t done, so it wasn’t going up because I hate when people orphan fics. Absolutely no shade to folks who do tho! Life happens! Motivation wanes! But I did A LOT of my own orphaning back in the day on ff.net and I still feel guilty about it to this day. But I pushed past my fear with the encouragement of my therapist and FUCK it paid off!!!

Once I got over the hurdle of writing 12/13, it was pretty much smooth sailing from there. And, omfg, people ACTUALLY LIKED both chapters?! ON GOD?! I felt like they were pretty solid by the time I finally posted them, but it was still hard not to worry I had falsely convinced myself they were good. What if Cazador was TOO mean now? Or what if he still wasn’t mean enough? What if this was too hard of a left turn with the story? What if what if what if…

I seriously cannot thank the folks who’ve commented on both enough for helping allay those fears of mine. It means so fucking much to me that there are so many people out there who were just SO FUCKING KIND to me when they didn’t have to be!  ( ˃̣̣̥︿˂̣̣̥ ) A HUGE thank you to folks who’ve reached out to me or interacted with my posts about my fic on tumblr too, especially asymmetricjest whose ear I know I have talked off at this point in the internet-sense! Knowing there were folks who liked my fic enough to go out of their way to seek me out on tumblr for my Tuesday sneak peeks and to even like my and comment on my posts about writing the fic was a MASSIVE boost to my self confidence! It also made me feel like maybe I had a story worth telling after all! 

I also gotta thank my bff Gourmet for letting me talk her ear off too and for reading the first three chapters before I even posted them. I was SO FUCKING NERVOUS about posting a multi-chapter fic for a brand new fandom (to me). I was especially worried about my characterization of Gale and if it looked like I knew enough about BG3 to be qualified to write a story about it lol. Not that that’s even a thing, but it felt like it to me. Like someone was gonna bust down the door and be like “well, actually” until I gave up on writing and became a hermit in the woods.

Gourmet also made the mistake of telling me sometimes she writes on her phone, which I have taken to heart and then some… I do like 95% of my writing on google docs on my phone now. I went from writing next to nothing to having already written 198,088 words this year. Yes, I’ve been tracking it. Yes, I love spreadsheets. No, I haven’t posted everything I’ve written yet.

That was another thing I struggled with in regard to my OCD. Not just with writing, but with life in general. It’s been so hard for me to accept everything does not have to be perfect before I can do something.

I constantly talk myself out of shit because it’s not perfect. Like:

I should start working out! What’s the research on the perfect amount of exercise? What types? How often? For how long? Etc. And then I come up with a detailed day-by-day routine of working out an hour every day that is not even remotely feasible for me, so I never do it! And I won’t let myself just do 10 random minutes of exercise either because that’s not what the experts said you should do, so that means I can’t do anything! 

Down to shit like, “I can’t work out because my office is a nightmare. There’s too much stuff everywhere.” And “I can’t just go for a short walk by myself. That’s cruel to my dogs who I already don’t walk enough. But if I walk them too, I need to walk them enough, which is at least 20 minutes each. Because a dog should have 30 minutes of exercise a day.” So now my 10 minute impromptu walk has turned into an hour long dog walk because I can’t walk both of them at once (they’re big dogs and I’ve gotten hurt trying to do that before). Which then becomes too intimidating/overwhelming, so I just don’t do it at all! Yay, avoidance!

This is exactly how I’d talk myself out of writing. Just “a real writer would do xyz and since I can’t/don’t, I’m not a real writer. If I don’t write everyday, I’ll never get anywhere. I need at least an hour to write and if I don’t have that, what’s the point? Maybe I’ll just make myself write for 5 minutes a day instead! But that doesn’t feel like enough progress, so that’s not being a real writer.” Just analysis paralysis combined with a hardcore all or nothing mindset. I would spend way too much time focused on my word count each day and beating myself up about it being too low instead of just being happy I was writing, which is something I enjoy doing (ISN’T IT?!).

I used to be a bank teller about a decade ago. It was boring as fuck during the week because there were too many branches around (there was another of our same bank literally one building away from us) so we didn’t get a ton of customers. That resulted in a lot of downtime that I had to fill with something that wouldn’t get me in trouble (i.e. reading or playing on my phone). We also didn’t have internet on our computers as tellers. So I started taking little pocket notebooks with me and writing in between customers. Which was apparently fine! My coworkers would ask me what I was doing and I’d tell them journaling or something like that because I was embarrassed I was writing original romance stuff.

I wound up writing 3 different 50k original works during that time. I’d write in between customers then go home and type up what I wrote every day. And it fucking worked! It gave me something fun to do instead of stare at a wall all day, it kept me from being too perfectionistic about it, and it lowered the demand on my executive function! Win-win-win!

But then I got a different office job where there wasn’t downtime in between tasks (or at least not that you could enjoy without getting in trouble) so that fell by the wayside. I probably could’ve been writing on my work laptop or something instead, but I had undiagnosed ADHD at the time and spent so much time procrastinating while trapped in the office because it didn’t take me that long to do my work. I also didn’t realize a lot of ADHDers procrastinate because then they get a spike of adrenaline as a deadline looms, so. Yeah. Classic ADHD in retrospect.

But writing on my phone is a whole different ballgame! It doesn’t feel like “real” writing. I can do it whenever! Waiting in a doctor’s office? Write! Woke up in the middle of the night? Write! Laying down on the couch with no motivation to move? Write! 

It lowers the barrier for my executive function because I always have my phone on me! No longer am I like “do I have enough time to go to trouble of opening my laptop, opening my google doc, trying to remember where I was, etc” and getting too worked up over having “dedicated” writing time because otherwise I’m not a real writer. There aren’t all these mental hurdles I have to leap over anymore. It’s just “I want to write” > “picks up phone”.

Do I feel fucking deranged writing almost 200k words so far on my phone? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY I DO! Could I write way faster on my laptop? 10000%! But it works! So I try not to think about it too much, lol. I have started editing more on my laptop though because editing on my phone takes for fucking ever. Editing in general takes me for fucking ever.

But yeah, this was wildly fucking long but I just had a lot of stuff I wanted to mentally process about this whole process because it’s been a really fucking big deal for me. And writing stuff out helps me process it.

If you’ve actually read all of this, you are a saint and I hope some of it resonated with you, especially if you’re a writer too. And, even if you aren’t, I hope it was at least interesting/entertaining!

God, I am so pre-upset about finishing this fic, lol. I don’t want it to end. It’s given me so much structure to my weeks and so much to look forward to. It’s gonna fuck with me once it’s over and I have to find other stuff to occupy my time and I don’t get my Wednesday dopamine hit. I mean, I’m hoping I’ll be writing something else by then (I do have an HH fic that’s 30k+ words already that I need to finish). But I fucking hate change and it’s gonna be a big change for me after I’ll have spent around 7 months on this whole thing.

But seriously, I cannot thank the phenomenal folks who’ve supported me along the way by reading, kudosing, bookmarking, subscribing, commenting, etc enough! This fic would not have gotten written without your support! And thank fuck for my therapist too because I had literally no idea my OCD was so obsessed with my writing until I was in the midst of this fic.

But yeah, it's been super cathartic to journal about my process with this fic and how I've learned and grown from writing it. And my OCD is definitely not completely gone when it comes to my writing, but it's more manageable at present and I'm def gonna take that as a win!

[causenessus]

HI HI HI HI NESS IM BACKKFJFKSMSOS so first of all tumblr hates me why is that the FOURTH ask of mine u answered that i wasnt notified of should i just die

anyways im eating lunch rn

healthy girl era did not work out i took a 6 hour (?) nap yesterday so!!

trying again today

N E WAYS

today the teacher told us her old students were too non che lent (nonchalant!!) so they failed the exam (wat.)

and my friend wanted to laugh about it w me but i wasnt looking so she yeeted my OTHER friends eraser at me

but it

it hit (near?) the teacher..

she was sooo mad omfg

giggling i hate her

like basically i answer all her questions out of spite now like YEAH BRO I KNOW THIS ALR😕😕

Also i swear i dif this math problem right but the teacher said it was wrong (wat.) and my friend did it too and we got the same answer (wat.)

i wrote fanfiction at school ☝️😎 it has already been digitalised but like i DID write it

and tjen my friend read an original short story (? 1.2k words) i wrote which was basically me projecting and she almost cried so like Uh

slay???

dude i love talking so much u have no idea actually

ALSO THE THING ABOUT THE ENRGY LIKe I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY OMG SO I GET EXCITED YK

n e ways..

i was watching american psycho last night but i got distracted..😭 ALSO IM SO EXCITED ABT ONICS LIKE EUSHEPSHAPSJXOSKAJDKAAKKDKD

>tries 2 normal

>fails

OK SO!! HRU AND WHATS GOING ON IN UR LIFE AND IF U EVER NEED TO HIRE A HITMAN IM HERE FOR U ❤️‍🩹 as the hitman btw ❤️‍🩹

U SHOULD NOT DIE!!! TUMBLR SHOULD DIE HOW DARE THEY!!! i am so confused at like what is happening at tumblr hq 😭😭 like there are problems that need to be solved!!!! and i feel like they should be pretty simple to fix!!! but instead they're like "NO LET'S MAKE TAGGING USERS GO BLUE AND COMMENTS UGLY"

but anyway!! i hope your lunch was good!! AND A SIX HOUR NAP SOUNDS AMAZING AND JUST AS PRODUCTIVE AS WORKING OUT!! it's hard to balance everything so definitely don't stress too much about it!! you have your whole life ahead of you to like do something like working out so not doing it one day is totally okay!! (yk?? i hope that made sense and i'm sorry i hope it's okay to say that 😭)

??? nonchalant -> failing exam???? i do not see the correlation??? 😭 YOUR TEACHER IS VV SPECIAL!! IS THIS THE ONE THAT TEACHES ENGLISH BUT ISN'T....ACTUALLY....THAT GREAT....AT ENGLISH??? 😭 OR MAYBE IT'S UR MATH TEACHER BC U ALSO SAID SOMETHING ABOUT THAT BUT THE ERASER ALMOST HITTING YOUR TEACHER IS CRAZY I WOULD'VE DIED ON THE SPOT 😭😭

also math teachers love to like??? tell u ur wrong and then not explain how to correctly do something??? so i think u should just blame them for everything!! that sounds fair <3

I'VE ALSO WRITTEN FANFICTION AT SCHOOL LMAOOO i remember being on my computer during french class and my guy was just so boring i pulled out the doc and started writing but LUCKILY it was like an oc fic so it wasn't as scary to write as a x reader UNLIKE WHEN I WAS MAKING TONIC PFPS AND MY DOCUMENT WAS LITERALLY CALLED LIKE yn & atsumu and for some reason all of my friends wanted to COME UP FROM BEHIND ME AND HUG ME!! OR LOOK AT MY SCREEN!! and i was just 😃😃😃 but i have no shame so oh well

THE ORIGINAL SHORT STORY SOUNDS GOOD!! ESP IF IT ALMOST MADE YOUR FRIEND CRY?? 😭 I HOPE YOU'RE DOING ALRIGHT THOUGH <3 AND I LOVE HEARING YOU TALK!! PLEASE TALK AS MUCH AS YOU WANT I WILL READ EVERYTHING YOU TELL ME <33

I'M SO SO GLAD YOU'RE EXCITED FOR TONICS!! I AM TOO <333 I'M SLOWLY PLANNING IT OUT LIKE ONE CHAPTER AT A TIME AND I'M LITERALLY SHAKING WITH EXCITEMENT OMG OMG OMG <33

THANK U LINA!!! I WOULD LOVE FOR U TO BE MY HITMAN <33 I MAY NEED ONE JUST TO GET THRU SCHOOL BC MY HALLS FR ARE SCARY SOMETIMES YK?? like too many scary girls who look me up and down in their little crop tops and shorts and nike air forces and are like "why are u wearing pants in the summer" BC I CAN?? AND I DON'T LIKE SHOWING THAT MUCH SKIN THANK U?? (sorry this probably makes no sense i think my brain has short circuited today </33) BUT I'M DOING ALR!!! i'm stressed about my theatre duties starting up very very soon 😭😭 but i'll let u know how that goes once they start!!! I HOPE YOU'RE DOING WELL TODAY!!! AND EAT SOMETHING GOOD <33

[rriavian]

ooooo this ask game has a lot of good ones. How about:

🐌 What is one of your smallest writing goals?

👾 Do you have any "bad" writing habits you want to break?

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

🐌 What is one of your smallest writing goals?

My aim is to finish a few smaller projects in the first six months of this year. I’ve got some prompts in my inbox that I’m finishing fics for (all smaller stories) and I'd like to keep to a goal of regularly filling prompts this year.

I’ve also got another Corintheus ficlet I want to finish, and Cursed is a shorter piece. So a rough goal is the get those two out for February and then do the rest in whatever time they need :)

 👾 Do you have any "bad" writing habits you want to break?

I think my bad habits are the other sides of my good habits, if that makes sense? The billions of ideas I’m always having can mean that unless I catch that wave when it happens, it feels like I’ve not done anything with that thought and just stalled instead. My own brain can quickly swamp me, and that can make me then struggle to finish. So I’m trying to pace myself better and be less stressed about ‘right now immediately’.

I also tend to write a little chaotically. Prose out of order, leaving rough sentences/ideas as place holders, but this doesn’t always work for longer projects. It can leave some tricky bits to clean up at the end. I can dip back in and be like aha! I know exactly what this needs, but it can also trip me up and stall me.

I’ve got a relatively flexible style, I’ve taken some different approaches in different fandoms and/or fics. Though Baiting the Trap and its specific tone/style was very much something I’d already practised in another series. Just not as explicit and not quite as poetic (the Corinthian’s POV naturally seems to be very lyrical, though not in the same way as Dream's). 

To keep flexibility I like to shake things up and do something completely new to keep myself from losing an edge and getting lazy. Not that I think I am a lazy writer, but I have ways to make sure I’m taking the same care and thought every time. Prompts from other people really help with this as I love considering new angles and tropes.

When something is hard/new I think we go more carefully, and are forced to be more novel, and I really really like improving my skills by doing that. It’s helped me write some of my favourite work.

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

There are two secret Corintheus fics I wrote alongside those for Corintheus week that need a last edit before posting but I’m being very quiet about what they are :) should be a nice surprise! I’m also very proud of my Corintheus ‘divorce au’ that I still need do some work on before I post. I think the one I’m most excited about is probably role reversal au because when finished it’s going to be the longest fic I’ve yet posted that’s not split into a series. It'll also be the longest fic I’ve written in years.

It’s quite ambitious, and will probably have a sequel. I’ve planned the second arc out because I had to split the original fic in two. There’s lots of threads as well as other relationship dynamics and subplots. It’s about Dream and the Corinthian of course, but also very much about how they interact with other characters. Death shows up quite a lot, but I would say that Lucienne and Gault are the other really major characters in the fic.

I’m also branching out into other parings/writing some more gen fics. And, as an honourable mention, what was intended as the last two parts of Baiting the Trap have both been written for over a year and every single day I just want to share where it’s going. Unfortunately there’s at least two more in the middle, which I’m also excited about, but when I get to it I’m going to feel so relieved. 

Oh! And the Corintheus seduction au! Goodness I’m excited about everything aren’t I? Though I guess that sums me up! Thank you so much for your questions I hope you enjoyed my answers :)

[sunsetkerr]

Hi there! I got a question:

I've seen a few things with the whole Sam situation and, honestly, I've got no idea what's happening. Would you mind explaining it, because I feel so stupid not knowing anything about what's happening💀

hi love! I am probably not the best person to explain this whole thing, but I will try to the best of my ability! I've broken this up into sections so my brain can compute it all lol.

this is a long post.. so strap in!

(I'm also going to reference this shit so people don't get upset with me)

The Incident / The Accusing / PC Lovell

So January 30th 2023, there is a dispute around a taxi-fare in Twickenham, South-West London. Sam was accused by the attending officer of "[using] insulting, threatening or abusive words that caused alarm or distress to a Metropolitan Police officer who was responding to a complaint involving a taxi fare".

There is zero mention of the case until yesterday (5th of March, in Australia).

We are now aware that the attending officer who accused Sam has been identified in court as, PC Lovell.

(Now, @moonystoes posted a lot of information here, if you would like to read it- and that is where I am getting this next lot of information from.)

There is an officer named PC Lovell, who we will now refer to with the number 1 for clarity, that has been accused, and I believe convicted, of some horrid things in Avon and Somerset (2 hours and 33 minutes away from where the alleged incident occurred).

These incidents include, posting revenge p*rn of three different women, sending unsolicited nude photos to a number of his female colleagues and acted in a described 'predatory' manner towards a cadet who was a minor at the time. He has been given both verbal and written warnings in 2006 and 2016 for his actions.

However, an anonymous person came forwards and communicated with @moonystoes that there is a PC Lovell (2) that works in Surrey (20 minutes away from where the alleged incident occurred), and another PC Lovell (3) that lives in Reading (50 minutes away from where the alleged incident occurred).

!There is no knowledge on if these officers are the same person!

So please, do not jump to conclusions as people do not want to be dismissing the claims on an innocent man.

There is lots of speculation that if it is PC Lovell (1) from Avon & Somerset, that the claims and allegations against Sam could hold little validity, due to his past.

But please remember, we are not aware of the full story and these allegations against Sam are serious and not to be taken lightly. Racism is a serious issue and is not okay. Please take caution when approaching this issue and be kind.

The Case / The Law / Potential Imprisonment / Comments from Football Australia and her Coaches

Sam's teams original defence has been reported as this: "she didn’t intend to cause alarm, harassment or distress to the officer and that her behaviour did not amount to it and it was not racially aggravated".

If Sam is convicted, these are the laws that will be applied: "Under Section 4 or 4a of the Public Order Act 1986, under which she was charged, the racially or religiously aggravated version of an offence can attract a maximum penalty on summary conviction, which is six months imprisonment or an unlimited fine or both."

Football Australia and Matildas Coach, Tony Gustavsson have only just found out about the news at the same time that the public did. There has been talk about stripping Sam of her captaincy, but this has not come from Football Australia themselves, they have denied it.

Football Australia CEO, James Johnson, has communicated that he will not be asking Sam to stand down from her captaincy. This has been decided due to the fact that she (most likely) will not be playing for the remainder of the year as she recovers from her ACL injury.

Johnson also said this about Sam: "Sam has rights as an individual. She has pleaded not guilty. I think we need to remember that and we need to respect that.” // “I haven’t spoken to Sam other than a text message just to check in on her well being at the moment because she is an employee of ours and also a player.”

Tony Gustavsson had this to say: “I can’t comment on the offence because there’s a legal matter at this point. The only thing I can comment is my experience and interaction with Sam as a person and as a footballer, and I have only positive experience with that,”.

The Defence / Throwing the Case out

Moving onto the case itself, Sam's team is now fighting (as of the 6th of March, Australia) to get the case thrown out before it reaches the court date, which is February 3rd 2025.

On April 26th, Sam's defence team is going back into court and fighting to get the case thrown out after it took over 12 months to even lay the charge on Sam.

"Court documents released on Tuesday show their plan is to argue an abuse of process by Crown prosecutors after it took almost 12 months to lay the charge."

So until April, we most likely will not know anymore information. Again, please remain kind. These are not allegations to be taken lightly.

Hopefully this answered any questions that you had! The articles that I got this information from are linked below for your convenience.

Much love, celeste

Articles:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-06/sam-kerr-criminal-charge-no-comment-from-fa-chelsea/103550968

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/kerr-s-legal-team-seeks-to-have-charge-dismissed-over-abuse-of-process-20240306-p5fa5b.html

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/samantha-kerr-to-face-trial-in-england-accused-of-harassing-police-officer-report-20240305-p5f9up.html

https://www.news.com.au/sport/football/plan-to-turn-sam-kerrs-racism-saga-on-its-head-emerges/news-story/645078ee226373d13a19e84284d5958e

https://www.foxsports.com.au/football/matildas/sam-has-rights-football-aus-responds-as-matildas-coach-blindsided-by-kerr-allegation/news-story/6b1bc996c897856bb0ebd8e8f1f90038

https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/samantha-kerr-to-face-trial-in-england-accused-of-harassing-police-officer-report-20240305-p5f9up.html

[andromebaa]

My 2023 Writing Wrap Up

Stole this idea from Lovova lmao. Let’s see if I can figure out what I’ve been writing this year. I mean, we all know what I’ve been writing but let’s just see it in words:

January

Starting the year strong by not really doing much. Might have been dabbling with some OCs but nothing too notable.

February

Uploaded the start of a fic version of my play-by-post Danganronpa AU Despair’s Legacy to my brand new AO3 account before promptly leaving it to rot. Also uploaded the first chapter of a silly little Oumota fic that I wrote for funsies. This is the start of the Just the Two of Us brainrot. To prove it, I then proceeded to write and upload five more chapters.

Addendum: Completely forgot that the first fic I ever uploaded to my AO3 this month was my Ishimaru/reader smut I wrote like six years ago lmaoooo gotta remember your roots

March

Went cazy and uploaded six more chapters of Just the Two of Us. I was officially obsessed.

Also started doing some initial planning for my other two danganhorror fics.

April

Brain started exploding so I only uploaded three Just the Two of Us chapters this month. Also wrote the side smut story for it, Defragmentation, over the Easter weekend.

May

Started the far more sustainable action of writing only one chapter of Just the Two of Us a month. Also started planning the Moulin Rouge Oumota au that I never finished - sad!

June

Began planning for Oumota Week 2023. Wrote a small sci-fi/horror fic called Facsimile for a Kaito/Maki writing week. Published another two chapters of Just the Two of Us.

July

Through some unholy will I published seven seperate short fics for Oumota week ranging from a mermaid au to a silly family au and a short Haiku poem based on the origin of the Tanabata festival. Somehow published another chapter of Just the Two of Us as well.

August

Wrote my official oneshot smut for Oumota as part of the package deal which I’m doing for each of my main danganhorror fics. Also managed to complete another chapter of the Just the Two of Us. Also started writing REDACTED.

September

Another chapter of Just the Two of Us successfully uploaded!

October

The final chapter of Just the Two of Us is uploaded and I finally allowed myself to rest for like a week or two before going back to the grind.

November

Ceremoniously failed to work on an original junior/YA story for NaNoWriMo and just like start working on my next Danganhorror fic Every Day is Exactly the Same.

December

Uploaded the first chapter of my next Danganhorror fic aka the one where Yasuhiro ends up in a time loop. Got nasty bad Togakure brainrot and proceeded to spend most of the month jumping between the main fic and the smut one shot.

Aaaaand that’s a wrap up! It’s been a very very productive year and although it’s almost all been fic stuff I’ve never been more proud of myself. I started and finished a 140,000 word fic and also wrote almost a dozen short fics on the side too.

I can’t wait to see what this new year will bring! I’m definitely not going to go too hard and burn out but I hope I’ll still be productive! My biggest goal will be to finish Every Day is Exactly the Same and hopefully start a new non-fic project too.

Let’s see how it goes!

[cate-deriana]

Answer the Questions and Tag 5 Fanfic Authors

@pfirsichspritzer Thank you so much for the tag, it was so a lot of fun and I had to really think about my answers.

1 . How did you get into writing fanfiction?

In my case it's a funny question actually, because the first thing I've ever written was a fanfiction. But that was long before I even knew what fanfiction was or that it existed, simply because I was about eight or nine and wrote something about Digimon Adventure on my dad's computer. So I did it long before I knew that was actually a thing.

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

About five or six I think, but sometimes it was really only one story. Oh, and I also did some crossovers (fandoms not included in the above count).

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

Ok, let me do the math... as I started with eight/nine it's now about 24 years... is this real? Omg, I'm old, haha. Though there were always years in between were life got in the way and I didn't write anything.

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I'd like to say it's write, but it's definitely read. Also, I think you can only really become better and know what a certain fandom likes and wants to read, if you read a lot.

5. What is one way you’ve improved as a writer?

Honestly I can't really pinpoint that exactly. I think it's really a matter of progress over a long period of time. Reading helps, of course, immensely. But also (as cliché as that might sound) life experience. Actually I always liked to incorporate personal side stories into my fanfictions. And I think I am not taking the same things as overly serious as now, I'm a lot calmer now.

6. What’s the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Can't really spontaneously name a topic, but as I am over-invested in always getting characters as close to the original as possible so the story feels "real" I once re-watched countless of episodes of a certain anime to make a chart in excel on how character x adresses character y, z and so on... It was a lot of work.

7. What’s your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

I like every simple little 'I liked your story' or just an emoji or the longer ones equally. But I once got a review for a story were I tried to make sense of an anime's ending and I really poured my heart into that one and the reviewer commented with 'you relieved my heart'. It still makes me so happy.

8. What’s the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

The most niche think I've ever done was more the way I wrote a story. I decided on about 30 random sentences before starting and while writing threw a dice to determine which sentence I had to use right at that point in the story. It was so much fun, I recommend to try that out, it's a great challenge.

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

Real and believable romance and intimacy.

10. What is the easiest type?

Stories that are funny just in order to be funny and nothing more.

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

On the computer. Has always been that way, I am not fast enough for my brain to do it on paper, though I write down ideas in my notebook. I'm (nearly) always carrying something to write on. My best writing times had been evenings mostly, but I can write anytime I am in the mood or really force myself to do it - setting a timer for an hour has really helped me a lot recently.

12. What is something you’ve been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

A really cool fighting scene, preferably with swords.

13. What made you choose your username?

It's the name of a character I originally designed for myself, to represent myself (like an avatar you could say). Deriana comes from browsing an atlas. It's a great way to come up with names. I just use whatever city, river or whatever sounds nice to me and alter the word a little.

I've no idea who has been tagged already, but I'll try. If you've already done this please just ignore me :D @worldofkaeos @ariadnekurosaki @eudociacovert @womaninwinter @photorose11