#i love how many of these are like

[nemaliwrites]

2025 WIP Cleanout

anyway i was thinking about Jessica Abel's thoughts on idea debt and @/bettsfic's newsletter on triaging wips and realized there is a LOT of drawerfic i have that my brain refuses to actually leave in the proverbial drawer

it was easy then to be like 'ok whatever i'll just scrap this' but harder to realize that...i don't actually want to scrap them

i don't know if it's the ideas themselves that keep haunting me or the potential that i know those stories can have if only i put the work in - so here is me, vowing to put the work in

i've got 4 fics, over 300k more words to write, and a plan of action for all of them - here's everything i've got on the list (they all have titles too so that's how you know i'm serious about them LOL)

Something Man-Made is Here

Beef, Amy/Danny, Amy/Paul

this one is what inspired this cleanout bc i've literally had this fic on the backburner FOREVER :') i first started it back in june 2023 and wrote like 20k words before taking a break. then i picked it back up for nano 2023 and wrote the 50k before taking another break. finally in july 2024 i wrote the last 30k and then promptly buried the doc so deep in my folders that i didn't look at it again

i do think this one has good bones and is worth polishing up, but i mean, to state the obvious...absolutely no one is going to read this. there are like 10 fics for this fandom - for so long i've been feeling like it would be a waste of time to fix this up.

but!!! it wouldn't!!!! because as we have established, this will keep haunting me until i actually do something about it. so! plan of action

currently, the draft is around 100k and 27 chapters. but! it is a mess

i think the final chapter count will actually be less....chapters 24-27 feel like they could be consolidated into one or two, just to tighten up the pacing a bit

the entire thing also needs probably a straight up rewrite so....that will be fun

a lot of the smaller things this needs - a sweep for pacing, characterization, etc etc - will probably be covered in the rewrite so i just need to put the time in

final word count will probably be somewhere around 80-100k? i think a lot of what i have will be cut and replaced, so it'll also be tightened up

2. Hold Up Our Mirrors

AI: The Somnium Files, Iris & Saito

started this one back in february 2023...wow. it's currently sitting at 17k words, but i think the reason i dropped it is because it has no audience except for me [do you see a pattern here...] and also because it needed a lot of canon review that i wasn't really in the mood to do

this one also has good bones! back when i started this, i found the theme/motif that i wanted it to center around, so that's a lot of the groundwork done.

canon reviewwww.....i have no idea who these people are anymore.

probably will scrap most of what i have and start fresh, mostly bc i was in a very different place when i wrote this and i think starting over will help put me back into the headspace of the story

good bones good bones!! i actually have most of the major beats of the story already written down, so most of the rewrite's focus will be on characterization rather than plot

i don't think this one should be very long? [fully aware that i will probably eat my words] i was thinking around 50k, so we'll see

3. Swim Back to Your Shore

Persona 4, Yu & Nanako, Yu & Investigation Team

ahhh another fic that will only appeal to me. this one is actually more recent than the others on the list..i started it back in august 2024. so far, i've got 29k written, but about 20k of that was written with dictation, so it's more of a zero draft than anything coherent.

the first like...8k though, i'm actually quite happy with! don't think it'll require as much work as the rest

okiee first of all, need to rewrite all of the dictation-written chapters (5 of them) into something resembling prose

after that, actually, i think it's just writing the rest? the plot is like.....a vague mishmash of things that only exists in my head, so finding the right thread to pull might take a while

thinking around 80k for this one

4. Maybe Life Will Love You Home

Miraculous Ladybug, Shadybug/Claw Noir

so this one might actually appeal to people other than me!! all....two of you LOL

started this one back in may 2024, and originally meant to finish it for the ML big bang, but..idk the vibes were off, so i scrapped that idea. this one's currently sitting at 15k, but i think i need to start fresh with this one too.

read through what i have and cannibalize it for ideas

just write! for this one at least, the plot is a bit more concrete in my head? maybe bc i've been thinking about it for so long....haunting me...

thinking also around 80k for this one!

deadline for all of these is by the end of the year, 2025. godspeed, future me

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[notherpuppet]

Good morning 🍎📻

[hinamie]

I don't want to regret the way I lived

[clarisse-doodles]

inspired by this post, in which Damian does not know what Vine is

[magicicephoenix]

i finally finished reading I see you, Sundrop! by @shirajellyfish and IT'S SO GOOD I CAN'T BELIEVE IT TOOK ME THIS LONG TO FINISH IT RAAAAAAA

i will be gushing about it in the tags but here's a lil animation i made based on the below paragraph in chapter 6 that gave me such a strong mental image that i had to make it real :)

[heartorbit]

if we could stay connected, just like this

[inkskinned]

the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.

women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.

what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.

i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.

fuck, man. write better material.

a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.

god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.

this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.

we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.

i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -

it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.

[akanemnon]

I don't like this place. It's turning everyone edgy and sad.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Vanessa’s thoughts when meeting Abby..

[abnomi]

been trying to get back into animation

original gif below ^^ teehee!

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[hinamie]

"I'll show you every day that choosing to live was worth it"

some of my favourite scenes from @hijinks-n-lowjinks' fic things i would miss from the other side . this fic tore my heart out fr but like in a good way and i wanted to pay it homage the only way i know how <3

[yannisdesk]

The only people in Arcane thus far acting with any sort of decency are Ekko & Mel. While they're on opposite sides of the river, both have been through hell and back in the last week(?) or so and they're still prioritizing peace and preserving life. Other characters should take notes. Just saying.

[calypsolemon]

dance on a razor's edge