#i think i'll get started on that rewrite right now while i'm excited to get back to it and then it'll be easier to continue tomorrow

[beneathsilverstars]

finished writing the nille fic it goes so fucking hard now to find a beta and think up up a title- wait just thought of the title right now, it's a very obvious one, i love when a story has themes. ok nille fic soooon

[crescencestudio]

๋࣭⭑ Devlog 37 | 1.29.24 ๋࣭⭑

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Hope the holiday season and the new year have been treating you all well <3 I've been hard at work this past month to get the revamped demo out to you all soon, so let's jump right into things ^^

This past month, most of my writing has been focused on the revamped demo, finishing Etza's first draft, and Druk's developmental edits.

The revamped demo is FINISHED w writing edits!!!! That honestly took way more time than I thought, but because I wrote the demo basically two years ago at this point, a lot of my writing style has changed. So while some people might think it is an unnecessary time sink, it was important for me to rewrite the scenes I could so that it felt like it accurately portrayed how the routes are looking. And, because my writing skills are better than basically 0, which is where I was starting when I first wrote the demo, I can better write a script that's closer to my vision of the game.

....So THAT ended up taking a while!!! BUT I finished that this month, which was a huge accomplishment to me and I feel much happier with the Alaris script than before, where I kinda... well, hated it. LOL

In-Game Sneak Peek: New Choices HEHEHE

Etza's draft is making good progress. I'm JUST ABOUT done with their first draft YAY!!! As I mentioned before, writing for the full game routes will be a bit slower for now since I'm now balancing more game stages than before (like coding, sprites, etc.). But I was pretty happy with Etza's progress this month since it does feel like the finish line is pretty close for their first draft ^^

And then Druk's edits are just about wrapping up!! Wudgey and I have been having lots of fun with Druk's route, and it's shaped up to be a personal favorite just because of how enjoyable the editing process has been, so I hope you all are excited for it!

For art, I've gotten some more backgrounds commissioned from Vui for the full game. I also decided to update the prologue art for the demo and commissioned dear friend @saffein-e for some prologue art and..... WELL..... SHE'S STUNNING. I'll let the prologue preview speak for itself HEH

In-Game Preview: New Prologue feat. New Art and Fade-in Text Effect

I'm so happy with it, and in general seeing the demo come together with all the new assets has been RRRRGGGHHH!!!!! I've coded most of the screens by now, but I don't want to show them all quite yet. I'll show one preview of the new communicator screens.

Communicator Feature: Texting (left) and Phone Calls (right)

First is the texting screen, and then I also updated the phone call screen! The sprites now not only emote (kinda like video call vibes), but they also auto-highlight based on who is talking!

Most of my miscellaneous stuff has to do with coding the demo. I've been doing a LOT of backend coding to make the game more polished. First is the example above with the communicator phone call feature. Without getting too into coding jargon, it basically is like a new version of the normal sprites so that it feels more interactive, with seeing the characters emote while talking to you, and has the auto-highlight function so that it is clear who is talking during a phone call!

I'm adding more camera work to the demo, more vfx/sfx to make things more immersive, and overall just adding a lot of polish to the game. It's been a lot of work, since it's involved adding alternative textboxes, cleaning up old code, revamping things (like sprites and other images), etc. But it's been worth it to see everything come together!

In-Game Preview: Pop-up Codex now instead of separate screen!

I'm hoping the beta demo can be done by the end of this week or next, so if you all would like access to it, please feel free to subscribe to my Patreon for this upcoming month! Highest tier gets access to beta builds for $10 <3

Finally, In other news, I DID release Intertwine: Another Life this month LMFAOOO

If you haven't gotten a chance to play it, please do! There's almost double the amount of script content. I've been doing an awful job of promoting it since I've been in the coding trenches. But I do appreciate the reception so far!! It was honestly bigger than I thought it would be, and I'm always so grateful for everyone's support ^^ Very happy you all liked the extra bit of content with Van <33333

For market research, I didn't do anything this past month. I DID play Date with Death in December and had massive brainrot from it. In fact, I made two fanarts of little Grimmy LMFAOOOO.

I'm sure most of you have played it, but if you haven't this is your sign to go play it. It's a free game and the amount of polish and features in it are crazy, so please show the dev team some love!!!

Hoping to have the revamped demo out soon, and the beta demo out even sooner. Hope you all have a great rest of your month, and I'll talk to you soon! <3

[alicelufenia]

Just finished Book 5 and holy shit there is so much

Before getting into the spoilers, I feel like this is my favorite book so far, even squeezing out over 2.

This was an absolutely packed installment but let me just start with this: I got into this series for Catherine Foundling (and don't get me wrong I'm still in for her, and she was amazing in this book), but I think I'm finishing for Akua.

Like how did I go from "FUCK YOU AKUA SAHELIAN" to "HOLY SHIT I LOVE AKUA SAHELIAN" in just 2 books? Granted I was already getting on board with book 4, but this sealed it; I anticipate amazing things happening with her character (will it end positive, I honestly don't know, but the fact I could see it going either way and it'd seem right makes me so excited)

The fact she just sorta has a body now for all intents and purposes and has to interact with others already is interesting. And Catherine's change in attitude towards her was a pleasant surprise. Things changed so much between Cat, Akua and Indrani after the Everdark.

I'm still a little unclear, but when Sve Noc took Winter's mantle, Catherine lost that collared control over Akua, but despite the chance to slip free she stayed. And most likely saved Archer's life after the big battle. So like it or not Cat can't help but harbor some fondness for the shade. And thus begins what I'm thinking of as "redemption as long price", where Cat's stopped randomly torturing Akua (if she even can anymore), and instead threatens to teach her to care about other people so there's a sense of loss and regret when she finally kills her some day. WTF that's so messed up Cat and I am SO ON BOARD.

And it doesn't involve like, forcing her to do anything she wasn't already doing (being useful to Cat), but also just treating her with respect and dignity, inviting her to friend gatherings, and it seems to be working cause it's painful in a way she's not used to dealing with. This woman barely made a sound when Black made her stab herself, now she's getting bent out of shape at the fact that people were genuinely welcoming, and didn't give her the cold shoulder at a campfire gathering.

Now I know there are spoilers out there, and you don't compare a character to Zuko Avatar the Last Airbender lightly, so for now all I know for certain is, there's payoff, and people have written essays on her character. So I'll take that for the invitation to plow through the last few books that it is and see for myself. But I think she may be my 2nd favorite now, and may gun for that #1 by the time we're done. Will just have to see. And then the rewrite novels are coming out this year, and there's the webtoon AAAHJHHHDKSH

So if you thought I was obsessed with this series before, oh boy we've got so much more to look forward to. I still need to find the ttrpg someone was working on.

Moving on from Akua, I absolutely LOVE High Priestess of the Everdark Catherine! She's so fuckin cool with the staff and night powers and her strange relationship to her patron sister goddesses. You'd think being beholden to a pair of ritual murder goddesses would be more of a problem then holding Winter's mantle, but if anything the return to mortality was the best thing that ever happened to her. She's so much calmer and collected now, she's doing real diplomacy, actually trying to minimize deaths on both sides (while admittedly riding on her infamy for intimidation), and while she doesn't exactly worship Sve Noc, she does a great job as a religious leader to the drow (even calls them "my people" a few times). I'm just saying finding faith did a lot of good for her, and she still technically doesn't worship Below.

The fanart is also really sick (love how the Cloak of Woe frames this whole piece!)

Anyway, while my opinion of Akua changed dramatically, I have been in Tyrant's corner from the moment he appeared in the book 1 epilogue. And then book 5 catapults him to possibly the best Villain in this entire series! That this Saturday morning goofball who operates on cartoon logic earned that accolade is a testament to the writing in this series, and his eternal friendship with Cat was a treat from start to finish.

Everyone wanted Kairos dead from first meeting, he betrayed everyone and everything constantly, and he STILL got what he wanted in the end, and even managed to leave Cat a gift when one of his generals joins her army afterwards. Everyone may have been his eternal friend, but I think what Kairos had with Catherine was special. She was the only one to really understand him, to the point where she almost misses him despite him being The Worst. It makes my twisted zenoswol heart go pitter patter.

Speaking of romance, Archer and Cat! NOT romantic as they both insist, but, I'm still going to count it for the fact they care deeply for each other. They even have a fight early on that is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for earlier, where a couple has a disagreement that they work through together. Indrani had a brush with mortality in the Everdark, plus with Catherine now nameless and a mortal, she throws a fit at her for risking her life recklessly still, knowing one mistake can lead to a sword through her throat and that's it for her.

And they have a serious talk about it because it's just as much Indrani afraid for herself too, as she comes from a toxic background where she was taught to rely only on herself, and if her best isn't enough someday then she's a failure. Cat has to show her that it's her mortality that grounds her now, her limp meaning she won't wield a sword and shield anymore so she can't just stab every problem. And they have a real heart to heart over it! Which pays off much later when Indrani gets jibbed by the Dead King, and even though the Grey Pilgrim revives her, she still put her life on the line to save Masego, whatever the risk.

So, to sum up the Woe Polycule:

Cat and Indrani are friends with benefits

Cat Looks Respectfully at Akua while facing the camera and shaking her head to indicate she doesn't approve

Indrani will literally kill for either of them

Cat and Hakram have no physical attraction yet are soulmates to the degree getting married would be an insufficient reflection of what they have

Indrani and Masego have a non physical, non romantic friendship based on mutual curiosity and horizon seeking

I don't really know where Vivienne fits in yet, but she gets along much better with Hakram now that she's accepted the loss of her name

I'd also like to note, while the series has kept well to its YA roots and never gets too descriptive past a fade to black, we do at least get a couple hints from banter between Cat and Archer as to what the former likes in bed. That being she "likes it rough", enjoys having her hands tied, and her hair pulled. Which I mean, nice, and makes sense to me considering how much she needs to maintain control in her life, that giving up a little when intimate is appealing to her.

I'm happy for these beautiful, emotionally broken sweethearts.

Again speaking of, the Grey Pilgrim! This was the book where Cat really starts interacting with heroes in a sense that they're not trying to kill her all the time. Which makes sense cause they need every hero on their side they can get to fight the Dead King, so it's time for that new brand of Foundling diplomacy. By which I mean she keeps making good faith attempts at working together but SO many heroes don't seem to realize you can't treat an ally like a bound enemy and be surprised when they snap at you.

And don't get me wrong, Tariq does get better, but some of these heroes you'd think if a villain told them "You're lucky I was there to save you or you wouldn't be alive" and somehow take that as a threat. And I get it! I've played, watched, and read countless heroic stories, and even when the villain gives heartfelt speeches, the heroes still oppose them because the story makes them right anyway. And if the heroes otherwise would empathize with the villain's plea, it's during their dying scene. It's how these stories work. And then you've got this story, with a villain protagonist who keeps trying to reach out, whom we see all of her inner thoughts, justification, and doubts, and more likely than not gets slapped down out of political necessity, or by a hero who wants to ignore what she says and focus on her evil darkness night magic. Hell I'd be frustrated too! Frankly everyone in Procer ought to be lucky her lakeomancy days are over.

Then who does Cat meet but Hanno the White Knight, the chillest champion of Above ever, and I think the first hero to actually try talking to her first. Granted they met on good terms, but he actually hears her out, and gives a good explanation to how he utilizes Judgement the fairest he can. He even listens to what she has to say about the Liesse Accords, finds a lot to like. And then says he was warned she'd be charming and silver tongued. And she's nervous at first, until he clarifies he likes what she's proposing and understands it's not all her own ideas, he's just holding off committing himself even if that's his impulse. And it makes sense she'd flinch cause she's so used to getting burned by heroes when she's trying so hard.

I was so nervous that Hanno was gonna bite it by the very end, but I think losing Judgement was an interesting development for him. Shoutout to Hierarch for being so crazy about laws of the people and by the people and for the people, that he pulls a "if you can't beat them, join them" on the Choir of Judgement, and becomes the divine obstructionist. We'll never know how Catherine would have been judged with White Knight's coin, but after these two became allies I think I trust Hanno's judgement more than I ever trusted Judgement.

We end on a dire but oddly hopeful point. Neshamah will continue his war, Black is gone, back to the Wasteland to kneel before Malicia (and is back with Hye ugggh I don't like it, but I guess we're learning more about the Lady of the Lake soon), most of the League have dropped out, the Legions-in-exile got brain jacked to return as well, all the highest officers in the Callowan army are suspect (which means poor eternally suffering Abigail now has to cope with being—temporary—Marshal. But the Principate stands, a united front of Procerans, Callowans, and Dominion will face the Dead King, Vivienne is heiress-regeant to Cat's queenship, and, for better or worse, Tariq and Hanno can both feel Cat is on the verge of a Name. That I'm super excited for; I could see her rejecting and remaining nameless, but if she does come into one I can see her gaining a Name reflecting her goals of peace across Calernia, so not Squire or Black Night, but something like an enforcer of international law and rules of engagement. A neutral name similar to Ranger or Archer, that can be heroic or villainous depending on the story, for isn't that how it always seems to go for her.

I guess I'll find out on the last (but not actually the last) book!

[catboyklug]

Characters: Sonic [ he / it ] ; Tails [ they / them ] ; Dr. Eggman [ he / him ] ; Infinite the Jackal [ ??? ]

Warnings: Vaguely described blood/injury ; Sonic Loses Lol

Notes: dividers by @rookthornesartistry !! ; this is the first in a series i'm making where i just. rewrite forces from the ground up. very excited about it

Word Count: 1.9k

As always, Sonic did what he did best - race through the track he was given.

Eggman had been leading frequent attacks against the more urban areas dotting the planet Earth, and now he had finally decided to reveal his master plan - a plan for war.

Apparently, he had built a new Death Egg, and was launching it near one of the most densely-populated cities on the planet. Though nobody was sure about the finer details of this new model, one thing was for certain...

Things were about to get messy.

So Sonic ran, past every second-rate badnik and "deadly" lazer, closer to the Death Egg Mark...

"Hey, Tails," Sonic called through his communicator - a handy-dandy wristwatch that Tails was still thinking of a more sci-fi name for, "Which version of the Death Egg are we on, now?"

"I think we should be on--well, technically we're on Mark III..." Tails's voice crackled due to nearby interference - weird, but not unheard of.

"Technically?" Sonic hummed.

"There was that first one you destroyed with Knuckles, then the second that we raced on," he started explaining, "Then the one we all fought to blow up, the... one with Emerl... and then the one he sent at us on the anniversary of you and Amy meeting!"

"But, two of those were considered the Death Egg Mk.II, and the other three just the Death Egg, so I have no idea what Eggman thinks of this one."

"Looks like Eggman's as good at naming things as he is planning ahead," Sonic remarked, audibly grinning.

Even though it was absolutely nothing as quick quips go, Tails bursted out laughing, which prompted a smile from their brother.

"I'll talk to you later, little bro, think I'm almost there," Sonic says, "You keep up the good work over there!"

"Oh, thanks, Sonic-" Tails flushes, "I mean! Good luck to you, too, big bro!"

With an encouraging smile, Sonic ends the call, picking up the pace as he nears the Death Egg launch site.

Now at the city's edge, Sonic noticed the sheer amount of Badniks in the area, and how weirdly placid they were.

Sure, they took a swipe at him if he got too close, but otherwise none of them even bothered turning his way.

Not to mention, they're at the edge of the city. Eggman's only been attacking the most populated areas for a while...

Just as he tries to figure out a reason for these oddities, though, he notices a massive blockade in front of him.

With his depth perception, he can't tell how big they are, but he figures he can just jump over them if there's a ramp nearby.

He notices, almost too late, that there isn't.

Skidding to a halt right before he crashes into them, he prepares to run the opposite direction to look for a building to run up instead, but...

He's surrounded.

It was a trap.

He tries to spindash underneath them, but their legs are too tight together. He can't burrow, since the ground under him is concrete...

Even bashing them seems to be out of the question - they're harder than bricks, and he can't even make the slightest of dents or scratches on them.

At least they aren't trying to attack him back...?

If he had more room, he could build up some speed and make shrapnel of this new plating. But this weird arena's barely big enough for him to jog in, and every time he starts gaining speed he ends up just smacking against one of the drones.

Just as he tries formulating a plan, he hears a familiar, annoying laugh behind him.

He turns, crossing his arms and tapping his foot at the new arrival.

"Sonic, you're just in time to meet my newest pet project," Eggman grins, "Meet Infinite Mechanism - the greatest weapon I've had the pleasure of working with."

This "Infinite" is tall, towering above Eggman. Long and lanky, and Sonic thinks he can see bones through the thin fur and skin.

Or... maybe not bones. They look sharp. He notices a metallic sheen coming from a particularly papery part of skin.

Creepy...

Oh well.

"Infinite Mechanism, huh?" Sonic grins, keeping his confidence close and arrogance closer, "Guess it's better than Monkey Dude..."

Despite how weak the 'insult' was, his enemy seems to immediately deflate upon hearing it. For a moment, his stance changes, and his height makes him look less terrifying and more like a stretched-out piece of plastic about to collapse in on itself.

"Come on, Infinite! You're one of my greatest creations yet!" the doctor roars, apparently offended, "Defeat this blue brat! Put him in his place as punishment for insulting you!"

And there he goes, right back up to pompousness.

No big deal! Sonic's faced off with tons of uppity jerks before, and each time it's been their self-assured swinehood that was their biggest weakness.

There's no doubt that this Infinite guy was briefed for hours about each of Sonic's offensive moves, so he decides to make fun of 'em by keeping it simple.

A light kick there, a weak punch here... He doesn't even spindash, keeping his moves entirely to running around and occassionally taking potshots at his new rival.

When Infinite gets more aggressive, Sonic responds by zipping around the arena as well as he can - not a tactic that could help him get out, sadly, but more than good enough to tease.

He dodges a punch by speed-walking to the other side of the arena and avoids a spinning kick by just... leaning out of the way.

Absolutely enraged at this point, Infinite picks up the speed, trying to reach Sonic, and Sonic takes the opportunity to bait him, tripping him up in mid-air and sending him crashing into one of the badniks making up the arena.

"You're supposed to be Eggman's greatest weapon? Seriously?" he huffs, "This fight's so boring it's making me miss Metal."

"INFINITE!"

Both the combatants turn to Eggman, one absolutely less amused than the other.

"IGNORE THE RAT, FOCUS ON ME!"

"You're more powerful than he could ever dream of being!" the doctor barks, "You have him in the palm of your hand, now - CRUSH HIM!!"

"Talk about ignoring the truth, huh!" Sonic chuckles, crossing his arms.

Before he can finish the quip, though, Infinite barrels him over, grabbing his arms and forcing him to the ground.

He draws a massive, red sword from his belt, raising it above Sonic's neck -

"WHOA!"

Panicking, Sonic kicks him in the stomach and runs to the other side of the arena - wait, is it getting smaller?

No time for that - to take this bigshot down, Sonic needs an opening...

"So you've got a fancy weapon, big deal!" Sonic yells, "I don't need weapons to take anyone down, especially not a loser like you!"

It seems Eggman's 'speech' really got through to him, and Infinite is now completely ignoring Sonic. Drat.

"Keep going, Infinite!" Eggman cheers, "Put that rat in his place!"

With each word Eggman says, Infinite seems to only grow stronger. He fights quicker, harder, and smarter - still no match for Sonic, but... he's getting there.

To prove this point, he makes a sniper rifle appear out of thin air, and aims it at Sonic, pulling the trigger the second its sight meets his head.

Only having dodged because he was dashing when Infinite fired, Sonic's definitely getting a little shaken up now.

For his own sake, and to not power Infinite up even further, he keeps a cool head - and sticks his tongue out when Infinite turns to see if their shot hit.

Outraged, they throw away the now useless rifle and supplant a sword for it.

Infinite can't hear him, but he sure can see him...

Sonic looks, extremely disappointedly, at the sword. Shaking his head to truly convey how upset he feels at Infinite trying to use the same trick twice in one battle. He knows Infinite can do better!

This tomfoolery, albeit nonverbal, seems to get Infinite back to that deflated state. In fact, he seems positively depressed as he halfheartedly swings at Sonic, rendering the sword practically useless.

Well, it would be useless, if it wasn't still incredibly sharp!

Too worried about what'd happen if he tried jumping over a sword in such a tiny arena, Sonic gets backed into a corner, and the realization of this seems to reinvigorate his enemy.

He raises the sword, not too dissimilar from earlier,

Swings it down,

And Sonic kicks it away.

High on adrenaline, he rushes behind Infinite, kicking him down.

"One..." he breathes, "Two... three..."

"Four, five...!"

But before he can call it a knock-out, Infinite shakily pushes himself off the ground.

For a moment, he simply stands facing away from Sonic, and the air stills.

He starts shaking, but with his mouth hidden in a mask, Sonic can't tell if he's laughing or crying.

Thankfully, the awkwardness of the moment is shattered when Infinite swings a new weapon his way - a ridiculously oversized flail, with huge spikes to match.

Starting to get bored of how often he has to quickly dodge out of the way instead of just pummeling the dude, Sonic sighs as he runs away again, keeping his distance.

Deciding not to try his luck against something twice as big and three times as pointy as he is, Sonic uses his new 'running away' position to see if there are any other weaknesses he could make use of. Then notices-

Every time Infinite attempts to draw a new weapon, he has to take several seconds to fish something out of a satchel on his belt.

Great! Now if Sonic could just catch him unawares when he-

Throws the flail, and grabs several daggers.

Sonic might be tired of dodging, but he's absolutely not tired of speed. Or showing off.

A dropdash into a kick off the ground into a frontflip and he sticks the landing!

He gives a joking bow to several of the eggpawns surrounding the arena, making sure to sprint to each one individually and in random order, throwing off Infinite's aim.

Or maybe not.

He realizes, a little too late, the flow of wind as another dagger is thrown at him - and it hits his waving arm.

Shocked by the pain, and the blood, Sonic staggers.

That's... bad.

He grips his arm, trying to slow the flow of blood, but it's hopeless - the blade hit at an odd angle, and the wound is too wide.

It hurts too much to do anything but grip it, however, and the sight of the blood pooling at his feet makes him feel dizzy.

While he's preoccupied with his injury, Eggman lets his egg carrier float into the arena, taking in the sight with glee.

"Each picture is worth a thousand words," he grins, "But I believe this scene only requires three..."

"Good boy, Infinite."

With the praise, Infinite practically glows.

He advances on Sonic, a dark gleam coming from his mask.

Gently, he puts his hands on the sides of Sonic's arms,

Sonic hears a sickening crunch,

And everything goes black.

"Sonic! You there?"

"I managed to drive off all the badniks! Something really strange happened, though... seems like they all turned heel and ran off."

"I guess Robotnik must have called them back..."

"Wait, that means they're headed for the Death Egg!"

"If I'm right, do you need any help over there? None of my 'drones are any worse for wear, so we're all here if you need us!"

"I bet you could handle anything Eggman threw at you, though, big bro!"

"..."

"...Sonic?"

[johnslittlespoon]

Hello, gorgeous!

First of all, thank you for the joy of reading the first chapter of Tough And Sweet (Like You And Me).

I just have one question: Will future chapters show us Gale’s POV as well? Personally, I’d love to see young, shy Bucky through the eyes of an older Gale.

HIII sweetest human!! <3 no thank YOU for reading omg and for the kind words plsss :')) and for giving me an excuse to talk ab this LOL. tldr: future chapters no, future parts/drabbles yes!!

i was actually so indecisive about this when i started plotting the fic because while i enjoy reading fics with alternating povs just as much as fics without them, i've never written one with them and i wasn't sure if i'd enjoy/be good at switching mindsets like that!

i ultimately decided to stick to john's pov for that reason, but also because i thought as the reader, having to see things through his eyes and only being able to guess about gale the way john does would be more intriguing, especially with john's view of the world/interactions warped and/or rose–tinted by youth, inexperience, emotional dysregulation, etc.

BUT sooo much of what i have written in my drafting doc is from gale's pov because i love picturing this bucky through his eyes too, it's just such a fresh and new dynamic for me to explore as someone who primarily writes mota–verse buckbucky, and what we see from john's pov is so different from how gale sees things of course lol.

like it drives me insane thinking about how this poor man was literally just living his peaceful life, fine with being solo, going through the routine every day of work and then bike club and then home, and suddenly he's got this golden retriever of a boy attached to him like a magnet, and he's being kept on his toes dealing with the bundle of energy, and each day is now unpredictable and as exciting as it is stressful and he has no one to blame but himself lol. and the way we don't get to see the self–restraint he has to have and the struggle to be responsible and do what's 'right' while also dealing with his own feelings, because john isn't aware that's going on inside gale's head!

i could go on and on about his side of things aughghgh so i think eventually i'll end up doing a pretty lengthy oneshot sorta thing of certain events in the actual fic through gale's eyes (kinda what i plan on doing with yadiym for john's pov) bc goddd i have so many thoughts about how all of this would be playing out from his perspective!!! if not a oneshot, then drabbles like this one i hope.

if i had the time and if it wouldn't be boring to read i would honestly just rewrite the whole fic from gale's pov once it's done because with every scene i write, i'm like ooo i wanna dive into his pov and talk about what he's thinking and seeing so BAD but i can't bc we're in john's head </3 i just love analyzing john through his eyes and ik i've yapped ab this so much in past posts but gale does see so much of his younger self in him, that's why he has a lot of patience and takes a liking to him so fast, even if he doesn't realize that right away. :')

at the very least i definitely want to write pwp oneshots/drabbles set in the TAS universe from gale's pov so i can gush over describing how pretty and sweet and mouthy john is LOL i'm sure i'll add the fic itself to a series like with my dog–coded fic so that i can build on the au with oneshots once it's done >:-)

this is such a longwinded response (what else is new!) but you poked the bubble in my brain that's been agonizing over wanting to delve into gale's pov so <3 this is much more rambling than your question warranted but thx JSDKG

[pale-opal]

So

What writing projects do you have in the works?

👀

!!!

I am so glad that you asked this question! I honestly have a lot of ideas, and I have been wanting an excuse to talk about them for a while. So if you don't mind me rambling for a little bit:

So the first thing that I've been working on is a sequel to the first fic that I uploaded for this MMX rewrite that I've been working on (an AU called Collision Course). I'm trying to get a backlog of 30 chapters together before I release the second part, and I'm on Chapter 20 right now. I wanted to have it released well before this time, but I kept hitting walls with some of the chapters that came before the current one. However, I think I should be good once I reach Chapter 21 (the story will start to reach a point that I've been really excited to work on). I'm hoping to have it out before the end of the month.

@crystalclear365 and I have started planning for this one fic that we decided to write together - I won't go too far into it because we both want it to be a surprise, so all I will say is that I hope you like cooking shows. >:)

I also like to write essays sometimes, and there's been one that's been sitting in my drafts for way too long. I want to have that out by the end of the month, too (it's been a blast working on it, but I want it gone). I have other ideas for essays past that, but I think it would be best if I finally finished this one first.

I also have a bunch of AUs that I've been mentally workshopping for good while. Here are a few that I want to talk about:

There's a slice of life human + modern AU that involves Shadow Man being neighbors with the Wily family, along with shenanigans such as Bass skipping school on a near regular basis, Piano and Waltz (cut characters from the Megamix manga and the Dreamwave comics respectively) being in girl scouts, Snake Man trying to set Shadow up with Berkana, Star Man being a community theater teacher, Wily being a deadbeat (if there's anything most of my AUs have in common, it's that Wily is a terrible father and Shadow Man will adopt nearly all of Wily's kids if you let him), Zero and X being lab partners, Blues being a runaway... there's a lot going on. I'm definitely going to have to make a proper post explaining this one at some point (and not just because I feel like I'll implode if I don't write something for it soon).

I also have a human + zombie AU that has a bunch of lore, so I can't talk about it too much without giving it its own post - so to sum it up, a bunch of the characters from the Mega Man series got turned into zombies during the apocalypse, got found by some scientists that are being led by Gate, got experimented on, got some of their sentience back while losing some of their zombie-tendencies, and escaped. Now it's everyone else's problem. It features events such as Red learning how to love and be less selfish after half-zombie Axl looks at him one day and goes "Yup. that's my dad now.", Shadow Man adopting half-zombie Zero (because of course he does), Snake Man slowly succumbing to the infection because he took too long to amputate his bite (oof), and Lunime trying to convince all the other former infected to rise up against the humans. And the half-zombies can speak to those that are fully infected, while all the humans get to stand around watching like this:🧍‍♂️

I have a vampire AU I haven't put much thought into. I do have a few details though: Red is Axl's biological father in this one, and Axl is half-vampire (Red is human, though. And an ex-vampire hunter. So he's going through it). Blues is a vampire hunter who is really good at his job, but hates doing it. Shadow Man's family act like rejects from the Addams family. Dr. Light is a retired hunter. I want to write a oneshot for Mouthwashing at some point (I saw a playthrough of it not too long ago and I may never be the same (/pos)), but I'm still working out the main plot beats. There's also a bunch of lore I have for my OCs, but to talk about that would take hours (seriously). I have some other oneshot ideas for the Mega Man franchise as well, but I'm saving those for special occasions (one of them I am saving for April Fool's Day. It is November. Bear with me). But uh... yeah! That's about it. Thank you again for asking! I hope I didn't talk too much. 😅

[ahgasegotarmy116]

hi!! i just found your blog recently and ended up reading falling — and oh my god, i read the whole thing in one go and i’ve genuinely not been the same since 😭 i didn’t even realize it was unfinished until i hit the last chapter and was like wait. WAIT. i literally stared at the screen in denial for a full minute lol this story has me SO hooked, it’s honestly some of the best writing i’ve read in a while and i was just wondering… do you have any plans to continue it? no pressure at all, of course!! just wanted to say i really loved it and it stuck with me 💔

Oh my gosh thank you so much for loving Falling 😭🫶🏼

Yeah most of my fics are unfinished because my attention span is horribleeee these days but I'm getting better...I think? 😅

I'm sorry I left you hanging 😅

Thank you so much that's so sweet 🥹 You're gonna make me cry 🥺

That was one of my earlier fics that I wrote when I first started writing on Tumblr and I'm honestly not super happy with it but I'm really happy you're enjoying it!

I've had it in my mind that I want to rewrite it though since I feel as though my writing has improved a bit since then (hopefully?) so I think I'm going to hold off on Falling for now.

There's a lot more that I want to add to the story i.e. more on her relationship with Jimin while she was still in heaven and how he really helped her cope after Jungkook fell.

As well as some more details in terms of what it means to be a guardian and how she helps gently guide Lana in the right direction.

I've also been thinking about doing chapters in each of their perspectives so we can get a more full picture into who Jungkook is after he's fallen as well as oc and how she's found her own way and has not only helped Lana but how Lana has helped her heal in some way or another.

As a result of that we would get to learn more about Jae and why he has a fallen angel and not a guardian like Lana.

It's not one of my popular fics so I get really discouraged when I've posted chapters and very few people read it.

I know there are a few people including you who love it so thank you so much 🥺

But yeah a very long winded explanation as to why I haven't updated it in quite a while 😅

Thank you again for your kind words and I hope that after seeing my train of thought on the future of this story it has made you excited for what's to come.

Please feel free to fill out my taglist form so you'll get updates on this story in the future if you're still interested in reading it when I finally come back around to it. 🫶🏼

I'll tag the small list of people who have joined the Falling taglist so they can see this too.

Again thank you so much for the love 💜 @junniesoleilkth @gyeomibearr @ggukswayhome @fr0ggieth1nk

[walkingstackofbooks]

Fanfic Writer Interview

Tagged by: @a-most-beloved-fool - thank you!! <3 <3 <3

What fandoms do you write in? At the moment, pretty much just DS9, though I've written one TOS ficlet this year.

How many words have you published in 2024? 139, 411 😅😅 Absolutely bananas, I cannot even comprehend how I did that!

It's been an absolaute delight to properly fall in love with writing this year though ❤️Before 2024, I'd written very little fanfic ever, and this has been JUST so much fun! (ftr, 3.5k in 2021, ~3k in 2015, and - huh! Almost 30k in 2011/12 🧐 Well, that's a surprise - apparently my "baby's first fanfic" back in 2012 was a whole 20k, which is far longer than I remember!)

What is your greatest achievement this year? I mean, Vision Awry for sure! Seeing it grow and grow and slowly realising just how long it was becoming (although even right up to the end, I was never able to guess accurately!) My crazy summer marathon to get it all written before I resumed posting (which I did mostly manage!) and then the last few weeks in December pouring my heart and soul into actually finishing it before the end of the year. It's completely mad that I did that!

(Although weirdly, now it's finished it's just kind of like 'yeah I suppose I did that, feels ages ago now though' and I feel like I have to really push myself to feel the pride and excitement I think I should be feeling? Idk, it's weird 😅)

What are your top three fics you've written this year? Oh gosh, I have to choose? Okay...

Vision Awry - obviously :P

Sleep Paralysis - that mad, 3-day blitz of inspiration was so worth hiding away in my room for 😅

Um, unpublished, but the Miles&Julian-talk-about-suicide ficlet I posted on Tumblr? It was far better than I expected when I read it back, and was a higlight amongst the rest of the December writing-is-hard feels.

What was your biggest pit of despair moment? There were definitely many times during Vision Awry... the biggest were probably either:

Re-starting Day 5 in August, after writing nothing during June and July, and reailsing I had no idea what was going to happen in Day 5 apart from the deaths at the end;

Writing Epilogue 3 in the last few weeks, only eking out 1-300 words at a time unless I overdosed on meds (😅 it worked tho...), getting increasingly convinced that I was not going to be finishing by the end of the year, which sucked; or

Any time I realised the scene wasn't working because of X thing which meant I would need to totally rewrite it. I don't do drafts, really, so that was always devastating 😭 (but DID work out for the best, at least)

What have you learned? SO, so much. I'll limit myself to three things. (I'm sorry, I'm no good at choices or being concise!)

That if I have an idea, ideally I need to write all of it, straight away, and finish it while it’s fresh. I honestly don’t know how many WIPs I’m actually going to finish, because even while I love many of the ideas, I’m not in love with them the same way I was when I started.

That I love writing Garak and Julian interactions, even though I keep forgetting that I do, because Garak is an absolute pain to write sometimes (affectionate), and I've never been the biggest fan of stories that are solely Garashir.

That I need to be super careful about opening up prompts, because while they’re great for short-term motivation, if I don't complete them in a timely manner they end up hanging over me in a less-than-fun way.

What three fics have you read this year that you love? I do not know where to start with this one, omg, there are too many <3 <3 <3 Trying to think of ones I haven't mentioned before... (and while I'm trying to be better, I'm so bad at bookmarks 😅)

After The Siege by @youngpettyqueen - I didn't know I needed Worf&Julian but this has stayed in my mind since April and I love it to pieces. This dynamic is soooo gooddd 💕💕

The Recitation of Names by @jennelikejennay - Incredible, haunting, pre-TOS Spirk fic about the events mentioned in Obsession.

By Design by @akingnotaprincess - I haven't finished it yet (I am SO hype though, I just haven't had time over Christmas!) but it's SUCH a lovely Data/Julian fic, it's so sweet and sincere and wonderful.

What ideas are percolating for next year? Ughhhh, oh man. Idek. I've got about a dozen WIPs but the way my brian is rn, I'm just hoping that I'll be able to edit and publish some of the things I've written on Tumblr to finally put on AO3.

Hopefully I'll get going a bit more at some point - and whatever it is, you can bet on a traumatised Juian, I'm pretty sure ;)

Who do you want to thank? Again, where do I even start, there are so many people who have made this year wonderful 💕 I've never really felt like I've been *in* a Tumblr community before, and this year has really changed that, so a huge thank you to everyone who's made me feel so welcome! 🥰

@ectogeo-rebubbles, @the-last-dillpickle, @hellostuffedtiger for welcoming me into the Sloanshir side of DS9 with aplomb. Waking up to your reviews and recs of Imprisoned was actually unforgettable, it made my day many, many times over, and definitely gave me confidence to continue putting Julian into fucked-up situations!

@jackleg-penwright for messaging me and becoming my first Tumblr friend ❤️❤️❤️

@flippetyfloppity, @dreamerdrop, @phoenixfeathersinfall - your comments are life and love itself, your support for my writing this year has been incredible and made me feel so warm, thank you just so much! 🫂🫂🫂

I'm kind of High Key Anxious about missing anyone out if I tried to tag everyone else who has been supportive and wonderful and lovely, which sucks because I really want to, but if you've ever left a comment on anything I've done, PLEASE know that you are held in my heart most fondly with great love and affection 💖💖💖

tagging: @jackleg-penwright, @dreamerdrop, @ectogeo-rebubbles and anyone else who would like to!

[charmixpower]

From best to worst individually, how good are the Trix at commanding, channeling and harmonising?

Thank you for the lore questions!! Fun fact I'm making a lore bible with now with some major rewrites and somethings that are exactly the same, and that will be out... Before next year XD

The notes are about 7,000 words right now and I can say with complete certainty that it will be over 10,000 by the time I'm done XD I've already broken it down by part to make it easier to explain. Focused, thriving, moisturized, in my lane, ect ect. Excited for that, I'll rewrite this when I finish my lore

Icy: Commanding, Harmonizing, Channeling

Icy is a straight up prodigy at commanding magic. She uses cold air and water in the air to make her ice and throw it at people. That takes an insane amount of control!! Stormy is also really good at it, making lighting is hard, but she gets to start with air and wind being already present. Icy has to MacGyver that shit. Icy is theeee baddest bitch. As for harmonizing if she had literally any other domain she'd suck massive dick at it, I mean she'd be TERRIBLE. Icy just really REALLY vibes with ice in particular, both physically and metaphorically, making it extremely easy for her to harmonize with ice/cold. She kinda views the cold as an extension of herself, so it's almost second nature to her. Adding Bloom's power to her massively fucked up her ability to do that btw bc there was something foreign was in her. As for channeling magic she's still really good at it! Remember in s2 where she nearly killed Sky in RF by, I think it's implied that she kinda internally freezes him??? Yeah but she's good at that too. It requires more thought than the first two that she's a genius in and she can do by instinct but that only makes a difference of a couple seconds. Icy is EXTREMELY good at magic

Stormy: Harmonizing, Commanding, Channeling

It's really funny to say Stormy "chaos reigns" is good at harmonizing but that's exactly why she's good at it. Baby girl IS the storms. She's like the concept lightning tornados were a person, and said storm magic reacts to her back like that. They GET each other. Relating to that, Stormy is obviously far less controlled about her magic. Stormy intuits her magic, the only thing she's really intentionally controlling is her lighting bolts, otherwise she's just pulling at the magic and letting it do what it wants while pointing it in the direction of whatever she wants dead. On that note, channeling, channeling a large wild source of magic into a little box is literally the worst thing in the world for Stormy. She sucks ass at it. Like. Barely passing her requirements sucks at it. She's all like, fuck OFF storms are not meant to be contained in tiny little magic stones, immediately die about it. And then the teacher tells her to stop being insubordinate and just do the assignment

Darcy: Channeling, Commanding, Harmonizing

I feel like Darcy is at her best in combat when she's not a powerhouse. Icy and Stormy are already power houses, we don't need all three of them to be. Darcy's commanding and channeling magic are at the same level. She's not Icy levels of good at either but still extremely good. She uses her commanding magic to throw things around and attack from multiple directions and basically uses it to influence her environment physically, and channeling magic to use things inner darkness to cause havoc. She deserves a unique fighting style her magic is so cool. As for harmonizing. You remember in s1 where she pretended to be Stella and was SO TERRIBLE AT IT??? Remember in s2 when only Icy was any good at pretending to be a normal CT witch??? Darcy is good with physical darkness, she's great with messing with internal darkness, she's TERRIBLE at the trickster parts of darkness. Like. Blowing up Riven and gaslighting him into falling in love with her wasn't even HER idea, IT WAS ICYS!! She sucks at harmonizing, she's much better at it than Stormy is at channeling, she can mostly do it but it's not very good. It's passable. High C, low B grade

[sophiacloud28]

Bayverse WIP Excerpt

Since I'm way too giddy. (If you guys make me rewrite this WIP, I freaking SWEAR 🤣)

Excerpt, fluff, Bayverse Donatello centric-ish

The first one through is, to her expectations, Leo. He's in a bit of a state of undress since the vent doesn't accommodate for his katanas, but he's quick to readjust himself and give her a smile before he goes out to the way she motions. The second is Raph, this time taking her by surprise as he unfolds with a grimace, complaining about tight spaces. The last one is Donatello who merely acknowledges her by giving her her phone back before turning around, mumbling about the entrance.

Probably why he came in last. He's trying to figure out how to transport everything. It's his job, after all.

"Donatello?"

"Hm?"

"Might be better to look for something that leads to the Subway stations? It would give us access to the train car once you get it fixed."

Although a reminder that this might not be their only way in might be useful, certainly if the blink and frown have anything to say about it.

"That's what Raph's looking for. If he doesn't, this is the fallback."

Although maybe she's just underestimating Donatello, as per usual.

She flinches, "Sorry."

"It's fine. Old habits die hard. Now why are you hovering?"

And almost giggles at being called out, straightening a little, "I have a bit of a personal request, but I can wait."

"A request?"

"I found something, two things actually, that I would like for you to look at after you're done estimating how much dynamite and mortar you'll need to build an entry point."

He looks at the wall, then back at her. He blinks once, twice as he looks into nothing before looking back to her.

"Show me."

"Are you sure? I can wait."

"I already have a rough estimate. Show me."

And she bites her bottom lip in excitement before motioning him to follow, glad that her rush is followed so closely by Donatello. She turns the flashlight on her phone on as she walks into the tailor's shop, past the empty mannequins and drawers to the back where she shines a light on the first machine.

There are spider webs on it, and it looks like it's seen better days, but the lack of rust on the cover alone is encouraging.

"A sewing machine?"

"Yeah. There's also a serger further back. Both industrials," she comments, shining a light in the serger's direction. It's in the same state, although the rods that would hold the threads would need to be replaced.

"That's what's got you so excited?"

"Do you have any idea how big of a find this is?! These are pure steel, Donatello! All they need is a bit of TLC and these things will go through anything. Heck, I can reupholster the couch if you guys want me to with these."

There's silence. It stretches. For a moment, Stella thinks she's bluescreened poor Donatello when she needs him most. Until he chuckles. He leans back and has to contain his laughter, making her blink.

"Donatello?"

"Sorry," he says after a few throat clears, smile on his face. "I'll need schematics, but I can repair them."

And she keeps blinking, worried, "If I can find the serial number and the brand, I can probably find you a manual. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you –?"

"I'm sure, Stella. It's just… No, I shouldn't say it."

"Say what?"

"It'll only fluster you."

… Oh.

She's glad the lights are dead as she looks away and he approaches the machines while bringing down his googles. She hopes he doesn't turn her way while they're down.

"Brand and Serial Number, correct?"

"Yeah."

"They're both Singer, from the text reconstruction. Where is the serial number?"

"Either under the machine or on its right side. You should find two letters followed by six numbers."

"Got them. Embossed, too."

And she smiles as she scrolls through her phone, noting the serial numbers and immediately starting to look them up, grinning when she finds them.

"Found them. Send- Donatello?"

Only to blink as the tallest turtle stands there, goggles now atop his head again, but looking thoughtful.

"Will you need the tables?"

"Tables? Yes. Those tables? No. I'm already planning on getting a worktable for each of them."

"If you're alright with it, I think I can replace them."

"You don't have to, Donatello. These tables require –"

"I am seeing that. That's why I'm suggesting it."

And she feels something warm spread through her like butterfly wings. From her heart all the way to her fingertips, the tenderness stretches throughout, making her smile softly as she whispers, "As long as it doesn't –"

"I'm almost done with the EPF and the needle room needs the entire team to be worked on. Besides, we might need to move it to here from transport, meaning delays. I have time."

And she has to resist reaching to him for a hug at the nonchalance of his tone and the way it's wrapped around something warm, calm, almost… loving.

… Make like a tree, Stella.

"Thank you, Donatello."

"… Donnie." She looks up at the whisper. He's not looking in her direction and his left hand is digging into his shoulder almost painfully. She's pretty sure that, if she could see his face, he'd look hurt, maybe even in distress that she can only hope to soothe as she reaches for his free hand. Before she's brought against something cool and rigid that she can't help but settle her cheek against while closing her eyes as another feeling adds itself to all the others.

Safety.

He's safe. So safe. She could sleep in his arms, and she would wake up either still in them or wherever he viewed as safe without a change to herself. She can be vulnerable here, and no one would ever know.

A hand shifts from around her waist to touch her cheek, leading him to meet hazel eyes and a hesitant smile that settles into something soft as Donnie leans in.

"Donnie!"

Before he jumps and pulls away as she does, heart hammering in her chest. She finds herself hidden behind the tallest turtle as she hears Leo call out for his younger brother again, prompting him to respond, "In here."

And she barely hears the oldest turtle before she knows he's in the room as Donatello apologizes.

"It's fine. Find something interesting?"

"Might have. Depends on whether or not I'm able to build tables for them before repairing them."

"Stella?"

"Yeah. Seem she's –"

"Figures."

"Why are you looking for me?"

"Raph's found our way out. It leads to the track on our line."

"That'll avoid complications. Anything else?"

"Yeah, actually. Stella?"

She freezes. Brings her hands to her mouth. He knows. He knows. She's so screwed.

She hesitantly comes out from behind Donatello, expecting a stern look. She still swallows even though she doesn't find one in those intense blue eyes as Leo instructs, "Mikey is ready to take you back. He's already called ahead for dinner. Pizza alright?"

And she nods before slipping out of the workroom, the tailor's shop before pressing her back against the acrylic that makes the windows, falling to the ground as her hands cover her mouth.

Make like a tree, Stella. Make like a fucking tree. You're going to hurt them both.

"Pretty girl? You okay?"

She stands, dusts herself off, and tries to smile as she holds out her phone to Mikey so he can pocket it, "I'm alright."

"You sure?"

"I am, I just… need a second to breathe. Give me until we get back to the lair?"

"… Alright."

taglist: @silverwatergalaxy, @thelaundrybitch, @thegirlwiththeninjaturtletattoos

[jenna12381]

Thieves In Time Redux: Rewriting Episode 1

Listen to Toad Town - Ghost Town while reading this.

Tutorial (Episode 0): Here

Episode 2: Here

Turning Japanese was a bit of a weak link for Thieves In Time. Let's see how Penelope's inclusion in my rewrite improves things...

"What was she supposed to tell the boys? They'd never forgive her!" (the opening line for Chapter 7)

Now, as you might remember, Penelope is stuck on this time traveling journey against her will. What would she be doing during her time in Feudal Japan?

I think I'll have her doing her tasks to avoid looking sus. That, and searching for evidence that Le Paradox can be trusted...

Apart from that, not much would change from canon. That said, I don't want to leave our heroine with one mission (that being Tiger Tail), so I gave her another assignment: Something's Fishy (though it's officially assigned to Bentley instead of Murray).

Bentley doesn't assign her to this mission, but she still shows up anyway.

"It's been a long time since we went fishing, Bentley. I''m excited!"

"Well, this is no vacation, Murray. We need to help Rioichi get back on track as a sushi chef, and what he needs most right now is fish!"

"I get that and all, but... *looks in Penelope's direction* What's Sis doing here? *Bentley also looks in the same direction*"

Bentley is obviously worried about her showing up unannounced, but happy she came. Though I can see him mothering her the entire time...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Something's Fishy now opens with a Protect Bentley segment, rather than hacking. The player, controlling Penelope, will need to do this with Murray for two minutes.

Our heroine might not exactly be on the heroes' side, but nobody touches her turtle except her.

Unfortunately for our heroine, Bentley ends up seeing none of those guards get clobbered into next week. When he sees the aftermath, he assumes Murray did most of the heavy lifting. In reality, though, Murray and Penelope each took out half of the guards.

Penelope is disappointed that Bentley couldn't see her in action. After Murray tries to cheer her up a bit, the mission continues.

Inside, Murray tries to open one of those closed gates... and tries. No dice. Turns out it's locked tight.

Penelope examines the locked gate, and the lock turns out to be one of her designs. She could open it easily... or pretend that it's hard to crack. She uses the opportunity to send her car to do a little snooping around, though she ends up finding nothing other than some guards badmouthing Le Paradox. Then she unlocks the gate for Murray. Cue the applause.

The rest of the mission goes very much as it did in canon.

...Which leads us to Pretty In Pinker (now assigned to Murray).

Yes, this means we will have to deal with Madame Murray... I'm not looking forward to writing anything relating to the geisha house...

Speaking of which, I think I will have Penelope involved in Pretty In Pinker after all...

I still don't know exactly what she'll do in this mission. But if I could crack this vanilla game wide open, I'll find some way to make this mission a little less cringe.

The next major change happens in Tiger Tail, which is now assigned to Penelope.

Bentley naturally shows up to keep an eye on her when the mission begins.

You'd think that Penelope would then tail El Jefe with her car, but... she convinces Bentley to do it instead.

Penelope has different plans. She's still searching for evidence that Le Paradox can be trusted. So... she sends her car into the geisha house to do some more snooping around.

Unfortunately, all she finds is more of El Jefe's men badmouthing Le Paradox.

She's disappointed that she got nothing. Good thing Bentley's there to cheer her up. He's still in the dark, BTW.

Everything beyond that remains mostly the same until Altitude Sickness.

Altitude Sickness starts off mostly identical to canon, only with Penelope now joining the boys and Rioichi.

At first, I wasn’t sure how to include Penelope in the final mission. Then I watched it in vanilla, and it hit me. I needed her to run off on her own towards the blimp, which will set up her role in El Jefe's boss fight.

Le Paradox's blimp, if you'll recall from canon, made its first appearance during Altitude Sickness. I'm sure I don't need to explain why Penelope would want to go there.

I should also remind you that Penelope's blueprints for this blimp were indeed stolen, and whoever did it most likely just copied and pasted her homework.

The bridge brawl now requires the player to defeat 25 enemies rather than 15, since you (Murray) will be working with 3 CPU allies (Sly, Bentley, and Penelope). Rioichi's section is identical to canon.

It's shortly after the bridge brawl that Penelope makes her move... and jumps off the bridge.

Nobody notices she's gone until after Sly goes off to chase El Jefe. It's Murray who alerts everyone. He counts everyone present, and... I'll just let the big guy speak for himself.

"One... *counts Bentley* Two... *counts himself* Three... *counts Rioichi* Fou-- *begins to count Penelope* Sis? *notices Penelope has gone missing* Sis! She's gone!"

You can imagine how much Bentley would freak out upon hearing that come out of Murray's mouth. But let's just say Penelope's going to be torn a new one when she gets back.

The El Jefe boss fight is mostly identical to canon... at least during the first half.

At some point, however, Sly finds himself in a bit of trouble when he's cornered by our Villain Of The Week.

Here's where things get a bit interesting. Penelope, who happens to be running nearby, sees Sly in trouble. She's got a decision to make. Does she keep going, or does she help Sly?

Spoiler alert: She does the right thing and helps Sly with a little aerial support, yeeting one of El Jefe's swords away. Why does she do this? Well... she's not sure herself.

My full rewrite will elaborate on her reasoning.

Sly is quick to see she deliberately ran off, but he's got no time to be mad at her. She did end up saving him, after all.

"I'll save your reaming for after we take this guy to school!"

Yes, you would get to control the chopper during the above scene.

After the boss fight, Penelope is, as expected, scolded for running off (mostly by Bentley). And mostly let off the hook for helping Sly. She's then dragged off to our next destination: Cotton Mouth Bluff.

We've now reached the end of the episode, but one thing I neglected to mention is what changes about Rioichi.

Rioichi is mostly left unchanged, though he, being fairly spiritual, notices that Penelope has a powerful darkness within her... and also an equally powerful light. And those forces are at war with each other. He mostly keeps this to himself, not wanting to alarm anyone.

All of this sets the stage for Episode 2: Go West, Young Raccoon. See you then.

[babyarmybabbles]

Run ARMY! (Meet Part) a1 d4 +155 Words

[Caution: These are not full fics, or even full parts of fics for some, these are part of my writing progress archive!]

Concept: Reader won the opportunity to film a spin off of Run BTS! celebrating the boys return from enlistment, called Run ARMY!, over the course of seven days.

Word Count: 1,250

Notes: Our first official addition! I wanted to do additions in intervals of 1,000, but I'm on the fence of just completely rewriting this entire fic. I'm really unhappy with it and it's fighting me at every turn. I think I focused too much on the little things between point A and B and establishing Reader's voice and character. Might keep like the first bit of the Arrival part and a couple bits here and there. I'll sit on it. Marked the addition with []

Took Inspirations from Run ARMY! series on Tik Tok by _yamanika_ and Guess The Bias! by HelloMyAlien7 on Ao3

Warnings: Reader is p anxious lol. Sort of panic attack? Anxiety attack? idk man. Just anxious Reader.

Masterlist Link <3 | Prev Part Link c: | Next Part Link :D

By the time the SUV is pulling into the underground parking garage to meet the band in you’re sweating buckets. Not literally, thank the stars, but you feel near to it. Hannuel smiles kindly at you from the driver’s seat, obviously able to see your nerves. You’re pretty sure a satellite could see your nerves right now.

“You’ll be fine.” She soothes as the car descends. “The boys are super nice, and they’re excited to meet you. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” You suck in a deep breath in response and let it out. It doesn’t help much.

“I’m more nervous about ARMY not liking me than BTS not liking me.” You admit with a nervous laugh, consciously switching to twisting your rings around so you don't pick at your nails in your anxiety. Having bloody fingers while meeting your favorite group would not be a good look. “Also they intimidate me.” You add quietly.

You hear Hannuel stifle a snicker and your head shoots up to glare at her in affront. She’s supposed to support you, not laugh at you! She must see your mulish stare in the rear-view, because she quickly defends herself.

“Sorry, sorry! I’m not laughing at you, I promise. It’s just that they’re so silly sometimes, it’s hard to find them intimidating after having known them.” You easily concede the point to her. You'd seen enough behind the scenes content to get that impression. It’s a bit soothing to hear from an actual staff member though. “They’re the sweetest, really,” Hannuel continues, “You’ve genuinely got nothing to worry about. They’ll take care of you.”

You groan and let your head thump against the seat. “That’s part of the problem!” You complain, “It’s my first time on this side of a camera, it’s my first time meeting BTS, it’s my first time being in Korea, It’s just a lot! What if ARMY sees me fumbling and the boys helping me and decide they hate me? I can’t be hated by ARMY! I’d die!” You dramatically slump sideways, coincidentally timed with a turn that scootches you that much farther over.

Score one for dramatics.

Hannuel laughs gently at you, and you continue somewhat more seriously from your slumped position. “I mean, ARMY is basically my home. I don’t know what I’d do if they hated me.” You murmur into the leather cushion.

Hannuel hums musingly at you and the two of you lapse into silence for a moment.

“Well,” She starts, “First of all, you probably already know that you can never please everyone.” You nod miserably, aware that she could no longer see you. Both your therapist and your friends had told you as much many times. She continues, “But ARMY loves to see the boys interact with other ARMY. It’s another way they get to know them and feel connected. If you ask me, you’ll have more people projecting onto you than judging you. Not that they won’t judge, but” She shrugs, “People always do.”

You slowly sit up and shoot an admiring look at the woman. “Woah,” you mumble, “How are you so wise?”

Hannuel barks out a surprised laugh. “Life experience, mostly.” She replies amusedly.

You settle back into your seat and finally notice that Hannuel had stopped the car before what you assume to be the final turn before the boys would be in view. You feel a rush of gratefulness for her.

You hadn’t known her very long, but Hannuel had already been an incredible help and a very soothing presence to you. You should buy her something nice before you leave if you get the chance. See if you can send a gift basket through Hybe for her if you don't.

She starts the car rolling forward again as you reappear in the rear-view mirror, fully over your momentary theatrics. You take another deep breath and let it out again. It helps more this time.

“It’s not like my socials are public or anything either," You soothe yourself aloud, "And my friends already know me, they’re just excited. Everyone else is secondary.”

“Exactly” Hannuel affirms. You startle just a bit and then try to pretend you hadn’t forgotten she could hear you. Luckily, she’s too busy driving the car to notice. “Like I said, you’ll be just fine.”

Unfortunately for Hannuel’s encouraging words, you’d finally rolled close enough for you to spot seven men standing near 3 other SUVs just ahead and you were suddenly incapable of hearing anything anymore.

Static fills your brain as you study them. You register the casual clothes, watch them nudge each other excitedly as they notice your vehicle, even note the camera crew nearby, but not a single thought makes it past the haze of panic. Distantly, you wonder if this is what an adrenaline rush feels like. You suddenly can’t remember.

Your heartbeat thuds in your ears as the car comes to a gentle stop.

You absently bring one hand up to the pulse point under your jaw to measure your pulse and raise the other to your chest to make sure you’re still breathing. Hannuel is repeating instructions for your benefit in the front seat, but you simply cannot engage your brain enough to listen. All too soon she's exiting the car. You manage to tear your hands away from their comforting positions as she comes around and opens your door for you.

Hannuel helps you down as you duck out of the car and gives you a brief sympathetic smile as she takes your trembling hand.

Excited exclamations meet your arrival and you hastily paste confidence over your every mannerism as you lift both hands to wave back with equal excitement. Hannuel is the only one close enough to be able to see your hands continuing to shake, or note the fact that you stop breathing as you approach BTS.

You hope your smile isn't too tight and that you look appropriately excited. Hopefully whatever the cameras are seeing right now can be explained by excitement and reasonable nerves. You'll take your near panic-attack to the nearest private space, thanks.

["Hello! Oh my goodness, hi!" You release your held breath and end up attempting a sort of half-bow-half-handshake combo with RM that looks and feels incredibly awkward.

You’re mentally screaming apologies to him and despairing your lack of social graces as you move to greet the next member, one Kim Seokjin. You're not sure you can recover from this. You may just have to perish right here right now.

Blessedly, the man takes the lead for the interaction, opening his arms for a hug. You hesitate for a moment, double checking that he was giving you permission to hug him, before gratefully diving into the embrace.

The hug is a standard, friendly thing. Just a bit of a lean in and affectionate tap-tap-taps to eachothers upper back. It relaxes you immensely.

It helps that he more passes you to the next member down the line than let's you completely reset for a new interaction. No chance of awkwardness in pre-established patterns.

In this manner, you gain a hug from most of the other members as well. Yoongi is the only one who declines, offering a handshake that goes much more smoothly than your initial one with RM.

Once you're done with greetings, the PD introduces you, prompting you to wave and bow at them. You're sure it looks awkward because you feel awkward, but at least it gets done. ]

[benjineedssleep]

If you haven't answered them yet: 6, 17, and 23 for the fic writers questions!

muehehehe more asks *gremlin hands*

(here's the link if you wanna reblog/ask me smth too -> 40 questions -- Meme for Fic Writers)

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

my ego fluctuates like crazy. sometimes i think what i've written is the most amazing thing i've ever molded with my bare hands and other times i just sit there and cry even though it's not bad at all (and i'm aware of that). sharing with other people definitely helps though and i think the only reason i keep writing is because i share it with people who will listen to me, see the vision, and help me work through it if i need help <3

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

start to finish. not that i want to but sometimes withholding parts i'm really excited to write helps me get through the more drab bits. however i love writing one shots and i will write those out of order as they come to me. haven't done that with my sambastian long fic yet but definitely have with other things.

also, tangentially related, but i do sometimes take notes on chapters/ideas far in advance for timeline reasons. like for my sambastian long fic i 'plan' by season since the story is heavily influenced by birthdays and holidays. (for example, there's an entire arc dedicated to winter star + one that involves sam's 21st birthday.) so in that case sometimes i'll have bits of dialogue i definitely wanna use written like 10+ chapters in advance.

23. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which one would it be and why?

i haven't written enough sdv to really warrant this but if i had to pick i would say sunsets. not because it's bad, but because there are certain things i'd want to clean up, ideas i wish i implemented/went with, etc. keeping it in short story realm was a massive goal for me but i do think i struggled with some aspects of the small wc and learned enough in writing it to clean it up.

but like seriously rewriting? not reusing a single word or phrase? i wrote a medieval/fantasy au fic when i was in the bnha fandom (at like 14) and the concept was fucking FIRE. it's still posted (wattpad) and easy to find if you care enough but i won't share because it's embarassing LOLOLOL i did really enjoy it though because it was very queerplatonic (before i even knew what that was) and involves a specific group of characters growing up together and figuring themselves out while overthrowing the system. it also ended in an (implied that it isn't permanent) sacrificial major character death. i still have notes somewhere and i think it would work so fucking well for the sdv fandom bc of the whole solarian chronicles thing and whatnot but idk if i can commit to another 100k+ word long fic. at least not right now. but just know the bunny is there and i think about rewriting it for different fandoms/with original characters at least once a year

[springsaladgaming]

i'm atrocious at doing regular status updates on this blog, but you'll be happy to know that i have been working on the chapter 3 rewrite

for those who are newer to this blog—or just as a reminder to those who have been around a while—like 98% of chapter 3 will be rewritten when compared to the choicescript version. the original antagonist motivation hasn't changed, but the introduction to the situation was too coincidental for my liking, so the rewrite will put the MC more at the center of what's going on and also make Sungjae's involvement make a lot more sense later down the line

there are a lot of reasons why it's been taking so long, but one of the major ones is that i'm just a better twine coder now than i was when i started moving Ninelives into twine. i'm encountering a lot of issues with the way i've coded certain things, and i'm having to go back and fix things that were just... coded stupidly

also there's a very high chance that, at some point, i will move the whole game onto to a different template, because the one that i've been using, while very lovely, has given me a lot of problems trying to get it to switch to portrait mode for mobile readers (i've mentioned this before, but it bears reminding)

the massive changes to chapter 3 will majorly affect a couple of scenes that take place after, but large chunks of chapters 4 and 5 will remain the same as what they were in the original choicescript, so chapter 3 is really the big hurdle right now (as it has been for a while)

so i promise, it's coming eventually, i just won't promise when or how much—but i think i'll do an update before the chapter is finished, just to give y'all something

also, it's the first chapter you'll get to properly meet our lovely ???, so that will be exciting ✌🏾🧡

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

20 questions with a fanfic writer

tagged by the wonderful @thewildballyntynesgrow

How many works do you have on Ao3?

15

2. Total word count on Ao3

304,692

3. Top 5 fics by kudos

The Hedgehog's Dilemma (793)

Stand Where the Light Hits Hard (654)

Tell Me Something True (475)

All I Have (And a Little More) (338)

Wrong Answers Only (337)

4. What fandoms do you write for?

I've only published fanfic for Ted Lasso, but I have a Black Sails fic and a The Terror fic that I'll theoretically get around to eventually. I also have some original fiction on Ao3.

5. Do you respond to comments?

...In theory. When I first started writing fanfic, I responded to all my comments, and then I got really behind and now there 72 unanswered comments in my inbox and if I'm going to respond to them, I want to be fair and respond to all of them. But also I'm lazy and don't want to do all that, so in practice, no. If you've left me a comment, I'm mentally giving you a gentle, affectionate pat on the head in thanks.

6. Angstiest ending?

Most of my original fics, but especially Emmetropia. I wrote the original version for class when I was 14, realized it was too long and also I was coming up on the deadline and needed to wrap things up, a problem which I solved by having the entire main cast die in prison of exposure and dehydration, with the main character hallucinating a miraculous escape right before her death. The version on Ao3 is a rewrite from a few years later, but it kept the same ending.

7. Happiest ending?

Nightlight, which is 500 words and change of pure fluff.

8. Do you get hate?

I haven't! The closest I've come is someone calling part of The Hedgehog's Dilemma "K-drama BS" or something along those lines in an otherwise complimentary comment, which isn't great fandom etiquette in a general sense but which I personally didn't mind.

9. Do you write smut?

Nope! I tend to be more on the indifferent-to-averse end of the aroace spectrum, so it's not really my thing.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I haven't, and probably won't. I understand the appeal in theory but they tend not to be my cup of tea.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but if anyone wants to, go for it! I might translate some of mine into Russian for practice once I'm better at it.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic?

My deep and abiding dislike of group projects extends to the creative field, so I have not.

14. All time favourite ship?

Due to the aforementioned aromanticism, shipping isn't really my thing, but maybe Louis and Lestat from Interview with the Vampire because their terrible disaster of a relationship is very entertaining to watch.

15. WIPS you wanted to finish but doubt you ever will

Probably that Black Sails fic I've been meaning to get to forever. I'm sorry Black Sails fic I've been meaning to get to forever.

16. Writing strengths

I have a persistence predator approach to writing where I may not write quickly or a lot all at once, but I only work on one WIP at a time, and I write a little bit of that WIP every day (with the occasional day off) until it's done.

17. Writing weaknesses

The flip side of the persistence predator approach is that I'm terrible at shifting focus, so I have several ideas that are essentially just waiting in line indefinitely instead of getting (at least partially) written while I'm excited about the idea.

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

I generally don't mind it, although I find it depends a lot on execution and how disruptive it turns out to be for the reading experience.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Ted Lasso, although before that, I'd been writing original basically since I learned how to write.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written

My little time loop original fic, The Eternal Recurrence of the Same. If we're talking fanfic specifically, Tell Me Something True.

[miradelletarot]

20 Questions for fic writers

Thank you @parkouringrabbit for the tag! *smooches!*

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 19!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 126,489

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

This is a weird question b/c I started to archive my older chapters of my longfic once I rewrote them. I am turning them into one long, chaptered work so having them in a series wasn't going to work anymore. TECHNICALLY, the fics that got the highest kudos count are now hidden so I will start with the ones that aren't.

Lies in the Mirror - A one-shot where GN!Tav is dealing with some body dysmorphia and Gale comforts them.

Kneading - Short. Sweet. Smutty. Gale and F!Tav start out preparing a nice dinner for two, but the kitchen gets a little *too* hot ;)

The Lovers - Chapter 8 of my longfic, The Weave and the Vines. This one is due for a rewrite (as I am slowly working through updating ALL of the chapters,) but this chapter outlines the difficult choices one often has to make. What one is willing to sacrifice for the sake of love.

Good Evening, My Love - This was written based off of this anon prompt! Another GN!Tav x Gale one-shot =]

Is This Forever Or Is This Goodbye? - Probably my favorite work, to date honestly. This is a modern AU of Sagora and Gale, inspired by Last Train, by The Midnight. (Song is linked in the fic intro!)

It's a tale of friends to lovers, driven apart by circumstance, reuniting serendipitously for an evening.

4. What fandoms do you write for?

Only BG3 for now. This is my 1st ever fandom really, and my first time ever posting my works online anywhere. AO3 is all new to me as well, and I was too busy being a wife and mom to really pay attention to any social media like Tumblr in its heyday. Which is a shame because I could have easily had an acct this whole time. Oh well.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always try to! It makes me SOO excited when someone takes even 10 seconds out of their day to write something, and I love interacting with people who do so they are equally appreciated for their efforts.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Angsty Jerkface God Gale, anyone? Read I Wanted to be Angry. It's an in-universe AU of Sagora and God!Gale where Sagora succumbs to her depression after losing the last thing she desperately tried to hold on to. (Have tissues. I'm told I have made ppl cry with this one.)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Well, I have a couple I think, but they are chapters in The Weave and the Vines. This one is my favorite b/c it's so fucking silly. The Walk of Shame.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

So far no. Hopefully it stays that way b/c if not i'll cry, and probably stop writing for a while.

9. Do you write smut?

Sure do! Idk if it's spectacular, but some ppl seem to like it so that's something! I'm kinda new at it so the fact that ppl enjoy it at all is really neat tbh!

10. Do you write crossovers?

Nope. Not currently.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so...and I really hope not. If so, you'd tell me right??? RIGHT?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not yet, but maybe someday!

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Sagora x Gale. Because I am a simp for my own character.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have several actually...a smutty one-shot with some predator/prey kink stuff, a sagora x gale AU where Gale is a stormchaser, a smutty Tav x Gale food play one-shot...there's more but that's what I thought of so far lol.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I have a HUGE gap in my writing history so I feel brand new at it all over again. But, I am TOLD that I am very evocative. Which, is honestly the hugest compliment and i will take that shit to my grave.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I don't know realistically, b/c I think all of my writing is weak tbh. Someone tell me genuinely...b/c I want to improve.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

Unless I have someone who is fluent in that particular language to tell me what I am saying (and I trust their word ofc lol) then I won't do it. However, if we are talking D&D languages and they are easily translatable, I might consider that.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

BG3 is my one and only so far.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

It's linked above, but here it is again, Is This Forever Or Is This Goodbye? Honestly, I love a lot of my works, but this one...THIS ONE just makes me feel so good about myself as a writer.

Tagging: @binyadotorg @keldae @sorceresssundries

Sorry if you've been previously tagged! But, if you have yet to be tagged and want to join in with this then you should!!