#i think? i have 6? different WIPs started for them

[more-mara]

Here’s an old WIP of mine that I have yet to finish.

Only now did Oscar actually get a good look at the captain's face. The man who had basically ruled the seven seas for the last 8 years, the man whose name alone could send a man trembling to his knees. Oscar didn’t think he’d ever get the misfortune to meet him.

Oscar bowed his head, looking away from the scarred yet shockingly young looking face of the captain. He flexed his hand in his binds, feeling the rope start to burn and chafe against his damp skin.

“What is your name, boy?�� The captain asked as Oscar raked his eyes up from the pristinely polished boots to stare at the sword hilted in the captain's belt.

Oscar bit the inside of his cheek, knowing that giving his name would probably be the last thing he ever did, no one survived a run in with Captain Sainz- it’s why no one knew for sure what he looked like. Oscar felt a little defiant, wanting to at least die with dignity.

Suddenly, a booted foot was planted against his back, Oscar fell forward with a groan as his face planted straight into the wooden floor of the ship, his hands still tied behind him.

“Answer when the captain speaks to you,” A voice said. He sounded French, maybe. Oscar struggled to place it exactly but as he turned his head to look at the man, he had an amused glint in his eye- as if he was enjoying Oscar’s guts for defiance.

“Oscar,” He grunted, gaze fixed on the man behind him- decidedly not at the captain. The man’s face lit up. Yeah, he was definitely enjoying this.

“Oscar? Not a very nobel name,” The man said with a smirk.

“I am not a nobel,” Oscar said, straining in his confines. The man behind him seemed to take pity, removing his foot from Oscar’s back to haul him back onto his knees. Oscar was faced with the captain once more, whose face was deep in a frown.

“What are you, then? You don’t look like you can fight,” The captain said, his eyes raking across Oscar’s figure, taking in the tattered clothing and overall dishevelled appearance.

Oscar bit his bottom lip, eyes meeting the captain’s once more. He tried not to let his voice shake as he spoke.

“Women are prohibited on our ships by the articles, sir, bad luck, you see?” Oscar said, looking almost a little desperately at the captain- praying he knew what he meant without having to explain.

“Are you seriously explaining pirate code to me?” The captain asked. He looked completely unimpressed and almost angered. Oscar winced a little, straightening his back.

“The men- they need…they are still men, and men have needs…”

The wave of silence crashed over them quicker than the ripples on the ocean. Oscar could see the tension in the captain's face and he heard a small gasp coming from his left- another of captain Sainzs crew.

“If I spare your life, will you be useful to me?” The captain asked, his gaze narrow and steely. Oscar swallowed thickly- he had done this ‘job’ for years now, a different crew would be no different. He knew how to please- how to be of worth.

“Whatever you ask, I will do, sir” Oscar said and he hated how his voice shook. When his previous ship was attacked, he thought he was saved. They flew the flag of the navy and Oscar felt his heart lurch in his chest when he spotted it. Freedom, at last, after 6 gruelling years. But no, it appears Captain Sainz had flown the flag of the monarchy as a ruse to capture their cargo. And it worked, with Oscar being captured along the way.

“You will help the men clean their weapons, you can start tomorrow morning,” The Captain said, and Oscar felt himself frowning.

“I thought-“

“You said you will do whatever I ask, correct?”

Oscar nodded.

“Well, this is what I am asking. Charles, keep him straight,” The Captain said, nodding to the man behind him. So Charles was his name, good to know, Oscar supposed. Charles gave him a smug grin before unsheathing his sword, cutting away Oscar’s binds with swift accuracy.

“Welcome aboard, matey,”

[cepheusgalaxy]

TIER LIST TIME

8. Had a vague idea about a character out of somewhere and expanded from there - Ie. Kokoro, Yami & Yoru and Polaris

7. Sat down and thought "i want another OC" - I felt like designing a new character so I sat down and did.

6. Expanded from a role - Ie. I had another oc and needed an aunt for them (Alice, Cassandra) or I needed someone to act a certain part of the beggining of the story so I made them up on the spot (Arielle).

5. Self insert - Quinn (sort of) and Ola (more literally) both started bc I wanted a character to either represent me or whom I could relate to. Quinn already existed in the concept of "mage, protagonist" but she came more to life when I projected my struggles with gender on him. Ola was supposed to be literally a representation of me that goes alll the way back when I thought I was a girl and wanted to make a story that had a character that was like me, but fantasy, a little different and who was also a genderbend (haha i wonder why)

4. Art challenge - I did a youtube character design challenge once and my character was so cool I made a whole story around him

3. Reworked another OC - Kaiki was originally a rework of Zai from another story, but they ended up becoming separate characters in their own stories over time. Polaris too (kinda). He was created from an old drawing I shoved the Transexual Beam on and then he was born.

2. Dream - Once I dreamed I had watched a super cool animated show with a very cool character and when I woke up I realized the show, in fact, did not exist so I decided to make it myself. That happened twice I think

1. School assignment gone too far - Once a teacher of mine told us we were doing a TTRPG in class on a fantasy world of our doing that should be based on WWI. I was very excited and created an entire world and a very cool character (Michael Mia, a transexual immigrant who was also secretly a mage) and then the year ended. And we never did the RPG. So now I just have an oc floating around ig.

Similar cases were with Grace (from an abandoned wip) when my History teacher told us to do a short comic about an original character that should have lived around the French Revolution, and Dan, from when my Literature teacher gave us a short writing prompt and told us to do a one-page drabble from there and as I was thinking on what the background and lore behind that dialogue bit could be and accidentally made a new story. I never turned in that drabble.

What is the wackiest or most out of pocket story for coming up with your oc? Not the story of your oc itself in text, I mean in real life how you ended up making them?

[jake-marshall]

Six Sentence Sunday - More Bokumono Rarepairs Edition

So I have a lot of WIPs started for the Story that is the beginning, middle and eventual end (or is it???) of Jill/Trent. I reference them in my Trent/Carter fics as Trent's previous relationship that ended badly, which... is somewhat true. For Jill/Trent, I have two very distinct paths in mind - and one of them does end in a break-up, with Trent eventually ending up with Carter years later. But the fic I've been working on most recently is the jumping off point. Where it all starts, more or less. I'm having a lot of fun with this, because Jill (or, my take on her) is so entertaining to write. I mean, she's kind of awful, but that's what makes her so fun, lol.

“Oh, I’m not sure they’d all appreciate this town, and everything it has to offer, as much as I do. Most of them aren’t like you, Jill – as mindful of their health. Not without the proper guidance, at least.” “I’m what now?” Jill asked, as she clicked shut the lid of her bento box so she could open the attached second tier, with part two of her meal. “Oh… oh, right, because I’m always running around from dawn ‘til dusk.” Jill didn’t think of herself as fit, exactly, but she’d never had any issue with staying on her feet all day. Sure, she’d be tired by nightfall, but rarely was she ever exhausted. “But you still manage to get enough rest, from what I understand,” Trent said. “And as you told me yourself, you maintain a healthy diet.” Told you myself? Oh! Right! She had said that, the other week when she’d run into Trent at Hardy’s and stayed behind with him while Elli and Hardy went out to Romana’s villa. She couldn’t really recall the meat of their conversation, though; she’d still been a tad hungover from the night before, when she’d been out at the Blue Bar with Karen until midnight, and had honestly just swung by because a girl deserved some eye candy every now and then – and one thing must’ve led to another, and she’d just told him what he wanted to hear. Now, she kinda wondered how he would’ve reacted if she’d said she just ate whatever tasted good. He would’ve been ticked off, no doubt, and she’d yet to see him like that, though she guessed it was pretty hot.

[saintslewis]

𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 — 𝐋𝐇𝟒𝟒

— pairing: lewis hamilton x fem!oc

— trope: fake/arranged marriage

— summary: the Browns and the Hamiltons have been neighbours for many years, Nadia and their oldest son, Lewis, not being as close as the families had hoped they would be. Years later, everyone drifts apart into different neighbourhoods, some others becoming one of the best drivers to ever grace the sport of Formula One however being a man of his stature, fame came along with it and so did the scandals.

can a fake marriage to a complete stranger help keep his image alive? let’s find out!

✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ———————— let’s meet the lovely couple!

👩🏽‍🏫 —— nadia brown!

“the coolest teacher ever”

⸰ֺ⭑ - a south african native who moved to stevenage with her mom when she was 8 and gosh, her character development is one for the books. from being the shy one for all of her school years, university changed everything and made her the social butterfly that you will all grow to love soon. fav colour is pink. fav artist is beyoncé. she teaches history and knows jack shit about f1 except that the cool guy that her parents support used to be their neighbour. absolutely loves the moon and is a part time stylist. will fight for you even she met you a second ago.

🏎️ —— lewis hamilton!

“the goat.”

⸰ֺ⭑ - a literal superstar. the stevenage driver who i would describe as the coolest person ever and many would agree. an adrenaline junky with a heart of gold and filled with positivity (and sass but you didn’t hear it from me). thee fashionista and he knows he’s fine, he just does. father to roscoe. fav colour is purple. loves discussing space and its beauty. did i mention he’s the coolest guy ever? super supportive of everyone around him and he’s knighted. ladies and gents, mr mercedes!

✧༚ ˎˊ˗ info abt renaissance!

˖ ࣪⭑ - warnings: cussing, outfit descriptions, a bit of angst, mentions of alcohol, a talk of ad21, south african slang, slight hints of smut (18+ MDNI), not much of a slow burn lol, lots and lots of brand names, slight themes of sugar daddy! lewis at some point lol (think of it as him spoiling her!)

˖ ࣪⭑ - inspo: this idea just spawned into my head as well as a few of my wip’s mushed together to make this masterpiece. i absolutely love beyonce so using RENAISSANCE for a project so special to me just make wanna do a couple cartwheels. i hope you guys enjoy this as much as i did making this!

˖ ࣪⭑ - saint’s team radio: omg hi everybody 🤭. first oc on tumblr woohoo! not a lot of the song lyrics will relate to the plot of the chapter but more so the beat of the song or the vibe? hope that makes sense lol. i hope you guys like the humour i’m gonna add in here. there isn’t a schedule for this yet but hopefully i’ll be more organised in the future. let’s get this party started!

˖ ࣪⭑ - taglist: @thisismeracing @goldsainz @folkloresthings @flowerchild-96 @userlando (i read your blogs as if it’s my morning paper so i hope you like this 😭) @non-stop-imagines @royallyprincesslilly . let me know if you wanna be tagged in this or future fics!

˖ ࣪⭑ - dividers by @cafekitsune 🫶🏽

˖ ࣪⭑ - pictures from pinterest and twitter

˖ ࣪⭑ - nadia faceclaim: @/unclewaffles_ on ig!

𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 !

1. I’M THAT GIRL

- the first meeting.

2. COZY

- imagine having dinner with your family then they announce that you’re getting married? you better get cozy for this one!

3. ALIEN SUPERSTAR

- first “date”. gotta show the world the newest married couple!

4. CUFF IT

- didn’t Lewis say he was a professional dancer? well now he is 🕺🏽

5. ENERGY

- first day in the paddock, let’s gaurrr

6. BREAK MY SOUL

- ooohhhhh, the school’s calling for a meeting with Nadia 😟

7. CHURCH GIRL

- party time activated ‼️

8. PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA

- a rainy afternoon in the kitchen with the both of them dancing? literally screaming!

9. VIRGO’S GROOVE

- catching feelings there?

10. MOVE

- a visit to Nadia’s work place isn’t so bad, right? …right?

11. HEATED

- time to let the world know who exactly Nadia is and why to not mess with her or her husband. period.

12. THIQUE

- party time pt 2?

13. ALL UP IN YOUR MIND

- how about a little vacation? :D

14. AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM

- coming soon!

15. PURE/HONEY

- coming soon!

16. SUMMER RENAISSANCE

- coming soon!

status: ongoing

saintslewis 🫶🏽

[cjlouwho]

I 100% agree with you that that was lazy writing. What was the point of deliberately picking someone the audience (and the 118) were familiar with to be Buck's LI when they could have picked some random. What was the point in delving into Tommy's history and his feelings, what was the point of showing him head over heels for Buck in the last ep, of getting a gift for their 6 month anniversary only to say "oh well, I figured we wouldn't last, so I'm gonna get out now before you break my heart". Why let him get that involved if Tommy's ideology was to never allow himself to move forward in the relationship because ultimately he thought it wouldn't last? It's whiplash for the audience after you saw how INVESTED Tommy was in the last ep! And how exactly is this Buck getting off the hamster wheel? This relationship has ended pretty much exactly like all his others - he gets invested, they leave! They had so much potential as a couple - seeing what it's like for two fire-fighters to date knowing they're both in risky jobs, maybe Buck having to meet/deal with Tommy's homophobic father, getting to explore a "new" character's back story instead of rehashing the same story lines from the mains as well as seeing more of how Buck deals with being in a same sex relationship. All wasted.

And since they referenced Glee, if the plan is for it to echo the Kurt/Blaine relationship in that show where they broke up so they could "explore" before getting back together, by doing so they ruined that relationship so much that by the end it wasn't satisfying that they WERE endgame - they weren't the couple we fell in love with. (And also, way to reinforce the negative stereotype of "you can't ever be long term with your first". I should let my sister, my cousin and my aunt know even though they've all been married for years to their husbands - all their first.) Even if they do decide to bring Tommy back down the line, would it even be the same relationship we fell in love with? Would we even trust the writers to stick with it and treat it well? Or if they did a final episode reunion so Buck doesn't end the series alone, how is that satisfying for the audience?

I have been watching 911 since it started, and I have always been part of the general audience up until S7 where I joined the fandom because I thought Buck/Tommy were adorable. It's the first time in years I've become invested in a couple on a show. It's the first time in years that I've dipped my toes back into a fandom. Like you, this ship inspired me to write fic again. I have a bunch of wip's waiting to be posted on ao3 and I honestly don't know if I'll finish them now. And if they have broken them up for Buddie to get together I think I'll stop watching. And not just because I never saw them as a romantic couple (I only ever saw a deep friendship) but because logistically I don't see it working. Besides the fact that I think that while they work as friends, they probably wouldn't gel as a couple, two people on the same team in a relationship? That will screw up the 118 dynamic, especially as this show looooves relationship drama. If they get in a fight, or worse, break up, then what? How would that work within the 118, unless someone transfers out, but then it's bye bye the 118 we love. And not to mention, in the only 4 months I have been in this fandom I have seen some VILE crap from the buddies, and from what I understand it they've been like that for years. And the show runners know about it, so if they go with Buddie, congratulations, you've rewarded toxic behaviour and given them a license to be worse (look at them already, going in the bucktommy tags and gloating).

I told myself after Glee ended and they royally screwed everything up that I wouldn't watch another Ryan Murphy show because he has a history of doing that sort of thing. When 911 came along I was cautious, but it looked like it would be different - more grown up if you will, especially since Ryan Murphy hasn't really been involved since season 1. I should have just gone with my gut. I just hope that, knowing these last two eps were filmed weeks before they aired, the showrunners see how popular they were and realise crap, we've made a BIG mistake. (Everyone should flood instagram and especially Facebook, whoch is more GA than most social media platforms, with RESPECTFUL comments about how devastated they are, and who knows, it might make them consider bringing Tommy back sometime in 8b - I believe they're still writing the back half of the season.)

Side note, I feel really sorry for Lou. Yeah he's going back to SWAT, and I love him in that (even though his character can be a dick sometimes) but he's said in interviews how he's tired of always being cast as "the muscle" due to his size and he seemed genuinely happy to get this role, which was exactly what he was looking for - the sweet, caring, romantic love interest role where he could show some depth, and they screwed him over (sounds like he even thought Buck and Tommy were doing well and wasn't expecting the break up until the end).

(Apologies for the long rant. But what you've been saying really resonated with me and I needed to share your sentiments.)

.

[di-42]

Well, what a good month for reading August has been! A few days off can make such a difference!

As always I'll try and tag the writers whose Tumblr username I know, so they know they are loved!

If your fiction is on this recommendation list and you'd rather I take it off the list, or if you know a writer who's on this list would rather not be, please let me know and I'll remove their fiction immediately.

I have really enjoyed these fictions, including not one but two Christmas stories. In August. Because, why not? i hope you'll love them too!

August's Awesome Fictions

WIPs:

Wavelengths & Frequencies by imposterssyndrome @maaikeatthefullmoon and shades_of_eccles_cakes @shadesofecclescakes (rated E, chapters 5/?)

I'm absolutely loving this enemies-to-lovers human AU where Crowley and Aziraphale are radio DJs. They loathe each other. They also can't stop thinking about each other! Of course they end up working for the same media corporation. The humour in this story is sharp and clever, and the characterisation is excellent! It's updated every Monday and honestly the only problem I have with this story is that I receive the notification email on a Monday morning and need to wait until at least the end of the working day to dive in!

You're The Bad Guys by Nebz_AlphaCentauri @alphacentaurinebula(rated E, chapters 8/?)

Human AU set in the Cold War. Aziraphale is an MI6 agent, Crowley is a KGB agent. They're assigned to the same mission in Berlin by their respective head offices. This story is full of suspense! I love the characterisation of our heroes and each chapter leaves me wanting for more! Updated every Friday.

My own WIP And I Did (rated E, chapters 6/13)

A post season 2 fiction where Aziraphale is Supreme Archangel and Crowley is Grand Duke Of Hell.

In my not-a-summary I say that this is a story about faith, about love, and about choices. Which is true. But I have come to think of it also as my apology dance to Crowley. My headcanon about Aziraphale has always been clear and my first fiction was me sharing that headcanon basically. I wasn't as sure about what Crowley would do after the final 15 as I was about what Aziraphale’s motives were. I didn't see Crowley drinking himself oblivious or taking a road of self destruction. But I didn't know what he would do. So I skipped that part and started that fiction from after the failed second coming, but still I didn't think I did Crowley justice. Then it hit me, and that was when I started writing And I Did. I knew what Crowley would do. Crowley would do what Crowley does. And what does Crowley do best? This is a story about faith, about love, and about choices. I try to update every weekend, but I might not be as reliable as I’d like!

Complete stories:

The Truth About Plants & Queen by ShortInsomniac98 (rated E, 11353 words)

Human AU where Crowley hosts a night radio program and Aziraphale calls in. I love how their relationship develops in this story and I loved to see a friendly side of Gabriel! (And I mean Gabriel!)

The Anon Before Christmas by @foolishlovers (rated E, 66732 words)

Ah. Where to begin. Every now and then, you read a fiction that just makes you feel at home. Makes you feel like you’re in safe hands. Like you’re in for a real treat. This absolute gem has very quickly become my favourite human AU. For several reasons.  The characterisation of the two main characters is absolutely spot on. I could hear Crowley talking in DT’s Crowley voice and see him moving in DT’s Crowley way, and I could hear Aziraphale talking in MS’s Aziraphale voice and see him moving in MS’s Aziraphale way. The pace of the development of their relationship from enemies to lovers is just perfect. It’s told from Crowley’s POV and you can see how his perspective changes as the story progresses, but the writer is so good that Aziraphale’s change of perspective shows perfectly through Crowley’s POV too. The array of side characters is so good that it actually pains me to call them side characters. I wrote in one of my comments to the fiction that I will forever adore this story’s Bee, and I meant it, but Newt and Ana are equally fantastic (and I loved the other cameos too!). Also, and this is especially important to me, this story is as much a love story between Crowley and Aziraphale as it is a story of true friendship among all the characters. They look after each other, they have each other’s back, they support each other. I am so lucky and privileged to be able to see myself represented in that aspect of the story. Last but not least, this fiction doesn't overstay its welcome one bit. You are happy about how everyone ended up, but still could read more. It’s like you are part of the gang and want to know what your friends are up to. Everything in this story was perfect. I realise I haven’t mentioned what the plot is about, but hopefully by now you might want to find out for yourself!

Planes, Trains & The Apocalypse by walking_contradiction42 (rated teen, 32382 words)

Human AU where Crowley and Aziraphale meet on a plane on their way to Tadfield (via London) for Christmas. Crowley can't stand Aziraphale and only wants as uneventful a journey home as possible. Ha! 

I understand there’s a film with a similar title, you definitely don't need to have watched the film in order to enjoy this lovely fiction. 

The Bookseller And The Garden by oceantears (rated teen, 13668 words)

Fluff, fluff, fluff! Canon divergent fiction where Crowley is a demon stationed on earth, Aziraphale is an angel stationed on earth, but they have never met until present day. There's no end of the world in sight, only an angel and a demon falling in love and not knowing how to break it to the other that they're not human. I laughed all the way through.

After The End (part one of Nice And Ominous: A Reluctant Eschatology Of The Second Attempt) by beardo @e-rated-beardo (rated teen, 26086 words)

Crowley learns to cope after Aziraphale goes to heaven, with a little help.from his friends. And from the Bentley. I love the writer’s humour and the conversations between Crowley and the Bentley are hilarious.

Series:

Aziraphale’s Diaries by azzfell, @fellshish

This series is hilarious, warm and fluffy. So far there are four stories, all consisting in, yes you guessed it, Aziraphale’s diary entries. In the first story, Empirical study on the principles of snake care (rated teen, 2048 words), Aziraphale suddenly realises he hasn’t paid enough attention to Crowley snake-y needs. He decides he wants to make up for it. Hilarity ensues. Put your cup of tea down before day 6, trust me. In Experiments of an angel who has read entirely too much fanfic (rated teen, 3064 words), Aziraphale discovers fanfiction shipping him and Crowley and decides he wants to test some of the tropes on the demon. Reading Crowley’s reactions through Aziraphale’s POV lens will make you feel warm inside. Drink down at day 10. In How to be a demon: a brief history of the Arrangement (rated teen, 2663 words), Aziraphale recounts some of the temptations he’d had to do during the years, to honour the arrangement with Crowley. The last entry will make you melt. In Adventures of a mystery shopper in the bookshop (rated teen, 3090 words), Aziraphale is worried that Crowley is getting bored, so he wants to help by giving him something to do. Peeps, for this one don’t even pick your drink up. You’ll end up spitting it all over your laptop/phone/tablet.

One shots:

Keep Digging by Appleseeds (rated teen7068 words)

Human AU. Crowley and Aziraphale work in the same office and Crowley is trying to gather the courage to ask Aziraphale out, only to get cold feet at the last moment. In order to try and save his face, he needs to do what the title says. I howled with laughter. Just put down whatever you’re doing and go read this right now. It’s unbelievably hilarious.

But It’s Pretty by Supergeek21 (rated E, 2544 words)

Aziraphale and Crowley have a conversation on why the Bentley is yellow and why the walls are yellow. Things get deliciously spicy.

You've Got Kudos by curtaincall (rated M, 4128 words)

Aziraphale and Crowley both write Good Omens fanfiction on Ao3. Crowley’s stories are sweet and romantic. Aziraphale’s stories are smutty and spicy. They love each other's stories without knowing who the writer is. This fiction was a treat!

The Corset by smitten_obviously @sabine-smitten-obviously (rated G, 1248 words)

A funny and sweet account of that time in the 17th century when Aziraphale decided to wear a corset. I really loved how sweet Crowley is here, without overdoing it a bit! A little gem.

My own little one shot, Angel! Angel! They're At It Again! (rated M, 5566 words)

It's the year 2030. The world never ended. Aziraphale and Crowley are living happily and safely together as a married couple. Everything would be well, if it wasn't that lately Aziraphale has been a bit busy. A bit distracted. Now, Crowley can't have that, can he? He seeks the advice of his girlfriends, who unwittingly give him an idea on how to liven up his marriage. A fluffy and hopefully funny way to the South Downs cottage.

Poems:

To Wish To Fall by ArchangelRemiel @sassysnakedemon

A lovely and sweet poem that explores different ways of falling.

The Devil's Red Hair by lickthecowhappy

I really loved this very emotional poem! Aziraphale has a little souvenir helping him cope in heaven.

June's list here.

September's list here.

[sp00pypumpkins]

This is how I feel Zero would met player HAHHA, they werent prepared to face an adult human per se XD.

Au belongs to @asamary!

I am going to rant a bit about it under the cut.

He uses they/he pronouns

He is slightly smaller than catnap

So Zero was just in a intership for a short period before he found the truth and wanted to out it but they got him and turn him into a toy! When he found the truth he met the prototype but his fascination of gadgets and mechanism was stronger than feeling fear XD

He can produce energy via his emotions and on his own will if he is in good shape, he met the critters soon after, he was in charge of the time for movies or shows and story telling. His knowledge in mechanism made him be able to have more dinamic storytelling using tricks with lights and such.

Zero then loses their temper electrocuting a scientist not on purpose trying to stop them for taking more kids, in wich the scientist take notice and take him to the labs in wich he got experimented more and amplifying his production of electricity.

He then kept being experimented while being plugged to the facility providing electricity to a portion of it. He became a living generator.

The prototype then offered them to be part of the hour of joy by the promise of revenge and freedom and no more pain, he accepted and shut the facility down from electricity and closed the doors from many places trapping everyone inside.

Now this is where the the au and canon takes different paths

Since in canon Zero gets deceived by the Prototype and was kept as a generator for the prototype (basically he will still be used as a generator by the prototype) the prototype would carve a mouth in the shape of a smile on Zero so he can feed. Zero dislikes him after being betrayed.

In the au since the prototype just killed the scientists and the bad people, Zero is very loyal to the prototype and helps them finding the more bad people by hacking security cameras or websites, but he stays in the town most of the time.

In the au Zero lives in the basement of the aparment the critters live in (if they are in a building and not just a singular house lmao) He produces the energy of a portion of the city, if he doesnt their electricity would go hirewire, he just plugs himself at night and acumulates the electricity in the generators.

If there is a storm and ther ei s apower outage he can easily feed the building, you just need to wake him up and tell him about it.

Zero has 6 minicritters of themselfves in wich some are patrolling and some are around him, they are like security cameras in a way

They go around fixing a lot of stuff around town specially electronics,

He likes to create gadgets, toys or artwork from metal, thats why he would go to the dupmster zone to search for parts and bring them home, they find admiration how the prototype can dissamble an object to create another so he looks up to the prototype like a teacher.

He is usually in the background doing mundane fixes there and there, because he was isolated and the only contact was when they experimented on him, he gets veyr anxious around adult humans but with time you can see he is just a silly guy who adores affection he just doesnt know how to handle it yet.

I like to think they are the guy whom people go when something gets broken or need assitance with.

I really couldnt stop thinkning about the au, its 2 am but I probs forgot things.

If ya dont mind I shall keep doing lil comics about this au with my oc in it qwq

Now just a wip of a future ref I am making

Some fun facts:

He dislikes being touched in the back

The Prototype helped zero gain a mouth and get unplugged from the cables since it was a tedious and careful task.

The minicriters have different shapes (i forgot to put the x body marks on the square anthena minicrtitter :()

Simple shape on anthena= complex shape on body and vice versa.

He can speak human language very soflty but it feels off for him specially if he talks for to long it starts to hurt. (He normally talks in gibberish like puppycat from the show :D)

The stronger the emotion the more energy he can produce

If there are tvs plug on them or he touches them, he can comunicate with those using memories and replicating the voice from that memory (is like doing a collage of different voices and images in a tv) he can also project their dreams on tvs

He is very light

The scarf/coat is attached to them like part of their body.

They are protective of their friends he isnt very strong but will fight for them

He gets sometimes ghost pains in their back, the scale of pain depends of the day

ANYWAYS thats it me thinks I shall make lil comics about all the facts and other stuff other times qwq

If u read everything, thank you and hello! Hope u have a good day :D

Also sorry about the grammar and writting english is not first language and its 2 am HAHAHA

They have a hard time hidding how they really feel because the color their anthena, eyes and stars may change by how he feels

He tries to always stay calm and with right composure but he is actually very emotional, he just had learn how to manage the emotions

[stump-not-found]

A03 wrapped 2024

tagged by @tempusedax-rerum >:DDDDD

1.) Biggest surprise while writing this year?

how much people responded to bill cipher saying daddy . how people have interpreted ford's relationship to mabel in theseus' guide; i've really tried to write him as really caring for her so seeing that interpreted as him disliking her is so interesting haha

most of all tho i'm just surprised and very grateful that theseus has received any attention, it's been so so wonderful reading everyone's thoughts and seeing them engage with the fic . it really makes the entire process so gratifying, and i hope folks continue to enjoy where the story goes next :D

2.) How many WIPs do you have in your docs for next year?

i've got my erotic billford rom com Can of Snakes that's over 20k right now . it has banger titles such as "sad handjob" and "penicular sounding", so someday i'll be posting that . i think they can make it work

i also just started Weirdmageddon 2: Electric Boogaloo: Lost In New York, an AU where ford gets stan to help him finish the portal after kicking fidd's to the curb . stan and bill become besties, ford hates it, and bill isn't allowed to destroy new york until he tries a slice of 'za .

this is not accounting for the mountain of comic WIP's i have but that shit aint goin on ao3

3.) Favourite character to write this year?

ford for sure . you give me a character who's autistic in a way that isn't cute and it just means the world to me . i get to give him evil autism . the autism where we acknowledge growing up autistic is traumatizing and makes you not a nice person all the time . fuck i love him . i get to dump so much of my own shit on him its so funnnnnnn yay lalalala

there was a whole paragraph i wrote that was just describing the perfect eye angle to maintain when walking through a farmers market to avoid social scenario's, which i had to remove because it was just me rambling about my own social survival strategies . farmers markets are dangerous places

i also love writing him in the context of bill . what a fucking mess they are i hope they never get better . but together <3

4.) The character that gave you the most trouble this year?

honestly stanley pines . i feel like i soften him too much, and lean in to his more positive traits than his more negative ones . it's hard because i feel like folks don't talk about the fact he was homeless for like 10 years & also had a breaking bad style adventure in columbia

the other problem is that he IS a big softy so idk . but he should be bitchier god damn it . he should be talking about his cataracts

6.) Did you receive any gifts this year?

I DID YOU INSANE PEOPLE thank you all it make a me smile:

@stemmmm @ancharan @kronehaze @sillyhyperfixator @ezrathean0n

7.) Did you do any collaborative works this year?

i feel like all my writing is collaborative!! i spend hours talking fic stuff with my wife & brother and my stuff is all the better for it . would love to do more of that w/ other folks i love it talking and thinking and playing is so fun

8.) What do you listen to while writing?

i don't like listening to music when i write lol ...... i sit in the cold silence and type in a frantic spiral .

i listen to a lotta different things while i think of things to write tho . atm all i want in the world is to make a theseus animation to this song it's very hammercore :

9.) Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

oogh that's hard to choose . i'm just gonna share a bunch that make me laugh

from theseus' guide step six:

Dipper, clearly, doesn’t get it, and Ford acknowledges he is too young to understand a professional working relationship.

also from step six:

“Oh, sure, I can move on,” Stan grins, “To the other items on my list. A, the shack’s toilets all suck, and the seats keep raisin’ automatically. B, your handwriting sucks. C–”

from theseus' guide step three:

“You think you’re coming back anytime soon?” “No, 8-Ball, I don’t think I’m ‘ coming back ’ anytime soon.” Ford snides, though 8-Ball either doesn’t register that, or doesn’t care; hard to tell with the guy, “I’m sure you’re aware, but your boss wants to kill my family. And destroy my universe. ” 8-Ball sniffs. “Cool. Mind if I eat your leftovers then? Teeth keeps eyeing them.” Ford frowns, “You couldn’t have just brought them with you?” “Nah, man, I want to eat them.”

lots of lines from step eight but we ain't there yet

uuuuhhghhg who to send this chain mail along to uuuhgghgh

@beccadrawsstuff if u wannaaaa . anyone else feel free to pick this up as well i'm bad at this lol

[katsukikisses]

birds of a feather: chapter three [hawks x reader]

chapter summary: sixth grade is a year of changes. you and keigo learn a few things about yourselves as you prepare to enter junior high.

also, by popular demand (aka 6 people), i have made a playlist for birds of a feather. it's a wip so if you guys have any songs you think would suit this fic then please leave a comment or send in an ask with the song name, and i will add it!

chapter tags: childhood friends trope; alternating povs; feelings realizations; discussion of japanese honorific speech. this is a helpful article on the intricacies of honorifics if you are interested.

cw: obligatory mean girl steal-ur-man character; socioeconomic differences?; toomie not showing up for keigo's graduation

prefer to read on ao3? here!

prev. chapter | table of contents | next chapter

“When we were younger, We didn't know how it would be, We were the dumb, the wild, the free." — Conan Gray, Little League

“Hey, Keigo-kun, what are you wearing to the graduation ceremony?”

“I bet he’ll be wearing a hakama, since he’s traditional like that. Aren’t you, Keigo-kun?”

“At least tell us what color, Keigo-kun! Maybe we’ll match.” 

That last comment was enough to stir you from your nap. With immense effort, you lifted your head from its comfortable position on your desk and sat up straight. A bleary glance at the clock told you that there were only a few minutes left before class started, causing you to sigh—no point in going back to sleep, now. 

Vengefully, you turned towards the commotion that had awoken you, and, unsurprisingly, found your best friend at the center of it. Keigo sat at his desk at the far end of the room, surrounded by a gaggle of girls. They leaned against the windowsills and surrounding desks, getting as close as possible without overstepping boundaries. The boldest of the group, a girl named Miyake Aito, was perched on Keigo’s desk, legs swinging beneath her. When you heard her giggle at the other girls’ teasing, you realized that she’d been the one to inquire about matching outfits. Unbidden, a frown spread across your face. 

“I’m not sure yet, Miyake-san” Keigo was saying, smiling amiably. “I don’t want to be the only one in traditional wear.”

The girls were quick to assure him that No, there will definitely be others, and began to complain about how guys didn’t want to wear hakamas anymore. Keigo listened to them politely, nodding at the appropriate times, but subtly attempted to peer around their bodies. You realized, belatedly, that he was searching for you. How did he even know I’d woken up? Sometimes, it was like he had a sixth sense for all things YN-related. 

Keigo's golden eyes finally found yours and narrowed at your sleep-addled appearance. You stuck your tongue out at him in return. For a moment, the two of you remained in your little bubble, silently communicating across the room. 

Aito quickly picked up on the blonde's distraction, though, and followed his line of sight. When she realized he was looking at you, she began waving at you excitedly. 

“LN-chan!” she grinned at you. “You’re finally up! Come join us.”

The other girls agreed, enthusiastically beckoning you over. Face heating up at the attention (and at the mention of your mid-morning nap), you rose from your seat and made your way over. You stopped at the edge of the group, but Aito reached out and pulled you to her side. Her long, wavy hair, which she wore over her shoulder, tickled your bare arm. 

“Um, what’s up?” you asked, attempting to sound casual. You’d never really spoken to Aito or her friends, so the sudden proximity was a little startling. 

“We’re trying to get Keigo to wear a hakama for the graduation ceremony,” Aito pouted, as if his refusal aggrieved her personally. “Help us convince him, LN-chan!”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d be any help,” you said, looking down at the boy in question. Keigo still had that demure smile on his face, but the subtle twitches of his lips betrayed his amusement. “He’s a real free spirit.”

Aito laughed, tightening her hold around you. “But YN-chan, a hakama would totally suit him, right? Given his whole traditional thing.” 

A few of the girls around you hummed in agreement. You looked questioningly at her. 

“His traditional thing?”

“You know, the way he uses san for everyone, and how he never calls anyone by their first name. Like, I’m Miyake-san,” Aito gestured to herself, and then to the other girls. “And she’s Nonaka-san, and she’s Kudo-san…”

And then she faced you, tilting her head curiously. “And even though you guys are close, he still calls you LN-san, doesn’t he?”

“I guess so,” you shrugged, meeting Keigo’s eye once more. Aito didn’t need to know that, outside of school, you were just YN and Keigo to each other. You’d dubbed him “Keigo-kun” practically the first time you spoke, and shortly thereafter dropped the honorific entirely. The blonde, on the other hand, took much longer to disregard formalities, and for the first six months of your friendship he exclusively addressed you as LN-san. The only exception was when your parents were around, in which case you became LN-chan and they were the sans. It took the three of you a year of insisting that he call you YN, and they oba-san and oji-san, for him to finally do so.

At school, though, Keigo still referred to you as LN-san. You didn't quite understand why until his mom overheard him call you by your given name a few months ago. Her expression had twisted into one of deep displeasure—not quite disappointment, or any other emotion one might show when their child didn’t behave. It was more like…fear. 

She’d yelled at Keigo, then, and made him apologize to you. You know better than that, she’d admonished him, We don’t talk to others like that. You remember frantically insisting he get up from his bow, alarmed and close to tears yourself. Somehow, you couldn’t help but feel that the whole thing was all your fault.

(Many months later, you worked up the courage to ask Keigo about it—why he was so proper all the time and why his mom yelled at him. Why it was okay for you to call him Keigo but not okay for him to call you YN.

He’d simply replied, “Because I’m a hybrid.”)

Shaking the memory from your mind, you realized you’d zoned out while Aito continued talking. She didn’t look happy with your noncommittal answer, and had let go of your arm in favor of turning back towards Keigo. 

“Well, if you won’t wear a hakama to be traditional,” she sighed, twirling a stray lock of hair around her finger. “Then you should at least do it for LN-chan. She’d love to see you in traditional wear.”

At this, the other girls snickered. Your face heated—you were sure you were being laughed at, but you just didn’t know for what. 

Keigo raised his eyebrows impassively. “I don’t know what you mean, Miyake-san.”

Aito leaned towards him. From her position on his desk, she could look directly down at him. “I think,” she giggled, “we all know what I mean.”

“Why don’t you tell me, then,” he returned coolly. 

A conspiratorial grin spread across Aito’s face. She had really nice teeth, you noticed offhandedly. While other kids’ mouths were still shackled in metal and rubber bands, her’s was already blindingly white and straight. 

“I mean,” Aito began, “We all know that LN-chan—”

She was cut off by the ring of the school bell, signaling the end of the period. Students immediately began taking their seats, and the teacher walked in, frowning when she saw your group gathered by the window. 

“Miyake-san, it’s quite rude to sit on someone else’s desk,” she chided, “Everyone, please return your seats. Goodness, you all are about to enter junior high, and you still can’t be ready for class on time.” 

Aito slid off the desk, mumbling an apology to your teacher and Keigo. The other girls hurriedly returned to their desks, and you began heading back to your side of the classroom. You were stopped, however, by a hand wrapping around your wrist. You looked back to see Aito at your arm, that same smile on her face. She tugged on you lightly, learning over to whisper in your ear. 

“We all know,” she giggled, “that you like Keigo-kun.”

“What about this one, YN? The blue is very pretty.” 

“No, I already wear blue on my uniform everyday.”

“Okay, then how about this one? You can’t go wrong with black.”

“No, it’s too somber. What am I, going to a funeral?”

“Alright, then, what about a two piece—”

“No!” you jumped up, shoving away the skirt your mom was dangling in front of your face. “Two pieces are for little kids—I’m literally entering junior high!”

“Right,” your mom said, “So…you’re a little kid.”

Groaning, you sank back into the plush changing room chair. Across from you, your mother exasperatedly flopped down in her own chair. The mall was blessedly empty today; otherwise, shoppers would’ve gotten a front-row seat to LN Akemi having a breakdown over formalwear.  

“Why are you making this so difficult,” your mother wailed, half-heartedly flinging a blouse at you. It landed a few feet short of your chair, on a different shirt you’d rejected. “You usually love shopping with me.”

That was true—shopping with your mother was one of the rare times where the two of you weren’t bickering and actually got along. No, for a few peaceful hours every weekend, you were united by gossip, cute clothes, and her credit card. 

“I know, I’m sorry,” you sighed, “I guess I’m just nervous about graduation.”

Your mother pushed herself up one her elbows and peered at you. “I thought you said it was just a ‘lame event’ that you ‘didn’t care about.”

You winced at your harsh words being thrown back at you. “Well, that was before…”

“Before what?”

“Umm,” you said intelligently, “Before I realized how important this milestone actually is?”

Your mother narrowed her eyes at you. You averted your gaze. 

Truth be told, it was still just a lame event that you didn’t care about. An elementary school graduation was not a great cause for celebration, in your opinion, especially since everyone would be heading to the same junior high. Still, considering recent developments, you wanted to put some effort into your outfit…

At the thought of the incident, you groaned again and shoved your face into your hands. It’d been the source of all your agony this past week, rendering you incapable of enjoying a simple shopping trip with your mom. Ever since Aiko had put that stupid thought into your head—

We all know that you like Keigo-kun. 

Well, of course you liked Keigo, you huffed internally—he was your best friend! Ever since that fateful stormy afternoon in the second grade, the two of you had been inseparable. You hung out everyday, either watching lame superhero shows at your place or playing video games based on said lame superhero shows at his. You shared every thought with him (even the stupid ones, like when you thought Algeria was in South America) and he was the first person you turned to when you needed support. You enjoyed his company better than anyone else in the universe, and when you thought of your future you couldn’t imagine it without him. So yes, you did like Keigo, because all best friends liked each other. 

But, you knew that wasn’t what Aito meant. She meant that you like-liked him, in the way that many of the kids in your class had begun to: holding hands at recess, bumping shoulders on the walk home. Calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend. Like-liked, in the way that best friends totally shouldn’t like each other. 

So did you?

You dragged your hands down your face, choosing to ignore your own question. Peeking through your fingers, you saw that your mom had left her chair to go back to shopping. She was shifting through the racks of dresses, her wedding ring glinting noticeably as she moved. The sight of it made you think about your parents’ own marriage. They liked—no, loved—each other, didn’t they? 

You tried to think if they did any of the things the couples in your class did, but came up empty. Your father didn’t like to hold your mother’s hand because he claimed it was always “unbearably sweaty”, and you think your mother would push your father into the street if he tried to bump shoulders with her. You couldn’t even remember the last time they called each other by “husband” and “wife”, preferring more intimate nicknames like “the old ball and chain” and “my trophy husband”. 

But…they showed that they liked each other in other ways. Your dad always fixed your mom a cup of coffee in the morning, no matter how late he was for his own job, because she claimed he was the only one who could make it right; and your mother never complained when she had to pick your father up from the bar, merely laughing about how he couldn’t hold his liquor. They always made time to watch “their” show together, and seemed to be in a constant competition of who could complete more of the others’ chores. So maybe it wasn’t the type of like you were used to seeing among your classmates—but it was undeniably there. 

And what about Keigo, a small, insistent voice in your head brought up, Do you see yourself “liking” him? 

You furrowed your brow, imagining the two of you in your parents’ positions. Him making you a cup of coffee, you wrangling his tipsy form into the car. Watching old Endeavor re-runs and doing chores together in a sage-colored house. And, in the way that you parents often did, leaning over to press your lips to his— 

“Okay, you cannot find anything wrong with this one,” your mother dropped a dress on your lap, snapping you out of your thoughts. You hoped she didn’t notice the way you flushed. “It’s not blue, or black, or a two-piece, or anything else you might possibly have an issue with. At least try it on.” 

Not wanting to get into another argument, you reluctantly agreed, figuring it would be no different than the others. But once you had the dress on, you couldn’t help but agree with your mother—there was nothing you could find wrong with it. It was cut from a soft, ruby-red fabric, billowing elegantly at your waist and stopping just below the knees. It struck the perfect balance between the elementary-school-innocence you were leaving behind and the mature junior high student you were about to become. 

Akemi watched you scrutinize the dress in the changing room mirror, flinging the folds this way and that—but she knew you were already sold. She’d known it the moment she spotted the dress, because it was the exact same shade of red as a certain hybrid’s feathers. 

Stifling a smirk, she opened her wallet. You could be so predictable sometimes. 

“Psst, Keigo.”

The blonde ignored the whisper, valiantly focusing on the principal’s speech. When he didn’t respond, he felt your finger begin to prod him in the back. 

“Keigo! I know you can hear me.” 

The prodding intensified. After a few moments, Keigo couldn’t take it anymore. Subtly angling his head to look behind him, he flashed you an annoyed look. 

“What?” he hissed. The two of you, alongside all the other sixth graders, were currently gathered in the school auditorium for the graduation ceremony. The students were lined up in neat rows across the stage while the principal gave a speech at the podium. With her back to the students, she remained unaware of any impropriety, but the teachers and parents in the audience had a perfect view of their actions. Plus, with Keigo standing in the front row and you in the back, it was much harder for him to get away with talking. 

“Isn’t this so boring?” you grinned at him. Keigo could feel his eye twitching—you risked getting in trouble to tell him that? He ignored you, turning back to the principal, but a hand in his suit jacket yanked him back. 

“I said I’m bored!” you whispered indignantly. “Entertain me!”

Keigo sighed. A glance at the audience told him that no teachers were watching him, and the principal was still droning on with her speech. Subtly, he shuffled backward until he dropped out of his row and squeezed into yours. The boy who'd previously been standing by you looked peeved by the intrusion, but Keigo couldn’t be bothered with apologizing. 

“What can I do to cure your boredom, m’lady,” Keigo deadpanned. 

You clapped your hands gleefully. “Well, first, let’s decide on where we want to eat after this. My parents want to go to that seafood restaurant—you know, the one on Main Street? But it’s been so popular recently, I feel like we’ll definitely see classmates who are also celebrating…”

Keigo zoned out as you described the horror of running into someone you’d just bid goodbye to. He typically loved listening to you ramble, but right now he was finding it immensely difficult to focus. Every word you spoke was enunciated with a dramatic fling of your hands, causing your dress to flutter mesmerizingly. His eyes tracked the fabric’s movements obsessively; for some reason, seeing you in red made Keigo feel all warm and gooey inside. 

“…so that’s what I’m thinking. Does that sound good?”

He blinked as he realized you’d concluded your story, dinner plans interjected somewhere in there. 

“Yeah, sure,” he said, hoping he didn’t just accidentally commit to a Michelin-star restaurant. He knew your family liked to dine at the finer places in Fukuoka, having been invited to many such outings before, but his mom would kill him if he ever accepted. It’s bad enough that I let them feed you every day, she bemoaned often, The least we could do is let them think we have inexpensive taste. With today being his graduation, though, and the fact that she couldn't be there to celebrate him herself, she had made an exception. 

Reminded of his mom's absence, Keigo wistfully turned towards the audience. He knew, logically, that she couldn’t dictate her work schedule; yet, selfishly, he wished she was here to see him graduate. 

“I’m sorry that your mom couldn’t come to this,” you said softly, noticing his sullen gaze. Keigo merely hummed in response—he’d long stopped being shocked by your mind-reading capabilities. Sometimes, he thought you were a hybrid in disguise; there was no other explanation for how you could pick up the smallest shifts in his mood and know the perfect thing to say each time. 

The principal was nearing the end of her speech now, if the generic verses about changing the world and shooting for the stars were any indication. Keigo grew restless as she droned on, eager to shed his formal wear; his suit jacket was uncomfortably small and scratchy, and the wing-slits darned into the back were constricting painfully around his feathers. He always thought the worst part about having wings was the fact that he couldn’t loan clothes—holes had to be put in anything he wore. As a result, his mom usually sprung for thinner shirts and sweaters, made from materials that were easy to sew through. His only option this time, it appeared, was a kids-size tuxedo.

Keigo stifled a laugh as he remembered Miyake's reaction to his cheap, ill-fitting suit. The girl had been chatting excitedly with her friends when she spotted him, her expression immediately twisting into one of deep distaste. She’d quickly exchanged it for a cute pout, though. 

“Keigo-kun,” she admonished, “I thought we agreed you’d wear a hakama!”

We did nothing of that sort, he wanted to say, but merely smiled placatingly at her instead. “What, do I look that bad in this suit?”

An eager chorus of Nos and Of course nots! rang back at him from Miyake’s friends. The girl herself still looked miffed, tugging unhappily on the sleeves of her red kimono. Keigo could tell that it was expensive from the detailed embroidery and silk skirts, and he wondered what it would be like to wear something that well-made. 

“I wanted to match with you, though…” Miyake looked up shyly at him through her eyelashes. He held back a snort, and was thankfully saved from answering by the arrival of their teacher. He didn’t even know how he could get out of that one… 

Cheering from the audience drew Keigo out of his memories, and he belatedly realized that the principal had concluded her speech. His classmates were laughing excitedly, and you were shaking his arm like a madwoman. 

“We did it!” you screamed, “We graduated!”

Keigo laughed—where was the girl who insisted graduation was lame just last week? Still, your enthusiasm was infectious, and he couldn’t help but smile as you jumped up and down in joy. 

For the second time that day, Keigo could feel his heart beating erratically. He really should get that checked out.

Next Chapter (coming soon!)

author's note: i told y'all that things were heating up 🤭 i hope you guys enjoyed this first chapter-- please feel free to let me know what you thought in the comments :) i can't wait to see our beloved YN and keigo in junior high!

in case y'all missed it: fic playlist!

[physalian]

Juggling Multiple POVS (Writing Like A Movie)

At one point in a WIP, I had one character being held captive, two characters on a quest to bust them out, two characters racing to join the jailbreakers, four with no idea any of this is going on because they think they’re all dead, and then of those four, two split off on a side quest, and the remaining two also split off on various other tasks.

If you’re keeping track, that meant I had a book rotating between 6 different subplots and about 9 POVS at the absolute worst, and then about 4 subplots once characters finally reunited with each other.

It was… a lot.

Now this was never published so I don’t know how well it would have been received but it was a sequel and its predecessors received good feedback so I think I know what I’m doing.

—

When you’re committing to a book with Multiple POV, you’ve generally got two roads you can go down: predetermined narrators or ~cinematic~.

You can select a set number of characters to narrate regardless of how many exist in your ensemble cast, and no matter how many split off on their own subplots, those predetermined narrators will be keeping up with the story. These types of books tend to have shorter chapters and single narrators for chunks of chapters at a time with no cutting in between and fairly long breaks in between a character’s chunks of POV. Or, they have entire sections of book dedicated to them with clear markers between POVS.

The easy example here is Heroes of Olympus that I believe had up to 4 narrators per book despite a main cast of about 8 characters depending on the book. The first two were 3-POV, for each of the 3 questers, and then once the whole party was together the POVS were determined by who split off into which groups. Rather infamously, in my opinion, the last book of the series did not give a POV to the two legacy characters and the former protagonist of the first series, which was… a choice. I think the point was that Riordan gave them their spotlight in book 4 and was passing the torch to the new batch for book 5, but for many of us, who had no idea we’d never get a POV of these two again, it was mighty disappointing.

These books also had no chapter titles and instead had banner-style chapters where you had NICO or PIPER in massive banners over the start of each chapter, which was also a choice as going without chapter titles (or even numbers, they’re in roman numerals) makes it a lot harder to search things up in books 500+ pages long.

Who narrates when is less determined by who the most important character of the chapter is, for the most part. It might be Hazel’s moment, but she’s not a narrator of this book, so it’s in Piper POV (or Nico’s forced coming out moment in Jason POV which I will never forgive Riordan for). It’s just a dice roll of whoever it lands on which can lead to some moments, like the Nico incident, that really should have been in Nico POV, but the structure of the story demanded otherwise.

I don’t really love this style of multiple POV. Personally, I think it’s rather inflexible and doesn’t take full advantage of what MPOV can do. But that’s personal opinion so here’s some strengths:

It doesn’t jump around as much and with a minimal set of narrators, it’s more streamlined. You know what to expect going in with no surprises

It forces the author to get creative within the bounds of the POV they’re stuck in

The extra time with a single narrator can be a solid guide rail through a complicated plot piece

—

Or, you can write a more ~cinematic~ MPOV. I don’t know the proper term for this, if it exists, but this style of MPOV is when you basically free-for-all. Anyone can narrate whenever the scene demands and this either grants you a book with short chapters, but one narrator per short chapter, or multiple narrators within a single chapter, as you’d film a movie or an episode of TV with multiple perspectives per set piece.

This isn’t a random grab-bag of narrators. It demands a lot of restraint. This kind of MPOV is entirely based on who is the most important character of the scene, or who’s POV would be the most interesting to view the scene through.

ENNS is written in cinematic MPOV, with a far smaller rotating cast than the WIP I mentioned at the top of this post. It starts out slow with the protagonist for the first two chapters as the only narrator, then mid-chapter 3, I give a cue that he’s going to be unable to narrate the next bit, and I switch to my deuteragonist. I don’t give banner headings. I don’t give my characters entire chapters because the POV structure demands it. I just start whichever POV with the narrator’s name within the first 1-3 sentences. If that means one character has an entire chapter to themselves, then at this point in the story, their arc is the most important thing to be focusing on.

In the WIP at the top of the post, it was book 3 of a series which gave me some freedom. Namely that most of those 9 POVs were established characters you’d already be familiar with. I wasn’t throwing my audience into the deep end with 9 strangers and demanding they try to keep up with 6 subplots of equally confusing and unknown characters.

Cinematic MPOV should rely less on “who hasn’t narrated in a while let’s give it to them” and more “who would be the most interesting narrator for this moment”. You could have a villain POV, a one-off that might never narrate again, or a tertiary character who isn’t doing the most action in the scene, but has the richest commentary on what’s going on.

It does demand restraint. If anyone can pick up the narrator hat, then you could find yourself splitting off into unnecessary subplots. Not every piece of the story must be told and letting readers imagine what’s going on behind closed doors is sometimes better than detailing it all out. I could give a captive or missing character some POVS, or I could let the audience anxiously stew with the rest of the cast wondering if they’re even still alive.

In some books I’ve read, the deliberate choice to not let readers see into the mind of a character as they make important decisions, left on the outs with their friend or lover or relative, is maddeningly entertaining. They won’t explain themselves to the people who care about them, and they won’t explain themselves to the audience, either.

Or, you can let a side character have the spotlight for a scene or two as we see our favorites through their eyes, possibly in a way they’ve never been depicted before. A’s lover B might describe them as strong and brash. A’s old rival C might describe those same actions completely differently.

—

In terms of who narrates when, like the 9-POV monster I had going, I had key moments of every POV that had to hit the book's physical layout at specific times. Like episodes of TV, I needed certain scenes and moments and reveals to fit within specific chapters, not dangling off on either end.

I had to remember the time scale that all of this was happening on so every scene that was meant to happen simultaneously actually read like it was all going on at once. I had some chapters with the “A” group of narrators, then skipped them for a chapter for the “B” group of narrators for their scenes. Keeping the pacing as frenetic as it needed to be wasn’t easy, but if you can pull it off, I think it can be quite entertaining.

Some things to keep in mind with MPOV:

Don’t retread the same scenes or conversations. I read a fanfic a very long time ago that had I think 10 different takes on one character’s death with the dialogue copy-pasted over and over again and it was exhausting. If you want to have a character reflect on a previous scene, pull the specific lines as they remember them.

Unless messing up the timeline is the point of the story or you make it very clear that a scene happens before the present, don’t let POVs muck up the continuity. If plot happens on a Wednesday and the next scene is more important plot that happens that previous Tuesday, you might confuse your readers on when everything is meant to be happening.

Sometimes not knowing is better. Prequels tend to fail because whatever fans imagined happening is way better than what the writers explicitly show happening. Practice restraint.

Unless your story is paced very slowly, try not to have POVS butt up right against each other every time. In an action set piece, everything happens in sequence with zero black space between them. But a whole book with zero room to breathe can get tiring to read. Books with a single narrator have scene breaks and mini time skips, not every single part of your characters’ day has to be detailed.

If you don’t have banners, make it clear as quickly as possible who the new narrator is. Eventually, if your narration is distinct enough for each character, you can go a paragraph or two and your audience will know who it is anyway just based on how they think.

If these are all unknown characters, try to hop around minimally at first until you establish a clear protagonist, otherwise your readers might get lost on who the focus of the story is meant to be and lose which character is doing or thinking what.

*ETA: I forgot: typically with multiple narrators for a single “group”, like two characters stuck on a side quest together, I try to flip-flop their POVS. For example, if I have D and E with a whole chapter to themselves, the POV structure would go D E D E. To my eyes, it looks better, as they have equal share of the action. I try very hard to not let any one narrator have back-to-back POVS unless the narrative demands otherwise. But that’s just me.

—

This is personal opinion on what I think works. If you’re struggling on maintaining pacing or clarity with your ensemble cast, consider the above points. Hope this helps!

[no-name-publishing]

Interim (and company) by starkraving

After what has literally been a year and a month, I can call this project finished. The highs and lows of American football. You understand. Very grateful to the author for having written it and letting me bind them a copy! More photos and process pics under the cut.

The bookcloth material is faux suede, and the title decoration is cut from a glossy transparent HTV. The effect is completely swoon worthy, and exactly as I'd imagined it. That said I had a difficult time conceptualizing a design for the case at all; my only working idea was the endband, ribbon bookmark, and head and tail decoration. For 6 months everything I was coming up with for the cover was clashing very hard against these elements. So instead I took steps backwards, and thought how I could make something simple still visually interesting. I decided the difference in physical texture and appearance between the faux suede cloth and a glossy transparent HTV could be just what I was looking for, and I think it worked incredibly well.

The endband is done with adapted renaissance endbands in opposing directions, with a simple wrap of red thread in the center. I don't think peek-a-boo is the right phrase but nonetheless. The head and tail are painted with spray paint, in a gradient pattern that fades as it nears the foredge. The light blue accent lines are also spray paint, applied with a stencil I drew and made myself.

Typesetting shots. I use Word to typeset, and everything is designed and arranged within the program. Body font is Cochineal, the decorative title font is Caesar, as well as Sheikah and Hylian script.

The tiny books are simple, using elements from the main bind to tie them together. These are the spin-off short stories starkraving recently released as part of the Interim series. A testament to exactly how long this bind took me to complete, otherwise I would have included these in the main book. Oh well, it means I got to make tiny books.

Little video showing off the pieces. Particularly proud of the title page.

Process shots starting at my early test run of the my endband idea, to spraying the head and tail. Sewing the primary endband, and the completed bands on both books.

Very pleased altogether with how this came out. Also pleased to have it out of my WIP pile where I can take it off the shelf and fondle it whenever I want.

[chunkypossum]

2024 Fic Writer End of Year Roundup

Answer and then tag three or more creators to keep the game going!

(If you're in my answers consider yourself tagged if you'd like to play!!)

1. How many words did you publish on AO3 in 2024? 619,247... with the way A03 calculates I don't think that's entirely accurate but that's what it says... I would take off 225k and guess it's more around 350-400k

2. How many fics did you complete this year?

18, those event weeks really had a chokehold on me

3. How many in progress or ongoing fics did you start this year?

I have only posted a couple of WIP this year. I have stared at least 20 more, but have yet to post anything on them. Hopefully, I will have them all organized by this evening so I can start with my 2025 goals of getting them all done or at least well on their way!

4. What was your favorite thing you wrote?

I had the best time with What We Deserve!! It has to go at the top of the list.

Honorable mention would be Mother Save Us From Your Twisted fate just because it came out of nowhere and I think I started the first part and finished it in a day or two like a madman and posted without really giving it a second look. Truly a fic of strange passion.

5. What piece was your most experimental or different from your usual style?

probably Lighthouse in the Woods. Exploring a poly dynamic in a fic I didn't originally intend to be poly was an interesting choice for my brain lol but a fun and rewarding challenge!

6. Did any fics surprise you - either while writing or their reception?

Under the Weeping Beech shocked me just because it demanded I write it but there was very little reward with how sad it is. Y'all know I love sad angsty shit but I always seem to find a way to make everything ok in the end. Not so much this time but I simply couldn't make myself write it any other way. This was how it was supposed to be

7. Do you have a fic you wrote and loved that went under the radar? (This is your sign to reblog/repost it!)

Everything kind of went how I expected it to this year, but a fic that went under MY OWN PERSONAL RADAR was When Even Moonlight Burns. I adore the outline but couldn't make myself get serious about it this year. I'm waiting for my depraved self to rise to the surface for that one. It needs to be a beautiful disgrace

8. Who is an artist that inspired you?

I'm not sure I could name anyone without naming EVERYONE. If you have created Azris, you're on this list.

@queercontrarian inspires me daily with her work. Her attention to detail and the fashion work in her pieces are notches on my bones, that's how permanently they have changed me. I find myself staring at them for entirely too long to be appropriate and keep coming back to revisit my favorites!

@elleybug has a vision for her art that speaks to me on a cellular level. Every single piece supplies me with endless amounts of emotion that just make me want to create and create and create!

9. Who is an author that inspired you?

This question is really testing my memory because every time I read something I get inspired. All of you are just too damn good so if I forget to tag you it's only because I am stupid or I simply haven't been able to get to your amazing work yet BUT I WILL... and not because you don't belong on this list!!!

@fieldofdaisiies for her sweet pieces, @born-to-riot for her funny pieces, @acourtofladydeath for her thoughtful pieces, @secret-third-thing for her weird pieces, @iftheshoef1tz for her poetic pieces, @g00seg1rl for her horny pieces, @pippsmcgee for the dazzling intricacy of that piece she is teasing me with @talibunny30 for characterization in that nesta fic that wont leave me, @jules-writes-stories for the emotion she brings, @the-darkestminds for her dark mind that's like a twin flame, @mistandmemories for all that edging and absolute adorableness, @yanny-77 for the mastery of the dynamics between characters, @fourteentrout for the delicious intimacy, @brunetterebel010 for the vulnerability, @neciebee for the lyrical prose, @whisperingmidnights for the soulful prose, @mudandmire for the gorgeous and unique ideas, @unanswered-stars for the heartbreaking beauty!

10. Who is a new author you discovered?

so so many this year! Special mentions to @jules-writes-stories, @the-darkestminds, @mistandmemories who I really consider to be the big three of 2024 for me! Following along each of your beautiful stories this year has been a highlight!

11. Did you do any collaborations? How did it start?

not this year!

12. What accomplishments are you proudest of?

Everything I managed to finish lol. I was worried it would be nothing at all!

13. What did you learn about writing or creating this year?

I work best when I am just dishing out what's been gnawing at me, and trying to participate in too much just for the sake of it was too draining!

14. Any advice you’d like to share with new or aspiring writers?

It's fanfic, take the pressure OFF and just write the thing! If there is a story in your heart you really want to have exist in the world, you need to get it out and let it breathe! Don't focus on numbers or style or craft while you're just getting started. Have fun and create because you NEED to, everything else can come later.

15. What are your creative goals for 2025?

I have approx 12347576412 projects I would like to get written... I'm here to mass produce simply because I can't keep up with my brain. LOL. But truly if I can get one full multichapter fic completed this year I will be very happy!

[antariies]

how to build a chair........... director's cut ∠( ᐛ 」∠)__ this is about to be a very long very self-indulgent post where i just talk about my own writing. i also doodled on all the pages i think it makes the whole thing more fun to go thru. welcome to my ted talk

SIKE before i begin. credit where credit is due, this post was the start of it all. it changed my brain chemistry my jaw was dropped i was in awe i was obsessed and before i even finished it i knew that i would eventually have to make something similar for the commander or else i would be cursed to think about it for the rest of my life. and i Was cursed for like two years every day i would just be like........ is today the day i sit down and draft the commander chair fic of my dreams....... maybe tomorrow......

and then i got accepted as a writer for the gw2 zine ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ the chair idea was actually my backup option in case my first idea didn't pan out, and thank god it didn't, bc this one worked so much better. (still working on my initial idea, just turning it into a full fic! it was wayyy too long to be a zine submission.)

this is the chair i used. i downloaded the assembly instructions and tried out a bunch of different free pdf editors until i found one i liked, which ended up being sedja. if anyone's interested in doing something like this, i recommend printing out the pdf and writing directly on it! it was a lot easier for me to just figure out everything on paper first and then digitalize it after :P here's a picture of my physical copy

okay actually getting into it for real this time !!!!!

1. yeah i could've just erased the ikea logo and left a blank space but then i realized i could turn it into an in-universe joke. and then i ran with it.

2. i ripped this straight from the product description on the website. thanks ikea

3. i'm not sure if anyone went and looked it up, but it's a real item code!

hehe :3c

4. if your commander willingly goes to therapy i'm happy for them but TO ME? you'd have to drag the commander kicking and screaming. it's not that they don't know that something is wrong with them, they know, and they know YOU know. you're just never supposed to talk about it. they don't look at their own psych eval results bc that's none of their business.

5. i normally avoid specifying the commander's race when i write them bc i enjoy the challenge, but for the zine i was assigned to write about a norn commander! as a human main i was uhhhh very ill-equipped. but that just meant i had to study up on my norn lore (•̀ᴗ•́)و i spent hours on the wiki, then went around interviewing norn mains for their opinions, which was great fun :D it all helped me narrow the focus of my piece: joining the war on commander objectification on the side of commander objectification (ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡ and no one self-aggrandizes quite like the norn commander!

and to balance that i knew my narrator had to be patronizing as shitttt. they've clearly been following the commander since the beginning and seem to know a lot of intimate details about their life, despite not thinking very highly of them. wonder who that could be :3c

6. i can't stop making references. so the original part number is actually #122620 in the manual but i've changed it here (and on the previous page!) to #082812, as in 08/28/12, the date gw2 was released! no real reason for it, @dalennaugw suggested it for funsies and i liked it. if you're my pal and i show you a wip and you have a cool idea for it, chances are i Will put that shit in. hi dale if you're reading this

7. another thing about me. i loveeee repetition. here the word "over" is repeated four times to match the picture. honestly a lot of the creative process for this piece was just staring at the pages and figuring out how to tie the pictures to the commander in ways that weren't extremely corny or trite. idk why i enjoy writing like this when i could be frolicking in the beautiful prosaic meadows of a word doc instead but. it's like i see a tiny little restrictive box and i'm like OH BOY can't wait to think inside of that thing!!! i like when the format matters just as much as the content and in some cases informs the content. am i making any sense here. well all you need to know is that i'm a virgo and my favorite book is house of leaves

7. aw fuck just realized i wrote 7 twice. whatever i'm not changing it this is 7 part two now. the theme of my piece is glory, what it means to the norn commander, and how far they're willing to go for it.

8. does norn culture place emphasis on seeking individual glory Yes are norn also very community-oriented Also Yes. i think it's common to see norn kids napping together in a big pile, usually after they've worn themselves out playing games outside. it makes sense practically (apes together warm) and socially (pack bonding good) but that's just my hc. growing up i used to share a bed with my cousins all the time so it's normal to me.

a young, naive not-yet-commander, with no real combat experience, has no point of reference to compare a "blaze of glory" to. but the way everyone talks about it, it must be a good thing. a wonderful thing. a reward fit for a life well-fought and a legend hard-earned. so they imagine it must feel like falling asleep surrounded by the people they love, who love them in turn.

9. .........i was playing a lot of ace attorney when i wrote this page. i wish i was joking 👍🏼

10. ohhh shit the truth come OUT this whole chair thing was all a ploy just so i could write about the departing. again.

will i ever stop thinking about her. reply hazy, try again later.

11. out of all the pages, this one has the most emphasis on text placement, like comparing the enlarged picture of the screw to a sword, the numbers counting the screws, and "up up up" being arranged to mimic a wisp of smoke.

i also wanted to lean into the viking/norse mythology influences with my word choice.

12. more nods to norn culture. i didn't know they referred to the six human gods as "spirits of action" until i was doing the research for this piece :O

and the domain of the lost is called a hall of ghosts....... cause valhalla.....

13.

i'm sorry this so funnyyy. SAYS the guy who literally clawed their way back to life for a rematch.

me when i'm in a sore loser competition and my opponent is the COMMANDER!!!

14. arms as in "limbs" and also arms as in "armaments" :•]

15. haha get it because the picture makes it look like there are two mirrored speech bubbles while the text paints two opposing interpretations of the norn commander. one that's selfless and humble versus one that's selfish and vainglorious.

16. and the best part is IT DOESN'T MATTER which one is true bc at the end of the day no matter what their motivation, balthazar is dead by their hand. ofc i'm of the opinion that the most compelling interpretation of the commander is both, simultaneously. contradictions are good for the soul.

17. i could've name-dropped kas, the only person present that would do something like that, but i felt it was better to leave it ambiguous.

18. low-hanging fruit. the metaphor was so obvious here but i had to do it. for the culture

19. the alternate title for this piece was "THIS COULD BE GLORY". "how to build a chair" was only supposed to be a placeholder title til i figured out a better one, but the innocuousness of it grew on me. also i came up with the other one too late and had already advertised under the chair title lol

20. my first instinct was to end it with something more reassuring, like "what you have built so far is enough" but that would've been an ooc switch-up for a narrator who has been nothing but snide and detached this whole time. gotta stick to my guns

21.

obligatory chair joke as the last line. for realsies though it’s meant to be an earnest appeal to the commander to take a break, to have a seat, but it’s also a challenge. are they willing to lean on their friends? are the bonds they’ve forged strong enough to hold their weight? are they willing to put their faith in someone else’s hands? are they brave enough to try? well. only one way to find out.

also guess what that wasn’t even the real last page of the manual. it's THIS

but no way i was letting this be the image we ended on. IT LOOKS LIKE A DICK AND BALLS!!!

and on that note, THANK YOU if you made it this far!! a very special shout-out to @hawkepockets, my lovely boyfriend and beta reader, without whom this piece would not be nearly as polished. i would bring him pages to look over and he would say Scrap half of those lines you can do better than that. kill your darlings. i would complain and argue for a few minutes then we would revise. rinse and repeat until we had honed this thing to perfection. i can't stress enough the importance of having a second pair of eyes on your work throughout your creative process, even better if it's someone who challenges you. i don't even pay him 🫶🏼

and if there was anything i didn't cover that you still have questions about, please feel free to shoot me an ask! (ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡ thanks for reading! see u later dudes ;P

[wetcatspellcaster]

2024 fic wrapped

I was tagged by @cursedhaglette to do this tag-game, but I found the focus on stats made me a little uncomfortable! (also, no one needs to know how many words I wrote while having multiple breakdowns last year, truly).

But, I didn't want to ignore Mia's tag! so instead, I'm going to take @cinnamontails-ff wrapped tag-game, just bc I sympathise with the logic and I like this set of questions a lot more!

Thank you Cin for coming up with questions that don't focus so much on productivity. And thank you again, Mia, for including me in the original game :) hopefully this is an acceptable substitute!

What's been your biggest learning point this past year?

I guess, what it feels like to be a 'popular' author - and the answer is, 'both good and bad, in fact, extremely mixed'. Obviously, many parts of it are wonderful: more people interacted with my work in the height of the BG3 fandom than I've ever had before, I felt like my writing mattered and I enjoyed every conversation I had about it. I also felt under a lot more scrutiny, very hyperaware of how I acted in 'public' (ie. on this blog), and aware of the people I'd disappoint with the directions I took my stories and what I chose to include. I also had to watch the baffling half-life of modern fandom! BG3's 6 month peak and 1yr trough was wild to me, as someone who joined dragon age 8yrs after the game was released. But I've decided I actually really like the middle-road of interaction, with much less noise and dedicated, recurring readers who I recognise and who make me smile and laugh every single time they comment or tag my work. I'll probably never experience whatever the fuck Pieces was ever again, and I'm honestly... ok with that, currently? Not to sound awful, but I'm not sure I liked it lmao.

In terms of my writing, my biggest learning point was "you're good at this, actually". Chanting this to myself in the mirror while I white-knuckle the sink.

How has your writing developed this past year?

I'm genuinely not certain. Pieces was certainly my most ambitious story yet, but a lot of the outlining of that took place in 2023 so it feels like the development happened then... though I suppose landing the dismount was something I worked very hard to do. I guess the main development this year was that a lot of what I wrote was extremely, extremely angsty. I wrote Pieces, I wrote This Is Not A Love Story. and I gave Rosalie to Orin :))))) this doesn't necessarily surprise me, given the way my writing often reflects things I'm dealing with in my life, and I've been trying to both recover from - and desparately stave off a relapse into - depression. I think that I can see why I keep making characters into the worst versions of themselves (this goes for Astarion, Rosalie - bc Pieces Rosalie is NOT in a good place, Gale and my Durge) and then watching them claw their way back to happiness in the hope of proving to myself that that's possible.

But jfc, it all got a little heavy. I've decided that 2025 is the Year of the Rom Com™.

Good writing habits?

Committing myself exclusively to what I want to read and sticking to my guns - which means I actually finish the thing, rather than getting into my own head about it.

Stretching my comfort zone a little (writing something vaguely smutty, writing something very different in style, switching genres for a bit) without losing my own voice.

Not falling into any jealousy/existential crises about my own writing, which I guess is much easier when you're experiencing a bout of 'success', but I've managed to keep it up even after the success began tailing off :)

I wrote a lot of words last year. I'm not putting the stat down but god. It was a lot.

Bad writing habits?

Overwriting everything. Everything. All the time. Party Favours was so short!!! I used to write novellas!!! Why are my chapters so fucking long now?????

Having multiple fic wips when I promised myself I'd wind down fanfic and start writing original work again :')

I wrote a lot of words last year. I think I did this bc I was extremely unhappy, and productivity is how I define myself. when I feel bad, I write and post bc it makes me feel good. And I felt very bad this year. So anyway, I think my wordcount is both a good thing and also a wee cry for help :'))))

Favorite thing you wrote?

Chapter Twenty-Three of Pieces (Mephistopheles consultation and my Ascended!Astarion meta-reveal)

Chapter Four of Cooler Than Me (putting the blorbos in a formal-wear situation)

I also liked my sex scene in Pieces :') it was tame but it was written for me specifically x

Favorite reads?

for fic!

long summer days can lead to lazy vices by @pouroverpaloma

eyes like fire by demonsbanebard

only once by @bearhugsandshrugs

and of course stitched into your sleeve by the bestie (@violacae)!!! my first ever gift fic!!!

for literature!

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by HG Parry

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

Deeplight by Frances Hardinge

Biggest win?

god. I'm endlessly grateful for my gift fic and for my fanart, but... it's got to be bookbindings. I used to daydream, about somebody ever wanting to have my fic bound, but I thought it was impossible and would never happen! I now know of 3 copies of my work that exist in the world :D and the ones I've seen were fucking gorgeous, like oh my fucking god.

I am also very proud I finished Pieces! It was my most ambitious project, and writing the ending presented even more challenges than I expected - as I discovered how much you write yourself into a corner when you resoul Astarion. I still haven't managed to read the completed work in full yet, but I'm proud it exists :)

Goals for the new year?

finish outstanding wips, and then see where my writing takes me next. I want to write original work, but I also don't want to make it a resolution. As long as I continue to enjoy writing, that's what matters most to me!

Your favorite words of the year, aka the words you check each chapter for, making sure you didn't repeat them 788 times?

I think I use '[x character] froze' a lot, but rather than focusing on my repetitions I want to focus on some of my favourite turns of phrase that I managed to pull from the ether! :)

'before her brief courtship with death threatened to become a commitment' - from the risk and the reward

'We can all still be butchered. We cut away the parts of ourselves to make us fit' - from this is a love story.

"He played an androgynous, morally-grey vampire, of indeterminate gender! In a nice coat! Anyone who had two working eyes and a relevant Kinsey Score read the porn, back in the day!” - from cooler than me

What are you excited for in the new year?

act 3 astarion characterisation for honest lie! the first big romance moment in cooler than me! and then just romcoms! 2025 is the year of the romcom! I want to write exclusively happy things!!!!

tagging: @cursedhaglette (as it's a different set of questions lmao), @imscissorbladez, @violacae, @eraserspiral, @scaryanneee, @sitting-in-the-sink, @pricemarshfield, @pouroverpaloma and anyone else who wants to give this a whirl. anyone is welcome, and if you tag me in it I'll share x

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Weekly Recap | May 12th-19th 2024

Had a wonderful long weekend with a friend, what about you guys? Anyone else super nervous about this week's episode? 😅

Complete

all roads lead to eddie diaz by wafflesofdoom/ @capseycartwright (S7, BuckTommy, Pre-Buddie | 1,2K | General): eddie and tommy have a revelatory conversation about the buck of it all.

another thing i forced to be a sign by bellabrady (Post-7x07: Ghost of a Second Chance | 2K | Not Rated): Or: Buck finds out about Kim, which leads to him calling Eddie out on the pattern with relationships.

🔥 I hang on every word you say by ColorMeParanoid/ @color-me-paranoid (Getting Together | 4K | Teen): “I couldn’t help but notice how hesitant you’ve been about getting back onto the dating scene despite saying that you’re ready,” Buck said, going for nonchalant and likely missing it by the mile. “I figured a little boost in confidence and a crash course in how to pull off a perfect first date wouldn’t hurt.” Or, the one in which Buck assumes Eddie sucks at dating and decides to do something about it

just release me, i can't take it by actualalligator/ @actualalligator (Post-Lawsuit | 5K | General): After the fight in the grocery store, Buck withdraws the lawsuit and leaves town. Maybe for good.

i'll look after you by ipretendtobesane/ @useramor (Buck&Chris | 6K | Teen): “You don’t have to kiss it, Mads,” he started telling her around ten years old. Maddie would ruffle his hair and scoff. “Of course I do, punk. How else will it seal the deal?” It was the only comfort he knew. It’s also the only tradition he can pass down to Chris. or: buck and chris building their own set of traditions throughout the years

how forever feels by icesculptures/ @ice-sculptures (Madney Wedding AU, Getting Together | 8K | General): Or: tired of the growing distance between them, Eddie asks Buck to dance at Maddie and Chimney's wedding, healing more than his own heart along the way.

🔥 Cowboy With a One Track Mind by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon Divergence, Not A Firefighter Buck | 22K | Mature): Spin-off Sequel to Evan Buckley & the Coma-Verse of Madness - Chapter 7 (Land): Grieving and tortured, Evan Buckley has been living alone in Montana in a remote cabin for nearly a decade. After an incident that leaves him missing six months of his life, and suddenly in connection with a group of strangers from Los Angeles, Evan must decide whether to remain in his self-imposed exile, or take a chance at life again.

WIP

🔥 some things fall when they're meant to fall by sibylsleaves/ @sibylsleaves (Post S7E5 | 2/4 | 11K | Teen): or, Buck tells Eddie some news. Eddie has a realization and breaks up with his girlfriend. Not necessarily in that order.

What’s Your Order? by JJK/ @trenchcoatsandtimetravel (Post-S7E5, BuckTommy | 5/6 | 14K | Teen): 5 Times Buck Guessed Tommy’s Coffee Order + 1 Time He Didn’t Have To

🔥 stuck now so long, we just got the start wrong by Daffi_990_ao3/ @daffi-990 (Canon Divergent, Different First Meeting | 5/10 | 39K | Not Rated): Probational Firefighters Evan “Buck” Buckley and Eddie Diaz meet on a call which ends with them at odds with each other. As the months roll by, they keep running into each other on the job, much to Eddie’s dismay and Buck’s delight. Can they put aside their first opinions and misunderstandings and allow the seeds of friendship, and possibly something more, to take root?

🔥 change the prophecy by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Alternate Timeline, Curse/Magic | 11/12 | 26K | Mature): Buck has never felt secure in any of his relationships; he’s been searching for someone to see him the way he feels he’s meant to be seen, but after things start going downhill with Tommy, he thinks that person might just not exist. Eddie cannot figure out what’s wrong with him when it becomes clear things with Marisol aren’t going to work out. But what if they’re both forgetting something?

🔥 for all the haunts and homes of men by euadnes/ @kananjarus (Canon Divergent, Post-Apocalyptic, Station Eleven Crossover | WIP | 15/? | 126K | Mature | Warning: Violence): The year by the old calendar is 2025. Home is gone. Home is a failed rescue mission and an echo of a memory. Home is a lost boy living in a wooden house by the sea. But first, there was a promise. Christopher, when it's safe, I'll take you back to your father. Buck had all but given up on keeping it after the world had died and everyone in it. But just as some oaths refuse to be forgotten, so the same can be said about the endurance of love.

🔥 Held Up a Lightning Rod (Wonder Why I'm Struck) by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Not A Firefighter Eddie, Sugar Baby Buck | 2/? | 10K | Explicit): When Eddie Diaz stumbles his way into money, he finds himself one of the most eligible bachelors in Los Angeles - to his dismay. He needs a way to get people off his back without confessing his messy marital situation, and Shannon's still not answering his calls, so he caves to a friend's suggestion: hire someone to pretend to be his partner. Enter Evan "Buck" Buckley: sugar baby, fire fighter, and the man about to turn Eddie's world upside down.

🔥 Steal My Sunshine by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Altered Memories | 5/9 | 15K | Mature): Memories hazy and unreliable, Eddie Diaz wakes up every morning in a house at the end of a cul de sac, goes to his office job at a petroleum engineering company, and comes home to his wife and son. But something is missing, and the more Eddie begins to put the pieces together, the stranger the predicament he finds himself in. 

Podfic

🔥 [Podfic] maybe i'll be brave enough by then by Silverkat1620/ @silverkat1620 // fic by trippedandfell/ @trippedandfell (Amnesia | 20-30min | Teen): “So,” Eddie starts, taking a long sip. “How long have I had the ring?” Hen chokes on her coffee. “I’m sorry,” she says, eyes wide behind her glasses. “What ring?” or: an amnesia au (with a twist).

🔥 [Podfic] Fire on Fire by Itty_Bitty_Blondie/ @itty-bitty-blondie for extasiswings/ @extasiswings (Quarantine, S4 | 30-45min | Teen): "You’re sleeping with him.” “I’m not—” Eddie rolls his eyes and corrects himself halfway through. “I’m not sleeping with him like that, okay?” Sophia looks at him for a long moment as her gaze turns from teasing to thoughtful. “But you want to be. Right?” [Or: Buck and Eddie get in the habit of sharing a bed while living together during quarantine. It's platonic until it isn't.]

🔥 [Podfic] Here, Beneath My Lungs by Itty_Bitty_Blondie for glorious_spoon/ @glorious-spoon (First Kiss | 5K | Teen): “Okay, okay, come on, let’s do this,” Buck says, in a trying-to-be-serious tone that just sets Eddie off again. “Come on, we’re gonna do this right. You need the full Buckley Experience.” “Someone’s confident,” Eddie manages. “I know what I’m good at,” Buck says, and something about the way he says it—grinning and smug with laughter still leaking out of the edges of his smile—makes Eddie go still.

🔥 [podfic] not all of us are heroes (not all of us are brave) by Matriaya // fic by withmeornotatall/ @chronicowboy (Post-S6, Getting Together | 45-60min | General): Buck shakes his head and grimaces apologetically at Marisol. "I'm so sorry for interrupting your night," he tells her. "I'm gonna leave you guys to it, but it was nice to see you again." "Nice to see you too," Marisol replies with a smile. "Sorry again," he addresses this one to Eddie. "I didn't think. I just—" "You thought Chris needed you," Eddie says softly, eyes so warm Buck wants to stay here forever. "Don't apologise for that." "Right, well." Buck takes a deep breath to calm his still pounding heart before saluting at Christopher. "Forever at your service, Superman." He backs out of the kitchen in an exaggerated bow, ducking to hide his smile when Christopher's laugh follows him out.

🔥 [podfic] brick by Itty_Bitty_Blondie/ @itty-bitty-blondie // fic by spqr (Post-Coma, S6, Getting Together | 1-1.5h | Explicit): The first thing Buck noticed when he walked through the door was the smell of plaster and wet paint. There was a white spot on the wall in the living room, primered but without any color yet, about the size of a man’s fist. Eddie looked sheepish. His knuckles were still bruised, scabbed over but healing. “You were in a coma,” was all he said. “Yeah,” Buck agreed. He knew the feeling.

🔥 [Podfic] I Hit the Accelerator (But the Car was in Reverse) by MistMarauder/ @mistmarauder for extasiswings/ @extasiswings , letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (S2-3, Friends With Benefits, BDSM | 7-10h | Explicit): When Buck is forced to confront the truth about his breakup with Abby, having casual sex with his hot new coworker seems like the best rebound idea. Unfortunately, that hot new coworker turns into his best friend. But best friends can keep having sex with each other, right? There's no way this could possibly go wrong.

[inkedinshadows]

Answer and then tag three or more creators to keep the game going!

Thank you so much @velarisdusk for the tag! 🫶🏻

1. How many words did you publish on AO3 in 2024?

I don't have anything published on AO3 simply because I still don't know how to use it even though I do have an account. But here on tumblr, it's 92.878

2. How many fics did you complete this year?

49! I've never counted them before and never realized just how many they were omg

3. How many in progress or ongoing fics did you start this year?

Ongoing only Bound By Secrets. In progress apparently 10? I thought I had 3 WIPs. I completely forgot about the other 7 lol

4. What was your favorite thing you wrote?

UGH how do I choose one? A Helping Hand has a special place in my heart because it's the first fic I wrote and posted. Night and Days is one of my favorites because I love the banter between Azriel and reader, and I also have to mention Say My Name because omg I loved writing that one and I know I might be biased but I was giggling and kicking my feet while writing.

5. What piece was your most experimental or different from your usual style?

I'd say the first few things I wrote rather than one in particular for the simple reason that in Italian I tend to write very long sentences because it's normal, but in English sentences are usually shorter so it took a bit to get into that mindset. As for experimental, I'm trying to write a fic from two povs at the same time, sort of like an omniscient narrator. We'll see how it turns out.

6. Did any fics surprise you - either while writing or their reception?

Many fics surprise me while writing because I don't plan them out that much other than a few things I want to happen and then I see where the story leads me. As for reception, Bound by Secrets. I didn't expect so many people asking for a part 2! (I'll write it, I promise)

7. Do you have a fic you wrote and loved that went under the radar? (This is your sign to reblog/repost it!)

The Path To Healing and on a happier (and smutty) note Alcohol and Giggles. I cried writing the first one and laughed writing the second one.

8. Who is an artist that inspired you?

I love every single fanart by madschofield and elizianna.the.one!

9. Who is an author that inspired you?

@writingcroissant was the first author I found on here, the literal reason I created an account was to read her fics, and @illyrianbitch was the second. I love everything they write and it made me want to write again.

10. Who is a new author you discovered?

@shedoessoshedoes and @duskandcobalt! I'm going to read all of your fics so don't be surprised if you see me in your notifications for the next few weeks 🥰

11. Did you do any collaborations? How did it start

Nope, no collaborations.

12. What accomplishments are you proudest of?

Kinktober! I decided to do it two weeks before it started and didn't think I'd be able to write all 31 one fics but I did it!

13. What did you learn about writing or creating this year?

When I started posting, I kept opening tumblr every five minutes to see if there were any new notes/comments/etc. Now I don't do that anymore. I still care about people enjoying my content of course and any kind of feedback is always super appreciated, but I don't need to continuously check to know that my writing is valid and good even if I get only a few likes.

14. What is your advice?

I'm the wrong person to ask this to, but I guess write what you like and what you want to read. I know it's basic, but never before I realized just how true it is. Feedback and appreciation for your work is awesome, but you have to be the first one to like it or it's probably going to turn out bland if you push yourself to write something you don't like or are not interested in.

15. What are your creative goals for 2025?

Finish working on all those WIPs apparently lol. And I have an idea for a series that I want to work on as well.

No pressure of course, but if you'd like to @azrielslittleslut @anarchiii @shedoessoshedoes or anyone else who wants to do it!