#i write for myself at least once a year and this is it

[agrlsname]

Thank you @therealsaintscully for the tag! I'm soon about to post what might be my very last fic, so it's quite fitting to look back on my journey now.

How many works do you have on ao3?

38 – all Johnlock, except for one GO fic. On New Year's Eve I will post number 39!

What’s your total word count?

371,360 (will soon top it off with another 221 words ;))

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

What Friends Do (by FAR), Who I Really Am (personal fave), The General Idea, Coldness/Heat, Tomorrow's Song

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

At first I responded to every single one! And I still try to respond to every single person. But now, I sometimes only respond to the last one if it's a reader who's commented on every chapter and I get all the comments at once. I like staying connected to the readers, that's one of the most fun parts about fandom!

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

It has to be This Is Your Song. I mean, there's another one within a series that end in an angsty cliffhanger, but MCD surely has to take the prize?

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Oh my, nearly all of them have happy endings – so what would count as happier than happy..? Maybe it's actually the one that isn't posted yet – stay tuned for the resolution of the New Year's Kiss series!

Do you write crossovers?

Nope. I've written a fusion though (Johnlock and Moulin Rouge!).

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yup. Some people get really angry at John in What Friends Do and they take it out on me. It's interesting because many MANY others adore the story with all their hearts! I even wrote a sequel from John's POV just to try to get people to understand, but the haters didn't understand anyway.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Even though at the beginning I said I'd never, half of my works are now rated E or M. What kind? Um, is "emotional, gay sex" a genre?

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I hope not!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Many of them, into five different languages! Coolest thing ever.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I think I'm too pedantic for that. I've loved working with my beta on some poem translations, though, that The Sky is Full of Fiddles is based on.

What's your all-time favourite ship?

38 fics – you all know it's Johnlock, right? There are others that I love, but nothing can ever compare.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I don't have WIPs! I'm too much of a control freak and perfectionist when it comes to writing – I want to be able to change the beginning when I'm writing the ending. I don't even have unpublished WIPs – I hate the idea of leaving works unfinished. If I was still in those first years of writing frenzy, when I was single and didn't have a child, I'd have expanded on This Time – but as it is, I knew that I wouldn't have the time to do it justice. So I purposely ended on a cliffhanger that would still allow it to stand on its own the way it is.

What are your writing strengths?

Emotions, according to my beta! If you ask me, I'd say describing things – often emotions, I suppose – in new, poetic ways that play on different senses and therefore make them immediate. It's something I love reading myself, anyway, so it's something I've been practicing for... well, decades now. I'd like to think I've gotten at least somewhat good at it.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm weirdly bad at coming up with the small details that aren't important, but needed. A recent example is I needed a character to text another with an invented problem to try to get him to come over. It wasn't at all important what the problem was, but it also couldn't be just anything; it had to be in line with his character. I could not for the life of me come up with this problem myself – eventually my husband did it for me. So those kinds of details in my stories are rarely from my own brain!

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Hmm, well, I've tried not to do that. As a reader I find it annoying to have to look things up, or scroll down to the notes. I have three fics in which characters aren't English; in This Is Your Song I added a couple of "Bonjour"s for flavour, which is about as far as my own French knowledge reaches... In the Fiddles series they're Swedes and speak my mother tongue, but I've written everything in English except for the words that English doesn't have (like for example "polska", a kind of dance), and at the very end, some song lyrics that are then translated into English in the end notes that come immediately after. I did want to add that song for flavour, but I didn't want it to be annoying.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Johnlock! I started in the aftermath of season 4 back in January 2017 and then couldn't stop.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

I'm wondering whether I will come back to fic writing at a later point, but for another fandom. I've long wanted to write more for GO, although I already have written one fic. It would probably be a lot of fun to write for OFMD too. Doctor Who maybe? I don't know, it intimidates me to write for a new fandom where I don't yet know the characters as well as I know Sherlock and John.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

This question is too cruel! There are so many of them that I love. Maybe I have to say The Sky is Full of Fiddles, after all – it holds such a special place in my heart for many reasons that go beyond the story itself (although that's true for several fics). Other faves are Your Daughter, The Zebra Sheets and of course Who I Really Am, which I'm liking enough to turn it into a novel I'm now trying to get published. See, I couldn't pick one!!

I'm on Tumblr way too sporadically to have any idea of who's already done this and who hasn't, so I don't dare tag anyone... Feel free to take it and tag me if you feel like it!

[faeryaesther]

; May I have my own feet and freedom of choice in my twenty-five.

[itsriotmotherfuckers]

Whenever I get comments on my fics I’m just like “oh you like my writing? You enjoyed this enough to tell me? How do you feel about a fall wedding? Or spring or summer or winter I’m not picky, whenever you want. I will literally take a bullet for you”

[myokk]

“She’s tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me”😤😤😤

(Regency AU with Eloise and Sebastian inspired by my slow trek through Bridgerton these days & @bassicallymaestra ‘s AMAZING regency inspired art😮‍💨😇🙏)

[ganondoodle]

watched a video of someone reacting to skittys totk video and it really reinvigorated my hatred for that game- HOWEVER i am gritting my teeth and am not writing about it bc i feel like whatever rant i will write is gonne be wasted time since the stupid book exists and can change it all (from what i HAVE seen for the worse lmao) so i feel like until i get my hands on it (be it physical or digital though i do not want to spend money on anything with that name attached ever again) i shouldnt write anything ...

[summertimemusician]

Linktober 2024 Masterlist (Possibly Late)

Day 1

Mirror

Day 2

Friend/Companion (WIP)

Day 3

Zelda (WIP)

Day 4

Night/Dark (WIP)

Day 5

Sacred (WIP)

Day 6

Fear/Horror (WIP)

Day 7

Royalty/Noble (WIP)

Day 8

Tunic (WIP)

Day 9

Secret/Mystery (WIP)

Day 10

Species/Race (WIP)

Day 11

Music/Dance (WIP)

Day 12

Favorite Game (WIP)

Day 13

Link (WIP)

Day 14

Fairy (WIP)

Day 15

Sword (WIP)

Day 16

Time (WIP)

Day 17

Dragons (WIP)

Day 18

Shopkeeper (WIP)

Day 19

Reward (WIP)

Day 20

Mask (WIP)

Day 21

Spirit (WIP)

Day 22

Favorite Character (WIP)

Day 23

Element (WIP)

Day 24

Deity (WIP)

Day 25

Ganon/Ganondorf (WIP)

Day 26

Echo (WIP)

Day 27

Rest/Respite (WIP)

Day 28

Bones (WIP)

Day 29

Deku (WIP)

Day 30

Mount (WIP)

Day 31

Free for All (WIP)

Linktober Shadow 2024 Writing

Day 1

Woods

Day 2

Malice/Gloom (WIP)

Day 3

Puppet Zelda (WIP)

Day 4

Ominous/Suspicious (WIP)

Day 5

Skull Kid (WIP)

Day 6

Fear/Horror (WIP)

Day 7

Dungeon/Temple (WIP)

Day 8

Lorule/Dark World (WIP)

Day 9

Secret/Mystery (WIP)

Day 10

Undead (WIP)

Day 11

Demise (WIP)

Day 12

Witch/Witches (WIP)

Day 13

Shadow/Dark Link

Day 14

Boss (WIP)

Day 15

Poisonous/Venomous (WIP)

Day 16

Labyrinth (WIP)

Day 17

Dragons (WIP)

Day 18

Majora (WIP)

Day 19

Ghirahim (WIP)

Day 20

Vaati (WIP)

Day 21

Poe/Spirit (WIP)

Day 22

Chasm/Rift (WIP)

Day 23

Twilight (WIP)

Day 24

Spectral/Astral (WIP)

Day 25

Ganon/Ganondorf (WIP)

Day 26

Hands (WIP)

Day 27

Volcanic (WIP)

Day 28

Bones (WIP)

Day 29

Beast/Creature (WIP)

Day 30

Final Boss (WIP)

Day 31

Free for All (WIP)

[belethlegwen]

The Rescue - Chp 53 - Still Dealing With The Sting

Good morning my lovelies and lurkers <3

The newest chapter of The Rescue is now live! Christmas and the Holiday season being what it is, I haven't had a ton of time (though, mostly energy has been the problem) to write, but I should still have something to go up in two weeks for you all :)

I hope you all have a lovely day and wonderful weekend! If I can get my ass up on time I'm thinking I'll catch The Boy and The Heron today as a step in helping me wind down a little. Honestly really excited to see it.

Enjoy the reading! Thank you all, as always, so much for the comments and kudos and shares <3 I apologize I haven't been able to respond to all the comments like I want to. My brain is deep in scrambled-egg territory.

Love you all, take care of yourselves and each other as best as you can!

~ Belle

[eggmeralda]

do you ever feel casually suicidal? like you're not depressed or anything you're doing fine but also it feels like a convenient option

[jate-kara]

The vanguard and "can you pretend I didn't say that?"

“As far as welcome-back parties go, not the worst I’ve seen. Not the best. But you know what? Not the worst, so I’ll call it a win.”

‘Party’ was a generous term. Zavala’s office could hardly be called cheery on its best day, but cluttered as it was now with relics, weaponry, reports, and what looked suspiciously like a collection of half-full coffee mugs in the bookshelf’s corner, it barely passed for a workspace, let alone a party venue.

Besides that, there were no streamers, no balloons, and no fingertips sparking fireworks. No cheering guests, either. The room was lit by the single lamp set on the desk, casting shadows across Zavala and Ikora and absolutely nobody else. The combined weight of their stares was enough to give a guy nightmares.

Felt like just last week he’d been in here, meeting their scowls with a quick quip and a flash of charm. ‘Lame’ is what Cayde might have called the whole thing, under better circumstances. But these weren’t better circumstances. Might even call ‘em ‘apocalyptic’, actually. So he kept his mouth shut, leaned forward, and let his hands come to rest on the edge of the desk. Well within their sight. Not like he had Ace on him; he’d handed it off to Ikora after his resurrection. Return. Whatever. But maybe it helped.

Or maybe not. Ikora’s stare was unwavering.

“I told you,” Cayde tried, for the fifteenth time. “I can’t explain it to you. I don’t know how I’m back. Who brought me back. Why I’m back. I just know I’m glad I am. Sounds like you could use the help.”

Zavala gave an audible sigh. His elbows were propped up on the desk, so his hands were folded in front of his face, obscuring half his scowl. For a moment, he was silent, contemplating Cayde like an enemy and not an ally the Light had found fit to return from a death beyond death.

“We don’t expect you to explain,” Zavala offered at last.

“Great! Then stop looking at me like I’m going to blow the Tower up.”

Ikora winced. Cayde stopped short. “Wait. Nobody did that, right? Wasn’t one of my Hunters?”

Zavala dropped his head to his hands and left it there, scrubbing at his face like that would erase whatever headache was now blooming in the back of his skull. Could almost call it like the good old days, if his eyes weren’t shot through with haunted grief when he looked back up. “No,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. His gaze met Cayde’s, and held. He opened his mouth like he was going to say more, but all that came out was a hoarse croak.

Ikora rested a hand on Zavala’s shoulder, then took a measured breath. “The circumstances are…different, but you're not the first to return to us. Last time, we failed to see our enemy, and we almost paid dearly for it.”

Vague as vague can be. Someone got a foothold in the Tower, close enough to spook the Vanguard, or outright infiltrate them. Cayde looked between them.

“It wasn’t one of us,” Ikora supplied. Her voice was softer, this time.

Cayde wondered what he must have looked like to prompt that response, and pushed the thought away just as quickly. “All right, so tell me how I’m supposed to prove I’m me. You wanna hear about the Dare? Where I got the cloak? Best bet I ever lost?”

Zavala’s breath hitched. Ikora’s hand shot across the table and closed around Cayde’s wrist. Too late, Cayde remembered the crushing pain in his chest, and the Young Wolf, beside him, as the light faded, and he fought for a final word.

Cayde coughed. “Can you pretend I didn’t say that?”

Ikora’s hand didn’t move. For a beat that felt like whatever eternity he’d spent beyond, no one spoke.

“I don’t know how to prove that you aren’t an agent of our enemy,” Zavala said at last. His voice was soft, softer than Cayde could ever remember hearing it. “But I want to believe that you aren’t. I want to believe that you are truly returned to us.”

Cayde waited for a however, we can’t just- or an I’m sorry, but that’s not enough. It didn’t come. From either of them. He looked at them, and he felt the weight of Ikora’s hold on his wrist and the suffocating hope in Zavala’s eyes, and his chest ached. And he wondered what had happened while he was dead, and whether ‘apocalyptic’ could even begin to cover where they were now.

And for a second, he didn’t give a damn.

“All right, now don’t shoot me,” Cayde said. “But I’m gonna hug you. Both of you.”

And they let him.

—

[icewindandboringhorror]

Apparently I can meet my goal of roughly 400,000 words in 6 months if I just somehow write at least 2,200 words a day ghbjh... Almost 2,500 today... huzzah...

[nancyqueerler]

Ronancetober Day 1 2: Ghost

I've been compelled to come back for a minute to write for ronancetober, so here's day 1/2 because I wanted to write for the ghost prompt.

Enjoy! And warning, this is kinda long and pretty angsty. Also it's set in an AU so no upside down (mentioning this in case some stuff don't make sense).

-----

The equipment was for show. Although it was an expensive sacrifice, Robin would not be able to make a living in Hawkins, Indiana, simply by claiming to be able to see ghosts. If anything, it would get her locked up at Pennhurst before she'd even get a paycheck. So, when she got the call from the library, she showed up with the EMF meter, digital thermometers, night vision goggles, and audio recorders instead of just her more comfortable patch-plastered denim jacket and jeans.

The numbers alone were enough to get her down there by sunset, but the witness reports had her shoveling her dinner into her mouth like a dog who sniffed a buried bone.

Robin mostly got calls for homes and abandoned buildings, but she hadn't gotten the library before—she was excited when they told her it was down in the archives. She had been there before in high school doing research for projects and always got chills, but she'd never seen anything. That made her curious, but it wouldn't be the first time that a ghost had hid themselves from her.

Walking into the archives, shutting and locking the door behind her with the key lent to her by the librarian, Robin was pulled four years into the past. When she put her hand on the railing that led down into the dust-filled room, it was ice cold. It was part of the report: after five p.m. and well past midnight, the room appeared to be insulated with blocks of ice. Robin turned off all her equipment and dove into the dark room.

At first she couldn't see anything, much less the wispy presence of a lonely ghost. She stuck one hand in her pocket and scrolled her fingers down the unchanged cupboards cramped with decades-old prints from local newspapers to the Weekly Watcher, which was notorious for endorsing crazy conspiracies. She would have smiled at the memory of discovering an article about Elvis being cloned by aliens if her nerves hadn't been jolted into action when she touched the cupboard marked "W.". It was cold—much colder than the rest of the otherwise identical sprawl of drawers.

Robin opened it and knew she wouldn't find the Weekly Watcher tucked between the other cassettes. She pushed it closed, stuck her other hand into her other pocket to warm it up, and walked to the microfilm readers.

The small room, filled with desks with banker lamps and book-swollen shelves that evidently hadn't been dusted in the past two decades, housed two readers. The sole distinction between the two readers in the center was the presence of a COMCAT black-and-white acrostic poster on the left reader's side, along with the presence of a ghost hunched over the screen.

Robin froze beside the entrance. Anyone else would have screamed bloody murder, but Robin felt relief. A girl sat on the stool, her finger depressing the scroll button while her other hand gripped the side of the reader, seemingly ready to explode it with her mind. Besides her relief, Robin was surprised at the sheer brightness of the girl ghost's body—she was practically corporeal.

It took Robin a second to recognize her as Nancy Wheeler, Hawkins High's ex-princess. The realization nearly knocked her off her feet, but her heart beat her to it and plunged straight through the floor like an anvil.

Nancy hadn't seen her yet, and Robin was really hoping she wouldn't. Robin hoped her legs would unfreeze before Nancy turned her head and saw her too. It was a sudden and horrible drowning of panic, gut-wrenching sorrow, and shattered memories that mended back together in striking speed.

Nancy Wheeler had died a year ago, a year before she graduated from Emerson, a year after the last time they had seen each other. Robin had gotten a call from Jonathan Byers on some lazy June afternoon when she'd been relaxing with the windows open, a cool breeze freshening her hot room. After the call, she didn't leave or eat or shower well beyond December. She never opened her windows again, but her room never stopped being cold.

Robin was about to turn around; she really was. She had willed something out of herself, something strong enough to lift her left foot from the ground. But then Nancy closed her eyes, took her finger off the button, slumped into her hands, and suddenly Robin couldn't help herself and fell to her knees.

Nancy did look at her then. Funny enough, she was the one frightened in the end. Her face jumped out of her hands, her whole body got shocked into a curl. She looked at Robin up and down, knees to eyes, and got dim enough that Robin could read the titles of the books on the shelf behind her. Robin hung her head.

"Robin?"

Robin fell onto her hands, a numb feeling rising all the way from her toes to her cheeks. Nancy's voice was still the same, albeit distant, as though hearing it coming from deep inside a cave just like every other ghost, but it wrecked Robin in every way it could. She shook her head, but she didn't know why. She couldn't look up at Nancy; she didn't want to, either. She didn't want to be there.

But then she saw Nancy's heels in the edges of her vision, and all it took was for her to blink for the tears to spot the floor.

"No," Robin whispered desperately. She shook her head again, the flood of two summers ago like electric eels unleashing into her nervous system. A spark of Nancy in her denim jacket; a spark of her in Robin's arms; a spark of what their first and last kiss felt like; a spark of Nancy in the rain carrying a bouquet turned to mulch.

It was enough for her to turn, cover her eyes, and run in the other direction. She didn't turn around even when she heard her name, loud and resonant enough to shake the ground. But when she reached the stairs, she couldn't get past the first step.

"Robin!" she heard again, and it was the worst feeling in the whole world to hear her name come from Nancy's lips after all this time. It didn't feel real, and it didn't make sense, like her mind was playing a horrible trick on her. The whole of her back turned ice cold, and she knew that meant that Nancy was right behind her.

Robin took in the coldest breath her lungs ever held and turned around.

Seeing Nancy head on took a blow to her chest harder than she had expected. The breath flew right out of her, but not a hair on Nancy's head moved out of place. Nancy's ghost was there in all her glory, hands curled into a steel fist, the dent between her furrowed eyebrows the same as it was always. She looked as beautiful as she did the last time Robin had seen her, and that twisted the knife in her heart until it erupted against her ribs.

Nancy spoke first. "Hi" was all she said for a while, probably because she expected Robin to say something in return. But Robin had become a coward who lost her heart and couldn't come up with anything worth what she was feeling.

Eventually, cutting through the thick cold tension, Nancy's features smoothed out as she said, "I've missed you."

Robin wished to be smite right then and there. She prayed for it, but the prayer turned into, "I've missed you too," half-way through. The watery smile it pulled out of Nancy was greater than anything a god could have ever given her.

Nancy tentatively raised her hand and drew it down Robin's jaw, feeling a biting chill that made her grind her teeth. She then pressed her palm over Robin's heart. It was the second greatest sorrow in all of Robin's life that she couldn't feel any of it but the cold pressure on her skin, but she figured she was the luckiest person ever to have had the luck to be graced by Nancy Wheeler after having been taken like a breath. I've you missed too was not enough to describe Robin's ache; she had missed Nancy like one might miss a misplaced lung.

She didn't leave the archives until sunrise, when the librarian lady had to have the door busted open. They found her curled up against the right microfilm reader, dried tears down her cheeks, and the ghost of a smile under her sleep-worn eyes.

[scarlettcryptid]

i feel so silly being anxious about my ENT appointment at 930 🥴

[nobodieshero-main]

re-writing the start of the library keeper again. it's like a disease.

[prophecyofgray]

third draft update: first chapter completed! i haven't read it over in full yet, which i'll probably do before starting on the next chapter, but i'm calling it done for now 🥳

[biggest edits: fixed pacing issues, character introductions, and some clunky exposition]

[ranger-kellyn]

just realized that it's september which means next month is october which means it's basically november and i'm supposed to write a novel in november and aaaaaaaaaAaAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

[fallowtail]

damn remember when i thought i could like...be a writer...truly embarrassing 😬