#i'll probably write at least one more fic this month - again i've been thinking abt that sauces botw/totk au lately

[bluntforcefem]

2k24 writing in review: would you believe it. sauces again

author's note

doing my author's note BEFORE the main text of the thing this year, because: damn, it really is all sauces. i posted a sum total of two (2) things to ao3 this year, both for pretty niche medias, and while i'm very proud of them both (i hope we live to tell the tale is the longest thing i've written this year!!) i really hit my stride this year with original fiction, again. many characters featured in this year's writing-in-review belong to the lovely friends i play toys with - thanks to the beloveds for letting me knock around their guys for funsies, per usual!!

some fun statistics for the people at home: i wrote 52 fics for sauces that i would consider 'full-length' (or full-length adjacent) - 22 canonverse fics, 13 alternate universe fics, and 17 spectre-after-dark fics because this is the year that i got into writing erotica lmao. my sauces wordcount, not including a myriad of worldbuilding documents, comes out to about 91,237 words this year! that's fucking crazy. my total wordcount? 108,376. ALSO fucking crazy. i've already mentioned my longest fic this year, but my longest sauces piece (EVER!) was written this year: I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, written in september, which finished at 6375 words. lots of big achievements this year!!

i've been considering uploading my original fiction to my neocities page on-and-off through this whole year. a side project i've been rotating is a wikipedia-style fansite for sauces (so that we can inflict our years-long improv rp series on other people) but even without that, i'd like to start getting my favorites out into the world one way or another (and i'd like for there to be SOME place to get context for them. sauceswiki one day maybe). no idea how much interest there'd be for that, but i digress! let's get onto the monthly highlights, which i'm putting below a cut because damn! they're long.

JANUARY

“la-ast time i ca-ame i brought eli, and we ha-ad to leave the aqua-rium part ear-ly! ‘cause li-ittle bi-ird was looki-ing at the fi-ish like they do the on-nes in the ri-iver at home and they di-idn’t wanna cau-use an incident.” if evan’s hunch about briar rose is right, he’s pretty sure declan’s middle name is incident, but he sidesteps that thought easily as they walk into the first exhibit. “i’m sure eli has more self-control than that,” he says instead, torn between amusement and resignation at the thought of eli perching on one of the exhibits and sticking a whole hand in. “ba-arely. they cau-ught a sal-mon when they go-ot home and ate it who-ole!” declan gestures with both hands, a sort-of this big motion. it is, he thinks, entirely too big to fit in eli’s mouth, but they look so genuine he believes it anyway. “i thi-ink we were bo-oth just hun-gry though. let me kno-ow if you wan-na get snacks!” 

excerpted from JAWS!, a sauces season two story about evan and dec going to the aquarium together

FEBRUARY

when they can’t sleep they go out to the hangar overlook and lean against the railing in the dim warehouse light. they haven’t seen retribution in full since the day the program shut down, but when they stand still and watch the dark, they can see the shape of it twitching, shifting, moving, the synchronized patterns of partners sleeping, scattered across the continent.

excerpted from so i'll take the night shift, a sauces pacrim au fic about declan in the five years between one war and the next

MARCH

he’s not sure what he’s expecting, when eli tells him they’re ready to explain and then takes him out on a flight. even with the snow blurring the sharp slopes of it, the crater is huge, the site of a meteor strike or the pit of a volcano. deep, too; about halfway down the snow gets sparse and then vanishes, inexplicable, and declan wonders if its warmer down there or if its something else, some side effect of the murky blotch of darkness where he figures bedrock must be. eli flies in a lazy circle around the perimeter and then glides towards the middle, landing on a stretch of mostly-clear stone pocked with sturdy lichens. declan follows, stumbles a little on the landing and shoots eli a half-smile when they catch him. “a hi-ike, huh!” “a good day for it,” they answer, matching his smile with their own, gesturing with their folded-up cane. “in more ways than one- but, y’know, can’t be too careful. would’ve gotten us out here yesterday, but i figured neither of us wanted to deal with flying in a snowstorm.”

excerpted from come with me to the mad stone, a sauces season two story about eli introducing declan to the void

APRIL

but more keep coming. eli cocks their head to the side, slides on a patch of sloughed flesh and catches themself on the wall. “where’s the spawner?” close your eyes. follow. but it’s packed. you’re not going to be able to break it. “i can handle a few zombie bites,” eli snarls, but the way vee stills around their neck makes them hesitate. “a few. how packed is packed?” [...] packed is packed. there’s only a moment’s hesitation before the mass of bodies throws itself at them, green fading into black into the hints of pale blue, fabric sewn together that doesn’t match, limbs fused and flesh melting together. it doesn’t look like individual zombies at all, anymore - just some kind of amalgamation, bleeding so thickly onto the cobblestone that eli’s steps splash. eli doesn’t have a moment to doubt that the void will handle the spawner in the center, doesn’t have a moment to recognize anyone in the crowd beyond recognizing it. they clutch the hilts of their swords tighter and let the magic run its course, flesh popping and disintegrating as they work through the horde. a sturdy heap of scaled limbs gets too close, screaming in static, and eli’s head knocks into the ceiling as they launch themself up, talons tearing at the heads and shoulders of everything below them before they land too-heavy on the spawner itself. 

excerpted from the ground needs to be fed, a sauces season two fic about eli & the void handling a broken zombie spawner

MAY

the old man gives them a name. gives them declan shepherd, princess of hyrule, and echo still can’t remember a thing, doesn’t know how they’ll fight the apparent calamity, still just putting one foot in front of the other and tripping every once in a while. but it’s like muscle memory, really. they’ll get to him. they’ll get back to him.

excerpted from and i'll always believe in you, endlessly, a sauces breath of the wild au fic about echo remembering declan. author's note: i have been feeling endlessly shrimp about this one in particular lately

JUNE

“... swallow.” her voice gets quieter, almost uncertain, before she lifts her head and snaps again. “and i don’t actually have any answers for you, loser. i have no idea why your stupid number is a timer, or whatever. like i said, it doesn’t work like that anymore.” she draws out the no, waving one hand dismissively. “and it doesn’t work like that here. shouldn’t. i’m not even really a reaper. i don’t know what to tell you.” neku watches her, but she doesn’t say anything else. “okay,” he says, after a pause. swallow looks at him, squinting. “yeah, i believe you.” “idiot,” she says again, under her breath. neku snorts.

excerpted from i see it swallow my time, a post-canon interstitial infinity fic about neku from between twewy & neo on the infinity train, and also mirror shoka (<3)

JULY

“but you’re not my type.”  his first lie, though he’d honestly expect someone else if they truly were a figment—a strange facsimile of 10, perhaps, or even something like the shepherd. it makes them laugh again, at least, loud and echoing against the stone, and it lights up their whole face. very much a lie, echo thinks, looking them up and down again.  “i could be,” they retort, clearly playing up their offense. their voice is still tinged with laughter, cheeks flushed as they wave a hand at him. “is this an interrogation or a dream, your highness?”

excerpted from show me my silver lining, a sauces royalty au fic about echo and eli meeting in a dream. author's note again: july truly was the month of the weird echo/eli fics

AUGUST

time to play, then. they lean back as best they can in their chair, the very face of unconcerned. “and who do i owe my timely rescue to, then?” “just your favorite kidnapping victim,” a familiar voice chirps. rose stills, and she laughs, nudging the hench with a boot to make sure they’re out before she circles over. “i’ve gotten pretty good at keeping my ear to the ground in the warehouse department! and who else do i find but my dearly beloved rescuer?” “‘dearly beloved’? high compliments, shep. i didn’t even think i was your second favorite.” shepherd snorts. she sets her rifle aside and stalks forward, confidence rolling off her in waves. “only by technicality,” she assures them airily.

excerpted from and iii get a little bit genghis khan, a sauces season two story about shepherd repaying the favor of rescuing echo's supervillain persona from a kidnapping

SEPTEMBER

Shepherd has the same dream every night. It’s been the same dream from the moment she crash-landed on Spectre. The water rises as she climbs a spiral staircase in unbroken darkness, lapping at her heels, always a little faster than her. There’s no escape even if she manages to beat it, she knows – the wailing gets louder as she climbs, unbearable – but she keeps climbing. The void rises. It overtakes her before she can see what’s become of the sun. Tonight – a red light cuts through the murk. She reaches for it as her lungs fill and wakes settled, steady, her hand wrapped around cold iron.

excerpted from I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, a sauces season two story about shepherd accidentally picking up an artifact that pushes her to act on her worst impulses, and trying to kill declan about it.

OCTOBER

lucille shakes her head again, taking a step back. she loosens her grip, lets her hands fall to her sides, holding the axe in just one. “this is mine now,” she tells him, “and you can’t have it back. i don’t owe you anything.” “good,” echo answers, sharp. she stares. “you don’t owe them anything, either. not anyone.” there’s a tension in his shoulders, a distance to the way he looks at her—like he’s looking through her, talking to someone else. she doesn’t know what to say, so she just nods and turns away. he doesn’t stop her when she starts to walk home, her pace deliberate, carefully controlled. his gaze on her back itches. she doesn’t look back.

excerpted from take care, take care, a sauces canon divergence fic that asks, what if echo became a single father?, among other things

NOVEMBER

the void reaches out a hand and wipes off his cheek. its thumb comes away, coated in a mix of blood and tears. you’re starting to lose yourself, it says, and it sounds like eli, now, their voice from a facsimile of his throat. he shivers. careful, now. we were made from ghosts. the world is always hungry for another memory. declan reaches up, grabs its wrist, stares up at it unblinkingly. blood drips from his temple, his heart, stains his overalls and mars the embroidery, pools on the ground and disappears. his grip tightens. “i’m no-ot goi-i-ing any-where.” slowly, it wraps its fingers back around his. lips pull back. the shadow gains too many expanse-white teeth, a skeleton grin. aren’t you? he opens his mouth and the void floods in.

excerpted from i alone will make wrongs right, a sauces season two story about declan in a bad place trying to talk to the void while eli is out of commission

DECEMBER

shepherd unearths her face from the couch and turns to him, eyes bleary and ears flat against her head. fur climbs up her neck and the sides of her face, a patch across her forehead and down the bridge of her nose. in her boxers, he can see the rest of it, grown in thick across her body, almost complete coverage. “it’s ba-ad, huh,” declan murmurs sympathetically. “where’d yo-ou even ca-atch it?” “the crossroads,” she says. when he reaches out and pets a hand across her head, she shoves her whole face into it, the fur soft under his palm. “i didn’t know they even had it here, star, it sucks. so bad! i haven’t caught it since i was–” “fifteen?” declan laughs. shepherd blinks before she snorts and smiles back, lopsided. “go-od, that di-id suck.”

excerpted from the fever pitch, a goofy sauces season two story about catpeople catching a fever that makes them grow fur like kittens do again

FINAL NOTE

if you've read this far: thanks, first of all, i appreciate it!! second of all, there's definitely a lot i'm proud of that didn't make it onto this review (or we'd be here all day). if you want to know more about my guys or sauces in general or any of the fics these are excerpted from, i'm always down to talk shop. here's to another year of writing!!

[riddlerosehearts]

HII ITS IDIAVIL ANON AGAIN!!! i wanted to respond to the post u made in response to my ask... I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND NOT BEING ABLE 2 WRITE FICS LIKE!! ive been creatively writing for years and when it comes to stuff im rlly passionate abt i can become super duper creative. my struggle with writing fanfic is finding the time and motivation, plus my adhd makes it difficult for me to focus, BUT IVE BEEN DOING BETTER RECENTLY!!! im kinda familiar with wicked? i saw it on stage back when i was just a wee lad but i dont remember much of it (i honestly think i fell asleep ;-;) but i've been wanting to watch both the play and the new movie, i just haven't gotten to it yet. i will definitely keep this in mind as i watch both!! a few weeks ago i actually watched jennifer's body for the first time, i'd been wanting to watch it but then i saw someone mention a jennifer's body idiavil au and oh my gods i literally couldnt stop thinking about it. i've definitely kept that au in mind, and i will do the same for the wicked au!! when i do eventually watch wicked i'll probably send another giant yapping paragraph in ur asks abt it... ALSO PLEEASEE I WOULD LOVE LOVE LOVE TO HEAR MORE ABT UR AU IT SEEMS SO COOL!!! also. hercules au. oh my god u get me. i'm not exaggerating when i say i've thought abt the idiavil meg and hercules parallel at least once a day for the past like five or so months. i NEVER stop talking to my friends about it EVER. i was actually on a disney cruise (twas a family trip) about a month ago and they had a giant tv above the pool, they showed a movie every fifteen minutes (after the movie prior had ended) and WHEN I TELL YOU I FREAKED OUT WHEN I SAW THEY HAD A SHOWING FOR HERCULES. AND I HAD TO RESIST FROM STIMMING (i get embarrassed when i stim in public bc i dont like being looked at or percieved like ever) DURING WONT SAY IM IN LOVE LIKE THATS PROBABLY MY FAVORITE DISNEY SONG OF ALL TIME OH MY GOODNESS. I WOULDNT STOP TEXTING MY FRIEND AND TALKING ABOUT IDIAVIL. also i did see ur response and oh my goodness i think abt it so much. ill probably share the keychains and playlists off anon later... also i LOVE the fact u keep ur pins of them next to each other... my birthday was actually a while ago (oct 28th) but the art has been delayed bc shes been busy which idm, shes putting a ton of effort into it. ill also probably share that off anon whenever its done!! alr im gonna wrap this up, i do have a few things i have to get done soon but i'll try to send in those playlists and pictures of the keychains b4 i go to bed tn!!

hi again haha!! whenever you watch the wicked movie i really hope you enjoy it! just keep in mind that they kind of, extended every single scene in act 1 to make it 2.5 hours long (when the whole stage musical with both acts combined is that length), so it's only a part 1 and we won't get part 2 until next year. which admittedly DOES bug me but i still loved the movie anyway. if you want to watch the stage musical after that, well, the people who record bootlegs usually ask you not to put them on youtube but people do anyway AKJDGJFSG. so you can probably find one easily enough! it's my absolute favorite musical! when i went to see it live in april, i kept thinking "well, vil does share glinda's love of fashion and her popularity and ambition, but he's different from her in a lot of ways too! for example, he doesn't believe that popularity is the only thing that really matters, and he would never sacrifice his own morals and ideals to achieve his goals... oh... wait..." and then i realized that the whole plot of book 5 is that vil kind of DID do all that! that's the whole tragedy of it, that he overblotted because he DID start to think that his hard work was meaningless and that he SHOULD resort to any means possible to be the most popular at the expense of his moral compass, and he thought of himself as ugly for doing so! he COULD have ended up basically alone, being praised by others around him as beautiful and good while inside he secretly believes himself to be wicked, just like glinda if his friends hadn't done everything to stop him from poisoning neige.

and idia may not be an animal rights activist like elphaba, nor is she an otaku LOL, but elphaba grew up lonely and ostracized because of her green skin and idia's family curse forced him to grow up isolated on the isle of woe and have blue fire for hair. she's a caretaker for her disabled sister whose father blames her for her condition, and idia has a robot brother whose death he blames himself for. elphaba is jaded and sarcastic and abrasive and deeply insecure, and who else fits that description? the only issue is that idia is far too pessimistic about the future to decide to do what elphaba does in defying gravity on his own, but i think in an AU he could be pushed to do it. also there's this part in wicked where after glinda and elphaba get back from a big dance at the ozdust ballroom glinda says "was that your first party?!" and elphaba deadpans "does a funeral count?" and i can just so clearly see that with idia and vil AFKJDGHF. there's so many other scenes too that i just see as being perfect for them.

as for fiyero i had two ideas here: in the actual musical, there's a love triangle in which elphaba and fiyero ultimately end up together but as i mentioned i would want to give my AU a happy ending and make vil and idia end up together in it. so i would do one of two things: 1) cast kalim as fiyero, because he literally just fits the role perfectly. fiyero is a foreign prince, and look at the lyrics to dancing through life and try to tell me kalim wouldn't sing this. but i don't ship kalim with either vil or idia, so in this scenario i'd probably cut the love triangle and have him somehow end up as their bestie who supports whatever insane gay thing those two have got going on. imo kalim really does fit fiyero better than anyone else and this idea is just so funny to me. or 2) cast rook as fiyero, keep the love triangle, and have it end in polyamory because even though i've never even considered shipping rook with idia i do ship rook/vil and i think this would be hilarious as an AU. also, there's a scene in wicked where glinda and elphaba are hanging out and glinda is like "let's tell each other our best secrets! i'll go first! FIYERO AND I ARE GOING TO BE MARRIED!!!" and since they've just started dating elphaba is like "he's asked you already??" and then glinda goes "oh no, he doesn't know yet!" and imagining vil saying that about rook just makes me laugh so hard.

OKAY. so there is an incomplete summary of my thoughts on a vilidia wicked AU!! honestly i don't really watch horror movies so i haven't seen jennifer's body but if i ever do watch it i'll have to keep that AU idea in mind. as for the hercules parallel idk if you've seen this post of mine but it makes me so happy every time someone likes or reblogs it because then i get to think about them again. hercules/meg has always been one of my favorite disney couples so when i saw this happen in book 6 i was immediately just. doomed to be insane about vil/idia forever because are you KIDDING ME?? also your birthday is right after mine omg, mine was october 25th!! so a late happy birthday to you, then! one last thing i'd like to say in this already way too long response is that i have two sets of floyd and riddle nuis--listen, they're my other favorite ship so i bought the first ones online and then saw more at a con i went to and couldn't resist--and i'm going to be getting idia and ortho nuis for christmas. hopefully soon i'll be able to get a vil nui as well so i can keep him right next to his boyfriend and his film club buddy/future brother-in-law 💙💜

[sollucets]

16, 19, 23? 😚 Also, my favourite poem... Mary Oliver makes me feel a lot of things okay-

hiiii dear ej, thank you for visiting ;u; <3 (list)

16. what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

social security card. don't @ me

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

hmmm,,,, lets go with where am i now & where am i going

right now, i have 2 standing unfinished stories (oe and oowu) that i still intend to do my level best to finish, no matter how long it actually takes. i've genuinely never finished a multichapter fic like these; the ones i did for myself usually kind of petered off instead of having an ending i was really satisfied with. even when i finished nano it's not like the stories were done! i just hit 50k. i don't kno why i'm like this, and i want to prove i can do it because im certain i can, i just have to really honestly commit to finishing them

then.. if that works out, and i prove i can.... there's a couple things sort of on the horizon, and the first is. how can i put this delicately.

sex LMAO

recently (e.g. in the last several months) i've been writing some bits and pieces of things i'd consider spicy. you, ej, are one of the extremely few viewers of.... uh, i'd not even call it smut honestly, but as close as i've ever gotten, and i've felt the desire to really try for it recently? or at least try more. i don't kno i'm ever going to be a really explicit writer, or if i'll ever be brave enough to publish it, but i genuinely want to try. but it's......... So....... AGH. lmao.

the other is that there's an au in my brain that i'm really honestly super enthusiastic about, and the plot is coming together, and i really want to try to actually write it, but it'd be... like. a genuine longfic, i think. with world building. and plot. and again, historically i cannot fucking finish these things. but i really want to try!! i've been noodling at it for like a month and i showed the notes doc to a friend and she got really excited and. it'll probably be so, so long before any of it ever sees the light of day if i ever commit to trying but.... if you all ever see me posting abt pirates akkaye this is why

mary oliver!!!! ohh, i've read this one before and it is so lovely. thank you <3

[lurkiestvoid]

So I haven't really said anything about this to anyone except my wife yet because I'm a notorious flake and 'tell ppl abt ur projects so u feel compelled to finish them' has the opposite effect on me and I didn't wanna jinx myself

But anyways, unimportant but still newsy: a Project of mine is shaping up into something kinda cool.

For the last two months I have been working on a tightly-knit series of Dragon Age fics that spans all my Heroes and companions over a minimum of 25 years, intricately weaving a custom world state, with prologues and drabbles and everything else I want in my personal canon, leading up to and including Veilguard (once I get my hands on it, anyway -- I have a decent outline for it already though) and beyond. I've been doing it for myself, but I'm having so much fun I wanna throw it up on AO3 when it's polished a bit.

I have never done anything like this before nor gotten so far into it so I'm really psyched about it! I've written fic, sure, and gotten decent reception, but it's been rare and tiny; I've written original fic, but usually got stuck a few chapters in and abandoned it. This shit is coming out sideways as one whole entire baby and it is as surprising as it is painfully life-changing.

More about The Project under the cut.

The Prologues fic will cover everyone pre-Origins, eventually, or later/younger characters before their official appearances. Then, there are four Main Fics, one for each O/2/I/V, I haven't yet decided if I'll split them up or run it as the massive interconnected beast it really is. ...I also have some derivative 'original' fic loosely planned for after a 100+yr time skip but that's separate There will certainly be plenty of smut in a variety of combinations and relationships, buuuut I think I'm going to post all that together as its own separate semi-canon drabbles fic just to keep things tidy and because I do have a kid who is soon to be unleashed on the internet who is already begging for AO3 i might post it under a secondary account

There will be many playlists.

General idea: The world of Thedas and both major and minor plotlines become massively but reasonably Changed by player choices, character deaths, character survivals, and by continual involvement of the Heroes and their companions and allies, in some form or fashion. 'Alternative' player-character Wardens/Inquisitors/Rooks survive the character creator screen, at least for a while. Chapters mostly explore the "in between" scenes of relationships, personal and interpersonal growth, shenanigans, minor events and conflicts, the intricacies of sociopolitics, processing the Horrors, and with major/familiar plot points told from interesting perspectives or other changes, or skimmed for brevity. No "party sizes" we adventure as a group, occasionally splitting into teams to delegate or pinch; this, too, changes some things. Filling in plot/lore holes and probably making new ones, but all for fun. And because Bioware is fucking terrified of children, apparently (I refuse to believe virtually zero children have any affect on half a century of history or really any lore at all, nor that 60%+ of all the Big Names aren't constantly fucking nasty style throughout the halls of power and the alley slums alike) there will be plenty of kids running around and mucking things up for everyone, adorably or otherwise, and explorations of tons of different family types. (Kieran matters again. So does Feynriel, and Connor, and the like 2-3 other kids we ever see across games. Now plus gaggles of baby OCs, sprinkled throughout)

Total rough-draft notes word count is currently sitting over 300k. My "notes" generally consist of bulleted list summaries and quick word-vomit snippets while sitting in traffic so I don't forget ideas, and a few 3k-12k rough draft chapters. I recently moved into my first major editing phase, which will take a few weeks, then I'll do a second writing phase to fill in gaps, straighten out details, rewrite scenes, etc, and a second editing phase where I repeatedly reread and hunt typos/dangling participles/whatever. And then I'll start feeding it chronologically to AO3, one chapter at a time, once a week for like a whole fucking year or three

It's... uh, big. Big project. Massive. Why am I doing it? I don't know but I am VISCERALLY COMPELLED to do this, I have not been in control of my actions for like two months and the consistent high rate at which this has poured out of me has been MIND-BOGGLING to experience. I have been possessed by whichever spirit of Inspiration finally gave up on George R R Martin, is my best guess. But hey, if it works, which is seems to be working VERY FUCKING WELL, I'm going to use this exact formula to plow through years of abandoned novel ideas.

OH AND I'm going to be doing fanart the whole time, both of canon and fanon characters. Dustin off the lil Wacom and getting back to work. I'm going to start taking commissions again also (not just yet) and maybe start a BlueSky for that I guess. So, uh. Yay productivity? But if anyone is interested in beta reading or has art requests, hit me up and I'll start putting out sometime probably after xmas lol

[maganne-bonete]

Life and interest update ramble that no one asked for: General

And I'll probably make more for a while on a variety of topics

So I've been having, not necessarily stressful, but stress induced couple of days. It's hard for me to pinpoint but I think it's me getting overwhelmed with things. Partly my fault because of dumb decisions I've made for the past couple of weeks, and it's called going through the Youtube comment section.

But that's not necessarily the worst thing. It's more of, me deciding to air out opinions abt online celebrities in twitter dot com more than anything 'cause stans are some of the weirdest people on earth and one of them tried using my age as a gatcha for telling them off for being parasocial about a bunch of people's relationship. But anw, that doesn't really bother me anymore 'cause the twitter side of that fanbase just proved themselves to be the worse kind of fans for literally trying to emotionally manipulate their CC.

BUT, other than that, I guess it's also the reminder that I'm running out of time.

Earlier this year I wanted to get myself "prepared" for coming back to school. I took another leave to take care of my sister this time. Around last year's April she almost died after a fatal allergic reaction to an antibiotic. It left her severely disabled so I had to help her out.

In effort of trying to "prepare" myself I tried doing "productive" things like drawing, gardening, language learning, or generally cleaning up more. Which honestly, not that bad. I always considered gardening as one of my healthy hobbies. Doing more art is important for my field in the future. Generally doing other chores like putting my clothes away and cleaning up make-up brushes will be beneficial for me in the long run. I tried relearning french although it was very little like idk colors and numbers and such, but it's honestly barely anything.

But by the time it hit April I just got burned out ? And I thought, okay I'll be more productive by May. But would you look at that? It's already the end of May. And I haven't picked up a stylus, pencil, gardening sheers, or even downloaded duolingo. (Although I also have theories regarding this part of the year 'cause my mood tend to start shifting around this period)

But other than those things, I also tried writing again around those months 'cause writing has been such a struggle for me for the past few years for some reason. Like I use to write a lot but it just got difficult for me. And I NEED to get good at writing in general, fiction or non-fic, because I'll need it for college. But hey, last night I was able to write 600+ in one session over a fictional piece and I consider that a win.

Another thing that should've been something considered productive that I've been putting off was signing myself up for a comprehensive psychological evaluation. It was something I should've considered earlier in the year but the idea of leaving the house to go to Manila was always troubling for me at that time. For the past year I could barely leave the house so I could look after my sister. It wasn't really that bad. I'm fine with staying around the proximity of our house. But this year she has improved a lot and could even go to the bathroom by herself. But even then, I kept holding it off and now June's coming around the corner.

I think it's partly because I have this mindset of "I'm better compared to last year since I don't want to die anymore" but even then I still have OCD symptoms. I also still have really bad anxiety from time to time and I tend to get paranoid too. All of this is bad and are still problems that do bother me every other day. And honestly, out of everything "productive" I need to do before the semester starts, this should have been at the top of the list.

So I should probably get to it within the weekend, at least. And not get distracted with other things. I really really need to do that.