#idk take this as an exercise in prose

[1864reruns]

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synopsis. I put my miscellaneous playlist on shuffle and attempt to write drabbles for Seventeen members based on the song

tag(s)&warning(s). gn! reader for all, ALL OF THEM ARE UNEDITED (and could kinda be read as they're still idols but also not idk)!!!! s.coups⠀✦⠀lack of communication, established relationship, not really angst but discussion of breaking up, s.coups is pathetic and a fool in the face of love, it's sweet really ; jeonghan⠀✦⠀fluff, mentions of alcohol and drinking, domestic on objects (he beats up an oven 😔) ; joshua⠀✦⠀fluff, reader is sick, established relationship ; jun⠀✦⠀one sided love, unrequited love, weird ass couch metaphor (idk) ; hoshi⠀✦⠀real life "what are we?", fluff

from vyon. this is just a writing exercise because i have another angsty prose oneshot in the works; it's artist!xu minghao and muse!yn, idk why i always tend to write angst when it comes to prose oneshots but ohwell, also, my writing is heavily reliant on extended metaphors and the likes so take everything i write with a grain of a salt

،،̲ ﹕Choi "Dark Red" Seungcheol  ❟﹗ ❲416 words❳

Unfortunately for you both, Seungcheol was completely ready to abandon his pride and beg you to not leave him. Something about your relationship recently was filling him with dread━ how you were pulling away from him, how it felt like you had retreated back to the shore after leaving him unable to control the directions of his body against the sea. The sick feeling of anxiety continued filling him with everytime the sea crashed against his back, sending him upwards above the waterline and high enough to see your back on the shore, walking back towards the comfort of your towel and the shade your umbrella offered. Seeing your back facing him and the sea felt like you had left him in the mess that you two had made home for so long, the slimy seaweed wrapping around his feet and tugging, tugging until his head was underneath water and his last breath was wasted on calling your name even if you couldn't hear him.

Maybe he was overthinking, high chances were it was not about him or your relationship in any way possible. Maybe it was work related, family issues, an argument with friends, but whatever it was, it was affecting you two. Your withdrawal from the relationship mentally felt horrible, it felt like impending doom, like watching a lie you've told previously blow up in your face with no way out. Maybe Seungcheol should've had a mature discussion with you about whatever was bothering you, whether it be about your relationship or not but in hindsight, you couldn't make him think that you were going to break up with him and expect him not to fall to his knees, cradling your hands close to his chest like your fingers were the chambers of his heart.

Unfortunately for you both, Choi Seungcheol was not a man that let his pride get in the way of important things━ things like you. So when you're casually talking about how hard things have been lately, and how you want to stop doing everything and just get on a plane to anywhere, it's only natural that Seungcheol slides off the couch you're both lounging on. It's only natural that his face is contorted into one of extreme hurt and caution and when he says, "don't give me up, please don't give up," continuing on even when you're ushering him up, eyes blinking wide confused, "honey, I belong with you and only you," you should've seen it coming, he thinks.

،،̲ ﹕Yoon "Thinkin Bout You" Jeonghan  ❟﹗ ❲774 words❳

It should've been impossible for you to find Jeonghan more attractive than you already had been since you two met but somehow, it was happening. The living room had yet to be cleaned up, a lot of the snacks previously opened had been folded over and stacked on the low coffee table, empty soju and beer glasses had all been redirected to the kitchen, and there are a few miscellaneous arms and feet sticking out from underneath blankets, pillows in your peripherals. You shuffle around the shadows, trying your best not to step on anything that: a) might be a person, b) might be food, c) might be a wrapper, and thank the stars that Kim Mingyu had stuck himself with the group of boys that made teasing him their vocation. The house–warming party for whom you've forgotten through all the alcohol, unsurprisingly, turned into a drinking party when half of the boys had decided that nothing makes a good gift like meat and alcohol and so commenced the long night of bottomless samgyeopsal, kimchi, and beer mixed with soju.

The light of the kitchen is already on, sounds of smacking and grumbling becoming clearer as your vision does the same and you walk past the threshold and into the room. With his back turned towards you, Jeonghan is hovering over the oven with one hand leaning on the counter and the other pressing the buttons of the oven that you guessed wasn't working by the way he was repetitively pressing it. You silently find amusement in watching him struggle with working the thing until he curses, smacking his palm against the surface and you accidentally let out a loud 'ha!'. Yoon Jeonghan should look worse considering what time it is, how much alcohol he had earlier but he doesn't. Or maybe he does but you're too biased to notice or maybe the dream you've had previously wherein Jeonghan was stood amongst a field of flowers, the petals unable to rival the softness of his eyes made it impossible to think anything negative about him. Maybe it was hard to see Yoon Jeonghan in your dreams, watered with heaven's clouds and taking in nutrients from the same Earth that omce saw to the great Heracles with the sun dawning upon his features gracefully like he were the centre of the universe, and think that anything could make him unappealing to the eyes.

"Yn," he whined as you move to the oven, obviously stepping in to help him with it. You glance over the pot of water, the unopened ramen on the counter beside you, and when your thumb pressed down on the button, it turns on with a chirpy beep. "How'd you get it to work?" Jeonghan peeked over your shoulder, unconsciously pressing himself into your side with his fingers perched on your shoulder.

You mumble something hardly intelligible when you're met with Jeonghan's lightly flushed cheeks from the alcohol previously. He seemed to understand you well enough though because his eyebrows furrowed and he smacks the oven top again. "I've been clicking that thing forever."

Somewhere inbetween your delirious half asleep state and your alcohol induced zoning out, you managed an amused smile before you slip away to the corner of the kitchen where the kettle is to make yourself tea. A quiet humming of life begins in the kitchen, you slide over to open a few cupboards to look for cups and Jeonghan was where you once stood in search of chopsticks. He finds the metal utensils before you find anything that could even function as a cup, your eyes wander over to the bubbling kettle as you wonder if you even wanted tea that badly but a sound from Jeonghan makes you stop.

Infront of you, on the counter, there was a large mug. Painted in the colour of an eggshell, round with a strip of brown running around the bottom. You glance upwards to see Jeonghan grinning at you; it's a simple action, something you could do to a stranger in the street but your heart is suddenly seeping with love, the colour and flavour of Yoon Jeonghan flooding the liquid in your body until you were a murky existence tainted with your feelings for him. Between the alcohol and you still being half asleep, you hope the words are as unintelligible as you heard them to be. "I can't stop thinking about you."

But when you finally get the courage to glance at him in search of a reaction, the large grin on his face, green tea with sickening adoration, you know that he's heard you well enough.

،،̲ ﹕Hong "Heavenly" Jisoo  ❟﹗ ❲395 words❳

The door creaks softly, you hear the background noise of your friends slip into your bedroom before the door shuts again. Feet sounded gently across the floor, getting louder with each step and closer; the intrusion of someone makes you whine, not wanting to get out of bed. You make an attempt to burrow yourself deeper into the duvet, the scratchy pillow, rolling over to the middle of the bed where you believed yourself to be untouchable. A gentle hand feels over your reddened face, mouth open as you panted slowly; Joshua's pinky ring provides a little coolness that you find pleasure in. You still seemed a little out of it, eyes open deliriously before they taken in the blur of colours that is your boyfriend.

He's frowning, you think, as he mumbled something about your high temperature underneath his lips. "Hey you," he called out softly when he catches you with your eyes open. His hair is a little messy and he carries a faint smell of food with him. You shuffle over to where he's sat on the bed, leaning your head up to burrow your face into his stomach. "You feel any better?" He asks you as you shake your head.

The light from the morning hours catches in your curtains; the lullaby of the rain against your window calls you back to sleep; Joshua's hands wipe away the hair that's stuck to your forehead, resembling streaks of paint on a canvas. You clear your throat, "are you not going out today?" You managed to ask, your tongue odd and heavy in your mouth.

Joshua hummed a 'no'. Your head moves away from his stomach, looking at him with furrowed eyes. "If the boys knows I left you alone at home sick, they'll force me home anyways." He defended like it was the only thing keeping him from leaving.

You have no energy to try and force him to go, a smile on your face as you pushed yourself back into his stomach. Joshua asks you if you need anything, indulgent and caring as he hears your breathing slow down a little. You shake your head, parts of your hair stabbing through the fabric of his pyjamas bottoms and meeting the skin of his thigh in ticklish kisses. He smiles before bending down awkwardly and pressing a kiss onto your head.

،،̲ ﹕Wen "Strawberry Blond" Junhui ❟﹗❲508 words❳

There's a patch of bleach on the back of your couch— it's the size of Wen Junhui's head and takes the shape of your heart. It's ruined your couch but sometimes, you like to sit there methodically and lay your head against the mark. You don't know how long it sat there, burning through the colours of your furniture until it left its mark; you didn't even realise it had happened until Vernon had pointed it out when you were about to sit down.

"What the hell—" You looked up, annoyed at your couch being ruined but your eyes land on Jun and he doesn't seem guilty at all. His face is straightened, shrugging. Seungkwan is there to help you calm down (because you think you were also annoyed over something else that day) and Dino offers to help you look for a new couch but that's too time consuming and expensive so you decided to get comfortable with your ruined couch.

Living with a ruined couch isn't all that hard. It becomes the norm to see it there, you can't remember what your couch looked like untouched and pristine; it doesn't really affect your life until someone points it out or Jun's head is there, covering it up perfectly. He stands up and reveals the mark again and your heart aches in your chest. Sometimes, it's disbelief that takes you when you're forced to become witness to the lightened leather of your couch, how had he managed to sit there without you noticing, how you didn't even notice when he moved and you sat down to take his spot, how you had simply accepted that you weren't going to get a new couch.

Life continues on, even with the stained couch in your home. Your friends also become normalised to it— when Jun is not there, they laugh at you and the way he had pressed his head against the leather chamber of your heart and bleached through muscle. They make pictures out of it, create characters with whiteboard pen and draw over the varying colours of splotches and wipe it off so they can do it again. They create fantasical stories from it, smiling and laughing and they spoke a world where Jun was always there to cover up the mark as he lived beside you into existence.

You're greeted by the boys one day, outside your apartment with a girl. She's stood with Jun and moves in slowly, cautiously. She doesn't notice the bleach material of your couch as she sits down and leans the back of her head against it. Your friends look at her cautiously, at the glimpses of the ruined headrest they can see and then they look at you. Vernon tells you that Jun was somewhat interested in her, Seungkwan pats your back with a smile, and Dino asks you, once again, if you want a new couch.

You say no, once again. It's too expensive, too time consuming. You think it'll stay with you until the end of time.

،،̲ ﹕Kwon "Tren Tinh Ban Duoi Tinh Yeu" Soonyoung ❟﹗❲414 words❳

For Hoshi, some of the lines that restricted platonic love from romantic love blurs together. He hugs like he's making an attempt to crawl into your heart, he presses kisses on your skin like he's falling from the skies and it's the only thing tethering him from hitting the floor distastefully, he cuddles like you're an iv drip, keeping him alive and you're forced to breath out the reading of his heart beats.

It's something that used to be confusing to you, who held the two separate, sacred in their own ways but his friends are somewhat similar. Between the group of thirteen, there are unspoken rites that they keep to show live to each other in way that mixes the two together and so as you get closer to them all, you become more accustomed to it.

When Hoshi treats his friends like this, however, it's hard to try and scramble together an understanding of what he sees you as. Before you met his other friends, you thought— believed— that he held romantic feelings for you; he never brought them up however so you were left trying to stitch the pieces together into a shaky puzzle. The pieces are forced together into an ugly picture, the colours don't match and the lines are all erratic. You finally meet his friend group, so full of love for each other, and the puzzle falls straight through your hands.

"You okay?" A head lowered to your shoulder, Hoshi is stood behind you with your other shoulder held tight in his hands. You smiled, leaning your head onto his for a second before you're straightening up and he takes a seat next to you.

Your eyes glanced around the room— you won't deny that there's a part of you that wants him to push a little more towards romantic showings with you but. "I'm fine," you breathed a soft sigh as your eyes sparkled.

When you landed on the belief that Hoshi liked you, it led you down the path of slowly formulating a specific love that you held only for him. You thought Hoshi liked you so your mind pushed him past the lines of platonic love into the spotlight of romantic.

For Hoshi, you're stood somewhere between the stages of platonic and romantic love but that's enough for now. You're happy with it. (Plus, even Jihoon thinks that the love Hoshi keeps for you is a little different than the love he extends to them.)

[magpiefngrl]

Can I ask your top 10 fav fics ever (from any fandom, if you don't mind)?

Also, just curious, is there a story behind your name "magpiefngrl"?

Hey, anon!

Oh fave fics! I love talking about fics and books, though I feel I talk about fics everyone knows and have nothing new to offer, esp since I've not read much in the last 2-3 years. Still, narrowing it down to 10 is super hard, so I've looked at my bookmarks and chose the ten fics that I've reread the most.

1. Bound Skerry by Frayach (drarry, M, 2.3k)

I've read this a hundred times and I'll keep coming back to it. Possibly my most read fic. The reason it's one of my Forever Fics is the prose. Absolutely stunning writing.

2. House Proud by astolat (drarry, M, 23k)

The original House Magic fic and the best one. I particularly love the hints of dark faerie magic, the horror elements and the brilliant worldbuilding. Astolat's prose is super readable and the pacing is excellent.

3. with exactness grinds he all by thistle_verse (drarry, M, 6k)

An aching fic with beautiful, lyrical writing. I've reread this so many times.

4. Art in Life by northofallmusic (tofsla) (wangxian, T, 2k)

I feel I'm repeating myself but this has excellent prose and it's aching and tender and made me feel all the feels.

5. Out of the Dead Land by orphan account (stucky, M, 63k)

OK so this hasn't stood the test of time because I finished it a few days ago, but WOW. Absolutely brilliant. I'm not even a stucky fan or anything. But I kept thinking about it when I was doing other stuff and I set aside the books I was reading so as to finish this. Now it's days later and it's still on my mind. I can't remember the last time I had a book/fic hangover. A very angsty fic and a fantastic exploration of Bucky's trauma. This is by one of my top authors of all time, who's now orphaned everything.

6. Mr Webster's Wager by Fahye + orphan author (same one as above) (Ash/Webster, E, 27k)

Now we're getting into the horny fics. This one is based on a KJ Charles short story which is the best romance short story ever written in my not so humble opinion. This takes the original story and the horniness of that scene and expands it into many horny scenes. It's masterful, very very hot, and just a fantastic fic.

7. Unhook the Stars by jad (drarry, E, 70k)

One of the first drarry fics I read and one that made a huge impression on me. Super kinky, lots of sex scenes, I've reread this a LOT.

8. IDK My BFF Hermione? by lettered (drarry, E, 19k)

Extraordinary. Phenomenal. It will always have a place in my Top 10. Also, very filthy, which is a huge plus in my book.

9. a better happier st sebastian by halsinator (Jonathan Strange, E, 6k)

Another one I reread a million times. Stunning prose and vibes and beautiful yearning. I keep coming back to it.

10. live from new york by varnes (wangxian, E, 87k)

A masterpiece, a classic of wangxian, this is a Saturday Night Live AU, which is such a bizarre choice for an AU--and yet it works. I don't live in US, I have never watched SNL, but I adored the fic.

I've left out a ton of favourite works and authors I adore, but for more of my faves, my AO3 Bookmarks is the place to go.

I have to say, this exercise has been quite illuminating: I don't think I've ever had such a clear glimpse of what makes me tick. In short, sublime prose, an aching, yearning mood and/or filthy porn.

*****

As for my username, here's the story: I joined tumblr a gazillion years ago (way before I got into fandom) and my first blog (still exists: @magpie-x ) was mostly what you'd call an aesthetic blog. I'd reblog cool pics and quotes and occasionally post a personal post about my life. I named it magpie because it was a place where I collected everything shiny, like a magpie. I rarely used it after a while tbh. Years later I read The Raven Cycle and fell heads over heel with pynch and knew that the only place I'd find fans was tumblr. I got into the nascent TRC fandom and soon I needed a space exclusively for fannish posts. I created a sideblog called magpiefangirling and when I later got an AO3 account I shortened the name. Years later I got into drarry, I became very active on tumblr again, and the sideblog wasn't enough so I deleted it and created a brand new blog with my AO3 name.

In short, magpiefngrl, means magpie being a fangirl. It was a random decision but it has now shaped me and I think of myself as Magpie in fandom spaces, and even chose that as my pen name for my future original romance books.

[compacflt]

I have to ask because I'm just too curious! How is your writing so good? Like, holy hell, your prose, the flow from one sentence to another, how you tell Ice and Mav's thoughts and the yearning and pining and angst and everything. You made me cry so many times reading their perspectives, and it's such a unique take and so relatable and sad at the same time.

I'm just wondering if you've taken any courses, what you do to improve your writing, or maybe any references and ideas for when you get stuck on a scene. I'm not much of a reader of western media, so maybe you have some recommendations?

Thanks in advance! You're one of the best writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading!

See here for my regular writing advice :)

yes, i am a double major in journalism & english so I’m taking basically all writing classes at school. but as i said in my previous advice post, i haven’t learned anything in any of my classes that you couldn’t learn just by reading attentively and writing on your own. the benefit of a structured program is Having Deadlines and that’s about it imo

I don’t have a ton of recommendations for precisely this reason—my recommendation is to literally read everything you can get your hands on, AND to treat Everything you read/watch/experience like high literature. Advertisements in the subway have a theme & a message & employ certain literary tactics to deliver that message to you. They’re worth learning from. So are the nature documentaries on tv—which stories are prioritized and why? What story techniques do documentarians, for instance, use to make us, the viewer, relate to animals and experiences that are otherwise unrelatable? Can you find examples of foreshadowing & symbolism in your own real life? Fiction is just a reflection of the dynamics of our own world—if you can find the rhythm of an overheard conversation on the street, you can find the rhythm of fictional dialogue

(Which is why i continue to stress, keep a journal or a diary. one of the most instructive exercises i ever did was when I was in a creative writing class at like 14 and they had us just follow strangers around and write down exactly what they said. So you get a lot of “so he told me, like, he was, like, like, um, ‘I’m not cheating on you,’ or whatever, and I was like, bitch, what?” —But that’s how people talk! It’s a good exercise lol.)

my one actual craft recommendation is basically mandatory assigned reading in many western english/writing classes—for good reason: Thomas c foster’s “how to read literature like a professor.” He summarizes about a hundred classic western texts and explains how they use various english-canonical symbols (“if characters eat together they’re taking communion,” “if a character gets wet and doesn’t drown it’s a metaphorical baptism,” “literally everything you read is somehow related to sex… except sex which is usually about something else”) and it’s written really well for both readers and writers. Basically my bible. a great primer if you don’t know where to start with western literature/if you don’t know where to start with writing symbols and stuff

anyway to summarize, life is literature, living is reading, we all still have so much time to learn, read “how to read literature like a professor,” and keep a diary

I also forgot to mention this in my last advice post but don’t use epithets please 😭 idk if you use epithets or not but this is just general advice, it’s my most snotty literary opinion and it’s very common in fanfic for some reason (it’s like so specific to the fanfic genre it’s insane) but i am extremely convicted about it i feel very strongly so im telling you. epithets make your writing sound very obviously fanficky. “the blond man” “the taller man” etc… just don’t use them it’s so unspecific!! WHICH blond man???? WHICH tall man? why can’t we be specific here?? have we been suddenly struck with amnesia?? just use his name!!

Also you say you don’t read a lot of western literature—I am not sure where you’re from but don’t feel like you HAVE to read/write only western literature to be successful. That’s only true if you want to succeed in the gatekept western lit market—and even then, the gatekept western lit market is literally currently foaming at the mouth to hear other perspectives right now. Who you are & where you come from invariably affects how you see the world & write about it, so lean into that if you can!

unfortunately my advice for getting stuck on a scene is “just write it.” Just sit down and get SOMETHING on the page. Spoiler alert, those tend to be the scenes i (and most of the writers i know) dislike the most, when coming back to reread my/our own writing. like there are many scenes in my fics that i have published where i think the lack of passion is unfortunately pretty obvious. But that’s kind of the way it goes. Some scenes you will like/want to write better than others. Shrug. at least they’re there on the page. as they say: don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good enough.”

[wrishwrosh]

9, 17, 35, 47 !!

thanks!!

9. favorite detective novel

i don’t read a ton of detective novels tho i tend to really enjoy them when i do, as i have a categorical inability to predict a plot twist and am always delighted and surprised by literally any ending. my fav is probably the witness for the dead by katherine addison, which is the first in the cemeteries of amalo series. i suspect it’s not actually a very good detective novel but it IS really juicy bureaucrat fiction about a deeply depressed magical priest-clerk who takes lovingly rendered fantasy public transit a lot.

17. favorite finished series

uhhh lord of the rings?? i have a completely baseless Thing against completed series and a bad habit of reading the first book in big name genre trilogies/duologies with absolutely no intention of finishing the rest. how dare the author attempt to control my reading order etc etc. however there are a lot of books that i read as standalones and then happily enjoy the sequels when they came out later, idk why my brain is like this

WAIT forgot the cromwell trilogy. duh. that one lmao

35. least favorite trope in your most favorite genre

inasmuch as the inexplicably twitter-enlightened histfic protagonist is a trope?? i hate. hate hate hate. groffism.

47. last three books you read

pale fire by vladimir nabokov (vladdy nabs, at it again!!! a book that is laughing at you and looking down its nose at you and batting you around with a tennis racket and you love every minute. i read it in 24 hours.)

a certain hunger by chelsea summers (read for book club, Quite Bad, had a great time tearing it to shreds as an exercise in articulating my preferences and identifying insecurities abt my own prose)

HHhH by laurent binet (meta histfic that feels like it crawled into my brain somehow, i found the central conceit of a historical novel that resists and resents fictionalization so provoking it was hard to read in places but everyone who enjoys the genre should read it and come talk to me abt it pleaseee)

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/7/23

feeling sort of neutral to apathetic about a lot of media this week! two pics of my cat tho to make up for it

listening

NOT feeling neutral or apathetic about the tuesdaysong, pont alexandre iii off the 1998 album Noir by alexander lasarenko. this is a sort of fun little film score exercise by a composer who did a lot of tv work, including PBS' NATURE. the drum fill does sound like it’s from 1998 and i mean that as a compliment. bond movies are emphathetically not noir although they occasionally borrow some visuals, but this piece reminds me of early daniel craig bond movies with the sleek synthy orchestra and subdued horns. they both have the same fuckin uhhhh. the british exotic location travelogue strings. the piano makes me think point and click mystery game.

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reading

star wars: yoda dark rendezvous by sean stewart. i am about halfway through but this reread is reviving memories of my last reread in uhhhhh. summer 2011 probably. this feels like it was half a concept for a middle grade book about a padawan finding her confidence and ability after losing her master very early in the clone wars, and half a concept for an adult book about the deep sorrow and loss between the treacherous count dooku and his former master, yoda. and in the background of all this ventress (ventress my worstie i love her) is begging and pleading to be made an apprentice while dooku flatly refuses. a generous reading would be “this is all history that rhymes and points to how the master/padawan relationship is not a good pedagogy method for either side and is deeply fucked up” but i think this idea is quite muddied in the middle of this book. it does not always feel deliberate that everyone at once is having trouble managing either their padawans' or their masters' emotions.

the tonal whiplash between the first few chapters is absolutely bonkers. like it's star wars, you couldn't Really show torture on screen or on the page in this specific storytelling era, but it's certainly implied. and then we get a fun field games day for the padawans in the next chapter!!! you don't really consume any star wars media for the prose, but the prose here occasionally gets in the way of itself. it does take a few chapters to find its footing but it is, as i remember, a snappy and fast read. one of the most goth settings in the starred wars imo. the soft plush moss that will start to dissolve your skin if you take a nap in the blood forest has stuck in my brain in the. idk, decade plus since i read this book.

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watching

The Big Sleep (1946, dir. Hawks) is just as good the third time around. i still have a great deal of difficulty following the plot, but this is a movie that first and foremost Looks incredibly good. shoutout to physical media once again bc this 2005 dvd from the turner classic media co. has solid, reliable, properly timed subtitles. none of the pirate streaming sites i like can boast the same for this particular movie.

in other news new felix colgrave short dropped and it is a bizarre perfect delight

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playing

beat wolfenstein: the new order on the babiest level and it still took me like forty minutes to sit through the cutscenes. it does such a good job of presenting you with all these very fun environments to run through that you manage to forget that you are very much on rails and it's essentially a boomer shooter (over the top maximalist first person shooter) cramming itself into hallways until the last level in the castle, which feels like endless corridors. im also cranky they showed me so many airships but never let me walk around on an airship. or throw a nazi off an airship.

might wanna get that tesla coil on fire checked out. like i know it's my fault but someone should be alerted about this

i don't really know that this game stuck the landing, for me. i think the last castle level really dragged, and the courtyard arena + the last hallway arena with the catwalks felt very same-y. it's also annoying to me that they give me a sniper rifle but there's no real way to use it as part of a stealth run. there aren't a lot of opportunities for stealth in the back half of this game. it is too much of a shooter and not enough of a narrative/rpg for my tastes, i think. i don't think i'll be continuing on with the series bc i'm not terribly attached to blazkowicz.

this and fallout are like The big AAA alt-history tentpoles, but it's a very small tent. this game was fun for what is was, which was a self-contained and fairly short shooter you're meant to play through twice to get two slightly different narrative routes. it reviewed well at the time and i think the reviews are pretty fair, i had a normal amount of fun aside from the sharp glee of the moon exhibit ramps and crawling through vents in the moon base, i liked it a normal amount and will not be integrating it into my personality. so it fuckin goes sometimes.

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making

a baby (not mine) blanket, which will absolutely not be ready for the baby (again not mine) in a month and a half. this is going to end up about 40" square and is this pattern off ravelry. it is some flavor of caron baby yarn (i cannot currently find the ballband) on 4mm bamboo circs bc u cannot make a delicate baby blanket. what's the point. its going to go through the wettest hell you can imagine bc a baby's one job is to make fluids.

this pattern is just spicy enough that it's hard to watch TV and count stitches at the same time so i am BURNING through podcasts. slowly but surely getting caught up on A More Civilized Age and their three hour discussions of each star wars episode of Andor. five star podcast five star runtime

[strawhatsoraya]

see, THIS is why I am so patiently impatient because the way you understand Sanji is the exact way I do too!! I can't help but notice the way he's just so full of love and care and I love that in characters, when they face horrible situations but still treat others with love and kindness – bonus if they don't expect it back. Like cmere my baby boy, I will shower you with all the love YOU DESERVEEE TT.TT

I'm super super excited for this fic, so don't even apologize! I know it will be worth the wait, so take your time and trust me to come scream in your askbox when you do finally put it out <3

also, I'm curious if you're also writing the Zoro and Ace prompts I gave? no pressure tho, I know you said you might not do every prompt and I'm already over the moon that you're doing the Sanji one, I'm just curious about everything like how many wips you have going on rn 😂

uni is great!! I have exams coming up in October so this is rush period to finish the syllabus and start prepping >< how's things over there for you? anything interesting going on that you would be okay sharing? <3

- 🍥

(p.s. if my long asks are overwhelming, just let me know, I'll try to cut back haha~)

HII~! I'm sorry for the delayed response. I just got my laptop charger last night. My dog is a terrorist and likes to eat my chargers when I don't pay attention to her.

That being said, I haven't been writing cause I've been mobile. ;~; I know a lot of people write their fics on their phone but for some reason my brain likes a bigger screen so I can see where I'm going with the story. I go back to read a lot because i have bad memory, and want my prose to read fluidly. *babbling forever* But I have the weekend! So i'll be working on it bit by bit.

I have not started on the prompts you sent me yet but I do want to do that Ace one because I think it would be a quick little short exercise to flex my writing muscles! So I'll be doing that one this weekend while working on the Sanji slow burn.

I love the Zoro one you sent me....because it seems like so much fun LMAO And I love messing with Zoro but that one is going to be LENGTHY. Because...I am obsessed with putting Zoro in difficult situations. So that one will take time too.

I do have a Soulmate AU request for Zoro someone sent that's cuuuute. I may do a lil short thing for that too. So I have many WIPs. I should make a list and put in my pinned post? Idk whoever is interested lol.

I do not miss exams ;~; I've been doing better! My health is touch and go, and we had that Hurricane scare (I live in Florida) but so far the coast is clear? Good luck with studying and your exams <3 although I have a feeling you're doing to do great.

(no they don't overwhelm me lmaooo i am a long winded person this matches my energy)

[rize-is-writing]

I just came across your blog and saw match-up reqs are open so hi I'd like to request a genshin match-up (platonic & romantic if it's alr, preferably male charas!) I'm 19 btw, she/her pronouns.

Personality:

My myers is inxj, enneagram is 5w4. Don't know if it's relevant, but my zodiac sign is aries. I'm driven and ambitious to an extent. I'm rather organized as well, everything that screams messy irks me (so I guess a little perfectionist too?). I like challenges, as I see it as an opportunity to test and improve myself. I guess that leads to me being kinda optimistic, but also realistic at the same time (??). I also like to try new things, deviating from what's usual. One of the traits that I value most to myself and others is dedication and loyalty. I also take promises seriously, I take no bs. Despite all of that though, I'm actually quiet and reserved. I try to maintain a calm demeanor so I can work on problems without stressing out much even if I'm quite literally dying on the inside.

Hobbies:

In my free time, I like to do physical exercises. Playing video games and watching some sort of horror/crime/mystery movie or show. I like writing as well (poems and proses in particular). Moon-gazing and stargazing are also on top of the list. Idk if it counts but I like to think... it's kinda weird, but I like to get inside my head and think...

Lastly, playing w/ dogs.

Ideal type:

I tend to gravitate towards people who are rather similar to me. Someone who values organization and time-efficiency bc I don't like to waste resources. I also like people who I can compete with in good spirits, and sees it as a way to improve themselves instead of to raise themselves above me (we should be equals). Maybe I can use an empath as well, sensitive to the other's feelings and mood. I don't mind if they're quiet or loud, just as long as they can respect and understand privacy and alone time (bc I need it a lot).

I guess that would be it. Thank you sm!

I found your match! Come to meet them, c'mon c'mon!

I couldn't help but notice how Ayato kind of sticks with your personality and ideal type: he is an efficient man, with his own ambitions with the head on his shoulders, and knows to read people's emotions and moods, even the slightest shift wouldn't go unnoticed with this guy (it's actually scary of you think about it), and would immediately see whenever you are troubled or not and check on you, or if you need space just give it to you.

He isn't one to trumple you or see you as lesser in any way, despite his... Ways. ("oh... So you collect these", "mh, yeah, very nice" flashbacks. I mean- this bitch of a man), so of course he would truly like a good challenge.

He would admire your personality, since is quite similar to him as he too values loyalty above any other trait, as much as your dedication in what you do. Is truly admirable, as he would say.

He doesn't have any particular hobby on his own, as he is a person fully dedicated to his work and to his duty so trying your hobbies when he finds the time would please him (just don't complain if he spoils who the criminal is in the criminal/mistery books- he would do it just for fun or for challenge)

Plus he is a dog guy, so I don't know if that's a plus but just saying-

Hey! There's someone who wishes to know you! Let me introduce the two of you.

Keqing is pretty much an ambitious person, who also like you sees things realistically too. She doesn't waste time, and isn't one to procrastinate either. But she also doesn't look at only her interests, of course: we all know Keqing is a softie. Is what makes her a great friend! Keqing has empathy, even with all her bluntness.

She would of course care about how you feel and what you need and also respect your time.

She is always one to look for improvement as well, be it in herself or society around her and doesn't beat around the bush in the matter either.

So, to sum everything up, I think that two people like you if teamed up might kick us, with all due humbleness.

[redtalksaboutstuffandthings]

I simultaneously do and do not understand this decision on the part of the NaNo team. NaNoWriMo has always been pretty quality-agnostic; the goal of the challenge is to get 50k worth of anything out onto the page. The team doesn't really verify that what you wrote is good, or coherent, or even yours. The point is that you make something, and wrangling an AI model to produce 50k words of rambling, repetitive prose that can't reference earlier information effectively is, I suppose, of a minimum threshold of effort to qualify.

But at the same time, why would you do that? You could get an AI to crack out all fifty-thousand words in the time it takes for a traditional writer to meet their first day's quota, and all you would have done was mash a button or throw some vague encouragement at the model. What are you going to do with the other 29 days? What are you going to do with the giant block of text that your computer wrote for you? Why did you even join a challenge like this if you did not want to... you know, experience a challenge?

I mean, if all you wanted was to speedrun NaNoWriMo, it would legitimately be faster to Google the "Lorem Ipsum" text block, copy that, and spam-paste it into a word processor. I can guarantee that the resulting text will be as complete and worthy of sitting on a bookshelf. It'd be faster to just submit a text file containing the whole of the Canterbury Tales. You'd only be plagiarizing from one person, that way, and it's a long dead author in the public domain.

I think... what the NaNo committee is thinking about (if you'll allow me to steel-man their position) is using AI models as a support element. You've got a point in your WIP or whatever where you're like "Idk what the characters should do, now, and I've got all this word count I need to fill." So you put in a synopsis of what you've got, so far, and see if ChatGPT or w/e can throw an idea at you. And like, yeah, that's kind of a good use for it. But, if I could drill down the point of my long ramble, it'd be this:

This isn't the point of the exercise.

The point of NaNo is not "make 50k words appear," it's to "write 50k words." You don't know how to make your story ideas go for 50k words? You don't have enough ideas? Make some more. Do it like everyone else before you did, when they ran out of ideas. Steal from stuff you like. Dig in to your characters and setting. Describe everything. Throw in some ninjas! Maybe the story didn't have ninjas in it before, but it sure as hell does now. Super crazy! How did this happen?

Writing, as a craft, is long and tedious. A visual artist like a painter can crack out a high quality image in a time-frame measured in hours. A musician can make a song happen over the course of minutes. A writer often needs days and days to get out prose. A novel could take weeks, months, or even years of writing and revision, before it ever reaches a point where it can go out on store shelves. The biggest difficulty, in this craft, is just having the discipline to do the same thing, day in and day out. Pressing the letter buttons to combine squiggles into strings of squiggles, and those strings of squiggles into strings of strings of squiggles, arranged in just the right order as to trick people's brains into receiving information. I won't delude myself into thinking it requires more discipline to master than other artistic mediums, but it does require discipline.

To those of you who write, who are trying to actually learn your craft, AI is a shortcut. You could use it, if you lack confidence in your own ability to make things. If you ask me, however, the world has far more room for poorly made stuff made with intent, than it does mediocre stuff hallucinated by a machine.

So it looks like NaNoWriMo are happy to have AI as part of their community. Miss me with that bullshit. Generative artificial intelligence is an active threat to creativity and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in creative fields.

Please signal boost this so writers can make an informed choice about whether to continue to take part in such a community.

[themsource]

Don’t Fear The Reaper

Paring: Reaper Sans/Frisk

Rating: M

Word Count: 3,530

TW: Current world situation might make this a bit sensitive

I’ve been sick, have something I’ve been holding onto as an apology. Song inspiration.

Frisk couldn’t take another day.  

Staring unseeing into the screen of her laptop she could only frown as her thoughts drifted; memories of wasted minutes that could’ve been spent in favored company searing an angry burn into her heart, fleeting moments of loneliness and desolate imaginings coating her in a veil of uncertainty and numbness.

When had she last gone outside? 

Had last heard from a loved one or reached out to those she’d claimed to care about? 

How long had it been before the world crumbled around her and the countless people inhabiting it dwindled down to mere thousands?

Even now her race fought to hold on, all the medical supplies left to the world reaching the brink of extinction under its exorbitant use, medical technology breaking down with barely a soul left alive that had the knowledge to effectively fix them.

One of humanity's worst fears realized.

Slowly she turned her gaze to her window and watched as a thin blanket of ash and disease fell tauntingly just outside the safe haven of her home. 

What looked as if harmless bits of grey and white nothing more than the teasing touch of death itself. Every lazily falling speck a testament to a life lost, a future cut short. 

They were so ugly, yet so beautiful in their descent.

As it always did when she glanced outside, something pulled at her chest.

A morbid sense of wanderlust...and a craving that teasingly urged her to don her mask and coat, to venture out into the tainted world promising sickness and suffering.

Why that feeling always came, persuasive and insistent, she didn’t know.

But the nostalgia it brought...

Frisk could still remember what it was like to see the sun and feel it’s warmth on her skin. She could still remember the smiles and laughter her family had given as young ones ran and played around them, splashing with precious sparkling lake water and indulging in the freedom to explore and adventure without worry.

Her family...that had been lost...because the world hadn’t been prepared for the apocalypse.

When the sky had blistered red and the air had swirled with the planet’s resentment and withheld rage, airborne toxins infecting and striking people down with barely the whisper of a passing breeze, she had cried. 

Frisk had sobbed at the lack of mercy shown to the lifeforms that had so tainted the world with countless eons of carelessness and greed.

Nature was no better than humanity had been in it’s ruthlessness.

Frisk had been forced to endure it first hand.

Her mother’s face as she passed still hung in her mind, her brother’s, her sister’s, and then her aunt and uncle. All going out with soft smiles and pleas for her to be safe, tears stinging cheeks and hands clutching each other in futile reassurances.

Death had been cruel, death had been relentless. 

Frisk fought, fought so hard to promise them she’d survive and that she would make it through this all encompassing hopelessness that had swallowed the light of the world with a clammy and bitter victory, but everyday got harder...longer.

Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours, and then hours to days...

Her determination which had once been boiling and strong had gradually simmered, wilted and turned pale as the mental walls she had tried so hard to build had begun to weaken. 

She knew humanity was surviving, many were doing well by staying in their homes, locked away and isolated, but so many were still falling and losing everyday.

Not a day passed that another wasn’t lost.

Frisk...wondered sometimes what it would be like to go outside again. 

Just to feel the air on her skin, the constant state of entrapment forgotten as she raced through tall blades of grass and ducked under low hanging branches, to be alive once more. 

And as she did another pull just as insistent as the last tugged at her chest. 

She was no fool, she knew what it was calling her, who it was.

At least she thought she did...

But she wanted oh so much to enjoy the outside again.

Just once…

She counted silently in muted murmurs as she tried to chase the urge away. Her golden eyes moving between falling flecks of morbid debris with every number that slipped between her lips. But as her count grew, the urge which so often became smothered by the robotic droning, only escalated in equal measure. 

She couldn’t drown it out like she’d done countless times before.

Frisk went silent as her eyes shifted down to the grey blanket that had once been her vibrantly green yard. Where had previously been the garden she’d tended with her father, now rested a depressed and gruesome looking mound, darker than all the surrounding landscape as if sadness itself had soaked into it, turning it to filthy mud.

Were there any plants left in the world?

A single Rose or Lilly?

...could they still be found?

The silently burning urge turned into an inner roar of desperation, the days she’d failed to keep track of gaining momentum like a snowball as they tumbled down the slope of her mind and forced her heart to pound with anxiety and crazed desire.

A few minutes, she only needed a few minutes outside. 

What would a few minutes hurt?

Frisk ignored how strangely satisfied the persistent tug in her chest felt as she took a deep breath and moved over to her dresser, the few steps taken as if in slow motion. 

Her hands shook as she withdrew a jacket, thick gloves and leggings, anything to protect her skin from the illicit darkness raining from the sky, and then finally her mask.

She stared at it as she ran gentle fingers over the goggles, brushed soothingly over the air filters and then reverently the beak. 

She supposed it was a kind of irony to wear a plague doctor’s mask, the literal and interpreted face of death in order to protect one’s self from the destruction reigning around them.

In their hope humanity had taken to wearing death’s visage, the thought of fooling the all powerful being into sparing those he crossed. 

After all death couldn’t reap himself could he? 

Frisk liked to think that it worked, wanted to believe it would, even if it hadn’t spared her loved ones. It was a foolish fancy she knew but still...when there was little hope left in the world it was best to cling to what one could find.

With a resolute calmness she didn’t feel she slipped it over her face and dressed herself, drifted over to the doorway and hesitated with her hand outstretched. 

Her ears rung, a drone of furiously pounding blood in her veins silencing all the indiscernible sounds of her house into a buzzing white noise. Her heart was racing, trying to burst from her chest as she sucked air through the mask and into her straining lungs.

She quickly flung the door open and rushed outside, slamming it shut behind her where she froze in place, like a deer caught in the headlights. The tugging abruptly stopped and she slowly relaxed at how nothing rushed her, no force or being appearing to tear her asunder.

Gasping from the small rush of adrenaline that still coursed through her she slowly panned the street, taking in it’s barren state before glancing up at the sky.

Frisk fell back against the door in twisted awe.

A sky, black as night, greeted her. It’s vastness dotted with barely perceivable clouds that all broke apart and refused in distorted flows and turns, and from them falling the unending dirge of the Earth’s tears, a silently promised oblivion.

She shut her eyes as she quivered and shook, savoring the bizarre freshness around her even as it’s abnormal chill pierced her thickly covered skin like needles. Surely this was enough, this could tie her over for a few more months couldn’t it?

But as she pushed to support herself back onto unsteady feet her gaze was once more drawn to her covered and long dead garden. 

She shifted her feet, watched as the ash moved like snow and revealed a corroded sidewalk with divots and pits eaten through the cement from having been covered by the ash for so long.

And she wondered if anything at all could live still under the deadly mush. 

Then a faint memory surfaced; there was a park not far from her home, one that she used to go to everyday as a child but often covered in trees and bushes lining the sidewalks.

Maybe there could be life there?

She glanced over her shoulder and contemplated returning inside before she felt the compelling tug once more, and before she knew it she was walking away and down the street. 

One glance at life, one simple flower or leaf to prove they all still had a chance and she’d go back to hiding. Frisk was loath to admit it but her determination felt so weak, her soul thinned and almost empty of perseverance. 

She was only human, she needed a renewal of faith just like the next person.

Surely then it would be enough for her to carry on.

Her eyes peered through her slightly smudging goggles as she moved, noting how most of the houses lay dark and abandoned. 

Out of the many houses on her block she only counted two showing signs of life still, their inner lights dulled from the distance she was to them.

Frisk walked faster. 

She didn’t stop until she crossed the familiar wooden arch, didn’t even slow before spotting the pond she once swam in with her siblings desolate and stagnant, she only stopped once she got to the center; where everyone used to gather.

The park was...wasn’t a park anymore. 

Long gone were the slides and swing sets she’d remembered, in their places were rusted and collapsed piles of metal and half melted plastic, so warped and emitting a stench so foul it was nauseating. 

She tried not to cry, forced back her whimper and tears in fear of somehow damaging her mask.

Even the trees were dead, blackened like soot, as if they’d been set fire to.

The minuscule flame of hope she’d tried to cultivate died violently.

Was this truly all that was left?

All that awaited humanity with no salvation in sight?

There wasn’t a sound, more of a feeling, ominous and foreboding from behind her that had her body going stiff and her hands subconsciously clenching into fists. 

If she focused hard enough she could practically feel what little natural light there was being sucked away as if devoured by a black hole, leaving in its wake nothing but emptiness.

“frisky~ i wondered when you’d finally come out to play.” 

The voice was smooth like velvet, coaxing, and so physical a presence it felt like a finger running down her spine. 

But in it’s tone she could hear the underlying numbness, feel the apathetic yet smug way it used itself to lure and entice, a predator's song with no escape.

Mouth dry and eyes wide, she turned and felt time stop around her.

Before her stood a being taller than her but undeniable in who it was as it wore a cloak made of night and a mask matching her own. Only his was elegantly shaped similar to one worn to a masquerade, all black laced swirls and tendrils decorating an equally black satin backdrop. 

Exposed beneath it was a wide and disturbing skeletal grin.

Resignation made her shoulders slump and she could only ask one question, “How?”

A single blue eyelight spawned from the dark sockets that she could make out through the mask, it’s glow brightening as it took her in and seemed to fill with amusement at her question. 

His grin stretched and his eyelight vanished as his voice came out light and humored. “in order to hide from death you have to actually look like him.” 

She watched as one of his hands lifted, the robe he wore falling away to reveal skeletal phalanges that curled around the beak of his facade. 

Her heart seemed to remember it existed and started to race in fear and...anticipation. 

Frisk’s breath caught as the mask he wore lifted to reveal death’s visage; sockets so dark and deep it was easy to picture them filled with the cries of the hopeless and damned, and a grin sardonic yet comforting in it’s falseness that promised much but denied all, even with the contrasting air of friendliness it exuded.

A poetic and morbid art form in motion.

Her body felt as if it was about to collapse just from his gaze alone.

She shouldn’t have been shocked at how she felt or the way he looked, he was death after all, but beneath that was a flush of awe and admiration she couldn’t figure out, teasing just on the fringes of her mind.

“and no one looks like me.” There was heat, warmth in his cold gaze as his sockets narrowed at her almost playfully.

It made her heart skip.

Death lowered his mask back into place. “heh, not alive anyway.” 

They both fell into silence, observing the other in both curiosity and interest. 

Frisk had known he’d been after her, she could feel it every time she so much as entertained the idea of running away from her makeshift prison, had suspected it when she’d felt that tug that always encouraged and prodded the first time at her mother’s bedside.

She’d secretly hoped she’d been wrong.

Frisk licked her lips as she struggled to form the question burning in her mind and refused to cower completely before him as she faced him head on.

“What do you want with me?” He tilted his head but she pushed on. “You took everyone from me, stole them without any hesitation and more than half of the life on this planet, what more could you desire that you don’t already have?” 

His single eyelight flared and vanished but it wasn’t in a malicious manner, it felt more natural to see empty sockets on him than an expression of emotion the tentative glow had offered. 

She wasn’t expecting the chuckle he gave however, a low and ironic one, followed by an absent shrug. “death doesn’t need a reason for what it does, not a purpose or inclination.” 

Frisk felt a jolt of betrayal and anger, but it was gone just as quickly as it had come the moment he took a step towards her.

She couldn’t bring herself to move, couldn’t find the will to escape as he advanced, and felt her stomach flip anxiously as he finally stopped close enough she had to slightly tilt her head up to face the peculiar expression he leveled at her.

“but this personification, this form i have chosen to exist as has craved nothing but you from the time of your birth.” Her blood suddenly ran cold. 

“death has had an eye on you since before your conception. just as i have for countless others.” 

A single phalange came up to trace the shape of her cheek, just out of reach but close enough the small hairs on her skin rose like static as it passed over her, as if they were rising to try and meet his touch. 

His smile didn’t falter for a moment as he went on, desire and admiration heavy in his words. 

“but you carry life in your eyes,” His finger slid up and over to the corner of her right eye. “and it’s beauty is the thing i crave more than the comforts offered and promised by oblivion.” 

Frisk could hear nothing but a shrill ringing in her ears, her nerves lighting up in anxiety as she took in how cold his breath and near touch were, how just a hair’s breath from connecting they remained. 

He hadn’t said it out loud but the implication was there.

“You’re going to kill me.” She whispered. 

He hummed as his eyelight spawned back into view and it seemed to be bigger in size as it trapped her in its ethereal blue. Death looked contemplative and let his hand drop as he appraised her.

“i’ve killed millions all in the pursuit of luring you from hiding, no, i will offer you a choice.” His brash statement crashed down on her like a hammer to glass. 

Was this plague because of her? 

This sickness and end all because she’d drawn the eye of the wrong person? 

She felt disgusted and bitter with herself.

Death was unfazed by her clear reaction or chose to ignore it as he went on.

“give yourself to me and be with your family again always, not in death but in the void i call home; forever suspended on the precipice of this world and the next with me at your side. there you can communicate with the ones long since passed.” 

His tone came out dry.

“or, choose to stay here, alone.” 

Until he came for her anyways, she silently added. 

Frisk knew either way she was going to end up in his clutches just as all living things eventually did. She couldn’t believe what he was saying, but she already knew her answer. 

The choice to be with her family again? Maybe not in the way she thought their reunion would be but still together. 

Or wait for however long he permitted her to continue breathing with longing and the knowledge he would always be waiting, would always be watching until he couldn’t wait any longer.

There was both endless, and no patience at all, in death. 

She and countless others had witnessed it through the centuries. One moment he’d draw out a person’s sickness, the next he’d take them cruelly and without warning. 

It would be a gamble on which side she’d fall every morning and night. 

Death worked on his own whims.

That wasn’t a choice.

But she knew what her answer would always be no matter the question.

And...she couldn’t go back she realized. 

Frisk didn’t want to return to being locked away and being forced to watch silently as the nations fell and collapsed. She also couldn’t live with herself if death’s obsession with her killed any more people.

“Okay.” 

Death’s eyelight lit and pulsed inquisitively. 

The words were so heavy and thick on her tongue it took all her will to clarify. “I’ll go with you.”

His smile grew.  

A gale of wind pushed her forward and her hands clutched Death’s robe as it billowed around her like a miasma, one of his hands gripping her mask by the beak and slipping it from her face. 

Frisk could only stare at him while barely hearing the sound of the one thing that had been protecting her as it fell to the ground. 

Instantly her nose and mouth flooded with the tainted air and she choked, her lungs burning as if she was drowning, and broke down into a fit of coughing while she clung subconsciously closer to the reaper before her.

He looked absolutely victorious as his hands came up to frame her face. 

In reaction she felt herself go lightheaded, her vision blurring as the strength in her body started to give out under the contact. 

She could feel the warmth that had been within her rush into her cheeks, brushing and curling into Death’s frozen and harshly textured touch as he absorbed her life greedily and with fervor.

Her heart palpitated weakly, missed a beat that stole her rapidly declining breath

“don’t be afraid, i offer you a kindness.” He leaned closer to her, the beak of his mask angling her gaze up to his own as the world was drowned out by his gentle demand. “kiss me.” 

Frisk couldn’t find the mental fortitude to resist and tilted her head as close as she could. 

His eyelight faded out as he pressed his teeth to her worn and paling lips, the ridges of his smirk bending down to lock them together. 

Frisk’s life flashed behind her eyes, all her precious moments slipping away into nothingness till only this one remained, her body locked in his embrace with her first and last kiss of this mortal coil given and stolen.

How wrong yet so right it felt.

Vaguely she felt the insistent tugging she’d long become accustomed to flare to life and explode into an infernal heat, her hands finding strength somehow to pull him closer to her.

A possessive growl of approval vibrated against her in response as an icy thumb stroked her cheek reverently, wiping away a stray tear right before the world bent and faded around them.

As Death whisked her away the ash stopped falling, the last remnants of it drifting down in a gentle sway to join what remained on the ground as the sky gradually began to lighten and crest in soft yellow light.

Ventilator’s started to function normally--

Fevers broke--

Humanity’s hope renewed as life offered her salvation and comfort.

[hungerpunch]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favourite five fics that you've written, then pass it to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💖

ahhh thank you so much!!!! ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა this is so kind. i got this message anonymously, too, but obvi i'm only going to do this once. but thank you to whatever sweet anon soul sent this to me as well!

this issooo hard when i'm the type of person who posts fic then actively works to forget it exists bc it generally humiliates me. i tried not to think too hard abt this and just go with my gut. these are NOT RANKED in any particular order.

could i make you shy? lewis/valtteri

i have a laundry list of insecurities that i have abt this fic (no capitalization bc i was too lazy, disjointed transitions, some characterization which i would definitely change were i to re-write it) but ummm this fic is actually a love letter to myself. yeah. i worked on it mostly alone, over a long period of time, chipping away at it. which is not really like me. i usually have to write something all in one or two takes or it will not happen. idk what abt this let me gradually take my time with it but it was a new experience for me. also it was my first fic in six years, well after i'd given up and gone "guess i'm just never gonna write again" and like kinda made my peace with that. that's why i say it's a love letter. it was sort of like proving to myself i could still be creative. still tell a story. which was a massive relief.

that's why god made towels pierre/charlotte/charles

i'm laughing bc this fic was not ever intended to like. be Good Literature. i wrote it in a dazed fervor and then published it anonymously. and i just assumed it'd either be ignored or shat on. so when a bunch of people ended up loving it, it was such a pleasant surprise!!! also just more proof to me that things don't need to be exacting narrative masterpieces in order for people to enjoy them and i should just post more shit that makes me have fun.

bruised giver, grit spinner niall/zayn

i'm putting this on the list because it's the only big bang i've everrr done and my longest fic but i cannot actually read it for fear of wanting to put my eyeballs in a blender and wazzing my consciousness up into a smoothie.

that being said, i'd wanted to do a z-boys au in that fandom the entire time i was in it so it was a good exercise in properly committing to something and seeing it all the way through. and i really do think that if i could muscle through it i would find some beautiful lines that i'm still proud of. i will never do a big bang again tho :'D

a gun is not discursive arthur/eames

genuinely cannot beeeelieve the amount of kudos this fic has. of all my fics idk why this one. at least this one is a little easier to re-read but i can tell how young i was here (a lot of it doesn't stand up to much interrogation imo). i do like some of my prose tho.

[ifimayhaveaword]

@0celestialbitch0 and @softanon tagged me in a get-to-know-you meme on my main, but I hope y’all don’t mind that I’m putting it over here instead! tysm bébés!

Rules: tag a few people you want to know better; make a new post, don’t reblog!

Favorite color: long-term it’s always been green, but I’m having a yellow & dusty pink moment 💛

Currently reading: uhhhh not much! I got struck with the desire to re-read Sabriel by Garth Nix, and then actually read the rest of the series. Gotta see if it’s available thru Libby, as a text or audiobook! (Also gotta catch up on Anything that Shines by @thosewickedlovelies 👀 and read the next part of hey batter batter! by @ohheyitsokay 😍)

Last song: Take me Home Country Roads!!! It was the last song we sang in rehearsal last night and it’s the last thing I listened to 😅

Last series: …..I think tbobf?? If you count YouTube series then I caught up on Tasting History with Max Miller the other day!!

Last movie: Encanto! Watched it with my lil nieces 🥰

Sweet, spicy, or savory: I have a pretty low spice tolerance, but I do enjoy what I can handle! Sweet>savory>spicy usually, but like. I love food don’t make me pick.

Coffee or tea: usually coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon & evening, but it all depends on my mood☕️

Three ships: (oh god how much of an embarrassment do I want to out myself as??) Hmm. Me x all my faves 🥰🥰🥰

First ever ship: Zelda/Link from LoZ! I used to watch my brother play Ocarina of Time ALL THE time when I was a kid— watching him play video games was like watching TV for me- legend of Zelda imprinted on me as a wee lass. I shipped them before I knew what shipping WAS.

Currently working on: batting a ball of yarn in my brain thinking about some prompts that Dia and Elle sent me ages ago (I didn’t forget!!) but not actually writing or plotting or recording anything rn :(

Favorite piece of clothing: I don’t think I have a favorite! But I have a pair of dark wash, high waisted, flare-leg jeans that I l o v e

Comfort food: uhhhh cheese n toast, moms turkey soup 🥺

Favorite time of year: spring & autumn 🌱🍁

Favorite fanfiction: Hmm. again, I can’t pick a favorite— I’ve been reading fic for too long now— but one that I always think about and go back to listen to is an AU supernatural fic! An exercise in “worthless” (I don’t recall the author rn) was one I read in college, and then later found the podfic of, and I just. Yeah. I love how it integrates some stuff from canon, how the characterizations are written, and the way the podficcer voices them…. -swooning sigh-

But in another way, if we’re talking tropes? Idiots to lovers, fake dating, historical/fantasy AUs!! (and a/b/o is a guilty pleasure don’t look at me)

Idk who hasn’t been tagged yet, so I’m sorry if you’ve done it/been tagged and don’t wanna do it! Zero pressure!! @corvueros @oloreaa @pettyprocrastination @moonlight-prose @miraclesabound @cinewhore @iamskyereads @scribbledghost 💛💛💛💛

[chocochipbiscuit]

I feel like I haven't been pushing myself lately or experimenting as much as I would like; or perhaps the old challenges just aren't challenging anymore. At this point, I'm confident in my ability to write longfic (admittedly, given time and only posting 1 or 2 major projects a year!). I'm also confident in my ability to pick up new fandoms (albeit more slowly than some) or write new (to me) kinks and character dynamics.

I want to write in ways that draw attention to the beauty or elegance of the words themselves, not 'just' in service to the story. I want to practice prose that feels more playful and experimental.

So I want to focus on writing as a craft again: the nitty gritty of sentences, vivid descriptions and careful consideration on why I choose a specific technique.

Therefore, I'm revisiting some writing exercises and books.

Word Painting by Rebecca McClanahan - one which I haven't finished reading, but have found very useful

Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin - a beloved favorite

A Writer's Grammar by C. Beth Burch - haven't actually read this one, but figured it might be useful!

My goal is to read a chapter a week and do the associated exercises for each book. (if I’m feeling particularly ambitious, might open my inbox for miniprompts? Idk, trying to separate my need to create from my need for feedback.)

My current longfic projects:

Awoo AU: finish the first draft!!! I know I can do this in January, so that's my first goal! Revisions always take me a while, but I am confident I can at least finish this first draft! Then, depending on how my other longfic project goes, maybe I can do revisions and post later in the year?

Fallout Necromancy AU: The first draft is already written, and I already know areas that need massive revision. I'm tentatively planning revisions for March, and then (depending on how many more rounds of revisions it goes through and feedback from betas) hoping to post it in October. Thematically spooky, right? As for why I'm guessing it'll take 7 months from first revisions to posting, that's because it's currently 40k words of messy first draft and I know from experience that it takes me a while!

I’m iffy on what exchanges, if any, I plan to do this year. I’d like to do Cephaloparty, and I always have a good time with Black Emporium and the Femslash Exchange, but exchanges also take a lot of juice out of me! So I’ll probably do what I usually do: panic at the last minute and sign up, or sign up for pinch hits!

Last: I’m signing up for Get Your Words Out! I’m doing the habit pledge, and signing up for 240 days of writing this year! I chose this goal rather than a word count because I want to stay in the habit of writing…and focusing on word count alone doesn’t capture the amount of editing or revision I need to do, especially on longer fics!

I'm not bothering to itemize any shorter fics or one-offs, because I know I'll write them anyway regardless of my plans! And a lot of them will probably dovetail with my writing exercises

I love each and every single one of my friends and fellow writers who have done the writing roundup meme, but I absolutely cannot. I’ve written 8 fics, ~53k words total, and over half of those words (5 fics, at 45k words) were F/F.

I think that about sums up my year. It was a good year! But I feel like writing about the stuff I’ve already written will just distract me from the words I actually want to write. :’)

That said: I do have some writing goals for next year. Stay tuned!

[vasiktomis]

Blue, brown and clear for the writing asks?

HELLO THANK YOU I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR MORE DUMPS <3

Blue: What’s more important to you: characters or plot?

- Characters, but I’m not sure if have the same relationship with them as other prose writers. To me, characters ARE the plot. The plot is a result of character decision-making, and no plot will work the same way if you dropped any character into the same initial scenario. Everyone will (or should, imo) take a different path based on their particular formula.  I find that dragging a character through scenes is a sure-fire way to get sick of them We don’t learn nearly as much about a character if they just go through the motions. It’s much more interesting when a scene occurs as a direct result of a character’s actions and choices.  Idk, an example might be like: 1) Character A gets in their car to go to work in the morning. Their car’s broken down. They have to walk through bad weather, which will make them late, and mess up their appearance for a big meeting later. 2) Character A goes to get in their car to go to work in the morning, but a neighbour who annoys them is retrieving their mail and there’s no way to get to Character A’s car without having to engage with said neighbour. Character A decides to walk through bad weather to work to avoid the interaction. They will be late and their appearance will be messed up, but will lie and claim that their car broke down.

Scenario 1 tells us that Character A might be unlucky or that they’re having a bad day, and their car doesn’t work.  Scenario 2 tells us that Character A is perhaps peevish or has a reason to avoid this neighbour, is willing to take an objectively harder route to avoid the scenario, and is willing to lie about it. Being late and looking like shit are a direct result of their own decisions. Both of these scenes put the character on a similar path, but one of them gives us a TON of information about who this character is just by how they navigate and what they prioritise, rather than having scenarios they can’t control take them from place to place. 

Brown: Do you have a set writing space? Or do you write everywhere?

- I like to switch it up. Looking at the same environment is an easy way to get me super distracted! If I’m not feeling it at the PC, or if I’m getting tempted to start drawing/playing games, then I’ll get my laptop and find somewhere else in the apartment to write. I usually plot while I exercise, bc the dopamine I get from that is perfect for getting my work brain ready.

Clear: Do your characters control where the story goes or do you maintain control?

- I think I like to give some illusion of character control, but I plot everything ahead. This way, I always have a framework that I can return to. - Usually, I have a want/so/but/therefore system for plotting; Character A wants something, so they do X to get it, but Y is in the way, therefore Character A does Z.  - Sometimes I’ll be writing a scene that I’ll have had planned for a while, though, and re-think an action. One character than I might not have planned on feels stronger in the moment despite my plans, so there might be the occasional deviation here and there!  - This happened with my Sharky POV scenes, tbh. Sometimes an unexpected character will just have a stronger voice in the moment, and that’s always really fun! 

[chubsonthemoon]

tagged by @storybookprincess!! (thank you!!) here are some of my fave fics I’ve written! tbh this was kinda difficult; I am very aware that nothing I write is neither perfect nor very polished (it wouldn’t be even remotely fun for me if I tried to do that), but mostly everything I’ve written I’ve written for the sole audience members of me myself and I (and also sometimes a friend :3), so these are some of my more recent faves. under a cut because this got kinda long, whoopsie!

tagging! @superish, @dodici12, and @owletstarlet! <3

Letters from Heaven: haikyuu!!, kagehina, 60k

this fic was written for last year’s kghn big bang and it was so fun! It’s the longest thing I’ve written yet, and boy oh boy it was such a challenge to juggle a bunch of different things that I hadn’t done on this kind of scale before, like longer character arcs and, especially given that this is a violet evergarden AU, describing things in a way that fits with kyoani’s style and VibeTM. My last longer fic, thy kingdom come, was about half this length and almost made the list simply because of how bonkers it was (like I hadn’t written at all that year and suddenly signed up for a big bang and then had to take a month long break in the middle because of school stuff, and then boom I ended up writing the latter half of it a few days before the deadline LOL), but anyway. It’s not perfect (nothing is!) but it’s chock full of recurring metaphors and long-winded descriptions about the sky and pining out the wazoo (basically: all wildly self-indulgent things catered to me and me alone) and I love it all the same. (also bajillion thanks to janine for this one heh she is to blame for most of my kghn madness)

over the edge (of all our knowings): hunter x hunter, killugon, 13k

okay this one almost went to my other killugon fic again bc everything I write is so self-indulgent but!! this fic is probably one of the few fics that I set out to write very intentionally? that sounds weird, hmm how to explain. I tend to write fic mostly to let out Emotions but tbh it’s so much easier and way more fun for me to do that through reading other people’s works--less work for me to read abt my faves than to write them, after all! so most of what’s on my profile before this fic is exactly that: I sat down at like one in the morning with my notebook and fever-dream scribbled out a oneshot that I spent maybe the next two or three days typing up, reading over once, and then yeeting it up onto the archive. but not with this fic! I had already written my Vent fic for the boys in question, but my goals with this fic were more deliberately geared towards examining and changing up my approach to writing: 1) I really wanted to explore gon after the world tree and what his healing might look like, but gon is Really Hard for me to write (the boy is so!! ARGHSLKDFJ). So: deeply inhabiting unfamiliar character pov practice. Asking myself, after every single line of dialogue and event and inner monologue, how this character would react and why. How will this impact their next action? How will it impact their relationship with this other character? How about this? and this? and so on and so forth 2) I wanted to find a balance with my metaphors on both a sentence by sentence and an overarching basis (I tend to just go for the first--I can’t help it I love purple-y prose jslkdfj). 3) Time!! I also went a lot slower with this one. Every night for over a month, writing a little bit at a time in my notebook. And I found that going slower...is actually really nice? Takes a lot of the stress away. tldr; this fic was basically one long exercise in me examining my writing (also ngl my creative writing professor’s feedback on my work for class really kickstarted this LOL) and boy oh boy was it satisfying to see it posted when I finished. I learned a lot! Also I got some of the kindest comments that made me tear up, which was so wonderful. god this got long okay moving on.

your heart, bright heart: natsume yuujinchou, tanunatsu & gen, 7k

after over a year of quarantine I’ve read more fic than I ever have in my LIFE and I have figured some stuff out about what makes me go absolutely bonkers, writing-wise. this fic was an attempt, after several months of reading literally hundreds of fics across dozens of fandoms and relationships and pairings (like geeze! hxh, run with the wind, hq, yuri on ice, the great pretender, ouran highschool host club, snk, mdzs, final fantasy xv, and yes natsuyuu too LOL), an attempt at making myself go bonkers, if you will. and I still can’t quite put my finger on what it IS but I know it has something to do with the naming of things. like an author will Name a Thing, very specifically, whether it is an action or a character thought or something very simple about the environment--and that something speaks volumes about the character and their relationships and the core themes of the series and it’s like. it’s like there’s a moment of understanding between that character and the reader, an oh! I know what that means. it’s wonderful and I’m butchering the explanation here but anyway. I still have no idea how to do this myself yet but goddammit I’m gonna get there one day. This fic was my first attempt in the Naming of Things. idk if there are any oh! moments in it myself, but natsuyuu is the perfect series for the kind of quiet that I think you need for those small moments. 

holy SHIT this got long uh. if you’ve made it this far--thank you?? this was also useful for me to articulate what the hell I’m doing in hamsterland. Recently a visiting poet came to one of my classes at university and talked about language-making as a physical art. Language has a physical existence, she said; it leaves the body and enters another and causes a physical reaction in both speaker and listener. She talked about how writers are creators of physical things, and how writing is mostly thinking before the creating. The physicality of language. To say it made me lose my marbles is an understatement!! tldr; there’s so much inspiration everywhere, and I wanna write more!!! So I’m gonna!!

[yoificfinder]

Hello! Thank you so much for running this blog, it’s been really helping me out. I haven’t been feeling great these past few days and was wondering if you have any recs for fics that you have found lifted your mood? Silly, fluffy, or just a fic that is immersive and really takes your mind off things? Sorry that it’s not specific, I am sure anything would be fine. I’ve been loving all your other recs too!

Hello nonnie, I'm sorry you're feeling that way. I think we're collectively feeling varying degrees of sadness these times, moreso for people with pre-existing mental health issues, due to the pandemic. Personally, it's been this way for me for more than a year now because of a devastating loss and I think I'll never be the same again. I just hope that things get better as time passes. And I try to get all the happiness I can, however fleeting it may seem, from things (and people) that make me happy.

So for my go-to fics, please check out "personal favorites" in the masterlist since all the fics and authors I love are all there. But for something more specific, I'd definitely mention:

Just Hold On (We're Going Home) by @kiaronna - This is the YOI fic I've reread the most (like, more than 10 times) because for me, it's just so perfect! I come back to it every time I want to feel a certain way because hnnng All. The. Feels!!! Tbh, angst comes up more than fluff in me with this one. I cry literally every reread. Don't get me wrong, it's not that sad and it definitely has a lot of fluffy/funny scenes but Idk, the feelings it evokes in me... Hurts so good!! (There's this particular scene/line that just really gets to me.) I think it's also because of the catharsis I feel every reread (since I always have a good cry but it has a perfect resolution) that this story has a special place in my heart.

on growing; by @crossroadswrite - Another one that I always come back to when I want to feel happy. It's a kid fic (Yuri as a toddler son of Victor is gold!) so lots of family feels but there's also friendship, romance, love of oneself, one's work/passion, and fandom--basically also all the things that made me love YOI itself! This fic is really funny too, it makes me laugh out loud! But there are also certain moments that are really serious/deep, it keeps you on your toes (and might make you shed a few tears). I'd also be remiss not to mention the A+ social media posts. In short, this fic has everything and I love it!

Winter Song by proantoganist (I'm so sad that she deactivated her social media accts edit: she's back as @proantagonista) - This is one of, if not my most favorite YOI fic! It's a canon fill-in-the-gaps fic then continues beyond canon events and I can't gush about it enough!!! The writing--characterization, plot flow and pacing, and prose--just !!! (sorry if I'm incoherent and this is just really full of exclamation marks but I feel like I can't articulate enough how much I love this fic.) If you love YOI, then you should definitely read this fic.

The fics above are more on the lengthy side so if you want instant gratification, I also recommend these collections of one-shots:

Drunk on You by kiaronna - A collection of Victuuri soulmate AU one-shots and every single one is 👌👌👌

Three Prompts AU Collection by rinsled05 / @dreaming-fireflies - Ficlets of integrated prompts/AUs (e.g., serial killer, fairy, culinary); this is full of originality and creativity

I hope this helps, dear nonnie. I'm really glad this blog and my fic recs can help you in some way. ❤

(P. S. Writing why I love and recommend these fics is such a good exercise and feels more personal since I normally do my usual format of reccing fic with just the title, author, rating, word count and letting the summary speak for the story. Can't do this for everything tho so I'll be back to regular programming. Just know that the fact that I recommended something in this blog means that I really enjoy(ed) it, can guarantee that it's good, and would love for other people to discover or be reminded of these gems too.)

[gentlethorns]

1-31

JKJFLKJGDKLS did you mean. 1 through 31?? like. all of them?? LMFAOOOOOO okay but i’m sticking them under a readmore bc that is gonna be SO long

1. what is a genre you love reading but will probably never write? mysteries/crime. i love the technique and expertise it takes to expertly lay out and set up a plot twist, but i don’t think i could ever do it aptly myself.

2. which writer has had the greatest stylistic influence on your writing? probably stephen king, if we’re talking fiction, but even then i don’t think he’s influenced me a ton - my writing voice is pretty distinctive (or so i’ve been told). as far as poetry, i think reading @candiedspit‘s work has really caused me to stretch my expectations of where words can go and what they can do.

3. has a specific song/lyric ever inspired a work of art for you? absolutely! i’m super inspired by music, bc music is really important to me as a means of emotional expression. back in sophomore year of high school i was working on a story where all the chapters were inspired by songs from folie a deux by fall out boy. it didn’t pan out and i never finished it, but i still think the concept was neat.

4. a writer whose personal lifestyle really speaks to you? lmfao not to talk about him again, but stephen king’s lifestyle really appeals to me. his writing is widely known and renowned, but he just chills at home and watches the red sox games and takes pictures of his corgi and keeps turning out stories. that literally sounds like paradise to me.

5. do you write both prose and poetry? which do you prefer? i do write both! and i can’t say i honestly prefer one over the other - my interest bounces between them and waxes and wanes, but i don’t consistently indulge one more than the other, i don’t think. last year i went through a huge fiction phase in october and cranked out eight or nine different short stories/flash pieces, and then in november/december i went through a poetry phase and wrote multiple poems a day for a long stretch of time. it just depends on my mood and my mindset and what i need from writing (a kind of escape vs. emotional expression/release).

6. do you read both prose and poetry? which do you prefer? i do read both, and again, i don’t think i have a preference. i definitely read fiction more, i think, but like writing, it kind of depends what i need at the time.

7. which language do you write in? which do you want to write in someday? i write in english, since it’s the only language i know. i’d like to learn spanish at some point, but i don’t know if i could ever write in spanish - i’m so firmly married to english grammar and structure that i don’t know if i could ever exercise the same control and mastery over spanish that i could english.

8. share a quote or verse that has been on your mind lately. “you said i killed you - haunt me, then!” from wuthering heights.

9. a writer/poet whose life you find interesting. *sigh*. stephen king. i’ve read his memoir/writing workshop book (”on writing”) and his success story always fascinates me. i just can’t imagine living in a shitty one-bedroom apartment with your wife and two kids and working days at an industrial laundromat and spending nights writing on a shitty wobbly desk in the laundry room, and you get your first manuscript accepted for publication, and eventually the paperback rights go up and you think you might get $60,000 if you’re really lucky, and then one day while your wife and kids are visiting the in-laws you get a call from your agent telling you that the paperback rights for your book sold for $400,000 and 200K of it is yours. that’s just literally. unfathomable to me lmfao.

10. what do you feel about the idea of someone unearthing your unseen or discarded drafts someday, long after your death? what about your personal journal? it’s really hard for me to imagine that happening, i think bc i tend to see myself as really like. insignificant or unimportant in the grand scheme of things, so i can’t imagine any part of me lasting beyond my life. also, it’s very hard for me to imagine someone i don’t know personally reading my work, probably because my work (especially a personal journal) is a window into me, and i have a hard time even letting people i trust see into that window sometimes, much less a stranger.

11. do you prefer to write in silence or listen to something? what do you listen to? i definitely prefer music in the background, although i can work in silence. i tend to gravitate to music that goes with the scene i’m writing, if i’m writing fiction (often i work music into my fiction, so if there’s a song playing in the scene, i’ll listen to that song), and if i’m writing poetry i tend to just listen to laid-back music (unless i’m writing from a place of grief or sadness, in which case i listen to sad music lmfao). i do also love writing when it’s storming outside and just listening to the rain and the thunder as i write.

12. has an image ever impacted your artistic lens/inspired your work? absolutely! less often than music, but visuals can inspire me on occasion. i once wrote a poem based on this image. i just couldn’t get it out of my head, so i decided to figure out what it was saying to me.

13. how would you describe the experience of writing itself? as in putting the words to paper, not planning or moodboards etc. do you agree with the common idea that the satisfaction lies in reading your work after you are done with it, rather than the process of writing itself? i think the process can be arduous sometimes, and other times it can be incredible. sometimes i write very slowly and haltingly, sometimes i write at a normal pace and it feels like the work it is (bc i am trying to write professionally), but sometimes the magic tap in the mind turns on and it starts flowing. that being said, i don’t necessarily agree that the satisfaction lies only in reading your work rather than also in the process. there’s a certain fulfillment in watching everything come together and knowing it’s going to be good.

14. how often do you write? it varies. i would like to write more often than i do, now that i have a full-time school schedule and work part time friday-sunday, but i think i still get a decent amount of writing done, when i can actually sit down and motivate myself to get the words out.

15. how disciplined are you about your writing? not very, in the creative sense - as discussed above, i don’t write as often as i should/would like to, and don’t hold myself to much of a schedule. however, as far as the business side of it (submitting to magazines/contests), i’m pretty disciplined, and i’m usually pretty good about keeping all my “good” pieces in circulation at a couple of places at a time.

16. what was your last long-lasting spurt of motivation? maybe last night? i worked on a couple of pieces and then submitted a few groups of poems to some magazines. i also did some decent work on thursday while i was in my campus starbucks waiting for my zoom class to start.

17. have you ever been professionally published? are you trying to be? i have been professionally published! i got my first acceptance back in 2018, and now i’ve had poetry published multiple times and fiction published twice. i’m still trying to publish more of my work, but i think i’ve had a decent start.

18. do you read literary magazines? not regularly, although i entered a fiction contest for into the void last year, and since it came with a year-long subscription, i’ve been browsing the fiction there periodically. into the void tends to publish good short/flash fiction, so anytime i feel like reading some new stories, i head there.

19. a lesser known writer you adore? idk if she’s necessarily “lesser-known,” but i loved ally carter’s gallagher girl series when i was younger. the first four books were immaculate (although i do remember that the last two books seemed almost unnecessary, and the ultimate end of the series was anticlimactic).

20. do you write short stories? do you read them? i write and read them! up until october of last year i could never figure out how to write a short story and effectively resolve a conflict in 5000 words or less, but then suddenly (like. literally overnight), a switch flipped in my head and i could do it. as far as reading them, i don’t read a ton anymore bc of my busy schedule ( :( ), so sometimes if i’m in the mood to read i’ll opt for a short story online or a book of short stories instead of a full-length novel.

21. do you prefer to involve yourself with literary history and movements or are you more focused on the writing itself? any favourite literary movements? i’m typically more focused on the writing itself, although i do love to learn about the horror boom from the 50s-80s (if that counts as a literary movement lmfao). i also do particularly love work from the era of deconstructionism, which i think took place in like. the 40s-60s, if i’m not mistaken. i enjoy that era bc of its symbolism and abstract nature - a lot of the work leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions.

22. are you working on anything right now? not particularly? i have a few works in progress that i tinker with now and then, but i’m not seriously working on anything in particular.

23. how did you get started with writing? i honestly don’t even remember. i remember the first time i realized that i really liked writing and had fun doing it (in fourth grade, for a school competition), but i know that even before then i was writing stories and poems.

24. do you have any “writer friends”? most of my mutuals are writer friends! but i don’t have any irl. i almost made one in my math class last semester, but we lost contact when our university shut down in march.

25. what is your earliest work you can remember? the earliest work i can remember is when i was really young (maybe like. five or six?). it was about our dog being pregnant (which she was at the time) and able to talk (which she was not).

26. have you found your writer’s voice yet? does your work have a distinct tone? absolutely. i’m very confident in my style and the distinctiveness of my voice - it’s been there pretty much since i first started writing. i’ve improved since then, honed my voice and made it more sophisticated and effective, but at the core, it’s still me, like it always has been.

27. do your works share themes/are commonly about certain topics? or are your subjects all over the place? in poetry, i think i tend to write about grief or loss of some sort or another often, bc it’s something i tend to feel often - either that or a false bravado (but ig that’s more of a tonal device). as far as fiction, i like to write about religion gone wrong (false religion, religion as a front for personal gain and corruption, religion gone too deep into obsession and mania, etc.), and i like smart underdog-type characters that fight and have a lot of grit to them.

28. what does writing mean to you? to me, writing is catharsis, a bloodletting. this particularly applies to poetry, but it also applies to fiction. poetry shows you the things you’re regurgitating up-front, but fiction does it slyly, in a mirror or through a distorting lens. regardless, both stand to offer release and healing.

29. in an alternate universe, imagine you had not found writing. what do you think would be your fixation otherwise? honestly, i’m not sure. probably acting or theater. something creative, for sure.

30. do you feel defined by your work? maybe a little, but not to a large or limiting extent. like, in a new class, my interesting fact about myself will probably always be “i’m a writer and i’ve been published a few times,” but i think that i’m a well-rounded person and that once people get to know me, my writing is just a part of me, not my whole identity.

31. have you ever written/considered writing under a pen name? if you would be okay saying, why? no, i don’t think i have. while a pen name can be a good tool, depending on your goals and what you’re writing, i have a Thing about getting credit where i’m due credit lmfao. i don’t think i’ll ever use a pen name bc if i know something i do is good, i want my name on it.