#inktail got it right

[beetleboo]

#time passes and i don't like that

hi everyone. does anybody else miss something they can never return to. anyone else being swallowed whole by grief. anyone else clinging to love as a life preserver

[joaniam]

Quarantine Questions and Answers

Quarantine Questions and Answers           

I’ve been tagged by @monstrousgourmandizingcats​ Thanks!

are you staying home from work/school?

Yep. My work is having us do everything online, all the time. Which is really useful. I work for a nonprofit that takes community service seriously, so their goal right now is keeping all of us indoors as much as possible, even though literally everything we do usually involves massive face-to-face community engagement.

if you’re staying home, who’s there with you?

My younger brother, whom I convinced to work at the same job as me, and my friend’s younger sister, whom I convinced to move down here with me to start this job last year, meaning I am single-handedly responsible for trapping all of us here in Alabama during this whole mess. Yay!

There are also 2 cats, Boo and Spooky, and approximately 200 silkworms.

Are you a homebody?

Very much yes, to the point where I really haven’t felt very stressed from the physical staying inside. It’s... OTHER things that are stressful. Right now I’m getting a lot of yarn spun so I’m pretty happy with that.

what movies have you watched recently? what shows are you watching?

I watched two Inu Yasha movies with my friend recently, and then she convinced me to watch Kingdom on netflix. It’s almost perfect for my tastes... supernatural peril, historical power plays, AWESOME costumes, and like .5 romance. The only downsides are that the zombies ARE legit scary and I’m scared of them.

Also Jim Stirling, Bernadette Banner, Morgan Donner, The Ramsey Loft and Some More News on youtube.

an event that you were looking forward to that got cancelled?

Er... going back home early, basically. I don’t really... DO things, normally. However, this has messed up my service hours which means that I’ll have to work the full AmeriCorps timeline basically. Either way, I still get my education grant, so right now it’s mostly social distancing via not getting a new job kind of?

what music are you listening to?

Mama Economy by Tay Zonday and stuff from my music tag when I’m not listening to My Brother My Brother and Me.

what are you reading?

A lot of fic, tbh. Though I have found an audiobook version of “A Peoples History of the united States” so that’s gonna probably going to be my new knitting listen

What are you doing for self care?

A lot of spinning and starting back up on my 10 stitch blanket project, and rearing a new crop of silkworms. They’ll complete their cycle well before I leave, and I’ll then have TWO oz of silk! Yay!

I’m also growing plants. peas, cilantro, onions, lavender, and larkspur.

Finally, I’m keeping a journal for historical reasons. So far I’ve kept it up every day, though I did forget yesterday. In my defense, yesterday I had a headache that knocked me out for 3 hours before I realized it was due to dehydration.

I’ve also given my brother permission to bully me into doing 10 min of exercise a day.

Tagging

@inktail, @viscountfrancisbacon, @haveievermentioned, @ulvanacandrawtoo, @bramblepatch

[hyperionwitch]

UHHH @inktail​ tagged me with 11 questions so I gotta answer em and come up with my own and tag people HERE WE GO What is your favorite nickname you ever were given? GG!  Or Gigi?  Phonetically same difference.  Thanks @greyallison​ Are you still in contact with your first best friend?  I ddddon’t think so. Tell me about your favorite grade school project.  You think I remember grade school?  (I do not.) How much plagiarism did you get away with in high school?  None, so far as I know.  I was terrified of plagiarizing and I still would never do it if I could help it.  Who is your favorite fictional character right now?  Uuuuhhh it’s like...probably still Solas, let’s be real.  Or Urianger.  My boy. Is it Yeet/Yote or Yeet/Yeeted. Show support for your choice. Yeeted, and if you mean cite something, I absolutely will not, yeeted just feels good my dude. When did you last see enough stars to make you dizzy contemplating the sheer enormity of the universe?  Oh! A few weeks ago--we bought a fancy camera and the husbando wanted to take star pictures and I totally forgot how much I love stars and astronomy. Do you go to new movies asap even if it means going alone or do you wait for a friend to be able to come with you?  Uuuuhhhh neither?  I just don’t go to movies very often lol.  Though I’m happy to go if friends are available and want to. If you took me to your favorite restaurant, which one would it be and what will you order? Fuck dude idk restaurants are tight and I love food.  If it was literally you, the question asker, then uhh...maybe Woodfire Grill?  They have really good meatloaf. How do you feel about detox products?  I don’t think they do anything, but as long as they aren’t doing any harm apart from costing money then go off, I guess? Tell us your favorite joke! GoT Season 8 ZING HERE ARE MY QUESTIONS: 1. What’s your least favorite Marvel movie? 2. Do you still remember your childhood phone number? 3. What’s your favorite beverage? 4. Horses, yea or nay? 5. What’s your favorite cryptid? 6. Do you have strong feelings about mustard? 7. Favorite vine? 8. If you play DnD, what’s your go to race and/or class? 9. What was your first online username? 10. What’s your opinion of Pinterest? 11. If you were stranded on a desert island with no one else, and you only had the option to eat a freshly dead human body (you did not kill this person, nor did they die of a disease or poison) OR a human sized insect to survive, which would you eat first? (Optional question ‘cuz this one is my pet icebreaker.) Uhhhh I tag @miyanko @miniyuna @greyallison @thatpartypete @mynameishedgehog @half-devil-in-red-leather and anyone else I’m forgetting (sorry) or who wants to do it, I’m terrible at tagging people WHATTUP

[proserpine-in-phases]

@nachttour tagged me in a writing question thing!

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

uh yeah there’s like, several. some of them are better developed than other but a lot of the reason I’ve been holding off on writing them just comes down to feeling inadequate due to my own limited experience with relationships and feelings of complete inadequacy. it’s hard to write an epic romancu when I’m aromantic as fuck and have a hard time conceptualizing what those feelings might be like to experience, for example, or like, I want the story to be funny but I feel like I’m not actually a very funny person?

also I always feel like I need to do more research. I get stuck on the research phase about 85% of the time haha

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

man I am embarrassed by MYSELF existing, so  idk probably all of it when you get right down to it

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

it seems to vary a bit. sometimes I just power through start to finish, but sometimes I need to write the ending first to remind myself of what I’m shooting for. sometimes I just gotta write some random scenes in the middle before I forget what they are and have to figure out where they’ll go later.

considering the longest thing I’ve managed to finish comes in at about 12 k  I don’t know if I have enough data to really come up with a firm answer for this one though. from what I can tell, it really does seem like I start at the beginning and go for a bit, write the end, and try to connect the two with occasional random middle bits getting written out of order and a general feeling of “I’ll fix it in post” carrying me through

4) favorite character you’ve written

probably Samantha Traynor. she’s such a fucking nerd and I love her. it was surprisingly easy to write for her once I got started. at least I THINK I did a good job writing her, I have no actual idea haha

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

I’ve written TWO mass effect fics featuring Samara as a main character and I have no idea how this happened or why because she’s about in the middle when it comes to my most to least favorite mass effect characters list

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

there’s a couple of fics I wrote for fic exchanges that I kinda wish I could take back and turn into something else because I love the concept but feel guilty about idk, using as a springboard because the original is a gift, or something. it feels ehhhhhhhhh disingenuous to continue them when the gift is supposed to be a singular and self contained unit

for example, oh man I would love to take that vrisrezi space pirates au someplace, but I don’t know if I should because the fic itself is a gift, complete, and so forth. 

plus I hate the way I run out of steam about 4 chapters into everything. I would like to not run out of motivation please

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

considering my output is so low I barely consider myself a writer at all tbh.

but yes, embarrassed. I hope to god the three people I know irl who follow me just like. never see those posts haha

8) favorite genre to write

space adventure! and lately? mysteries even though I have no FUCKING idea why or even how to write them, which is why I have at least three projects stalled out on me haha

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

I read a lot, mostly. sometimes I stare at a wall. or play minesweeper. 

also when I’m doing something fairly mindless sometimes my mind wanders and I hit something. 

oh and music. music is great

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

I usually need music, mood music preferable, instrumental so the lyrics don’t distract me. generally I prefer to not be around people when I write, though a public setting is also fun to write in. I’m too distractable to actually get any done though, so I usually end up just looking like a tool with their notebook out if I try to write in a coffee shop or whatever tho, haha

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

I think writing fanfic has really helped me figure out what it means to write in character. also I think I’m starting to get better at balancing dialogue versus narration? at least a little bit

12) your weaknesses as an author

the inability to actually finish shit. 

unwillingness to approach emotions that make me feel uncomfortable. 

the fact that I often approach writing a character with the thought of what I would do in a situation rather than what the character would do (which is why writing fanfiction is helping me with that haha)

coming up with plots that lend themselves well to longer stuff

13) your strengths as an author

pretty good at dialogue

when it comes to my own shit, pretty good at coming up with interesting fantasy worlds (I think they’re interesting at least)

I’ve got a pretty firm grasp overall just the nuts and bolts of writing: I mean I tutored English in college for fuck’s sake I know how to write a grammatically correct run on sentence when I want to 

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

not really

15) why did you start writing?

I wanted to know what happened next

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

not really? I mean, there are specific character TYPES that’ll get me every time, though, like the happy go lucky person who has to learn what pain is but still come out the other side a LOT worse for wear but not completely broken (think Tasslehoff Burrfoot, or perhaps less obscure Vash the Stampede) but I wouldn’t say they haunt me, per say

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

don’t be afraid to be self indulgent. you’ll enjoy it more and who the fuck cares, anyway? people who’ll make fun of you for doing what you love are ass holes

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

If I’m honest I can’t really say what influences my writing style, if I even have one. Mostly all I can do is list off my favorite authors because I’m pretty sure they all have something to do with it. 

so let’s just do that I guess.  when I was a teenager I tended to find a single author and just read through all their works before moving on, and these are the big ones that stand out:

Connie Willis, Anne McCaffrey, Steven Brust and Ursula K. Le Guin. Connie Willis for the humor she includes in almost all her writing, Anne McCaffrey because I STILL spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about Pern. She had a real skill for coming up with both great characters and great settings, even if what she did with them, and also her inability to keep continuity were less good. Steven Brust introduced me to the idea of relating to morally reprehensible characters at an alarmingly young age. Ursula K. Le Guin, I just love her. No idea if it’s actually done anything GOOD to my writing but she gives me something to aspire to.

I read just. a ridiculous amount of fantasy and science fiction as a kid, the genres as a whole without a doubt influence the type of shit I end up writing. also in seventh grade I mainlined dragonlance, just the whole damn thing

later in college I got really into Margaret Atwood. her focus on female characters and narrative just is really great.  

then I went through a depressive phase in my late 20s and just exclusively read Julia Quinn, Joanna Lindsey, Sabrina Jeffreys and Eloisa James, and that was IT. so I’m pretty sure my foray into the romance genre is what makes me honestly prefer povs limited to two or three characters  hey, reading romance novels also lead me to the realization that I’m aromantic so \o/ I guess

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

I outline and then give up lol

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

little spurts until something grabs me and makes me marathon. usually that’s a deadline, but sometimes it’s also inspiration 

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

mostly just holy shit I can’t believe I wrote this! sometimes that’s bad, sometimes it’s good. I can’t really tell if I’m good at divorcing myself from my writing enough to give me perspective on it, to tell the truth, because for a good lot of it, I still think it’s pretty good so ???

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

it’s hard for me to let a character be embarrassed by the dumb shit they do. I don’t want them to do dumb shit because of it, which makes it hard for the character to have shit to grow and learn from.

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

I’m pretty sure my own issues with having and experiencing some emotions makes its way into the stuff I choose to write about, especially when it comes to the original stuff (I have. at LEAST three different plot outlines that involve characters literally losing the ability to experience emotions and having to find a way to heal or gain it back haha)  

also the fic I wrote about the box ghost is literally just about what it’s like to work in a factory haha

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

listen. 

yes.

I fucking. LOVE. research. 

honestly this is the stage where I most often get lost in the weeds, distracted by my own need to know more

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

“He was not the knight Casey taught him to be, but he was close enough for government work“ remains the single best pun I’ve ever written

tagging: @anthropwashere @inktail @manicpixiesdreamdragon if you guys are up for it!

[ninjaninjani]

[aslightstep]

Dogs Days Are Over

inktail? asked for Peggy 26, unfortunately things went screwy and I had to delete it. 

Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back/Struck from a great height by someone who should know better than that

Peggy had always run the line between being absolutely certain of what she was doing and never quite believing that she could be the person who could do those things.

When she was little, she was supposed to want to be the princess, the damsel in the tower. Instead, she’d played at knighthood. She saved the damsel, be it her dog or her brother or her friends. She swung her mighty sword she had shaped from a branch and the lid of the trash bin served as a shield and she fought.

But a woman, a princess, did not fight. At least not then.

To the point: Peggy knew who she was. She didn’t know if who she was was right.

(Later, after the war, after her first big case, it was so breathtakingly simple. She could be both. The princess was the knight all along, and she saved herself.)

She muddled through for quite sometime. She met Fred Wells, she became a codebreaker. Her brother Michael was always telling her to ‘do more, be more, you’re so much more, Pegs’ but she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure. 

She was content, in that place of inbetween. (Later, that would serve her well. Peggy learned to love the brink, that delicious edge of decision, that place where the future was infinite and everything, almost as much as she loved to throw herself over it.) And wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t that more that most people got? So she wasn’t happy. She could learn. Peggy was highly adaptable. The bride playing princess, playing spy, playing soldier.

The offer to join the SSR lingered on the edges of her mind, and she was almost ashamed at how much she, who had so much, who should be happy here in the place she was meant to belong, thought about it. Michael encouraged her. Told her to stop being scared. That got to her. She never played scared.

Then Michael died. Men in dark suits invading her wedding day to rip her world to smithereens. Peggy had to rebuild her life, rebuild herself. And this time, she had to be sure.

She joined the SSR. She worked at Colonel Phillips side, she freed Erskine, and she had never felt so alive. It was like waking from a deep sleep; the princess, she laughed to herself, and this kiss of true love.

And then she met Steve Rogers. Steve, scrawny and small and so sure, never one to linger in the in between, never one to smile at her with the taunt at the corner of his mouth like all the rest.

Always genuine and brave and true. And she - and this was the most remarkable thing to her, the thing she never could explain - she never wanted to be him. She never wanted to play Captain America. She wanted to fight by his side.

She sat at that table with the Howling Commandos, at Steve’s right hand, or perhaps it was Steve at her left, Howard on her right, all of them looking and laughing at each other, job well done, at that round table in France. Knights one and all, and she belonged.

(Later, this was the moment she dreamt about when the way it ended it stopped hurting.)

She was happy. Through so much pain (Michael), through so much indecision, she was here at another brink, leaning over a great height, looking down below.

The Commandos clinked classes with her. She smiled at Steve and she threw herself over, certain that whatever was at the bottom, it was right where she belonged.