#just a little at the beginning hehe

[gomzdrawfr]

Getting creative with recognition

uh not so cute/funny random drabble of the AU:

warning: not proofread and just me rambling, bad writing LMAO

[shkika]

they are really sapphic actually

[shepscapades]

digging through files to find some stuff to post for the trick or treating made me realize I have. A LOT. Of old/forgotten-about projects, doodles, and comic concepts that I just never finished or totally pretty much finished and just never posted LOL

So over the next few weeks or so I’m gonna try to go through some of it and see what I can’t post :D

[pettyprocrastination]

whoever this beloved anon was I am so touched by your kindness! You definitely didn’t have to do this but I am so happy you enjoy this idea and I will happily expand upon it for you!

this is just a collection of word vomit bullet points for the time being but I will happily answer any and all questions about this pair!!

warnings: violence, angst, child death (Sarah Miller), foul language, the same warnings that apply to tlou, reader is Sarah's mom and described as having similar features to her. 

So the general Idea is that you and Joel are happily married before the outbreak. 

You had been Sarah's mother, his high school sweetheart he got pregnant when neither of you were old enough to have any reaction to the pregnancy test other than a fucking panic attack in one another’s arms. but you made it work 

you both worked but made time for one another and your sweet girl, going to museums every other weekend and joel insisting on swooping you off for a date every now and then 

nothing special. He knows you’re more of a diner gal than anything too fancy that makes you both feel out of place. 

On his birthday in 2003, you had planned to tell him that you were pregnant again. But the memories of your own fears of motherhood from all those years ago begin to swirl through your head again and you get cold feel. deciding to tell him the morning after

it is his birthday afterall, you want to focus on him. 

but when you’re woken up in the middle of the night because tommy needs to get bailed out, Joel kisses you sweetly one last time before promising he’ll be back and you can’t shake the feeling that something bad is happening. 

its you that shakes sarah awake that night. shouting at her to put on her shoes when she’s still rubbing the sleep from her eyes because you’ve been listening to the radio for the past two hours, calling joel again and again and again praying for him to fucking pick up but to no avail. 

Sarah, bless your little girl’s bleeding heart is the one who insists you check on the adler’s against your better suspicions and when you find the eldest looming over her daughter, blood and sinew dripping from her mouth, you grab your daughter hand and burst into a full sprint until something slams into your back and sends you tumbling onto their front lawn

its how joel finds you, struggling to keep the once sweet old woman, whose now nothing more than dead eyes and gnashing teeth straining to snap at your pulse point as you push against her while sarah shrieks before your husband runs forward and cracks her skull with a wrench. 

there’s hardly a moment of pause, just enough for him to pull you up and into his arms before he’s ushering you both into the car with an urgency. 

when the truck crashes, you get separated from them. Perhaps at Tommy’s side when the flames rise and create a wall, separating you from your husband, or maybe pulled into the mob of chaos when trying to escape from those already infected-

all joel knows is that you promise you’ll find him: just get sarah to safety and you’ll meet him at the river

Poor thing is already so frightened, held in her father’s arms with tears streaming down her face insisting they can’t leave you they just can’t but her father kisses her forehead and reassures her its going to be okay 

“we just need to be brave, okay babygirl? Your mama’s real tough, she’s gonna be alright.” 

he isn’t sure if he’s saying it to his daughter or himself. 

but when he comes to the river you aren’t there. Only a soldier who points a gun at the scared little girl in his arms and then he loses everything

its when the light is gone from his daughter’s eyes that he realizes. His voice cracked and raw from sobbing that he looks around to see his brother with drawn in shoulders and tears in his eyes but his wife is nowhere to be found. 

Tommy says you got lost in the chaos. Everything was so loud, so sudden that he turned around and suddenly you weren’t there. 

Joel wants to go back but its Tommy that stops him, that dulls the red in his vision to a sad faded pink because his brother points at the orange horizon not too far from them, so much of the city is already in flames. 

“We’re gonna find her, but not there.” 

So Joel searches. for the first year spent in the world post-outbreak its all he did. 

He became a smuggler because of it. 

Information came at a price and he needed to be able to fucking pay it, whether it be in blood or ration cards. He was willing to do anything to find you or any thin thread that lead your way. 

But it’s Tommy that asks him to give up. Not in those words of course. 

The youngest Miller knows better than to say something so cruel that would make his brother, the only person he has in this world turn on him. 

But his voice is worried when he asks him one night in Boston when he hasn’t even had the chance to wash the blood from his knuckles 

“You think she would have wanted this for you?” 

the fight that followed his words was brutal. Vicious insults and scarred fists slamming against each brother until they're both too tired and bloody to continue. Each leaning against a wall for support and Tommy’s wavering voice breaking the silence. 

“I don’t know where she is, Joel. But I do know you're gonna get yourself killed if you keep lookin’ for her.” 

All he can do is nod. 

It’s a few days later when he meets Tess. Who has heard plenty of stories about the elder miller’s brutality and wants him to put that muscle to good use for some extra profit. 

It begins his new life. One that empty and cold but one he can live. 

Until of course, Ellie comes along. The sweet and incredibly opinionated girl that makes him become something akin to the man he thought died twenty years ago. 

its when he’s traveling with Ellie, that it happens. When a warm familiarity has settled between the two because so much blood and pain has been shared he can’t help but see her as something close, something bright even though all he can force himself to utter in her reference is “cargo” 

when theyre traveling through the woods as Ellie chatters away, probing his memory about a movie that may or may not have existed thirty years ago because her descriptions of the plot are incredibly odd he hears a voice shout for them to stop and finds himself staring at a man- no, a boy- pointing a gun at them. 

Ellie stills, but Joel can see enough to know that from the lanky figure and dimpled face that he’s young. Maybe twenty, twenty-two at the oldest, but his eyes dart from Joel to Ellie with a pinprick of fear that allows Joel the time to charge forward and slam him to the ground before wrestling the gun from his hands. 

He has enough to time to tuck it under the stranger’s chin before he hears the sound of the safety being turned off and finds himself looking up and seeing a gun just inches from his face. 

Joel’s head whips around when Ellie’s voice calls out his name in fear, he turns to see another stranger holding her a gun point, shoulders drawn back and a shadow cast over their face by the had obstructing their identity. 

“You hurt one of mine, I hurt one of yours. That a fair deal?” 

Its takes him a moment to recognize you. It’s been so long since he’s heard your voice, the sweet tease when you would poke at him each time he woke up late despite the fact that you reminded him to set his alarm the night before, the times you’d chide him with a harsh “Joel Miller!” whispered in public anytime he was able to grab you a bit too passionately to be appropriate in public but the laughter in your voice let him know you were never truly mad at him. You didn’t know how to be. 

But that sweetness is buried under a cold rasp that cuts through the air as you point a rifle at the scared little girl in front of you.

“You think I won’t?” You’re older now, skin covered in scars from a life he didn’t know you got the chance to live and your eyes are cold as they regard your husband. “Put the gun down and get the fuck off of him, I won’t repeat myself.” 

Joel mumbles your name in awe. The woman he loved, the woman he mourned the one he fought so hard to find stands before him like some sort of hallucination and suddenly the world feels like its spinning until you bark orders at him again. 

“You’ve got five seconds Joel, make a fucking choice before I make it for you.” 

He looks down and realizes the boy under him, the one with the bleeding nose and snarling face has your eyes and his dimples. 

“One.” 

The one above him has Sarah’s hair. Soft brown curls that shine under the sun. 

“Two”

Wait. No, they both do.

“Three.” 

Twins. Jesus fucking Christ you had twins. 

“Four.” 

Joel holds the rifle up above his head and the one boy standing snatches it from his grasp, tossing it to the ground and kicking it far from his reach. He slowly stands, allowing your son- dear god your son- to scramble to his feet. 

Your voice softens just for a moment. “You okay, Duke?” 

Blood stains the bottom half of his face from where Joel slammed his fist into the boy’s nose just moments before, but he nods nonetheless. 

Now, they both stand on one side of you and he can see the resemblance clear as day the same way he would whenever Sarah was by your side.

When you order him to hand over his bag, he does so without question before telling Ellie to do the same. 

She watches him with wide eyes, her hands still up in the air but gaping at her companion as if he had grown a second head. 

“Joel!” “Just do it, alright?”

He doesn’t miss the way you watch their interaction with narrowed eyes until she tosses her bag to you and you slowly lower your gun. 

“Now, you want to tell me what the fuck you think you’re doin’ at my home?” 

[normalbrothers]

TOMMY: The war is done! Shut the door on it like I did.

[wammypilled]

Mello and Misa on a one mofu open sleigh, the bimbo sleigh if you will

[somedudenamedruiz]

First time animating with IbisPaint! Love it a lot.

(Also meet two of my persona charectors :3)

[courfee]

if this be done (part 1)

@jegulus-microfic | august 26 - crow | wc 1.1k | part 1, 2, 3

a magical realism au with witchboy james :)

James Potter lives in a beautiful cottage in the middle of a green forest with red shutters on all his windows and yellow flowers of every variety one can think of in his garden. His hair is as messy as his working desk, his smile as bright as the early morning sun streaming through his kitchen window, his hands as warm as the fire keeping a big cauldron bubbling at all odd hours of the day, and his heart is as open as the door to his house.

James Potter is a witch, and a skilled one at that, and he offers his abilities up to anyone who asks for help. A plea for a remedy against an especially peculiar sickness is met with a vial full of purple, steaming potion, a cry for help about a spell gone wrong is silenced with a scroll of a messily scrawled on counter spell, and a knock on his door from a lost soul with a heartache is answered with empathy and patience, a gentle smile, an open ear and cup of hot chocolate.

His work helps people and the people help James in return, sending well wishes and favours and ingredients for his potions. Moreover, they give James something to do and someone to be, a person who likes to help and is always there when needed.

He likes his life, likes his work and likes what it has done for him. It’s his magic that brought his best friends into his life, all of them in a similar fashion.

First had been Peter Pettigrew, a small boy with bright eyes and a brighter laugh. Or, he was a boy once James had found the right spell and the correct combination of daisyroot draught and honesty honey, buttercup brew and sunflower syrup. It took a while until James managed to turn him from the little brown rat that had turned up on his doorstep back into the boy he had been before he had stumbled into the wrong pixie ring and eaten the wrong mandrake leaves.

After that, word spread out quickly and Sirius Black was the next one to turn up. A loud and cheerful boy by day who, at night, turned quiet and terrified, the remnants of his family life that had ended when his mother had cursed him to be a big black dog, like his namesake in the stars. The re-transformation was more difficult this time round. Curses were not one of James’ specialities, and it took a while for him to undo the damage – at least the physical one – that his family had left on him. In the months it took Sirius stayed with him, and by the end James had not only gained more knowledge but a best friend as well.

Last had been Remus Lupin. He, too, had come to seek help about an animal problem. Turning into a wolf when the moon stood high and full plagued him even during the moonless days and, having heard of James’ previous success regarding animal transformations, he had sought him out, with scars on his face and hope in his eyes.

James didn’t exactly fail that time. He never managed to complete what he had sat out to do, but when, after having to bring Remus’ the news that he would not manage to turn him back into a full-time human, Remus smiled at him and said “I do not mind anymore,” James knew he still had managed to help where help was needed. Remus completed their little band of marauders, and with them found the acceptance he had always needed, and on top of that found love he had never expected to find with Sirius.

All in all it doesn’t surprise James when one afternoon in the late days of summer there is a knock on his front door and he opens it to find yet another animal looking up at him with dark, beady eyes and asking, a voice more human than crow-like, “Are you James Potter?”

James smiles, pushes the door further open and says, “That I am. Come on in and tell me what I can do for you.”

The crow walks in, head held high, black feathers shimmering in the green glow of the forest, and follows James to his living room. James takes a seat on his worn-out sofa and motions the crow to do the same.

“My name is Regulus,” the crow says, once perched on the arm rest opposite James, “and I have found myself in the unfortunate situation of being cursed.”

James smiles at Regulus, encouragingly and brightly, and says, “Lucky for you I’ve gained some experience with curses last year. It’s still not my speciality, but I will do what I can do unravel the curse so you can walk on two legs again.”

Regulus gives him a look that makes it obvious that had he still had eyebrows, they would now lift up into his hairline. “I am walking on two legs,” he says flatly. “It’s not the walking I’m concerned about.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry, all my previous clients had four legs when they came to me. This is a bit of a change, you see? But no matter, I’m sure there is not much difference between a crow and a dog.”

“Maybe I should find a different witch,” Regulus huffs. “One who is competent enough to not think a crow and a dog are anything alike.”

“Regulus,” James says, and the name feels pleasantly cold and smooth on his tongue, “You will find that I am the most competent witch.”

“And the most arrogant one, too, it seems.”

It is the first time that James’ smile falters, fog obscuring the morning sun. “I’ll help you,” James says. “It will take time and it won’t be easy, but I’ll help you. But for the duration of the process you will have to stay in my house.”

The crow grumbles, but he nods his little head. 

“And while you are here I will not brook you being unkind to anyone who comes by. If you can’t be a decent human being – or crow, for that matter – to any of the people who seek help from me, then I cannot help you either.”

Regulus steps from one foot onto the other, ruffling his feathers as he gives this a thought. “I’m not an unkind person,” he says finally, “I simply cannot stand stupidity and people so often are stupid. But I’ll step aside when you have clients and will not bother them. Does that work?” Regulus seems rather rude to James and he must admit he doesn’t quite like him from the few words they have exchanged. But he is James Potter, and who he is is a person who likes to help and is always there when needed. No matter how awful of a person, Regulus needs his help, and so James blows away the fog, gives Regulus a sunny smile and nods. “That works. Welcome to my home, Regulus, make yourself comfortable and I will start looking for the right spells.”

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

"Do you not realize it? Do you... truly not see what this means?"

The next Destiny Bond update is in progress! ❄️✨ –> Check out the latest part here 🔷 –> New to the series? Follow from the start! 💜

[honeydots]

If you want another prompt: ❛ because i care about you, okay? ❜ Leokumi

"Because I care about you, okay?" 1.2k, leokumi (background xanlow) from this ask game

Takumi is sick in Nohr, and he hates it.

He’s laying here, in one of their hugely fluffy Nohrian beds, wrapped in blankets and feeling gross. He was already cold, but now he’s shivering, and the air tastes weird. It’s an all around bad experience. He’d rather be sick anywhere else.

Leo’s decided to just hang out with him while he’s dying here, for whatever reason, working on something on a desk near Takumi’s bed. It’s seriously embarrassing enough that everyone knows Takumi got sick, Leo doesn’t have to stick around and watch him roll through the covers miserably.

That’s exactly what Takumi’s doing, too. He groans, and he flops onto his side, as if facing the left will make him any less sick than facing the right might. “I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that weird fruit,” he mumbles, pulling his knees closer to his chest.

Last night, Takumi had a typical Nohrian dinner—which is to say it was pretty damn atypical for Takumi’s tastes. And ultimately it was fine, just not what he’s used to, but there was this one thing. A Nohrian fruit with a skin covered in bumps to peel off, that was mushy and sweet to eat. And he didn’t hate that either, but he had a bad feeling about it.

“We don’t know it was the food, you know,” Leo comments, obviously not working and rather eying Takumi with his legs crossed. Takumi squints at him.

“I ate it, and now I feel sick. What part of that doesn’t point to the food?”

Leo shrugs at him, of all things. It isn’t Takumi’s fault Leo fed him something weird. Takumi shuffles more under the blankets, feeling just as gross but also moody.

Leo, still not working on whatever it is he’s working on, leans forward in his chair. “Have you been able to stomach anything I gave you?” he asks. Takumi frowns, and he glances over at the plate of food Leo offered earlier. Much more simple stuff, easy grains and soup. Takumi sighs.

“Kind of,” he says. “The crackers were okay.” His stomach is in complete knots, and those were basically the only things that didn’t make it worse. But he can’t say he has an appetite anyway.

Leo hums. “The water?”

“Don’t want it.” Which makes Leo frown.

“Not even a sip?”

“Later, okay, I don’t want to vomit.” Mostly Takumi doesn’t want to have to sit up to drink it, actually. Leo gives him such a look, too, like he knows. Takumi gives him a look right back. “What’s with you?”

Leo raises an eyebrow. “How do you mean?”

“You’re being pushy.” Which doesn’t seem to bother Leo as much as Takumi would’ve liked it to. Annoying. “Go somewhere else. I don’t get why you’re sitting in here with me.”

Leo, pretty pointedly, does not get up. “Because I care about you. Or is that not allowed?” he says, which is also annoying. Leo turns to his work, still clearly not intending to leave, and then glances back to Takumi. “Just drink the water.”

Takumi scrunches his nose. But he’s too sick to think of a retort, so he shuffles up onto his forearms and finally takes his drink. And yeah, it’s nice, whatever. It doesn’t cure him or anything. But it’s about as tolerable as the crackers were.

It’s almost more irritating that Leo doesn’t give Takumi a haughty look, but instead just an average one. “You should probably sleep, too.”

Takumi scoots back into the covers. “I’m too tired to sleep.”

“Interesting. Any other hypocrisies you’d like to share?”

It’s a lot easier to deal with Leo when he’s being himself. “You’re such a pain.” Takumi barely knows what to do otherwise. Especially while he’s sick—which is also why Leo’s being weird, for sure, so this is just a useless situation all around.

Takumi does mean it when he says he’s too tired to sleep. It won’t work, plainly, he’s just stuck staring at the ceiling feeling miserable. He’d love to pass out and get better so then hopefully Leo will stop being nice to him because it’s intolerable—but he’s stuck conscious.

So, he flips around again, and also flips his pillow, and tries to look at the papers on Leo’s desk. “What are you working on, even?” he asks. Leo looks his way briefly, then sighs, finishing a sentence before he puts his quill down.

“It’s for Camilla,” he explains, rubbing his fingers absently. “It’s this orphanage program she’s trying to put forward. I’m giving her some financial estimates.”

Takumi blinks. “Oh yeah?” Takumi wouldn’t have guessed, exactly, but that’s not unexpected for Camilla. Leo nods.

“She’s always been interested in developing one. But… Ever since Siegbert was born, she’s just been—I don’t know. I wouldn’t call it baby fever, but it’s something similar.” And then Leo starts working again, just like that.

Takumi guesses it is pretty significant to have a baby around the palace. People were freaking out when Shiro was born, Takumi included. He’s still kind of freaking out about that. It’s been a little while now, though.

“Their other kid is close, right?” Takumi asks, then elaborates more. “Your brother and Laslow's.” Takumi’s met Siegbert a few times, and he’s cute, but it felt like he’d barely been around long before it was announced they were having another. Takumi doubts Ryoma’s going to have more, since Shiro’s already a rascal as a not-even-one year old. But Siegbert’s been calm whenever Takumi’s met him, so. Maybe that spurred them on.

“Quite,” Leo says. He looks away, out towards the door. “I wonder if you’ll be here when it’s born.”

Kids are something that seem really far away from Takumi. He’s too sick to even think about it long. It was crazy enough to suddenly have a nephew. There’s a weird way things have felt like they’re moving both faster and slower, now that there isn’t a war to worry about. And to be honest, Takumi’s not in the mood to go fast.

Leo tilts his head, looking thoughtful. “You know. I think Laslow might’ve gotten sick when he ate that fruit for the first time,” he says. “Maybe it’s something you acquire a tolerance to.”

Takumi, feeling right but way too sick to appreciate it, huffs. “Don’t feed it to me again, then.”

“You only gain tolerance by repeating the process, you know.”

“What if I’m just allergic? I don’t want it,” Takumi says back, not eager to experience this stomachache again. “I’m not sure I liked it enough to really want to try, anyway.”

Leo gives him a ghost of a grin, then gets back into his financial whatever. “I really think you should sleep,” he says. Takumi buzzes his lips and pulls the covers over him more.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, mind getting foggier by the second. He might be too tired not to sleep now, thank goodness. “Wake me up when the baby’s born.”

And—it’s kind of nice. The last thing Takumi hears before he drifts off is Leo’s light chuckle, and the sounds of quill on paper.

And he really, seriously, barely even thinks about the kid stuff.

[queenofbaws]

One good turn deserves another, so now I'd like to thank you for YOUR kind words and well-wishes! I should probably clarify as well that I'm no stranger to writing in general - I've worked as an editor and even have my own story in the works. It's fanfiction that proves daunting, as I fear I won't be able to portray the characters accurately or even write believable modern-day interactions due to my own... social shortcomings, so to speak. If you have any advice to offer, I'd be rather grateful!

!!! well lookit that!!! aw man, if you're already writing your own story, you're so ahead of the game!!! ;)c on the rare occasions i've been asked for fic advice, my first step is almost always to, like, get a feel for writing rules in general, so cross that sucker right off the list!!! heheh

i'll throw a few nuggets of extremely long-winded "wisdom" below the cut for anyone interested, but tl;dr the BIGGEST and BEST advice i think i could give to someone hesitant to dip their toe into writing/posting fic is this: we're all playing pretend here - and i don't say that to minimize anyone's efforts!!! not even slightly.

if anyone takes playing pretend seriously, it's ME, angsty longfic mcgee, but at the end of the day, fanfic is YOUR sandbox. YOU make the rules. YOU make what you want to make the way you want to make it when you want to make it. everyone wants the validation of hearing that other people enjoyed their story, that they're moved by their art, but sometimes things won't hit the way you hoped they would, or people wind up having a different interpretation of a character than you and don't hesitate in letting you know, and man, that sucks when it happens and it can make the idea of continuing to post really, really daunting, but it's still your sandbox. if you like it? if you enjoyed making it? if it was fun and fulfilling and you felt satisfied once it was finished?????????? THAT'S what you gotta hang onto. THAT'S what's gonna keep you moving forward. <3

(and, just saying, from personal experience? once you take the dive and give it a try? ooooh baby. there's nothing like it ;P i've mixed too many beach metaphors in here. that has to mean something.)

LONG-WINDED RAMBLING, GO! i want to preface this by saying, hi, this is 100% just me running my mouth about how i go about writing fic - if anything i say here doesn't work for you, ignore it! wholesale!!! everyone has different processes, everyone approaches writing in a different way, and even my writing buds and i butt heads sometimes about the fic-writing process, so imagine this is simply me offering suggestions on little scraps of paper, neatly piled up on a silver platter. you're free to fling that platter out of my hands at any time ;P ha!!!

i COMPLETELY understand how trying to get a pre-existing character's voice down can be intimidating, but at the end of the day...everyone's going to view them a little differently anyway!!! that's one of the beautiful things about fic - two people can look at the same character and see completely different facets of them, and that in NO way makes them wrong, or somehow less valid! here are some of the things i do when i'm trying to get into a character's headspace or find my version of their voice:

mannerisms! the first thing i always try and figure out is how the character behaves in canon. do they hold themselves confidently? do they get along with other people easily? if it's visual media like a video game, what kind of idle animations are we working with here - nail biting, hip swaying, anxious shifting, slouching, yawning, knuckle-cracking? i like doing this a little bit better than just trying to pin down what kind of "personality archetype" they have, like...you can say ashley brown is the scared nerd character, sure, and that's one level of her, but she's also ruthless when she needs to be, quick to make a joke, and deeply, deeply curious. digging down into a character's pieces-parts instead of just looking at them as a whole can really make your characterization of them feel more HUMAN.

actual source material dialogue. how does the character actually TALK in the source material (if they do, in fact, talk at all)? do they stammer? pause often? are they using high-scoring scrabble words in day-to-day conversations, or do they mostly just grunt and nod when asked a question? if you're worried about keeping YOUR version of them close to the source material or canon, i always say look for those verbal tics right off the bat. to keep using until dawn examples, josh tends to talk slowly but FLUIDLY, if that makes sense, like he's been practicing how cool guys talk in movies; chris, on the other hand, tends to start and stop, or have a jerkier sort of cadence, shifting in pitch the more agitated or anxious he is. mike talks to himself a lot, whether it's to make inane comments or reassure himself that he's okay; matt really sort of stays quiet unless he's talking to another person. that sort of thing!

the jurassic park method. okay. okay stick with me here. this one's my fav. this one is genuinely my secret weapon when it comes to writing believable fic characters. you know how...in the original jurassic park...the whole thing was they filled the dinosaurs' genetic gaps with frog DNA? yeah. yeah i'm about to tell you to do that. only with blorbo from your shows. is there someone in your life who reminds you of a character you're writing for? they don't have to be a perfect match, but maybe there's someone out there who you think "aw man, i bet sam would wear that," or "i could so hear jess saying that," or "i bet she and emily would get along..." this is me taking you by the hands to say use that. fill those gaps with real life experiences. this one's really more about making characters feel realistic than it is keeping them true to canon, but man..................sometimes it really makes them shine, know what i mean???

as for believable modern-day interactions...WOOF. i also feel like...i have missed that bus on that one. 🤣 i wish i had straightforward advice for this, but i have GOT to be real with you, i am a mostly housebound millenial who recently had a very sobering conversation with my doctor about how i've hit the age where i need to actually pay attention to my blood pressure and cholesterol, and boy, that...that really makes you feel very

sdklfjskldf heheheheheheh

my biggest tip in terms of MODERN social interactions??? don't put too much effort into making them modern at all! that sounds counter-intuitive, i'll explain: language moves really, really quickly, and it's constantly changing. if you throw a lot of slang into an interaction, it's going to date itself pretty quickly. instead, when i'm writing, i really focus on the interaction feeling BELIEVABLE. not even "natural," not even "normal," whatever those mean, but believable. can you BELIEVE that characters would interact with each other this way. cuz let's face it: sometimes. in real life. social interactions. occur. strangely. that doesn't make them less BELIEVABLE.

(and for what it's worth???????? a lot of time canon doesn't care about modern day interactions either. emily and jess's fight in the lodge is.......the best example......i could give you. there's....there's a lot going on in that one. the bar has been set...very low on that one alkdjfalksjfasjdfklsdjf hahahahahahahahah!)

i'll stop here before i literally turn inside-out from word barfing so much, but to revisit my very, very first point up top...writing and sharing fic can be SO nerve-wracking. 100%. no question. writing is personal!!! if you're writing your own story, i'm sure you totally get that. it's a piece of you! and by putting it out where everyone can see, you're making yourself vulnerable, and that can be so, so terrifying. but. BUT. i am personally of the opinion that the benefits outweigh that moment of trepidation ;)c if this is something you've been wanting to do, i wholeheartedly say give it a shot! if you decide it's not for you, eh, at least you tried, right? and if you love it, then look at that!!! a whole new world opens up at your fingertips!!!

and you'll for sure have ME rooting for you, either way :D

[plumdale]

I’m going home this weekend!!!! 😁😁

[sysig]

Like a dream (Patreon)

[aeternallis]

.

[silverselfshippingchaos]

it's literally them

[welcometogrouchland]

It's either coming up to my period again OR I've just developed a disease where I get misty eyed at even the most banal sequences and scenes in ghibli movies. I was crying during the early parts of ponyo