#kudos to anyone who reads the whole thing lmao

[galaxy-lilies]

FINISHED THE HOTGUY ZINE AND AAAAAAAAH /POS

okay im going to put my thoughts under the cut cause OUGH this is going to be a long post LMAO

FIRST OFF can i just say how amazing and incredible the folk who organized the whole event are, they deserve absolute kudos

AND ANOTHER FIRST OFF: SHOUTOUT TO ALL THE LOVELY WRITERS, ARTISTS, EDITORS, ETC. WHO CONTRIBUTED YALL ARE INCREDIBLE

okay okay finally into the recap that was an amazing 3 and a half hours of my life

Pages 1-103:

When I first saw the heads up about how the zine was interconnected and skipping any part would potentially lead to some plot i was immediately intrigued then i was immediately hit with the other realization of "410 PAGES???? HELLO????"

the first comic was so fucking cute OMG LIZZIE'S DESIGN WAS SO CUTE AND THE SILLY SLIDESHOW HUMOR BETWEEN JOEL, SCAR, AND LIZZIE

"hold on let me make some edits-" "no let ME make some edits-"

the artstyle changing based on who was editing what, Joel just trying to support his wife, Scar purposely mishearing "cats" as "cash" absolute hilarity how i heart them all so

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AND THEN WE GET HIT WITH THE DOODY ART OOOOH MY DAYS CUTEGUY AND HOTGUY MEETING FOR THE FIRST TIME AAAAAAH

Grian rocking the cloak, Scar just absolutely confuzzled: THEYRE SOOOO *shakes them*

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and the shenanigans between Ren, Scar, and BDubs oh my god AND THE ON GOING BIT ABOUT HOW "if anyone says hotguy it immediately turns into the logo" it never fails to make me laugh

the early days of the mutation, the proposal of the union, PEARL'S LITTLE >:3c as she pressed publish OUGH

and the trail of petals grian left behind as he considered hotguy's proposal just *splat* i literally ate up all the art and the fics and the silly silly edits in this zine THEY WORLD BUILDING IS AMAZING

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speaking of world building: MUMBLR??? HELLOOOOOOO

THE ANON'S HAVING SILLY MUSTACHES BY DEFAULT

THE RANTING IN THE TAGS

THE MEMES

now i need to know, what does old mumblr *checks notes* teal? green? look like

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(at this point it was around 8 PM but after a long day i was already reaching the point of eepyness and i thought "surely i can finish reading the hOTGuY zine in one sitting!" spoiler alert: i did not)

____________

immediately when i saw the G Team comic i was reminded of the council of Grians LMAO Grian being the absolute chaotic one man band as he tries to collect all this evidence, the readers seeing Scar's means of transportation for the first time, and then *vine boom* SCULK

also ARIANA GRIANDE THE BELOVED HOW I HEART HER SOOOOOOOO i love all of the grians featured here, and the fact that permit office grian managed to make a silly appearance AND his permit shenanigans working in his favor- hE EVEN HAS THE "please hold." MUSIC- iconic i tell you, iconic

____________

I absolutely exploded into a million pieces seeing tibby's art then exploded again because "i can't see the end of the horizon...CUBFAN135- IS THAT YOU??!!?"

seeing the sculk snail follow behind scar idly, the fact that grian's only lead is cub ordering pizza like of all leads. but to be fair it does fit both of them LMAO

i am eating the sculk texturing btw it's very very tasty uwu

it's the fact that both of them turned to each other to yell "ARSON" like of course theyre at the ready to light things on fire

BUT THEN THIS PANEL

cub just over scar's shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the match already out of grian's hand, the sculk snail also there to witness the chaos that is about to ensue *chefs kiss* poetic cinema

also i would buy this shirt

____________

oh my gods the emails, the emails were so fucking funny i- KJSDFHDSJK

BDubs immediately trying to screen Cub out and Cub just continuing his shenanigans unperturbed, grian at his wits end trying to contact scar but of course scar is busy and cub just assumes it's some impersonation account until further notice, TGC trying to contact them but once again Mr. Fan135 Does Not Give A Fuck and he lives to cause mild annoyances and chaos, what a guy LMAO

their littol email icons are so cute, when i saw pearl's i was like "WAH PUPPERRRR"

i havent seen many email-format type beat story telling before so this was an absolute joy to explore the story through pearl's detailed emails, grian's panicked typing (how was mans typing and sending so quickly with 365+ lazer eyed chickens chasing him like a mad man + a green gob- i mean goatman), and both bdubs' and cub's concern and nonchalance. not to mention bdubs just nodding along and going "well cub you have proven yourself...and uh- added a totally not a virus to scar's phone- BUT you have proven yourself...." absolute sillies, absolutely iconic

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THE TWITTER BEEF HAD ME CACKLING OH MY GOD THE QUOTE RETWEETS i would pay good money to see that in real time oh my god

mumblr user hermitopia-explained you will always be famous

okay i'll admit it i was distracted by the scitties- BUT the social media handles and names being remade into hermit puns and the fact he's chilling on mending beach I CAN'T

AND OUR ETERNAL QUEEN JELLIE i literally let out a small squeal looking at her she is sO *gently holds her*

birthday gorl getting absolutely spoiled, as she deserves

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scar finding a cloak just to do the sailor moon meme: iconic, showstopping, one of a kind, amazing, talented- i love these two idiots

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and as a heads up i'm going to try and separate these into about 100 pages each! so expect the next reblog soon

[they-reap-what-we-sow]

20 questions for writers

thank you for the tag @fanfictiongreenirises I finally managed to finish a tag game!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

168- with 44 podfics and the rest are regular fics!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

346,848. unfathomable number who is she where did she come from

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Batman (Batfam) my love my life, but 9-1-1 is a close second with one-offs for a lot of my other passing interests.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Floppy Bird - crack fic that was meant to be an angst fic that I never understood why people liked so much asfhjs

cocoa on a cold night - a classic timby holiday fic that I wrote in the middle of summer, talk about environmental storytelling

secrets un(revealed) - the only purposeful long fic I've ever written, and also the most trope mashing I've ever done with reverse robins, magical realism au, and delicious delicious miscommunications (in my head the only fic that deserves to be in the top five :wheeze: )

Eggshells - vent fic alert !! very embarrassing that people like this I try not to think about it ":)

taking the blade (for you and yours) - a round robin fic written with the server and CHOCK full of Damian suffering.

5. Do you respond to comments?

NO PICTURES. NO COMMENT. I DONT KNOW HOW TO READ.

no jk jk I really really try to but once I start getting behind it's just a whole spiral. these days I have a better chance of replying to a comment on an old fic than a brand new one because I dont want leave them half replied

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

any of my death fics probably? I think with DC a death is a little more inconsequential than other fandoms just because of how often it's unpermanent, so as a concrete answer, I'll say for you (i would cross the line). nothing quite like parental grief.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

happy ending wink-wonk or XD

probably Who The Hell Is Red Hood? - I've done things there with growth and healing that DC HQ would shudder to imagine

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not regularly, thank everything, but the one controversial three-some I posted needed comment regulation lmao

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes and uh, the kinky kind? idk take a look for yourselves I guess

10. Do you write crossovers?

Yes, and they're ALWAYS unserious- Buck from 9-1-1 dating Emma from Friends (yes Ross and Rachel's kid) anyone?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Uh, not by a person? as far as I know? but I have found my fic on those like, document websites??? which is weird lmao just read them on your phones guys not everything needs to be uploaded

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

weee yes! round robin my beloved, and also every fic @canonicallyshort and I have written in our threads. those count. to me. emotionally.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I WILL GO DOWN WITH MY MULTISHIP (which really means I'm never going down at all) but really I dont think I will ever get over Merthur... or Buddie... or- you see what I mean?

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

oh god I have so many wip that I am holding out hope for but my biggest WIP is an unpublished hellhole affectionately entitled "Death Pit" by everyone who is working on it- most notably because it features a literal Death Pit, every horror, angst, whump, and trauma trope you can think of, and a cast of characters and a plot thread so long we have 20+ page outline documents that aren't even fully updated... I shudder to think what will become of it one day, I imagine sentience isn't very far off

16. What are your writing strengths?

why is this an interview question. I dont know my strengths really?? um. I have good ideas, that one I'll say. execution is a different story (likely one that will never get told. like the rest of my good ideas)

I also think I do fairly well with scene descriptors. I really like to set a scene because I'm seeing a movie in my head and you all should too!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm down to clown globally! I dont like to use google translate though, so if im writing in another language it's only because SOMEONE on the server is a native speaker and can vouch for my text.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

oh god one direction. head in hands. it was an 'adopted by 1d' fic that I made my mom beta, and turned it in to my 6th grade English teacher as my creative writing assignment. then I made a poem about it. then I wrote a song about it. thankfully it never got published and is trapped in the cursed purple file folder it was 'hidden' in since 7th grade. my first published fic was almost 7 years later with a Gomens fic!

20. Favourite fic you've written?

AHh um. favorite child scene here, but top contenders include: lithium + 5 for its graphic design and medical accuracy, fiery veins on speechless days for its emotional whump that makes me hurt every time I reread it, [PODFIC] wither on the shore which is not a fic I wrote but one of my favorite podfics of @silk-scarlet-ribbons 's works.

tagging (if you wish to participate!) @canonicallyshort @silverandsunflowers @selkienight60 @crows-murder

[ankhegs-in-my-salad]

I'm not even sure why I'm writing this, but I felt like I needed to get it off my chest.

My wonderful friend @tavyliasin made a lovely addition to this post about how important giving your friends positive feedback can be to people, specifically former gifted kids, and I wanted to chime in with my own addition but it got super long and wasn't even the original point of the post lmao so here I am.

Anyway, we got some awesome insight about how leaving your lovely feedback is especially beneficial to former gifted kids in the previous post. Under the cut - me rambling about why positive feedback means so much to me, the Chronically Mediocre Kid.

Growing up, I was always painfully mid. I worked my absolute ass off to get my passing grades, and I got them for the most part. I wasn't good enough to be told I was doing well and I wasn't bad enough to actually get any help. Got into uni by the skin of my teeth and my degree the same way. I was stuck in middle-of-the-road land and pretty much always have been, with the exception of one notable outlier in my late 20's.

Now, as the name would suggest, us Mediocre Kids are very easy to forget about. We're just kinda there, and there's a lot of us. The NPCs or the studio extras, filling out space in the background of the class.

So how does this tie into writing or art or fandom in general?

For myself, and probably a lot of other people like me, writing in fandom has been the first real time to get that positive validation beyond "congrats you passed! You achieved the bare minimum!" I didn't get it at school (the place where, upon telling my chemistry teacher that I wanted to study chemistry at uni, was told verbatim "but you have to be smart to study chemistry") and it certainly wasn't at uni (where I had to resit a year and where the defence of my dissertation started with the words "the first thing we hated about it was[...]").

God, looking back I wish I had started posting fan fic so much earlier. Yes, comments are few and far between but when you get them? Oh my god.

Now I want to preface this by saying - Yes, I know that "you shouldn't write for validation" and I absolutely don't. I've been writing since I could hold a pen and only started posting stuff for actual humans to read in October. Does my background sound like that of someone who expected to get validation from strangers online? You can bet your arse that isn't why I'm here. It was just an absolutely massive unexpected bonus.

Fan fiction sent me from "congrats on the bare minimum" to someone telling me my silly AO3 story was their favourite thing they'd ever read on that whole website.

Do you have any idea what that does to someone who has spent their whole life being "good enough"? "Fine"? "Passed"? I was never good or bad enough to receive attention. My performance always "unnoteworthy". And that was fine, I always told myself. Because, as mentioned above, I've always been doing stuff for me and me alone. I learned early there wasn't any point in doing it for anyone else. Do you know how it felt to have a complete stranger reach out to me through the Internet and tell me that something that I had done, something that I had created, had a profound effect upon them?

Folks, I fucking cried.

For someone like me, every single comment, kudos, tag, all of it, is incredibly special. Even a comment as simple as an emoji or "loved this". It puts a little piece into a void in me that I didn't even know was there. It makes me feel as though maybe, if I can make one person happy with my writing, bring someone that kind of joy, there is more to me than just "passing grade".

And let me tell you, I'm still not used to it. It's one of the most wonderful feelings. And if you feel it too, don't ever let anyone make you feel bad for "seeking validation" or whatever. We know that's not why we're here, but my goodness if it doesn't make a difference when we get it.

So, to anyone who has ever given kudos, made a comment, left a tag on a post, any of it - thank you. It means more than I think a lot of people could ever know.

[whinlatter]

author's note | chapter 9: wintering ❄️

thank you so much for reading chapter 9 of beasts. in this chapter, ginny goes home for christmas, back into the fold of the family that anchored the anti-voldemort movement now grieving the loss of a brother and a son - and finds it's tougher to keep secrets from one harry james potter than she might otherwise have thought. this was a tough chapter to write, and one i cared a lot about trying to get right. so - let's have a chat about it (and a little sneak peek of chapter 10)...

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut  ✨

writing notes and headcanons:

writing: this is the first chapter where i’ve strayed from the chapter plan and shunted scenes to a future chapter. i ummed and ahhed about it, then remembered no-one else knows what the plot is and what this chapter was supposed to be, then got a grip lol. lesson learned - if it’s hard work and it feels like you’re trying to force it, you probably are, so chill out lmao

this ended up, then, as a chapter about families. we see the blacks, the order itself, andromeda and teddy’s new little unit, little glimpse of the lovegoods - and the possibility of new families, most obviously in the case of bill and fleur’s baby on the way. at the core of this chapter, though, are the weasleys, this openly political family of freedom fighters, first family of the resistance, and a family thoroughly scarred by war. i’ve talked a bit about this elsewhere, but i have always been so struck that the weasleys enter the narrative as add-ons to ron, harry’s mate, but over the series increasingly become the core of the entire anti-voldemort movement, with a history of resistance and also of grief and sacrifice (fabian and gideon). so this chapter spends some time with each member of the family, a little panorama of the weasleys eight months on from the battle to see how they’re all coping (or not). it was really really important to me that each family member’s grief and emotional state got a moment in this chapter. partly this is because i think that writing character-centric fiction shouldn’t neglect attending to the broader emotional context of the ensemble around a character, but also because each family member is quietly showing ginny the different ways they’re all responding to fred’s death in ways that might get her thinking about who she feels most similar to and who her family needs her to be. that bill is the only family member who answers ginny’s wish that her family would talk about fred more and stop avoiding saying his name was deliberate. with his parents struggling so much, bill is clearly stepping up as the person to look after his family. he’s aware of his own emotional responses, he’s discussing his own grief, but he’s also looking to the future, making plans for it and trying to improve the world he’ll spend it in, even though he knows  it’ll be bittersweet. it was important for me to have ginny to have that behaviour modelled to her from someone she singularly admires.

space: as the plot of ginny looking back and processing a childhood at war progresses, i wanted to draw together and quietly contrast two spaces, grimmauld place and the burrow. these are the two headquarters of the order of the phoenix, two family homes, two sites of familial rupture - and, now,  two places equally haunted by the ghosts of people who once lived there and who are now gone. writing this chapter i did a lot of imagining the communal spaces in both residences kind of as a set for a play with ensemble characters walking on and off stage at whim, which actually made the whole thing much easier when i was freaking out about having too big a cast for one chapter lol.

harry and ginny: see here!

molly weasley: my real soapbox issue for this chapter is that molly weasley’s grief really, really matters. i know molly is rarely anyone’s blorbo. she’s increasingly hated in certain corners of the fandom (check the most kudos-ed fic tagged under molly & ginny lol) and even among those people who like molly, lots of postwar fics focussing on different characters’ pics have her just sort of return to normal, get back to fussing about the house and the kids’ relationships and careers in her mumsy way. i do get this: it’s hard to want to give a lot of time in a fic to a (usually) tertiary character’s grief rather than the protagonist’s, especially when everyone is grieving, and molly is an often convenient source of either amusement, nuisance or even antagonism in hinny fics (many of my own favourites!) for her (seemingly) conservative views on sexuality and her busybody behaviour. but i’ve never subscribed to this in my own headcanon as a canon coherent choice, simply because canon is very clear that molly weasley’s worst nightmare is the death of one of her children, and that nightmare happens. (in fact, it’s even worse than she imagines in the boggart, because even in her worst nightmares she didn’t imagine one of the twins dying and not the other.) while i absolutely do not want to relate this fictional loss to the real life experiences of friends and family who have known terrible loss, it was important to me to try and write an alternative version of molly that centred her grief in a way that felt plausible and true, and acknowledged that the loss she and arthur have endured is one that would change them enormously.. truthfully, i don’t think either character would ever really be ok again (which why grief is so hard to work with narratively - it offers no neat conclusions or easily legible arcs of healing).over the past few months, ginny has been worrying about a very teenage set of worries re molly, stressing about her mother’s response to her losing the captaincy and poor school performance, thinking she might get a howler, gearing up for a fight over whether harry can sleep in her bed - only to get home to find her mum has fallen apart. narratively, i wanted ginny to see her mum like this, and to finally start to understand why her mum was so insistent on her being a child and having a childhood and keep her away from the war that ginny was so desperate to fight in. 

the other point here, and i do feel strongly about this, is that for a fandom very interested in how families, loss and trauma during wars shapes characters (marauders fics are some of the richest best explorations of these themes), i worry we don’t care nearly enough about what molly weasley goes through, and about how women respond to their grief in complicated and nuanced ways. as @saintsenara has pointed out, the lack of attention paid to molly weasley’s backstory and grief over her brothers, and especially her grief after fred’s death, smacks of misogyny. perhaps molly’s frumpy mumsy unchic domesticity fretting about her children’s grades makes her not a cool enough character to care about her pain: perhaps it’s that she beefs sirius, everyone’s traumatised fave (and a character i adore). but i do really care in this fic about offering a rendering of molly that shows a possible way she would respond to fred's death, now seeing in her children the grief she has lived with already for so long, no longer able to return to the person she was before. i think molly weasley is a person who understands how their awful world works and tries to encourage her children into a path that will provide for them with material security and offer chances to do meaningful work towards reform. and while you can disagree with that as advice to her children, i don't think that worldview invalidates her right to thorough, compassionate treatments in fics and analysis as a character who is so very loved and special to harry. molly weasley is the only person who demands these children have a childhood and we should not forget it!

andromeda: ahhh man. ok this chapter i learnt people writing andromeda are really strong soldiers because i tried like 30 different characterisations until i found one that didn’t make me want to gouge my own eyes out. she couldn’t be too warm, because she’s a) a black and b) canonically wary of strangers and quick to be offended/insulted (ted’s the gentle one of the two of them). she does have to have a certain domesticity to her because tonks mentions her knack for household charms, but couldn’t be overly mumsy, in contrast to molly, because tonks clearly was drawn to molly’s mothering instincts (early HBP kitchen scene) in ways that suggest andromeda’s were less obvious. i wanted her to be a proud person, someone polite but wary, self conscious (and self critical) of her own particularities and mistakes as a parent, who has a working relationship with harry but not a maternal one, and who would probably be a bit suspicious of all these teenagers playing with teddy, who is now the centre of her world, lest they drop him on his head or stand on his baby toes. i imagine ginny and andromeda having a cordial but eventually slightly fractious relationship - 'girlfriend of the teenage godson to my orphaned grandson' is a weird role to play in a person’s life, after all. i can see ginny reminding andromeda of the daughter she lost, and it was fun to draw that out a bit here (andromeda immediately kibboshing the broomstick idea as a case in point).

relatedly sirius: finally getting to begin using some of my sirius scenes now we’re at grimmauld place 😈 i’m really excited about the plot to draw in the memory of sirius in this fic, and so it seemed right to begin bringing him in in a chapter about families, generations (mothers!) and what living with trauma and grief after war can do to a person. we see him finally arrive in person in a flashback to the day the weasleys arrived in his house, freshly reconfined to grimmauld and sullen because of it, but also being perceived by ginny and the weasleys as someone with great presence. he becomes the subject of a great deal of interest and hero worship by the twins and ginny, with only ron (following hermione) noting that sirius black does not seem to be a well man. sometimes in fics the (understandable) impulse to focus on sirius’ good godfather traits can be taken a bit too far with authors overstating how warm/inviting/interested sirius would be in the parade of weasleys who move in with him at a very low moment for him personally. i liked having sirius being sort of shrug about their arrival, having only the briefest moment with ginny where a commonality between them (the betrayal of a brother) is identified but saying nothing about it. sirius black is in no place to reassure someone about sibling estrangement. ginny, in her approach to sirius, tries to position herself in opposition to her mother, apologising for her with an eye roll kind of vibe, and raging at her for excluding her from the order meeting when no one else was. she also expresses empathy with sirius’ plight of being confined for your own protection when you really want to fight and have your revenge (👀). meanwhile, in the present, harry and ginny wake up in sirius’ childhood bed, spend the day inside grimmauld watched on by paps, and the ginny goes back to her own family home, where she throws herself into christmas planning and prepping to try and raise spirits and distract from all of the shit going on, à la sirius in ootp. (i’ll finish that sirius and ginny meta before the next chapter i swear). 

dolohov: me, a few months ago, realising that the man killed fabian and gideon prewett also killed remus

percy: so far in beasts, percy has come up only in passing - unfavourable press coverage, and on the board in graves’ classroom, part of the machine that sent muggleborns to azkaban and some, in all probability, to their deaths. lots of brilliant brilliant fics (some rec’d below) explore percy plausibly as a resistance agent working within the ministry, but i’m always a bit suspicious of this reading, given his line in the room of req  (‘it’s been coming on for a while, but I had to find a way out and it’s not so easy at the Ministry, they’re imprisoning traitors all the time’ - this doesn’t sound to me like a road to damascus moment the second scrimgeour died, does it? when exactly did you realise you'd fucked up perce? like babe you’re the assistant to the minister - how many people did you help imprison, given the muggleborn registration commission was up and thriving within a month of the ministry takeover?) i think, whatever the extent of percy’s resistance (and there will be more on this!), it’s clear that ginny, of all of the siblings, would probably be the least likely to forgive percy. it’s not just that the decisions he makes are so far from her own, or that his treatment of her parents was egregious, it’s also her loyalty and ferocious protectiveness of harry, who percy royally fucks over at every possible turn with little remorse. (he doesn’t engage with or apologise to harry in the room of requirement!) ginny wasn’t there with percy when fred died like ron was, an experience that i think would help ron decide life’s too short and make a cordial peace with percy. i think ginny would want percy to feel a hell of a lot of shame before ever warming up to him again. i like percy as a character, i think his arc is so good, but i also find satisfaction putting him in the corner at the weasley christmas with old xeno, stood with the other guy who should have done the brave thing and didn’t.  just because your family tease you doesn’t mean you should commit war crimes!

teddy: me writing this chapter like 

the order: the interaction i have in this chapter between lee and ginny, over whether the order beat voldemort, is my attempt to get something i have been thinking a lot about without much resolution, which is (partly) what does the order actually do, but also how do the order think about the end of the war when it turns out they kind of were peripheral to the effort of winning it? obviously they did some things, and order members obviously fought in the battle, but the order actually were instrumentalised by dumbledore into a bigger plot that involved harry that he kept them in the dark about. i think it would be very weird for the order in the aftermath of war to think about what their efforts really meant when their losses are huge and their accomplishments minimal, other than helping keep harry alive at times - and weirder still for ginny, who was never old enough to join and was kept at arm’s length from the soldiers’ table only to find out those soldiers didn’t really matter anyway.  no profound takes just curiosity on my part, but very interested if anyone has any takes on this!

ron and hermione: very sorry to the lovely anon who just asked about hermione — saying nothing for now but what do you think’s going on there! weird innit. a real mystery. if only someone would tell us

harry’s kitchenware collection: what’s up with that hmmmmmm

songs on the playlist for this chapter:

i listened to a lot of choral music for this chapter - ofc christian symbolism is all over the series (can't move for it), so was leaning into that a bit (lol), and the little church by the graveyard in godric's hollow with the muggles inside on christmas eve has always struck me as a very beautiful and sad image, so i was trying to channel those vibes too a bit in this chapter (ginny and bill listening to the carols in the village in the garden, and the view from molly and arthur's window of the ottery st catchpole church spire). my favourite is the holst arrangement for lullay, mine liking, a fifteenth century carol originally in middle english, which has these very tender lyrics that are about the infant christ but also work painfully well for molly's grief: lullay, mine liking, my dear son, my sweeting.

lullay my liking (arr. holst) by the godley singers | hey, ma by bon iver | gregorian chant for the dead by aurora surgit and alessio randon | 7 o'clock news/silent night by simon & garfunkel | i don't like my mind by mitski | this is me trying - the long pond studio version by taylor swift | should have known better by sufjan stevens (i mean - my brother had a daughter/the beauty that she brings - illumination. perfect no?) | hope by james newton howard (i have a lot of songs from the soundtrack to terence malick's incredibly beautiful film a hidden life on this playlist, because that film remains a real touchstone for the visuals i'm imagining for a lot of this fic but also a lot of the vibes of family and resistance)

reading list: 

on percy (loads here):

dawn is coming, open your eyes by dialux (an all time fave) The Last Something That Meant Anything by Anonymous (TW for sexual assault) 'Hope' is a Thing With Feathers by PeachyKeener

on molly (and molly and ginny):

Every Mother is a Grave by @witchofimber Mother, any distance greater than a single span by Simon Armitage (did anyone else read this for gcse english lit and still find themselves thinking about it a dozen years later?

on sirius and molly:

'He slammed the door in her face' by @ashesandhackles Meta: An alternative read on Sirius and Molly's argument also by @ashesandhackles

on andromeda:

turncoat: in defense of andromeda tonks née black by dirgewithoutmusic

on teddy and the potter family:

little accomplishments by irnan

ok technically i am cheating with this sneak peek because technically i shared a bit of this scene a bazillion years ago/way back in january, a month or so before i started putting the fic out (over here), so here's... a bit more of it hehe:

‘Did it hurt?’ she asks. ‘Becoming an Animagus?’ His laugh is a bark. ‘Unbelievably.’  ‘It must have been worth it, though.’  ‘It’s hard to know what things are worth.’ Definitely in one of those moods.

[alnilaem]

thank you @ohbo-ohno for the tag <3 !!!! I’m throwing my no-pressure tags to @shotmrmiller, @yeyinde and @bitten-fruit and anyone else who wants to join!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

14, including an anonymous one and uploads from my old ao3 account

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

24,237 😞 (on my current account)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Call of Duty. I want to write for RDR2 eventually but I’m scared because I won’t give it justice, lol. Arcane is also on my list, maybe LotR, and maybe Bo will twist my rubber arm into writing TLoU too

4. Top three (because I don’t have enough fics) by kudos.

bury me beneath the basswood tree, never meet your heroes, [anonymous fic]

5. Do you respond to comments?

if one really gets to me, yeah! otherwise, no. but I appreciate them all nonetheless ❤️

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

ermmmm? it may be a tossup between bear country or never meet your heroes, because of the whole Johnny-being-left-limp-after-being-absolutely-mauled, lmao

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

it isn’t exactly happy, but bury me beneath the basswood tree. FMC is happy, albeit under Simon’s supernatural forces lmao

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope

9. Do you write smut?

it’s all i write…….

10. Craziest crossover.

hate crossovers, sorry. I checked the LotR tag the other day and was SHOCKED at the amount of NARUTO crossovers. like, what?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

none that I know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

doubt it

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i tried it and it FAILED because she ended up being a whole weirdo. i do, however, looooooove the idea. would love to see it through one day (with someone normal, preferably)

14. All time favorite ship?

Eren/Armin

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

price/ex escort reader, where he keeps coming back for more but refuses to treat her like anything more than a vessel for his urges

16. What are your writing strengths?

um. similes…? maybe detail?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

dialogue, flow, speed, um let’s see–

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

i don’t read enough fics with this specific thing, so I don’t have any thoughts about it really. if the author finds a way to translate it not directly but through introspection? coolest thing EVER.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

marvel comics!

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

heughhhh idk ;; i always have post-fic clarity where I think I absolutely killed a fic when I may have, at the most, smothered it a bit

[lady-of-the-spirit]

tagged by @goldheartedchaoticdisaster thank you bestie ❤❤❤

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

55!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

183,074

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The short answer is basically "whichever one I'm feeling".

the longer answer is: Arata the Legend, the MCU (specifically my own OC content and Eternals), Good Omens, The Old Guard, The Wicked + The Divine, A Discovery of Witches/All Souls Trilogy, Doctor Who, Ted Lasso (in theory, so far) and like... other stuff I can't think of right now that I haven't published but still write for, and other stuff I have written fics for but wouldnt say I "write" for the fandom.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Okay

Rotten Work

Ethereal

First Word

everybody wants someone (i want to be somebody)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! Or I try to - I try to respond to every comment people leave, even if it's only a heart emoji or a 'thank you'. Because I want to show them I see them and appreciate them!!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Toss up between "no home sweet and no sweet home" with Joan having to run away from an abusive household in the middle of the night to a life of just constant running and loneliness she's not emotionally prepared for after having a relatively normal life and "my heart is a stone, my body is not my own" with Yataka dealing with years of blackmail, sexual assault and noncon suddenly being exposed to everyone by one of his abusers and just refusing to talk about it at all and rejecting the (admittedly flawed) attempt at comfort shown to him (points for being a fic I wanted to end with comfort and instead became my first hurt/no comfort).

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

It's hard to choose but I'm gonna say probably First Word (link above) because. I mean how does it get better than Human!Ten, Donna and Jenny being a little family together and Jenny's first word being Donna's name and Ten being absolutely in love with his girls-

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Oh I did like, back when I was 13. My ATLA OC fic got cyberbullied by some dude on tumblr, who copy&pasted whole chapters of my fic and then would go through the chapter and add shitty comments.

The only good thing about that situation was that he even added a whole post to express his confusion that all the comments on my fic were positive. everyone else was loving it. and then he apparently needed to ruin me and left his own comment telling me he was reviewing my fic. which of course led to a shock and some hurt feelings but uh, seeing him annoyed at everyone else liking the fic helped lmao now I can look back on it with amusement like what was going on with that guy that he felt the need to harass a 13 year old.

I also got another comment on the same fic accusing me of plagiarizing their fic and OC because both my oc and hers could bend 2 elements and had sort of similar names and when I went to read her fic it was so completely different from my own I had to LAUGH.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I've attempted it a few times but I really don't know what I'm doing with it.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I've never written a whole crossover - I admit I did start an au fic where all different studio ghibli characters were in the story of Anastasia the movie, but it did not get super far before I stopped.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

luckily no.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No but if anyone ever asked I wouldn't say no!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope!

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Oh my god.... I mean as hard as it is to choose it's gotta be TenDonna. like platonically, romantically, a secret third thing, they are amazing together and I love them so much.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I try to never say I'll never finish a fic, but there's one for certain I don't think I'll ever finish, Prince Mononoke - a role swap au of Princess Mononoke. I was writing it for years and had my grandma proofread every chapter before publishing. I put it on hiatus for years, but then she died, and it didn't feel right to keep going.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I feel I write dialogue really well. I try my best to hit the right voice for every character and I think I do a good job at it. And honestly it's hard for me to not write dialogue like half the time I'm like can you guys shut up already and progress the plot with actions instead-

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm not as poetic as I'd like to be, I guess. Like. some writers are just fucking masters with words and I feel like I'm stammering. I'm also not super confident in writing romance - like, pining, or friendly relationship with a splash of romance for fun? I've got that. Actual romantic relationships? Not so much.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If I do, I use google translate and hope for the best, but usually I don't. Ethereal has a lot of Canadian French in it because Marianne is from Quebec, but I use my sister (a French Immersion student) as my translator.

I mean I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Like, use the best translator website you can find and hope for the best.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

If we want to get really technical it was for The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, before I even knew fanfic was a thing. If we want to be specific to published fic, it was Avatar the Last Airbender.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

UGHHHH HOW DO I CHOOSE

honestly I have no way to choose. So I'm simply not going to lol

tagging: @dani-luminae @sighonaraa @altschmerzes @jamietarttsnorthernattitude @fallenangelontheceiling @vinatintasupernovita @strangelock221b @mousedetective @linguini17 and like, anyone who wants to do this!!!! it's fun :)

[uhuraisgay]

fic writer meme

ty lore @megafaunatic for tagging meee :3c

How many works do you have on Ao3?

fifty three as of today. tomorrow? who knows.... (probably still fifty three)

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

518,435 words .... wrow.....

3. What fandoms do you write for?

historically its been all over the place but theres so much stuff rotting and dying in my gdrive that has never been posted so i feel like i have a broader actual ouvre than is represented on ao3. which is mdzs heavy at least in the past couple years

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. beyond all limit (wangxian i wrote for lore right after i first read the book) 4. if the story's over (moshang post-divorce get-together fic) 3. someone as good for me as you (written in 2016 for holster and ransom when i was reading check, please. LMAO) 2. at least as deep as the pacific ocean (written in 2015 in the clearest example of 'person distraught by the tragic ending of a tragedy misses the fucking point and writes a coffee shop au of achilles and patroclus after she read tsoa' ever, even bigger LMAO) 1. your name safe in their mouth (lsz gets his dad back, and other emotional adventures)

5. Do you respond to comments?

i used to try to reply to every comment i got but i stopped doing that around the same time i went to college and got more depressed. but i love reading comments and i sometimes reply if someone says something that moves me or like. asks me a question about the fic that i want to elaborate on? because i love to yap

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i'm not really good at writing straight angst i feel like it's normally like. angst with catharsis. but i wrote some explorations on grief in the past couple years that i feel like have the angst factor (what i have of you about nhs after nmj dies, and then when your beard fell out about my sweetie pie kageyama tobio in middle school after his grandpa dies)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i have a lot of silly fluffy fics... idk i try to toe the line mostly of like. the joys and sadnesses of human experience but sometimes you just gotta fluff it up. i'll set the table, you can make the fire, which is book verse aziraphale/crowley living in a cottage and being in love, comes to mind....i love that one

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i don't think i've ever really gotten hate on a fic? i have been extremely lucky in that regard. especially since my whole ouvre from like 2014 onward is on that damn site and much of it is very cringeworthy.

9. Do you write smut?

not well!

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you have written?

i often will do like kind of a quasi-crossover kind of thing rather than a True Crossover wherein i take characters i like from one medium and plop them into the roles and places of characters i like from another medium. i did a dragon age wangxian fic where lwj was the inquisitor from da:i called we held together the fragile sky that kind of exemplifies this dynamic

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of or that anyone has ever notified me of, but i also don't look that hard. if this has ever happened, it would hurt my feelings, so please don't do it ? lol

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes!!!! and i was honored

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

not as such but i have one not-intended-for-posting fic which is basically just a transcription of jokes i have with my roommate about haikyuu characters LOL which i think counts as co-writing. she's my co-writer in spirit even if i'm the one at the keyboard

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

my answer to this changes with every new fixation i have. like right now it's kagehina. if you asked me four years ago i would have said wangxian. You Know?

15. What is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

SO MANY...i think probably my fullmetal alchemist nie brothers au....i try not to post things until they are done and fully edited now, but that one was a whim-based fic that i lost all strength for as soon as i started thinking too hard about kagehina. i also had a fem nielan sci fi au that was vaguely based off beauty and the beast but nmj was like stuck in a ship and she thought she was its computer and that she was a program but she was actually a person....which i never posted any of except snippets on twitter and i think it was just too sprawling for my current skill level...i just was never able to wrangle it. but i am fond of it nonetheless

16. What are your writing strengths?

based on what other people have told me i would say the way i write sibling / family relationships, and while my prose is not always pretty i do think it can be pretty at times ...

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i feel like it's often too self-indulgent even if that's what fic is for lol, and i tend to look back on fics and think, i wrote that because i had feelings about it and wanted to say it, but i'm not necessarily sure that This Character would say/do that at this point in time....idk like i fear that when i don't think about it hard enough my characterization can be weak or guided by what eye personally would do vs. what The Character would do. but some of that is because the majority of my fics on ao3 are from years and years ago and i (hopefully) have continued to improve

18. Thoughts of writing dialogue in another language in fics?

i'm picky about it but when it's done well i think it's really fun and builds so much of the world/character. i think when it's bad it's really bad. when i go about it i try to think about like, a) do i know this language myself/do i know someone who does. if the answer is no i try to keep it really minimal. b) how do people who know multiple languages approach speaking those multiple languages naturally in real life. like (IN MY EXPERIENCE) ppl don't tend to switch languages for random words mid-sentence unless those words are like, mom, dad, uncle, aunt, ect...maybe swearing if they're less familiar with one of the languages and don't know slang/swearing in it...but again when it's done well it's really good and i'm not an expert. i just can kinda tell when it feels off when i read it, if that makes sense...(it's the same way i feel about grammar lol. sometimes i can just tell it's a little Off)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

probably either fma or soul eater or the sister's grimm book series when i was in middle school. or maybe doctor who? idk i had a lot of fanfic notebooks that i have since destroyed and then regretted destroying

20. Favorite fic you have written?

at the present moment it's in these coming years my kagehina love letter but again i feel like it changes constantly. like the more i write the better i get and the more the newest/most polished thing i've written sort of Becomes my favorite just by default of my satisfaction level with it. sorry if that's a bad answer

tagging @yuebings @dcyiyou @burins @cairoscene @cafecliche @perilously sorry if you've been tagged already also if you want to do this and i didn't tag you just say i did. I'll shut up now

[clearlynotjanus]

[leans into the mic hesitatingly. a loud screech of feedback is heard as i try to speak]

uhhhh hello? anyone still......here? hard to see the audience past the stage lights, you know how it is.

i haven't thought about this fandom in over a year. while writing my last loceit fic, i got very overwhelmed with how bogged down with terminology & lore & my general wordy writing style that i burned out of finishing the last chapter. at the same time, my partner & i rediscovered another anime...& when our hyperfixation there ended, we got into ffxiv... then bg3... & now dragon age... i've always disliked that about myself. never able to stay in one place long enough to feel like i've left an impact or had done anything interesting.

but i got the kindest comment of my ao3 history the other day on that abandoned loceit fic & i've been ruminating on it since. the person talked about how, despite it not being finished, they still thought about it at least once a month & came back to read it with excitement from time to time. i thought of all the fics i do the same with & compared myself to them... ofc there's a lot to be said about not treating fanfic authors or "fandom famous" people differently than anyone else, because online numbers are fake & all that, but there's an undeniable admiration, i think, we all have for people with "large accounts" or high kudos counts or exceptional artistic talent that we feel we don't compare to. i thought of myself in that lens for a moment, as someone who wrote something impactful enough to leave that lasting of a mark & it made me so happy. i felt fulfilled by it.

writing has always been my one talent, i've always thought it was the only thing i was destined to be good at. my opinion of my writing has hit peaks & valleys in my life of course, we all go through self doubt & ego issues, but at the end of the day, writing has been the one constant about myself. the one thing i've always wanted to challenge myself with, the one thing i could go back to, if nothing else. home.

with the current state of my country (america, unfortunately) i've started to think that my fantasies of writing anything "worth" reading are futile. it seems insignificant in the grand scheme, to create art when the world is ending. i never dreamed about any aspiration in my own lifetime. i've always wanted to leave something behind worth analyzing. worth talking about. worth exploring. sitting in various liberal arts classes in my life, i always daydreamed about one of my stories being the subject matter someday. long after i was dead. it's dismal to think that it might not be my own inability to create something worthy that prevents that daydream from coming into fruition.

every other queer person is rallying. they're brave for it but i can't bring myself to join the movement. not that anything i say or do will be monumental of course, but no one knows how big of a thing is going to come out of this. the little people might be caught up in it too. someday soon, sites like ao3 & tumblr may be gone, or at least inaccessible for americans. & that's terrifying. so i think of the person who left that lovely, inspiring comment on a fic i hadn't thought about in over a year, instead. because even if i never accomplished any of my bigger goals with my writing, i did, at least, leave a little bit of an impact & that has to be enough.

i want to say that i'll finish that fic in honor of all this. it feels right to say that, but with everything going on, i don't know if it would be the truth. i have a commission currently, & i've buried my head in the dragon age sands for now. i want to. i reread the whole fic & my notes from it for the last part & it's good. it's better than i remember it being, & i want to finish it. but as most of you have realized by now, i'm very bad with promises lmao

i do miss this fandom though, everything else aside (asides lmao) i had some good friends here before i burnt out & burned my bridges about it. i'm sorry for that. i hope everyone here has been doing better than me at least

[gorgeousgalatea]

You know what I'm trying to finally write again and anywhere is a good place to start so here are some bite sized reviews of my bite sized YA binge (including two other books I read a few weeks earlier):

The Narrow, by Kate Alice Marshall: This was a book I borrowed after skimming it with a strong impression I would enjoy it, and thankfully I was right! The main character is the daughter of two well off but neglectful parents who spend way more time on her deeply troubled brother, to the point where she doesn't find out they forgot to pay for her final year at boarding school until she's already arrived. Fortunately the wealthy parent of a sickly student is willing to cover her tuition, as long as she rooms with and takes care of that student for the year. Pity she's pretty sure she's the reason that student is sick. Oh, and their dorm room is haunted as hell.

The Narrows deals a lot with the subject of abuse--both romantic and familial--while couching it in an atmospheric ghost story. I liked the tone and the characters, and one thing I really enjoyed is that it used its first person narrative to paint a very familiar romantic fiction picture of the main character having no one else to relate to or rely on other than their new love interest who is ~the only one who understands them~, and deliberately made that the product of her own insecurities. The ghost and possession element also explored sense of self and identity in a way that pinged pretty hard with my ozqrow days. Bittersweet ending, but would recommend for anyone into sapphic ghost stories.

Before the Devil Knows You're Here, by Autumn Krause: Ehh this was the mediocre apple story. I loved the summary--the main character's struggling single father passes away suddenly, and before she even has time to mourn, the monster her father has been warning her about her entire life shows up on their doorstep to steal away her brother as well, so she sets out to find the monster and save her brother. I dunno, the problem could be me, that summary had me expecting Guillermo del Toro style Labyrinth--which I am now realizing someone could say "don't you just mean Pan's Labyrinth" and no, I mean the relationship with maturity and sexual awakening where the monstrous is outwardly monstrous--and that's...really not what it was at all. It was "what if Johnny Appleseed made a deal with the devil," which kudos, I have not seen before, but wasn't really into in its execution. I do appreciate a heroine with guile, though, and she does have that.

I Fed Her to the Beast and the Beast Was Me, by Jamison Shea: The premise of this one is pretty straightforward--a talented black ballet student makes a deal with a dark entity to have the opportunity to actually make it into the prestigious Parisian ballet troupe she's been chasing after her whole life, and discovers that being part of a cult with monstrous powers is actually less toxic than being a girl of color in the Parisian professional ballet scene. I really liked this one, it wasn't afraid to have its leading lady be monstrous and cruel and wrong, and it also made it clear which parts of her mindset were just the product of spending so long in a cut-throat industry that spent every moment rejecting her. The ending was a bit too neat for me, but overall the atmosphere was great. Genuinely almost anything with a title like that is probably something I'll end up enjoying lmao

What Stalks Among Us, by Sarah Hollowell: Two best friends get stuck in an evil corn maze! This wasn't my favorite, but I still enjoyed it a lot; the main character's habit of self-censoring even among friends was very resonant with me. The story hits the ground running and has good momentum on exploring the mystery of the maze and how it came to be. The nature of the maze is ultimately rooted in [womp womp] trauma, so that's a major element of the story, and unfortunately there is greater focus on the main character's trauma with her best friend supporting her, but I guess that's to be expected in a first person narrative. It still is ultimately about their friendship! Which is portrayed as valuable as is without developing into anything else.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, by Andrew Joseph White: Ultimately the most brutal of the books but I think that was what I liked about it. The main character is a trans boy in an 1882 London where mediums are a hot commodity but the women are only prized as potential baby makers for male mediums. The main character is caught trying to escape his conservative family and inevitable impending marriage, and sent to a corrective boarding school designed to turn mentally unwell spiritually sensitive women into demure brides. This boarding school is run about the way you would expect, and most of the story is the main character realizing just how bad it is and figuring out what can be done to escape. The exactly one way he's gotten lucky is that he and his future betrothed turn out to be t4t and are really quite cute together, but the main character is an aspiring surgeon and that means the story is not afraid to get visceral. Which really elevated the tone; there's room for a sequel in the ending to this one that I wouldn't mind reading.

[serverusslaype]

(This isn't an ask, I just wanted to remain anonymous.)

Hey, I just wanted to say that your writing is so moving to me and I'm very glad that you're back! The way you write is so captivating and it's like I'm right there in the moment, so big kudos to you :] Honestly, anyone sensible understands that we all need a break sometimes and there aren't really limits when it comes to needing time to get back on the horse. I'm sorry you were struggling for so long, but I can assure you that I, along with a couple other friends, just kept re-reading your beautiful work and anyone who took your hiatus the wrong way can step on a nail. I haven't read the newest chapter yet but I'm definitely nervous about it, considering what happened in Ch. 14 lmao. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to create this AU in the first place, it's truly been an emotional rollercoaster (in the best way) and I hope you're doing well; take all the time you need for the chapters, we'll devour whatever you feed us regardless of how much time passes in between chapters 🤭

hello, :)

this message made me emotional and i don't know why, probably because it was incredibly empathetic and i am but a sensitive, soppy soul, so thank you for taking the time to write this out. <3 i know it's been so long since i've posted (april i think?), i sort of go through phases of like 'YES NEED TO WRITE' and then something like 'ahh fuck, need to write, but don't know what or how to-', and it just like.. suuucks. honestly how do authors pump out whole ass trilogies in such a short period.. but either way i feel like i'm sort of, potentially,, back into a writing mood? testing the waters atm. i don't want to just write something just to get it out, you know what i mean? i want it to actually be... of somewhat good quality, so i try and only write when i want to, mentally?

and no, thank you!!! for even giving my ideas a chance, like i deadass just woke up one day and messily wrote that first chapter because it just slipped into my head and this all sort of got out of control LOL, but in all honesty, i love it, but sure-- there are some things i wish to/want to change but it will just take a verryyy long time and i will for sure lose motivation and just.. end up scrapping the whole thing so i'm forcing myself to not do that. and i'll probably end up wanting to go back to how it first was anyway haha. but again thank you so much for reading and supporting this and me, i appreciate and love you, so much. the internet can be such a daunting and scary place but in the corner of it all, there's you guys <3.

ok before i literally start crying imma head out. <3

(thank you again honestly i was not expecting these kinds of messages when logging back on :') )

i hope you have a fantastic day, anonymous, and everyone else that did read all of this gobbidigook above ^ <3

-mari x

[pretentiouswreckingball]

20 questions for fic writers!

thank you for the tag lovely kay @xjustakay <3

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

Six so far!

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

57,991 —which might not seem much but still, very proud of it, specially because a year ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed writing that many words.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

So far only marauders, but I have some drarry/golden trio era in the making, as well as some PJO and GO so, we’ll see!

4. What are you top 5 fics by kudos?

Since I don’t have that many I’ll only put my top three:

Archenemies (or so he thought) -> Sirius hunts down his bestie James for ditching him on a prank and finds him cuddling with the enemy (a black cat) who turns out to be more of a pain in the ass than he expected, especially because for some reason, the little shit acts a lot like his brother.

Don’t threaten me with a good time -> Ah, Black cats, mischievous little things, aren’t they? Known for being a pain in the ass for older brothers, a good companion for best friends and devil incarnated for lovers and love ones alike.

When it rains -> It all comes down to a certain bus stop on a rainy week. Between interesting chats, pastries and being almost ran over by a purple car, there’s something about the person they share the bus stop with that seems familiar. (Basically a bunch of meet-cutes and pinning idiots being, well, idiots)

5. Do you respond comments? Why or why not?

I do, yes! I love responding to comments but sometimes I tell myself I’m going to answer later in the day and I forget :( but I do love comments, they make my day every time. 💘

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hands down it will be slow dancing in the dark, the whole fic is quite angsty, at least for me, but I wouldn’t say it has a angsty ending, maybe a little— nvm I just re-read it. Yeah, it’s sad.

7. What is a fic your wrote with the happiest ending?

My babygirl some sunny day, that fic is my go-to when I remember this fandom is based in death, angst and misery hahaha. Some sunny day is like a, well, a ray of sunshine lmao. It has my favorite setting, my fave pairs and some Spanish here and there. Love it dearly.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully no, maybe some weird ones but nothing that I would count as hateful. Really grateful for that, dunno what I would do if I were to receive those on a daily basis, never post again most likely lmao.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Haven’t post smut yet but I wrote some, still in the doc and everything but is there, waiting to be posted 😈

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest you’ve written?

Not really my thing, no. but maybe! who knows

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of, haven’t looked Wattpad yet tho.

12. Have you ever has a fic translated?

No, but if anyone would want to, it would be lovely!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

It’s in the making, actually! @sequinhaze and I are doing a drarry fic, so there’s that 😌

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

All-time favorite is a not easy to answer, i mean currently it’s drarry and jeggy but my first was Percabeth and Solangelo, I was a sucker for them and still am. So maybe them.

15. What’s a wip you what to finish but doubt you ever will?

The empire of the sun trilogy jsjsjs maybe I’ll finish the first one but the other two seem pretty far away for me right now, but one never knows so.

Also copying Kay’s answer here because my google docs also looks like a graveyard of unfinished works lmao.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I believe I give a solid characterization and maybe storytelling (?? Inner monologue maybe? love to see the chaos i created in my little puppets.

17. What are you writing weaknesses?

Run on sentences, I’ve been told I tend to do that a lot hehe and comas —also it costs me greatly to just write, if I’m not in the mood it’s hard for me to just go for it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

1000% I’m favor. Some of my fics have French/Spanish in them, I like the idea of leaving non-spanish speakers to go to the end notes or to google translate or straight-up wonder what the hell I’m talking about jsjsj

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Some 1D and JB back in the day, so you bet your asses y/n and I were besties

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

About time, scars and the brightest stars is my absolute favorite. That fic is the love of my life, it has everything I love and more and rn I can put the link bc I took it down so I can finish it all and post it in one go but yeah, that one.

no pressure tags: @sequinhaze @a-fiery-fox @residentrookie @magswrite @fruityindividual @nevvaraven @inevitablestars @arakhnee

[ohbo-ohno]

20 questions for fic writers

thankssssss @ceilidho for the tag <333 i'll tag anyone who sees this and wants an excuse to do it lmao (also @vanderilnde)

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

a measly 10

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

a less measly 215,864

3. What fandoms do you write for?

call of duty!!! + a couple wips from a couple scattered fandoms, but really just cod

4. Top five by kudos.

kinktober, don't leave me locked in your heart, i'll eat you whole, run until you feel your lungs bleeding, and then my collection of x reader drabbles

5. Do you respond to comments?

i kinda wish i did more, and i usually respond to my friends! but tbh i noticed when i first started posting that i would feel like crazzzyyyy guilty if i didn't respond to every comment, so i decided it was better to respond to none. also i kept saying the exact same things again and again

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

personally i think it's either "run until you feel your lungs bleeding" or "i'll eat you whole", just because i feel like both of those have my meanest version of ghost? so it feels angstiest to leave johnny/reader with him lmaoo

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

ummmm maybe my price x reader meet cute drabble? or this kinktober gaz x reader? could be this 141 x reader kinktober drabble?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

no!!! not on ao3! i've gotten a few comments here and there that are pretty clearly making fun of me, but never a straight up capital-h Hate comment

9. Do you write smut?

exclusively

10. Craziest crossover.

couldn't do it, sorry!!! however if someone out there wants to write a moon knight x hannibal crossover where will is one of marc's alters, link it to me and i'll give you my life savings

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of? but i've had at least one uploaded into an ai bot, which i count as stealing personally

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

not that i know of!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i have not! i would be totally totally willing to, if i could get over my personal crazy low writing self-esteem lmaoo

14. All time favorite ship?

klaus and caroline from the vampire diaries and it's not even close. i don't think it's a lie to say i've read over 600 fics of them. they're my everything

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

an old abandoned konig x reader. gave up on it about 2.3k

16. What are your writing strengths?

i genuinely could not tell you lmaoo. i've got a really negative view of myself so i have a crazy difficult time evaluating my strengths and weaknesses!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i really struggle with anything that doesn't actually lead to sex, as much as it makes me sound like a gooner lmaoo. i have a hard time moving Plot along without it feeling super obvious that that's what i'm trying to do

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

i hate hate hate when it's not translated immediately. sorry, even when the perspective character isn't supposed to know, i get really annoyed when i don't know what a character is saying lmao

19. First fandom you wrote in?

god, maybe shadowhunters? i tried my hand at writing a few pages for pretty much everything i liked when i was younger, so i'm really not sure what was really the first one. could be shadowhunters, grey's anatomy, five night's at freddy's, harry potter, percy jackson.... any one of those is totally possible

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

it's probably my least popular fic but i wrote a werewolf soap x monster hunter ghost drabble that i still love so much. but i also really really love i'll eat you whole still :)

[geddy-leesbian]

20 questions for fic authors

tagged by @courtofparrots

1. How many works do you have?

20

2. What is your Ao3 word count?

122,736

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Resident Evil rn, but I've written for Starcraft, MTG, Fire Emblem, pokemon, and X-Men. (Some of them aren't things I've bothered putting on ao3, and I know I had one X-Men fic on AO3 at one point but I deleted for reasons I can't remember tbh.)

(Also for the rest of these questions I'm just going to focus on my RE fics since my others are all ancient)

4. What are your top 5 fics by Kudos?

1. How Do You Talk To Girls?

2. oh my god, it's my life, what am I doing kicking at the foundation?

3. Something A Little More Plain

4. Digital Man//Open Secrets

5. The Analog Kid

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to, but I'm not always great at it. I 100% do read and appreciate all of them, brain machine is just bad at responding

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

a long-awaited treasure at the end of my cruel fate

(Obviously)

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

well it's not posted, but the series that starts with sum of my confession will have the happiest ending

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not yet (I would welcome it tho because spite motivates me. I came up with my entire "Luis was groomed by Umbrella and went to a special Umbrella boarding school" headcanon because someone said the timeline for Luis is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE and THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY he could believably be 28 in RE4 and I was mad and wiki deep dived for other RE child prodigal and found out they had a whole ass sketchy boarding school for child prodigies they poached)

9. Do you write smut? If so, which kind?

I try, but I always feel so cringe about it and don't post it so ://

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest crossover you’ve ever written?

Not seriously

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

back when I was in middle school on quotev lmao

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

For "all-time" I'm going to have to be niche and say Valerian Mengsk/Matt Horner because I have shipped those two the longest/most consistently out of everything I've ever shipped

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

oh god so many. mostly the second chapter of my "first" (technically it was my second and another was first but I deleted it for Reasons) Serrennedy fic. The draft just got too messy and there's so much that I've just given up on it

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'd say dialogue!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Everything except dialogue lmao, but especially action

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm not brave enough to

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I was literally writing pokemon fanfic in first grade. any time we had a creative writing assignment where it was possible I would write a pokemon story.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Oh god that's a tough one. Generally whatever I'm working on the most is my favorite, so I'd say Is Any Killer Worth More Than His Crime? but that feels like a cop out so,,,, Digital Man is really high up there, but I feel like the fact the fic that comes before it in the series (New World Man) is 100% my least favorite and my worst fic drags Digital Man down by association. So I think the number one spot should go to oh my god… instead.

as usual anyone who wants to do it can say I tagged them :3

[protect-daniel-james]

ao3 wrapped: 3, 5, 15, 17, 18, 30!

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

I have to say The stands of Villa Park. It opened a whole new territory for me. I'm shocked I never thought of this concept (ha ha) earlier. I'm shocked I didn't think of this when writing my academic thesis - because I was writing exactly about this, the connection between a club and a stadium and its city. That's probably why I also feel so strongly about these Enfermo del fútbol series.

And, honestly, I just writing these stories about Unai, because....it would explain so much of his behavior, but also make him truly special. And, without getting too personal, I think writing about Unai like this, and reading a little bit on conceptum/objectum sexuality, sort of also worked for me personally as a way of...realizing that sexuality and being sexual is nobody else's business and you can do whatever you like/want to try? Like, it's your body and your fantasy and your imagination, and if you want to fuck whatever you'd like...go for it? Unai staying behind at the stadium, dropping to his knees and kissing the random seat does not hurt anyone, and it makes him happy. So why not? Better than Jamie Jamie cousin Jamie doing A Bad Thing....and needing to control another person. Unai's relationships with clubs, football, stadiums, trophies is definitely healthier and more equal lmao. I just love that. I love how it's like a completely different level of fanfiction?

And yeah, I'm also shocked and happy that other people read these Unai fics! Because I know they are weird, I'm well aware of that. But I hope they are also somewhat wholesome?

5. What work of yours got more feedback than expected?

I was always surprised at the amount of kudos and comments for the Grizione fics - because there's very few works for them in English (although they have so much material and seem to be quite a popular and reasonable ship!) so I just always assumed maybe people weren't into them. On the contrary, maybe me being one of the few who write for them in English makes it easier to harvest the kudos and hits and comments, he he. Honestly, I stopped looking at hits and kudos the moment I started writing obscure ships - I know that the number of hits and kudos does not guarantee a quality fic. And I'd much rather write an obscure fic about something I'm really into than force myself to write Messi/Neymar or something similar that I just don't find interesting at all.

And the three Scamacca/Paquetá fics! It was a very random pair - and it will never come back again lmao but it was fun. I always got such angry vibes from Gianluca - and Paquetá with his dances was the perfect foil. Funnily enough, I started the year with writing a bit of piss kink with them....and look where we are now. So yeah, I was shocked anyone was reading that.

15. What WIP are you taking into the next year with you?

I hope to finish the two WIPs that are halfway done and fully thought out - Ange/Poch and Unai in Russia. Hopefully before Christmas. And maybe work on the 3rd chapter of Fate up against your will so that could also be done by the end of the year?

I have so many ideas that I haven't even started working on, so I suppose they will happen either in late December or next year:

Unai staying at Villa Park after the match against Legia, worried that the stadium was hurt - wanting to feel what the stadium feels, wanting to be there, feel as one. Unai self-meditating himself into a state of feeling like one with the stadium (get ready for the concept of mental orgasm).

Jamie-centered/POV fic. Jamie remembering Dad doing things....saying things...showing him things....Jamie thinking of Franko. A LOT.

Daddy Abramovich/Sheva on the boat, with Sheva's wife as well. A lot of grooming, although *nothing* happens, really. Nothing at all.

Daddy Abramovich/Franko on the boat. Nothing happens, really. Nothing at all.

Todd Boehly/Graham Potter. Once I figure out how.

Eddie/Jason origin story. Or maybe more like... JT origin story. Why is he like he is, why is he so loyal, so desperate, so devoted, so willing -

the Mikel/Unai academic!AU! - I'd rather keep it as a one-shot because I can't handle more multi-chaptered fics haha

and probably many more that I haven't even put down on paper as ideas ...

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

I think this has to be a tie between Franko and Unai! One Sad Round Man and one Greasy Basque Vampire. I love them both, albeit a bit differently.

Franko is such a sad character, a product of his parents, influenced by all the shitty things that Dad did and said in his childhood - and I'm surprised more people didn't build on this well-known fact that his Dad was toxic. It provides such a good background to the character - the repression, the need to be like Dad, to please others, to be complacent - it sets up the whole tragic story beautifully. Honestly, I might know the most about Franko out of all footballers now because of the extensive research that's been going on since early summer. And I don't even like him.

Unai, Unai, my sweet anxious Basque vampire - I truly fell in love with him this year. Here I have the advantage of being almost the only person who writes fics about him - so there's not much to work with/dispute. And all the other reasons are mentioned in the response to no. 3.

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

Probably the Redknapps, especially Harry in the recent fic! I can't figure out what is his *problem*, what is his reasoning, what is his motivation - - - With Jamie, I wasn't initially sure what is he actually like, but I think now we figured out ha ha. But Harry...idk. Also, the fact that he's this old, old-school, English, probably very inappropriate guy...I don't want to make him a caricature, but also I want the sleaziness (but also the charm! that's why people love him!) to shine through.

Also, Mikel in Txoria txori. I still need to...get more into his motivations and reasonings. I don't want him to just observe Unai, I want him to also show his personality.

I'd say writing any "new" character is a challenge because I'd hate to make everyone the same. I want every single character to have their own characteristics, to be different from others, to behave and speak differently, to do different things - I don't want my Ashley Barnes to be interchangable with Sheva or Scamacca lol.

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

That there will always be people who will read the most twisted and fucked up and weird stories that I can come up with (and I'm so happy with that!). This year was very liberating - I just wrote whatever I wanted, honestly, and seeing that still a few people read and liked it was so nice! I write a lot of self-indulgent fics but obviosuly a feedback is always welcomed!

[angelicgarnet]

20 questions for fic writers

thank you for tagging me @louwhose !!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

39!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

237,923.... I thought it'd be more

3. What fandoms do you write for?

right now i'm mostly writing for the legend of zelda tbh.... i plan to write more wwdits someday though

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Bared Fangs (wwdits)

Getting It Right (wwdits)

an anonymous fic that i'd rather not associate with this blog

Love Spell (ofmd)

another anonymous fic that I don't want to associate with this blog lmao

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yes!!! I try to respond more often than not, comments make me so happy and I want people to know i'm grateful for them!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

hmm... tbh I don't write a whole lot of angst? the closest I got is bittersweet, and I think the ending of lost in the woods (legend of zelda) is somewhat bittersweet

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Getting It Right has such an adorably fluffy ending ngl

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope! i've gotten a slightly rude comment here and there but nothing intentionally hateful

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

yes, and I always post it anonymously because I am ashamed lmao

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

nope!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that I know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no but i'd love if someone did!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i've attempted it a few times but none of them have gotten finished unfortunately

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

that's always changing tbh. right now it's zelink but I would have said the same thing about nandermo a few months ago

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

there was a tuck everlasting hannibal au I started a few years ago but I never finished it and probably never will because I don't have much motivation to write for that fandom anymore

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'm good at writing funny dialogue I think!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

using the same phrases too often. sometimes I add a bunch of unnecessary details when describing things too which makes it kinda cluttered

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i think it can work as long as you're not relying too much on Google translate

19. First fandom you wrote for?

warrior cats LMAO I used to write dumb warriors crack fanfiction when I was like 12 and it was entirely "rawr XD" humor

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

it changes a lot honestly hmm.... i'm really fond of this autistic nandor fic I wrote (Heavy Quilt), it was very cathartic to write and I sometimes find myself re-reading it when i'm having a rough time

i'm also really fond of 08/01/13, which I wrote for a hannibal flashfic a while back. my writing has improved a LOT since then so it's not the best fic i've written, but I am still proud of the story itself :3

i'll tag @faelapis @bjdeogame @farore-or-less and @fifthnormani and anyone else who wants to do this!

[jlf23tumble]

I read through your larry post and you mentioned the peace ring. Harry wore it last over a year ago in September and on the anniversary twitter larries were waiting for it to come back, they even wanted a harry london walk with him wearing it. That pap walk they would tolerate. When it didn't happen, they turned to louis. He had a show that day and wore a green shirt, olive green, olive like offering an olive branch, like asking for peace, bam peace ring was back! I cringed so hard when I read that but I used to be like that too so I couldn't even be mad. But then I started questioning my sanity and if everything else i believed about clues and messages larry was sending was wrong and made up. probably most of it. But then i think about the louis maison shirt on harrys house release day and I question it again. But I'm chill about all this. Maybe they broke up a long time ago or maybe they're on off, maybe still together, maybe in an open relationship. Whatever we'll never know so why stress about it. I think mostly on Tumblr everyone is more relaxed about it. It's the new larries who don't grasp any of this and think management is still controlling them and larry are blinking more code at us that are annoying as fuck.

anon 2: Not that anon, but thank you for your that brilliant long ask answer you just gave. I joined in this crazy H&L world only last January after I caught wind of the second E breakup and it really felt like "holy shit, there might really be something here, they really might be about to come out, etc." It's been an interesting time so far in the fandom, and I think I'm more in line with your way of thinking recently. Things just feel...meh. There's a weird coldness to the fandom right now, almost a forced belief like you mentioned in your previous answer. I'll always believe there was SOMETHING going on, but to this current day? Probably not. Thanks for your sanity. :)

-----

Amazed anyone read that long-ass answer, lmao, but thank you! As for thinking people on tumblr are somehow more relaxed about it, beg to differ, anon 1, based on a quick lurk just this sec, but kudos to you for keeping that dash locked down! Without much going on at the moment, it's quiet in the deep, so to speak, but make no mistake, it's out there, waiting! Even today, there are people out there saying, ooooh, tons of larry signs at Louis's show near the stage, and you could see how happy he was compared to last night!! Like, it's some kind of GOTCHA, ipso facto, and uh, yeah, that's not cause/effect, bb, but okay! Spread that shit! Live your version of the truth! For real, you can make ANYTHING a reach if you have the arm capacity for it, give me two pieces of something, and I'll stitch it for you, whole cloth, there's a 28 in it, I just know it. It's always so tempting to whip up a sideblog that goes full hog unhinged, like, jesus, it's not hard, lmao