#let's do it i've got some downtime between experiments

[blackjackkent]

Food Shopping :)

(From this ask game: “Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it!”)

This one's pretty much pure fluff and has been sitting half-done in my drafts for a while. XD After their arrival at Rivington, Karlach gets left behind at camp while Hector scopes things out by the gate, and she and some of the other companions take advantage of the downtime to replenish their food stocks from the Rivington market.

Inspired by this art by @raintides which is incredibly fkn adorable. XD

Snippet:

“Ah, hello and good morning!” Gale calls with a good-natured grin as she emerges from the tent. “Welcome to the realm of mud.” “Holy fuck, no kidding.” She laughs, looking around. The abandoned farm where they’ve made camp is ankle-deep muck. Gale has dried a long pathway around the fire and between the tents, but the surrounding ground is a filthy wasteland that bears only the slightest relation to its former life as a farmyard. Experimentally, Karlach takes a step off the makeshift path and grins at the sucking sound her boot makes as it squishes into the mud. “Nice. Like punching a lemure.” “Well, you’d know better than I.” Gale sits down next to the fire and peers into one of the supply bags pensively. “I'm sure Rivington is an absolutely lovely destination in the general run of things, but our first few days have been altogether too damp for my liking. I think I speak for everyone when I say I am displeased with the accommodations.” “I dunno. I've kind of liked it,” Karlach says with a crooked grin. “Cold rain's a nice balm on the old engine, and the Hells never had much of it.” “That's the spirit,” Wyll puts in good-naturedly. He's sitting in the flap of his tent in trousers and undershirt, pulling his boots on. “At the very least, it's a nice change of pace from the Shadow-Cursed Lands.” “Anything would be,” Shadowheart murmurs. She’s sitting near Gale at the fire, her knees drawn up to her chest, staring into the flames pensively. Karlach cocks her head to one side, then drops down to sit next to her.“You doing all right?” she adds in a lower voice.  Shadowheart flinches slightly at the question. “I'm fine,” she answers, too sharply.  No way she's fine of course. No one falls into the Shadowfell, turns on their goddess, and gets dragged through a torment dimension, and then comes out fine. Fine people don't chop their hair up and dye it white overnight. Fine people don't go completely silent for the whole journey to the city.  But Karlach has plenty of experience being not-fine herself, and she knows there's no point in trying to talk about it before Shadowheart is ready. So she just smiles. “Good,” she says mildly. Then, louder - “What’s for breakfast, Gale?” “Cheese!” Gale says brightly. “About all we’ve got left - and just on the edge of turning, too.”

[rodechi]

2024

I was debating for a while whether or not to write a midyear checkpoint for 2024. A lot has changed for me, and yet I feel most of my biggest prospects lie ahead of me still. But I feel that reflecting on where I am and how I got here is a good practice, nonetheless.

I kinda skimmed over it in my last post on here, but I would be remiss to not acknowledge the biggest change in my life: my relationship. I've written in the past about how I met Spowte, how things blossomed, how very lucky I felt being with him. I thought things could get no better. And yet, on November 11th, Spowte would do a stream that basically changed the course of my life.

It was a silly premise. Spowte, a novice artist; and Ica, who had lots of experience under his belt. The pair would be given prompts (mostly from Spowte's stream audience) and challenged to do sketches in Microsoft Paint in a 5-minute time limit. And of course, while they were focused on their work, it would be my job to be in the voice chat with them both to be a time-keeper and to run crowd-work -- to read chat for them, do bits and comedy to fill the downtime, and just be good company. It was a goofy stream filled with lots of laughter and fun. I remember going to bed happy that night.

Nearly a week later I woke up to a longer-than-average message from Ica. He told me how he had had such a fun time, and in wake of some bouts of self-discovery, he had come to the realization that he had a crush on Spowte... and me. I was honestly surprised. I didn't know how to process it at first. He said it wasn't anything he was going to pursue in a particularly serious fashion, but since he and I were both going to MFF and our friend group overlapped so much, he just wanted to let us know beforehand to prevent any awkwardness.

On the topic of MFF: not particularly long prior to this development with Ica, I had been invited to a group chat with a couple friends, one of whom was another bird I knew (but not very well), Ezra. We tried to make plans for the convention and talked about a lot of stuff we wanted to do. The conversation also naturally led to us talking about how things were going in our lives and relationships, and we got to know each other better. Before too long, I found myself having a measure of fondness for Ezra, so I kept up conversation with them outside of that chat, excited to have a new old friend.

Ezra was also a friend of Ica, and so when Ica confessed to Spowte and me, I talked to Ezra about it. They told me they had been crushing on Ica. Invigorated by the earlier news, I decided to let Ezra know I had a crush on them in addition. And so, whereas I went to bed the night before with 1 love in my heart, the very next night I went to bed with 3 in there instead. Before too long I found myself realizing just how deep that affection ran and, after some introspection and conversation with Spowte, we agreed to explore polyamory.

My life since then has been a blur in all the best ways. It hasn't always been perfect. There were growing pains of it being the first relationship like this for most of us, but patience and a LOT of honest communication always won the day.

A few months back we all met up and spent a week at an AirBNB together. It was genuinely the coziest time of my life and the safest and most loved I've ever felt.

I'll spare too many details, but I wanted to devote this post overall to these wonderful dorks who make my every day so much better and filled with both love and light.

To Spowte, who always cheers me on and gives me direction when I'm lost.

To Ica, who always makes me smile and gives me strength when I'm weak.

To Ezra, who always reads me like a book and gives me comfort when I'm upset.

Genuinely, I could not ask for a better group to spend my every day with. My first thoughts when I wake are of you, as are my last when I fall asleep. And all between, my thoughts are always of you and the immeasurable love I have for you.

Thank you for being you.

[egittae]

he comes after class has let out with a speed only experience could grant. he's been in this odd basement so many times he can't even remember when he'd started, and every single time he's come has been for the same reason. even today, morion descends the steps with a single goal in mind: meeting up with his friend lambert.

the ethereal ball approaches quickly, and he knows there's doubtless going to be Young'un Shenanigans he'll need to monitor. for the sake of the kids, right? it totally has nothing to do with the free food and drinks he's heard about. nothing at all to do with that.

more to the point, he'll need a comrade in arms to help put a stop to silliness, break up impending drama, and totally raid the refreshments. there isn't a finer person whose help he'd seek to employ.

he makes it down to lambert's office and knocks erratically---a unique pattern he's established solely for when he comes down this far. letting himself in, morion winks. "hey there, lambert. hope this ain't a bad time," he opens, walking inside regardless of whether this really WAS a bad time or not. "the ball's comin' quick, eh? only a few more days!"

he heaves a dramatic sigh as he leans against the wall, face playfully exasperated. "thinkin' about wranglin' all those crazy kids on my own... it's just about keepin' me up every night! i figure things may go better if i've got a partner!" with that, he points straight at lambert, wearing a nearly face-splitting smile. "so! why don't ya join me in chaperonin' at the ball? i don't think people'll mind if we park our behinds by the snack table while we supervise..."

Lambert did always intend to go to the ball, though in his mind it was to merely supervise the students to make sure everything goes well and perhaps to just enjoy some downtime with his coworkers and other academy and church faculty. He’d never back down from a chance to mingle and chat, even more if it was during a party. Sure, the professor had no special outfit to wear, but he didn’t really mind. He had fixed up his hair and beard and that was more than enough.

He also knew that it was kind of tradition to go to the ball with a pair, but he didn’t pay much mind to it. Even if he didn’t have a partner he wouldn’t exactly be lonely inside a room packed with people. The ball was approaching and Lambert simply waited for it to come, if anything more excited for the fact that his students could attend- he was happy that despite not being official students of the academy they could still join in on the fun.

A knock on the door peeled his attention away from his papers, a rhythm he had come to remember now. He knew it was Morion even before the redhead opened the door and stuck his head into the room with a wink. “Did you run here in between your classes? If you manage to return without being late for your students it will be genuinely impressive.” Lambert leaned back into his chair, watching the other professor with an amused smile. There were many entrances to the Abyss, though most were placed awkwardly on purpose. To come down there usually meant to go out of your way for it.

“Oh?” A blond brow arched as his smile tugged into a small smirk. “You came all the way here to invite me to the ball, Sir Morion? I am flattered.” Despite the joking tone, Lambert was happy with it. That guy truly did go out of his way just to offer him up on it, even though it was already expected that he’d show up regardless. The dedication left Lambert giddy.

“I accept your proposal. Though please avoid drinking your face off in front of the students, they need a good example to follow.” With that, he winked- then laughed. A drink or two and some snacks with the company of a friend at a party was truly all he needed for the ball.

[maester-of-spreadsheets]

someone give that yuletide fic a reflection post!

I've never really done one of these Yuletide reflection posts before, but this year I have SO MUCH TO SAY OMG that I'm making one of these to get it out of my system.

So I wrote this fic with Subwoolfer fans basically trying to bend time and space to win Eurovision. Because whomst among us has not wanted to do that for a Eurovision fave at some point? (Eurovision juries turn on your location I just want to chat about the scores you gave Keiino) Except longterm subcubs are also space wolves (probably?) so they don't quite get it right.

I will ramble about the music aspects about this fic, but I also do want to talk about the writing parts! Basically I'm actually... a relative newcomer to Eurovision. I'm an American who started tuning in in 2018, but I really got on board last year when 2021 was so freaking fun and culminated in one of my actual faves that year winning! This somehow translated in me keeping up with the 2022 contest from early on... I think I started following along when Lithuania's song was announced and never quite let up. There's a lot of downtime in between Eurovision events, though, so I also became obsessed with Eurovision data vids. The ones like "biggest flop between semifinals and the final" or "songs with biggest differences between jury and public vote" (again, justice for Keiino.) This had me backtracking into Eurovision history a LOT over the spring and retroactively falling in love with a lot of different songs/moments.

Then, of course, 2022 Eurovision itself also had a lot of meme worth moments. Like the broken kinetic sun fiasco absolutely killed me. But there's a whole Eurovision 2022 iceberg meme that nailed the chaotic vibes of that contest in general.

So basically the writing of the fic was an attempt at a loving/joking synthesis of my times in music related fandoms in general, but also everything I'd absorbed in Eurovision fandom in particular. (And yes the author note about needing a VPN was a joke about how I have to use one to watch any of the performances on youtube.)

As for the music aspects of the fic... So, I've wanted to get into music editing/remixing/production etc for years now but kept getting cold feet about it. Eurovision this year was actually the thing that pushed me to finally go ahead and just do it. And I'm so glad it did! It also meant it felt appropriate to actually work on some music for this assignment.

I mostly only have things to say about the two full remixes.

First the bardcore cover. So, this one most involved just finding piano sheet music and then painstakingly programming the notes into midi files on my DAW. I quickly found out that just recreating those exact notes wasn't going to cut it, though. First the chorus... In the vocals, it's pretty much just a repetition of the same note over and over. That's fine in the original song because the point of the chorus is the intense beat drop. You don't really have that going for you in bardcore, though, so I spent a lot of time yeeting the vocal notes around... across octaves, across different stringed instruments, etc. I also put in a lot of movement in the instruments functioning as the bassline to create more interest.

Although, regarding the beat drop... I also spent an embarassing amount of time trying to reverse engineer what was going on with the drum beats in the song and reflect hem in the drums I had in this. There definitely came a point one night where I was giggling to myself over looping the second chorus over and over and over to try and figure out whether the drumming was different from the first chorus and if so how? and how do I reflect that?

And of course the final chorus does stuff with instruments that's really... not bardcore at all. The string instruments there sound more like orchestras from centuries and centuries later.

But, hey, these remixes were made by space wolves. They can't get everything right!

The lofi beats mix was almost the opposite experience. Instead of meticulously recreating the song, here I was basically... scrapping it (and several others) for parts and seeing how many times I could use the same small melody in different ways. This was because all of Subwoolfer's songs get incredibly bombastic early on and never let up. I'm not yet skilled enough at getting stems to, say, pull out of just a synth from one of the loud parts and slow it down. Limitations can be fun, though, and I definitely had a great time exploring these snippets of the songs from different angles.

It did make me a bit sad I really couldn't find a way to incorporate Grace Kelly or especially Turin. I say especially Turin because of the line "we're here to win that Eurovision/but with a broken kinetic sun it might tough." But then I was able to use audioclips from those in the mix, so that was something, haha!

Probably the most bonkers thing I did was isolate audio of Subwoolfer dropping those plastic balls with questions in them, and then using them as audio texturing for the lofi remix haha.

Okay, that's probably enough rambling from me! So, yes, tl;dr I got a fantastic assignment this year and had a lot of fun working on it.

[thebrazenphlegmatic]

Nobody here signed up for my thesis on downtime but you're getting it anyway.

For context: i never paid attention in class and I'm just barely too old to have had a smartphone in school. I currently have a smartphone and a job and i frequently use that smartphone to not pay attention to my job. I'm writing this on the clock.

Starting a few years back, I've spent a lot of time trying to piece together why i was so frequently dissatisfied or unfulfilled with how i was spending my downtime and one of the key things i was able to identify was the difference between a downtime activity and a filler activity. A filler activity is something you do to kill time. Something like playing a game or scrolling through social media or listening to a podcast while you're waiting for your bus stop or when you've got friends coming over and nothing you need to do until they get here. These are good things to do.

In contrast, a true downtime activity is something you engage in just *because* you like it. You're doing it not because you can't think of something else to do or just to pass the time, but because you actually enjoy the substance of the activity itself. You're doing something you like on purpose.

This is a distinction i had not been drawing and as a result i was accidentally burning all of my downtime on filler activities. And again, filler activities are not bad in and of themselves. Even spending a whole evening on filler activities isn't bad, especially if you're particularly drained/sore/sick/whatever. You only have so many spoons. But i was spending almost all of *every* evening just engaging in filler, with no substantial downtime. This was terrible for my mental health and i am still trying to be more cognizant and build better habits with how i spend my downtime.

(as a side note this distinction can be especially fraught with some kinds of games and tv shows which can straddle the line, so whether it feels like stimulation or an escape depends on how my brain is doing going into it but that's another whole thing)

Having a phone can really well facilitate those sorts of active downtime activities, especially if you're stuck in a place like work or school. I've planned whole d&d campaigns in my notes app at my desk. I've written stories on bathroom breaks. I've messaged friends I haven't seen in months and had engaging conversations with them.

But also a smartphone is an endless font of filler activities and there is enormous variation person to person and day to day whether having a phone is stimulating or just lets you coast.

I can see the temptation to ban phones in schools because i honestly believe from the bottom of my heart that if i specifically had had access to a smartphone through all of high school i would have spent less time being creative and more time shoveling filler into my brain. And even now, i need to constantly try to find tricks or patterns or habits to make sure that my phone time isn't just all filler, that sometimes I'm doing things that i enjoy on purpose. I think that my life now would be better with dramatically less Phone and I'm really glad high school Brazen didn't need to deal with all of this shit.

Most people aren't me. It would be foolish to try and project my own experience onto everyone today. I'm not coming in swinging hard for banning phones. I don't pretend to know what is best for everyone. I can't even figure out what is best for myself. But there is a little part of me that's saying i think headbutting a glass door would be less bad for my health than my current bad habits with burning time on the internet.

"kids don't pay attention in class anymore Because Of Phone" is so funny as an argument. students haven't paid attention in class since school was invented. my parents' generation were in there making flipbooks out of the corners of their notebooks and doodling random shit instead of taking notes. and they didn't have phones.

[comicaurora]

You mentioned that young justice did a lot you didn’t like after s1- how would your ideal season 2 and beyond be?

Oh man, that's a dangerous question to contemplate.

Caveat that this is how I personally would've liked to see it play out, and I haven't rewatched it in a while so I may be fuzzy on the details or timeline of events. And word of warning, this got long.

First move would be to bin the timeskip. We'd be letting the characters age up gradually - maybe one year a season. Since it's perfectly structured for episodic adventures, we can imply downtime between episodes to fill out a year - plus this gives us opportunities for regular birthday or holiday episodes without an obligation to do them every time. We have enough characters without real regular birthdays that I just think it would be cute if Wally was like "congrats Conner and M'gann, I don't know squat about the martian year or how clone time works so I've decided it's your birthday, I made Shazam get us a cake"

Nixing the timeskip gives us the opportunity to put focus on Robin becoming Nightwing as an actual arc of its own, which could be an interesting opportunity to adjust the way it happened in the comic - which couldn't quite be adapted wholesale, because in the comic Robin was running around leading the Teen Titans as Robin for years and years with the Titans before he decided it was time to forge an identity of his own, accepting that he was fully out from under Batman's shadow now that Jason Todd was officially the new Robin. There was some comic angst from Dick about Bruce never officially adopting him which we could loop into that arc, since this Batman is pretty perfectly designed for being a well-meaning but emotionally distant and uncommunicative dad. What I'd personally want to avoid is leaning two hard on the Angsty Robin angle, because (a) that was already covered by Teen Titans (which we'd also want to avoid too much overlap with) and (b) Nightwing is at his best when he's optimistic, cheerful and emotionally well-adjusted. It'd be more fun, I think, to explore a version of Robin that is burying his angst under optimism and cheer in an arc that culminates in his cathartic dad-issues convo with Batman and subsequently his transition to being Nightwing. This gives us opportunities for fun intercharacter dynamics! Robin spent most of season 1 being the reliable party member who had the most experience superheroing and helped keep everyone grounded. Giving him an emotionally destabilizing personal arc and letting the rest of the party take a turn helping him through it could be fun! Plus, we've got one telepath with no boundaries (M'gann), two characters with a lot of experience with Dad Problems (Artemis and Superboy) and two characters who will be 100% supportive even if they don't fully know what's going on (Kid Flash and Aqualad), so he wouldn't be lacking in people realizing what's going on and helping him through it. This is fully a result of my "nightwing is my fave" bias but I think it'd also really work to let the gang have more fun group dynamics with personal emotional stakes, and I think Robin deserves to be helped once in a while, ya know?

Most of the other s2 timeskip stuff I'd either want to nix or foreshadow better. I don't particularly like the Superboy/M'gann "breach of psychic trust" breakup but I think it'd bother me less if it was actually built up rather than skipped over. If we have to do it, let's start with the premise that M'gann doesn't really get that humans are much less comfortable with telepathy than martians are. It's planted in season 1 and mostly centered on Superboy, the only party member with explicit trauma about telepathic intrusion and mind control due to his clone conditioning. He's the one who reacts most harshly and angrily when M'gann does her psychic link thing, but his reaction mellows out as he learns to trust and rely on her to protect him against other telepathic intrusions.

But while this helps improve their relationship, it doesn't fix the underlying miscommunication on M'gann's end - she seems to feel like her peers freaking out about her telepathically popping into their heads is a temporary imbalance, especially since she does the psychic link thing basically every mission instead of having to invest in earbuds or communicators. She's so comfortable with telepathy, especially after season 1 where she reveals her one big secret (being a white martian with a monstrous base form) and no longer has anything to mentally hide from the gang, that I think this could be an interesting miscommunication to explore. Ultimately her teammates will still value their privacy and mental autonomy even after they've spilled their big secrets and learned to trust each other, but M'gann is unlikely to realize this because from her perspective they've just finally stopped being weird about this stuff. M'gann is essentially experiencing slow culture shock at realizing just how private humans and other non-telepathic people are about their thoughts, and how much they at best mistrust and at worst hate and fear the thought of anyone else popping into their heads and rummaging around. So really, I think the psychic breach of trust thing should happen earlier and in a more minor way than it did in the season we got. M'gann using her powers to make Superboy forget a fight they had is a breach of trust and very uncool, but it also seems a little too extreme for the dynamic and understanding we've seen these characters share - even if she'd be willing to do that to anyone else, I think she'd know that doing it to Superboy would be the number one way to break his already fragile trust in her powers.

I'd go with a more slow buildup - start with M'gann commenting unprompted on the casual intrusive thoughts of her peers, totally nonjudmentally (she knows better than anyone that thoughts don't make you a bad person, obviously) but in a way that still makes them uncomfortable or angry. Maybe give her a plot reason to invade someone's mindscape with the best of intentions - could go classic on that one, give us a supervillain with dream-invading powers or something. Encourage her to push the boundaries with her teammates that she doesn't seem to realize are there. Maybe let Martian Manhunter sit her down and give her the "no really, you can't keep your mind this open in casual interactions, it's not about being bad for you, it's about being bad for them" talk. M'gann needs to learn to understand what privacy means, and she needs to become willing to impose polite and moral limitations on how she uses her powers. Since we're negating the timeskip where Beast Boy is introduced into the team, maybe we could work that in here - as he's introduced and develops his powers and he and M'gann's sibling relationship becomes more pronounced, especially if we keep the thing about his mom dying, we have a good character in-road to getting M'gann to better understand how to bridge the gap between herself and humanity.

Personally I'd nix both "aqualad pretends to be a bad guy" and "artemis and kid flash retire from superheroing". I think the show started kind of over-relying on the "you thought I betrayed my friends but actually we planned the whole thing in advance" gambit after it worked so well in the first season, and not telling the team telepath about the secret plan was pretty textbook idiot plot stuff. If we really want Artemis and Aqualad undercover there are still ways to make that work, but I'd say push that way down the line. Give us more time with the team first. If we want Artemis and Wally to retire from superheroing to focus on college and their relationship, that's workable, but that'd be a season 3 or 4 thing at the earliest.

If we want to expand the cast, let's do it gradually - I favor episodic adventures, and "there's some new weirdness in *location* that turns out to be either a supervillain plot, a new kid superhero to give our phone number, or both" is pretty much ideal adventure-of-the-week stuff. If we absolutely must bring in Impulse and Blue Beetle, let's not make the stuff with the Reach the only thing happening that season.

The biggest difficulty with plotting this show is avoiding just making Teen Titans, But Again. That unfortunately means a lot of the best classic comic arcs are off limits without severe modification - Judas Contract, Terror of Trigon, even Brother Blood's whole thing are kind of nixed. This is probably why the show never brought in Raven or Starfire, even though they absolutely could and should. So I understand the appeal of bringing in other threats like supervillain conspiracies and alien invasions and alien invasions but different this time, but this party lineup is demonstrably at its best when it's dealing with less apocalyptic supervillains-of-the-week. That said, in the comics, Raven arranges for the New Teen Titans to form because she goes to the Justice League for help with the Trigon prophecy and they turn her away - an arc that would fit bizarrely well with this version of the Justice League, which are a bit more dickish than their standard portrayal. Letting her go to the already-formed Young Justice crew for help would let us introduce a modified and potentially shortened Trigon arc without having to centralize Raven in the cast like they did in Teen Titans and Titans - could just add her to the expanded roster of Miscellaneous Heroes They're Buds With after they beat up her evil dad. She's also a little older than the rest of the Titans in the comics (and looks MUCH older than them), which could be used in this adaptation and help set this version apart from the other Trigon adaptations that have a tendency to make her increasingly younger - could get a lot of mileage out of making her a slightly awkward and aloof young woman rather than an emotionally troubled child. (Plus, if we want a cheeky nod at the comic-run romantic subplot between her and Kid Flash without actually breaking up the Artemis/Wally OTP we could just have Wally be his usual level of casually flirtatious with this Cool Spooky Goth lady and be gently dismissed because he's "a bit immature" for her.) Also, give me classic '80s hair Starfire or give me death, Nightwing deserves a love interest who can and will bridal carry him

Also, if we absolutely must "kill" Wally, we're bringing him back in one season max. Getting disintegrated into the speedforce is basically just a day at the spa for speedsters.

Overall my angle would be leaning into the massive ensemble cast potential after a proper season or two of just getting to know the main crew and letting them develop and explore the status quo. Trickle in a few more kid heroes during the early episodic adventures. Sprinkle in some more episodes where they deal with one or more members of the Justice League without anyone being mind controlled at the time. Dial back the Grand Conspiracy angle and let our heroes have a few unconditional wins once in a while. More scaled-down character-focused episodes like Homefront and Coldhearted where we fix the camera on one member of the team and get really deep inside their head as they go through something emotionally taxing but are ultimately rewarded in the end. We can still dive to dark and traumatic levels, but we need to counterbalance it with unconditional levity and victories for the heroes so the grimdark stings more when it hits. More character focus, less sweeping conspiracies, no more skipping over major arcs of character development, un-kill Wally West 2k22

[caspercryptid]

thanks for sharing your collaborative writing process for HtF & NSB! Would you mind talking about your individual writing process as well for your non-collaborative works? (if you take a different approach)

Oh I do, and I'd be happy to! This is gonna be a little different from the collaborate answer because the main obstacle when working on my own is motivation, not editing or story structure. So my process is much more focused around jumping that hoop.

As I've been fairly open about, I'm pretty seriously disabled. I have ADHD, chronic pain, migraines, and chronic fatigue, and I'm what's sort of cutely referred to as a spoonie, which goes hand in hand with those things. So my process is pretty tailored to being gentle with myself.

Neil Gaiman once said something great on here in a post that I don't have the spoons to look up that went roughly along the lines of "Everything that isn't writing is writing too", as in all of the stuff you do that isn't writing when you're supposed to be writing is an important part of your process. You need rest, you need downtime, you need to listen to music and do stupid bullshit. What I do when I'm working on my own is consider where I'm at in a story and let it sit in my head until I get the right spark to keep going. What that looks like kind of depends on the project. Another great thing Neil Gaiman said is that you never learn to write a book, you only ever learn to write the book you're writing.

I've sort of let a couple of my projects sit for a bit because I've been juggling the collaboration and requests but just as a practical example, what's written between the stars, my conspiracy theory Jayvik au, actually requires some research. That is something I super have to Want to do to get it done. So for that one before I start a chapter I ask myself— what do I need to write the next chapter? What information do I have to have before I start? What usually happens is that I tell myself I don't need to write the chapter, I just need to answer those questions. But usually, by the time I've answered those questions, I'm in a much better mindset to write the chapter.

Another set of questions I ask myself that applies more to other fics is "what's stopping me from writing this chapter?" If I have no energy, that's a non-starter. For other people who aren't chronically ill the answer to that might be that you need to drink some coffee and you're Gucci, but if I don't have the energy to write, I need to go lie down. Full stop, non negotiable. It has been a major relief to stop trying to force my output on that. If it's not happening it's just not happening.

Another important answer is "I don't want to" to which the follow up is "why?" This is sometimes harder than you'd think. This Ain't A Scene experiences delays sometimes because the answer is "I don't think I can be funny right now" which there's also not really anything for! If I have to be in a certain brainstate to write, than either I listen to the fic playlist till I get there, or I wait it out. Sometimes the answer is "I don't know what happens next" and the answer to that is just... To think about it, or to ask someone else. Usually when I'm working on my own I have a big picture idea of where the fic is going in my head and then I put it on the tracks and push. I've run tabletop campaigns for a while so my other big rule is that everything is a chevkov's gun. I re-read my own writing to remember what I'm doing, pick up dropped threads, and stay on track. I play yes-and with myself. Instead of editing things out of chapters that don't fit, I ask myself why they got there and make that fit within the story framework. This sometimes takes the form of the macguffin, like the void box in HtF. When/if other elements of the story stall, I ask myself: what do I have in my bag of tricks? What have I set up? What can I deliver on? And rustle around until something clicks.

For short fics, it's all waiting for something to click. The last question I ask myself is "what do I want to write right now", and then I go looking through my inbox and turn things over until something sparks and I have an idea of what to do with it, and then I grab it and bang it out.

My actual writing process is much less helpful than the editing guide, unfortunately! I am mildly dyslexic, I usually do not edit much beyond running spell check. Once I've managed to nurture the right spark I sit down and I write until I run out of steam, and if it's not a complete chapter or a full prompt fill, that's fine! I put it down and go work on something else. On more style heavy stuff like Blood In Your Mouth, the project I'm working on where Viktor dies and Jayce is trying to necromancy him, I edit more than I do something like Scene. Sometimes serious emotional stuff requires tweaking because I want to make sure I use the right words. Most of my editing is re-reading the chapter before I post it and changing things that don’t quite work. 

On prompt fills, I usually try to come up with a really banger first line or paragraph, and then the rest kind of writes itself! The key for me is establishing a vibe and then keeping to that vibe unless a hard heel turn is required. This is also greatly aided by rereads of similar stuff, or from reading my own first line 12 times. The key to writer's block for me is always breaking ground. I type one sentence and if nothing else works, I close the document and do something else. Later, when I come back to that document, I've got a place to start!

Okay, I wrote this with a migraine, so I hope it was enlightening and not too rambling. I'm gonna sign it off with saying that anyone who finds my output intimidating should keep in mind that I've been in academics for like seven years. Once you reach a point where you have to write the damn thing or fail the class, having your pick of fanfiction in your inbox is a blessing. And ultimately— I've just had a shitton of practice! Writing every day has made me a very fast and much more effective writer, as has reading a lot of other people's work. Sometimes when I'm stuck I read Richard Siken's Crush (I actually own a copy and I highly recommend it but y'know, we can't all own books) and listen to music. I need input to have output! I think everybody does.

Thanks for the question, anon! This was a good think. Feel free to ask whatever if anything in here was confusing or not detailed enough.

[cator99]

You know except for head office because of the one time I was working with a Big Deal company and I uh breached my contractual confidentiality after everyone on our team got a very evil grimdark email from our boss and i may have during some downtime causally mentioned it to the dope lesbian in charge who had become my bestie and because I wanted to continue to improve the working relationship between our two companies and she assured me that everything was going so impressively smoothly and that if there were any complaints from anyone on her side of things they would be adressed to the workers on the floor directly so she was just as confused as everyone on my team was! and at the end of the day during huddle she brought up that she'd heard we recieved an angry boss email in front of everyone (oops) and again reassured us that our work has been nothing short of perfect and if that's ever not the case she wouldn't hesitate to let us know at that very instant... however evil Todd from head office snitched to our boss that someone leaked the fact that we got a curse in the form of email from her... boss CC'd everyone lashing out and saying that whoever brought that up to our client needed to fess up within the hour or she would call each and every one of us individually until she found out who did it and they would be reprimanded. I explained myself to her and that I never showed the email thus didnt breach anything and that as the ones working directly with the company in person that any issues can only be worked through via direct open communication because I also value this working relationships we have with our clients and want to do everything I can to ensure we deliver our absolute best etc etc and there wasn't even anything wrong which SHE confirmed (i assume she had just been bored and hungered to psychologically torment us) so yeah wasn't reprimanded because I'm highly regarded and also the district managers favorite boy but yeah since then I've had a somewhat stained reputation which is punishment enough I suppose. It's been an uphill battle to get a promotion since. Especially since I tried to leave the company for the one I'd been working with and the lesbian boss advised that while she and her whole team absolutely want me they also don't want our company's working relationships to suffer cuz they'd poached from us before which sounded like a massive point of contention and that I'd have to ask for my boss's blessing before they would consider moving forward. Boss never responded to my email about that. Stumbled into getting the company's top hiring manager's email (I'd been working in proximity with him all week while we set up the store and we vibed af, didn't know his position, just noticed that he carried himself very important and then asked him who I should ask if I'm looking to work for them and then he gave me his personal email!) and I did everything I needed to do in such an impressively timely manner... yet nothing came of it. I think that perhaps in my over-enthusiasm I came across as unprofessional... or even far too confident for someone with so little experience...... that's just how I roll... I like to think I just have a naturally-occuring CEO mindset. Smoke Too Tough. Swag Too Different. Etc. If it wasn't meant to be it wasn't meant to be but I mean damn. What I need you all to understand is that I work for an actual honest to god demon from the pits of hell I wish I could even begin to explain it but I've never even met this woman whom everyone cannot even say her name without practically spitting it or at the very least groaning... the team leads and senior merchandisers had to attend a meeting with her a few months back and every person in attendance has described it as though she had somehow so effectively structured their meeting in order for her to elaborately construct a psychological torture chamber for each and every individual in attendance and then watch them break and break and break with the sole purpose of feasting off what remains of their soul survived the encounter.

Worked at one of the union stores today..... the union rep has to check over our work before we could sign out and I really like this store's particular rep... today she remarked that I'm the only person she sees being flip flopping between teams – to be honest I never really thought about it that way til she pointed it out... I'll take this as a testament to my recognized ability to work well with everyone and thrive any where I'm put... but the real thing is that the white team has been there from the start and the people on the indian team primarily speak hindi to each other so ppl tend to be scheduled based on these factors and they all have their own various internal power games of which I am outside of like lalalalala I love team I love work one day I'm gonna get promoted i swears it ladadedadoo. and I'm right. and everyone like me as a result.

[winterladymolly]

He was less than pleased with her explanations of things. While disappointing, it also wasn't unexpected. There were just certain things that she couldn't share with her father, not without putting him at risk. He was supposed to be retired. Retirement meant that he had the time for things like odd jobs and Honey-Do lists. Lazy summer days spent barbecuing and hanging out with the family. To just taking a nap, if that was what he wanted to do with this afternoon. He shouldn't have to spend that time worrying over his rogue child who happened to be finding herself in situations of varying degrees of danger due to her status as both a wizard and the Winter Lady.

In fact, she very much preferred that he was as unfamiliar with the latter as possible. With all of Michael's experience in the world there was no way that he didn't know about the faerie courts. And that of the two, Winter was the least forgiving. Not that Summer was easy, but Winter always seemed to end up being the strong arm.

But, one of the nice things about being the Winter Lady was that she had minions she could use to help her with various things. One of those things being keeping tabs on her family home, and making sure that everyone within it remained safe. Between Winter and Mouse, her family was in good hands. She couldn't really ask for anything more than that.

"Hey now, I've heard really good things about it! I mean, I haven't tried it myself..." not that she'd really had a need to, "but if I ever thought it would be useful for something, I'd probably give it a go. Just, you know, ,something to think about." Not that she had a guy, but Molly was pretty sure that if one were needed, she could find the right person for the job. Or, maybe Butters would know someone. In any event, should it be needed, the resources were there.

Setting the tray down on the table, she more or less plopped down on the end of the seat, not even bothering to slide further in. It seemed rude to take up the entire table for just the two of them, not that many people seemed intent on eating their food at the metaphorial end of the world. "Well, I've finished up what I'd been doing, so at the moment, I'm free." She shrugged lightly, and grabbed a few ketchup packs for her hot dog and fries. "I don't really know what that means, as things have a tendency to change rather quickly in my world, but I've got a bit of downtime." She grinned and looked across the table at her father, her eyes narrowing teasingly. "Why...? Have you got some crazy plan full of shenanigans that you need help with? If so, I'll let Harry know you need him!"

winterladymolly‌:

Hotdogs and funnel cake were both really amazing things! The only way she thought that could have been made better was if they’d also gotten some deep fried chocolate chip cookie dough to go with. Or a deep fried Twinkie. Which, naturally, raised the question of why everything had to be deep fried, but at the end of the day, did it really matter? So long as one didn’t partake of these items on a regular basis, the artery clogging feeling that automatically came with eating them was probably not any sort of immediate thing of danger.

More than once a year, though, and a person might find themselves in a bit of trouble at their annual physical checkup.

The question of Alaska was raised, and it took her a moment to think about how to answer that. Just spouting out that she’d been there on an assignment from Mab didn’t seem like the best thing to start off with, especially since the details of that mission hadn’t been the best in the end. A bunch of kids were removed from their families to go keep a great evil at bay, and she’d very severely someone she’d considered a friend. Someone who probably wouldn’t ever speak to her again once he regained his power of speech. And with good reason, really.

However, neither could she just tell him she’d been up on a whale watching expedition. However, no one ever said that partial truths weren’t completely fair game. Thanks to Auntie Lea, she’d learned that lesson a while ago. Keeping her voice down as it wasn’t exactly information she wanted to broadcast all over the fair, she half smiled, “You’ve heard of the fomor, I’m sure? Well, they were up to some interesting activities up there. I had the opportunity to take part in the mission to stop said activity up there. Mission accomplished. I’m sure I made more ‘friends’ while I was at it.” Molly was pretty sure that if she kept going at the rate she was, she’d on the fomor’s ‘Most Wanted’ list. If she wasn’t already.

“But, yes, I am doing well. It’s been quite the interesting journey. You, uh, might want to look into the acupucture thing.” Nothing like changing the subject. “I mean, I know it’s needles, and no one really likes those, but I’ve heard it doesn’t hurt and does all sorts of things to help with blood flow and help repair neural pathways. I heard of a lady who was using it to combat male pattern baldness. I don’t know if it worked, though.”

After placing the orders, her father paid, which she had sort of expected and knew better than to argue against. That was a fight that she’d lose. What she did do, though, was ask for some sort of tray that she could put drinks and food on that he wouldn’t have to worry about that part of it. “Sitting down sounds like a great idea. Just, maybe not too close to the stage area? The band isn’t bad,” they weren’t great either, “but whoever’s doing their sound has them seriously too loud. I’d actually like to be able to hear you wile we’re eating.” She gestured to a picnic type table set back a bit, “How about there?”

He did know the Fomor, albeit only from reports and hearsay, he’d never tangled with them himself. Not that he was aware of, at least. They were clearly a large organization with agents nearly everywhere, he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d unknowingly fought them on one of his Jobs. 

Even knowing that Molly was a formidable wizard, he wasn’t happy to hear she kept making more enemies. But it wasn’t his place to argue about that, she was an adult now and knew what she could handle so he’d keep his worry for himself. He’d be there for her if she needed him and that’s all he could do now. 

… he could look into it, although he probably wouldn’t end up going. Physical therapy was perfectly fine, he didn’t need to change it. “I’ll think about it.” He did notice she kept the details of her mission pretty vague, but he wouldn’t pry. Michael trusted his daughter to tell him when it was necessary.

The tray was a good idea, now he didn’t have to worry about dropping anything or spilling sauce anywhere. He gladly agreed to sitting more to the back for their conversation and followed Molly to one of the unoccupied tables in the back. They still had a nice view of the rest of the fair, but wouldn’t be disturbed by passers-by bumping into the table.

“How long will you be here?” He knew it wouldn’t be for too long, she left Chicago more and more often - or at least, didn’t visit as much anymore even when she was in Chicago. The other kids would be happy to spend some time with her, though, if she had the opportunity to come over for a day or so. So would he and Charity, it’d been some time since they got to relax with all of them home