#my first official fandom where i actually posted the stuff i wrote

[itsjustdg]

Apparently I can never leave the Psych fandom...

It always sucks me back in with writing fic eventually, and that's happened again recently.

I also realized I "officially" joined the fandom over 15 years ago and WOW that was a whole thing where I now feel old. 😆

Also, to the readers leaving kudos on AO3 that I'm getting emails about, I love you but please note that many of those fics were written over a decade ago and many still make me cringe if I think about them too hard. So there's that. 😅

[asneakyfox]

somehow we're talking again about the anchor-raising scene in s1 and what alex sherman said about it and how it should play into our understanding of izzy and racism so you know what i'm going to finally post this thing i wrote about it in 2022 and have had sitting in drafts this entire time

i think the amount of focus this fandom has put on the anchor-raising scene is wildly disproportionate to its importance to how we should understand the relevance or lack thereof of racism to izzy's arc. if racism is important to understanding izzy the place where it matters is how it affects his relationship with ed. whatever's going on in the anchor-raising scene it's just sort of background flavor; the other thing is central to the plot.

asking alex sherman about the scene was weird because the blocking of that scene never would have been the writers' decision in the first place? i assume everyone's seen tv and movie scripts before, how often have you seen a scene with 9 people present where the script specifies exactly where every character is standing and what they're doing, unless it's a crucial plot point? that decision would be made by the director. if you want to know about creator intent on this you'd have to ask bert & bertie.

we don't know what they'd answer. but my guess is having the characters of color doing hard labor was intentional - it's directors' job to think about the implications of the visuals, it's a failure if they didn't! - BUT it wasn't intended to be something izzy did on purpose, or even something he did subconsciously, it's a visual metaphor that's part of the narrative generally aligning izzy "friend of the crown" hands with systems of oppression.

(this circles back to a point i made all the way back in one of my first meta posts in this fandom, about how "is izzy personally motivated by racist and/or homophobic beliefs inside his fictional heart, whether consciously or not" and "are racism and/or homophobia important to understanding the role izzy plays in this narrative" are two different questions, and while the first one can be interesting if you're writing fic about izzy or whatever i personally care a lot more about the second one)

however we still really don't know what the directors were going for with the blocking! "izzy did this on purpose because he's consciously overtly racist" is i think unlikely, but "izzy did this but not on purpose because he's subconsciously racist" and "we considered the implications of having only the characters of color doing hard labor and it wasn't ideal but there were other reasons to block the scene that way" and "we actually fucked up and didn't think about it at all" are all possible as director intent.

alex says "the overt racism aspect" is not meant to be there, and the word overt does a lot of work in that sentence. he's ruling out deliberate fully conscious racial animus as being the intention of the writing team for izzy's motivation; he is not ruling out the writers intending us to understand racism as playing into the situation in more subtle or less conscious ways. in fact i would suggest he's specifically leaving that open; there's no reason for "overt" to be in that sentence at all unless you are specifically trying not to address the possibility of less overt kinds of racism being a factor.

all the focus on whether alex sherman has officially cleared izzy of racism charges has led to people weirdly ignoring a lot of other interesting stuff in that dm. for instance he tells us something the writers DID intend to convey about izzy that seems to have been lost on a lot of the fandom: the fact that he deeply craves power and genuinely wants to be captain instead of ed very badly but cannot actually lead because he lacks any respect for people working under him. he says this was originally not just a plot point in ep 9 but a major running theme for izzy's arc throughout the whole season, and the writers decided to cut all but two scenes about it since the point had already been made. people occasionally remember this but i very rarely see fan content that treats ambition and the desire to wield power over others as core character traits of izzy's. the alex sherman dm is super clear about that being one of the most important things the writers' room was trying to convey about him! yet i still run across meta insisting that izzy actually never wants ed to retire so he can be captain at all. (i mean if you want to go death of the author on this that's fine, but then you don't get to appeal to alex on the racism thing either.)

(this brings up another thing that annoys me about this whole conversation, which is that it's nearly always framed as a thing where if izzy can simply beat the allegations of racism and homophobia then everyone should have to acknowledge that he is a sympathetic character from the start. this is wild. izzy does lots of very bad things for bad reasons and this remains true whether or not bigotry is among those reasons. the question of whether he's racist or homophobic is not about whether he's a bad guy or even really how much of a bad guy he is so much as how exactly we should understand his bad guy role and its interactions with the themes of the narrative. like, alex's answer in the dm more or less amounts to "we intended to emphasize these other classically villainous traits instead of racism," despite the fact that he's responding to a question that's clearly framed around begging him to say izzy is intentionally sympathetic.)

(this is also all completely orthogonal to issues of whether fandom racism is a factor in why this white guy gets such disproportionate focus compared to his role in canon and how ed tends to be demonized and/or infantilized in fic and headcanons so that people can position izzy as a good guy relative to him. people conflate the two issues of "is izzy hands the fictional character personally racist" and "is there racism at play in how the fandom reacts to izzy" all the time but those two questions are largely unrelated.)

personally i do not think of izzy as holding or being motivated by overtly racist beliefs, at least not any moreso than any other white character from 1717 including stede.

i do think that izzy is a white man who's obsessed with making his indigenous boss conform to a persona that's based around a racialized caricature, because that benefits izzy and because it satisfies his personal fetishes and because he sees this indigenous man as capable of performing hypermasculinity to a degree that he himself a white guy cannot, and he's willing to ally with empire to make this happen, and i think it is worth noticing the racial implications of all that and taking it into account in understanding izzy's role in this narrative.

[the-badger-mole]

How do you think Zuko and Katara would get engaged?

How would Zuko propose to Katara and how would Katara propose to Zuko?

There's a lot of varying opinions in the fandom, and I wanted to see your two cents, lol

I think I've answered this before, but it was at least 2 years ago, and I refuse to sift through Tumblr's useless archive for the post. In my mind, Zuko proposes. It's always Zuko who proposes, and I will never write it differently. I have 2 reasons for that.

Reason the first: I'm a traditionalist when it comes to this. I, as a woman want to be proposed to. In my own personal experience, if a woman is proposing to a man, the chances are good he doesn't actually want to be married. Now, before you get upset with me, that's not me saying that's a rule. If you feel differently, that's totally fine. I'm not predicting doom for anyone's relationship if the woman proposes to the man. This is just something I've observed enough times for me not to be into that dynamic, but if you like it, I love it. For you.

Point the second: There is a disheartening lack of darker skinned women being romanced in fiction. We tend to be relegated to the sexless, strong, independent, don't need no man stereotypes. I want Katara to get the full romance novel experience of a powerful man willing to move the stars to make her happy. I like the idea of her getting to experience being taken care of and protected and pursued romantically, and that includes Zuko doing his best to give her the perfect proposal (it doesn't always go well in my stories, but he tries very hard, and that's the point). So in short, no. I will never have Katara proposing to Zuko. Although, I think I like the idea of her giving him something to celebrate their engagement after she accepts, so I guess something like him getting a betrothal necklace from her isn't off the table (except it probably won't be a necklace, because it's never confirmed in the show that the SWT does betrothal necklaces, and I have decided that in my canon, they do not).

Now as for how he'd do it. It depends on the story, but he will definitely not use a necklace (I mean, I have one story where he does, but I wrote that years ago. I did a lot of things in that story I wouldn't necessarily do today). My head canon is that the SWT gives practical gifts, and I like the idea of him tailoring those practical gifts to what she'll need in the Fire Nation- a new fancy waterskin, a golden pen for all the policy she'll be writing, a crown that honors her heritage somehow, stuff like that. He wouldn't present her with all of that during his actual proposal, though. That's for the official betrothal.

[redjayson]

Hi! It's almost time for the progress report again! I was going to ask next week, but my parents are visiting so I will clean the entire house and forget about stuff due to stress soooo.

You posted a new chapter of Baby's first SVSSS fic (which was really great btw) and the febuwump (which just occasionally haunts me). How are you doing with the big bang? We're finally in the time frame where stuff is getting posted and most people have posted a teaser before that. Are you going to post a teaser too? I am so curious about what your fic will be, so I figured I'd ask!

No pressure obviously, I'm pretty sure the word count of your big bang entry is the size of an entire novel (or two)

end of the month means progress report tiiime. was about to respond to this post all "woe is me I've not written much this month" but then I actually checked my spreadsheet and it turns out I've written 25k so far and there's still a week left so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Baby's First SVSSS Fic (I've got 2.2k of chapter 5 written already, yay!)

blood and seafoam (I'm going to finish this fic in february, goddammit! I swear I am. chapter three is currently 9k + like 1-2k in my notebook that I need to type up. it may well end up being split into two chapters to post; the three chapters was a guesstimate on my part)

big bang fic (I'm still putting in a good amount of work editing it; total word count is still hovering in the 120k range, but there's 21 chapters total and I usually add to my word count while editing lmao. I have an official posting date, though! march 9, mark your calendars, everyone. I'm going to post the first 5-6 chapters then; I may post a teaser beforehand, but we'll have to see)

omegaverse jinlan city fic (added a bit to this, so now chapter 3 is 3.7k)

shrine maiden au (about halfway through my big bang fic I wrote something that made me go 'hey that base idea could be used in another fic' and thus the shrine maiden au was born. I wanted it to be short and fun and almost immediately porn but you know me. it's currently 5.5k and binggeyuan have only just kissed)

I signed up for Fandom Trumps Hate (with two offers) and the MXTX Remix 2025, so that's three guaranteed fics at some point! obviously I don't know any details for them yet (and even once I do I won't be able to share much until the fics are posted), but that will be happening this year :D

[livitaexe]

liviiiiiii 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

LALOOOOOO!

Not gonna lie, you're the first person to actually send me an ask on this blog... but yes, I now have an account for my AO3 (or I guess you could say a place where I would post all my chronic yapping about fictional boys).

Granted, I still only write for The Caligula Effect series and, like... 2 boys from the Persona franchise thus far, unless you count this one Yosuke post I made, yet regardless, I decided to officially make a non-roleplay blog because I heard x Reader authors tend to thrive more on Tumblr... and because I haven't really been receiving comments on my fics (outside of the ones I wrote for Adachi x Reader and that one Shinjiro x Reader oneshot that somehow amassed 29 kudos despite it not being my best work), I figured perhaps my readers would be more comfortable sending me asks there? To that end, I started cross posting some of my fics, invading the tags, and even following other x Reader enthusiasts.

However, I guess my stuff is still pretty niche, because to this day, I don't have many followers and the only asks I received were from Gaza spam bots? In fact, I often feel as if I'm posting into the void due to the Caligula Effect fandom being dead/not really rife with people horny for the male characters (that I'm frankly surprised my Biwasaka x Reader smut is my most bookmarked fic) and the Persona fandom seemingly not paying all that much attention to me.

Seriously, it's kinda super rough out here, because people would have no qualms subscribing, kudo-ing, or bookmarking my multi-chapter fics, yet not really tell me what they think of the chapters I post... so as of late, I started writing less fics and doing more Tumblr writing. Granted, I did at least start writing Chapter 8 of 'Love When You're Used' on Friday, but barely made much a dent, word count wise, because I kept getting distracted by Granblue Fantasy and notifs for replies I owe on my OC, OTL.

However, I do currently have 18 fics published on my AO3 account, meaning if nothing else, I've at least been busy!

[justreckin]

20 questions for fic writers

alright @emonydeborah said hey there's a thing and i say yes (ages later)

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 6

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 28,070

3. What fandoms do you write for? Honestly, whatever's catching my fancy in that moment. Of the things I've posted, The Librarians is the only fandom that I've ever even posted more than one fic for.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Raising Harry (Harry Potter/Underworld) Where Selene comes across Harry playing at the park alone at night and decides that the best idea is to sorta adopt him.

Never Say He Isn't Grateful (Agent Carter/Captain America) Howard realizes he owes Peggy big time and the best way for him to repay her is to go rescue Steve.

5 Times Ezekiel Called Eve Mum and the Time They Made it Official (The Librarians) 5+1 what it says on the tin.

Second Time Around (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) Coulson went in on the Bahrain mission, May died. Oneshot re-write of the first episode that I considered expanding and have actually written other chapters for but... 🤷‍♀️

How Apep got Ezekiel Grounded for the Rest of his Natural Life (The Librarians) Season 3 Finale in the same universe as the previous Librarians fic that has a second chapter I have yet to write...

5. Do you respond to comments? I certainly try to. I'm not the best at it, but I love getting to have a conversation with anyone who likes the same things I do.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Heh probably I'm Not Your Mother but even then it's a) not really all that angsty and b) mostly that I dropped a mean bomb on characters and then ran away because I have no idea what else to do with it.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? ...everything else? Look, canon is already regularly very mean to characters. I am here to live in my happy little fantasies where everything works out.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not hate per se but I'd left up an unfinished multi-chapter fic at one point and someone commented that I was the reason they'd lost faith in authors with unfinished works and is maybe more responsible for me not posting any of the myriad of things I have on my computer than I want to admit.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Nah. I write more family than relationship stuff, really.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Yes. Uh... it's not posted, but maybe the Harry Potter/Song of the Lioness that I hashed out at one point.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Don't think so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?  Don't think so.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Ha! @emonydeborah and I spitball all the time (it's wonderful) and she absolutely gets credit if that parent trap fic ever gets finished, but I don't think I'm up to the group project that would be co-writting a fic.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? the Enterprise NCC-1701 dash nothing! All jokes aside, it genuinely is the only ship I go back to on a regular basis.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Uh... honestly, I don't know that I'll ever finish half the things in my WIP folder.

16. What are your writing strengths? Probably dialogue. I feel I'm pretty good at getting the character's literal voice down.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Anything happening around the dialogue. In my head these people are always moving around and doing things, but it always feels so clunky if I try to put that onto a page.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Maybe an individual word or two for a curse or endearment. I know enough Spanish I'd probably be comfortable writing in it. But that'd be about it.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Uh.... Star Trek? One sec, must check files. Yeah, pretty sure it was a short TOS thing. Hmm might need to take a look at that again, clean it up, repost...

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? Posted? Probably Ezekiel calling Eve mum. Not posted? Nah, actually, don't know that there is one that's not posted.

.... @the-redhead-in-a-dress and @sun-lit-roses did you do it yet, did you do it? I wanna see 😁

[sapwine-and-starcharts]

2, 10, 12, 17, 19, and 28 for the ask game ^_^

So 2 and 10 were answered HERE but they weren’t actually like Outer Wilds fandom specific so I’ll re answer them <3

2 - Which of your fics is your pride and joy?

Out of all of my outer wilds fics i think that either Berry-Jam kisses (Time Buddies) or Sapwine and Starcharts (Startners before they were Startners :’}) have to be up there in terms of my favourite fics I’ve written.

I talked about BJK in the other post but SaS is a whole other story.

It wasn’t my FIRST outer wilds fic, that was Time to Go but it was the first time i thought about Chert and Mylo meaning something to eachother. It was the beginning of Startners, my blorbos, and hell!! I named my OW blog after it!!!!!! I don’t think its my best written fic by a long shot, i was still figuring out 2POV perspective and how to characterize both Chert and Mylo but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t live in my heart forever and ever.

10 - Is there a character or ship you'd love to write for, but haven't yet?

I mean probably Gosslate? I keep meaning to write for them but never getting around to it lmaoooo.

If not Gosslate then Cherro. Mostly because i already write for ChertMylo and now that I’ve officially included Gabbro in the startnership i really should write for the two of them huh??

(I actually have some drafts of something i was working on for them but its uh… lets just say its not suitable for this blog…)

12 - What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Written? Gravity Falls.

An INCREDIBLY old piece from back in HIGH SCHOOL about what if Stanley died in the portal explosion that brought back his brother. It’s VERY bad and i never ever posted it anywhere and i never will!

POSTED though? Stanley Parable.

Tethered-Together was the first ever fic i actually posted something for and got that sweet sweet taste of authorship. It’s definitely not my best work, the formatting is all over the place and i couldn’t figure out how to get from the last chapter i posted to the idea in my head for where i wanted to take the ending but people liked it! People really REALLY liked it!

Plus it inspired me to make You Can’t See Me Behind the Screen, a 432 centered fic that is, while again incredibly rough, one of my favourite works i did for TSP. Shout out to that one commentor who commented on nearly every chapter and the commentor who, when i came back to post a chapter after nearly a year of hiatus commented ‘HOLY SHIT YOUR BACK?????!!!!!’ Which skyrocketed my confidence to the moon. They’re probably one of the reasons i continued to write honestly.

17 - What is something you recently felt proud of in your writing?

I have a hard time picking out stuff I’m proud of. I’m incredibly critical of my work and i always think i can improve or find something wrong with it. But if i had to pick SOMETHING I’d have to go with the way i write romance. Usually i stuff a bunch of angst in there and call it a day but recently I’ve been writing some softer stuff. Like my Eskerfels fics and Berry Jam Kisses, people have praised me for the warmth and comfort they exude and i gotta agree with them on that one!!!

Outside of my writing tho, the idea that so many people can enjoy my writing and even say that I inspire them to create (You know who you are <3) is just??? Thats another thing i feel so baffled yet proud of. If i can inspire even one person to get outside their comfort zone and try to create their own art, i think I’ve done my job as an artist :}

19 - How do you get over writer's block?

I don’t LMAO. Literally, i don’t actively try to shake it. The writers block consumes me until i jolt up in the middle of the night with a single cool line i want to write down and then the writing juice starts to flow again. Hyperfixations do help a lot tho. If a character can worm their way into my brain enough they usually free me of what ever blocks I’m going through.

28 - What's the angstiest idea you've ever come up with?

SO theres a few?

One is from YCSMBtS (the Stanley Parable fic i mentioned above) where lines of code literally tear 432 apart and unravel them like yarn until they merge into the game itself and becomes the Time Keeper.

The Horrors That Lie Beneath ft. Mylo discovering what’s under the surface of the Interloper, the very thing that was their main driving force. It’s not shown afterwards but they really struggle to come to terms with the fact that the thing they looked up to wiped out an entire race… Like they have an identity crisis about it and everything

Grieving for a World Lost to Time is a Final Campfire fic based around the 5 stages of grief. Each of the travellers gets their own stage of grief they help Mylo through or make Mylo feel, and then Hornfels was gonna be the secret 6th stage ‘Finding Meaning’. I never got around to actually WRITING more than the prologue but oughh i want to…

I could actually keep going, my favourite genre is angst and like SO many of my personal OCs i put through the wringer over and over. Literally if you put in ‘angst’ into the search bar for my works I’m pretty sure most of my fics will show up lmao.

Anyways!! TYSM for asking!!!! <3

[ithilien-writes]

For the ask game, 2, 9 and 20!

Which of your fics is your pride and joy?

i love all of my fics so much is the thing. not in a conceited way but just like in the way that i literally wrote them because they were what i wanted to read. and now they exist and i can read them whenever i want!! which is the best part of being a fic writer imho

but i guess for my recent buddie stuff i'm gonna go under the rocks and stones. i re-read that one a lot. i like the dreamscape of it all and it's just a very visual fic for me, like i can picture it almost as clearly as an actual episode in my mind

How did you get into writing fanfiction?

ooh. yeah i'm gonna date myself here lmao. so when i was like.. early teens? maybe? there was this official warner bros branded message board for hp called the harry potter dialog centre. i believe that is both where i first read and first posted fic (shortly followed by ff.net, then livejournal, before tumblr and ao3 came into the picture). and like, obviously i found it because i was super into harry potter at the time, but also like. i was a friendless queer nerd who had just moved to a new town, so. that was a part of it too. participating in fandom for me has always been, first and foremost, about community

also i have never been able to consume media in a normal way. so there's that 😅

Share your favorite kiss scene from [insert fic]. If there's no kiss scene, share your favorite moment of intimacy (romantic or platonic)

so this is decidedly less pg than a kiss but. i'm gonna say one of my favorite moments of intimacy i've written is the scene where buck first helps eddie jerk off in reach for me. eddie's in such a vulnerable place but he trusts buck so much and buck is dealing with all these big feelings that the shooting brought to the surface but that he can't put a name to and it's just.. aaah idk!! like obviously its a sex scene but it actually is mostly platonic but also it's buddie so it's not not romantic, and i just. i like that it can be all those things at once, i guess

[rosieblogstuff]

🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them

🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

🌸 PETS

Yesss indeed, our household has 4 cats, 1 tortoise, and a whole lot of plants I baby and sometimes can even keep alive. I don't usually post my pets on here for anonymity reasons but can I give you a plant photo? Back in January I took a leaf that had broken off my African violet and stuck it in a glass with some water just to see if it would root. And yes! Yes it will! And then after about a month I stuck it in some potting soil to see if it would live. And yes, it did! The bif leaf that I'd planetd died within about 6 weeks but before it died it sprouted a bunch of little leaves. And now it's all leaves all over. I'm very proud of my little plantlet. And weirdly, it's actually much happier than either of my big African violets that live in official African violet self-watering pots?

🥤BELOVED AUTHOR+FANFIC

ok ok this is the easiest because I'm at like the 90% mark with what is surely the very best thing every written for MacGyver (2016) fandom and HAVE YOU READ TURKEY DAY YET? I read the first Turkey Day a couple years ago and then looked at the sequel and I was like, "How could it actually be better? Surely I'll end up disappointed!" And I was so so wrong.

Haven126 is my fanfic writing idol.

But this here: Turkey Day: Just Desserts by Haven126 -- this is a masterpiece. It is a gift. It is the whumpiest pile of whump that's ever whumped you.

If you like adventure. If you like whump. Just read it. (But read the first Turkey Day first.) I know it's 400,000 words long. I promise, they are ALL GOOD WORDS. You will be on the edge of your seat for all of them. You will get to a point 200,000 in where you come to The Scene and you will scream and cry and sob and wonder, how could Haven do this to my heart? Are they a monster? 😭

This story will absolutely live rent-free in my head forever. I've been sort of dragging my feet on the last few chapters because I'm going to be so sad when I don't have any new story left in the story.

🍓HOW DID I GET INTO FANFIC WRITING

Umm well that's a long story. Literally long because I wrote my first fanfic in middle school at a time before graphical web browsing and years before fanfiction.net existed. Back in my faraway time my Dad got gifted a subscription to an Online Service for Christmas, and when I logged into this online service (bulletin boards) I poked around and discovered a fan club Anne McCaffrey's Pern. I was 13 and it was the 1990s, and Anne famously sent cease-and-desist letters to fanfic groups who weren't following her rules, which included not producing porn set in her world, so it was an incredibly teen-friendly environment of people writing pretty much everything except smut. A lot of really good writers, too. I know a ton of people from those groups who went on to publish fiction. Anyone who's following me here for fanfic would've liked the type of stuff my fanfic groups were doing back then so much!

[crab-people-overlord]

Intro 🧡

guess I might as well do an intro

diagnosed adhd software engineer here (🩷💜💙, english + español) coming to you from the Rocky Mountains (where rich people's empty ski condos are literally everywhere and driving up costs….. pls send help)

writing stuff + ao3 link

just finished a canon-adjacent story about the main kids. it’s a short story that I had so much fun writing :) and I hope to focus on more short stories in the future.

also doing a south park/good place crossover because why not

wrote this thing called "the cultish conundrum" which... exists... (planning to rewrite it someday when i git gud™️) (wrote this when I knew NOTHING of fandom so I did try to be canon-compliant but knew nothing of creative writing when I first started, so I hope to revisit to rewrite it to be actually… good one day lol)

Also if you’re an ao3 writer of your own and want me to kudos/comment just lmk!! I know this isn’t an excuse but my adhd makes it so bad for me to read others works but if I’m instructed to I genuinely love it and want to support y’all as from what I’ve seen, there’s SO many talented SP writers out there that I genuinely want to support so badly but am literally so bad at committing when there’s so many choices lmao

quick stats:

mid 20s and fresh out of college (studied computer sci so bear w me if I sound too tech bro; I won’t be offended if you call me out for doing something wrong as I not only don’t get offended easily, but acknowledge I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing since literally the only time I’ve had social media in the past is when I would look at tumblr in middle school cuz it allowed porn it im being real with you 👀) im prob never going to get a twitter account

9w8 ISTP (took the official tests in college tho acknowledge it’s only slightly scientific lol)

ex-mormon who served a mission (emphasis on the ‘ex’- 🫡 🥲 god the stories I have lmfao. also I may or may not talk too much about the BoM musical because of this - sorry, not sorry)

works in tech and works from home

builds legos and games most nights (i wanna learn new hobbies besides this, hence the whole trying to learn how to write thing. pls bear with me- i BS’d my way through English classes in college lol)

so yeah!! south park has basically been my comfort show/emotional support media for as long as i can remember. like it's literally been keeping me sane through… everything. I’ll respect any ship in the fandom (unless it’s something really weird like the things ‘pro shippers’ are for? But I’ll be honest I literally haven’t run into any of this and don’t plan on searching for it lmfao. And no, I don’t view ‘kyman’ as a ‘pro ship’ when done right, so I respect it (aside from the weird ass nazi folks who I will never get along with but thank god I haven’t run into those folks… and I’d like to keep it that way 🥲)

absolutely down to chat about anything!! just use my ask box or dm if you're 18+ (minors please no dm). This blog will likely stay sfw, but it may occasionally not be! I’ll tag when it’s not, but this is your warning now. i promise i'm super chill and just here to vibe with other cool humans who don't tolerate any transphobic/racist/etc behavior. I don’t ever do social media (aside from TikTok to share guitar covers but im way too pussy to face reveal here), but just want to connect with others in the fandom so here I am 👋

not here for any drama and will respect ships in the fandom though i am partial to style (what got me to look into the fandom space in the first place, though even here love their sbf relationship first and foremost before anything romantic as i only recently started shipping them. When I say im new to fandom romantic shipping of any kind, I truly mean it lmfao)

also I like writing meta posts, but just know I do it all for fun and that I completely understand and respect that my opinions are just that- opinions. at the end of the day it’s just a silly show and that’s the fun of fandom- being able to share these

[theimaginatrix27]

So it's been a year since I began delving into Star Trek fandom properly

It's officially my birthday in my timezone! This time last year, I was gushing on the server @kintatsujo made for our circle of mutual friends about the best/most well-thought-out part of my Star Trek AU, now dubbed Galactic Warp, after its most important advancement. In a few weeks, it will be the one-year anniversary of my joining the Trek server where I would make all the friends I have in that fandom (particularly gonna shout out @roguetelepaths, who you may have noticed I've been reblogging a lot of posts from of late).

A lot has happened over the past year on that front, if I'll be quite honest. I've posted eight! fanfics for DS9 (holy shit), bringing my number of works on AO3 up into the double-digits and totalling about 140 thousand words! And there are many more to come, I assure you—the plot bunnies living in my brain evolved into tribbles and started churning out ideas for this fandom and these characters, as if making up for lost time.

I hit a lot of milestones this year (remembers the name of the first Trekfic I posted and laughs). Let's see if I can remember them all! :D

I discovered I can write Sci-fi, actually! Honestly I'm looking back at my confident assurance of the exact opposite of this and laughing, because I have proven that claim false in several ways over the past year. (See my Threshold fics for the most obvious example). But like. Also. The backdrop of one of my original series is kind of a Sci-fi setting, so I've been doing this for a while. Yeah, Kinta, laugh it up, you were right and I was very silly.

I can write Star Trek fanfics, actually, and if I mess up on anything, nobody's gonna care! I was so scared I'd embarrass myself in front of a fandom I found very intimidating, but so far, everyone's been so welcoming and people like what I've put out there! They really like it! I'm honestly humbled and grateful for all my lovely readers who have said such nice things to me in fic comments, and in private on Discord. You're all wonderful! But critically, I did make a mistake, and nobody gave a single, solitary shit. The story's an AU anyway, and people have been enjoying it, and I was worried for eleven years over nothing. You won't believe what that does for a lady's confidence.

I've learned some stuff about my own personal writing process, which is a big step forward! I've been taking in writing advice for as long as I've been fully online. I've listened to writer after writer tell me how they work, how they do things, and I've tried plenty of it myself, but to no avail. Earlier this year, I ran out of words to paste into 4TheWords, a website I'd joined several years ago because I liked its premise (turning writing into a game, where you could defeat monsters with words you wrote). I hadn't written on it live before, due to copy/paste issues I was able to resolve (the font in the site editor is different to the font I use on my computer when writing offline), but I actually started doing it because there is a particular group of enemies that are specifically time-based (all enemies have a time limit in which you must defeat them, but these guys set a timer within which you must keep typing), and I thought I could use that as freewriting sessions. Freewriting was something I'd been sure would work for me if I needed to get unstuck, and I'd actually noticed I could untangle issues I had by talking about them with friends in private, often without them even being around to help. So I tried it. And wonder of wonders! I got unstuck! On multiple stories! Just by rambling about them on a timer! And then I started writing words to defeat other enemies on the site live, and wait. How many words did I write this week? On this day? It's been a real game-changer, particularly as my edits count as more words, which impresses the fundamental truth that every word you write matters, even the ones you delete. Even the ones you edit away because the sentence didn't feel right. Even the passages that ultimately don't work. It all matters, and it all helps. And if I get stuck again, there's always the endurance monsters to help me out! About half of the stuff I've posted was shared in the last three months. And it's all thanks to 4TW. If you think this sounds cool, look them up! They're good eggs and don't support generative AI in creative writing. :)

I've also achieved a few writing firsts as a result of that last point!

This probably doesn't come as a surprise to my writer friends, but I've fully accepted the fact that the first thing I need to do as a writer is write. I have heard that a thousand times before, and I knew it was true on some level, but I would always let my anxiety and perfectionism get the better of me, and overthink myself to a standstill. With the method I've been employing on 4TW, I've had to press forward if I want to beat the clock, which has pushed my ADHD brain into doing what I want it to (part of why 4TW works for me is that it sets little deadlines outside myself. I cannot set my own deadlines, I know the person who drew up that schedule and she's too easily distracted and also likes to have fun too much). With even the low-stakes pressure of beat this guy before time runs out, I've been able to at least get started, and once I've picked up a little momentum, I get excited about my stories again, and we can have days where I write over 6000 words in twelve hours, because I don't want to stop!

I've stopped trying to force my chapters to be a certain length. I let each one be as long as it needs to be, and if that's a couple thousand words longer than the last one, fine! It achieved it's purpose for the story, and I'm not going to cut stuff when it was all important! Besides, I've noticed that each story finds its rhythm if I give it the space it needs, and the chapters end up being close to the same length anyways.

I've been getting bolder and bolder about the stories I write or consider writing! Too often in the past, I've been unsure about whether an idea will work for my audience, but the more times I've let myself be weird on main, and nobody has come out of the woodwork to yell at me for it, the easier it's been to be that little bit more wild with my ideas. And having friends to babble to helps with that too, people who tell me to go for it are super important and I appreciate every one of them!

I've actually written stories inspired by prompts! I'd never really done this before. Being prompted by a post is one thing (love ya, Threshold AU), but actually doing prompts for a challenge? That was always difficult for me. I'd always second-guess myself if I came up with any ideas for a particular prompt set, and then procrastinate on trying for years. But this year, I participated in Dominion Week, and although I've only posted four out of the seven prompt fills, I do have ideas for the other three days and will write them when the tribbles are done filling in any gaps they think should be patched in the AUs said prompt fills are relevant to. :D

Related to the above, I wrote oneshots! That stayed oneshots! And one of them stands completely on its own! That. That has never happened before. I've said several times on this blog that I'm not wired for short stories. I wrote my mother a story for her birthday and it was a backstory event from my Ylonaverse because I couldn't think of an idea that could stand on its own. And then Dominion Week happened, and I started two series of single-chapter stories, and wrote a oneshot that was a thought experiment and won't be a part of any of my currently existing AUs, and I'm still mind-blown that that even happened.

It has been a good writing year for me, in other words, despite its ups and downs.

Oh, and I also have had the capacity to Braille up my stories for a year now, and although I'm a perfectionist about this and want the Braille versions to be just right, because I intend to podfic them, I'm still very glad I can Braille things up at all.

But that was gonna happen anyway. The Brailler and paper were part of last year's birthday present, much as the binding combs and binding machine were part of this year's one. And the discussion of that part of my creative life should have its own post at some point. Probably when I have compiled enough to start actually podficking.

[notquitejiraiya]

8 YEARS

Last year, I wrote my first yearly recap after having been inspired by a tradition set by the wonderful @unioncolours each year. That recap contained an array of fics and thoughts and inspirations after the insane year for me that was 2022. It was a huge year for me in terms of many things. Shortly after my last recap, I got a master’s degree and officially became an engineer, something that honestly spurred on my creative drive. While studying for that degree, I had my coolest year of writing in a while: as you know from the last recap, if you read it, I wrote 9/10, Love Means Nothing (which, yes, will be finished in time, don’t worry), and most importantly, I wrote Strangers.

Most importantly, I say, because the entirety of 2023 would ultimately hinge upon what Strangers began. But that is something we’ll come to in time.

Be warned, this will be long, but if you'd like to read about my last year, please do keep reading below :)

Before we begin with the majority of this essay, I wanna give a shoutout to the lost soul of the year that is Traditions. It wasn’t long and it wasn’t hugely exciting, but it kickstarted this year in terms of fic posting, even if only on Tumblr, and it was a cute one. I always love a little challenge like those from a gift exchange, and it’s always nice to give a gift. I hope it was nice to read, too!

But, starting on the meaty stuff, I think it’s important that I address the two constants throughout the history of this blog. The first, which comes as no surprise to any, is ShikaTema: the most important ship to ever exist, to me, and the heart of some of the most wonderful experiences I’ve had throughout my fandom life. The second constant is a topic explored in a lot of Shikamaru-based content across the fandom and one that I will never tire of.

That second constant is chess.

The game of chess is something very special to me. The first day I met my partner, we played chess against one another for hours (and I lost - the only time he’s beaten me, actually). My best friend, who introduced us that day, gave me a rook keyring that I have kept on my house keys ever since, whether I’ve lived in my home town, another city, or now even in another country entirely. My favourite musical - one of the things I connect to my father best with - centres around chess, its politics, and its capacity for obsession. And probably the most important fic on this blog to date obviously takes its name from the game.

I have no doubt that most people who follow me, especially those of you here on Tumblr, discovered my writing as a result of Chess, either by reading it or maybe through the incredible art which that fic was lucky enough to receive. It was so special and personal to me to write, and while it’s certainly no longer my best work as an author, I’m still immensely proud and pleased with how it resonated with people. I think, so far, it is the most beloved thing I’ve written, at least to others.

But something that always bothered me about Chess was how little chess there actually was in it. Sure, there were a couple of scenes where chess was played, but there was more flower arranging and fish and chips than there was time sitting across a chessboard. It felt almost like a wasted opportunity to write about Shikamaru being a chess whizz and doing next to nothing with the skill. I couldn’t let the idea die. In many of my older stories — Tumblr-only stories — Shikamaru plays chess (or shogi) or inspires Shikadai or Temari to do the same. But nowadays, it feels like it has all been leading up to right now and to the monster that 2023 has birthed.

When I came to write Strangers in 2022, an idea came to me as just a little easter egg. That idea was that, in the Strangers universe, Temari’s husband would be a world-class chess player, and she, too, would have an equally worldwide job. It sort of naturally followed that Temari, too, could be a chess player; what she might lack in terms of natural strategic prowess, she more than makes up for in drive and ruthlessness, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about chess players in my life, it’s that they hate to lose. Temari 101, methinks. As I made my way through writing Strangers, that fact nipped at my brain tirelessly until, before I knew it, I had a 30k outline and, by association, a goal for what 2023 would be for me as a writer.

2023 would be the year of Grandmaster.

I’ve always been more of a character writer than a plot writer. I think perhaps that’s one of the reasons I’m drawn to writing AUs over canon works; to me, while writing, it’s more interesting to explore how an existing character would behave in a totally alien environment to their canon one, and Grandmaster is this year’s attempt at that.

I mention this because, while I call Grandmaster (GM) a ShikaTema fic, it is, first and foremost, a fic about Temari. Shikamaru is there — of course, he is — and he plays a crucial role in so many of the elements of her life within the story. But the story is unequivocally hers. We see what Temari sees, focus on what Temari focuses on, suffer through Temari’s delusions of her own self-importance, and feel the weight of the expectations put upon her. It’s an exploration of the weight of ambition that’s not necessarily your own, and it has gutted me to write more than Chess ever did.

I don’t have enough delusion of my own self-importance to yet write and publish an essay on this story, why I’ve written it, and how it feels to write it, but there are a few points that I have to voice in this yearly reflection because they’re so crucial to my last year as a writer and online.

You will hear me sing the praises of my friend Bex to the ends of the Earth. While we share a name, we have very different approaches to writing, and we often tell quite different stories, but she is truly responsible for inspiring me to write Temari-centric stories. 100%. If you are reading this and somehow haven't read what I truly consider to be the greatest ShikaTema fic of all time (no one cries for unknown soldiers), follow that link, read it right now, and then come back a changed individual. And you will be changed, I promise, because it changed me on an almost chemical level with its power. Everything you write, Bex, has that power, and it is extraordinary and frankly terrifying in the most incredible way.

I had already started GM by the time you began releasing When I am Gorgeous, but holy fuck, if that didn’t spur me on. The character growth and arcs in those stories are something to behold and something I strive for. With that in mind, the first point of this writing reflection is a thank you to Bex specifically, without whom I wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun writing as I’ve had this last year, and I wouldn’t be sitting where I’m sitting as I write this. So thank you - a hundred times over and more. I am honoured to share a corner of the internet (and a name) with you, my ‘rival’. Thank you.

The second point is another thank you. This time to @clumsydragon28, who is again a dear friend and without whom GM wouldn’t be what it is. From support in DMs to insane and phenomenal essay-like analysis in comment sections, you are outrageously inspiring to em and others and there aren’t words for my gratitude for that. But, as you already know, there are elements of GM and what is to come after GM that exist only because of you and your own beautiful writing and stories. I will refrain from spoiling the joys of the latter chapters of Plié — another absolute must-read where the love and joy of an art form ooze from every word and captivate you with their wholesomeness and beauty — but it helped me find the missing piece at the end of GM that lets me tie it up with a bow, and ultimately set into motion the fic that will follow. I can’t thank you enough, truly, but thank you. 

Having thanked those who frankly made it happen, I’ll get on with the writing-specific stuff. No spoilers, but it will be a little self-indulgent so bear with me.

I’ll start with something kind of trivial. GM is my first real time writing OCs in a fanfic as more than a passing reference. It doesn’t have many because I like to bring in canon characters where applicable. But sometimes that’s not viable, and I’m not about to force some character into a hole they don’t fit into because I hate when other people do that, so Danya and Mischa kind of had to happen. And I’ve had a really fun time writing them. It’s not uploaded yet, but there’s a chapter coming soon that’s quite focused around Mischa, and I think it’s some of my best writing in the whole story, and so GM has kind of gotten me over my fear of OCs. Nobody’s complained about their existence, and they’ve made the story more complete. A lesson learned, for sure.

Secondly, it’s no secret that I really like Rasa. Do I think he’s a wanker? Yes. Do I think hating him for what happened canonically is valid? Also, yes. Do I think that there’s nuance to his character that is often disregarded or forgotten? Absolutely. And, as a result of that, do I think he’s criminally underutilised in fics? Fuck yeah, I do.

So GM has a lot of Rasa. More than I initially intended when I began writing it, actually. He’s there pretty much all the time — if he’s not in the scene, he’s probably influencing what’s going on in it either directly or via years of impressionable behaviours. And it’s been really interesting to write that. Challenging, for sure, because I have to keep in line with all the relationships set out in Strangers and realistically make them come to a head where they do. And challenging in the sense that it doesn’t feel good to write some of the things that Rasa has to say in this story.

There have been a few times in my 8 years as a fanfic author where I’ve written something and actually felt violently emotional after having done so, but GM has given me a fair few of those moments, specifically as a result of Rasa. I won’t say which moments they are, partly because the expectation of how one is ‘supposed’ to feel consuming anything takes away the authenticity, I feel, but I wonder if when people read his dialogue in certain chapters — some already up, and some soon to come — they will feel the same as I did writing them. It’s an interesting thought I’ve never had the opportunity or time to really consider until GM, and one I am sure I will consider more going forward.

Speaking of Rasa and the link in relationships, I don’t know if I’ve even officially said in this recap that GM is the prequel to Strangers. I’ve never written a prequel before, but it’s a unique experience. It’s like working from the end to the beginning; it feels wrong and yet makes perfect sense. Keeping the sibling relationships in line with Strangers is really fun, honestly. Writing that fic, I had little opportunity to just write the three of them having fun or being loving in traditional ways, and I had zero opportunity to utilise Yashamaru.

Writing this fic, Yashamaru has been everywhere, and he has become one of my most beloved characters.

I have nothing else to say on that, I just wanted to give it it’s own line. He’s played a big part of warming my hear this year, and I love him.

Finally, I feel like this fic has really brought out the introspective beast within me. Introspection has always been my forte, but it’s really taken the reins this time. In some ways, I’m quite annoyed with myself for it and for being word and long-winded. I’ve always had the biggest respect for those who can say what they want to say concisely, and I have never been one of those people.

That’s the goal for the 9th year of notquitejiraiya, for sure, and I plan to do so with a fic in the same universe as has captivated me these last 2 years, this time with the focus on Shikadai. Shikadai will be a new challenge for me, too, especially a grown up Shikadai, and I'm excited to try and tell his story, concisely and without even half the discontentment present in both GM and Strangers lol. We deserve some cheerfulness and range here at NQJ Ltd.

But at the same time, I’m proud of the way I write and the way I express myself and the characters within my story. I think I’m quite good at following a train of thought in a realistic way — not quite to the level of my idol, Mr Alex Garland, but I’ve time to learn — and by being Temari-centric, GM has let me into Temari’s head and let me run havoc her thoughts. I’ve received multiple comments on GM about how it’s somewhat frustrating not to have Shikamaru’s point of view, and while I get why: no thanks.

This is Temari’s story. There will be some moments we see through other’s eyes, certainly, but I’m of the opinion that if we saw both sides of GM, it would be far more frustrating. This story will span ten years and for me, it’s an exercise in writing someone piecing together parts of their life during that time into something worth living and figuring things out as they go. In life, while you might get to hear what the people around you think from what they say and how they act, you don’t get the privilege of seeing inside their heads. Neither does Temari, and by association, neither do you. I hope it pays off in the end; I’ll be proud regardless.

But enough about Becks the writer. Something pretty insane happened for Becks the human being last month, something that she’s not completely over. I live in Finland now. I’m learning Finnish, and I’m on Master’s degree number 2 (yes, I am addicted to learning, do not judge me). I have, frankly, no time to write, but am I going to do it anyway? Of course I am. I can’t stop myself, even if I tried. Not to mention, the pressure of my first MSc gave me Strangers, and I’m not going to resist if the 2nd brings on something equally fun.

Another constant this year for Becks the human, that I am certain my friends must be sick and tired of, is The Brothers Karamazov. I bought myself that book as a treat for finishing my exams in 2022 and have been slowly chugging through it for the last year. I’m sure it comes as no surprise with my wordy introspective tendencies that I love a classic, and I think it’s quite fun that I’ve somewhat accidentally aligned reading this particular classic alongside falling into the Bungo Stray Dogs fandom and, even more fun, aligned with writing GM. Two wildly different stories of trios of Russian siblings. These trios – they follow me around, I swear! But jokes aside, I have only 98 pages left of this almost 1000 page beast, and it feels like the end of an era. Never in my life have I seen characters as humans more effectively, and never have I felt more inspired to make sure the characters that I write appear human, too.

But like I say, being wordy is my weakness. The evidence is in this almost 3k ramble alone. There are so many more things I could say, and maybe once I’ve finished GM and it’s all published and tied up with a bow, I might share those thoughts, too.

But for now, I must say thank you to the 8th notquitejiraiya year for being so memorable, despite my blog and my ao3 page having ‘little’ to show for it by way of variety. The 9th year will be a good one, I’m sure, and I enter it with incredible friends — authors and otherwise — and the will (of fire) to improve.

And become more concise. That’s job no1.

Thank you all for playing a part in the last 8 years, whether we’re close or we’ve never spoken. Your time means the world, and I hope you have an incredible day / night / life.

Becks x

[27vampyresinhermind]

i dont really know what it actually means but i love your username. its so funny and relatable

Bahahaha!!!! So funny thing about my username, I came up with it when I was a 16 year old mentally ill goth kid on DeviantArt for the first time!!

I can tell you about each part of it actually!

The 27 comes from my favorite number and 27 is my favorite because, at the time, I was OBSESSED with the band Good Charlotte, more specifically the guitarist Billy. (Honestly, me becoming a kpop stan was so inevitable, I see it so clearly now lol.) Now Billy had a clothing line called Level 27. One of my most treasured possessions in high school was a Level 27 shirt that I bought, it was one of the only designs that came in my size and I loved it so much!!! I’m sure it’s still somewhere at my parents’ house actually but it definitely wouldn’t fit anymore. 27 is still my favorite number but I never really think about how it got there so thank you for making me remember that little tidbit of my own psyche!

So, I was also obsessed with vampires. Like an encyclopedic level of knowledge. I watched every vampire movie, read all the books on lore, just really made it my whole personality. The first thing I ever wrote was an original vampire romance. (Really, the tism doesn’t have an official diagnosis but it’s fucking been there for decades.) And all of the old vampire lore stuff would always spell it like “vampyr” or “vampyre” and I loved that because it was ✨edgy✨ lol!

And then, I mentioned the whole mentally ill thing right? That’s where the “in her mind” portion comes from. So for years, before I was diagnosed with my lovely clinical depression and anxiety, I was convinced that I was schizophrenic. My only exposure to schizophrenia was admittedly limited to various media at the time which essentially boiled it (incorrectly) down to someone who hears voices that aren’t there. I know now of course that it is much more complicated than that and that I don’t actually have that. But I did frequently “hear voices”, those voices being my own fucking thought processes of course, not hallucinations or anything. That’s just the way my thoughts were. But I didn’t have the language to describe that so, yeah….that’s where that comes from.

So, back in the day, in the public library of my hometown of like 1200 people, I created a DA account combining the core components of my personality so I could look at art and read fanfic. The auther of a story I really liked stopped posting on DA and announced that they were going to move their stories to ff.net so I made an account there. I didn’t want to make a new username because I wanted them to know that I loved their story so much I followed them to a new site. (That sounds creepy as fuck when I write it out…) Either way, I’ve kept my username the same throughout every fandom I’ve been a part of, partly for ease and partly because after almost 20 years, it’s a part of me at this point.

This infodump prolly wasn’t what you thought you’d get when you sent this ask Anon but what can I say?

I am 27vampyresinhermind, but you can call me Megs.

[teaandinanity]

Tagged for this by @darkfromday - thank you!

Gonna put my answers under a cut because I am, as ever, chronically incapable of shutting up.

Three ships I like: Literally sitting here paralyzed by indecision although I guess Hua Cheng/Xie Lian (Heaven Official's Blessing) are a mandatory pick since that's the fic I currently have open on my phone. It feels slightly traitorous to pick them over LBH+SQQ since the later pair are the ones I've done a lot more of my own art and writing for. I have no idea how my brain picks what fandoms I wanna create for and which ones I want to consume for but there's a Venn diagram and inexplicably TGCF is mostly in the 'I want to devour other people's creations forever in vast quantities' bubble. We'll see if that eventually changes I guess. Also Markus/North (DBH) probably also ought to be on here, on account of I angrily wrote fic for them and then tried to fix the story of the latter part of the game before having to confront the fact that I do not actually enjoy writing politics or combat and it was going to require So Much of that to work. And on the subject of things I'm gonna die mad about, I'm gonna give the third of three to RazAya, because the network did Green Lantern: The Animated Series SO dirty and it deserved better and I wrote and drew for them and still kind of want to firebomb a couple of executive's houses about the cancellation. Like, not while anyone is IN them, but I think I would feel better if I barbecued some of their possessions.

First ever ship: I have a bad sense of when things happen and/or sequential time and I am internet-old, I have NO idea. I think the first shippy fic I posted anywhere was SoRiku (Kingdom Hearts), if that counts? Like, I'd definitely shipped stuff before then because I didn't start writing with intent until late high school (I still owe a debt to the teacher who left a glowing note on one of my creative writing assignments that concluded 'and it was a genuine pleasure to read,' she is half the reason I started trying and kept at it), but that is at least something I can point to on a timeline.

Last song heard: Uh, something on the doyoulikethis-videogame-song blog so damned if I know what it was lol. Phone says the last thing I had up in my car was Lovers or Liars by Lauren Aquilina.

Currently reading: So Much Fanfiction. I should make a rec list about it. Currently open on my phone for a comfort reread is For you I'll become invincible by HanaSheralHaminail which is an AMAZING TGCF Wulian->Hualian AU rewrite of the whole series where Xie Lian meets He Xuan before he dies and they become friends and it changes the world, 300+k words with lovely illustrations. I also just got many things in the mail (NEW BOOOOOKS) but I haven't started them yet (The Hands of the Emperor is more than 700 pages and physically intimidating okay).

Currently eating/ate: … I have a bag of Reese's Minis open on my desk because I was craving chocolate REALLY bad when I made my last grocery order.

Currently watching: I have not watched actual TV in forever and a day, and I think the last time I even used the DVD player was LAST spring. That said, I do watch a lot of people playing games I also like but which are challenging (recently mostly Vintage Story and Project Zomboid) because it lets me pick up some useful tips AND if I'm doing other things listening to it is kind of soothing (jumpscare monsters and occasional yelps aside). Also a couple of different fairly chill true crime channels. I suspect the reason I find it so pleasant is that I don't talk to other people very much now that I live up a mountain and it's nice to hear familiar voices even if they don't belong to anyone I actually know.

Currently craving: Now that I have chocolate the top honors for this goes to Consequences for powerful men who choose to be The Worst. Alternately, the blessing of getting to read a couple specific obituaries. (The fact that my wealthy white FORMERLY REPUBLICAN and definitely still rather conservative mother quoted the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party thing at me because she knows I feel the same way really demonstrates how Profoundly Fucking Unhinged current events actually are.)

Pets: Tuesday, my long-hair dilute tortoiseshell moggie. She is napping within arm's reach as I type.

Am feeling shy about tagging today (we just got rain so I am less terror-frazzled about the state being on fire but now my brain is soup instead of screaming) so I'm just gonna say 'please steal this if you have the smallest inclination to fill it out and tag me because I like knowing more things about pocket friends' 💖

[silly-moth-123]

Hello!

I'm Bug or Moth or Beetle or maybe also Siffrin? (I'm weird about names lol), and I go by e/em/he/it/they. I am genderfluid/enby and on the aroace spectrum :) I have a pronouns.cc that lists my pronouns, names, and also the fandoms that I'm in! (It's not always kept updated tho)

(art is by me, of me!)

I'm a teenager, so please don't dm me or try to befriend me if you're an adult. You can still interact with my posts though!

Ask game!

And another ask game (ISAT spoilers)

I'm not gonna have a giant DNI list but I will not hesitate to block people.

Also, please don't come to my inbox with gofundme links

(more on that here also)

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I have a sideblog for my kandi! It's @crafty-beetle :)

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I'm a game dev, writer, and artist! My current hyperfixation is In Stars And Time as well as a bunch of other stuff :) I definitely have a lot of untagged ISAT spoilers on my blog so be careful if you haven't played the game (and gotten the twohats ending!)

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Here's my itch.io page if anyone wants to play my games :3

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My Minecraft account is Mystical8935 if anyone wants to play with me! Just make sure you send me an ask or dm or some sort of message with your username so I know who you are when you send a friend request :3 I play on pocket edition mainly. Also I just request that if you want to join my world, you ask me on Tumblr or discord first, as sometimes I play with my IRL friends who don't know I have online friends and it would probably feel kinda awkward for everyone. Even more awkward if I'm playing with my dad lol. But if you see I'm online, just shoot me a quick message and if I'm open to playing, chances are I'll have Tumblr and discord open so I'll see immediately :)

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My writing:

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Can't Get Them Out of my Head - ISAT Post-Game Fanfic

this is taking place directly after a playthrough that includes:

Twohats ending

That scene in Act 5 where you take the broken glass and cut stars into your arm

Bad Touch

Dagger event

Susquest

[I will add to this list if I think of anything else]

also it's gonna be kinda lazy writing, I'm mostly just trying to get words on the page because brainrot

it'll be posted in short sections with timeskips in between each one

Cw/tw for: all the same stuff as ISAT

https://archiveofourown.org/works/59303806/chapters/151245526

(I need to try to remember to actually update this more frequently lmao)

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I'm Right Here

A horror flashfiction based on this post: https://www.tumblr.com/xxacidnekoxx/763259443700973568/squareenix-official-hello-kitty-senpai?source=share

Cw/tw for: implied death of a dog and child, and for grief/loss.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/59558056

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UwUtale

why am i writing this

someone help me

Cw/tw for: Flowey speaking UwU

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61156003

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Your Worst(Best) Actor

An ISAT fanfic in which Siffrin tests the hypothesis that if talking to the Head Housemaiden is what triggers the loops, maybe they could escape if only she weren't in the way. And what better way to deal with that than to murder her, right in front of his family? Flawless plan, I'm sure nothing goes wrong (/j).

This one is under 1000 words!! It'll only take a few minutes to read and I'd really appreciate it if anyone wants to read it :)

Cw/tw for: general ISAT warnings, and also gore/murder

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62955562

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Untitled time loop story

Wrote this based on a writing prompt, I actually LOVE how it turned out!!

https://www.tumblr.com/silly-moth-123/781755554359132160/before-you-can-even-ask-they-start-explaining?source=share

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[placeholder; if I ever post any of my other works I'll link them here]

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I'm on artfight as hazel-nut-tree and comicfury as well (same username as artfight)! Both of those profiles are kind of a wip but if anyone wants to attack me on artfight this year I try my best to do revenge when possible :)

And on comicfury uh. Don't expect anything to be there for a while, but I'm trying to start up a couple of webcomics on there. I also have a comic site where I post little doodles that are just. Personal anecdotes and stuff. And I have an art dump but I pretty much never upload there lol,,,

Plus I also write a lot of novels and stuff, but I don't often post those. But feel free to ask me about them!! My main project rn is called Mortal, and anything related to it on my blog should be tagged as such (also feel free to send asks about it. Please. Character or worldbuilding based questions are my favorite but any questions would be so so fun)

I don't have a tagging system but here are some frequent tags I use:

✧.* Favorite (the posts I really really like)

✧.* Linguistics (a special interest of mine)

✧.* Bracelet making (for my bracelets. also a bit of a SpIn for me)

✧.* Vent post / Vent (I use both tags interchangeably. I'm fine dw abt me but fair warning that I vent post kinda frequently)

✧.* Original post / My post (I don't tag these as often as I used to, I tend to forget to lol)

Things I tend to not tag properly:

✧.* Individual fandoms

✧.* Spoilers

✧.* Reblogs

✧.* And probably more I'm forgetting too

Hmm ok I think I'm done with this post right?? Idk, is there anything else I should put here??

Uhh

Here have this picture of my bnnuy :3

[redyarns]

long post

how many works do you have on ao3?

31 but i always publish and then delete stuff. also my google docs is COOKED with how many wips i have

what's your total ao3 word count?

527,056. planning on hitting 1m by the end of this year from undertow alone ERRRR

what are your top five fics by kudos?

in my prayer (genshin impact, zhongchi. 4,587 kudos)

resist much, obey little (hazbin hotel, radioapple. 3,008 kudos)

acoustics (demon slayer, zentan. 2,204 kudos)

ruin me (hazbin hotel, radioapple. 2,153 kudos)

peach keen (demon slayer, zentan. 1,751 kudos)

embarrassing that two of these are hazbin hotel. im turbo depressed that undertow isnt in the top 5 but i guess that makes sense, its still a relatively new fic + the tf fandom isnt big on ao3. but also dont read that first fic. or any of these for that matter, theyre all either old or really bad or both

what fandoms do you write for?

ERRR this is a long answer. right now its tf (primarily megop) but i know that i made a few popular fics in genshin impact, bridgerton, and demon slayer. i also wrote for bnha and supernatural, but i also have a ton of wips for fandoms i never officially published.

i have a lot of stuff for mcu (stony) for some reason, as well as an egregious amount of v*ltron shit thatll never see the light of day. im currently trying to organize every single wip by fandom and theres just too many to count

do you respond to comments? why or why not?

uh well... im trying? but i tend to forget/get overwhelmed. i read each and every one tho, to the point i can recognize regular readers

what's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i havent ever written a fic that isnt hea. but i guess the closest thing to an angst ending would be the ones that never actuall ended and are in abandoned hell LMFAO

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

uhhh i guess ill go by cheesiness? starry-eyed ended with tanjirou proposing to zenitsu, or something else that i find cringe. that one i wrote years ago so i dont remember the exact details

do you get hate on fics?

ohhh yeah. lack luster got a lot of negative attention and it nearly killed me LMAO

do you write smut?

see i try but then after i publish it i get so embarrassed that i want to kay em ess. undertow is supposed to have pre-planned smut scenes and i have a few betas, but i will be deliberately writing those scenes in a different document they dont have access to bc ill die of embarrassment otherwise.

do you write crossovers?

no, i never did even when i was a kid on wattpad

have you ever had a fic stolen?

yes and it pissed me off. a few months ago some loser took resist much, obey little and published their version ON AO3. WHY ON THE SAME SITE, ARE YOU STUPID

have you ever had a fic translated?

a few, i dont remember which ones though

have you ever cowritten a fic before?

a few times yes, but ive found that often the other persons writing style isnt something that meshes well with my own, so its not feasible in the long run. i do have a very fun collab cooking up though so stay tuned for that!

what's your all time favourite ship?

MEGOP OOOO O O OO but reluctantly klance was where it all started so i suppose it might be my favorite. the angst material from that ship was top tier

what's the wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

lmao all of them? but if speaking seriously then maybe my kickass miraculous au that i wrote a good chunk of. its really cool and i poured a lot of thought into it but im too preoccupied with undertow to focus on anything else

what are your writing strengths?

my characterization is peak and im aware of it. it gets on my nerves if i feel like i dont quite have a character right so i always read a lot of content to get a general grasp of what people seem to expect and then i both follow/break those rules to better fit my narrative in a way thats both acceptable and exciting

what are your writing weaknesses?

oh my god. uhh well definitely action scenes, but in general i would say i have a poor time with showing rather than telling at times, and im also pretty piss at balancing prose with dialogue

thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i think its cringe. i remember a long time ago there was a sort of series of fics where one of the characters consistently spoke korean, and as someone who knows korean, i can tell you that that shit was cringe and incorrect as hell. i think its fine if a character can speak a different language, even cool, but using italics and typing in english is preferable to another language being written

first fandom you wrote for?

fairy tail, my home base. it all started bc i was on youtube as a kid just watching random people duet violin and piano, and i happened to stumble upon a pair playing some music from fairy tail. it moved 12 year old me's brain so much that i found the source and boom i got sucked in. still one of my favorite shows

favourite fic you've ever written?

undertow hands down. it is consistently the best written in all aspects: the plot is tight but explorative, the characters are well established, and there is a very delicate balance between action and romance thats been (so far) achieved. i consider it the peak of my writing career and everything else falls devastatingly short

Tagged by @shichidikai to answer 20 questions for fic writers, ty rin!

how many works do you have on ao3?

36

what's your total ao3 word count?

171,154 (100k+ from last year alone which is still bonkers to me!)

what are your top five fics by kudos?

Gay Chicken (zosan pwp)

Roll For Charisma (zosan dnd au)

life's a precious thing (zosan longshot)

my heart in your hands (marichat soulmates)

fervid as a flame (gelphie omegaverse)

the marichat fic has stuck around for a while, wrote it AGES ago. i have a feeling it might be overtaken by the gelphie fic soon

what fandoms do you write for?

one piece 98% of the time. there is a ghibli fic i wrote for a zine on the backburner, and a half-finished gelphie (wicked) fic i might get around to

do you respond to comments? why or why not?

almost always! if anyone knows me you know i'm a serial commenter on fics i read, and i'll always try to respond in turn. i am behind rn tho, especially for my unfinished fics - i'll get to them i swear!! there are also some comments that rub me the wrong way that i prefer to let be

what's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

well... probably The Germa Headphones. All of my non-con fics do not have nice endings, but idk if i'd categorize them as "angsty"

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i'd say Roll For Charisma, ignoring the fics I wrote years ago because I was all fluff back then lolol. Gave them a nice sweet epilogue in that one.

do you get hate on fics?

weirdly, only for my sanami fic. it was a transphobic asshole and i reported the comment. i've also gotten indirect hate in a way due to participating in a certain ship week event that ruffled a few people's feathers

do you write smut?

yes, especially pwp. it's what i find the easiest to write these days and so i can spit them out pretty quickly if i have the right motivation. i didn't start writing smut until i got into zs tho lmaoo it's been a learning process for sure

do you write crossovers?

not since i was 13 and on wattpad lmaoo. there's an amazing google doc in the bowels of my drive called "ATLA, MLP, Death Note Crossover" and it's a chaotic mess. one of these days i'll write my makima/sanji fic tho trust it'll happen

have you ever had a fic stolen?

i certainly hope not...

have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

have you ever cowritten a fic before?

technically, yes. it was a haikyuu crack fic my high school friend and i concocted on a call together in the middle of the night. i did post it but every day i get closer and closer to divorcing my account from it and leaving it on theirs. i've TRIED to co-write actual fics, or rp, but i've found my long form writing style (write 500 words then leave it for a month) is not very conducive to it ahah ha..

what's your all time favourite ship?

right now definitely zosan. all my otps have been hyperfixations but klance and kagehina have special places in my heart too.

what's the wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

oml too many... i still mourn my haikyuu witch au i wrote like 10k of and never posted. i don't see myself ever finishing it but i did like what i wrote. for one piece i'm still holding out hope i'll actually finish all my wips. we'll see how that goes ahah

what are your writing strengths?

i'd say my character-based plots & conflicts are pretty good, or at least that's what i find fun and easier to write. i usually feel pretty confident in how the characters im writing are feeling and the reasoning for their actions. also, i guess smut now lmaoo every day i get closer and closer to writing original smut and taking commissions

what are your writing weaknesses?

annoyingly, plotting. that's the biggest one and it makes my head hurt every time i try to write something more than 5k words. i also fall into clunky prose and run on sentences a lot. metaphors and more abstract writing has never come naturally to me and i know it's not nEEDED but it's a good toolset to have for certain story types. i used to edit as i wrote a LOT but i've been decently successful at beating that habit out of me.

thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i do try to avoid it, but sometimes words or phrases will pop up. i wouldn't do it without reason. if that reason is zoro finds sanji hot when he speaks french? so be it. i do nOT trust google translate tho

first fandom you wrote for?

my little pony, back on wattpad. i deleted most of them which i also wrote directly into the app so those are lost to the times. i have some chunks of one of my "fics" saved which was me transcribing episodes into terrible prose from fluttershy's pov.

favourite fic you've ever written?

don't look now but probably Deep Sleep. it's the most self indulgent thing i've ever written and even though i don't think its my BEST work it's definitely the one i have the most fun with.

tagging @mihawking @fivedayslater @agnesclementineblog @jesterboystrick @redyarns @daerigo