#my unpublished section of fic is now

[dirthenera]

Last Six Lines

Tagged by @crackinglamb , thank you!

Tagging @enigmalea , @buttsonthebeach , and whoever else would like to join in!

“You worry where your responsibility meets your power,” Solas said calmly. She nodded, trying to stop her leg from bouncing again. “All you can do, all any of us can do, is the best you can with the knowledge you have. It is folly to take on the guilt of gods. You cannot know the outcome to all things. You cannot know before what only the experience of having taken action will teach. You cannot afford to crumple under the weight of ‘what if.’”

From the next chapter of Secrets From Dreams!

[swiftsaltsweet]

A short 3 page chapter for shits and giggles is turning into a more funny (with plot relevance and character revelations) 13 pages and more chapter and I'm struggling to figure out how I got here.

Narrator: Her love for Hei-Ran, Kelsang, and Jianzhu gossiping and bitching at each other was how she got there.

Anyway, that chapter isn't coming out for a good while TT0TT I'm bad for writing it but.....THE URGE WAS TOO STRONG!

Why won't it come out anytime soon? Because it's like.....6ish+ away.... in Arc 2.... of Two Knives.

"You haven't even finished the interlude LET ALONE start with Arc 2's early chapters and you're doing this????" Yes I have a problem. u_u

[unanswered-stars]

Thank you so much for tagging me @jules-writes-stories @highlordofkrypton @achaotichuman

1. How many works do you have on AO3? I'm a but a wee babe in the ao3 world so just 7 but I have several WIP's that are on pause currently. I had originally had a fic planned for each day of Eris week but haven't been able to write in awhile so might be some time before those are published but once I start posting again you can expect Eris chaos to reign.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 36,487 I struggle to write long chapters and most of my works end up being around 2,500.

3. What fandoms do you write for? A Court of Thorns and Roses

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Shadows of Regret and Redemption| Azris - My first published work. A oneshot that grew legs and started to run. I am not completely happy with it thus far but I have the end plotted and I'm excited to eventually bring that to life.

Daughter of Autumn | Azris - Now this one absolutely shocked me with its popularity. Started as a fun little drabble for Gwyn Week 2024 and of course turned into Azris central.

The Beginning and End of Friendship | Azris - So many people screaming in the comments at me on this one. More screaming to come when I post part two I’m sure.

Two Souls Entangled| Azris - A tiny part of my soul via a short poem for Azris Week 2024.

Heaven Help the Fool Who Falls In Love: The End | Azris - This is the first piece I wrote for fanfiction and it is my precious baby. Only one chapter posted but I have several in need of editing before I publish the remainder. It's very heavy and I haven't had the mental space to read through it again.

5. Do you respond to comments? Every single one! They bring me so much joy. I have currently stayed away from my comment section for my own mental health but when I start posting again I will get back to everyone's comments, promise.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? All of my works are fairly heavy on the angst. TBaEoF comes to mind but I think for published works I’ll go with The Ending of Darkness which is a short little piece about @jules-writes-stories OC Mithras x Sylvan which I have a part 2 almost completed which is equally as angsty (sorry). Unpublished works definitely The Burning of Leaves and The Death of Shadows which are two fics I had planned for Eris week but are currently on pause (poor Eris I was really putting him through the wringer for Eris Week).

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Daughter of Autumn. Mostly because Cassian has the closing line and he just always says the darndest things.

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I have not, nor do I plan on it. Please don’t hate me 😅 Just not my writing jam. I love finding unique ways to explore a relationship and conveying those same emotions and feelings without the smut. That being said some of my favourite stories and authors use smut as such a wonderful exploratory storytelling device and it is delightful. I love reading others contributions to the smutsphere. So so many talented writers out there giving us all our smuttiest dreams. I truly do not think that my smut contribution is even necessary when you have things like To Become a Vanssera by @acourtofladydeath and Why Not Me by @thomasisaslut both absolutely rife with smut and use it beautifully to convey their story (albiet in very different ways).

9. Do you write crossovers? Not yet, and probably not ever because I can hardly keep up with writing ideas I have for one fandom.

10. Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, but it sounds delightful.

12. What is your all-time favorite ship? Azris most definitely for writing. I definitely have a big soft spot for Samwise and Rosie from LOTR (my husband is Samwise reincarnated and I am irrevocably in love with him). I have a WIP for Thesan and his lover and that dynamic and storyline has been so incredibly fun to explore as well.

13. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I started writing a Tarquin UTM oneshot that is incomplete and while I am still in love with the story I really struggled with writing the voice of Tarquin. This one will only ever get finished if I can finally figure out the right tone for this man’s internal dialogues.

14. What are your writing strengths? I have been told my writing reads like poetry which is one of the biggest compliments you could ever give me. I also love writing parallels but there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement there.

15. What are your writing weaknesses?  Editing haha. But actually, I find that my characters voices don’t feel very distinct and that there is a lot of overlap in the way they speak and think and it can be hard to distinguish who’s talking/thinking. I feel like my characters resemble a cookie cutter suburban neighborhood where the walls and trim might be a different colour but they’re all built exactly the same. If anyone has some tips please feel free to comment or message me!

16. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I absolutely love reading it but unfortunately the only other language I know isn’t really a language at all. Pidgin, which is basically just native slang. I was playing around with it in my Tarquin fic a bit but seemed a tad too niche.

17. First fandom you wrote for? LOTR in middle school. I have a printed multi chapter booklet that is a rewrite of Sam and Frodo’s journey through Mordor that I made for my English class one year.

18. Favorite fic you’ve written? My favourite multi chapter by another author is undoubtedly A Court of Shadows and Ashes by @futurehunt Mother Save Us From Your Twisted fate by @chunkypossum which got a stunning part 2 for Eris Week this year! My favorite of my own published works is either HHtFWFiL:TE or The Ending of Darkness. Of my unpublished works honesty The Burning of Leave or The Death of Shadows are both strong contenders. For non Azris I have a Beron fic WIP for @sjmvillainweek day 1 that will probably get prioritized over the other two.

No pressure tags (and sorry if you've already been tagged): @the-darkestminds @born-to-riot @chairofchaos @thomasisaslut @chunkypossum @acourtofladydeath @shadowsandlint

[sflow-er]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you so much for the tag, @silvagrey!💜

How many works do you have on Ao3?

Eight.

What's your total Ao3 word count?

355,461 (that's a bit deceptive; one of my fics is 239k).

What fandoms do you write for?

Young Royals. I did write for other fandoms all through my teens, but those fics haven't been online for a long time now.

Top five fics by kudos:

Other people's secrets (1,215) Matters of adjustment (190) The real deal (180) Like you better (152) Last chance (126)

Do you respond to comments?

I respond to every comment on new fics and WIPs. Having discussions in the comments section is the best thing about sharing a story, and I love my little community of regular commenters!

However, I am currently learning not to beat myself up for not getting round to answering every backlogged comment on OPS. I still try my best, but I had to change my previous "always respond" policy when @willedeservesbetter left very long thought-provoking comments on the first 20+ chapters and I simply couldn't keep up... 😅 I'm trying to trust that people know life gets in the way sometimes.

That being said, I do reply to all comments where the reader has shared their personal thoughts on the ace rep! It may take me a while to get to them, but they never fall off my to-do list.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Årnäs, February 2016. I don't necessarily think the ending is "angsty", but it's a very bleak fic with no happy ending.

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

It's impossible to choose between all my Walty fics. Does the emotional payoff from all the angst make OPS the happiest ending? Or is it one of the fics that are sweet from start to finish?

Whichever one it is, I would like to think none of them are too sugary sweet. They are very happy on the romance front because I want them to be a comforting read, but there is usually at least something left for the characters to figure out on their own after the story with the insight/support/lessons they have gained.

Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully no. There is one rudely worded public bookmark on OPS, but it doesn't qualify as hate. Also, I once got a comment calling a plot point "ridiculous :D", but the person didn't mean any harm.

Do you write smut?

I did write a couple of scenes in my teens for one fic, just emulating what I had read. The feedback was good.

I think I've mentioned this on here before, but I actually tried to write some as an exercise last year! From a "technical" standpoint, it turned out okay, but from an emotional standpoint, it just made me cringe and roll my eyes a lot. I don't know if it's a grey thing or a me thing, but I just can't buy into it at all. And I'm not interested in writing allo PWP, so unless I decide to write an explicit ace sex scene one day, the answer is no. I don't write smut.

Craziest crossover:

I'm not really a crossover person.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Well, I did enlist my "live-in expert" as a consultant on ÅFeb16 (to help me get child August's POV right and sign off on Carl Johan's characterisation and all the bad stuff bubbling under). I really enjoyed the collaboration - but I don't think actually co-writing a text with anyone would be a good fit for my process. I wouldn't even want a regular beta reader because it would only stress me out.

All-time favourite ship?

To write? I don't have an all-time favourite, but since I started up again, I would obviously have to say ace Henry/allo Walter.

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

I've got two WIPs at the moment. One is an unfinished and unpublished S3-compliant Walty fic, and the other is The real deal. At present, I'm feeling a resurgence of motivation for TRD, so the other fic is shelved for now. I do plan to finish it, though!

What are your writing strengths?

My planning and research game is pretty strong, as are my grammar and language skills. I guess the overall quality of my writing is decent when I'm not too stressed or low on creative energy. Many readers seem to find my writing fairly engaging, and they have said nice things about the dialogue, my characterisations, and the relationships between the characters.

Oh, and I think I'm pretty good at writing kissing scenes.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Perfectionism, self-criticism, "compulsive editing syndrome." When I'm unhappy with a passage, I tend to get stuck in a rewriting loop until I either get it right or spiral into writer's block and severe self-doubt. I also have a tendency to get swept away to the point where I neglect my wellbeing and burn myself out, which affects both my update schedule and the quality of my writing.

If you want more tangible weaknesses, I'm too wordy, my teenagers are unrealistically mature, and I occasionally overuse exposition.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

This is only my personal opinion and others are welcome to disagree! I'm not judging or criticising anyone in any fandom for using dialogue in another language in their own stories!

As a translator, my day job is all about conveying the same message in another language, and I can't just turn that logic off for writing. If the characters all speak one language throughout the text, it doesn't make sense to me personally to render some bits of dialogue in that language and others in English (unless those bits are truly untranslatable).

Not to mention that languages work differently, from word choice and grammar rules to the underlying communicative conventions and even thought patterns. Many people feel that using some sentences in the language that is actually being spoken adds authenticity, and that's a valid opinion! But to me personally, it's the other way around. I feel that the dialogue can only be consistently fluent in one language at a time, and if I'm writing the story in English, my dialogue will be an English rendering of what the characters would be saying in their own language. Similar to a translated book, only without a source text.

Now, if someone in the story is actually speaking another language, that's another matter! Dialogue in that language could be used very effectively in different situations, as in @silvagrey's example of Linda switching to Spanish to talk to Simon and Sara.

Again, this is just my personal opinion that I apply to my own writing! It is not the only valid opinion!

First fandom you wrote in?

If writing in my English notebook in lower secondary school counts, it was Final Fantasy X. The first fic I ever posted online was in an obscure anime/manga fandom in high school (and yes, I did use Japanese greetings and such back then).

Favourite fic you've written?

Other people's secrets. It's one of the best stories I've written, the one and only reason I'm still writing now, and one of the most meaningful things I've done for myself and my own ace identity (and apparently for some others too, which absolutely blows my mind). Furthermore, it was my first fic in over a decade and the biggest creative project I'd ever undertaken, so even just finishing it in a way I could be proud of was a huge accomplishment.

.

Thanks again for the tag, I had a great time answering these! 💜

No pressure tags: I honestly don't think I know any writers whom I haven't seen tagged yet (not ones who usually blog about their writing anyway)! So I'm just going to say if anyone reads this far and wants to play along, please tag me in your post. Or if you want to be tagged first, just let me know!

[sparklepocalypse]

Last week everyone was like, “good thing AO3 doesn’t do a ‘your year in review’ thing like Spotify!” and this week we’re all like “anyway here’s my 2023 AO3 year in review!” So. Anyway, here’s my AO3 year in review -- thanks to @anincompletelist for the tag! Open tag — if you wanna participate, do it! If you don’t, don’t; I’m not the boss of you.

Check it out under the jump:

2023 by the Numbers

Published Words: 123,740 since the RWRB movie pulled me kicking and screaming out of a semi-permanent fic writing hiatus in late September 2023. (Yeah. All those words in essentially one quarter of the year. I am bonkers.)

Published Stories: 37, all in the Red, White & Royal Blue movie fandom -- 22 of them are also tagged with the RWRB book because I kept character descriptions vague enough that readers could self insert whatever characteristics they wanted. All of them are Alex/Henry (be still my little ‘shipping heart).

Unpublished Words: 28,113 and counting in the Big Giant AU (KHIX). I have no other WIPs with actual story written in them, currently, but I do have a to-do list that’s 33 ideas with various levels of detail long.

Most Recent Drops

Sip You Like Cosmic Juice [rated E, 3,122 words] inspired by @orkazh-arts’ rugby!Henry piece. What if RWRB, but Henry plays rugby instead of polo? Alex POV at the charity sporting event. Oral sex, banter, and Henry’s thighs.

So I Will Weather the Storm [rated E, 9,804 words] my RWRB Advent fic. What if RWRB, but Henry's a helicopter rescue pilot in the RAF and Alex falls off a mountain? Oral sex, anal sex, Christmas. One of my favorites!

I'd Wanna Be Felled By You, Held By You [rated E, 2,310 words] my take on what happens when Alex lets Henry borrow his clothes at the lake house. Oral sex, making out against walls, anal sex, possessiveness.

On My Mind (Let's Go) [rated E, 10,751 words] my NYE fix-it fic where Henry boxes out Green Dress Girl, seduces Alex with dance, and gets his damn kiss (and more). Oral sex, anal sex, anal fingering, Henry’s ballroom lessons. One of my favorites!

Top 5 By Kudos

What's Symbiotic Will Always Be [rated E | 2,622 words | 1,157 kudos] The one where Henry develops a breeding kink. Out of all of my Kinktober fics, this one is the most qualified to be called absolute filth. God I love this fandom.

Take it Down Low / Make Me Get High [rated E | 2,092 words | 971 kudos] The one that’s been described by at least one person as “that rimming fic.” Again, you degenerates are fabulous.

In the Low Lamp Light, I Was Free [rated E | 3,156 words | 750 kudos] The one in which Alex bottoms for the first time in Paris, because there are two condom wrappers. Now we’re getting into my genre: porn with feelings.

I'd Wanna Be Felled By You, Held By You [rated E | 2,310 words | 670 kudos] The one in which possessive Alex really likes Henry wearing his clothes. One of my more recent ones and one of my favorites.

On My Mind (Let's Go) [rated E | 10,751 words | 601 kudos] The one in which Henry gets his New Year’s Eve kiss (and then some).

My Favorites Published in 2023

Only including fics that don't appear in either of the other sections above, so I don't clog up your dash with the same link multiple times here...

Bloom [series | rated M/E | 7,655 words] the fandom’s first sex pollen ‘verse on AO3 (unless someone wrote some without tagging it; I checked more than once!).

This is Holy Ground (The Flesh I'm Made Of) [rated E | 3,491 words] the fic in which Alex is a god who’s new to the whole deity business, and Henry is his acolyte.

Down On My Knees; Wanna Take You There [rated E | 7,787 words] the Renaissance Faire AU with glory holes and Pancake, the best horse in the universe.

If We're Caught in a Wave (I Will Carry You Over) [rated E | 5,944 words] the fandom’s first tentacle porn fic (again, unless someone wrote it without tagging it, as with the sex pollen). Alex is Alex and Henry is a cecaelia — AKA octoHenry.

Slide, Crawl into the Shades of Light [rated E | 4,851 words] the fic in which Henry has a bad week and asks Alex to overstimulate him into oblivion.

Amazed at How We Talk (Once, Successfully) [rated E | 8,782 words] the fic in which Henry and Alex don’t get hit by a cake, and Alex goes on Grindr at Buckingham Palace — AKA the harlot flat fic.

Blame My Poor Romantic Mind for the Mess We Made [rated E | 1,570 words] the fic in which Henry writes poetry on Alex’s naked body and then tops him.

A Few Other Stats & Facts About My Fic

Which RWRB canon did I lean on? Well, it should be no surprise to any of you that I’m an RWRB movie writer if you read the first chunk of this post. 100% of my RWRB fics published in 2023 are tagged with the movie fandom, while 59% of them are also tagged with the book fandom because I kept details vague enough that they could fit with either canon. I did not post a single RWRB fic that was tagged with only the book fandom. (And here’s my secret: I’m always picturing the movie characters when I write fic in this fandom. Always.)

What was my ratings spread? of the 37 fics I published in 2023, 2 were teen and up, 1 was rated mature, and the other *thirty-four fics* were explicit.

Where did my titles come from? All but one of my fic titles were sourced from song lyrics; the remaining title was pulled from a love letter written by Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne. I also put together a Spotify playlist for my Kinktober title songs.

What did I listen to while writing? A lot of M83 while writing plot and dialogue — enough that it put me into the top 0.5% of M83 listeners on Spotify for 2023. I also listened to the playlist Songs I’d respectfully get railed to while writing smut.

Canon-compliant or AU? While I’ve written a few things that are completely canon-compliant (missing/expanded scenes mostly), I’m a sucker for both AUs and canon-divergent fics!

Things I'm Hyped for in 2024

The Big Giant AU (KHIX): I’ve been working on this since September, but then Kinktober happened, and then Kinktober burnout happened, so I only recently started plugging away at it regularly. It’s going to be long. It will make people ugly cry. It will make people giggle. It will probably make people [redacted]. It’s already 28k words long, and I’m nowhere near finished. This will not be published until the first draft is complete, because I know me and abandoning WIPs.

Hanahaki AU: I’ve never written this trope but I love it and I need to do it. The end.

Runaway Prince: Henry runs away. Alex finds him. More to come. (Them to come as well.)

More in the Ren Faire, sex pollen, harlot flat (no cakegate), and octoHenry AUs.

And a few movie AUs and one-shot ideas I've got up my sleeve.

[selkienight60]

20 questions for writers

Thank you for the tags: @goldenraeofsun @they-reap-what-we-sow @wildsofmarch

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

64

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

431,388

3. What fandoms do you write for?

DC. But I am considering a foray.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

When It Rains

Distress Signal

Asimov's Integral

Home

Well-Versed Replacement

5. Do you respond to comments?

I do my absolute best, but spoons are sometimes in short supply.

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

Darling, everything I write is tagged "Angst with a Happy Ending." I really don't know what to tell you. For the sake of the question I will answer: Cape Cuddles.

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

Either "Thanks, Dad." Or Epicenter, maybe?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

-Sigh- Yeah.

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

I do not.

10. Do you write crossovers?

No, I am not an enjoyer of these mostly.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Oh, yes, actually. Inasmuch as fanfic can ever be stolen. Someone copy-pasted large sections of one of my stories into their own story. Truly a strange story, but I'm not generally a subscriber to "You can have fanfic stolen" idea. I'm more a Two Cakes girl, myself.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, quite a few! Also podfics made for me too!

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

Several, but I never add my name to them.

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

Like ever? Ough. Ummm. Impossible to know, I'm sure Destiel is up there though. And Stucky.

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

I finish all my WIPs. Eventually.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I used to wonder. Now I simply accept that I will never be good enough for myself and I continue plodding along.

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

No thoughts, head empty lol.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

OUGH. Published? Possibly Supernatural? Unpublished (age 11) Elektra, the movie, lmao. I gave her a dojo, which is something every girl wants and needs.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

Asimov's Integral. I've thought about this question a lot, lmao.

Right, tags for: @dottie-wan-kenobi @silverandsunflowers @batbirdies @a-canceled-stamp

[cosmos-dot-semicolon]

(⭐fanfic writers' commentary)

@plutosoda hi

Ooh, time to reread my old writing, huh? Always a fun trip, especially given I'd totally forgotten like half of it including that repetition trick you'd mentioned…

fair warning, i only got like 3 asks for this thing so I'm gonna commentate on pretty much the entire fic here. This post never ends.

Here's an entire director's commentary on All-Nighter! Enjoy!

"The covers were warm… But at least it'd get something done before passing out again."

I'm still fond of this intro. I'm terrible with being succinct, but this is somewhere where my rambling writing style really works; this section is written from experience of many a 'stayed up too anxious now you can't sleep' nights, and someone who has read a lot of the techniques to fix that problem, then didn't (ADHD lol). That is in fact what my internal monologue tends to be like at night - a mix between recalling every single way you've ever learnt to pass out, worrying about what happens tomorrow, 'why is life like that. what did i do,' and just a pinch of 3am self loathing.

I never really thought of it until an AO3 commenter pointed it out, but it was a fairly natural way of worldbuilding/expositing/characterisation all in one go. Establish the premise of the fic, Robot only bothering to process things when it's on the brink of exhaustion, the way it's kinda obsessed with productivity and efficiency and self-improvement.

I'm proud of it!

Also I like to think Lady Luck only does the weird scheduling thing for Robot. She'd be the type of person to try and make the Dungeons a personalised hell for everybody.

“Hey, could I get a coffee, do you think? …I’ve been sleeping so badly down here.”

I'm quite happy with the intro to the next bit too. My goal going into most fanworks (still) is to emulate what drew me to the original story. In this case, that's Dicey's tone and dialogue, with a bit more direct focus on the characterisation of everyone. So this is sort of a meta plot device that signals all that to the reader. I love how efficient that is. also I just like throwbacks and references okay

"The canteen was a dense jumble of kichen counters…"

I could've been a little faster with this scene and Robot subsequently making the coffee. One of my weaknesses as a writer is that I hallucinate some of the scenes in my head, and try to write down everything in that instead of just drawing a comic (cough that one unpublished Ninjago fic). I'm a sucker for describing scenery for days on end.

That said, I'm really glad I got the vibe of 'light-blue-grey' morning over to you in your fanart. It was exactly what I was imagining as I was writing this.

"Pre-ground. …But this was just evil."

I think I'm funny. Anxiety cube can put up with a lot, but terrible coffee isn't it.

"They taste horrible compared to freshly ground beans. It’s not worth the convenience."

haha. because you see. that's its heart's desire *gets turned into a dice*

"Pouring a generous portion for its new friend, Robot masked its complaints with a long sigh." "…But thanks to the innovations of modern day life-” An overhead swig downed half the mug."

A commenter pointed out that some of my lines have really good flow in them between actions and characterisation. I didn't notice that until then, but I'm inclined to agree. Some of these drive in the point really well.

"At least its fellow patron was enjoying themselves – not even flinching at the concoction and savouring the coffee raw. It was tempted to start a commentary on how dark roasts were overrated, but soon became a little more concerned about them drinking through the 100 centigrade burns. This place had quite the collection of creatures, it seemed."

I like to think Robot's a little snobby about the things it enjoys. I like to think Lady Luck tries to throw people off as much as possible.

"So, how’s the self-improvement going?" they started. "I only want top quality minions in my dungeons."

Very fun fact is that I was worried about spoiling the twist in this fic because of this line being so blatant, but I wanted to put it in anyway because it's a good character-establishing moment, and a good… re-interpretation of the line in another context? I love recontextualising canon in a slightly different way that still works for the characters in question. it's so fun

Anyways. Turns out I didn't need to worry about that because at least one reader totally missed this too so got hit with the full twist anyways. Isn't writing great?

"So, what’s keeping you up this late?” they asked. “Nightmares? A looming sense of regret and existential dread? Unfinished essays due tomorrow morning?"

essays due tomorrow morning. haha so true. i'm glad I don't take much coursework nowadays.

"You know, as useless as it looks, sleep’s rather important for you folks. It’s how you deal with all the terrible things that happen during the day, since your brain can just wipe the slate clean and try again. But funnily enough, it’s always the first thing that’s left behind whenever someone wants to better themself." "Life’s painful enough as it is. Why not change things up if your current routines aren’t working?" "Nobody ever plays the cards they’re dealt perfectly, dear… Time always slips you by when you’re not paying attention. And nobody ever knows what’s coming next. You’ve just got to learn when to raise and fold them." "Well, part of being human is never being a hundred-and-one percent efficient. If you folks still count yourself as that. I’d apologise but I remember you were quite nonchalant about your little transformation anyways."

One of the main points of this fic was that while Lady Luck is blatantly on the offensive and absolutely insulting Robot to its core, she's not technically… wrong?

It's not bad advice. Lady Luck, in-game, seems very perceptive of the various insecurities mortals go through. And I like to think she does start this conversation just for genuine fun, to pick someone apart. See if they bounce back against it or just crumble. It's just a bonus that the recipient finds it harder to refute her offers afterwards.

"It might!" it snapped back, getting them to at least try and contain their mockery under a silent, wavering smirk. "You know what? I think it will be, I can feel it!"

Robot sort of does both. It's definitely very very anxious. But it's stubborn. I really like that about its character: how there's a contrast between its organised and disorganised sides? How robots are usually associated with hard numbers and calculations, but Robot's mechanic is blackjack. also it's SO autism/adhd coded. listen. in this

I don't know if there's a trope to call either of these, but they're my favourite things about both characters, and they're surprisingly introspective for a game so short on story. (I will write more about that in another post. lol).

It's a bit indulgent in how long it goes on in some areas, but eh. It works for the fic's pacing.

"The figure leaned forward to highlight its obvious obliviousness…" "I thought you were supposed to be the overly organisational optimist."

I love alliteration. yippee!

"A gentle chuckle filled the air, restrained from its usual projecting echo. "You wound me, Robot. Games are always more fun when your players at least get the chance to try and fight back."

I like to think Lady Luck's main motivation is entertainment. Which mostly involves watching people suffer. But I think it's in the spirit of luck to have it so that someone's downfall was their choice. Determinism versus free will and whatever.

The chance that somebody could escape makes things spicier. And makes it sting all the more for all those that didn't. Hooray!!

Also given Lady Luck's usual loud persona, I planned (plan) on giving her quite a few more subtle but equally threatening moments in this series. It's a thing that wouldn't really work well in the actual game, but it does in a slower medium like writing, and I fucking love that trope.

"Statistically unlikely, but I’ll humour it," she commented to an invisible aside."

You should picture this scene as her directly staring at you through the fourth wall. Like in a sitcom.

"But it’s not so bad, being a minion… I’ve heard that’s about as stable as a job as you can get these days." "…though surprisingly she was not the worst boss it had had to deal with."

I always thought this line, used on Thief in-game, would've been an absolute killer on Robot. The job market is pretty fucking shit these days under capitalism and you would be lying if you said there aren't at least some parts of the Dungeons that seem better work-wise. Inclusivity, stable employment, accommodation.

Yeah, you have no freedom, but that's also the goal of capitalism up here as well. At least in Dicey it's ridculous and ironic. And you'd get to use your degree in maths/statistics/acounting etc to its full extent! Can you fucking imagine the paperwork for a game-show/dungeon hybrid business.

"But then again, I think you’re plenty used to the grind."

I believe this was an unintentional-turned-intentional coffee pun. Boooooo

"Funny how they think that’ll discourage anybody. …Folks hear that the house always wins and immediately think they’ll be the exception."

She would be the one to know that. This was intended as a followup to Robot's entire argument before. I'm very happy that at least one person picked up on that :D

"So whatever you pick, it'll be a decision from Robot alone, no matter what your mind or body drags you into afterward.”

I believe this was also supposed to be a callback, but the wording got changed slightly. I think it was the "It feels like my mind and body won’t stop working against me" bit.

"Normally, Robot would’ve stayed to socialise and make new friends, and in all likelihood, skipping breakfast would leave it starving later on in the day. But right now, it needed some time to itself: to think and recover and remember where it was going with this."

This was another callback (that actually made it into the story). Robot immediately making another bad decision after the first, with the exact same words echoing it coming.

"Just another day in the dungeons. It could handle this."

I wanted the ending to be very short and open-ended, in that it was up to you to interpret whether Robot took the offer or not, and when. But regardless I wanted it to be like a regular intro to an episode, but with the hint something definitely fucking changed that the audience can only speculate on.

…oof. 80 minutes on this essay. My poor neck. I think that's it for now, though.

Overall I'm really happy with this piece - hence why it's one of the few things I actually put online. It's three years old, and I could've fixed the flow in some bits (there's one part where I think Robot answers a different question than was asked).

But I achieved pretty much everything I wanted to say in this piece of fanwork, it pushed me to think about characterisation a lot and my writing and editing techniques. There's a lot of neat little things I put into it, and it really got me to grips with what I liked about my inspiration in the first place.

I think that's an exercise worth trying for every fan-work creator. Stretches you brain. Almost lets you re-experience what you loved about a thing years later. Points you towards your possible future diagnoses. It's a fun time!

[thevioletcaptain]

WRITING MEME: *steeples fingers* talk to me about a WIP you've got goin' on

This is such an impossible open-ended question for my indecisive brain because I have far too many works in progress and just choosing which one to talk about is hard 😭 But let's give this a try.

Gonna take the roulette approach (opening my WIP folder, closing my eyes, scrolling up and down several times, and then clicking without looking) to save myself from The Initial Struggle.

OKAY. The WIP I landed on is an as-yet-wholly-unpublished DeanCas fic titled One More Chain Does the Maker Make. Whoo!

Here's an assortment of bullet-point notes about it!

The premise: 15.06-adjacent alternate canon fic! Jack kills Chuck before they even know he's been resurrected, and his influence on the world--and on Dean in particular--lifts away. Dean leaves, fearing that Cas won't feel comfortable coming back to the bunker to see Jack if he's still there, and also because he feels the need to be on his own for a while as he figures out who he is without Chuck pulling his strings. He goes no-contact, and ends up working on Jesse & Cesar's ranch, where he eventually realizes that he's gay, and that Chuck's manipulations ran even deeper than he'd thought.

Yeah, that's right -- it's a gay!Dean fic, which I've wanted to write for a while. It's been a really compelling concept to explore, considering everything else I've written has been bi!Dean, and once I started thinking about it from the Chuck-manipulation angle I knew I had to write it.

The title is a lyric from The Maker Makes by Rufus Wainwright, which I didn't realize was written specifically for Brokeback Mountain until right now when I went to find a youtube link.

It's a rare fic for me in that Dean legitimately doesn't already know that he's in love with Cas. He's felt it for a long time, but Chuck has been fucking with him so intensely that it's very much been an allegory of the cave situation. He's been looking at the shadows of his love, but now that the chains are gone, he can look at it directly.

Dean stays on Jesse & Cesar's ranch for several months overall, and when he eventually reaches out to Cas it sets off a long period of writing emails to one another, then texting, then calling. The epistolary section of the fic is HEAVY on the pining and it's been a lot of fun to write.

This fic also features a favorite trope of mine: namely that Dean looks at Cas in his ill-fitting suit and dumpy trenchcoat and sees an absolute brick house stud, while the person he's just been gushing about him to looks and sees Just Some Guy.

Dean! Befriends! A horse!

There's also a subplot with a radio show, but I'll save further details on that for when I eventually post it.

I hope this was at least somewhat interesting! Thanks for the ask <3

If anyone wants to know more about this fic, or another WIP, or something I've posted on Ao3, feel free to send an ask :)

[blackmageeljin]

Hey! Just wanted to reach out and let any followers mostly here for my work on Repeat:|| know that I AM STILL WORKING ON IT! I REALLY AM!

I have about 20-25k words currently unpublished and am like... 1/2 to 2/3 to the end. I'm sure with Missing Link dropping soon KH will be driving the serotonin bus again and the hyperfocus will Get It Done.

Previously, it was easy to denote a section as 'done' when they moved on from a world, and so I could easily publish those sections. But as I entered the finale, keeping all the timey whimey stuff sorted and dealing with significantly more moving parts and suddenly a much larger cast of characters, I resolved to not begin posting again until the whole thing was done so I would have the luxury of shifting things around as needed.

It has taken a lot of time and recovery to just be able to feel comfortable using Tumblr again, or posting any kind of writing. I have a few Hazbin fics up because that fandom is generally less changed and it is easy to hide behind the Asexual Vore Demon. Also, I am not playing 5 dimensional time travel chess writing for it haha, so it is something that is just a lot easier to produce if I am not having a good health day. But honestly, even that took a lot of courage and I waited a long time before posting, as my agoraphobia became significantly more severe for a while. I spent a lot of time catching up in JJBA in the past few years too, but haven't posted any of the writing I've done for it for fear of the witch hunting doxxing campaigns that go on over ships and things over there.

Admittedly that has taken longer than anticipated for a lot of reasons ranging from ye olde social anxiety and fandom drama to just real world stuff. A tree fell on my house! On a happier note, I now have two goats and they are named Xehanort and Eraqus.

Admittedly, besides logistics, I am waiting until it is done to post because I don't want to deal with any drama/fallout for how I handle things like Xehanort's Actual Motivations™, how characters who have previously not had screen time get characterized, my understand of certain metaphysics, people being upset things Are Wrong when in fact I am referencing something that is explicitly canon from KHUX and such that they haven't played, a lack of understand of the inherent themes of moral philosophy and the duality of history, and, you know, people generally being bitchy. The finale is a turning point in a few ways, in that both the tone shifts and that it's when all the 'hot takes' come fully to light, so I am nervous. For people who have been nothing but supportive I will finish this. For you and for myself and for Sora and Xeha. But fuck if fandom spaces aren't as safe as they used to be, and I'm tired.

As a teaser some general things to look forward to are: Riku finding out about The Boyfriend, light squad screen time, yelling at Yensid, Ansem SoD but he has awkward estranged dad energy, ominous Vanitas implications, things that come out of Lea's mouth, Kairi being relevant.

And if you read this far, here's a lil preview snippet for you:

"After I do that, you gotta hand over your guardian.” Sora clarified. When Ansem nodded he reached his own hand forward and shook.

“Deal.”

Sora half expected some kind of sinister dark magic to flare up when they shook hands… but nothing happened. It was almost anticlimactic, just a normal handshake. That was… good? But it still left Sora waiting for the other shoe to drop again.

Sora turned around to face the other two who had come with him. “Alright then. I… guess I have some work to do.”

Xehanort began to answer, only to be cut off.

“Oh, and Sora? One more thing.”

Sora half turned back to the heartless, getting ready to give him an ear full for trying to pull something, but-

“Be sure to take careful care of my youngest self. By Vanitas’ logic, he is as my precious baby brother. It would be remiss of me not to do my familial duty and ensure the well being of his heart.”

To which Sora, unsurprisingly, turned bright red and began floundering helplessly.

“You!” Xehanort was not faring much better.

And Vanitas had gone from poorly hidden laughter to full blown cackling. Then he stepped forward and high fived the Heartless.

And that was… huh.

Something about that, about seeing Ansem of all people acting like a regular guy… high fiving his friend and laughing over something stupid and- and normal like teasing someone over their boyfriend and not something super evil or sadistic. He was a Heartless- and in a way, Vanitas sort of was too, right? But right now they were just acting like regular everyday people…

Sora adopted an overly dramatic serious expression and gave Ansem a salute. “I’ll have him back by 10, sir!”

“Sora!” Xehanort hissed full of betrayal. Sora flashed him an apologetic grin. Ansem’s grin was significantly less apologetic, if not amused.

“Good man.”

[blutopaz15]

18, 27!

LINK TO THE ASK GAME

18. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

Oh gosh...there's a section that I got a few compliments on in the last chapter my ttm moon nexus fic. (Gosh, that was SO long ago now, omg...not long after TTM came out, and certainly long before "Dear Callum")

They're having some big feelings time and...

It's not my favorite thing stylistically at this point, but that whole fic is hella nostalgic for me so I look back on it fondly. I think a lot about Rayla being SO alone in the world aside from the boys...and I think this is one of the first times I really articulated that in fic?

27. Is there a fic you were nervous to post/share? Why?

below the cut for nsfw stuffs

probably the "madwich" I wrote a while back: familiar. I had some friends read some drafts because I was nervous that I'd written Callum being too rough, to the point that I was worried about it getting into dubcon territory 😅 (which, like, nothing wrong with folks writing/reading dubcon, but that wasn't my intention so...)

As far as still unpublished...............I have brainstorming (and a partial draft!) for a spicy take on ttm rayllum at the moon nexus that I don't know will ever see the light of day...for reasons that I'm sure y'all can imagine.

[pisoprano]

I've been tagged for this game by @lady-de-mon-coeur

Rules: we're given specific words to find in our wips/fics, share the section they appear in, and pass it on!

My words were:

support, touch, realise

Reserve words: kind, truth, dance

Support:

From an as of yet unpublished chapter of The People You Call Home:

“Can you give our viewers some examples of positive thinking?” Alya asked. “Thinking about the support you have from your friends,” Chat said immediately. “Oh, absolutely,” Ladybug agreed.  “I know when I’m feeling my most down, Chat Noir is amazing at encouraging me.  And I have known amazing people who have done the same for me in my personal life.  To those people I say: you may not know you’re helping Ladybug, but you have no idea how much your love and support have meant to me.” “And what do you recommend for people who don’t have those supportive friends?” Alya asked, moving her microphone towards Chat Noir. Chat Noir looked right at the camera.  “To everyone who doesn’t have people who care in your life right now: I know how hard it is.  Maybe you had someone who loved you before, but they’re gone now.  Maybe the people who should care about you don’t give you the support you need.  Maybe you want to ask for help, but it just feels so impossible.  Please don’t give up hope.  You aren’t unloveable.”  He looked at Ladybug, then at Alya.  “You might be surprised how much people really do care when you find them.”

Touch:

From Loveybug's inevitable crash (with added bonus words that I wrote while I've been compiling/polishing all my Loveybug one shots):

“There’s nothing wrong with being you,” Tikki assured her. “You’re a great Ladybug because of how much you love people.” “But not a great Loveybug. She’s who I become when I let myself love too much and I lose control of my feelings and I’m just so nrgghhh!” she waved her arms wildly in the air, “and… no one wants that me!” “Maybe Catwalker does?” “Yeah, right.”  Marinette slumped in her chair.  “If he cared, wouldn’t he have touched me back by now?” So many times, Loveybug had wrapped her arms around Catwalker, whether that be a hug of greeting, holding onto his neck when he had carried her out of danger.  She’d even held his face in her hand once to kiss his cheek. He hadn’t told her to stop.  But he only touched her back when he had to. Didn’t that mean that he was secretly uncomfortable and only putting up with her because it was his job to do so?  With his constant formality and acquiescence, she wasn’t sure if Catwalker even knew how to say no. Tikki gave her an encouraging smile.  “You won’t know until you ask.”

Realize:

From Part 20 of Runaway Catwalker (Ao3 link):

Alya: You've just been so overwhelmed after losing both Chat and Adrien... I didn't want to burden you with even more things to worry about. Marinette: I get it. You were trying to be a good friend. Alya and Marinette grab each other in a hug that they both need. Alya: By keeping you in the dark?  I made Chat vulnerable by doing that!  I should have realized I was making the same mistake by not telling you. Marinette: It wouldn't have made a difference.  You're right: We should have told Chat about Rena Furtive.  And if you'd asked me before tonight?  I would have given you permission to tell Catwalker what Chat should have known all along.  He seemed so perfect, I never thought that he could be so untrustworthy.

Since I didn't use my reserve words, I'll let anyone who hasn't been tagged take them:

kind, truth, dance

And add a few reserve words of my own:

friend, laugh, real

[freneticfloetry]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Will I ever get enough of these? No? Thanks to @liminalmemories21, @strandnreyes, @welcometololaland, and @reyesstrand for the tags!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

45. RIP to the lost works of my OG fandom, published on a ship board/archive that no longer exists. (I still have most of them, they just won’t be seeing the light of day. Like ever.)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

368,184. (Again, RIP to all those now-unpublished words — with them I’d be somewhere around 800k.)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

LOL So glad this question is phrased the way it is. Right now, I’m only actively writing in 911 Lone Star fandom, though I have a WIP in Magicians fandom that I fully intend to finish. Historically, I’ve written in about 40 fandoms (36 on AO3), most with a single fic. Thanks, Yuletide!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Ashes and Flame (Every You and Every Me), The Hunger Games Trilogy (I get a kudos email for this one at least five times a week. How are people still finding and reading this little fic?)

Lost in Translation, The Losers

Deck the Halls with Daddy Issues, pre-film Avengers MCU

Big Girl Pants, New Girl

Shells of a Long-Ago Lifetime (Faces That Once Were Mine Mix), Supernatural

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

99.9% of the time, absolutely. Comments are my biggest motivation — the serotonin section fuels my muse. If people take the time to tell me they read and enjoyed a fic (especially if they tell me why), I like to at least thank them for that. There have been times when Real Life has been Happening A Lot and comments on the more popular stuff have gotten by me, and I feel weird about going back months after the fact to respond — that Hunger Games fic, for instance, has a couple pages of unanswered comments.

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

Posted, probably Of All Our Yesterdays. I am typically an Angst with a Happy Ending writer without fail, but the boys of the Black Dagger Brotherhood don’t do typical happy, and Phury is lowkey the angstiest of the bunch.

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

I’m actually gonna say scenes from an unfinished story, because I think Quentin Coldwater having this happy ending, the way this one happens, is the biggest fuck you to show canon and its creators that I could possibly craft.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I recently got my first hate comment! I posted about it, but I’ve also left it up in all its glory.

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

I do now! Not that I haven’t in the past — I wrote several het scenes for my very first ship, and Quentin and Eliot had some delightful married kitchen sex we picked up right in the middle in What Baking Can Do — but I feel like Tarlos has really helped me unleash my inner smut writer. My smut from Carlos’ POV has a lot of feelings (LOL), but the stuff I’m writing from TK’s POV is a little sillier and dirtier and more fun. With feelings.

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

I do love me a good crossover. Outside of canons I’ve crossed that exist in the same universe (We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, in Jessica Jones/Luke Cage fandom, plus And to All a Goodnight, for two Jennifer Crusie books), I once wrote tens of thousands of words of a ridiculously plot-heavy Roswell/Angel crossover that will forever hold a soft spot in my heart, a randomly cracky and super angsty Supernatural/Grey’s Anatomy, and a minor character-focused Supernatural/Sarah Connor Chronicles, Requiem, that I still sort of love a lot.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

That Hunger Games fic has been swiped a few times. Weird.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Again, the Hunger Games fic — it exists somewhere on the internet in Dutch. And that one, the SPN/TSCC crossover, and an old Dexter fic, Dinner and a Show, have been podficed.

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

I have! An old friend and I once cowrote ~25k of our idea of fluff, which was basically hijinks, smut, and torturing our leading man with a boom box and Billy Joel.

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

For ships that I’ve written… Hmm. I think, before I wrote to build a home, I would’ve said it was a tossup between Tarlos, Queliot, Chlollie, and Jules/Robin from Troubleshooters, but now there’s just no contest. Weewoo Husbands for the win. For ships in general, Tarlos still tops the list, alongside the ones I mentioned, the OT3 (Eliot/Hardison/Parker), Arthur/Eames, Phedre/Joscelin from the Kushiel’s Legacy books, Frank/Karen from the Netflix Marvelverse, Aidan/Sally from Being Human US, and my MCU crack cube of Steve/Nat/Bucky/Sam.

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

God, this is such a throwback, but it’s probably Adagio in B-Flat, the Sherlock music porn murder mystery I half wrote and got hopelessly blocked on.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, I’d say, especially banter. And understanding characters, I guess? I’m good at making characters sound like themselves, whether they’re speaking or internalizing. And, I’m now proud to say, plot. That’s something I wouldn’t have dared to claim this time ten years ago.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Oof. Brevity. I have completely lost the ability to write short (and, by extension, to the point). I’m also the slowest writer in the world, thanks to my tendency to edit every sentence within an inch of its life.

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

My Lone Star mutuals are laughing right now. Clearly I hate it. 😊 I’ve written three fics that feature Spanish, two sort of significantly, and all my old Firefly fics have some Mandarin in there somewhere.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

OG Roswell. So much OG Roswell. Michael/Liz, specifically, with a side of Kyle/Isabel.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

It almost feels like cheating, since it’s my most recent fic (and the only one I’ve published so far in my current fandom), but I’m so stupidly proud of to build a home. Carlos is such a touchstone character for me that writing him was oddly therapeutic. And I think I’ve said this before, but writing the two of them together was like the evolution of the clarity I found writing Queliot, which was the first time I’d really explored a ship in fic where I loved both halves of the pairing even close to equally — it helped me unearth my Carlos and who he is in my heart, but it also helped me uncover the true depth of my love for TK.

No pressure tagging @orchidscript, @heartstringsduet, @never-blooms, @rmd-writes, @walkinginland, @paperstorm, @mixtapestar, @catanisspicy, and @alrightbuckaroo!

[starspray]

For the Director's Cut, please say more about White Water Flowing! I love this section:

One morning, as she emerged from her favorite bakery with a basket full of pastries, she encountered Finrod—and with him Fingon, golden ribbons shining in his braids. “Why, it is my favorite niece!” Finrod exclaimed. “Good morning, Celebrían.”

“Good morning, Uncle,” Celebrían said, smiling. “And good morning, Fingon.” She had heard from several folk how intimidating it was to encounter great kings of the Noldor wandering the streets of Tol Eressëa, but she had not found any of them to be particularly frightening—Fingolfin might have been the exception, but he did not often come to Avallónë.

“Did you know that Caranthir is on the island?” Finrod asked as they strolled down the street. “I wonder what brings him to Eressëa.”

“Me,” Celebrían said, earning herself two very surprised glances. “Well, I invited Nerdanel, and it would have been very rude not to extend the invitation to her sons.”

“Are Celegorm and Curufin wandering about Avallónë, too?” Fingon asked.

“No, they were unable to come,” said Celebrían. “Perhaps next time. Nerdanel is going to make a sculpture for me. Oh look, here is Caranthir now!” She waved to him, and the streets were not so crowded that he could pretend he hadn’t seen. In any case, he crossed over to them, exchanging slightly stilted greetings with his cousins. Everyone liked to say that the crimes of the First Age were forgiven and set behind them, but of course that was easier said than done. Celebrían had already decided that the best way to handle the tension was to pretend it did not exist. She had smiled and charmed her way through plenty of awkward gatherings that way, and in several cases had ended long-standing feuds, and stopped one or two others before they could really begin.

So, naturally, she invited Fingon and Finrod to lunch with them. Caranthir turned an interesting shade of red, and the other cousins exchanged a startled glance, but Celebrían knew very well that none of her relations liked to say no to her. It came of being the youngest and of having been so badly hurt and so long in healing. She kept up a running, cheerful chatter as they walked back to her house, mostly about the weather and the pastries she’d bought, and also some harmless family gossip—a cat had adopted Tuor, who rather unfortunately dissolved into sneezes and sniffles whenever he was near cats, and Idril thus far was too busy laughing at him to be of much help.

At her house they found Nerdanel in the front garden, engrossed in a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. She straightened as they approached, eyes going wide for a moment, but both Fingon and Finrod greeted her with much more warmth than they had greeted her son. Celebrían slipped her arm through Caranthir’s to keep him from escaping, and led the way inside.

Overall, it was a pleasant afternoon, if a little stilted on a few sides. Finrod and Fingon made their escape as soon as was politely possible, and Caranthir vanished behind the roses in the garden. Nerdanel looked at Celebrían as they sat together by the wide window in the parlor, sipping tea. “Do you think to effect a family reconciliation by brute force?” she asked, sounding curious.

Ahh, I'm having a lot of fun with this fic! And this section is where I started to realize that it was going to be much longer than I initially planned. I started writing White Water Flowing for the SWG Matryoshka challenge, and the premise came from a line I'd just written in the latest chapter (as yet unpublished) of Untidy Souls, where Melian mentions Celebrian's mountain house and that Caranthir had helped her design/build it (I will of course have to edit that line a bit now). So that's why I had Caranthir come with Nerdanel to Eressea. Silly me, I had a vague idea in my mind of where I was going to work in all the Matryoshka prompts, and like three of them would be near the end once the mountain house was built. Shouldn't be more than two, three chapters at the most, I thought!

Then Finrod shoved himself into this scene, dragging Fingon alongside him, more or less unplanned. I thought about writing the lunch itself but I didn't want to subject myself to the awkwardness, no matter how well Celebrian deals with it. And then Nerdanel comes out with her question and that's as much a question for me as it is for Celebrian, lol.

(Yes, Celebrian is going to make everyone friends again by force if necessary, and yes, that is apparently the B plot of this fic. I guess what better way to make everyone get along than to give them a Family Project? They are Noldor).

I've also been meaning to write about Celebrian recreating Rivendell in Valinor for some time now--I wrote about it from Elrond's POV in Fields and Mountains Ever Blessed ages and ages ago--that fic isn't connected to the same fic 'verse as this one, but the basic idea is the same; and I referenced it at the tail end of The Breathing Sea, which is in the same 'verse.

I'm also writing my way into Celebrian herself, too. I've written her a couple of times before but nothing this long. I definitely took inspiration from @cycas; I love her Celebrian singing at her pastries, and being very practical and kind. And I think I'm getting a pretty good handle on my Celebrian--it's lovely getting to write about her outside of her relationship to other characters in Middle-earth, and outside of the tragic part of her story.

[mengyao]

do I know about welcome to dark fuck princess island yet... if not I would like to.

HAHA... welcome to dark fuck princess island is the amalgamation of stuff pruned from two other beefleaf fics, one being my big unpublished postcanon sqx fic and the other being the most recent one i posted, which was supposed to have a postcanon section to it that i had to cut due to a deadline that was going to come before i could finish writing it...

i have plans to do a sensitive, emotionally realistic character study of postcanon shi qingxuan that charts a believable beefleaf reconciliation arc while prioritizing sqx's agency and self-worth. that's the big one. this is the wretched idfic runoff of that other fic, which is superior in every way but makes you wait quite a bit longer for them to fuck nasty

to be more specific... my postcanon sqx fic originally had a real deep vein of gothic romance going on that i eventually realized was chafing super hard at the main thrust of the story, which has a pretty different tone and vibe to it. (it's obviously still a little bit gothic romance because it's a romance fic about getting back together with the ghost who killed your brother so you know.) so i took the stuff that was the most, like, lesbian phantom of the opera out of there and combined it with stuff that i cut from my most recent fic (which in case you haven't read it, is about them hooking up lesbianly during the long con era in a way where he xuan is power tripping hard via some non-negotiated d/s and verbal humiliation stuff. lol,). that cut stuff was about beefleaf reuniting postcanon in a mildly dubcon lesbian harlequin romance manner and having really ill-advised sex shortly afterwards, which is like, surely going to have negative implications for both of their mental health and well-being. but sqx is also experiencing a lot of intense emotions over the fact that the sex they're having is unambiguously lesbian in nature and it's really emotionally confusing and guilt-inducing that even though she's legitimately pretty scared of this person a) they both clearly still desire each other carnally despite everything and b) whatever else sqx may be feeling, she realizes that hx still "gets" her gender more than anyone else has or possibly ever will... she feels seen... :(

it's some kind of situation where sqx gets sick or injured in some way in their day to day life, wakes up at nether water manor having been benevolently kidnapped, and then proceeds to be a gothic fantasy ya novel heroine wandering around the haunted mansion she's not technically "imprisoned" within but also has no way to leave... also after the first interaction or two they have, which are just supremely awkward because they're both in the same place they were when Alla That happened and also in the same forms they were then, hx is female form-ing it up... this is really genuinely just trashy erotic horror, so sqx is like unpacking the implications of their now retrospectively dubcon dalliances past while finding herself thrilled and terrified to discover that it doesn't make her want hx any less... i think sqx has also been having gory horrific erotic dreams about hx intermittently over the past however-long-it's-been. and she feels really fucked up and stupid and embarrassing for not being over it.

but this is not like slow burn or anything so they DO have sex again way more quickly than they ought to and the vibes are super rancid but like, in a sexy way, like peak [ao3 tag voice] Consensual But It Shouldn't Be. "on god you two should never see each other again for your own good but it's too late now so you might as well give in to your dark passions" shit. the most embarrassing aspect of all of this is that i think it ends with some kind of impulsive shotgun elopement which, in my head at least, is modeled after this one corvosider fic i read 10 years ago that nonetheless left a BIG impact on my psyche

so. that's. that. LOL

[walkawaytall]

tag game: fic roundup!

Tagged by @otterandterrierwrites. Thanks!

how many fic documents do you have/where do they live?

I will be answering these in reverse order because the answer to the latter makes the former sound less insane. So, I write using a program called Scrivener, which is used a lot by novelists and screenwriters. The way Scrivener works is there's a main project, and then each chapter or section or whatever has its own document in that project. All of my fanfiction is in one Scrivener project, so I have the main fanfic project, and then each story has its own folder, and each chapter of each story has its own document.

Anyway, if we're counting everything I've posted, scenes/snippets/WIPs I have yet to post, my scratch pad docs (AKA scene graveyards), and outlining documents, the total is 122.

what fandoms do you have fic for?

Star Wars.

And, I mean, technically Left Behind: the Kids. It's still out there on an archive page somewhere.

how long is your longest unpublished wip?

Fully unpublished? That would be the AU with the working title [not] my real dad, which is just short of 4000 word right now. Purpose of Heritage is obviously a WIP, but a lot of it is published. Currently, I have about 17K words of future chapters written that aren't published, but there are more to come.

what fic types are most common in your wips?

I have two AUs, shockingly, and then a mishmash of one-shots that have no unifying theme.

do you have any ongoing ‘verses/series in your wips, if so, what are they?

Sort of? Purpose of Heritage is obviously the longfic I've been posting for a year, and I have a sort of side project called Perspectives that it, appropriately, scenes or referenced happenings in PoH from perspectives other than Leia (mostly Han; there is currently one Wedge chapter, and I expect to write something from Luke's POV at some point and possibly Rieekan's as well). And my plan with that story is to end it right as The Empire Strikes Back picks up, but to have a much shorter separate story kind of tying up how Han and Leia get (back) together, so it's sort of a series, but...yeah, I don't know.

long or short fic?

Oh, I don't know? It depends on what the story I'm trying to tell demands. Obviously my longfic is...real long, and I have couple of other multichapters, too. But I think most of my fics are in the 2K-5K range.

Thanks for asking! I cannot expend the energy to come up with people to tag rn, but if you want to do this, please do!

[mountainashfae]

Word Search Game

Tagged by @outeremissary! This was a very funny way to spend my work day because we know I am Not a writer so I was digging deep to see what I could find. Dug up some very cool rambles and unfinished pieces from ages past.

The words I was given were TIME, HAND, and DARK.

TIME - This isn't really a WIP so much as an unpublished character backstory, written from the character's PoV. My Dragon Heist players will start to recognize him, but this is a specifically DnD5e version of Alec rather than the PF1e version they're acquainted with.

Take that gear. Grab that gold. Get a weapo–why are you picking up the bow? The voice continued to echo in his head to lead him to safety. Something about it filled him with dread. It was sophisticated, it was princely, it was like a whispering wind, and it was intense in its guidance to lead him out. It wasn’t until he was riding away on the back of a horse—did he always know how to do this?—that he began to wonder what was happening. He’d glanced at a mirror in his escape; at his dirt-caked hair, at his four horns whose count felt wrong, at his mismatched pair of eyes. What was he doing in that building? Why did it burn so suddenly? Who was he? Don’t think too hard. We aren’t safe yet. It’ll come back to you. The voice in his head wasn’t very comforting. But it was right, bits and pieces began to come back to him. His name, Alec, glimpses of his home, vague memories of loved ones. But whose voices were speaking to him? Whose gentle hands was he longing to hold him? He couldn’t remember, and it pained him. The pieces of memory came to him in the middle of the night as he tossed and turned for even a moment of sleep. It went on for hours, he would lay down in his stolen bedroll to sleep, but sleep never found him. After a week he finally accepted that he would never sleep. In fact, it appeared he didn’t need it anymore. That’s useful, more time to get work done if you never sleep. Alec found himself disagreeing with the voice more often than not.

HAND - This is from my current WotR WIP titled Accepting a Fey's Gift, which has been in limbo for months now as I try to figure out how to tie together all the disconnected sections.

"Forget the gift, let's talk. Just the two of us." Rotgut began to object from Aurien's shoulder before they gave him a stern look. Without missing a beat, the parrot nipped at their ear and flew off. "I don't know why you still keep that oglin around,” Ulbrig shook his head, checking on their now-bleeding ear. “I got lonely, especially after the shipwreck. He managed to survive it with me, so, it seemed a good idea at the time.” They reached to touch Ulbrig’s hand, but pulled back at the last second. The ice was too cold, he was making an effort to come this close as it was. “Still seem like a good idea?” “Well even if I’d known about a certain griffon sleeping in a statue in Kenabres, I doubt he would have woken up some 10 years ago…” Aurien stopped themself, catching the distraction in the conversation. “Let’s not change the subject. We need to talk about this.” Ulbrig sighed, gently pulling his hand away. “Then let’s talk.”

DARK - Okay. Okay so. It turns out in all these years I can only find one fic, wip or not, that uses this word??? Somehow?? Anyways my biggest regret in 2020 while I was in the Fate fandom was never finishing this fic. It's from the PoV of Perseus during the unwritten scene and fight against Caster. I came up with so much stuff for this. I had the entire fic planned out and it would've been the longest thing I've ever written. I made a whole fanservant for this. Mopsis my weird little guy.

He blinked. That’s how fast the change happened. One second, they were in fourth period. It was English. Sajyou-san sat two rows down from him, next to the window. She’d seemed distracted with something that day and wasn’t paying attention to the lecture. The next second, the familiar classroom was replaced with an alien landscape. All his classmates had disappeared. That left two options; either he was the only one in this space, or his classmates were all elsewhere. The landscape was alien in all sense of the word, but held a strange familiarity to it that he couldn’t place. There was no sun, only the dark expanse of space. Hundreds of glowing lights illuminated the ground as if they were stars. Everywhere he looked was gray. It was a desolate, barren land. As he walked down the path beneath his feet, he could get a better grasp on where he was. No typical laws of physics seemed to apply. Paths and rocks floated in the air as if in a three-dimensional maze, the “landscape” expanded for as far as he could see in all directions. No matter how far he looked, there was no sign of life. No plants, no people either. He seemed to be completely alone in the foreign remnants of a once prosperous society. That was fine, he could find his way out of this. He had faced plenty in his time, this was nothing more than one more adventure to his list. With a deep breath, the situation became clearer. The air was tinged with magic, like the Age of Gods. If this was the case, all he had to do was… “Isemi-kun!” A voice called out, disrupting his thoughts.

A shame some of my other older writing couldn't make it. The Cei fic or the Cay monologue could've been fun.