#no excuses wip ask meme

[isildursestrid]

NEXT! for the no excuses writing ask game 🫶

NEXT — the next line. meaning i will finish the sentence I’m on and write a new one, which you’ll get.

“Tell me something to keep me awake.” Kate turned her head to look at Tyler, the dizziness wasn’t as bad when she kept her eyes off the road.

“Like what?” His eyes darted to hers and then back onto the highway.

“Anything.” Kate wracked her brain for a topic but her thoughts were so foggy, then she remembered their conversation at the rodeo before it was interrupted. “Your family. You mentioned your aunt. What about your parents?”

“They live in Paris.”

“France?” There was an incredulous tone in her voice. Kate couldn’t fathom this, former bull riding, cowboy boot wearing, tornado wrangling meteorologist with parents that lived in France. Surely not.

“Arkansas.” Tyler’s dimple was on full display as he smiled.

“Oh.” Kate’s head hurt too much to give him grief for teasing her.

“No. Seriously, they have a ranch there. Cattle and horses mostly.” His face lit up as he spoke. “My mom Sheila she’s a former high school science teacher. My dad, Rod still runs the ranch. It’s his pride and joy. All he talks about.” She was happy to listen as the tension lessened in his shoulders and his hand loosened slightly in hers.

Thanks Robyn for the ask! I did manage to get something down though it’s rough. 🖤

No Excuses WIP ask meme send me an ask!

[delucadarlingwriting]

16 - A kiss in the rain For Kira & Nat pleeeeease

Ask for a Kiss!

I'm chopping this one in half, because it ran away from me a bit and I wanted to post at least part of it tonight. I really only meant to make these responses between 250-500 words. Nat and Kira just make me 💞

Part 2

***

“Is it much farther, ya rouhi?” 

The forests surrounding Wayhaven are protected areas. There are many, many designated trails that wind through and around, all leading past gorgeous scenes of nature. What Kira knows after a lifetime of living in the not-so-sleepy small town though is that those trails don’t show every beautiful thing the forest has to offer. 

“Almost there!” Kira promises, trotting ahead in her hiking boots to hold a branch up and back. While there’s no ‘trail’ here, Kira knows the way well, and has been doing her ample best to make the hike more bearable for Nat. She’s been putting on a brave face ever since accepting Kira’s invitation to have a date in one of Kira’s favorite spots in Wayhaven. That brave face is starting to falter now an hour into their trek. It seems despite having a vampire’s stamina, Nat just isn’t cut out for this kind of activity.

Nat musters a grateful smile as she passes Kira, who lets the branch go as soon as her girlfriend is clear. She bounds after her, feeling perfectly energized, especially when Nat offers up her hand. Twining their fingers together, Kira says, “It will be very worth it, I promise.”

“I trust you,” Nat says, giving her hand a squeeze. “Any time spent with you alone is well worth whatever effort goes into it.”

Kira giggles. “Don’t sound so tortured!”

“I don’t!” Nat protests with a pout. Her big, beautiful brown eyes practically glimmer despite the low lighting under the thick, leafy canopy above them. “I am having a very good time.”

“Of course, I’m sorry,” Kira says, pressing her lips together to hold back a smile.

“Kiss me to prove it,” Nat demands. And so she does, tiptoeing up and bracing her free hand against Nat’s collarbone. Her reward is a soft, plush mouth on her and hand ever so gently cradling her skull. 

The hours she could spend with this woman, doing nothing more than this…And the days she could spend doing quite a lot more.

Before she can get too worked up, Kira drops her feet flat to look up at Nat, just a little dizzy. Nat smiles, bursting with sunshine. She walks her long, elegant fingers up Kira’s arm, moving her other arm to cup Kira’s hip and pull her in close. 

“Mm, if only we were somewhere with a bed,” Nat teases. “The things I would do to you…”

Kira flushes up and shivers. “A lack of beds has never stopped you before.”

Nat opens her mouth to protest, stops a moment, then thinks better of whatever she was going to say and sighs instead. 

“Well, then I have plans for when we do have a bed.”

Kira reaches up to pinch Nat’s chin gently between her fingers. “And I look forward to that. For now, we really are almost there. Just a little farther?”

“Very well, a little farther,” Nat agrees.

It only takes a minute before Nat perks up. “Oh, I think I hear where we’re going.”

“I bet you do!” Kira replies, practically bouncing her way along. Now Nat also quickens her pace, intrigue wiping away any weariness from before. 

Eventually a low roar reaches Kira’s ears, growing louder and louder as they go until finally the trees thin out and reveal their destination. The ground juts up sharply ahead of them, lined with rocks and moss and scraggly tree roots, framing a gorgeous (if small) waterfall. The water rushes down, crashing into the pool below it and sending out a fine mist that obfuscates the area near it. The pool is small, just a short offshoot of the creek that carries on past them. While that water gallops along, the pool is mostly calm.

“It’s beautiful,” Nat says, though it’s clear she’s wondering why this waterfall. Many of the easier, more accessible trails in Wayhaven have sights like it, some even bigger and more impressive.

“It’s private,” Kira says, peering up to get a read on Nat’s reaction. “I used to swim here a lot. No one’s ever bothered me.”

Nat smiles and brings her hands up to the buttons of her shirt. “I see.”

They strip down with mostly polite hands, and Kira goes ahead to the pebbled shore to begin wading in. The icy water makes her shiver and gasp.

“It’s a bit cold,” Kira warns Nat over her shoulder. Nat, tall and beautiful and very naked, follows Kira without trepidation.

“I’m sure it’s fine—Oh dear,” Nat yelps the minute she’s ankle deep. She jumps right back onto the shore, arms flying around herself, eyes wide. “Kira, that is inhumane.”

“You don’t have to get in if you don’t want to,” Kira says, toying with the end of her braid. “I really did just want to bring you here to swim, but we can also get dressed and just enjoy a little time together.”

Nat sniffs delicately. “No, I will be fine. Just give me a moment, you go ahead.”

[rewrittenwrongs]

Am very interested to hear more abt your WIPs

Akxjsonssnsjs okay okay! So.

The first WIP called Black bird fly! It’s a Tim-centric time travel fix it where Mr Mxyzptlk sends Tim back in time, saving his life as thanks for when he, Kon and Bart helped him. Most of the chapters are gonna be in Tim’s POV, the time he lands in is gonna be about a day before Jason’s death, so Tim in all his feral ‘I’m probably dead so there won’t be any consequences’ flies to Ethiopia and saves Jason himself. There’s a lot of found family, a lot of grief/mourning surrounding the old timeline, and everyone in the new timeline being concerned by all the trauma symptoms he displays. I’ve finished the first two chapters and most of the third, but I haven’t begun posting yet because I want to finish more chapters so I can post once a week, because I don’t trust myself to not touch it for three months as soon as I start posting. The paragraph I shared was from the third chapter, where Bruce is flying Tim (asleep) back to Gotham on the batplane (he called Wally to get Jason to Leslie quick as possible). It’s my main WIP and the fic I spend most my writing time on, and I’ve daydreamed enough ‘backstory’ for Tim to write like seven multi-chapters set in the old timeline…

The second WIP doesn’t have an offical name, and the only one I’ve come up for it so far is Future days of death, not because it makes much sense regarding plot but because it sounds cool. It’s a crossover between DC and Fablehaven, because I recently finished reading Dragonwatch and the world building is giving me IDEAS. I have a LOT of different ideas as to where the plot goes, and I haven’t written a lot of it, but it’s largely Constantine and Captain Marvel (/Shazam) centric, with a good focus on batfam and the Fablehaven characters. The idea that sparked this WIP was Constantine being captured by the Sphinx and kept in his dungeon where he meets Bracken. I also have a vague idea where he convinces Seth not to heal the demon whose name I don’t know how to spell and the three of them escape the dungeon with all of the artefacts, but that doesn’t fit with my other ideas, which is mostly the JL thinking Constantine is dead and freaking out and Captain Marvel knowing Something Is Up. I also like to think Coulter and Alfred were old tea buddies, and I have ideas abt Constantine being magically put to sleep and Vanessa taking control and saving his life. I’m also tempted to make Seth and Kendra school friends with Kon so he has Tim investigate Kendra’s disappearance/death, which would be an interesting can of worms.

The third WIP is one I’m writing for the @/wipbigbang, a Tim-centric Coraline AU. It takes place right after Red Robin, and he finds the door to the other mother (other father in this case, the bedlam takes the form of Bruce) like his second day back in the manor. It’ll follow the plot of the book pretty closely. Lot of family angst and trust issues and stuff, and I will address Tim’s interaction with Nyssa al Ghul because if no one else does then I’ll do it myself. It’ll have more interactions with the family post-defeating the bedlam and will definitely have a happy ending. I haven’t written a whole lot of it and right now the paragraph I shared is probably my fave ‘cause of how funny I find it.

[sesshy380-rp]

*give Kat a plush full of catnip*

Kat immediately recognized the stuffed toy, and to avoid the embarrassment of going full cat-brain in her human appearance, she quickly changed forms before full on attacking the plush; throwing in a few kicks just for fun.

[galacticlamps]

I'm going to uno reverse card you and say: for the fic guessing game, 'light'?

lol that's fair

apparently I talk about light a lot (go figure) so have this one that happens to be in the middle of its story's 'Oh' moment:

But perhaps, somewhere along the line, Jamie had slipped, and now . . . well now, standing on the balcony of a palace on another planet, with the Doctor dipping his head nearer just to hide his eyes from the light - nearer, and not farther, which would've been just as easy - no, now he had to admit something was different. When it had changed or whether it hadn't at all and he'd simply been too fool to realize it before he couldn't say, and it didn't matter anyway - he knew it now, and that scared him.

-

And just for kicks, under the cut I'm gonna put a longer excerpt from a totally different fic that came up while I was ctrl+f-ing 'light' in my wips - mainly because it happens to be part of a scene from a longish 'the Doctor & Jamie reunite with Zoe in 6b' story which is nowhere near completion, but feels relevant given the boxset Big Finish released last week (not that I've gotten a chance to listen to it yet, but still).

Zoe sat across from Jamie, her elbows on the table, her chin resting atop her hands - but she wasn't relaxed. She stared at him intently, and actually narrowed her eyes as he watched.

"What?" he asked, already defensive, and following through on an old self-conscious instinct, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. With no mirror in sight, he looked to the Doctor to check if he'd somehow gotten something on his face already, but he looked just as baffled. Zoe hadn't broken her concentration yet.

"I'm trying to figure out if I'm older than you," she announced, still deep in thought.

"Ah--" the Doctor began, grinning wickedly, but whether he was going to answer her or merely tease they never found out, because Jamie shot an arm out lightning quick, as if to hold him back.

"No' so fast, you. Let the girl work it out."

He finished chewing and settled himself squarely in front of her for inspection. She continued to stare. "Y'know, I'm surprised you're having such trouble telling," he taunted. "After all, how old are you now?"

She opened her mouth at first to protest that she was under no obligation to announce her own age while he continued to keep his secret, but she still thought she might figure it out - and if she couldn't, she at least had the Doctor to rely on to make Jamie tell the truth.

So she shrugged. "I'm 41. But everyone here thinks I'm 39. I was born 39 years ago, of course, but counting chronologically from the time I left the Wheel with you in the Tardis, I aged two years before the Time Lords returned me to my own time. That was twenty-one years ago, now," she added, unable to judge if the faint waver of wistfulness in her voice was truly audible, or if it was just her own imagination. Thankfully, neither of them pressed her on it.

"Well, y'see, Zoe," Jamie began slowly, still chewing his last mouthful after she finished her explanation and sat waiting calmly for his reply. The Doctor leaned forward too, seemingly intrigued, though it must only have been to see what answer Jamie would try. "I was born in 1724," he paused and washed down his food with a swig from his glass, and for a moment Zoe had the grace to assume he was just working through his calculations, as she had done. "So I'm pretty sure I'm older than you," he finished, setting the glass back down on the table triumphantly.

All at once she felt a young girl again, a devilish light in her eyes. She wanted to jump across the table and tackle him - but that wasn't what Madam Presidents did. "Why, you--"

"They don't traditionally swear at their guests either, Ms. Heriot."

She turned on the Doctor, shocked. "You read my mind," she began, more impressed than accusatory, but he did at least have the decency to look sheepish.

He coughed politely. "Only to, ah, verify your math. And I'm sure you could feel my presence there, if you think about it."

"I could but I didn't know that's what it was. You've gotten so much better at it."

"Had to," he said simply, and shrugged, his eyes downcast.

Well, there was more to that, clearly, she thought, filing his deliberately nonchalant expression away for closer inspection later - but for now she was not about to be deterred. She snapped her eyes and her attention both back to Jamie.

"Still, we both know the Doctor obviously continues to value honesty and accuracy, so surely he'll tell me how old you are, even if you won't."

"Not if I ask him not to - right, Doctor?"

"Well . . . " he began, noncommittally drawing the word out so long that Zoe actually had time to wonder what his plan was for once he ran out of vowel. Jamie looked so genuinely horrified it was downright comical, and she had to force herself not to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

"We're married, Doctor," he reminded him, indignant.

"Oh, but it's Zoe," he complained, sounding every bit the petulant child she remembered he could be, all those years ago. "And as far as I can remember, none of the ceremonies we ever partook in had anything in the vows about obeying. Although I might be wrong . . ." he added under his breath, scratching his head.

"Charming," Jamie grumbled.

"Well, when we've had as many weddings as we have it can be quite a lot to keep straight in your head. You know, I sometimes wonder if we might qualify for some kind of an all-time record. If we hadn't the need to be covert about so many of them, of course."

"Stop that!" she snapped, and the Doctor turned back to her, the picture of confused innocence.

"Stop what?"

"You're trying to help him without helping him, just by distracting me. Naturally, I want to hear everything about all these weddings of yours, and I will see to it that you'll be having another one while you're here, like it or not--"

"Yes ma'am," Jamie quipped, mock-serious.

"--But first, I am going to find out how old you are, James Robert McCrimmon, and if you force me to use your husband to do it, then that decision is on you."

Jamie mopped his face with his napkin and came out of it smiling. He stretched and dropped an arm around the Doctor's shoulders, perfectly relaxed. Already, Zoe felt her heart sink, but she was careful to keep her composure.

"I'm only pullin' your leg. I'm 44."

"What, really? And you expect me to just believe that?" She raised an eyebrow in challenge but then glanced at the Doctor to confirm, and when he nodded she allowed her facade to crumble, rolling her eyes. Of course she had known when she'd first laid eyes on them that they'd be cutting it close, but Jamie still had quite a bit of that boyishness about him that had made it frustrating enough being his junior the first time around, and she really thought she might genuinely have enjoyed being just a hair older than him, for a change. After all, if you had to be ripped apart from your family and sent to separate timezones to live out your lives forever wishing for an improbable reunion, it might as well be good for something. But Jamie was far too smug looking now to be pretending, and Zoe knew it. "Oh, some people have all the luck," she groaned, dropping her arms and collapsing back dejectedly against her seat.

"Aye," Jamie said, leaning in over the table to follow her, "and some people live 22 years on Earth before they meet a time traveler, then spend 5 years with him before his people erase their memory and send them home to live another 5 before he's allowed to come pick them up again, and then force the pair of 'em to've spent 12 years so far working for them. Some people, eh?" he finished hotly, swiping his glass off the table again and raising it to his mouth in one fluid motion to take a long drink. But even so, his face was not so totally obscured from view that Zoe couldn't make out the amused curl at the corner of his lips, and when she caught his gaze again the glimmer in his eye was all fondness, just as it was with Doctor's and, she knew, her own.

Yes, no matter the circumstances, it was certainly good to see them again.

[sabraeal]

For the unwritten/unpublished asks: 4, 20, and 21 please?

4. Is there anything in the fic you're unsure about including?

In general, I usually know what I want to include in a fic, it's just a matter of timing, but I think my biggest "oh no do I really want to do this" is my planned ending for the current timestamp of All Pain Will Turn to Medicine. I've had a lot of time to overthink every angle of it so I know when the time comes I'm gonna be gritting my teeth the whole way.

20. Give a vague description of something that will happen without revealing too much

For the upcoming Guilty Projects, if these fics behave themselves:

Finally people will stop asking whether or not I previously mentioned if Obi was bi in this series or they just missed it

Torou and Obi have a phone conversation about marriage

This is Not the Fake Dating You Were Looking For

21. Is there any unwritten fic that you don't know if you ever will write?

Andi just asked me this as well, but if we are looking for more "fics I have no idea if I'll get around to" corner: Kazama buys Sen's contract for gloating purposes and falls in love, anything soowon and lili, there is an obiyuki smut fic that lives in my head and involves being roommates and terrible experimentation with a sex toy app

[ziskandra]

also I need to know about Meredith - She's the Inquisitor

This one is basically what it says on the tin! I’ve shared the few lil snippets that exist with people in DMs, and I keep forgetting who I’ve shown them to, so apologies if you’re seeing this again!

Loghain: I don’t know how much you know about the Fereldan Civil War

Meredith: I remember the endless waves of refugees knocking on my door. One in particular, in fact.

Loghain, lip twitching: I suppose that’s my fault, too.

[WIP meme]

[zerolostwalks]

hii happy holidays!! NEXT for the no excuses ask meme please!

Heya!! Happy Holidays!! ^_^

So here is next from my currently unnamed rulie fic I am working on:

“But at least, this way it’ll be out of your face.”

She’s not sure what he’s talking about until he stops moving and she realizes her hair is in a loose ponytail now.

no excuses writing meme

[waitineedaname]

POV for the no excuses writing meme, please 👀 (i love this game so much!)

a bit of context: this is for my lesbingqiu wip inspired by that "can yuo put that out on me" tweet! the wip is from binghe's pov, so here's shen yuan instead. she strikes me as the kind of person to think being thirty makes her old (it does not lol)

--

Shen Yuan wasn't sure why Shang Qinghua had insisted on dragging her out drinking if she was just going to abandon her at the first sight of her situationship across the bar. She didn't care if Shang Qinghua insisted she needed to go out more! She had work to do! Never mind that her "work" these days mostly amounted to opening her dissertation document, glaring at it for an hour, and then closing it again. She was simply getting too old to go out drinking. She was thirty now; she might as well join a knitting circle if Qinghua was that worried about her social life.

She continued grumbling to herself as she lit her cigarette. It was much quieter outside the bar, though she could still feel the music thumping through the wall behind her. She would give Shang Qinghua another five or ten minutes to prove she hadn't completely forgotten about her, just long enough to take a smoke break, and then she'd leave. She could go home, change into her pyjamas, and spend the evening working through her reading list like she'd originally intended.

Her plans were interrupted by a sudden spike in the bar's volume as someone opened the door and stumbled out into the alley beside her. Shen Yuan nearly dropped her cigarette as she was suddenly confronted by the most absurdly beautiful woman she'd ever seen.

She wondered deliriously for a moment whether there had been a modelling event that she didn't know about, because there was no other explanation for a woman this gorgeous being loose in the wild. Her dress hugged her curves in all the right places, and she had the kind of artful curls that Shen Yuan thought only existed in professionally styled wigs. Her bone structure was fine, and her skin was perfect. Seriously, was Shen Yuan hallucinating?!

The woman was also, Shen Yuan realized, extremely drunk. She stumbled over her high heels, reaching out to support herself on the wall with a groan. Shen Yuan's hands itched to reach out and support her, but she resisted the impulse.

"Are you alright?" she asked instead. The woman looked up, startled, eyes wide as if she hadn't realized Shen Yuan was there. Absolutely no way those eyelashes were real. They had to be falsies.

The woman made a slightly incoherent noise, and Shen Yuan frowned. How drunk was she? She then abruptly stood up straighter, though she was clearly still supporting herself on the wall.

"I'm fine," she said, surprising Shen Yuan with a low, smooth voice like honey. "I just needed some fresh air."

Shen Yuan nodded sympathetically. Poor thing. "Drink a little too much?"

The other woman's lips pursed in a pout. "My friend ordered shots," she explained.

And then just let her wander off?! Shen Yuan would like a word with this friend of hers. "You should be careful with those," she cautioned. "They can get you drunk very fast."

The woman nodded with the earnestness of an eager student. "Jiejie is very wise."

Oh, she was far too cute. Is this what people were referring to when they talked about blessed interactions between drunk girls at a bar? Never mind that Shen Yuan was hardly buzzed herself. She wanted to pat this girl's head and give her more wisdom, even if this wasn't really her area of expertise.

"Would jiejie keep me company while I sober up?" asked the other woman, her speech slightly slurred and her dark eyes pleading. As if Shen Yuan could say no to eyes like that!

"Of course." Shen Yuan nodded. It was her responsibility, after all! A code of sisterhood, to look out for drunk girls! "What's your name?"

"Luo Binghe." She found a more comfortable position leaning against the wall, resulting in her curls spilling over her chest. Shen Yuan foolishly tracked the motion, then forced her eyes back up to Luo Binghe's face. Aiyah! That dress really left very little to the imagination! Wasn't she cold?! Should Shen Yuan offer her jacket? "What should I call jiejie?"

"Shen Yuan." She lifted her cigarette to her lips and took another drag in the hopes that it would make Luo Binghe's appearance less distracting. Luo Binghe was staring at her with an intensity that made her want to squirm. "Are you here for some special occasion?"

Luo Binghe just continued to stare at her for a while. Poor thing, she really must be drunk. Shen Yuan knew how slowly she processed things when she was drunk. She could be patient with the girl. "My friends wanted to celebrate me starting graduate school," Luo Binghe eventually explained. Her pretty features pulled in a slight frown. "I think it's just an excuse for them to get drunk."

Shen Yuan chuckled at the petulance on Luo Binghe's face. "Maybe, but that’s a worthy thing to celebrate. Congratulations on starting grad school."

"Thank you, Shen-jie." Luo Binghe's expression softened into a smile again, still laser-focused on Shen Yuan's face.

Shen Yuan took a moment to look Luo Binghe over again. Grad school, huh? Shen Yuan struggled to believe that, but she couldn't see why Luo Binghe would lie. It's just, Shen Yuan was in graduate school, and she felt horribly outclassed by the girl in front of her. With looks like hers, she could easily become an idol or something! She didn't deserve to waste away in academia like Shen Yuan, though she admired Luo Binghe's academic drive. And so young, too...

"You seem awfully young for grad school," Shen Yuan said. It could be that she just took good care of herself, but she wouldn't have been surprised if she'd said she was still an undergrad. "How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-five," Luo Binghe said.

"Twenty-five," Shen Yuan repeated. Twenty-five! And she was here, talking to thirty year old Shen Yuan outside a bar. Shen Yuan's earlier impression was right; this really was not the scene for her. "I think I’m officially too old for this bar. People will think I’m a creep if I keep coming around here." She took another drag from her cigarette, feeling morose over her age. "When I graduated high school, you would’ve been thirteen. Isn’t that weird?"

It had seemed like Luo Binghe was sobering up, but she suddenly wobbled on her heels. She was staring intensely at the cigarette in Shen Yuan's hand. "Can you put that out on me?" she slurred.

Shen Yuan's heart rate spiked. Ah! How could she be so oblivious? What kind of helpful jiejie was she if she was blowing smoke in Luo Binghe's direction?! "Oh! I’m so sorry, I should’ve asked if it was okay to smoke near you. I’ll put it out." She quickly ground it out on the wall. Luo Binghe made a pitiful noise of complaint, but that's okay, Shen Yuan had this handled now! No more smoke when Luo Binghe had specifically wanted to get fresh air!

"I know it’s a bad habit," Shen Yuan attempted to make an excuse for herself, her fingers itching with nervous energy. "It gives me something to do with my mouth and hands. I guess I should get a fidget cube or something less bad for me, but…" She trailed off with an awkward laugh.

Luo Binghe's eyes were still wide and slightly wet, fixated on her hands. Poor thing, the smoke must've made her eyes water. She opened her mouth, but she was interrupted by the door to the bar opening with a slam.

"Bing-jie!" A girl burst out of the bar, covered in jangling jewellery and not much in the way of actual clothing. She latched onto Luo Binghe's arm, speaking way too loudly to be sober. "You left your Ling-er all alone in the bar!"

Luo Binghe's expression immediately soured, but based on the way she didn't shove the other girl away, it was clear she knew her. Ah, Shen Yuan realized. This must be the friend who'd ordered the shots. Well, she'd just been planning to keep an eye on Luo Binghe until she sobered up or a friend joined her, and here was the friend. Her company was no longer needed here.

"I should probably get going," Shen Yuan said, giving Luo Binghe a soft smile. She had been scowling at her friend, but when she looked back up at Shen Yuan, her eyes were wide and puppyish again. "Get home safe, okay?"

Luo Binghe nodded, once again reminding her of an earnest student. "I will, Shen-jie."

Shen Yuan waved and left the alleyway. She sighed and pulled out her phone to call a cab. Shang Qinghua could find her own way home. Serves her right.

Still, the night wasn't a complete wash. Even as she made her way home, her thoughts drifted back to Luo Binghe. Did she get home alright? Was she drinking enough water? Would she be too hungover in the morning? A girl that pretty and that drunk could be a real target for unsavory people. Shen Yuan didn't doubt that she could handle herself -- those arms of hers were impressive -- but she couldn't help but worry.

Ah, well. Worrying wouldn't do her any good. It's not like they'd ever see each other again.

She put thoughts of Luo Binghe aside and decided to put her energy towards preparing orientation for her department's incoming graduate students.

[tenyearsoftrash]

Ten Years of HTP: A Celebration

Hi all, I (@eatingcroutons) set up this blog with all sorts of intentions about preparation and promotion and then Life Things Happened, but I'm still hoping to go forward with the idea of encouraging some nostalgia and memory-sharing about the last ten years of the HYDRA Trash Party.

The aim here is to be more of a celebration of community rather than your typical prompt fest - if you're looking for prompts for fanworks you might want to check out the @catws-anniversary that has just kicked off and will run until the 4th of April, or of course refer back to the Trash Meme itself!

So for this blog's purposes, feel free to post informal thoughts and musings and ramblings, and to comment on each other's memories - this is all about our shared history and nostalgia, and the idea is for it to be an open dialogue and celebration of community. A few points on logistics:

Anonymous asks and submission are open on this blog if you'd prefer not to participate under a named account. We all know how hostile certain corners of fandom have become to darkfic and adjacent content.

For all the themes below self-recs are also very welcome, if you want a chance to show off something you made years ago that hasn't gotten much attention in a while!

Go ahead and tag this blog at @tenyearsoftrash for a reblog of anything you post about the below themes!

All that said, here are some suggested themes and ideas to get you thinking and reminiscing:

April 4: Rewatch CA:TWS!

Take yourself right back to where it all began! With too many people across too many timezones we're not going to even try to organise a massive synchronised groupwatch, but maybe you could get a few of your old-school HTP buddies together to do a smaller one? In any case: fire up the movie, relive all the feels, and share any HTP-related thoughts that come (back) to mind after all these years!

April 5: Fanwork Recs

Go back and dig up some links to your favourite HTP fanworks - whether big or small, well-known or niche, what are the works that have really rewritten your brain chemistry, and stuck with you all this time? What was it about them that hit just the right spot? Feel free to share your thoughts on Tumblr - and to go back and drop a nostalgic comment on anything on AO3 😉

April 7: Meta Recs

Over the years there's been a lot of meta associated with HTP, from discussions of what CA:TWS and HYDRA represent in a broader social context, to endless back-and-forth about darkfic's place in fandom. Are there any posts that really made you think, or that remain relevant even now? Is there anything that came out of those meta discussions that has turned out to be particularly prescient, in hindsight?

April 8: HTP Fanon

What are your favourite bits of shared or personal fanon around HTP and its related concepts? Are there any Original Characters you're particularly fond of? Any particular tropes regarding characters or events that you will never get tired or bored of? Any ideas that might seem cracky on the surface but which you are totally into regardless?

April 8: Other Media/Fandoms

We've all had those moments where we've come across something in a new canon and immediately been like, "Oh, this is delicious trash bait," right? What other media has had a "Bucky Barnes Obediently Accepts The Bite Block" moment for you? What other characters might your fellow HTP friends enjoy as interesting targets for Trash Party Shenanigans? In what fandoms have you found yourself running into an awful lot of familiar HTP faces?

April 9: WIP Amnesty

Do you have any HTP fanworks that you never finished, or never got around to starting, for whatever reason? Now's your excuse to talk about them! Feel free to ramble about what your plans would have been, lament why they're never going to happen, or share some of those great ideas you never quite had time to plot out. Or, if you're feeling particularly inspired, go back and actually finish something off!

April 10: HTP Community Memories

To finish off the week let's talk about the community itself! What have been the good times, the interesting times, any times that have been personally significant to you, for any reason? What things have you experienced or shared or understood with or through or because of the HTP community? What new friends have you made over the years, and what old friends do you miss?

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Apologies again for taking some time to getting around to making this post, but hopefully people will still be interested in doing some reminiscing!

[zargontari]

hehehehehe

Trick-or-Treat! I have come knocking on your Tumblr door asking for a treat. 🕯️ You can answer with a meme, a bit of art, a snippet of a fic you’re writing, a fic recommendation, pictures of candy, or something else! (Don’t post this ask until October 31. 🖤) Then you can go knocking on another mutual’s Tumblr door. 🦇

Happy Halloween! 🎃👻

Snippet of a WIP!

Pairing: Bill/Ford

Warnings: implied/referenced self harm, obsessive thoughts, writing in the second person

You have not heard from Bill Cipher for two weeks and three days. You are not counting. You deliberately try not to count.

Instead, you work your fingers to the bone with the paneling. The portal is becoming a true structure, by this point — a marvel of science and engineering by any standards, standing proud and talk and nearly infallible except by human error — but is still, largely, uncovered; wiring and circuity is clearly exposed along every edge. The innate magic, held together by carefully inscribed runes splashed with Bill's own blood to power them, dances and sparks along the inner walls as it currents around and around the sleek machinery that shines sleek and bright in the relative darkness of the large room. The panel in your hands digs into the space where your palms connect to your fingers.

Your eyes catch the watch on your wrist as you move the panel. 01:20. Four days.

You're not counting.

You drop the piece of paneling to the ground and walk to the elevator. Your heart points heavily, so hard and fast that it aches in your chest. Really, the whole of you is an ache; even weeks later, Bill's use of your body is obvious, leaving you with an awkward, left-leaning limp that you're really hoping goes away. He would have told you if he'd broken you — he enjoys it whenever you struggle to accept a broken bone, though these days your protests have died down and down until you have very little to say on the subject anymore — so without that morbid confirmation you're left assured that, at the very least, your skeleton is mostly unharmed. The pain is manageable. You exhale shakily whenever you lean against the elevator door. All pain is manageable. That is what Bill tells you, and so that must be what is true.

The second floor of the building is harder to get to than the others. Part of this is due to the design of the building, as it was built over one large, deeper cavern, with only that one basement in mind, but was later given the addition of a second connection to a smaller, longer tunnel, courtesy of Bill. The other part is your own paranoia. You do not trust anyone except for yourself around your most secret place, including and perhaps especially not even Fiddleford.

Your partner is someone you care a lot about (you'd been overjoyed to have him join the project!) but you worry for his dedication to the project. You hear that his commitment to your common goal is not so strong as your own. — or, at least, Bill worries it, and you understand the concern. He is right to be wary, of course: he has waited perhaps millions of years for this portal to be constructed, and he has very understandably tired of waiting. He cannot stand delays. You rub your wrist at the thought, which still aches from the most recent break. Bill had not been pleased with your progress as of late. You had tried to convince him that there was no harm meant, and you had only hit a snag, but—

You step through the doors as the light turns green and they slide apart from one another. Your hip aches sharply enough that you toss a hand onto the wall to balance yourself whenever you move down the hallway, and the pain reminds you of another truth: Bill Cipher does not tolerate excuses, either.

The room that the long tunnel opens up to is perhaps the most important in the entire house: a space dedicated solely to Bill. You have laid candles in a circle along the floor for meditation, and Bill's likeness covers every wall. Some of it is official: things you had found while studying your muse. The rest is your own. Pencil, coal, chalk and ink. Most uncolored, but a few startlingly golden. Almost no room remains for the wall, and, while the ceiling is normally illuminated by one swinging lantern, there is no light tonight. You always put the fire out whenever you leave as a safety precaution, which is funny, distantly, because whenever you hold match to wick and the glass dome floods the room with light, it perfectly encapsulates the sheer amount of blood on the floor.

Dried blood, to be fair. You have not been in this room for a few days, now, and you had not been bleeding the last time you were. Still, though, it is never cleaned — Bill seems to enjoy the reminders, and the smell — so the splotches have dried, and, in some places, rusted wherever the red touches metal. It leaves the room thickly smelling of copper and meat; the latter mostly unexplained, as the blood joins only the former stench. The splatters, streaks, and pools do not reach the walls, though they have stained the candles red, which you light with the same match as the lantern. You stand for a moment, tensely watching the fires, until your fingers begin to burn. A glance down: the match has burnt to nothing in your fingers. Still, you do nothing but watch as red splotches form before the fire burns to nothing, unable to feed itself upon your hand. It aches. It makes you feel a little better as though, by the mere act of feeling pain, you are a little closer to your muse, who so often demands it of you.

Demands.

As if it is something that you do not give freely. As if it is not his to call upon; as if you are more than a vessel of His will. From now until the end of time indeed. Except for the glaringly obvious part where he has abandoned you. It rankles you, sits deep in you, rots in you like the floorboards in your bedroom have begun to. Perhaps abandonment is not the right word, you think, suddenly, with a feeling as though you are about to be struck. Your muse is, of course, allowed to come and go as he pleases. If he finds you uninteresting or distasteful, then it is not up to you to tell him that he cannot. Denial is not a right that you posses. It is a privilege that you have lost.

... Still. The knowledge sits as heavily in your guts as a corpse. You cannot help but to feel adrift at sea, lost and unmoored. Each passing second with no sign of your sun only serves to deepen the well of panic that began to rise the moment that he left you the last time. You are dependant; he is your God. Your parents had had a different god, and perhaps you had known it once, but now you have found your true God and he is the one who's name is Bill Cipher. Let all other false deities burn. Let all other idols crumble and decay. You will sit at his feet until the whole of your reality is fixated on the singular point at which He resides. If His light burns you, if it chars out your eyes until your vision melts away, then— good. To know a God as intimately as you do is to know how and when to sacrifice for Him.

A sacrifice.

You sit at the center of the ring of flames. Your body is a tool, a fact that you’ve grown increasingly intimate with as you and Bill have become more entangled. Violence, sex — often as bloody as the violence itself — and pain are now as familiar to you as your extra extremities. They are instruments to be wielded, as Bill had reminded you, time and time again. The body is simply another means to get what you want. The body is property. And yours belongs to him.

Under normal circumstances, that ownership would mean that what you are about to do would be considered wrong, or some kind of defilement. Your hand clenches around the knife that you do not recall ever picking up. It is a defilement, of sorts — a desecration of the only body you will ever have. But is not pain synonymous to love in the eyes of gods? All pain is worth the cost so long as it means something, and your worth lies in he who bids you to bleed. A sacrifice, then, of your body, would not blaspheme his ownership over you; your bloodshed is, instead, only further proof of his claim.

So, in this case, it is warranted. A cry for attention, perhaps, but the roil in your intestines has not ceased since the moment that he left, and you cannot imagine any kind of continuation wherein he remains gone. You are, at your core, now, bound to him. Whenever he is gone, you are a dwindling flame that dins closer to nothing with every passing second. An empty vessel; a cordless puppet. You realize that you are breathing heavily, and force deep breaths through your aching lungs. Bill is gone. That is a fact that you cannot dispute. He is gone, and you do not know why or for what reason, and he has not heeded any of your beckons to return.

But, perhaps, there is another way to get his attention. You remove your shirt. A sight that you have grown used to greets you: your chest is hardly more than a single wound, at this point, with its myriad of greening bruises. It pains you to breathe, but you do not think that your ribs are anything more than cracked, or Bill would not have left you with them. Or so you hope, anyway. The crowning glory of your most recent wounds is on your right arm; deep in the flesh, and only barely scabbed, is a triangle. Bill had done that one himself, though, unlike the markings along your chest, it was no accident. You had been awake for this one. Heat tinges your cheeks at the memory.

That had been over two weeks ago now. The wound has scabbed, but not healed, and even that scab seems sickly. What is covered is mottled over in an ugly green-purple cover, and the exposed flesh weeps. There is a stench; you do not know much of wounds and injury, but you know infection, and this has only grown worse and worse. Swelling makes the carving look deeper than it is, and the whole thing hurts more than you can stand to touch. You pass your knuckles in front of it and can feel the heat. You had thought, at first, to try and wrap it, but Bill had said very specifically to leave it alone, and you could not stand the thought of invoking his ire, so you have not gone any farther than splashing water on it. Even that, you can hardly stand now.

You turn your attention away from your shoulder. Bill had left that mark there for you to keep, and so you will not mess with it, but the rest of your body is a soft, open canvas. Months of intermittent, mostly accidental fasting have left your body scrawnier than you had been willing to allow yourself to be before— but that was before. Before Gravity Falls, before this shack, before Bill Cipher. Every part of your life is a before, except for him. Everything else, and then only Him. You share a goal, and he shares your mind. He owns your body, and you hold a small part of his attention. The deal is mutually beneficial. Your deal is your lifeline to feeling alive. You had been dead before his light shone upon you; you had been nothing before he allowed you to give yourself to him. He had filled your empty spirit. He had shown you the path to life, and you have seen the truth; for life to continue, there must be pain. For pain, there must be something to bleed for.

You have found someone to bleed for. You have been remade and repossessed. You have found a purpose in Him; He a home in you.

It is time to call Him back.

[just-ghaleon]

NEW ASK GAME: Tell me to finish one of my 105 Lunar clipstudio and paint tool sai drawing WIPs

Send me an ask or reply in the comments! :3c (plz&thnx, I need the prodding to actually FINISH stuff ;;u;;)

You can also pester me for more Queer Lunar Theory and Headcanons at the same time, if you want! <3

WIP Queue List (TY <3):

@musicalmeowsandcandiedlemons wants to see ghalliebutt.clip :3c - FINISHED! Posted! :3c

ghaleons ankle monitor.clip is whispering dark secrets to @zombiemollusk >:3 - DONE! Posted!!

@fyeahlunar wants to see ALL ^^;;;;;;; (yeah me too, i'm tryinggg) narrowing it down:

lunar strip poker (lunar uno is a companion piece ;3) - It's done!! Now posted!!!

luna meets ghaleon - Old Art Redraw project, considering attack angle...

lemia comforts ghaleon - Refining sketch...

ghaleon being soft series - ehehehe, so these files are completely blank XD Sometimes I just make files with titles of what I'd like to draw while I'm waiting for poses to come to mind.. ^^; I did a quick rough sketch in each one!! One step closer to done, lol!

dead xenobia reaction - Sketch done! Now coloring and inking...

eb dyne prank - Thumbnails done! Refining layout...

blue star eclipse - Finished! Posted!!

a new journey - Refining sketch...

a new perspective -Refining sketch...

jb cast 5 years later series - These files were completely blank lol, have pasted the old pencil sketches into corresponding files, and started sketches for the ones I never had pencil sketches for!

mewthemew on my discord wants me to finish proto ghaleon.clip! - Sketch already complete, need to start dropping in colors...

(Reply or send an Ask to Queue a WIP! <3)

Misc Requests Queue (Always feel free to send me random Lunar drawing requests! They feed meee, and give me a good excuse to do more drawing memes if I'm in the mood for 'em):

Luna and Lucia for @fyeahlunar - It's finished!!

Continuing Lunar Queer Theory episodes for @zekedms - Episode 2 in progress!

Kyle and Jess hanging out in dresses for @tiphares - Sketched!

Lunar Zine Progress:

Made a project blog! (but it's uncustomized at the moment.) @lunarzine

Need to decide on deadlines...

And a page minimum...

And the physical size of the zine...

So I can make margin templates...

Need to install Scribus and find some tutorials... (Hopefully it's not too drastically different from InDesign.)

Need to research setting up a Google form for submissions...

And when most of that is done, I'll be ready to call for submissions!

[anistarrose]

what is “in the fumes of your anguish (all my blistering pride)”!! it sounds fun!! -tom

(WIP meme here, still taking asks!)

okay I have to come clean: I cheated and put this one on the list even though I don't have a file for it, physically. or rather, digitally, I guess. but I needed an excuse to talk about it, because my mental file is sprawling, and, well. above all else I am a Suffering Game bitch, and this is an AU that diverges from canon in the aftermath of Lucretia in Wonderland.

she still escapes Wonderland — only to find herself alone in the Felicity Wilds, remaining grievously injured from the games. twenty years older, still losing blood — and the monsters in the wilds can smell blood, immediately encircling her. but before she can make her final stand... bolts of red, necrotic magic rain down on her foes, and Barry appears, reducing them all to dust.

he's both the person Lucretia most wanted to see, and the person she was most terrified of seeing, with the guilt of betraying Cam still fresh in her mind. he sounds just as terrified, as he asks what the hell happened to her. Lucretia doesn't answer, because her legs give out, and she passes out.

the rest of the fic is Lucretia recovering in Barry's evil cave lair, in the way that would be the classic whumpy injury hurt/comfort if it wasn't for the fact that. well. they're still Lucretia and Barry post-betrayal. they can barely face each other. Barry sees Lucretia twenty years older with a half dozen new scars, and can only think about how his Animus Bell did that, even if indirectly. Lucretia sees Barry's lich form, tattered and gaunt, aching from the separation from his lifelines — and wonders why he saved her life.

hell, she wonders why doesn't he kill her now? with her gone, it would only be a matter of time until he found Fisher — and the Starblaster, for that matter, whether he chose to use it or not. in her mind, if he were to use it, it would surely just be to bring back Lup — not bring back her, not knowing she could betray him again, uncompromising on her plan as she is...

and Barry is just as deeply, upsettingly aware as she is of what he has to gain by killing her. what he had to gain by letting her die. but on a level that doesn't surprise him, not compared to how it surprises Lucretia — he obviously can't bring himself to do it. to hold his lich form together, after doing that? after losing his sister, too? the only person to even remember him, no matter the reason? it would be impossible. his soul would be gone before he even finished the job.

...and then there's character development — and eventually, dare I say, even communication — that happens, that I don't want to spoil for when I do write the thing, but. I think you get the vibe. (also: lots of black smoke imagery persists even after Lucretia's out of Wonderland. that's the second most important part of the vibe.) the premise is a heavy one, and not my only Suffering Game WIP either (the other is canon compliant, but I kind of think this one could build off it), so it's gonna be a long time before I'll be able to write it, but I think about it all the time 😭

(also the title is from this song, which also contains the lyric "All the love, all the kindness, all your best-laid plains / Couldn't stop me from becoming the way that I am." and if that's not a devastating line for the mutual Lucretia-Barry dynamic post betrayal, then I don't what is!)

[goddesspharo]

Before The Beginning for the ask meme

[no excuses WIP meme: ask me about my WIPs]

BEFORE THE BEGINNING — three sentences (or more) about something that happened before the plot of my current project

This is before the events of fragments of a great collide:

Natasha had plugged "the best Tex-Mex Chinese fusion place in Houston" for the past ten years to the point that Mr. Chow himself gave her a sombrero with a dragon on it for her birthday for being a loyal customer. She was the only person who had ever been bestowed the privilege of getting endless nachos whenever she walked in because the owners had decided long ago that Nat was single-handedly responsible for introducing half the people at Johnson Space Station to their fine dining establishment. So when Jake asked for their help when he popped the question, the folks at Señor Chow's were more than happy to whip up a special dessert for the occasion. "I should've called an audible when I saw that idiot Kenny Chow was working our section that day," Jake sighed every time they told the story later. "He had them put the ring in the chocolate flan," Natasha explained, which always got a few awws and that's so cute from the dinner party. "It would have been cute," Jake grumbled on cue, "if Kenny hadn't accidentally switched the plates coming out of the kitchen." "I inhaled that chocolate flan. If Mrs. Chow didn't run out when she did, Jake would've tried to Heimlich Nana Seresin's wedding ring out of me."

[youcalledmebabe]

BEFORE THE BEGINNING from the ask game, for whichever wip you want !!!

no excuses writing meme

thank you for the ask arthur!!

by the time Joe gets caught in a time loop he’s already obsessed with Web. he goes from wondering who the Superman lookalike in Georgia is to getting sick of his ‘historical facts’ in England. in Holland he has the misfortune (or great luck) of being injured at the same time as Web and they find themselves together in the hospital. joe finds, to his shock, that he rather enjoys being stuck with Web, that he feels like the hero of a screwball comedy when he’s with him. in bastogne the simmering affection freezes over, even as he spends idle time imagining that pretty face. and, well, we all know what happened in Haguenau!

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

WIP title ask meme

Prompt: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

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I was poked to do this months ago, twice at least - once by @docholligay and I think the second was @jeejyboard, but I can't find the tag for the life of me. SORRY. I felt like doing something a bit more meta today re:writing and post about The Process, and this was a perfect excuse - thanks for thinking of me. So here's some actual effort! I went and dug deep, trawled through some really old stuff, which was fun. I write and scribble down way, way more than I actually polish and post (which I assume is probably normal, but who knows). 

General info, for whoever is interested: I mostly use Google Docs with offline backups for fic writing, as I shift between computers a ton, and I put fandom tags at the start of my filenames for organisation. I have a ton of prompt/meme/ask/event collection files - for example, the very latest: "[BG3, STRAHD, SM] Fic Prompts 2024". In these I jot down both the prompts people send or that are listed and the ideas/outlines/notes for each, then when I really get going with a certain fic I spin it off into a separate document. 

I hate coming up with titles and usually do that last, so most of my document names are silly references for my own amusement or just a boring old brief description of the main concept. For instance, my latest posted fic Cerimonia Compedum was for most of its WIP-hood known simply as "[BG3] Tadpoled Isobel". Sometimes I keep different versions/revisions/parts of the same WIP in different files, and if that's the case I've grouped them here. Note that for simplicity's sake this post includes my "solo" fic only, no collabs or coauthored stuff, of which there is also a bunch. 

Some of these are ancient and hit me in the face with "12 years ago" timestamps. Some ficlets will never make it out of the mixed prompt plot bunny dumping grounds into their own doc. I think Sailor Moon 10-ish years ago was the one outlier fandom where I actually wrote most of my concepts out fully and posted them. The ol' brain is currently overproducing stuff for the more recent BG3 flavoured moon lesbians (and no, that ship name will never stop throwing my HaruMichi-loving ass for a loop). Note that some of the SU WIPs on the list I've already posted about here, here, here, and here.

Obviously all of these vary wildly in terms of completion level, word count, refinement, and age (and capitalisation, apparently). So yeah, here's the list, roughly sorted by fandom - ask away, if you feel like it!

[BG3] Moon-chosen, Moon-guided | Moon-chosen, Moon-guided - Part III [BG3] Cerimonia Alārum | ISOBEL TO THE RESCUE AU [BG3] Tremulous Cadence followup | The Return of the Moon Daughter [BG3] Wizard Tower AU | Aylin & Rolan stuff [BG3] Karlach/Minthara Act 2 conclusion aka why are paladins Like That [BG3] I'm having something very strong indeed

[STRAHD] The d'Avenir Treatise verse tidbits [STRAHD] Road Trippin' [STRAHD] In-character notes & ficlets

[SU] eeEEeeeeEE BISMUTH | Bismuth ficlets | Like talking to a wall | Muse. Galatea. Suffering. [SU] SU Daemons HDM AU [SU] The Adolescence of Rose Quartz | But I don't think anyone turns into a car  [SU] Freedom To And Freedom From | Pearlrose Fixit | i love suffering!!! [SU] Forge Showdown AU [SU] Pearl Playing the Field TM | All I need in this life of sin is me and my pearlfriend [SU] The Grand Aventurine Heist (Not Really Grand And Only Slightly A Heist) | oh no who let Rose read the Scarlet Pimpernel

[SM] Future Vision blatantly ripped me off THANKS REBECCA | PUU fic [SM] Outers fall of SilMil | michific | The End is the Beginning is the End

[DS9] Kira fic bits

[TLOK] Five Times Kya Healed Lin and One Time She Couldn't | Kyalin fluff [TLOK] R.C. Noire | Lin BAMFong

[WATCHMEN] Silhouette fic bits

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That's it! I don't think I have a single person that I know writes fic left that hasn't already been tagged in this, so feel free to do it (again) if it strikes your fancy.