#oh forgot that this was the fic that pushed me over 100k

[cannibalthoughts]

It was all Luisa could talk about. What would it be, what would it be? They made a game of it. Sometimes Bruno said that maybe she would be able to fly, except then she’d start to float away and they’d have to keep her inside and never go splashing in the creek again. And she’d laugh and tell him no, she was going to be super good at digging instead.

---

Bruno was the third person to ever hold Luisa, and he has always been her favorite tío. Four hugs, across good times and bad.

For Encantober day 6: hugs

[faunusrights]

OFFAL HUNT REMASTERED LIVEBLOG // CHAPTER 19

IN THIS EPISODE OF MURPHY IS SCREAMING, CONSTANTLY, TRAPPED IN THEIR PERFECT NIGHTMARE:

Glynda was saying: “I know we aren’t friends. I know we aren’t partners. I know you’re a criminal. But—I think I can trust you. I think I have to trust you, even if you’ve done awful things before.”

EVERYTHING GOES WRONG BUT LIKE SOMEHOW WORSE THAN EVER? LIKE A WHOLE NEW BRAND OF LOW. LIKE CINDER’S GOT A PICKAXE AND THE CENTRE OF THE PLANET CALLS FOR AID.

IT’S BEEN A WHILE HUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but dw offal hunt, like the rising of the sun, the arrival of winter, and the eventual downfall of capitalism, always returns. so lets go.

(i just quickly reread chapter 18 liveblog to remember what happened and Ah Yes I Remember Now. The Suppressed Memories)

The place was emptier without Glynda. Quieter.

/gunshot oh we’re in danger right out of the gate huh? we got some yearning right out here? right now? how quickly the turn do tables.

Cinder appraised her work, holding the beige coat up to the light and squinting.

man i forgot. i FORGET. how much i just love cinder in this fic. sometimes she kinda zones to the back of my mind where she sits waiting for me to start thinking about her again, but now i remember that this cinder is Peaque. look at her GO, minding her own BUSINESS. im proud of her. does she know i love her.

It didn’t take long to don her new, fire-proofed clothes.

in another world, in a more comical plot, she used asbestos. it didnt go well.

The subtle warmth of the Dust teased tension from Cinder’s stiff muscles, even as she marvelled at the strangeness of her own bedroom’s space. It seemed bigger now than it had the last two nights.

h

She chose not to dwell on it.

h

i choose to dwell on it! ME!!!! I CHOOSE TO DWELL ON IT. HEY CINDER WHAT THIS GAY SHIT. hello. ma’am. can we look deeper into this. i, for one, would like to, and i, for one, think its of value to think abt this. that said, small segue

Quietly, Cinder murmured, “I didn’t freak out.”

THE FACT SHE SAYS IT ALOUD LIKE EM AND MERC CAN HEEEEEEAR HEEEEEEEER i am. INFATUATED with this family. cant wait for the 100k spinoff thats basically an elongated beach episode where they go to like. alton towers. or butlins. six flags??? thats a thing in america right??? anyway. beach episode. call me. (wink wink nudge nudge push push shove shove)

 We had to stop back in because Merc left his favorite binder, and it was 2 in the morning, so it was easier to crash here for the night than mess with the ship’s autopilot.

them,,, THEM!!!! mercury is just a son and childe. thast it. he canot change this. i love these kids so much i am SHAKING THE MONITOR RN!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAA

Stuck here in one of the homes they’d shared, Cinder missed them terribly. Missed the sound of their voices and the easy comfort of their presence. Finding the time to contact them had been difficult, between managing Glynda and Hati both, but Glynda was gone, and she’d sent Hati onwards to Atlas. She remembered her call with Emerald, before arriving in Umbraroot; she knew it had not soothed her or her fears.

im sorry was this chapter targeted at me, specifically, as a human being on planet earth? GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THIS FAMILY!!!!!!!!! THIS WONKY OLD BANDAGED UP FAMILY UNIT!!!!!!!!!!!!! i thrive every time they are mentioned on the page. it is a blessing. my succulents grow stronger each time they show up.

“No,” Cinder argued softly, “I had to. Mercury, you deserve to hear it from me as well. I am sorry. And I am promising you: I’ll come back.”

For a long, heart-wrenching moment, he was completely quiet. It was good that Cinder was alone in the apartment; laying herself bare like this would be unbearable with an audience.

GODDDDDDDDDDD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

i am OBSESSED WITH THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IM GOING TO BE THINKING ABOUT THIS UNTIL I D I E. of all thing the remaster does better than og, this is just. SPEEDING AHEAD. this whole CONFLICT this whole MESS just makes everything so much RICHER its like when u splash some wine in yr fancy food or stick some cinnamon on yr favourite desserts u dont NEED TO but it adds that lil SOMETHING,,, that little KICK that just ties the flavour profile together and in this case ofgughugguhu it just GIVES SO MUCH. im making SNOW ANGELS in the WORDS on the PAGE.

“Mercury. If I could prove it to you, I would. But you have to—trust me. For just a while longer.”

“It’s getting harder,” he said. He didn’t sound like he was lying just to hurt her. That wasn’t spite. That was honest anger. And it made her feel like dirt.

im less picking these for specific instances of like, things i want to say, but more just because bits of this r rly just so /chef kiss. cinder has these.... endearingly (take that whichever way u like) human qualities in OG to rly make u realise she had ties to add to her #Doubt but the remaster is just AMPING it up and u FEEL IT and ive never been more SYMPATHETIC to a round-faced sinnamon bun of assholery and fire id DIE for cinder fall and this is a fact PUT IT ON MY GRAVESTONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Is there anything you need?” What was this? Cinder could barely focus on her words. It felt like... “Anything? At all?”

“We’re fine.”

“Mercury, wait please—” She was losing him. “I think—”

“Just hurry up.”

The line went dead.

this place is not a place of honor.................. no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here........................ nothing valued is here................ IM DYING

Cinder began to type out her response, and that was when the nausea really kicked in. 

[...] 

She recognized this now.

Glynda.

stress stress stress stress STRESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

There shouldn’t be anybody. Cinder had done everything in her power to cut Glynda from people who would interfere. To isolate her. Make it easier to bring her to Atlas, to the frozen north, to her mother and the machine…

Cinder’s esophagus quivered; furiously, she shut her eyes and thought of nothing.

god cinder don’t remind me that you’re an asshole and dipshit and also a moron im trying to be NICE and CARE ABT YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP REMINDING ME YOU’RE A PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

FOR FIVE MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The front door clicked open.

Cinder couldn’t have said how much time had passed, only that it had passed slowly. What she did know was that it was Glynda returning, the sensation of boils bursting wafting off her soul. It crawled over Cinder’s flesh. She curled in on herself.

There were mites under every nailbed. Salt in her weeping mouth.

offal hunt’s brilliant use of this horror aspect is something i have tried previously to emulate and here’s a fact, take it from me: that shit is HARD. offal hunt consistently able to whack those real nasty, really Disgusting vibes on the head EVERY TIME is a work of art. i mean, kc and diesel do not fuck around, and therefore i am NOT surprised, but it’s only when u try this shit yourself that you realise: this is hard! this is difficult! it’s a huge testament to how GOOD this fic is in every way. also this whole fucking body horror aspect is something i didnt know this fic needed, but it did, and here we are. 

Thickly: “Things were going okay. If you hadn’t gotten nasty, I might have smoothed things over. I could have fixed things with my son.”

with my son

with my son

with my son

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I CANT TAKE IT EVERY TIME ITS TOO MUCH FOR TO BEAR I CANNOT HANDLE IT I CANNOT STAND IT ITS LIKE BEING SHOT JUST DIRECTLY IN MY DICK

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

im like sweating rn

Glynda said, “I’m scared.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

I SAID IM SWEATING

Glynda asked, “Are you lying to me?”

And Cinder said, “What?”

“About me. About Witches. About Ozpin—” Cinder’s guts went sour. “—About anything. I need to know if I can trust you.”

I SAID I! AM! S W E A T I N G

“I know you’ve lied to people. Hurt people.”

Adrenaline and the image of her kids’ faces behind her eyes made a potent, sick cocktail. “—Not. Now.”

so lets like double back to when i said hey was this chapter written to target me specifically and as it turns out, yes. yes it was. yes it was and as MUCH AS I AM LIVING FOR THIS MOMENT THIS SWEET BUILDUP THE EXPLOSION AND THE CRATER IT ALL LEAVES BEHIND

I

AM

so this next bit is like. i cant really quote one section but as i was saying in Vague DMs, this whole bit feels like wading through mud. usually if you say something consumes energy to Read it’s in a Bad Way when yr bored but this is more like. you Feel cinder all over everything feels so sluggish and it’s like dragging your own corpse around as you try and leave and you’re TIRED and your LEGS HURT and you’re kinda thinking god what if i just fell face down for just a moment of my LIFE.

The putrid weight of Glynda’s soul filled the room until there was no space left for her.

it’s like being trapped in a sauna, like getting stuck in a humid waiting room. where do you GO. what do you DO. god this whole section is fantastic and offal hunt NEVER fails to fucking nail the Vibes but reading it is HARD. i literally keep having to stop and breathe like ive been holding my breath. jesus h christ.

a small intermission for a mood:

“Get fucked.”

back to regularly scheduled hell

Out of the bedroom. Down the hall. The walls were sweating with heat. She tasted smoke. 

i love that i just said how i feel like im trapped in a sauna and it turns out: thats because me and cinder both, baybee!!!! hahahaha help

Glynda’s soul chewed her to the marrow. “Move, Glynda.” 

cinder being hunted at the start of this fic: teehee! im running away! now im gonna getcha! heehee! arent i clever :) cinder being hunted now: this uh. this blows, actually,

Cinder’s pulse roared in her ears. Her hands twitched. She smelled Ochre Brown’s round face melting off. His wide smile shattered with each of his teeth, going black and popping like corn.

this chapter is probably my favourite so far for this blending of so many elements. i cant even begin to like. THINK STRAIGHT about how all of this is tying together. the lore. the THEMATICS. like i said this character rly is just Rich with what og lacked and oh is it RICH. im gonna read this chapter in future and see so much that i know ive already missed. holy shit.

“Ms. Fall,” she said. “The White Fang requires your presence immediately.”

NOT NOW

Cinder stood there looking at it for a moment. Her thoughts were slow. Copper-tinged. Something small and indulgent whispered to her through the blood-fog.

It was obvious enough what would happen if she got into this car. The driver would take her to a secluded place, where she would be ambushed by a squadron of battle-hungry White Fang grunts.

They’d try to take her down. And she was a killer, wasn’t she? Ochre Brown wailed in her ears with every thump of her runaway heart. Her hands itched for action; her teeth, for blood.

She’d burn them black.

never mind! you are already dead,

She thought about Glynda. About her saying that if there was trouble with the Fang, she wanted to come. That she would fight for Cinder.

She thought of Glynda’s question: What aren’t you telling me about Ochre Brown?

Yeah, fuck that.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A CLIFFHANGER!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A MOMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!! MORE MOMENTOUSLY: WHAT A CHAPTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is EASILY my favourite chapter so far. EASILY. everything about this was peak offal. the relationships. the dynamics. the dialogue. the vibes. the Grossness. the fighting. the EVERYTHING. this is some other level and its BITCHIN. PEAK. that said im now very tired. im going to have a cup of tea and Consider Things for a few hours. brb.

[leviathiane]

something you learned this year, fics you wanted to write but didn’t, a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read, favorite fandom to read fic from this year

Shbfjxbfnc finally an ask meme that doesn’t got me rushing to figure out what emoji/number is what.. love u bitch....💫

Something I learned this year It’s.... embarrassing, but,,,, How To Bookmark On AO3. I literally. Spent the past few years not understanding it and as such bookmarking almost nothing. It took me writing my own stuff and watching people bookmark it to finally figure it out and I still forget it’s a real function (same with kudos... i still 90% of the time forget kudos exist and i can, in fact, leave them with literally 0 repurcussions)

Fics I wanted to write but didn’t oh you asked the worst question this is going to take a while ☠️ not including WIPs I picked up and either forgot or just having finished, there’s about 12 I flat out never got to and 7 I will EVENTUALLY get to that haven’t been started

The 12 in order(new to old, literally reading off my prompts doc) (with probably increasingly confusing short summaries):

-Angel!Ace post-marineford au (ASL centric)

-Awakened-DF!Marco, marineford canon divergent

-Shanks and the mystery of a blue bird who takes really good care of his skin, apparently

-Shanks finds Marco on a marine ship in chains and just kinda is like... mine now

-Pianist!Ace modern!au first meeting the Whitebeards (based off that one tumblr post about someone slipping piano requests under an apartment door)

-A series of sabo meeting the whitebeards while “undercover” to the point where he’s a common story among commanders every time there’s shore leave but no one connects him to Ace

-Canon divergent where sabo was picked up by marines instead of by dragon after losing his memories

-A series of outsider-POV to ASL antics in which ace survived marineford and they all visit each other to spar and hang out at the expense of literally everyone else

-Nsfw 3-parter between shanks, buggy, Mihawk, and Marco

-Post-marineford Marco And shanks dealing with immortality and the things we are forced to leave and are left behind by (nsfw ending) (...will probably still do this one anyway. It nags at me a lot and I have Emotions)

-A marcoace to do with mating dances and extended flight metaphors ahdbdjfnjdnf don’t @ me

-Canon divergent where instead of dying corazon pulled a sabo but became a marine again, memories gone, and trying to catch law gives him a migraine for more than one reason. law is along for the ride and traumatized.

A fic I read this year that I would recommend to everyone gah just... one? Just one? One fic? This is impossible. I’m not even gonna entertain that, have 3 and thats pushing it.

Labyrinths of the Heart by izabellwit - I was in this fandom for as long as it took to read this fic. Full of hopelessness and dark themes, self hate turned poisonously outward, slow mental health related haractet development. A Gen fic excluding canon ships, 200k+ and worth it. I cried over this fic probably every chapter if I’m being honest

Blue by kurikuri - KNY is a little too fresh of a fandom to have 100k+ fic classics just yet but this one made me reread a couple times within a month tbh.. full of complex feelings and hesitation, time travel mixed with trauma and grief both + a canon divergence hat throw everything sideways a lil. Very soft

Trapped in eternity by skyleaf19 - I think this one is already on my OP Friday fic rec list but I think about her a lot and the raw pain and slow descent into trauma from ace looping the last years of his life and losing everyone he loves over and over always gets me. I get .. concerningly excited reading this fic even the fourth and fifth time ahfbjfjcnd

Favorite fandom to read fic from this year oh this one is easy jshfushfifj it’s the One Piece fandom! So far in 2019 I’ve sifted throgh BNHA, one punch man, natsume yuujincho, KNY, deltarune, Sherlock, Merlin, Hannibal, teen wolf, supernatural, Pokémon, FMA, titanfall, DBH, legend of Zelda, mob psycho 100, rise of the guardians, undertale, and marvel (into the spider verse, Spider-Man, avengers, loki-centric, etc) fandoms for new content but, OP being one of my oldest fandoms both in terms of me being connected to it as well as objective age, there’s a whole gold mine of fics that I found much easier to navigate at a frankly startling speed lmfao. It’s been great! I literally, for one of the first times, can’t seem to run out of new AND old content

[swampgallows]

like this shit is so long

Only once Jaina was back in her own rooms in Theramore, and her head had begun to cool off from the madness – indeed, wild hope, chilling fears, joy and a thousand other emotions spinning through her head, only one step from insanity – only then did she remember that she had forgot to ask one important question, and it froze the grin on her face.

Something so small but so important to the culture she grew up in – even stricter than normal for her, a woman of such a fine family line. Something so small, so ridiculous even, but not dismissible and it had haunted her only in its current form in peaceful times. There had been no time for it before, not when her life took plunges – I will be a mage, a scholar dedicated to study and magic to We may not be alive tomorrow and onwards through We are alive and building a new home.

She stared out of one of the window of her chambers, without really seeing anything. Unwittingly, one of her hands went to her stomach.

Only after the chaos she found herself the owner of her own throne, and with that, being a person who was expected to eventually produce an heir who could sit on that throne later on.

Before that, she had only been haunted by regret and bitterness, and the memory of sweet whispers, of fingertips and warmth that had turned colder than ice. Both of them young and foolish, knowing they were as good as betrothed – it would only be a few words away, the match was suitable even in a politician's eye – but duty called him, and magic her. And then he turned into the greatest evil to walk Azeroth, barring Archimonde and his ilk.

Bitterness and regret being mere personal torture, but with her current position the problem became a tangible… inconvenience to say the least. Before, she may have pushed it aside and felt that she would face it the day she had a suitable suitor.

And how long ago was it, young lady, that you could bear thinking of anyone but him touching you?

this shit is so fucking long and it doesn’t say anything new. there are three different paragraphs talking about “before” but it’s not for emphasis and it doesn’t provide any new information. if i were the editor, i would do this:

HAHAHA OH HOLY SHIT I GOT ON MY LAPTOP AND THIS WAS THE LAST THING ON MY CLIPBOARD HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

anyway my edit would be like

Only once Jaina was back in her own rooms in Theramore, and her head had begun to cool off from the madness – indeed, wild hope, chilling fears, joy and a thousand other emotions spinning through her head, only one step from insanity – only then did she remember that she had forgot[en] to ask one important question[.] and it froze [T]he grin on her face [froze].

Something so small but so important to the culture she grew up in – even stricter than normal for her, a woman of such a fine family line. Something so small, so ridiculous even, but not dismissible and it had haunted her only in its current form in peaceful times. There had been no time for it before, not when her life took plunges – I will be a mage, a scholar dedicated to study and magic to We may not be alive tomorrow and onwards through We are alive and building a new home.

She [blankly] stared out of one of the window of her chambers, without really seeing anything. Unwittingly, one of her hands went to her stomach.

Only after the chaos she found herself the owner of her own throne, and with that, being a person who was expected to eventually produce an heir who could sit on that throne later on.

Before that, she had only been haunted by regret and bitterness, and the memory of sweet whispers, of fingertips and warmth that had turned colder than ice. Both of them young and foolish, knowing they were as good as betrothed – it would only be a few words away, the match was suitable even in a politician's eye – but duty called him, and magic her. And then he turned into the greatest evil to walk Azeroth, barring Archimonde and his ilk.

Bitterness and regret being mere personal torture, but with her current position the problem became a tangible… inconvenience[,] to say the least. Before, she may have pushed it aside and felt that she would face it the day she had a suitable suitor.

And how long ago was it, young lady, that you could bear thinking of anyone but him touching you?

like so much of this is just not contributing anything. it’s a fic, we already know who these characters are, and there was already a previous chapter before this detailing jaina’s situation and hyjal and everything else. all of it is really implicit that she forgot to ask thrall if he wanted kids, it doesn’t need the like three paragraphs of Jaina is a Human Female and Expected to Have Children. this isnt an alien species being introduced to us like most couplings in azeroth bring up children as a factor. 

i dunno like i know people write fic for fun but this shit is 100k and when there is this much unnecessary detail it’s hard to see the forest for the trees as it were, and it makes it a slog to get through. i also dont “speed read” because most of my reading has been academic where every single word counts, and part of me feels like it’s disrespectful to the author. like they put these words down to be read, and so i will read them, but that’s also the way i’ve been trained to read.  also since i spent most of my schooling reading stuff like shakespeare or canterbury tales or les miserables you have to stop like every five syllables to look shit up or derive some kind of analysis unless it’s a modern adaptation that doesnt require any “translation” necessarily.  

basically like. writing is fun but editing is important. more people will read your fic when it isn’t 30% filler. and ive complained about it before but like word count doesnt have any fucking bearing at all on the quality of writing. in fact, when i see ship fics that skyrocket to like 150k words in a handful of chapters im like dang bitch you cant write for shit!!! if you cant get across what you wanna say in that amount of words and youre STILL not done it means you gotta pare some shit down. 

it’s why i prefer writing over talking EVERY time because i KNOW i ramble irl. and in a casual setting like this, a blog post, i of course will ramble here too. but in writing??? writing that people read? everything you write should convey something and drive your story forward. every sentence you type is communicating something. if you get through the whole paragraph and all you can extract from it is “jaina realizes motherhood is a possibility again”, it needs to say something more. i mean this is all just my opinion but like it’s so important to the tone of your writing.

i remember when i was reading the shining, and early on in the story jack is being instructed in the boiler room. and the attendant or janitor or whatever you’d call him goes on for a HUGE block of text of all the mechanisms and step-by-step explains each and every facet of the machinery, how to use it, what it’s for. there aren’t even indents in the paragraph. and then it mentions off-handedly how jack was giving quick responses like “yup”, “uh-huh”, shit like that. i mean it’s been a few years since i read it so im paraphrasing. but that part of the book stood out to me because it was so immersive. the way it was written and the way the information was being relayed was specifically to bore the reader, to put them in jack’s position, and also maybe intimidate them a little bit. and of course it was foreshadowing, too, when later in the story jack is struggling with the boiler, and i actually went and flipped back to the instructions earlier in the book to review what jack was supposed to do. and then i thought, “boy, i bet jack wished he was me right now, because i have everything all written down!” 

but anyway, like. that’s good writing. that’s using the medium of text to its advantage to communicate on a meta-level how the audience should feel, and that we are all jack in that moment, being told a huge laundry list of shit we have to do—being paid to do, our sole responsibility on this job—and totally mentally checking out. i LOVE jaina, and i LOVE thrall, but the way this fic is written portrays them both as totally spaced out, completely unsympathetic characters. what i read above isn’t communicating jaina’s trauma to me; it sounds condescending, like she’s such an air-headed dim bulb that she forgot to ask her new husband if he wanted kids.

and the “proposal” was like... extremely awkward? i mean maybe that’s what the author is going for but thrall being basically like “uhh i guess? yeah i guess.” and then it says they talked for an hour but couldnt stay longer than that because they’re both leaders and couldn’t stay away too long. like... i feel like this is supposed to be a pretty important thing? marriage? it’s the setup for the whole fic and it’s played so... underwhelmingly. which i dont feel is intentional.

I KNOW it’s just a fic and i’m being very critical but it’s just like damn everybody bitches about blizzard’s “bad writing” but then nobody steps up to the plate. :\ i dunno how anybody spends so much time reading fanfiction when most of it is such a fucking chore to read. god i hope my story isnt like that.