#really self indulgent really roughly written

[majinbangus]

Being short and taking tiny steps. It's something he never really realized because you always forced yourself to keep up with his longer strides thanks to his superior height, but now as you're going home after a lunch date, he's walking behind you, and nearly bumping into you every few steps.

"You walk so slow," he states after forcing himself to slow down for the tenth time.

"Cuz I'm short. And I don't want to walk fast if I don't have to." You look over your shoulder to look up at him. "You know, you can walk ahead of me? Home isn't going anywhere, I'll meet you there."

Absolutely not. He's not gonna let you walk home alone.

Instead, he says, "I don't want to."

You let out a confused laugh, "What do you mean 'you don't want to'? You were complaining about how slow I am."

"Wasn't complaining." He pauses. "Just observing."

"But you're still rushing to get home," you point out when he almost bumps into you again.

"The game is starting in fifteen."

You roll your eyes. Him and his soccer.

"Then either walk ahead or don't. Or carry me if you're not gonna walk at my pace. I'm don't plan on speeding up, I'm tired of practically jogging just to keep up with you."

Now there's an idea.

"Alright."

"Alright?" You look at him suspiciously. "Alright what?"

"Alright I'll carry you."

Your eyes widen. "Wait-"

He doesn't let you finish, arms coming behind your back and knees, picking you up without any complaints. You squeak out his name, arms coming around his neck. "I-"

"-won't struggle to keep up with me." He shoots you a cocky look, setting a much faster pace. "We'll be home in five."

[again-please]

fics and tags masterlist!

it occurred to me recently that I don't really have my stories and tags folks may be interested in collected anywhere for convenience...so, here!

likes/follows will come from again-pls, but I don't really post there! follow here for actual content/updates

links and tags below!

Ongoing

Dancing With My Demons (Mercurial World)

BG3, Astarion x f!Tav (Neve), started in early access, longfic continuation of events in A Little Further that roughly follows the plot of the game. Rated E.

midnight call (divinations)

BG3, Ascended Astarion x f!Tav (Neve), a Dracula-inspired Mercurial World AU in which a Neve who never experienced the events of the game finds she has a strange connection to the mysterious new lord of the Crimson Palace. Rated E.

Completed

A Little Further (Mercurial World)

BG3, Astarion xf!Tav (Neve), written and completed in early access. Three-shot following another take on how things unfold post bite scene. Rated E.

Moderation (Mercurial World)

BG3, Astarion xf!Tav (Neve). One shot: Neve and Astarion's bite night. Chronologically first in the Mercurial World series, but maybe best read after A Little Further. Rated E.

Sitting Out Dances on the Wall

BG3, f!Tav x f!Tav (Neve and Auri). A pre-canon Mercurial World prequel feat. @aevallare's girl Auri for Apprecimaytion!

Tags

I have a few tags you might be interested in if you follow DWMD:

fanart!! for me?? | ask and ye shall receive | my fics: dwmd | oc: neve | self-indulgent neveposting | my fics: a little further

again_please on ao3

[444m777]

29 things I love about Michael: Day 29

Where do I even start?

Well first things first HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL!

I spent the majority of the day watching a bunch of MJ videos, edits, performances and I got the bright idea to read several MJ books at the same time🙃 so in between switching from my phone to books I’ve been also crying and wishing he was still here not for the fans but for his children so he could physically be there for them and watch as they grow older and more into who they’ve always been but as an adult. My heart goes out to his kids and family.

So on the 29th day (and I missed so many days after the 19th or 20th) I want to say that his essence is what I love about him. Everyone’s essence is unique to them. Some try to copy but we can tell when someone’s trying to be someone they’re not. Which is why he cannot be replicated. And he shouldn’t be. What we are left with is his legacy and as fans we must preserve it in its entirety. Not just the music and dancing but also who Michael was as person. A true humanitarian who wanted to protect children all over the world. Providing a space(s) of comfort for everyone. Reminding people that they’re not alone and that together we can truly make changes in our own communities and the WHOLE world.

To make up for the days that I didn’t get to post brief sentences on why I love Michael for the days I didn’t get to post

Day 20: he was vegetarian but he loved him some KFC. I myself have dabbled in veganism/vegetarianism throughout my adult life but CHICKEN when fried oefff… that’s tough to let go completely haha

Day 21: his complicated relationship with dogs… I know he didn’t like dogs because they turned on him and some dogs bite etc. but I just love how he loved his half wolf half german shepard dog called Black Girl. She was abused by her previous owner and Michael and Janet tried their best to be gentle and gave Black Girl lots of hugs and kisses when they were younger. I’m a dog person so I was a bit sad he mentioned being afraid of dogs and mentioned dogs turning on him BUT Black Girl was sweet and gentle and Michael made sure to take care not to trigger her (unlike other people like his Father who used to point his gun at the dog—yikes!).

Day 22: also love that he was so curious about the universe and why things (meaning a leaf, space, insects etc.) were the way they were. I want to go more in depth about this at one point because he was just naturally curious as most kids are and he continued to indulge that curiosity as an adult. He asked a LOT of questions. Something I used to get told as a kid “that’s just the way it is!” but I didn’t let that stop me. Reading/researching truly keeps me going for hours and hours. You just get lost at every new bit of information and he was huge on that. We truly can learn so much from his approach to life

Day 23: I’m also reading a book about Prince lol and of courseeeeee I’d find Michael in it. Long story short in the introduction Prince mentions how he wants his memoir to be written and doesn’t want to use the word magic to describe him/his music. He said “just look at a word and see if it’s one I would use. Because MAGIC isn’t one I’d use. Magic is Michael’s word. That’s what his music was about”. It’s true. It truly is Michael’s word.

Day 24: I’ve been struggling with my drawing. Like my lessons are going fine but when it comes to drawing Michael I’ve had really nice moments and other WHO TF IS THAT!? moments xD and i came across a video that showed roughly 200 drawings Michael did. There were I think about 10 ish drawings I haven’t seen before. And I noticed he would do light sketches and go into realism to more abstract and self potraits. Not everything was perfect. And by perfect I mean like super clean. I struggle with that at the moment and I love that his drawings reminded me that I’m doing this for fun. And to trust that when I draw something I’m proud of I should rejoice and when I draw something I’m not too happy about it then I can try again another time. He’s re-drawn so many of the same characters in varying styles over and over again. I mean he’s been sketching for DECADES so I've only been drawing for what 10 days🙃 it was a nice reminder to gently tell me to chill out haha.

Day 25: I love how big of fanboy Michael is when it comes to his idols and the greats he learned from and also having the chance to meet some of them. I’ve been thrusted down a small hole and have been busy collecting info regarding his idols. Seeing the patterns, the inspirations and just trying to get a feel for what fascinated him so much. Aside from their great talents/showmanship you are also expressing one of your highest forms of yourself so I want to see more of what he saw in them the same way I see and feel about him.

Day 26: this one is a bit sad as I really feel he was snubbed from acting. It’s very clear that becoming an actor was the next step in his plans. From a very young age. It’s sad roles were promised then suddenly given to someone else. Audition tapes not considered and even having a shitty meeting with the person who’s going to play the character you were promised to play just to get some sort of rise out of him. At least that’s why I think that person did that and set that meeting up. Anyways I’m just so happy that he chose to invest his own money in Moonwalker and made it happen. I always thought I’d see more of him on screen and we were robbed by a lot of jealous people and people who felt he wouldn’t add anything aside from the fact that he’s famous. He still continued to pursue it in smaller ways and I hope in the next lifetime he’s able to be the full fledged actor he’s always wanted to be and directing and writing movies left and right!

Day 27: his music is truly healing and positively affirms a lot of great things. I’ve kept track of affirmations in his music from the Jackons up until Invincible. I struggle with anxiety and would repeat some of the affirmations throughout the day or when I wake up in the morning. I make sure to be grateful and I affirm a good and positive day with one his lyric affirmations. I’ve used affirmations before but THESE stick with me because it’s Michael lol but he truly was ahead of his time in so many subjects that people would and WILL be baffled when they find out. He was a SMART, curious man. And very big on positive thinking and positively manipulating the subconscious mind.

Day 28: I love how he was pro-Black. His message was very much UNITY of all races, backgrounds etc. but he reminded people that he was proud to be BLACK. People love to forget that part.

[sazzujazzu]

Hello, as the days count down and the Bad Batch finale draws closer, may I show to the fine folks of tumblr my first Star Wars OC in 20 years, created thanks to this show? 😃

Too bad, I'm showing them anyway 😊 somberly chilling while listening to their bestie talk.

Please excuse the poor background (I got lazy) and half-finished Tech (I got sad)

there's, uh, a big mess of words under the image because I wanted to put into words the importance this show has for me, and I am bad at doing so.

I want to get some thoughts off my chest, because I have no one in my day-to-day life who cares about the animated Star Wars shows, and especially the Bad Batch. (well, other than my mom, but I don't want to bore her with my rambling too much. she already banned star wars from me once, i won't let that happen again lol)

I can't stop thinking how much I don't want Bad Batch to end.

This show has been so dear to me. I can't remember the last time I've loved something this much.

Before the second season started, I had an artistic block that had lasted way too long. Anything I drew or wrote, mostly turned out a horrible mess after staring at a blank page for hours and hours, if I ever managed to create anything at all. For someone who tends to draw whenever their hands aren't otherwise busy (aka all the damn time), such a block weighed down on my mental health.

Well, then season two happened, and full-on gave me back my love for Star Wars, a love that had somewhat gone out over the last few years. Then, Plan 99 happened, and broke me because again my favorite character "died" (I'm in team Tech lives until I draw my last breath or until proven correct. That chocolate-eyed cutie-pie is alive nothing will convince me otherwise). Pretty much after finishing the episode and staring at a wall for another 30 minutes, I said "nope" and began writing.

I wrote for hours. I believe it's been well over a decade since I last wrote fanfiction, but here I was, creating a Star Wars oc, something I'd last done as a ten-year-old. And now, roughly a year later, I think I've written over a hundred pages of (very self-indulgent) fanfiction with the Batch, and with my oc that I've come to love.

And drawing, oh boy, have I been drawing!

(... Sure, I've mostly been drawing Tech, over and over again, to a point I once actually considered lying and saying "yeah that's my boyfriend haha!" to a man at my job last summer, when asked who it was that I was drawing for maybe fifth day in a row 😂 likely would've been a more acceptable excuse for someone my age. But, I mean... I just really love drawing him, not only because he is my favorite character of maybe all time, but because he is just so fun to draw! And most of all, at least I draw again!)

And it is all thanks to this wonderful show about a bunch of defective and effective copy-paste boys and their sister.

It's probably something many say, but I've always felt like a bit of an outsider. I've felt like I have no place; when I was a kid, my interests were very different from the other kids of [gender assigned at birth], and trying to play with them while inserting my own interests into the games, often didn't go so well. I was... kind of an odd child (although now, older and questionably wiser, knowing that I might actually be autistic, many things make more sense now. me kind of discovering this about myself is also partially thanks to Bad Batch)

Also, growing up trans/non-binary, while not even knowing what that is or having a word for it, didn't really do much to help with the feeling of "I'm different and an outsider because of it". Perhaps it was one more reason I fell in love with Clone Force 99, because I could see some of myself in them. Being different from the "regs".

I love this show, and these fictional people have become my family, and I am not ready to say goodbye to them.

Alright, weird pile of thoughts over. In case someone read all this, uh... thanks 😊

[purdledooturt]

songs to break your back to (respectfully)

Ignore the title - this is my first attempt at writing smut and I'm just snowballing ideas at the moment for a multi-chapter fic I want to write. There is a bit of context missing to this, but take it as PWP for the time being.

I did write this with old Heisy in mind, but realistically you can probably sub in anyone else - it's not like I go into detail describing him, but he does get mentioned by name every once in a while.

Uh. This is written in second person POV (self-indulgent). There is daddy-kink (which is abandoned midway), and a breeding-kink (which the reader questions themself about). Please practice safe sex, I'm begging you - condoms do prevent more than just pregnancies.

I wrote the entirety of this on my phone, because apparently the Notes app just gets them creative juices flowing. Apologies for any spelling or grammatical errors - I tried really hard to keep my tenses straight. Trying to copy and paste from Word to tumblr is a pain - sorry for any formatting mishaps as well.

I hope this is as hot as the stories that inspired it.

❤

You never quite understood ‘backbreaking’ until you met Karl Heisenberg.

Not until you found yourself laying prone on the bed that you swear is the epicentre of a magnitude 7 earthquake, with his delicious weight on your thighs, pounding into you like there was no tomorrow. You can’t match his pace, no matter how hard you tried. You are nothing but a doll made to be used. He has such a firm grip on your hips you swear you’ll be bruised for weeks, and his breath comes out in pants that made you wetter with every sound. At one point he gathered your hair like reins and force you to arch your back, but his ministrations have made your arms weak and unable to hold you up for long. Mercifully, he let you go, but you committed the action to your memory, to ask him to try again later, in a different position.

You can do nothing but lay there as he fucked noises out of you — your knuckles have cramped closed gripping on the sheets like a lifeline but he refused to let up. You’ve tried to hold your head up but could barely manage, as every thrust knocked you back down again.

Simply put, he was a man starved, and you were all too happy to provide.

He leans down on you, slowing to a roll. He grabs at your hair at the nape of your neck and twists your head sideways as he gives the corner of your mouth a breathy lick, and you moan at the intimacy of it. You try to catch his tongue with yours. “You like that?” He asks, tucking his lips close to your ear in a growl, “your cunt just gave me a little squeeze.”

You try to nod, but he keeps your head still, continuing with his slowed assault of your poor, bruised cunt. What he now lacked in speed he made up for with raw force. “Yes,” you gasp out when he hummed.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, daddy.”

He moans, leaning his head against the back of your right shoulder blade as he gave you a particularly hard thrust to punctuate the erotic sentence he was writing. “Good girl,” you hear him mutter, as he pulls back upright. You feel him spread your ass cheeks to get a better look at where you’re joined. He massages the flesh as he does so, “look how well you take me.”

You look at him over your shoulder, throwing your hair out of the way. All the other guys you’d been with always loved this angle and Karl was not immune. He slows to a halt, raising an eyebrow at you. You muster up your best innocent smile, batting your lashes at him. “Thank you, daddy,” you say, and he rolls his eyes at you with a shake of his head. He gives your ass a slap. The move didn’t have the effect you wanted but you didn’t mind — you love that he called you out on the cheesiness of it. You laugh.

He gasps, pulling out of you roughly. He is crouched over your legs, breathing heavy and giving you an amused and lopsided smile. “Geez, buttercup — warn a guy, won’t you?”

You roll over quickly — surely he hasn’t…? “What’s wrong?”

“Fucking vice grip,” he mutters as he crawls back over you, retaking his position between your legs. You can feel a slight burn in your thighs as you spread your legs wider than you’re used to in order to accommodate him, but the burn only adds to the excitement of it all. You watch him hook one of your legs up with his, in a move that got your brain short circuiting. “When you giggled.”

“Sorry?”

He takes his cock in hand, giving it slow strokes. “Don’t be,” he says, as he holds the base and slaps the head against your clit. You jump at the motion, and he chuckles. God — the sound of his chuckle, in the situation, is somehow hotter than the grunts and pants and dirty talking. You’ve never had so much fun during sex before, often feeling more like there was a role you were meant to play and you were gunning for best performance. “Was good.”

He rubs the head of his cock up and down against your dripping, slick slit, teasing you with a knowing grin that looked a little sharper than what you’re used to. Occasionally the head catches on your entrance and threatens to slip, but he coaxes it out to continue the slow teasing. He’s using your wetness to lubricate himself. You whine and try to wiggle to catch him but he is far too good at anticipating your moves. 

Finally, when he’s had enough, he keeps his eyes on you as he slides back in, slowly and tantalisingly. You moan as you are filled again, and your walls are stretched around his thick cock. As he bottoms out in you with a low groan, your eyes flutter close and your head tilts back. Your legs jerk — your knees dig as best as they could to his sides, and your ankles try to find each other behind him. Your left hand finds his thigh, nails digging in to the bulk of his muscle, not to push him but to anchor yourself before you float away. “So big,” you gasp out, as your lower back lifts off the bed, and he takes the opportunity to slide his arm underneath to support you, providing you with a lovely, lovely angle. With his other arm, he supports himself, leaning over you.

Given his height, he is bent over you, caging you. The idea excites you, and makes you feel oddly safe. Protected. You’ll unpack what this means later. He presses his forehead against yours. “Only the best for my baby girl.”

Your eyes flutter back open and you giggle once again, and he groans at the action but stays in you. Your right hand finds his cheek, and you cup it with a gentle smile as you give him an Eskimo kiss. You take the moment to catch his lips in a quick, cheeky kiss, which he smiles into, returning the gesture with his own light kiss back. It was a quick, tender moment, like the eye of a storm passing over and enveloping you in a peaceful silence. Slowly, he rolls his hips and the dance begins again, but this time you are more familiar with the steps as you push back. For such a well built man, Karl is so fluid, and you were enamoured with the way he moves, looking down between your bodies and watching him undulate.

Your hands travel to the base of his ribcage, sliding over his wide chest, scratching upwards before you wrap your arms around his neck. Your breaths mingle as you keep your foreheads connected, staring deep into each other’s eyes. His pupils are blown wide, and your eyes flicker between his steely greys. It hardly registers in your head that he is asking you if you’re liking it, and your mind is blank as you agree, your voice disembodied and far away: Yes. Yes. Keep going, please. Harder, please, please, please —

He’s slowly building up to his brutal pace again, and like a roller coaster your core tightens in anticipation of the heights you’re about to be taken to. He slams into you, over and over, until the room is filled with the obscene noises of your slick union and the sound of skin slapping against skin, mingled with your panting and the punctuated gasps he thrusts out of you. He breaks eye contact when he nudges your head to the side to start whispering praises in your ear — oh, how tight you are. How well you take him. How your cunt was made for his cock, and how he was going to absolutely ruin you. You feel the familiar ache in your lower belly — you’re close. So, so close. And you can’t get enough of him, grasping at what you can with clawing hands and desperate legs. Like a mantra you plead, fervently praying to the shrine you built in your mind for this man you met while on this whirlwind holiday.

The angle at which he holds you has you seeing stars soon enough — he continually hits a spot that makes you spasm, and he grins proudly. “That good?” He asks, as you come down from the soundless scream from your climax. He hardly slowed to accomodate you and let you ride out your release.

"Oh, yeah,” you reply mindlessly, voice hoarse, and as revenge for his cockiness you let out a breathless giggle, followed by a kegel.

“Little bitch,” he swears, but there is no venom at all. He sounds so amused, so enamoured. Like he was having so much fun, too.

You poke your tongue out at him, scrunching your nose in the process. You were feeling carefree and playful in his presence. The arm that was supporting your back slides out from under you, and he uses his hand to grasp your face roughly, his thumb on your cheek and the rest of his hand wrapped across your neck and around your jaw, locking you in place. He takes the opportunity to lick your from your chin to your lips. You stick your tongue out again, less playful now and more desperate. He sucks on your tongue to punish you. He pulls away but you remain connected with a thin trail of saliva. His hips never slow. Oh God — everything he does is hot.

He’s made you cum at least four times since the night started and as much as you enjoy the treatment you were hitting your limit. You notice his pace stutter — he was close, and chasing the high he’s put you on four times tonight. He starts roughly pawing and kneading at your tit. You cover his hand with one of you own, squeezing along. Your other hand takes care of what he couldn’t. You try to encourage him.

“Karl—“

“Where do you want me?” He asks, sounding breathless and strained, and in a moment of sheer stupidity and fuckdrunk horniness, you gawk at him.

“Inside. Oh, god — inside.”

He groans, his head buried now in the crook of your neck. The hand that was massaging you is now on the bed, and he has now enveloped you. His lips are at your collarbone, leaving ghost kisses with his breath. He alternates between biting what he can reach and muttering “oh, baby” and “please” over and over.

“Fuck,” he pushes himself up slightly and catches your ear again, licking the shell of it. He growls, the timbre of his voice sending a shock down your spine all the way to your tailbone. “You horny little bitch. I’m going to fucking fill you until you’re dripping. I’m going to fucking breed you.”

You moan. ‘Do I have a breeding kink?’, you wonder. Who fucking knows. Who fucking cares? Your mind is blank, and you damn the consequences, begging senselessly.

He moans and stills to a jittery stop after a final hard push, and you can feel the heat of his release inside you. He pauses, his breathing intense. “Fuck. Holy fuck.”

"Holy shit,” was your reply, and he is catching his breath as he pulls out of you. You shift to lean on your elbows, keeping him in your sight as he gets up. He stands at the foot of the bed, taking deep breaths to fill his lungs not unlike an athlete who has just finished their event, and you do the same, involuntarily trying to match his breathing. You watch as he steps away, disappearing into the ensuite. You can feel his spend start dripping towards your ass, and without the added weight of him on your pelvis you take stock of the state of your body more clearly, and you swear you’ve broken something, somehow. As his figure reappears, you declare, “I’m going to keep you.”

He laughs as he approaches with a small towel. He begins to wipe your thighs with the damp cloth with a gentleness that was the stark opposite of the assault he’d mounted against your body previously. God — he helps with clean up too? Heaven help you. “Are you?” He croons.

“Are you kidding?” You ask, as you sit upright with weak, shaky arms and take the towel from him with a smile and a bright ‘thank you’, taking over the wiping. You watch as he wanders over to the kitchenette, still fully nude, now to grab two glasses of water. You could marry him for this alone. “Where have you been all my fucking life?”

He gulps down his drink. “Romania.”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

“That good, huh?” He asks, with a wolfish grin, as he passes you a glass of water and he sits at the bed again with his back to you.  He leans with his elbows on his knees.

You shuffle towards him on your knees, making the bed springs complain. He tilts his head towards you. With your free hand, you brush his hair behind one ear, parting the curtain which hid his face from view. You place your chin on his shoulder and beam. “That good. I think you’ve pulverised my pelvis but give me a few hours and I can go again.”

He throws his head back in a rakish laugh, and you find yourself wishing you could bottle the sound. He’s rearranged your insides, surely — you’ve never felt so many butterflies in your stomach before. You wrap your left arm around his waist, sliding over to the edge of the bed to sit to his right. You spill a bit of water as you move.

“God, I could use a smoke right now.”

“I have never once smoked in my life,” you reveal, unsure of why you couldn’t seem to stop your mouth from running, “but I could also use a smoke right now, too.”

He wraps his arm around your shoulders, and the two of you are oddly tender and soft in the afterglow. You knew of happy drunks — you didn’t realise something similar could apply to this. You were feeling… cuddly. Your cheeks hurt from beaming. “Have I reset your programming? You’re doing wonders to my damn ego, buttercup.”

You take a sip of the water and let silence fall over you. Suddenly the weight of exhaustion bears down on your shoulders, heavy and cloying. You yawn.

“Go wash up,” he says, giving you a slight shove with the arm still wrapped around you. “Don’t want you getting an infection.”

Romantic — not. But very caring. Karl Heisenberg was ticking the boxes swiftly and convincingly, getting closer and closer to your idea of perfection. A voice in your head chastises you for the irrationality of your thoughts, chastises you for hearing wedding bells after three fun-filled days and one passionate night together. Sure, it was out of character, but then again you’d never had anyone fuck your brains out like he just did. “Yes, yes,” you bat his concerns away with a wave of your hand. You try to stand but find your legs stiff and uncooperative. You’re like a newborn foal.

“You sure you only need a few hours to recover?”

You flip him off as you hobble to the ensuite, and he lets out another laugh, flopping on to the bed as he does so. You turn your attention back to your own care, and wash up as you normally do.

You hobble towards your suitcase to look for new underwear. You’ll forgo the sleep shirt tonight, wanting to feel your partner’s skin.

You look up to find him watching you, pillows propped up behind him as he leaned against the headboard. There is something missing in the picture — a cigar. He strikes you as a cigar person. “You need help?”

“No; thank you though,” you say, as you pull your underwear on. You wander back to the bed and take the free spot, sliding into the covers.

“Do you need me to get you anything for the, uh…” he’s at a loss for words for once. Your eyebrows rise as you try to decode what he’s trying to say. “Well, I’m not really keen on little Karls running around, despite what I said.”

“All good,” you say, as you reach to the inside of your left forearm, feeling around for the familiar stick that is your birth control implant. You pinch the ends of it to make it stick out, and he observes it closer. “Birth control.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

You pull the covers up to your chin. You turn to lay on your side to watch him. He brushes your hair back.

“How long is a few hours?” He teases. You slap his hand away, and with an exaggerated huff you turn away from him, and the pettiness of it all makes him laugh. It makes you laugh too, unable to maintain the facade. “Goodnight, doll.”

“Goodnight. Don’t disappear on me or I’ll hunt you down.”

You fall asleep to the sound of his laughter.

[kaurwreck]

For the numbered writing ask- 22: that is so blissfully self-indulgent?

[ask game: send me a number and i'll share an excerpt of my writing.]

since most of my followers are in the bsd fandom, I'll offer you an excerpt from the kunichuzai wip that I began after the end of s5, with the file title "airport shenangians:"

Kettling his embarrassment into irritation, Kunikida lurched east from the atrium and dialed another number for the second time within— not within nine minutes, but close enough. The phone rang several times. Kunikida turned left at the clocktower and blanched upon realizing Ranpo directed him to… a nursery. For women with children.  The ringing cut short.  “Kunikida-kuuun,” Dazai crooned, syrupy sweet voice curling into a lascivious sigh.  Kunikida glanced about himself, confirmed there was no one to see him (as Ranpo had promised, he thought with a grimace), and slipped into the spacious nursery, locking the door behind himself. He then squandered the space by cramming all 189 centimeters of himself into a nursing booth, sliding the folding door shut as he fell heavily into the padded, low-backed chair. His knees jutted awkwardly, the room too cramped to stretch his legs, but at the very least, there was a table on which to toss his notebook and a snug quietude in which to unzip his slacks.  “Kuniki—?” There was shuffling on the other end of the line, Dazai hissed, in pain rather than pleasure, “Sharp-elbowed chibikko—” and then a charmingly raucous voice sliced through Dazai’s honeyed tone to crow, “Oh, shit, he decided to stay on after all?”  “Not for Chu-uya,” Dazai taunted, sensuality still seeping even into his obnoxious gloating. “Kunikida-kun missed me after all, didn’t he?” Kunikida didn’t need to share a continent with him to see Dazai’s burnished amber eyes and coquettish, lithesome smirk.  “Hardly,” Kunikida groused, roughly unfastening his slacks. “You insufferable, insensate, intransigent, ingrate.”

the actually most self indulgent thing I've ever written is a 9k mdzs fic posted on ao3, an excerpt of which I've offered below the cut.

from stuck in the middle with you (e), summary: 10 years post-canon, Jin Ling decides the best way to let his friends know he loves them is to emulate the pornography he found buried where Lan Wangji keeps his bunnies

Lan Sizhui broke the excruciating silence, “Jin-zongzhu, wh—” “I’m stuck,” Jin Ling interjected, wiggling in place to demonstrate despite the hole being far too wide around his waist. He realized belatedly they likely couldn’t see his hair was caught from where they hovered, baffled, by the door, an unfortunate oversight. “Oh,” Lan Zizhui said, tone perplexed. “Do… you need help getting out?” Ouyang Zizhen asked. Jin Ling began to panic; in the scrolls he’d skimmed, no one had asked the trapped protagonist if he’d needed help. His sworn brother had simply arrived and ravished him, and Jin Ling’s entire plan more-or-less hinged on that expectation. “Young Master, what game are you playing? You’re obviously not actually stuck,” Lan Jingyi interrupted Jin Ling’s frenzied reevaluations. “My hair,” Jin Ling blurted. “My hair is—it’s caught in the lattice. I’m stuck.” “Oh!” Ouyang Zizhen declared, sounding surer than before. Jin Ling wasn’t relieved; he’d given them an actionable explanation for his predicament, but if they extricated him, it’d all be for naught, and they’d continue fondling each other without him. Jin Ling heard footsteps, and then Ouyang Zizhen poked his head around the divider, his brows furrowed in such palpable concern that Jin Ling nearly felt bad about his ruse. Nearly. “Oh, it’s really knotted in there.” “How?” Lan Jingyi demanded, punctuated by his lighter steps as he approached. “What were you doing crawling through the screen?” He rounded the divider and his eyes widened at the state of Jin Ling’s hair. “Seriously, how?!” “Your hair is so beautiful too,” Ouyang Zizhen lamented, crouching down to gently lift the slack of Jin Ling’s ponytail. “We’ll need to be careful untangling it; if it were damaged, my heart would break.” Jin Ling reeled, a fresh wave of panic tightening his throat, “You don’t think it’ll have to be cut, do you?” He hadn’t considered that at all. “We’ll break the lattice before we cut your hair,” Lan Sizhui promised, appearing beside them without having made any sound at all. “It’s already ruined anyway,” Lan Jingyi said, gesturing to the hole. “Did you make that hole?” “No!” Jin Ling retorted defensively. “We were here this morning, and there wasn’t a hole there then,” Lan Jingyi said, fists on his hips. “What could have happened since we left? I thought you were going to walk Fairy while we were gone.” Jingyi glanced around. “Where is Fairy? Did she go to get help?” “…Yes,” Jin Ling lied. Lan Sizhui opened his mouth to speak, but something outside of Jin Ling’s periphery snagged his attention. He cocked his head curiously and walked back around the divider towards the bed. Ouyang Zizhen’s watched him through the latticework and squinted. “Oh, that’s pretty,” Ouyang Zizhen commented lightly. “At least, from what I can see.” That’s when Jin Ling realized with trickling horror that he’d left the camphor box and its scattered contents on the bed. “En,” Lan Sizhui said. “But… is this from the Chief Cultivator? And what’s all—” “Don’t look—!” Jin Ling started, but Lan Sizhui inhaled sharply, followed by an emphatic, “Oh!” Jin Ling would have cursed the entire Nie bloodline if it weren’t already so blighted.

[tricktster]

okay so like this is very self indulgent of me but a few people now have mentioned seeing my tumblr posts on tiktok and i have no idea what to even use as my search parameters to find any of the tiktoks y’all are talking about.

and like to be clear I have long accepted that my Great Tumblr content will be taken and repurposed by people on actually monetizable platforms, and you know what that’s fine, I do it for the love of the game (though for the purposes of future litigation when Big Hollywood makes a movie out of like TST’s Story About Her Mom Intetacting With A Frog or whatever, I am not relinquishing copyright and hereby reserve my rights to sue their asses for everything they’ve got or at least let me pick out who gets to play me in the movie [i’m thinking Steve Buscemi].) Anyway, it’s not like I want to track these tiktokers down and lecture them, or even interact with them in any way because they are probably Gen Z and will say like cheugy at me until I crumble into ashes and dust.

it’s just that… i’n a tumblr long form written comedy goon. This does not strike me as the kind of thing that would translate well to a tiktok. like i know this is a ridiculous thing to need to know, but I just gotta find out what background music and visuals people are using. Also if it is really popular I want to show my boyfriend who sends me roughly 18 tiktoks a day and will be forced to pretend to be impressed if I actually have any play on there.

In conclusion please DM me links if you see my shit on a tiktok k thanks i love you bye siri submit post thank you baby

[copperbadge]

So I was looking for an older post related to the writing of Fete and publishing on AO3, and came across this quote from you: "I'm kind of in awe of romance novelists who can put out new content every few months"

And look at you now, four novels published in seven months! Even if we go back to when you started adapting Fete into a novel, I believe it's under a year?

Thanks again for all the work you put into this 'verse. Can't wait to start the new one on my lunch break today.

LOL yes I suppose I have somewhat self-fulfilled that prophecy, haven't I. If you count from the time I started writing Fete as a screenplay it's something like a year and three months, but if we start from when I adapted that screenplay into a book -- which was a reasonable amount of work -- then yes, four novels written last year, three published, and this one being posted. I think I actually wrote Infinite Jes in about three weeks, that one went extremely fast, and I think LATT was only five weeks.

Plus while working on this story, I wrote roughly 50K of Royals/Ramblers, and some other stuff. (There's a really self-indulgent short story about Noah and the Dychev that may never see daylight, and one just called "Shivadh Alan Turing" that's about a midcentury programmer attempting to build an AI, but is really an excuse to write Michaelis as a kid being taken to see the computer by his father.)

Admittedly, it's easier when the world is built -- writing sequels is pretty much like writing fanfic, really. On the other hand this series is helping with my worldbuilding skills a great deal as I branch out, because while it's like writing fanfic, you still have to add new stuff -- like Reverb in book two, Galia in book three, various aspects of Eurovision in this one.

I'm usually working on a couple of other stories simultaneously within this world, but it depends on where my head's at, which ones -- right now of course Royals/Ramblers, but I'm also cheating on Royals/Ramblers with one I don't have a title for yet that's all about football in Askazer-Shivadlakia, and building the "world" of the Royal Shivadh Football Academy is stretching my abilities a bit.

[illusionremember]

Writer's Journal #02

I mentioned this the other day, but I've made a second blog ( @sabookey ) that will center around writing. I'll probably keep any deeper discussion of my original projects mainly over there, but I'll reblog it here when that comes up.

Historically, I've struggled to feel comfortable talking about my stories, especially when they are WIPs. It's not that I'm afraid of hearing what people think. As a young teen, I saw a lot of people warning creatives off of sharing their OCs for fear of IP theft, and that really stuck with me. The more recent AI bull doesn't help with that kind of paranoia, either. But regardless, as I'm starting to dive into each of these projects more, the discomfort around sharing is something that I'm trying to let go of.

One project I'm currently working on though, is a fanfic I started toying with the idea of years ago — my Tremors!AU Supernatural fic. A few months ago I rewatched Tremors (always a fun movie) and the idea came back and this time I'm actually going forward with it. I haven't written fanfic in a very long time, but coming off of a long period of burnout and depression and recovery, where I'm trying to center my writing again, it helps to have something completely self-indulgent that I can just... play with.

Here’s some things I’ve loved lately, working on my current projects:

I'm just about done with the rough for the first three chapters of the SPN Tremors!AU, and hitting roughly 14,500 words so far, which has already exceeded my more modest goal of 10K words per month :D

I'm getting to write the first one-on-one scene for the romantic arc (which is honestly like a C-level subplot, but I'm a hopeless romantic at heart) and while I was having some trouble with it at first, once I got into their dialogue, it started to flow again. These characters make it so easy to write them connecting with each other on a deeper level than most.

I'm a big believer that learning happens best when you are experimenting and trying things out. That's proven true here - working on this project is really helping me learn more about pacing and balance.

I've talked about this a few times with friends and family, so some of you already know this, but this has been a game changer when it comes to how I do outlines and rough drafts. I always struggle with that part, but this feels... easy, for once. I'm trying hard not to put this project up on some kind of pedestal. Like sometimes in the back of my mind I'm like, if I can complete this fic, then I can apply what I've learned from it to my original works and it'll make every project work like a dream. Which is an impractical expectation to place, but... jfc this has been so much more fun and effortless. I'm also trying to remind myself that being a fanfic, there's a lot of workload lifted off my shoulders when it comes to fabricating a plot. But still.

I was able to talk through some issues I was having with one scene and character in chapter 3 (Thank you again to @alkalidumpling! <3 ) which was really nice because, as mentioned above, I often don't talk about WIPs. The fact that this was productive is very heartening!

I wrote a scene between two characters that really don't get a lot of interaction typically, in canon or in fic (at least, not ones I've read) and it was really fun because it pulls out a different dynamic for each than I think I'm used to seeing. Plus its kinda fun to have characters interacting where I don't have as much intent or stakes to pour into how their relationship needs to go - there's some freedom there that's very intriguing to me.

Feel free to respond or reblog and talk about the things you’ve enjoyed about working on your WIP! I wanna try and build more positivity around the creative process, and I’d love to hear what kinds of things other people are doing!

[wendingways]

20 Questions For Writers

Thank you, @sinvulkt! I saw someone else post one of these a while ago, and it looked fun, so thanks so much for the tag! 💛💛💛

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Seven. Technically eight, but one of them is part of another and just separated for logistical reasons, so it doesn't really count.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

190,105 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Star Wars

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Fortune's Rule, 536 kudos

Missing Pieces No More, 142

Whispers From Tomorrow, 126

Petrichor, 42

Threadbare, 30

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

Most of the time! Sometimes it takes a while because busy + tired, but I enjoy it when other authors respond to my comments, so I want to respond other people's comments. :)

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably Threadbare. Wouldn't say it's a full-on angsty ending, because I tend to go for angsty beginnings/middles and happy endings, but it's the closest I've got.

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

Whispers From Tomorrow, by virtue of it being a pre-Order-66 fix-it.

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

I've gotten a little. You know how FFN can be. There was this one kinda funny one instance where somebody was silent for like 20 chapters, and then absolutely flipped their lid in a comment after I killed off a character. Not even a main character! Oops....

9. Do you write smut?

Nope.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not as a rule, but I did start scribbling down this weird idea for Anne Shirley, from Anne of Green Gables, ending up in the GFFA during the Clone Wars via some witchery in the Haunted Wood. What gets me is how I told my brother about it, and he promptly started nagging me to write it because he wants to read it XD

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but feel free to do so if you're interested!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

No.

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

Meh, not really a big shipper.

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

WIP I will never finish? What are you talking about?

There are no unfinished WIPS in Ba Sing Se.

Seriously, though, probably my Padmé ROTS time loop fic. I had this idea for Padmé to keep looping back to some point in ROTS after she dies. I love the idea, it's roughly outlined and I've written some snippets, and there's this one scene that I'd really like to include, but I'm just not sure how to make the time loop AU work in this scenario.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

Grammar, usage, and mechanics. And maybe angst, oddly enough. Never figured myself for an angst writer, but then I started writing Fortune's Rule, and here we are.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Speed. I write slowly. I also tend to end up going down research rabbit holes that suck up my time and energy. And I have a really hard time saying no to adding more characters, which adds to the whole writing-takes-a-long-time thing.

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

Sure! I've enjoyed putting little bits of Mando'a and Huttese into Fortune's Rule.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Calico Captive, by Elizabeth George Speare, when I was in my early teens. Never managed to get a whole fic out of it, and what fragments I did write were terribly underdeveloped, sentimental, and shallow. But we all have to start somewhere!

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Fortune's Rule, all the way! I know it's not finished yet, but it is my precious and my problem child, and I love it to bits!

In a way, it's a very self-indulgent story, because it's got all the tropes I most adore, and it's like a puzzle, trying to figure out how to put all these different elements together in a way that's believable, and how to have characters develop to where I want them to be.

Plus, it's also given me some fun surprises, like Padmé and Ahsoka being besties, Ventress becoming Obi-Wan's confidant for a certain matter, and Piett becoming a friend/confidant/emotional support admiral for Starkiller.

And there's so much more fun stuff planned, especially as we're getting close the start of an arc I've been planning since before I started posting the fic in 2021! (There will be child hijinks. There will be pirates. There will be sand, and angst and fluff galore. And I am so kriffing excited.)

Tagging (If you're interested! I'm doing like sinvulkt and tagging some authors I've interacted with a bit on AO3; hope this isn't a nuisance to anyone! :) ) @musewrangler, @clawedandcute, @xxiamnotokay666xx

[paula-in-dreamland]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let's spread the self-love 💞

Tagged by @azriona. Alright. Finally getting around to this. Imma cheat a bit and use fics that are no longer available online and are currently WIPs for the sake of ~variety~ but also I'm obsessed with some of WIPs and the other works are SO OLD. IT WAS HALF MY AGE AGO.

Anyways. A look into my past and future...

450 Years Later - Twilight: Rosalie/Emmett - Post-Canon Timeline - Roughly 2010 - Basically, it was a break-up/make-up story. First fanfic I wrote to completion. First one I posted. And I was just very proud of it. Also it was lowkey funny and somewhat plotless? Unfortunately - I took it off FF.net and then I think my dumbass decided to delete it from my computer too? Don't do that. Don't ever do that. YOU LEAVE THAT WIP./COMPLETED WORK/WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO ROT ON YOUR HARDRIVE FOR GOOD.

Finding Love: Emily and Jayden - PRS: Emily/Jayden - Canon Divergence - 2011 - Oh these two blorbos. My first big hit. Made all the 10-15 year olds wild. Gave me confidence in my writing abilities. I think it's just a very sweet story. Back when I just wanted fluff, not to drag my barbies through the mud.

Movie Marathons and Love Triangles - PRS: Emily/Jayden - Canon Divergence - 2011 - Kind of same as above except it's a one-shot. Back when my brain got one-shot flashes instead of "You need to write three novels for this one scene/AU idea." Pure fluff. Some silly things.

A Game of Revenge and Loyalty - TLK: Stiorra/Sigtryggr - Hunger Games AU - Fall 2024 (Hopefully) - I am officially at around 58k words. And just over halfway done. I would estimate I have ~10 chapters left to write. This fic was one of the first ideas my brain went WILD over in ten years and that I have actually stuck to/kept thinking about after the year mark. All to say - I am absolutely feral over this fic and it is extremely self-indulgent and i dont give a fuck and my brain will be so happy when i get to read it back one day.

Untitled WIP - TLK: Stiorra/Sigtryggr - Biker Gang AU - ???? - This would be one of my first "challenge" fics to grow my writing as it would involve a asynchronous timeline, a bit of a mystery, and possibly utilizing 1st POVs? IDK. I have it plotted by 80-90%. It's just figuring out how to set up the asynchronous timeline/order of chapters. And you know...writing it....Which would take a few months. BUT ITS REALLY COOL AND I HOPE I GET TO WRITE AND DO THE IDEA JUSTICE !!!

Lol now imma go read the fics 14 year old me wrote and have a giggle.

Tagging without pressure to: @ladyaldhelm @holy3cake @arcielee

(again pm or reply if want tag/future tags removed)

[yletylyf]

Fic authors self-rec! ✨ When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you’ve written, then pass on to at least five other writers ❤️

Thank you for the tag @somebirdortheother! I am still loving To Smith or Not To Smith ❤️❤️❤️

It’s really difficult to rank my fics, but I’ll switch the rules to ‘listing a variety of one-shots or shorter fics that are roughly top five’ and in order of publication rather than favorite:

1. Padre Island, Voldemort/Severus (Harry Potter). This fic was brainstormed with @phantomato in the early days of our friendship and means a lot to me. It’s still to-date the only fully-Muggle-setting fic I’ve written for this fandom, and it’s essentially my manifesto for this ship in fic form. 

2. Two Hours Late, Severus & Voldemort, gen (Harry Potter). Severus returns to Voldemort at the end of GoF, two hours late. This fic got so much love from Snapedom on tumblr and for that reason also means a lot to me. Thank you to everyone who showered this fic with love, I love you all.

3. Borrowing Against the Past, Regulus Black, gen (Harry Potter). An adult Regulus Black does not go to the cave, and marries a nice girl and has three adorable children. Then the Second War happens, and he reunites with Sirius, and life gets a little less idyllic. The story has a twist ending I’m still awfully proud of. I feel like I might talk about it too much on this blog.

4. A means of mastering it, Galadriel/Miriel (Rings of Power). Very indulgent femslash, women kicking ass. I just had so much fun writing this fic and participating in Yuletide this year.

5. What nourishes me, destroys me, Sauron/Celebrimbor/Galadriel (the Silmarillion). It’s 4.6k of porn. Of my three favorites in this canon. What more do I need to say.

Tagging @phantomato @cindle-writes @jhalya @hsvh-hp @maraudersaffair @danpuff-ao3 @ashesandhackles @perverse-idyll @leogichidaa if you want to play!

[angelasscribbles]

Complicated Couples: Author's Notes

The Author's notes may have gotten out of hand and needed a post of their own!

I left a lot of things hanging when I finished Complicated because the story was going to continue in Hinge. But Hinge generally revolves around Riley, Liam, and Drake along with Hana and Max. I’ve had the idea of doing a compilation of these side characters for a while now and the choices holidays prompts gave me the nudge I needed.

I realize that I created a lot of OC’s for Complicated and maybe no one but me remembers or cares about the arcs I left hanging for them. I also brought in Logan and Ellie from Ride or Die as crossover characters. I also have a lot of HC’s about other characters I haven’t fully explored, so this is a little self-indulgent piece that allowed me to do just that.

This compilation uses most of the themes from the choices holidays prompts, but is not set on Valentine’s Day. Rather, each interaction here takes place the same morning, the day the unity tour arrives at Applewood. Not everyone is at Applewood but that is made clear in the text itself.

I tried to keep it to roughly 500 words per couple. Since there are eight couples, it still passed 4k words.

Liam, Riley, and Drake do not make an appearance in this. Instead, this focuses on all the other couples that are a thing, were a thing, or will eventually become a thing in the Complicated/Hinge universe. Not all of the interactions are fluffy or end well.

The couples are:

Marco and Callie: I originally created Marco Rossi in Savage Love where he is a jump instructor. He has shown up in just about every other universe I’ve created as a member of the Queen’s Guard or the Royal Guard. In Bad Romance, he was dating Drake and Savannah’s sister that was murdered. In Complicated I wanted to give him a happily ever after. Callie Gataki was created for Complicated, she was a maid at Fydelia whom Riley made Liam hire to save her from Madeleine’s verbal abuse. Assigned a position at Applewood, she told Riley what she’d heard from another maid about the setup and later participated in tricking Ana De Luca into putting a positive spin on Riley and Liam’s relationship to pave the way for their engagement. I was originally going to hook her up with Alec, but then I decided Alec was for Max. Callie and Marco met in the Complicated chapter Encounters.

Alec and Max: Alexandros Eliades was created for Complicated as Liam’s undercover guard posing as his personal secretary but shows up in pretty much everything now as the head of Liam’s King’s Guard, and in Savage Love as Liam’s crown shield. In this universe Max is gay. He ends up with Alec in New Year’s Eve in Valtoria and it is implied they have developed a close friendship over the years with neither of them admitting their true feelings for the other. Their first little interaction is in the Complicated chapter Encounters. The boyfriend Max mentions is the yoga instructor from Yoga Pants.

Leo and Liv: They really have only shown up in the Hinge chapters Thanksgiving in Valtoria and  New Years Eve in Valtoria where they are already a couple. However, it has always been my HC that this is the same Leo and Liv from this one-shot. The series Leo and Liv is supposed to be the build-up to said one-shot.

Madeleine and Cassie: I created Lady Cassandra Kumari, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy and Liam’s cousin for Complicated specifically to be a LI for Madeline. They end up together in The Agreement but I have not decided their final fate here. It is my HC that Madeleine is gay and I have written her as such in every universe I’ve created. I realize that not everyone has read or finished Complicated and even those who have may not remember all the details as it wrapped up in July of 2022, so I went back and pulled all the Madi x Cassie content from Three Weeks in Ramsford and Complicated and compiled it into one document. I hope it makes cohesive sense. Here it is: Madi and Cassie.

Savannah and Bertrand: In Complicated Savannah moves back to Cordonia, to her old rooms at the palace. I always felt like there wasn’t enough strife between her and Bertrand in canon over her literally keeping his son a secret from him so here it is.

Constantine and Regina: Not a couple most people probably care about, but I had an idea for them so I wrote it.

Logan and Ellie: Drake and Riley bond with Logan and Ellie during the lockdown in Manhattan and their subsequent escape to Virginia. In the last chapter, Drake offers Logan a job as Liam’s driver and he takes it.

Bianca and Bastien: This pairing is not something anyone picked up from reading this story because this idea has lived solely in my head until now.

[chthonic-cassandra]

For the ask meme: 7 - 15 - 19 - 20!

7. how does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?

This is a really interesting question. I've never written the kind of fic for which I've reasonably expected a lot of readers/attention, but posting fic in particular is of course for me fundamentally about wanting to share something I've created and have it impact others, and when I do get positive feedback/support on something it moves me a lot. The nature of the types of fandoms I write in and the types of stories I write means that I tend to have a pretty high hits/kudos ratio, but don't get many comments, which I'm mostly at peace with; I don't make a lot of meaning out of not receiving comments, though like any fic writer I love to receive them. With exchange fic, where I'm trying to write for a specific person, I'll feel good if I get an enthusiastic response that shows I really hit the mark on what they were looking for, and a little sad if I get the sense I didn't manage.

The fact that I got back to writing Compromise after my tremendously long hiatus on it from 2015-2021 had a lot to do with the smattering of comments I got over the years from people who said that they continue to come back and read the series and feel excited about it, that they understood that it might not ever be finished but hoped that it would. Those comments wouldn't have been enough to make me start working on it again if I wasn't clear about the fact that I had more to say, but knowing that there were people who continue to be invested in my characters and story was large part of what made it feel worth it to resume. It's a pretty emotionally risky series to post in certain ways, and so whenever I do receive positive/supportive comments on it I really take them in.

15. How do you think your writing as improved over time?

I think I've gotten a lot better at pacing and creating narrative tension. Most of all, though, where I think I've most improved is in finding a balance between restraint/subtlety/withholding or implying things while at the same time letting go of self-consciousness around writing things that are more extreme/self-indulgent/etcetera.

There's also just something to be said for increasing maturity and capacity to convey characters and relationships with nuance. Thinking about Minor Initiations, which is a Dracula fic I wrote back in May 2009 that includes a lot of the same elements of these later sections of Compromise (sorry everyone, it's all Compromise all the time in my head right now) - there's the tension with Mina and Jonathan both struggling with how they see each other while adapting to life in Dracula's castle, there's all the Mina + brides stuff, there's the contrast between domesticity and violence. In "Minor Initiations" everything is louder; the psychological dynamics aren't developed as gradually, so they're less convincing; the brides are more caricatures; the violence (including sexual violence) isn't actually any more extreme than what happens in Compromise, but it's more sensationalized and less visceral. (Also I use the terms sadism and masochism in dialogue anachronistically. Whatever, younger me.)

There's something really quite cool about being able to directly compare the way I have written (roughly) the same premise at different times in my life.

19. If you could write an ideal fic, what would it include?

Ideal fic for me as a reader or as a writer? An ideal me!fic for what I consider to be my strengths would of course be about people dealing with tangled traumatic relational dynamics, with a lot of atmospheric imagery.

I wish I wrote more sexy femslash, though. I don't consider myself very good at writing sexy things, except sorts of queasy, edge of erotic vs horrific traumatic bonding stuff.

20. What’s the greatest gift you’ve gotten from your writing?

So much! My writing, including my fic writing, has helped me make sense of and put words to my inner world. It's let me play with different ways of understanding experiences I've had, trying them on from different angles. It's helped me feel connected to other people.

[kmackatie]

💫🌿💌

hello friend! 💜

(ask me a fanfic writer ask)

💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

I have answered this one here, but a little extra is I adore seeing tumblr tags and also notes on bookmarks. Little bonus feedback!

🌿how does creating make you feel?

Another answered here too! I always need something as a creative outlet (music and cosplay are the two in the past I've done a lot of), so I think it's an extension of that. It's let me work through some complex thoughts and emotions too -- writing in a way is it's own form of therapy.

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

Oh boy, my main WIP at the moment is sleep, with benefits which really started as the most self-indulgent fic when I asked a friend for prompts and started riffing on a few options and then it just flowed out of me. I created the doc on the 23rd March, and between then and now I have 24k in my gdoc for it. It's probably the easiest fic I have written, and the one I'm having just the most fun with in allowing it to be indulgent and not serious. I am so incredibly touched that others have been enjoying it as much as I have been in writing it. A little fun fact is that I am drafting roughly four chapters ahead of what is posting, and I think it will have close to 10 chapters once done.

[shivunin]

Happy anniversary to me and AO3!!

Here is the aforementioned more coherent post. I have divided it in two parts: a little note and a silly and self-indulgent section (affectionate) where I give some of my fics fun lil superlatives. I'll add a couple little factoids to the latter section, too, just for giggles.

But before all that: I'm not gonna get emotional this time, but I have greatly enjoyed writing Dragon Age fic. I told myself three things when I started, all of them comically incorrect now ("I'm only writing this one story," "I will never write a soulmate AU," and "I will never write a DA2 story; no way could I ever hold a candle to what already exists") and I am so, so glad I was wrong on all counts. I have grown so much as a writer because of fic and I have met some genuinely remarkable people. If you have ever commented, written something in the tags, kudo'd, or bookmarked anything I've written (and especially if you have ever sent me a writing prompt, bless you), from the bottom of my heart: thank you. It has been genuinely incredible to share my love of this series with y'all, and I can only hope you have felt as glad of the experience as I have.

That's really all you need to know---that I'm glad to know you, in whatever sense that means. Thanks for sticking around c:

(and thanks to Cullen for scrambling my brain so thoroughly that I am still doing this a year later when I swore it was just going to be the one story lol)

Anyways! (she says, setting up the cake and candles and kazoos even though the room is otherwise empty)---

I was thinking about what to do for this anniversary that only I am keeping track of, and I decided (because of a trip I took when I was sixteen, which I originally recounted here, but which has no bearing on any of this so I cut it) that it would be funny to give my fics their own imaginary certificates. You know, like participation trophies. For my own entertainment (only a few though; there are twenty-three of them, and that's too many awards). Awards follow:

Best Punch: Your Fate for Mine; after I finished Trespasser the first time, I really wanted to deck Solas, so I let Cullen do it for me. It's the best one because it was the most satisfying to write C: (fun fact also: bless him, my husband proofread all the smut in this fic for accuracy lmao. special side award to my husband for being the best)

Best Kiss: Wander the Drifting Roads; nothing has yet felt as satisfying to me as Emma and Cullen kissing in the rain after all that time. I think about it Often. Also I wrote the first draft of this fic in roughly a week and a half---which is why it needed so much editing later :)

Most Persistent: To the Bone; because I swear to whatever higher power is out there, I tried so hard not to write a soulmate story but Salshira would not be stopped. In the end, I couldn't let the idea go and well, here we are.

Specialest Baby: Tidal Lock; because it is my special baby and the first fic I ever completed. I have a soft spot for it, and oddly enough it has the highest kudos: bookmarks ratio of my works at over half. It was extremely fun to write Cullen as a kid (he is soooo serious) and (for me) there's such a pleasant full-circle element to the narrative.

Best Smut: More than Memory; this one is my imaginary people's choice award, since it was received far and away the best of any smut I've written. I think, and it's just my intuition here, that it's on account of all the yearning. But maybe it's actually cus Cullen is, as always, a hot, hot mess C:

Hyperfocus Award: This one's a tie between Misericordia and Saccharine. As soon as I knew what to write for both of them, I achieved that beautiful state of not noticing the passage of time, anyone around me, the existence of my physical body, nor any of my pressing irl tasks. I wrote both of these in a delightful fog and then came back to it later as if seeing it for the first time. Extremely nice experience, 10/10, would recommend.

Blue Ribbon, Gold Star: A Golden Bell Hung In My Heart; this one gets a special extra award because I think it's probably the best thing I've written so far (at least from a technical standpoint, but it has a lot of my favorite elements, as well). It's one of the few for which I knew what I was trying to write when I set out to write it, and I think I achieved it unequivocally. Also, you know. Presents :)

Tumblr Ficlet Award: lol I am not picking only one. Here're my top three ficlets, based on how pleased with myself I felt when I initially typed them out: Lock and Key (I loooooove a good hurt/comfort), A Fool and His Gold (love yearning, too), and A Bond Beheld (because it includes that knight/liege thing that makes the Cullen romance so!!!).

For posterity: Unless I finish this short fenris/hawke piece open in the other tab, my final word count last year is 516,937 which is....a shocking amount. I probably won't surpass that this year, which is fine. I had no idea I had at least 450,000 words to say about Cullen, but hey, here we are.

That's it for this year---and I have no idea if I'll do this again next year---but thanks if you've read this far! I really wanted an excuse to think back on what I've written this year and have a little laugh to myself :) Have a good Thursday and...yeah. Thanks for reading!