#senhart rambles

[sensitiveheartless]

Hi Senhart, how’ve you been? I hope well!

Hullo Story! :D Thank you! I am definitely doing better this month than I was in December — I've been putting a lot of effort into improving my mental state, and the changes I've made seem to be helping so far. Today I got to sit in a warm sunbeam, which was lovely. I hope you've also been doing well! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ

[caelanglang]

Okay so I saw that you were sobbing over Ito’s newest ATLA au (and so am I ngl 😭😭) but can I recommend you @sensitiveheartless’s howls moving castle au fic? It’s really good and it’s pretty fluffy! (Im not them btw, just a fellow skk lover :3)

... I’ll be honest with you chief, the moment I saw that fic on ao3 I saw a huuuuuuggee blue flag on it. Blue flag, in my terms, is that it's a big green flag for me to read but also a big warning that it's gonna be a big rabbit hole and emotional investment that I will never get out of TvT BECAUSE IT'S A HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE AU AND SKK??? Bro I am so down bad and I am so scared to be soooo normal about it. ALSO in the books, Howl and Sophie's quarrels and bickerings? VERY SKKcore if you ask me. It's one of my favorite books too and I AM SO NOT READY TO BE SO DOWN BAD FOR THE FIC.

but maybe this is a sign that I should finally suck it up and read it :,)) I would love to cry about it here. Senhart is one of my fav skk creators! Their fluff and writing and drawings are so good. I love their other works, especially "Plate :(" and "This is how it feels to take a fall" and I just know that the howl's moving castle au fic will not disappoint—it will, in fact, destroy me so thoroughly and change my brain chemistry and I could already feel it lining up to the "fics that changed the trajectory of my life" in my brain folder (which amounts to a number that I could count with my two hands ngl...)

oh gosh I rambled again... ><;; Sorry for this but yes! you will definitely hear my cries, and smell my sweat and tears from making fanart of this fic in this blog once I finally suck it up and start reading! Thank you so much for this!

ps. I'm crying with you over Ito's fic dw here, hold my hand T~T)//

[sensitiveheartless]

Hi y'all! Short update post: sorry about the longer-than-planned-for absence, I've been having a rollercoaster of a time again (in regards to both my physical and mental health) but I believe I'm on a bit of an upswing now!

That said, lately I keep slipping into a kind of perfectionist mindset where I overthink every single thing I create, so I'm going to try to slowly work myself out of that. So I am planning on posting some lower effort stuff on occasion, like sketches! With luck that will help make my brain Chill for a bit lol

Also, thank you all for your patience on the several series of comics/fics that have been on pause — since I began working on my mental health I've been able to slowly start working on them all again, but updates will still be sporadic for a while because I continue to feel a bit like this:

Ah, another thing! I'm going to be posting some asks I've received with regards to fundraising for people who need help in Gaza (which are vetted, so far as I can tell), and I'll be tagging those with "gaza" and "palestine". Just a heads up!

[sensitiveheartless]

Hiya! Just wanted to say that I’m going on an expedition for the rest of this week, so I won’t be able to post until I’m back — but next week after my return, I’m gonna try to make some time to answer asks and such! In the meantime, I hope y’all have a swell rest of your week :D

[sensitiveheartless]

Hullo! Just wanted to let you guys know that I am working on a thing for Dazai’s birthday, but I unexpectedly ended up being a makeshift scarecrow today so it’ll be a bit delayed lol

[sensitiveheartless]

…The problem with me having a fever is that it addles my mind to the point that it takes me way too long to realize that I’m sick

Anyway I’ve managed to come down with some sort of cold, it’s given me real bad fatigue — fever is better now thankfully, that was mostly the first day — but yeah! Right as my back was really starting to get better too, I have been having weird luck this year lol

[sensitiveheartless]

What if I just became one with the floor

[sensitiveheartless]

…I just had such a moment, which maybe says a bit too much about what kind of mental state I’ve been in — for some reason I thought it was already June, I guess?? Or maybe my brain rewrote Dazai’s birthday as being May 19? Anyway, one way or another I thought Dazai’s birthday was next week. So disregard that part of my post yesterday, the dazai-a-day for a week thing that I’m doing is now just a self-indulgent thing that has nothing to do with Dazai’s birthday lol

Anyway sorry for any confusion that caused! My brain has not been doing very well this week, but today has been better enough for me to notice my mistake at least 👍

[sensitiveheartless]

Welp. After recovering from that last bit of ill health, I have promptly gotten sick again — this time an actual cold, it seems? Have a sore throat and a fever and my head is about as clear as mud, so I once again probably won’t be very active until I start to recover, just wanted to give y’all a heads up

[sensitiveheartless]

Still working on rendering the ‘horrors’ comic (it became 20 pages long help) but in the process I’ve realized that this might be the angriest I’ve ever drawn Dazai, which is kind of wild

[sensitiveheartless]

20 questions for fic writers!

Tagged by @feralrookie! :D Thank you for the tag!!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

10! (technically, kinda)

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

379,547

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Bungou Stray Dogs! It's also the first fandom I've written for, actually. :D

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

This is how it feels to take a fall (Dazai goes feral, time shenanigans)

Plate :( (Dazai breaks a plate, experiences emotions)

Dazai and the Moving Detective Agency (Howl's Moving Castle AU)

Chuunyaa's Pawsitively Catastrophic Day (Chuuya is turned into a cat, it's short and pretty much just shenanigans)

Wish in one hand (First fic I wrote, and the first one I posted — Dazai has emotions about handholding)

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

I try to, but I've been absolutely terrible at it lately — whenever I'm particularly stressed I start worrying that the negative emotions are going to leak through into what I'm writing and make my tone sound weird, so then I end up turtling in on myself and not saying anything at all, no matter how much I want to engage with people. It's a bad habit, and I want to work on it, so I'm gonna try to catch up on comments! (I treasure every single one of the ones I receive, so for anyone who has left a comment and hasn't gotten a response from me yet, thank you and I am very sorry about my inability to form words in a timely manner skdjfksd)

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

Probably An Unsent Letter, since it's pretty much just a short snippet of Dazai being sad while he's leaving the mafia. And even with that one, I have in my head that skk still get together after the four years apart, I just didn't write it. I am dreadful with sad endings — although the ending to "This is how it feels to take a fall" is a little bittersweet, perhaps.

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

Hmm...I'm gonna say Dazai and the Moving Detective Agency, because it's the one with the longest buildup, so I think it has the most catharsis, at least for me! But I tend to give all of my fics happy endings because, as established, I am a wimp when it comes to hardcore angst. I will say that Zut Alors I Have Missed One is probably a contender for happiest as well, just because that fic had no angst whatsoever and was just Unhinged

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Nope! Everyone's been lovely! I have gotten some for my art, but honestly it was pretty toothless and I couldn't take it seriously lol

9. Do you write smut?

...Yeh. :0 There was an attempt, at least — one fic, and I made it anonymous (so on the extreme off-chance that anyone notices a discrepancy between my total ao3 wordcount listed here and the summed up wordcounts of the fics viewable on my profile, that's why!) It's also another fic I need to finish, I hit my writing roadblock with that one at the same time as all my others, and it's almost doneeee I just need my brain to cooperate >:|

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not any proper crossovers, only things like the Howl AU and the Little Mermaid AU, where I took the settings/plots and put in BSD characters.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

...Possibly? I'm not actually sure, I've given a couple people permission, but I'm not sure if anything came of that, I haven't heard one way or another :0 I do have a tendency to use puns, which I realize might make things difficult for translations

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

No, not so far — and given how tempestuous my schedule has been, it'll probably be a while before I attempt anything like that! Sounds fun, though

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

...I mean, it's gotta be soukoku, because for all that I've enjoyed a lot of fictional pairings before (for example, Howl and Sophie specifically from the HMC books, Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing — I like bickering duos, what do you know — Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, currently falling down the Hualian rabbithole because I'm reading Heaven Official's Blessing with my friend, and there's lots of other ones), for as much as I like all those, I haven't really had much of an urge to write anything for them.

So, purely in terms of me wanting to mess around with two characters and write them over and over and over again, it's really only skk! They hit the exact right combination of braincells, I guess lololol

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but probably won't?

Hmmm...honestly, most of my WIPs I still intend to finish at some point or another — first priority being the ones I've already started posting, of course! Although...just due to time constraints, I might not get around to writing the thief!Chuuya/detective!Dazai one I was planning a while back. (and I mean a WHILE lol) I didn't write very much of it, and honestly most of the reason I wanted to write it was for comedy — so maybe I'll turn it into a short comic series instead, because I do think some of the bits were funny :0

16. What are your writing strengths?

That's a hard one; I tend to look more at the ways I want to improve my writing then at what I like about it, and I nitpick just about everything I create, art and writing alike. But if I had to pick something, I would probably say dialogue? That tends to be what I write easiest, at least. I still want to get better at that too, though.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions and action scenes. I've been making myself write them more, so I think I'm slowly improving (the Howl AU has been great for that! It pushed me to write all sorts of scenes I wouldn't have normally :D ), but those two things remain what I get bogged down by the most.

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

Depends on the circumstances, I think? I'd include translations if I did. I do tend to include Japanese honorifics when I'm writing in the canon universe, because there's not really english equivalents and it feels like I'm leaving something out when I just do their names straight — although I did take them out when I was doing the Howl AU and the Little Mermaid AU, just as a setting thing.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Bungou Stray Dogs — like I mentioned in the ship section, this is the first fandom where I've really felt the urge. Although I did write things when I was little that very blatantly yoinked in various creatures and concepts from the things I was reading and watching, which resulted in stories with pirates and weeping angels and Ringwraiths all running around in the same place. But I didn't usually bother with bringing in actual characters from those pieces of media, or even using the settings, I just made ocs and had them run around in my own made up world.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I like all of them for different reasons, but I think my favorite overall has to be Dazai and the Moving Detective Agency. It's the longest thing I've ever written, and when I started out I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it — so the fact that it's most of the way done (currently chipping away at the epilogue, it is getting to be a LOT of words) makes me really happy. And it's just been so much fun! Writing characters I hadn't before, piecing the world together, working out the magic system, writing Dazai being a mess and Chuuya being cool, it's all been a blast. And I seriously need to finish the epilogue, because the followups are living in my brain and they demand to be freed aksdfjksdjfk

But yeah! I'm not sure how many writers I know on here have already been tagged, so I'll just go open tags on this one! :D If any of y'all write and feel like doing this, then go for it!

[sensitiveheartless]

Progress update on current comic part: sketches are all done, currently working through the lineart! It’s been a little slower going because my hands have been cranky about the fall weather, which makes both drawing AND typing a bit of a pain, so I keep having to take breaks—but getting there!

(And here are some out of context Chuuya and Dazai faces, since it’s becoming a habit to post these lol)

[sensitiveheartless]

Hey y’all, sorry for being very slow about posting again! One of my housemates came down with Covid this week, and since I just got over it, I’m the best person to take care of him. So there are a lot of things I’m juggling right now, and I’ll probably continue to be pretty sporadic about posting for a bit — but yeah, just wanted to update on where I disappeared to :D hope everyone is doing well!

[sensitiveheartless]

hey op i heard u got covid :(( and im wishing you a speedy recovery !!! pls stay hydrated bc i got it in 2020 and it SUCKED ASS and i got so many headaches from dehydration. soup is ur best friend and im making some for you as we speak :]]]

Heya! Thank you, that's so sweet!! :D I have been guzzling lots water and soup, and so far it seems to be serving me very well indeed! Gotta say, it has definitely sucked ass though ksjfksdjf — even now that I'm over the worst of it (my fever finally broke!), I still just feel really uncomfortable. But it's way better than I felt a couple days ago, so! Improvements! I have now reached the stage where my brain is mostly back to normal but my body still can't do shit lol I tried to clean my room up a bit today and had to lie down on the floor a while to recover

[sensitiveheartless]

i hope you get better soon! but don't hesitate to take as much time to rest and recover as you need <3

Thank you!! I’m on the mend now, and I think I’m over the worst of it — still very very exhausted, so I’m definitely not back to 100%, but I'll get there! :D Thank you very much for the well wishes, I will keep resting up!

[sensitiveheartless]

Hey y’all! Just wanted to update that I seem to have caught covid (tested positive earlier today), so progress on all my stuff is gonna be even slower until I’m recovered. I feel like I couldn’t think my way out of a paper bag right now — the brain fog sure is a thing, huh? This is my first time getting it and I have to say, so far it’s a 0/10: Would Not Recommend, I feel like microwaved garbage

Anyway, just thought I’d let you guys know that if I’m even more sporadic about posting, this is why lol