#since i finished my got rewatch i might actually take the time to go back to gif

[elfsroot]

She was still bearing the fresh scars of the fight; her skin broken, her vallaslin slashed across.

[funtheysaid]

IWTV 2x02 Initial Thoughts (Stream Of Consciousness)

- ooh the title card changed! I’ve been wanting to see the Eiffel Tower as a “fang” since season two was announced. WE IN PARIS BABY!

- ayooo three-way (interview) incoming

- Daniel’s “Paris sucks” aka “Paris is where my ex-bf is from and he sucks (dick), but not mine anymore, and no, I’m not bitter abt that, his city just fucking stinks (literally)”

- not two minutes in and Devil’s Minion is already flirting bickering

- ALICE MENTION alice!armand truthers are gon love that shit i just know

- “I’ll tell you what a woman is” That’s my sapphic-coded queen!!! 🕯️ pls S2 give me claudeleine 🕯️

- “Gauche” well, yes.

- Loumand: 🥰🥰 Daniel: 🙄 he‘s so second-hand embarrassed for them I can’t

- I mean, it’s crazy. What? We finish each other’s- I WAS WITH HIM FOR LONGER THAN LESTAT WAS WITH HIM WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN DANIEL PUT IT ON RECORD WEVE BEEN FUCKING FOR LIKE DOUBLE THE TIME …that’s what i…was….gonna say?

- Louis would be that faux-intellectual hipster who has his own darkroom full of overexposed and blurry, unfocused photos that are his “art” bc he took them on film (affectionate)

- Not claudia calling him out on it in the next scene “let me think I’m deeper than I am” okay honey you do you

- “She’s miserable but she doesn’t want to fuck with your too delusional left bank dilettante vibes” ahh the narrative foils are foiling, I see

- The show: Alice was pregnant, My dumb ass: OMEGAVERSE DEVILS MINION !?!?

- “joyfully joyless” MOOD.

- Claudia looking at Madeleine like “I don’t know if I want to be her or be with her” Dw babe it’s a rite of passage for all of us you’ll figure it out

- “Your French is ugly” 🥹👉👈 weally?

- “the dress for my body” LOOK I know what she meant, but I can’t help it that my mind is perverted

- LMFAO NOT GLORYHOLE PARK

- okay why Loumand playing with my heart “I will never harm you. And I never have” wtf wtf wtf

-Oh no the ole business card trick! we all know that’s Louis’ kryptonite he loves a man with credentials

- i like girls, but why is santiago kinda…

- Woah the Annika scene was really hard to watch which I think was the point but goddamn idk if I’ll be able to rewatch that part

- Estelle is my self-insert. I’m claiming her.

- “You both fucked Lestat!?!” HOW DID THEY KNOW WE WANTED HIM TO SAY THAT!?

- “He tasted of vermouth and annihilation” We both know you have no earthly idea what that man tastes like, Armand. Be so fucking fr right now.

- Did Armand just casually drop that he had a threesome with a father and son? I’m sorry, sir????

- “Now I know what two blood fat cocks slapping hands feel like” When I tell you my spirit left my body

- oh shit here we go. I’m a caged animal and it’s time for my weekly enrichment. give me my loustat.

- there’s a letter !?!? Wait wait I wasn’t ready for something like this wait stop stop please

- “all my love belongs to you. you are its keeper” just take me out back and shoot me at this point

- “it is a thin veil” fucking fuck why was that so romantic??

- the blood tears welling up in Lestat’s eyes I’m-

- “Rebound of my life” and in that moment, he spoke for the people

- WHAT IS HAPPENING???? Jesus Christ, they were talking about Alice and then it cuts to FUCKING ARMAND!?! This is not a drill. Everyone to your stations, this is not a drill.

- “You sold your Dad’s playboy magazines at recess” Hmmm? You’re telling me a “straight” teenage boy sold porno mags instead of keeping them for himself??? Yeah, I call gay on that one

- “she wanted to say yes” you motherfuckers.

- Oh shit Louis is pissy tonight rawr kitty got claws

- Devils minion girlies are thriving, skin glowing, hair silky, breath minty, pillow cold, stomach full, dreams sweet, and by Jove, we fucking deserve it !!!!

- daniel’s shaky “um- gulp” …….guys this is gonna sound crazy but i think there might actually be a god

- ooh the camera/photography being like a divide or barrier between Louis and his present situation. Like he wants to capture the moments, but only as if an onlooker and not a participant… interesting!

- “Who?” will never not be funny

- “Mon ami” in the same episode as “Mon Cher” FUCK ME GENTLY WITH A CHAINSAW

- “Armand for you” nah nah nah i changed my mind, you can do like Leatherface and shove that chainsaw in rough and hard

- Close up on Louis’ conflicted face, fire blazing behind him…. That’s not foreboding in any way. I’m sure they’ll all live happily ever after from now on :D

What a ride! Until next week! 🧛‍♂️🩸

[mumpsetc]

Genuinely Asking, (Not sarcastically! This ask comes across as bitchy unintentionally But Im genuinely asking) what do you think the themes of ii are. What the purpose of the story is. Im utterly confused by what you take from each episode. What You analyze and what you don't. Even more so how you think this obvious trick 'ending' Is good at all for the story theyre telling.

Because It feels as though you deeply misunderstand What ii is going for. What its supposed to be. Especially since you called the Relationships petty and useless? Or how you call s3 unimportant (I dont prefer s3 at all, i dislike it in fact. im a huge s1 fan. But to call it uninteresting Is confusing Now that we know what we know.)

So Im curious, What Do You think ii IS about. Why you think adam and justin and brian spent 13 years on this passion project. Because if it was for money, like you've said, why not animate for a Youtube Content farm. Why bother working on this and keeping a plot twist hidden since 2013. Why Would you go into the animation industry specifically siting II as inspiriation for it.

Not what YOU think ii should be about. You've talked about that plenty of times. What IS ii about. What Is the story trying to tell. What is the common Story beats between every single ii contestant, Civilian, and Host.

Now This is an Interesting Ask, and Thank You for Asking It I Enjoy Thinking About Stuff Like This. I Will Be Getting Personal in Response Because I Think This Ask Deserves as Much

To Address a Few Things Off the Bat: I Am a Very VERY Biased Source for a Multitude of Reasons. I Have Been Watching the Show For 8 Years and In That Time Have Picked Up a Lot of Personal and Fandom Related Baggage So I Have a Hard Time Looking at a Character Like Fan Without 8 Years of Feelings Towards Him. Also @ Your S3 Point, I've Actually Been Rewatching Recently to Properly Contextualize It in the Story as Well as View It as a Finished Product. I'm Only 3 Episodes Into That So I Can't Say Much on That Front Currently Other Than a Lot of My Older Opinions on It are Outdated and Also Made When I Was Very Very Angry Haha!

Finally on the General Disclaimers Thing, My Taste in Media is Really Weird in Part Because Inanimate Insanity. I Was Into ii From 13-15 and Then 17-Now. When I Got Back Into it at 17 I Made the Decision to Start Watching Movies and Reading More Books Because I Didn't Want to Limit Myself to ii and Stagnate in My Tastes. This Resulted in Me Seeing a Lot of Things Professionally Known as "Huge Fucking Bummers" and Generally Preferring Bittersweet or Unhappy Endings.

I Like the Fake Ending Because That's What I Typically Enjoy Across the Board. ii Having an Everyone Dies and Mephone Loses Everything End is What Appeals to Me and My Own Interpretation of the Series So I'm Happy. It Might Be Vapid and Emotionally Base But ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I Think I'm Allowed As Much.

To Answer Your Actual Question Though, I Think The Themes of ii are

Existing in a Place Like ii is Damaging for Yourself and Others and Takes a Toll on Your Interpersonal Relationships

An Allegory for Being an Artist in General

There's a Few Others Floating Around Like "Forgiveness" and "What's Real on ii?" But These are the Two I Think are the Most Present and Effect Everything, and I Vastly Prefer the First Over the Second. I Think The First Encourages Interesting Character Dynamics and is At Play With Several of My Favorite Characters (Suitcase, Cabby, Apple, Marshmallow, Paintbrush). The Artist Thing Was Always There But I Just Never Really Cared for How They Executed It.

I Get What the Story Is Going For and Can Probably Atleast Make a Ballpark Swing at It's Ending. Its Steven Universe/Pixar Influences are Worn On Its Sleeve and I Get the Point I Do I Do I Do I Promise But I Just Don't Care for That Sort of Thing Anyways. Is That Unfair Towards ii? Yeah.

On Why I Think ABJ Made This? I Can't Say. I Try to Avoid Speculating on Them or Their Intentions Anymore Because I Think the OSC Treats the 3 of Them Very Strangely and I Don't Want to Be Involved With That. I Disagree With Your Sentiment That You Can't Milk a Passion Project for Money and I'll Leave It at That.

Finally, You Asked Why I Cite ii as an Artistic Inspiration Despite How Much I Dislike It. This is Funny Timing Actually, It's My Senior Year in College And We Had to Do an Assignment Breaking Down Why We Animate At All and I Did Talk About Inanimate Insanity for Mine (For 20 Minutes Too). It's a Show That Means a Lot to Me Because It Has Had an Immense Influence on the Direction My Life Has Taken. It's a Very Right Place Right Time Situation for Me and No Amount of Logic Can Override My Very Emotional Outlook on ii.

I've Been Such a Long Time Fan and I Got So Much Wrapped Up in This Goddamn Cartoon and That's Why I Talk About It, I Got a Lotta Thoughts After 8 Years. I Can Admit a Warped Perspective But This is a Casual Thing I Do for Fun, and I Trust Everyone Reading My Blog to Be Smart Enough to Come to Their Own Conclusions.

[remimibanana]

A bit about Shattered!

I wrote a story about Robin and Sunday!

It's about what may have happened during their past, their present and what the reality during and after the never ending dream held for them.

You can find it here!

I wanted to write a bit about my thought process behind writing this, since I have a lot to say and it might interest some people! I also didn’t want to make my notes section way too long and make it hard to leave a comment or kudos.

All under the cut!

Conception

I started writing this story after 2.2 released, but I didn’t finish it until now. It took me so long but it’s finally here! 30k wasn't the amount I expecting but I am all for it.

It originally was meant to be a love letter to 2.2, but it soon became a love letter to Penacony as a whole since there’s spoilers for everything. I had to rewatch the quests often to make sure I didn’t mess up the lore.

I remember I spent a whole day on the 2.2 quest, a Thursday where I sat down on my phone reading through the dialogue and playing the game while wondering when it was going to actually end at one point.

It was way longer than I expected, but I cried by the end of it all while pacing around the kitchen like a crazy person. Seeing Robin jump for Sunday as he fell, I couldn’t help but tear up. It made me love Robin and Sunday way more than I did before!

It was an incredible quest. It was worth all the hours I poured into it, thanking everything that no one was home when I let out noises and screams like a maniac in the kitchen out of all places. I'm a very expressive person.

I also jumped like a maniac when Acheron said Mei, or Yayi since I play with the CN dub! I love Honkai Impact 3rd a lot, if you didn’t know. I mean, everyone knew beforehand but it felt super validating for it to be explicitly said.

I knew immediately that I had to write something for this wonderful story. I’m always inspired to write after a quest, especially one like this. Shaoji cooked with Penacony and he needs to come back and write more for Star Rail.

I had to write Robin and Sunday, because there was so much I could write regarding these two doomed siblings. I did alternating point of views with both of them, as I wanted to tell both their stories.

I also knew that I wanted angst to the max, especially after hearing what the heck Robin went through and the fact that the game barely touched on anything in her point of view. This is the same case with Sunday.

I’m sorry for the pain I have inflicted on you all! I will write a happy story at some point, I promise you. Then again, I've said this before and I still manage to write angst…

There wasn’t much planning for this, aside from a few things from the quest that I wanted to write into it and use…and yet it looks like I’ve meticulously planned it all out doesn’t it?

I amaze myself sometimes. I quite literally surprised myself actually at times, I made stuff connect and I didn’t mean to really. Is this what they call being a genius?

Let’s take it from the top!

The Past

The first thing I knew I wanted to write was how Robin was shot in the neck.

That sounds terrible, damn. I don’t know how else to word it, I’m sorry!

It was mentioned by Sunday so briefly, and then never brought up again by anyone which is insane to me like what do you mean that Robin was shot in the neck in a war she went into?!

We got to see how he was informed by the Dreammaster about it after showing Robin’s letter and how he was going to pack his bags immediately for Kasbelina-VIII but that was honestly it. This gave me the perfect base to write my rendition of how it all happened.

I structured this part by writing out two letters, the one that Robin sent to Sunday and one that Sunday would have written back if he received it first. I then wrote the actual happenings underneath each paragraph that contradict the letters.

My goal was to make this as interesting as I could since it’s the first thing you read in my story. I needed to hook you all in, and keep you wanting to read on until the end.

There is a lot of story building here, describing the conditions of Kasbelina-VIII and some of the messed up stuff that is happening there. It’s rather realistic, because I wanted it to be. If I was going to talk about a war, I would do so properly without downplaying anything.

I first found it strange that Sunday didn’t know about the war at all. I figured, wouldn’t a war be at least broadcasted by the largest government body, the IPC themselves?

That’s when the idea that the IPC was intentionally covering it all up came to me. It seemed like the most logical explanation, and a very interesting one that I could build upon.

Despite Robin’s letter being in her point of view, we see another being shown. The soldiers who she was staying with this whole time, their thoughts regarding the war and Robin herself.

I had to make a reason as to why she would be shot, because she had to be right in the middle of the battlefield for that to happen. If the IPC was covering everything up, they would also stop supporting the poor planet.

These poor soldiers she’s staying with had no new supplies delivered to for weeks, and yet they still gave what they had left to her, showing that there is still kindness in such a horrific situation.

Based of what I could see, Robin wouldn’t let them suffer like this when she learnt about the supply issue by what I assume was on accident generally. I wanted to give the soldiers some character, so I made them lie to her for her sake about how long they didn’t have supplies for.

We have a lot of lying mentioned in this story, since it’s the main premise for both Sunday and Robin. They both lied to each other for the other’s sake, thinking that it was the right thing to do. Lies after lies pile up, and we see what happened when they all came falling down.

I've never been shot before (god forbid) but I tried to imagine how it might have felt for Robin, the way it would make her feel. It did hurt to write this part, the way she still tried to deliver those supplies...the way she belittled herself for lying...

I wanted to make you all suffer, pretty much. That also sounds terrible.

Now, we go into Xipe and THEIR role. The Dreammaster mentioned how Harmony had blessed her by missing her vital arteries, so I made THEM interfere despite the fact THEY usually only observe and watch everything unfold.

THEY said that the bullet was not meant to hit her, but it still did for some reason that eluded them. This was such a major foreshadowing point that doesn't make much sense until later on, I am such a genius for this!

The same case when it is mentioned that someone could try to calculate their reasonings by forsaking their humanity, I was intentionally foreshadowing what Sunday does later on when he tried to.

You seriously would think I planned all this but it sort of came out this way.

Sunday's letter on the other hand, is much more of a character study of himself if anything. I wanted to explore how he would feel about all this, the way he would handle such a situation of his beloved sister being shot.

We know that Sunday uses puppets, but it's never stated why or how he had them in the first place. We can also see how he can manipulate them, making them act out scenes and characters during the time when we are stuck running through those Memory Zones before his boss fight, which I took and built upon the idea.

Sunday is a very complex character, so I made him a little mentally unstable when concerning his sister. The way he lashed out at his puppets, destroying them all over and over while making up scenarios of her shooting in order to cope. He even thinks that a puppet is Robin for a second.

If this is out of character or not, I don’t know. I wanted to give him more character than we see in the actual story, and naturally my thoughts went to this. It is mentioned how much he loves Robin (as a sister obviously), and so I wanted to see how far he would go for his only family left.

I took the concept of Harmony and expanded on it. We can see that Harmony can alter the mind's state, so why not make it so they can control others by altering their thoughts? I often like adding additional powers for the plot that still make sense in the realm of the game.

For Robin, it was mostly subconsciously done. For Sunday, he does it intentionally for his own reasons. Both use Harmony to alter minds without asking if the intended victim wanted it, making them both in the wrong.

We have these whispers present, the choir above that Sunday can hear because of how attuned he is to Harmony, alongside Robin that he rejects often. I don't think this is a thing in game, but I thought it would make everything so much more intriguing!

His distrust in Harmony grows and the rejection started from the first seed of doubt planted by Mr Gopher Wood. I imagine that his manipulation started young, slowly introducing the disharmony into Sunday's ideals.

This whole section quite literally foreshadows the rest of the story, it's great.

The Present

The major part of this story is when Robin is in Sunday's consciousness.

We have no idea what happened to her there, only that they were “put” to sleep. In Ena’s Dream, apparently it is called Tuning that she went through alongside Welt Yang by Sunday, who mentioned that nothing too bad happened to him there.

Then again, apparently it was Jing Yuan who saved Welt from Sunday’s subconscious???? I don’t really know how that works but point is, I had a lot of playing ground for what happens to Robin in there.

Here, we are introduced to the idea of Memory Zones (every time I read this, I think of Mystery Zones from Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum), areas of Sunday’s subconscious that he made to house his manifestations.

The first zone that Robin enters is incomplete. I imagine that Sunday never prepared for the possibility that Robin would ever enter his mind, so she was thrown into a zone that was quickly conjured up to keep her.

Since Robin too is attuned to Harmony, she can affect the Memory Zone to an extent. The colours you see on the ground is from her own power, as you can tell by the fact it originally came from her every single time it is mentioned.

As to why this is happening, I think it’s more of a subconscious thing once again. Robin doesn’t truly mean to use Harmony here while stuck in a random zone.

She can also hear the whispers, although they are trying to help her unlike Sunday’s ones. This is clearly a major foreshadowing point that you realise later on that these aren’t the same whispers.

We see the Charmony Dove from their childhood flying around and giving Robin a bit of trouble. This was definitely Sunday’s doing, who finally decided what he would do with her.

I wanted Robin to sing here because I thought that it was the best way to calm down the little bird, and symbolize how important her singing is to her and the world around her.

As she keeps saying, it’s the only thing she is good for at the end.

It was Sunday who made the bird fly away like a puppet with feathers, and Robin ran after it. I feel like she’s very selfless, to the point that she would run into a trap knowingly.

A zone just for her.

I knew I wanted to use that story with the Charmony Dove since it’s pretty prominent in 2.2. The Memory Zone she runs into is a replica of the bedroom the siblings stayed in, with the Charmony Dove now in the cage they kept it in.

This bird isn’t the same one as before as you can tell, since this whole zone is Sunday’s memory of how he released the small bird to its death. Robin helps it to fly, but it only shattered its wings when it fell as Sunday explained.

That’s when she learnt that this was all her fault, and we learn why that bullet that wasn’t meant to hit her did back then.

It was karma. They do say that karma’s a bitch, and for Robin, it took form with that bullet. It sounds like I’m quoting Jojo Siwa but I’m not, I swear ;;

Point is, I AM A GENIUS FOR THIS.

I didn’t intent for it but I wrote down that sentence “Perhaps, Robin was shot in the neck because of what she did” and my brain connected the dots immediately with what I wrote with Xipe earlier.

Sunday finally makes an appearance in person. This whole sequence is interesting because we have him hurting Robin, as if she was one of his puppets. I intentionally made it this strange, with Sunday mentioning after that the zone fell out of his control later on.

I described how his arms were out like an overseer, that’s a very obvious reference to Otto Apocalypse from Honkai Impact 3rd.

The lullaby part is from 2.3, where Robin mentioned how Sunday used to sing a lullaby to her when she was restless at night. I thought it would the perfect final blow.

It isn’t Robin in that zone. But it is at the same time. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Would it be too farfetched to say that it was Robin's consciousness who transferred into that puppet? Who knows.

Robin “wakes up” from that Memory Zone, completely nauseous and disoriented from the sheer amount of Harmony, or Order she was subjected to. We saw this with that doctor earlier with only a small amount of it used.

It was too much for her to handle. It was only when Sunday appears again to cut through it all, does she snap out of it out of his sheer grace. What a kind person he is.

We learn that Robin is in a cage. This is the same cage we see in her splash art! I like to try to integrate them into my stories, like I did for one of my previous stories with Black Swan’s one!

The two siblings share a conversation that doesn’t end well, with him leaving her. It was the only logical outcome for our doomed siblings here. I feel bad for them.

The cage breaking and Robin singing is also based on her splash art, as I needed a way for her to escape the cage that made sense to her and the story. I think it signifies how important her singing is to her and how Harmony interacts when she does.

We see Robin running around all the various Memory Zones Sunday has, noting how there are many puppets in them. I was alluding to when we go through those Memory Zones in the Grand Theater where Sunday tells us some stories using his puppets.

In one of them…we find her companion that was forced to sleep alongside her.

WELT YANG IS HERE.

I just wanted to write him since he is one of my favourite characters and I had my chance to finally in a story!

You can probably tell how much I enjoyed writing him based on how long his part is. If you have played Honkai Impact 3rd, or know Welt’s backstory, this is my little treat for you. If Hoyo won't make him do things, I WILL.

I made Welt finally use his powers. He’s the Herrscher of Reason, he has the freaking Star of Eden (the 9th Divine Key itself), AND HE BARELY DOES ANYTHING PLEASE DO SOMETHING I WANT TO SEE—

Ahem.

Making a bench is child’s play for Welt. I thought it would be kind of funny if he did.

Welt is more childish here since he wanted to cheer Robin up, who looked clearly sad. I think he probably used to do something similar with his adoptive son Joey when he was upset. He couldn't help but do so for his companion.

The idea for him making himself have wings like hers is from this one comic I saw on Twitter that lives rent free in my mind. I thought it would be a great way to cheer her up while also using his power more!

(It took me so long to find this, it wasn't funny how much I scrolled)

His wings smack right onto his face rather comedically and I took that from the official emojis where you can see Robin hiding her face. I imagine that younger Halovians struggle with their wings moving around and his wings are practically akin to newborn ones.

The power of Reason.

This is where I had to make things painful. Welt talks about his experience, the memory that Sunday chose to use against him. I was thinking about what would be the best memory, and of course I went for the jugular for that pain factor.

This is where Welt Joyce, the former Herrscher of Reason died in the city he was protecting. This was where Joachim Nokianvirtanen, who we now know as Welt Yang received the Core of Reason, the name Welt and a mission from Welt Joyce, before passing away.

It’s a very important memory to Welt, and one I would see Sunday exploiting. Only those who know of Welt Yang’s story would know that the man he mentioned was Welt Joyce since I intentionally didn't mention his name.

For Welt recreating half of the town, I was spitballing about the energy part. I don’t know if Memoria would be a good substitute for Honkai energy but I’m just rolling with it. Don't quote me on that.

The main role of Welt here is to reassure Robin, give her the will and inspiration to keep going despite everything. She even tells him all about her experiences, a connection between the two already facilitated by simple communication.

I feel like Welt is such a father figure. If only we all had him in our lives.

Reality

Sunday has now merged with Dominicus and has fallen to those whispers above, as the never ending dream is taking form.

The Dreammaster, Mr Gopher Wood himself makes an appearance as his former form. In 2.2, all his ravens die and he is never seen again, making it pretty clear that he's dead. However, I assume that he joined the Dreamscape and is now an entity that can oversee everything.

Dead only physically, as you will.

The Embryo of Philosophy is named by the Dreammaster here, since I was wondering how Sunday was named that during his boss fight, although it could have been from the whispers THEMSELVES. I also made Mr Gopher Wood show his true colours, to show that manipulative side.

There was a reason for this. He didn't want his son to start rebelling or second guessing his choice, so he used Robin as a way to keep him ensnared in his deception. Evil, isn't he?

I honestly think that Sunday knew that he would ascend to Aeonhood, as smart as he is. At least, he would have had an inkling of Gopher Wood’s true intentions.

Those whispers were Ena this whole time inside of Xipe as we learn. If Xipe absorbed Ena, wouldn’t Ena still be there? I think Mr Gopher Wood and Ena were in cahoots, scheming together. Perhaps even more than that (gets hit).

How…how dare he? 

How dare he glimpse Heaven’s will? How dare he change people’s fate?

How dare he decide the life and death of other beings? 

How dare he represent the will of all beings? How dare he control the greatest secrets and riches of the world itself?

How dare he…hold the fate of the entire world in his hands?

These lines are from HI3, particularly from Chapter 3 of Part 2 but slightly edited. This is what Baiji thinks of his actions to save everyone, and I feel like it also applies to Sunday.

We have many HI3 references here. I couldn’t help myself.

We now go back to Robin's point of view. This is after she awakens from Ena’s dream.

I don’t know if any other people woke up aside from the Astral Express + Acheron, Boothill and Black Swan, but for plots sake, there was. Just some random people we don’t care about.

We have Acheron! I wanted to write her since she played a huge part in Penacony and it would be a shame not to after I read this:

The bloody sacrifice becomes the sweet dreamland. The real world will lose meaning for them, while the eternal dream will become their only reality. They will no longer think with time. Their dreams will be connected, which will create a true miracle that transcends finality.

This is also a treat for the HI3 players. The words here are the words that Raven tells Mei before Project Stigma takes place. I was playing through that chapter at one point and thought that the words fit perfectly for this story.

I rewrote Acheron’s part because I disliked what I had initially. I was writing about Finality and how it was the same as transcending Order but it didn’t fit well so I changed it. I wanted to say how Finality governs time and how it can change reality if you had the authority...but perhaps another time.

As we know, Acheron was the only survivor who defeated End, referring to Kevin Kaslana all by herself without her companions unlike in HI3. I had to mention this and highlight the difference between their cases.

She doesn't show up again in the story, but she also impacts Robin in a way.

Miss Firefly takes the stage!

We have a bit of Robifly because I do ship them and I couldn’t help myself when I had a chance to write an interaction between Robin and Firefly. I wanted something a bit more lighthearted to break between all the angst and pain.

I saw how Firefly mentioned that she can't dream, and so I just wanted Robin to tell her otherwise to cheer her up. She’s following Welt’s lead, being that kind and inspirational person!

I’m sorry for making you the third wheel…

Speaking of him, we have Welt again appear! I couldn’t help myself, I just wanted to write more of him and I felt like Robin would try to seek him out first.

Did you know that it was called a Dream Pool, that bed in the Reverie? I had to rewatch 2.0’s quest because I didn’t remember the name for the life of me.

This time, we have Welt suffering yet again…I'm sorry that I only write you like this. He mentions in 2.3 that he dreamt about returning to his homeland and seeing all his old friends. This poor man, imagine waking up to find that it was all a lie.

The yelling mention was obviously a nod to Tesla who I would imagine yell at him for taking this long to return without a single word.

I hope Welt does get to connect with his homeland eventually, I want to see them or hear them!

We then go into the battle against Sunday! I purposely chose Sunday's point of view here, since we never receive it in the game.

I was rewatching the fight, and noted how sudden the switch from the question Sunday asked to mentioning how it was their final talk felt like it wasn’t him talking anymore, which I made the case here since we have my wonderful whispers.

We learn more about how Sunday felt during this, and what may have happened after their fall. Robin mentioned how she woke up by herself, which could only mean that Sunday left her there.

I think he genuinely was upset by the failure, but most of all…failing Robin. The feather falling down is a reference from how there were feathers flying around when Robin appeared and how the Trailblazer took it into their hands.

It clearly has the power of Harmony, and that’s what Sunday can feel when he holds it tightly. I imagine that he would keep that feather with him, as a reminder of what he lost.

The ending is based off 2.3, where we learn that Sunday is captured and will face trial. I didn’t go into much detail since we really don’t know much about how he was caught.

It won’t be the end.

It will be the end of all the suffering. 

I will realise my dreams.

I will make my dreams come true. 

I won’t fail again.

I will never fail.

The poison to Penacony still lingers.

I am a traitor. 

These are Robin and Sunday's thoughts respectfully. As you can see, they are both the same fundamentally. That goes to show how they are both traitors in a way, aren't they?

We have a little ending about the siblings, alongside a story with a snake.

The snake is Miss Jade herself, where Robin went to her to make her greatest desire come true...to let Sunday go free. I wanted to reference the end of 2.3 where we see Jade talking to Sunday, how he was free but he refused her.

I repeated the words Acheron spoke for the very end to tie it all together. The perfect words to end a story filled with so much!

End

Thank you for reading all this! I’ve spent way too long on this story and I’m glad it’s finally out there for everyone to read!

I feel like in terms of storytelling, this is my best story so far! I'm proud of all the elements I was able to merge into this!

- Miku

[lucianalight]

Hi! I'm back :) after another long hiatus😅 I have missed all of you❤️

First of all a huge thank you to everyone who were worried and asked about my health and how I was doing. I wasn't doing well tbh. I'm one of those people who had the misfortune of never quite recovering from covid. I already had one chronic illness that was messing up my life and health. Having another on top of that takes a lot of physical, emotional and mental toll and limits my energy greatly. So I needed time to get used to my new reality and condition and learn to how manage it and live with it. It's still a work in progress and doctor appointments are seeming endless but at least some meds are helping. So there's that.

You probably already know the second reason why I wasn't doing well. I've seen terrible things…And you need time to process them. To grieve, to deal with trauma and survivor's guilt, and nurture your anger and keep fighting, keep resisting…

And well, internet connection still sucks so using social media is kind of an ordeal :D

There were a lot of times that I wanted to come back on tumblr but every time some issue would come up and take my motivation and energy. Then two weeks ago, after I couldn't crush the little ray of hope that maybe this time I'm going to see sth I like, I started watching season 2 of Loki. I watched it while promising myself that I'm not going to care anymore if it's bad, reminding myself that I might see sth as bad as season 1. Still I was surprised that I didn't hate it. On the contrary there were moments that were entertaining and even enjoyable. And those moments were more than the ones I dislike. It was better than season 1 and admittedly that's a low bar since I consider S1 one of the worst tv shows I've ever seen, but there were noticeable changes in pace and tone of the narrative and characterization in S2. Some issues in S1 was addressed. Loki was actually the main character of his series and got to do badass magic stuff :D The characters were flesh out and three dimensional and likable(I love OB so much :D). There was no romance. The ending was great.

There were of course things I didn't like. Removing Loki's backstory and his issues with his family from the story is one of them. How some of his moments in past was addressed. The episodes at times got boring or very predictable. There were times that Loki was ooc or comedic moments that weren't delivered well.

It wasn't perfect but at least acceptable. And probably the best Loki content we got since TDW. And I liked the ending a lot. I found myself keep going back to rewatch some scenes. I found myself analyzing the content happily. I had things to say. So here I am :D basically I'm 100% back to my Loki bs and I'm making it everyone's problem :P

Whether you loved the series or hated it, you're welcome on my blog and you're welcome to send me your opinions and engage with me in discussions and metas. I will tag posts accordingly in case you want to avoid certain content(tbh I still don't know what the new tags will be because I haven't written anything yet but I will make a post when I do).

There will be posts of some new fandoms so block their tags if you don't want to see those posts. The new fandoms are Sandman tv show(I haven't finished the comics so plz don't spoil them for me), Wednesday, My Hero Academia, Shadow and Bone, and The Bifrost Incident.

As I mentioned above I'm dealing with multiple chronic illnesses and have a limited energy each day. I will try to answer your messages, comments and asks as soon as I can but it might take a long time. Sry about that.

And finally a warm welcome to all the new followers and thanks to everyone who are still following me❤️

[dailydoseofdragon]

Have you ever wanted to draw something but you fought due to your skill level at the time you decide not to do it

I used to all the time! Honestly it got to the point where I stopped making art entirely for 4 years straight because of it. I don’t know what exactly convinced to pick it back up, probably some combination of a million different versions of the holy shit two cakes post and the no one will ever draw art the way you do post. I think the best you can do is try. Your skill level is never going to improve if you don’t take risk and you might end up paralyzed for four years wondering why you can’t make a ‘perfect’ art piece.

One of my favorite works I have made was actually a rough sketch animatic I put off for months because I just wasn’t good enough in my eyes to make it. I’ll be honest I can’t yet draw humans to save my life but I’m doing my best to learn. It took three weeks of my brain screaming at me and playing the same song over and over before I caved and started drawing. I’m not going to lie I hated it immensely at first. I even stopped working on it for a month or two before forcing myself to continue working on it. But then I finished it and I just kept rewatching it over and over because I made it! I did that?!? Yeah sure it’s not perfect and the human characters are little more then modified stick figures. The beginning was a little iffy because I didn’t really understand how to make animatics. But god I still go back to it and watch it because I honestly never thought I could make something like that. I hope one day to come back to it and see how much I’ve improved to be honest.

I think maybe you should still try even if you don’t think you are ‘good enough’ to make it. How are you ever going to reach the vague notion of good enough if you don’t try at least? You can’t walk a mile without taking a step and all that yknow?

Ha, sorry if this makes no sense I have a lot of feelings on this topic and am currently sporting a killer headache right now. I struggled with the idea of ‘good enough’ ever since I first sat curled up on the couch as a teen learning to draw dragons from wattpad tutorials.

TL:DR I guess-

[grapenehifics]

Making of Monday: Can't Stop the Suns Part 1

(I am thinking SO positively rn that I am calling this part 1, like I will remember to actually write more. YMMV; we'll see how I do.)

I'm hard at work on the concluding chapters of Pick Up the Pieces right now, and working on Pick Up the Pieces means I also need to do a fair bit of rereading An Uncivil War, so it's very much on the forefront of my brain, and also I have yet to participate in a single MoM, so: here's some backstory on An Uncivil War.

Okay I actually need to back up even farther than that, all the way to Solsbury Hill and February 2020. I started Solsbury Hill - it wasn't called that, then; it didn't have a name, just 'weird doc file/outline I'll probably never finish because I don't have a track record of finishing creative writing projects, ever' - and then the very next month I started working from home AND season 7 of Clone Wars premiered.

To get ready for season 7 - and because I was home a lot more during the day, now, and didn't have to commute to work - we decided to do a rewatch of Clone Wars season 1 through 6. And you know how we joke about plot bunnies, and why they're called that? That the hardest idea is your first one and once you have that the ideas just keep multiplying? So, I'm sitting on an outline for what would become Solsbury Hill, and we're watching Clone Wars, and we get to season 5, and the episode with Ahsoka's trial, and I think to myself, huh. That's weird. Why is Obi-Wan acting like that? Why is he not sticking up for our Padawan? If he had, I bet things would have turned out differently. Ahsoka might not have left the Order. Anakin might not have turned to the Dark Side. Clone Wars is full of all these little things that individually might not be enough to push Anakin over the edge, but they start stacking up, collectively...

From there, it was a pretty easy leap to, 'what if Obi-Wan left the Order instead of Ahsoka', and that created this whole domino effect because Anakin would obviously leave with him, right, and Ahsoka was getting kicked out anyway, and now I've got this scenario with three Jedi on the run in the middle of a war.

And that was fascinating to me. Once I started thinking about it I couldn't stop. But I was also getting really into Solsbury Hill, at that point, so this new story needed to take a backseat. I dumped a bunch of notes into a Word doc and went back to my AU.

It turns out, though - and this was the first time I'd learned this about myself - that I liked having both an AU and a canon project going at the same time. Solsbury Hill and An Uncivil War both used such different parts of my brain and required a different skillset and researching vastly different things, and if I got bogged down in one it was nice to be able to switch to the other one and hack away at that one for a while. So I ended up, from early 2020 until August 2022 when I posted the first chapter of Solsbury Hill on AO3, working on both projects nearly simultaneously, although obviously Solsbury Hill (despite being three times longer) got to the finish line first.

For a long time - almost three years - An Uncivil War was just called, An Uncivil War. And it had this expansive outline that I just kept cracking away at, and whenever I came across something cool in another piece of Star Wars media or another show premiered or I read another book I'd think 'Ooh, that's neat! That's going in the fic!' and I'd add it to my to-do list. And at some point I looked at my word count and realized I was pushing 100k and not anywhere close to the end of the story I wanted to tell.

So, I started thinking about sequels, and series. I had (still have) this outline, fortunately, and there was one pretty obvious stopping point at what was then the mid-point of the plot. (I say, 'then' because it has since, of course, expanded. It turns out I'm very bad at guessing word counts.) So I took half my outline, dumped into a brand-new doc, called that one Pick Up the Pieces, and wrote the 'ending' of An Uncivil War, as much as possible, as if it were the ending, just in case I for some reason never got around to writing Pick Up the Pieces.

Because it was important to me that An Uncivil War be able to stand on its own. It's got a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the end calls back to the beginning, and the main threat to the characters is resolved, and they talk about what they're going to do next but even if that was the only story you had, it should still be a satisfying conclusion (or, at least, I hope it is).

But it isn't the entirety of the story I wanted to tell. Because they originally were one big story, I actually had maybe half of Pick Up the Pieces already written by the time I started posting An Uncivil War, so while the first part took me three years to write, the second has technically only taken me a year, but I was definitely not starting from scratch.

I also - and this should shock absolutely no one - was once again wildly off in my word count estimate. Pick Up the Pieces is, right now, already as long as An Uncivil War (120k), and I've still got three chapters left to go...plus a bunch more things in my outline I haven't gotten to yet.

So, in true Star Wars tradition, I'm now plotting a part three! Pick Up the Pieces, like An Uncivil War before it, has a logical ending point, so it will wrap up there, but the plot will move merrily along to the next thing on my to-do list, which is in fact the same to-do list I've had since March 2020. (It's a good thing I love this story so much or I would have quit long ago.) Part Three, at the moment, is tentatively titled Sometimes Fate Steps In, and I'm really, really sorry to have to admit that that's where all the smut is going to be. (I know. It's Solsbury Hill all over again.)

(I do love it, though. I feel like I should...apologize, to my fics, somehow, for having a favorite? I do have a favorite, though. It's this series. I love it so damn much. This is the one thing I write where, if you told me right now that I would never get a single comment or kudos on it, I would still write it anyway, because I just get so much enjoyment out of researching and writing it and re-reading it.)

(Which is not to say you shouldn't comment on it. Please, please do! You will absolutely make my day, week, month, year! But I love it enough to do it anyway.)

[kuwdora]

heyyyy let me try another blogging entry type of thing. Pretty much each week my brain turns to ooze by Friday from all this jobdyssy and networking and all the burnout still dragging me down. I refuse to let the world and my brain gaslight me and I'm pushing myself so hard and taking rests and being deliberate with my time and effort for getting some contract work and other things - but this job market fucking sucks so much and I'm so frustrated by some of my circumstances and things outside of my control. It's obnoxious. the bullshit people have to go through right now for interviews and shit..it's awful.

It would help if my insomnia wasn't so bad. I'm fairly bedraggled more often than not which makes everything hard. I dream of sleeping more than 5 or 6 hours a night. well I don't actually dream since I don't think I'm getting enough sleep to get to the dream stage but regardless. It would be great to sleep a full night. I miss being able to nap, too but my body just doesn't let me do that anymore either. In other news, I've been rewatching witcher season 3 and Suits season 9 for background noise while I work on some collage and painting projects. I have a list of like 45 other shows that I could watch for the first time but I'm still needing to be in that rewatch zone.

the witcher fixation remains strong...just buried under all of my other wips and things going on in my brain right now. I'm soo looking forward to season 4 for whatever nice things I'll get from it and whatever disappointments I gotta brace myself for when the new season's here. I got a bunch of new comments last weekend on all my yennskier fic which was so lovely and just reminding me of how many more yennskier wips I have. and now i want to work on those. Except I'm neck-deep in other new projects. so I'll see if I can actually finish what I'm working on right now.

I'm going through the motions of working on new things I'm enjoying working on but. But. Also having that fear that no one going to like it even though I've shown a few things to a few people here and there and had received positive feedback on it. It's been awhile since I've been doing this kind of collaging before and it's something I can manage to do really slowly while my brain is melted from my days. It feels great to come full circle to a style and technique I had been doing ages ago but come back to it with my accumulated creative experience behind me. I'm having so much fun. Even though I'm so fucking tiredddddd. But also at some point I want to share. but not yet. oooh, also! wanted to say thank you everyone who signal boosted my ko-fi shop! the sales and tips def helpin' me out. I might add a few more paintings and a terracotta pot if I can track them down. I just have so many random pieces that are just getting lost in the clutter of my apartment.

I have a few more witcher painty-collage ideas I've placed in a pile to work on when I get done with my current things. but as always, too many wips, bwah.

[crush3dmary]

All this talk about fics being inspired by other fics lately is funny to me because Philosophy was actually influenced by a fic called Scar Tissue on ffnet. I read it at my wife's recommendation after I finished rewatching ygo a few years back and I got mad that it was never finished and hadn't updated in a decade, and then got thinking about what might lead up to the events of the fic. Scar Tissue plays it pretty straight in that Ryou was always fucked up but hid it very well, and then after Bakura wins and revives Zorc, he goes apeshit, and it kind of got me thinking, "what would it take for Ryou to have gotten to this point on his own? What if Bakura hadn't been influencing him, too?" and decided I wanted to explore the idea more with a different focus on different things.

The fics are like, night and day different, though I did throw in a couple references to the fic here and there seeing as Philosophy wouldn't have happened without it, and like, I dunno, it just makes me laugh a bit that someone is jumping to call someone else's fic a ripoff of mine when mine was influenced by another fic in the first place. I think it's totally possible to make something your own while still being inspired by something else, and honestly, even if you read Scar Tissue you'd probably see the influence, but they're both very different experiences and very different stories being told. I think that's what makes fic so interesting though, because with the exception of straight up plagiarism, no two people are going to play out a similar idea in the same way.

Hell, even in Symphonia, I wrote a declining Tethe'alla AU, and I could read those until the end of time. I don't feel like anyone who has done it since Weltschmerz has 'copied me' or anything because I love the premise and I want to see how other people might pull it off differently than I did. I think the same can be said of anything really, as long as you're not like, ripping stuff or ideas word for word, I think taking inspiration from other things is actually a good thing, so long as you give credit where credit is due (if necessary of course).

[amethystina]

I was tagged by @a-very-fond-farewell! Thank you so much darling 💜

1. Last song: Shishen Take On the Challenge from The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity soundtrack (which I paid a small fortune to get my hands on so you bet I've been listening to it almost non-stop ever since. The music is SO FUCKING GOOD OKAY)

2. Favorite color: Purple — which I feel should come as a surprise to no one xD

3. Currently watching: The Killing Vote, because I apparently need more dramas where the Korean public is allowed to vote on whether or not to execute people. Quite enjoying it so far! The characters are a hoot xD And I'm curious to see what they do with the Kwon Seok Joo dude.

I also just started The Guest because I want to watch it before they remove it from Netflix but BOI. That's not one I'll be able to binge, that's for sure. Horror is great but also, well, terrifying x'D

Though, I must say, I might have to take a detour and rewatch the Along With the Gods movies. I've been meaning to do so for ages and seeing Kim Dong Wook in The Guest makes the urge even stronger. Because, let me tell you, I'm SO EAGER to rewatch the movies and observe the characters now that I've seen the twist at the end of the second movie. A twist I figured out before I actually reached the reveal, sure, but I don't think that's a bad thing? Like, for real, guys. The AUDIBLE GASP I let out when I realised what the twist was going to be and then got to sit there and see it slowly dawn on the other characters? BEAUTIFUL. And it CHANGES SO MUCH. Like, I need to rewatch them because so much of what I thought I knew is now a lie! Circumstances have changed! My initial analysis might be wrong! Characters I thought I knew are now completely different! I need to do more research! I NEED TO KNOW.

(This is what happens when your brain works like mine. And one day I might tell you all about why Kang Yo Han is such a fascinating character to me, because, let me tell you, I've rarely seen a character remain so solid in his characterisation even through the kind of reveals we're given in the drama. It's fucking SPECTACULAR)

4. Currently reading: Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (I do it in bursts because it's not the kind of book I can just binge, okay? x'D), We Have Always Lived In the Castle by Shirley Jackson (I would have finished this LONG ago if it didn't give me so much anxiety (but in a good way?)) and Eld by Mats Strandberg and Sara Bergman Elfgren (though I should probably start over on this one since I was very distracted when I read the first chapter)

5. Last movie: No Regret, because why not dabble in older Korean LGBTQ+ content? It was a ride, that's for sure xD And the next movie will be The World to Come (also one I want to watch before it's removed from Netflix)

6. Sweet/spicy/savory: Either sweet or savoury — it depends on my mood, really.

7. Relationship status: Married! :D

8. Current obsession: I'm not sure if I have one right now? Though I am hoping to get back on track with that diorama thing soon. I've almost collected all the materials I need! I just need fake foliage (preferably red) and I'm going to try and buy that either tomorrow or on Saturday.

9. Last thing you googled? Why my phone kept taking only green photos. And everyone kept telling me I shouldn't have unlocked the bootloader (which I don't think can be done by accident and I sure as hell haven't done it intentionally) so in the end I just restarted it and now it works just fine xD

10. Selfie: I don't really take selfies but here's a cropped version of a drawing WIP of mine.

If you know, you know ;)

(... LOOK, the suspender-pulling had to happen eventually, okay?)

11. Currently working on: Chapter 5 of A New Dawn (Begins With Us) and, after that, it'll be either chapter 37 of Who Holds the Devil or maybe the sequel to Gravitational Pull which I'm STILL struggling to find the time to work on. I'm also working on, like, six different drawings simultaneously. Because why make things easy for myself?

Tagging: Whoever wants to do it! Tell me about yourself! :D

[samandcolbypost]

Sam stop being stubborn and listen to Colby for once. DONT GO ALONE. 3 years ago taught you nothing? 😭

I don’t really think it’s accurate but at least the first part meats the first part is what I’m talking about.

Sagittarius

“It's not that they are stubborn per se; it's that they won't listen to anyone who tells them what to do. Sagittarians are adventurous and open-minded, so they're willing to consider new ideas and learn from people. It's just these free-spirited individuals cannot be controlled or manipulated.”

Sam really needs to listen. It wasn’t fair for Colby because it was supposed to be both of yours big moment, but I don’t think it’s right to judge Sam especially because it was something he needed to find out too. He could’ve just woke up Colby and at least let him know, especially for safety since no one else was awake during that time and something could’ve happened. Colby was mad and he had every right to be, also because Sam casually mentioned it while they went to the basement. 🤦🏻‍♀️ But they communicated in a healthy way so that’s something at least. (I’m actually glad to see that because now we know what they do when they fight and it’s even more of a reason to love them) yea show us how it’s done! Some thing we all need to learn from.

—

Colby threw the tick down only to go back in and grab water. 💀

—

Okay everything I just wrote didn’t even save soo I’m going to have to try again. 🙃

—

I love this down to earth moment after what they were told about “were okay” moment.

—

I hope Colby is okay going into the woods especially since they’ve been warned. We see him running at the end so I’m hoping that means he goes back to the house.. also hoping they have walkie talkies just in case.

—

We all know Colby is some kind connection because he feels energy sometimes, but can we talk about how twice Sam has done the Estes method he started shaking. I don’t know if it’s a connection per say, but it’s definitely weird. He felt like something was pushing him down, and the last time he felt he couldn’t even move. (I felt like Colby was still mad from the prior conversation because when he said “what were you doing” I was like 👀 I’m glad he realized to take him out of it at least, because I couldn’t even see him shaking on camera) I might be over analyzing why I think Colby said that too but anyways.

—

I don’t mind Larray and Bella. I don’t think it added anything to the video like some have said, but overall it wasn’t horrible.

—

I still am sticking to my box theory with Cody and Satori. I don’t think they’re horrible people but I also think they are lying up a storm. I feel somehow sound can be manipulated to sound closer and further away, and a lot of the sounds comes from Cody’s area..

—

Sam and Colby tried the method and it didn’t work except for what they heard at the very last moment. I kinda wished it worked for them but I figured. 😕

—

The camera equipment not working was kinda freaky I won’t lie. The fact it does this a lot even with their batteries being full. Also who or what was coming up the stairs?? I feel it could be the 4th tour guide or Zach, but how Colby responded on Twitter says otherwise. I guess the spirit just wanted to make an appearance in the video.

—

I’m rewatching clips as I do this to remember (which is how this got deleted to begin with 🤦🏻‍♀️). Anyways, someone just posted a clip and you can see something outside the window when Colby is standing by the window, either about to go into the well or when they finished the Estes method idk.

—

Props for them staying in the rooms by themselves I could never. Especially when it’s a haunted house and knowing anything could happen.

—

I could never go to the graveyard like they both did, and Colby going in the next video. Hell no. I don’t do bugs, ghost, the dark, and especially when I am warned.

—

Dave being a Dave 🤪😡 I’m kinda scared of Dave but I hope it’s just messing with them.

I don’t know how spirits can travel through the water? I thought they can’t leave the house unless they died outside or something. So I’m not sure how the aquifer could let them travel.

Somewhat of an Ep 2 review because I didn’t do it

Believe: Josh getting touched because he wasn’t even moving, the scrapping noise, the door opening.

Not believe: Satori and Cody, the one small door opening on its own. Do the owners/caregivers just stay there or something? I can’t say anything about this house if they are just chilling in a random room while S&C investigate. I think they stay in a different house but I also don’t know for sure.

I’m on the fence about the noises again I wish I could know the truth.

[im-immortal]

2023 Writing Wrap-Up

I'm a little late this time around since it's already 2024, but I haven't done a writing wrap-up since 2021 and I thought it would be fun to bring back!

So this year, I was on quite a roll for the first half of the year. And then July rolled around and I started slowing down until it came to a screeching halt. Not sure what happened. Maybe it's my ADHD and constantly shifting hyper-fixations to blame. But I gradually managed to come back around just in time to post something for Christmas, which I'm still working on finishing. However, my hiatus doesn't take away the pride I still have for what I was able to write during the year. And I look forward to writing more in 2024! So here's all I managed to finish/get a good start on and post during 2023.

A Kiss For A Drink: 6,740 words; one-shot I actually started writing this back in 2020 or 2021, intended to be posted on Valentine's Day. And then I got a point where I couldn't finish it and let it sit for about 2 years. I finally came back with some inspiration and motivation and finished it just in time to post for Valentine's Day 2023! I'm really happy with how it came out. It was a fun idea that turned into a fun fic with a few laughs included, even if it is one of my least-viewed fics lol I had fun writing it too, which is all that really matters!

Lunacy Fringe: 62,690 words; 8/8 chapters To say this fic suddenly came out of nowhere would be an understatement. I literally got inspired out of the blue while listening to an episode of the Therapy Gecko podcast and the next thing I knew, I was balls deep in a psychological thriller. I actually managed to write it in just over a month or so!! Which is really incredible for me, especially considering I didn't step away from it at all or lose inspiration before it was finished. I'm really proud of how it turned out, and I haven't really told anyone, but I am working on converting it into an original story and possibly self-publishing. It could end up being my very first original novel :) the feedback I got was far more positive than I'd expected, especially considering how I portrayed Beth. I'm overall so so happy with how it turned out!!

Longer Than A Heartbeat: 157,289 words; 29/29 chapters Now this... this fic is one of my proudest pieces by far. I'll never get over how happy I am with how it turned out, and how I was actually able to finish it. For the last few years, every time I rewatched "28 Days Later," I couldn't stop thinking about how it would make such a good Bethyl fic, and how I wanted to convert it into a Bethyl fic that included Rick and Judith. I finally did it!! Technically, I wrote it in 2022, but I didn't completely finish it and post it until 2023. When I say I write for myself... this fic really proves it, because I go back and read chapters from it all the time just because it's so fun and I love how I wrote it. I was also pleasantly surprised by the reception and how people who hadn't ever watched "28 Days Later" enjoyed it! Not to mention, @boltthrutheheart made some incredible custom manips for me that I can never get over!!

hot girl summer (playing by the rules); 167k+ words, 16/30 chapters Ah yes, here she is... the companion piece to the first 3 fics of "in for a penny, in for a pound" that I've been planning/contemplating ever since I did that first fic from Beth's POV for the series. I always wanted to show Beth's POV for all the major moments in the series, and then once I got started, I figured why not go all in and just do her POV for the entirety of the series thus far? It gives a little more insight into how she's feeling, why she does the things she does and says the things she says, and we also get to see exactly what she was doing all those times that Daryl couldn't help wondering about her (because I already knew in my head, but I thought it might be fun to share with everyone else). I also thought it would make the set-up for the next fic a little better, so we could try and understand Beth's motivations better and where she's at in her head. Of course, I got pretty into it and then hit a speed bump and then suddenly, lost all ability to write. It'll come back soon, though. I can't wait to finish this fic and move on to the next in the series, and eventually conclude Beth and Daryl's tumultuous journey in this fun little AU.

Small Miracles; 39k+ words, 6/10 chapters This is the fic that finally pushed me back into being able to write. I had no plans of writing for BHF 2023, and then I suddenly had this strike of inspiration for a very weird idea and decided to go with it and try and finish it in time to post for Christmas. I did manage to finish about 1/3rd of the fic in time, but I'm still writing it and haven't lost motivation yet, so that's a good sign! It's also just really fun and kind of cathartic to do a new exploration of Beth's journey through the eyes of an older Beth who survived Grady, with that fun little supernatural twist added to it. I can't wait to finish this one, because I've had a lot of fun writing it and really look forward to seeing what people think of her entire journey and the way it will conclude.

To everyone who's read my fics, left feedback, kudos, bookmarks, or even helped me bounce ideas off and come up with plans for fics... thank you so much! I appreciate everyone in this little fandom so, so much. Y'all mean the world to me, and I am so grateful that we have this wonderful community in our own little corner of the internet. Happy New Year to you all, and I hope 2024 brings you nothing but blessings!

[sun-undone]

i'm finishing up yet another rewatch because when am i not rewatching this godforsaken show and all throughout season 2, i kept honing in on all the times we see JJ with that fucking flask and how it is NEVER ADDRESSED. the most we get are the two moments in 2x01 and 2x03 when Kie's telling him to chill out before school and then when she takes the flask from his hand when she thinks he's asleep.

the fact that the closest we got to any acknowledgement of that being a deeper problem was always framed around jiara???? and now we know from the EW articles that JJ's mental health is gonna be a bigger deal (thank fucking god pates i love you and i never said anything bad about y'all) in season 3, which is the jiara season??????? it's all connected and i truly cannot believe i am praising writers for basic set up and payoff but !!!!!! i really thought the flask was their half-assed way of giving JJ some kind of individual arc when they totally dropped all his other plot lines (restitution and Luke/abuse trauma) but i could not be more happy to be proven wrong.

(i mean, they might be talking a big game now, it all comes down to the actual execution but i'm still so fucking excited that they've specifically mentioned taking a look at the pogues' mental states and it gives me a lot of hope okay)

everyone's already said this but i really think we're gonna see JJ struggling hardcore with being back home and not knowing what his place is as the dynamic of the pogues has changed so much. Cleo and Pope are paired off, since we now have confirmation that she'll be staying with him and his family. John B is gonna be reunited with his father, and he and Sarah have got each other as well. Kie has her parents to go back to, as strained as that relationship is. JJ is very clearly the odd one out.

poguelandia is the first time that JJ has ever been away from the obx. he has never existed outside the bubble of what it means to be a Maybank in the obx. so he's gotta feel so free, right?? he can provide for his family by fishing and they can get by just well enough to survive and live off the land and they have each other, and that's always been enough for JJ.

and if he and Kie gravitate closer on poguelandia like we all think they will, then all of that happiness and a taste of his surf trip dream will suddenly get ripped away from him when they have to go back home, and he's absolutely gonna spiral. he's gonna pull away and deflect and overcompensate with alcohol and use all the other immature coping mechanisms we've seen him use before, and i am so fucking ready for this angst holy shit cause there's just been so much set up for it. the pates love a fast burn so i think we were all kinda worried about the slow burn with jiara, but my expectations are officially sky high. i'm so glad that they're using the established character flaws and insecurities for JJ as part of the angst, and i'm assuming Kie's issues with her parents will be the external force adding onto that and making it even angstier.

it's not mind-blowing writing whatsoever, but after season 2 kinda let us down in terms of giving us insight into JJ's headspace, i'm just over the moon to see that it might've all been a set up for something bigger. they knew they wanted to save the deep dive into JJ's trauma for the jiara season because it's so integral to understanding how JJ receives and doesn't receive love. you can't put JJ in a romantic plot line without addressing all that trauma and self-hatred, and it's something fic writers have created masterpieces about and i can't stop saying it but i am just so fucking happy that the pates are putting it in canon. they really do care about these characters huh

if season 3 ends up being a disaster and the trauma plot line is disappointing as hell then no one saw this i didn't write it you didn't read it

[bobafett]

stealing this because the boops made me realize how much i miss tag games.

How many works do you have on AO3? A grand total of 14. I am not a prolific writer.

What’s your total AO3 word count? 63,880. Please see above answer.

What fandoms do you write for? Batman and Star Wars. I have a little bit of Supernatural fic posted on an alt account, and I've been turning over an idea for an OW fic in my head for a while, but it takes me a long time to figure out how to write in a fandom in a way that still captures the "vibes" of the source material (which is always one of my goals). So I rarely branch out.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? New Cornerstone (suitless!Vader AU from a million years ago), Brothers in Arms (Jon starts to get an inkling that his best friend has perhaps not had a normal childhood), Setting the Bone (Selina Kyle: reluctant parental figure), In This Twilight (Damian and Jason brotherly bonding, first batfam fic I ever wrote), and Try to Sweep the Darkness Out (batfam Christmas special that I've almost orphaned 10 times because I hate the writing choices I made in it so much). None of the fics I'm actually proud of are on this list. Tragic.

Do you respond to comments? Irregularly and unpredictably! I will if I feel like I have something to say and it catches me in the right mood.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Uh, that would be High Water Mark since it starts with a scene of Cody contemplating suicide and ends with the instant right before Order 66 kicks in.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Probably Problem Solving since it's the only fic I've ever written where I was actually trying to be light hearted.

Do you get hate on fics? Never, thankfully.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? If I thought I could do it successfully, I would. But I'm not, so I don't.

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Basically never. There is a Doctor Who/Sherlock fic buried on my old FF.net account. There's also a Super Smash Bros fic on there that I wrote in 2009, which I suppose also counts.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I can't imagine why anyone would.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, and I never would. I'm too much of a control freak about my writing. Writing, say, shared universe stuff might be fun, but actually co-authoring something would drive me nuts.

What’s your all time favorite ship? What a question. I come back to Jaime/Brienne a lot for reading, but I don't think I'd ever write it. I write a ton of BatCat, but rarely read it because I'm particular. I like Lois/Clark, but I almost never write OR read it. I'm honestly not very ship motivated. Most of the time I filter for a ship because I'm in the mood for its attendant tropes, and if the writing is good, you can sell me on just about anything.

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Hmngh. New Cornerstone again. There's 20k of an expanded version of it on my hard drive that I haven't added to since probably 2017. There's something very fun about suitless!Vader as a character because he's such a sparking, destructive livewire of a person, but also I'm experienced enough now to realize how difficult doing justice to that premise is. Also, I'd have to rewatch TCW to get Ahsoka's voice down, and I just don't got time for that shit.

What are your writing strengths? Description and sense of place. Also pretty good at dialogue.

What are your writing weaknesses? Fucking. Long fic. Plot in general. I'm horrifically bad at it.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I'm usually inclined to keep all my dialogue in English, but it would depend on the context and the effect I was going for.

First fandom you wrote for? Purposefully? Inuyasha. Without having any idea what fanfic was? I created an Artemis Fowl fairy OC and stuck her in Indiana Jones when I was 10 years old.

Favorite fic you’ve written? They Don't Sing Songs For Me. No contest. It's perfectly captures what I think is the ideal form of fanfic: two characters who have absolutely no business interacting with each other building a compelling relationship dynamic over the course of 9k words.

I will be tagging @panharmonium, @apostatefrog, @dead-ghost-walking, @ryehouses, @yellowocaballero, @lazuliquetzal. Also anyone else who wants to. I will bring back tag games by force of will, so help me God.

[signiorbenedickofpadua]

20 questions for fic writers!

I was tagged by both @honeyteacakes and @acedragontype. Thank you my dears!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

7 right now. I think I had three or four up on my first account, but that one was randomly deleted by the site in like 2019? Or something? I never could get it back, and I never republished the fics, because I kind of lost motivation for writing for a while because of that, and now that I'm back in the game, it's been so long since I wrote that stuff that I either don't really like what I wrote then, or figure that I'd rather rewrite the one fic that I do still like. Oh, god. I just remembered that there was ONE fic that I actually orphaned back then, which means that it's still up. Oooh Christ... I'm not going to name drop it, because I orphaned it for a reason - the reason being that it's the crackiest crac!fic imaginable, born out of sleep deprivation and giggly group chats... I'm looking at it now, and it's apparently 10 years old. Oh. Oh no. I reread it. Oh, god. This was the first "attempt" at smut I ever wrote, and it was between a woman and a sentient inanimate edible object. 8d10 psychic damage, do not recommend.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

At the moment: 296.290 words When I'm finished updating This Dream Is Over (Another Has Begun) it will be around 350.000 words, and I just hit 105k on the Regency fic I'm working on, so by the end of the year we might be close to 500k... written in one year...

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Sandman, currently. On my last account I wrote for Merlin, ACD Sherlock Holmes (a school project, believe it or not), and a LotR/HP crossover (yeah, I don't really feel like re-publishing and finishing that in 2023, for obvious reasons). I might go back to writing for Merlin again, some day. I sort of want to rewrite that one fic I did post, because I quite liked the premise...but I feel like I would need to rewatch the entire series before I did that, and who's got the time?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. My Stranger, My Dream - 1507 2. Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem - 818 3. Yours for the Taking - 579 4. Body and Soul, Always and Forever - 565 5. Stay, Just this Once - or - GroundHob Day - 499

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

I try to reply to almost every comment, because I want the commenter to know how much I appreciate that they took the time to comment. I crave that validation, perhaps a little too much, but that's robably common with authors... When I'm updating a fic one chapter at a time, I usually manage to reply to all of them, even if it's just with a couple of heart emojis (if I couldn't think of anything else), but once the whole fic is up and I get one reader who is leaving a bunch of comments in rapid succession, I sometimes skip the one's that are just emojis or exclamation marks and focus on the ones I have real replies to - not because I don't appreciate the emojis just as much, but because I worry that I'd be spamming the reader with like five identical heart-emoji replies :P

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

Hm, I tend to end things rather happily, but I suppose Stay, Just this Once could be read a bit angsty, since it ends with Hob in 1889 going "Dream kissed me and then left with an implication of potential future kisses? Oh boy, I can't wait until 1989!" when, you know, Dream won't show in 1989.

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

Probably This Dream Is Over. I mean, they're all pretty happy, but that one is just so hopeful and soft... You'll see what I mean when I post the last chapter ;)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really. There was one reader who left a couple of comments with very much unasked-for advice (and fairly bad advice, at that) which made me feel a bit meh, but that's hardly hate. Then there was this one comment that went a bit like "Well, that was stupid," and to this day I have no idea if they meant the writing or the characters (who were, to be fair, being very stupid in that chapter). Tone can be very hard to read in text, so I'm trying to give them the benefit of doubt. But no, no real hate, thankfully.

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

Yup. When I started writing again about a year ago, I decided to give it a try, not really thinking I could make it work, considering the last time I wrote romance I had trouble even describing a kiss (which was almost a decade earlier), but it actually worked (I hope)! Then I just couldn't seem to write something without smut. I tried to deliberately leave things off before the explicit parts in one or two stories (making them "just" mature) for people who aren't into the stuff, and I also try to make all the explicit content skippable for those who want to read the rest of the story. What kind of smut? Idk, I've written M/M and M/F so far, I'll probably write F/F at some point too. I think most of it has been fairly vanilla so far, with some light themes of BDSM maybe, if you squint.

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

Only that LotR/HP one I mentioned earlier, which I abandonded when my account was deleted. I did start planning a Star Trek AU for Merlin, but I think I only wrote a chapter or so before my motivation died and I never published anything. I think I'm generally more interested in AUs taking place in other franchises than "real" crossover with actual characters from both universes.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge. Let's keep it that way!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not yet! I suppose I could do it myself, but as the only language I speak well enough to translate into is Swedish, and Swedes tend to read stuff in English anyway, I don't know that there would be much of a point.

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

No, but I'd be open to trying! Could be either super fun or incredibly frustrating, but you never know until you try!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

I mean, I think it's a draw between Merthur and Dreamling. If I went back and started reading and writing fic for Merthur again, I'm sure I'd fall right back into it, even if Dreamling is my current obession.

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

Only the couple of WiPs I have from my first AO3 account, I think. I'm trying really hard this time around not to jump between projects too much, but finish what I have before I start something new. If I give myself free reins, my ADD is going to make sure nothing ever gets finished.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, for sure, and characterisation - or at least I fervently hope that my readers would agree on that point.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions, definitely. What does anyone look like? I don't know, I couldn't decide, make it up yourself. I had to go back and make myself add a sentence about Hob's friend Dana being blonde in the last two chapters of This Dream Is Over, since she's an OC and my readers would have no idea at all what she looked like otherwise. It's a struggle, and I do try to practise, but it doesn't come as easy as dialogue and character.

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

Fun! I've written a few scenes with some Middle English in them, and I have this vague idea of part of a scene where Hob and Dream are walking in London or something and Hob overhears a couple of Swedish tourists discuss how to get somewhere or something, and him turning to them and giving them directions in hilariously outdated Swedish, and Dream going, "When did you last visit Scandinavia?" And Hob says, "Um, 1745, I think. Why?" and Dream is like, "...Nothing." I just don't know how funny that would be to readers who don't speak Swedish... Might still use it some day.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Technically? The Redwall series. I was like 10 and we had to write a story in school, and I was obsessed with Redwall and wanted to write something with talking animals, and I couldn't come up with a better name for the place, so in the end I straight up copied the world and wrote more or less a self-insert who ended up there, entirely oblivious to the concept of fanfiction, but I suppose it counts anyway. I won a prize for it. I have no idea if the adults who judged it knew it was fanfic or not...

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I think it's the Dreamling Regency AU I'm currently working on. If I manage to pull it off as well as I'm hoping to, I think it will be the best thing I've written so far. I'm even considering looking for beta readers for the first time, because I think it has potential and I want it to be the best it can be.

21. CHEEKY EXTRA QUESTION BECAUSE I FELT LIKE GIVING ADVICE - What's the best advice you have for other writers?

If you write longfic, NAME YOUR CHAPTERS! My first couple of fics just had numbered chapters, and whenever I had to go back to double check some detail, or rewrite some sentence I had to retcon, I had to be like "uuuh I think it might be chapter five??" and then waste a bunch of time checking. Now, I have chapter titles which are descriptive enough to remind me of exactly what the chapter is about, and it has made my life so much easier... Also, connected to this, actually using the chapter headers etc. in your word processor so that you get a list of chapters you can pull up to navigate.

Tagging:

@pellaaearien, @arialerendeair, @hardly-an-escape, @ml-nolan

[brigitteblackwood]

hiii thanks for rbing my horror recs post! here's your recs! :)

based on ginger snaps i'd recommend let the right one in (2008), the lure (2015), the witch (2015), the living dead girl (1982), stoker (2013), bones and all (2022) and carrie (1976) about (blood thirsty) outcast girls who want to be loved :(. 

based on hausu i'd recommend suspiria (1977), beetlejuice (1988), eraserhead (1977), the love witch (2016), the cell (2000) and the rocky horror picture show (1975) because they have unique aesthetics that they really commit to, and tetsuo: the iron man (1989), brain damage (1988), possessor (2020), killer klowns from outer space (1988), the machine girl (2008) and videodrome (1983) because they're some of the more unhinged batshit insane movies i've seen.

based on we're all going to the world's fair i'd recommend i saw the tv glow (2024), pulse (2001), skinamarink (2022), may (2002), censor (2021), swallow (2019) and eraserhead (1977) which are all strange but beautiful movies with themes of loneliness. 

based on scream i'd recommend urban legend (1998), behind the mask: the rise of leslie vernon (2006), house of wax (2005), you're next (2011), haunt (2019), the final girls (2015), totally killer (2023) and the cabin in the woods (2011) because they're all about (masked) killers starring cool female characters.

based on the blair witch project i'd recommend the ritual (2017), horror in high desert (2021), the strangers (2008), the tunnel (2011) and them (2006) which are all quite simple but effective horrors about something lurking in the shadows.

hope there's some you haven't seen yet! :)

Thanks for the recommendations! Some of these I've seen already, but there are plenty I still haven't watched. In fact, a few have been on my watchlist for a while, so I'll take this as a sign to get to them soon (or, in the case of Let the Right One In, hurry up and read the book since I want to finish it before checking out any of the adaptations).

I thought it might be fun to share my thoughts about the ones I have seen:

The Witch (2015) - I read The Crucible when I was far too young (I stole it off my parents' bookshelf after I got bored with reading Junie B. Jones) and was obsessed with dark fairy tales about witches living in the forest as a child. So this was very much my shit.

Stoker (2013) - After watching this, I spent so many nights just wondering whether India Stoker and Merricat Blackwood would get along or try to kill each other if they ever met. I still don't have an answer.

Carrie (1976) - Love the use of split screen and Sissy Spacek really only moving her eyes during the attack on the gym. Hate the aggressive male-gazeyness of the locker room scene and the under usage of Amy Irving (I thought she was a interesting choice to play Sue, and I'm forever bitter she and Carrie didn't get to have their confrontation at the end like they do in the book).

Suspiria (1977) - The colours! The Goblin soundtrack! Sure, the actual plot barely makes any sense, but I adore it so much!

Beetlejuice (1988) - The last time I watched this was back in high school, so I should probably give it a rewatch soon. I remember loving the Maitlands and the Deetz family but absolutely hating Betelgeuse; I think he's the weakest character and would argue that you could still get a great story without him, but I understand I'm likely in the minority here.

Eraserhead (1977) - God, I always get so mad on the baby's behalf. He cries all the time! Well, he probably wouldn't cry so much if you didn't leave him lying on a hard table 24/7! 🙄

The Love Witch (2016) - I'm conflicted about this one. I thought it was beautifully shot, and I love anything that pays homage to older films. But since Anna Biller has gone full TERF since its release, I've found my viewing experience somewhat soured (which sucks because I was really interested in seeing her upcoming Bluebeard adaptation before I found out).

Videodrome (1983) - Another one I need to revisit. I'm a big Cronenberg fan, but I don't think I really gelled with this one the first time I watched it. James Wood (🤢) being the star probably didn't help.

I Saw the TV Glow (2024) - I got to see it at my local indie cinema as a double feature with The People's Joker last month! I bawled my eyes out, but thankfully, so did everyone else around me.

May (2002) - She's so me (minus the murder and mutilation, of course).

Swallow (2019) - Has one of my favourite ending shots in film history.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011) - The script was far too Whedon-y for me to enjoy, but I cheered so loud when they unleashed all the monsters on the staff.

Rocky Horror (1975) - I have fond memories of my mother sneaking 14-year-old me and my 10-year-old sister into our first live viewing (I think the only reason she succeeded was because my sister hit puberty early and looked a lot older). We'd known about the show for most of our childhood because both our parents worked in theatre and would often play showtunes around the house, so we'd already memorized most of the songs (minus Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me, which our parents would skip for obvious reasons).

I'd love to hear some of you're thoughts on these films. If you're comfortable sharing.