#the last month literally i created a whole story but i didn't write it

[redheartzz]

lord peepers stuff bc uuuuu

[avatar-anna]

Rumors

so...i've had this concept rattling around in my brain, but i had no idea how to write it, so i used pictures instead. i definitely want to do more, but tumnlr only allows 10 pictures a post, so here's to hoping i remember to come back to this in the future!

yourinstagram

liked by taylorswift and 67,530 others

yourinstagram: had a very cool dude over today to make even cooler music

yoursistersinstagram: you let someone in the bat cave?!

y/nfan5: possible collab on the new album?

yourinstagram: more like i was helping someone with theirs ;))

harrystyles: Thank you for having me. X.

harryfan3: HARRY???

harryfan7: omgomgomgomgomg

y/nfan1: pls god let us have a harry and y/n collab on his next album i NEED it

harrystyles

liked by gemmastyles, yourinstagram and 2,233,781 others

harrystyles: HS3. Coming soon.

harryfan8: NEW ALBUM ALERT

harryfan11: HARRY YOU CANT JUST DROP SOMETHING LIKE THAT WITHOUT A RELEASE DATE

harryfan4: this has to be what he was working on with y/n right?

y/nfan3: i need them both on a song together

yourinstagram: had fun late night talking with you xx

y/nfan9: i'm sorry wHAT

harryfan5: is this flirting this sounds like flirting

harryfan13: honestly...here for it

y/nupdates

liked by harryfan7 and 4,320 others

y/nupdates: Y/n in a video for Vogue recently!

"A lot of people ask me how Harry Styles ended up recording at my house when we'd virtually never crossed paths before. It was actually Taylor (Swift) who kind of set the whole thing up. They spoke at the Grammys last year and she apparently gave him my number so we could work together...He called and asked if I was available to help with his album at all. At the time I was on the road, then working on stuff for the band, and it just kind of went back and forth for a few months while we tried to line up our schedules. Then I was done touring, but I was kind of in a weird state in life where I didn't want to leave the house or hang out with anyone. And I remember making up excuses because I wasn't really up to making myself presentable to a whole team of people I'd never met before and having our first meeting be this huge thing. I'd basically built it all up in my head about how our ideas would clash and we wouldn't get along and I just kept telling him maybe some other time. Long story short, Harry showed up at my place a week later by himself with just a guitar, a notebook, and my favorite takeout order. We spent the whole day together working on a bunch of different stuff from themes to genres of music to sampling and mixing. And writing. Lots and lots of writing. And now he's a dear friend. He's so sweet and so talented. I wish him all the best with the new album."

y/nfan8: ok i'm glad it worked out and everything but imagine a virtual stranger showing up to your HOUSE?? like she said no and he basically forced her to write his album for her

y/nfan4: that's so real of her tbh to not want to leave her house

y/nfan2: y/n is notoriously introverted it makes sense

harryfan13: girl...

y/nfan7: i don't think it was that serious. and if she really didn't want him there she could've said no

harryfan13: and y/n literally called him a friend?? stop trying to start shit that doesn't exist

y/nfan7: of COURSE mother brought them together

harryfan17: i can't believe that's what harry and taylor were talking about in the video!

harryfan2: chill harry doesn't need to be in a relationship with every woman he's associated with

harryfan4: wait but wasn't y/n at that grammys too?

harryfan9: it was still covid it's possible their paths didn't cross

y/nfan19: wait what if he was too shy to go up to her??😭

harryfan4: i love that they're writing besties now but i think they'd be so cute together 🥹

hsupdates

liked by harryfan4 and 10,343 others

hsupdates: Harry about Y/n L/n for Rolling Stone:

"I've always admired (Y/n's) work. She and her band are incredibly talented, and are just so passionate about creating music. I wanted that same energy for my third album, the freedom to make whatever I want without any reservations, and I knew Y/n was the perfect addition to the team. It took some convincing, but once we kind of got started, we couldn't stop. As we've gotten to know each other these past few months, I not only respect her as a musician, but for the person she is as well. Her soul is one of a kind, and I feel like my album would be so different without her on it. So now not only do I have an album that I'm proud of and love, but I got an extraordinary friend out of it too."

harryfan9: so this is what people mean when they say platonic soulmates

y/nfan12: all we've gotten is crumbs and i'm already in love with their friendship. and the album of course

y/nfan2: i'm so interested to hear this album now. if y/n is on it it has to be good

harryfan3: "her soul is one of a kind?" if that's harry as a friend i don't think i can handle boyfriendrry😭

y/nfan7: i'm holding out hope for them honestly🤞🏼🤞🏼

liked by harrystyles and 23,724 others

yourinstagram

yourinstagram: you've fallen from the sky down to me, i see it in your face, i'm relief, i'm your summer girl

y/nfan17: shut up are those song lyrics??

yourbandinstagram: the tears behind your dark sunglasses, the fears inside your heart as deep as gashes🎶🎶

y/nfan17: HOLY SHIT those ARE lyrics!

y/nfan6: haven't even heard the song and i know the girls have done it again

harryfan4: could it...could it be about harry?

y/nfan8: you're grasping at straws

harryfan12: are they? they've been spotted together all over LA

harrystyles: ☀️☀️

y/nfan8: as friends. friends can hang out can't they?

harryfan3: new music from harry AND y/n? we're about to be fed y'all

harryfan10: THEY REALLY ARE BESTIES

y/nfan2: i bet they collaborated on this song together

Interviewer (I): What's one memory or experience you can share from making this album? Any trips to Japan or Jamaica?

Harry (H): We stayed in Los Angeles mostly for this one. But erm...in terms of a specific memory...I would say that while I was working with Y/n, one of the tracks was actually inspired by her cat.

I: Really?

H: Yeah. Whenever it did something to annoy Y/n, which was quite often, she'd call her a little freak. The song's obviously not about the cat, but the phrase was in my head and yeah. Things just kind of...snowballed from there.

I: The sound that Y/n's band has is more rock centric, a similar sound to your first album. Is that what we can expect for your third studio album?

I: You've become quite close to Y/n L/n it seems like.

H: Not necessarily. Y/n and I collaborated, but she also let me take the reins in terms of sound. She had opinions of course and we would bounce ideas off of each other...but she really just followed my lead and supported the vision I had. She is playing a majority of the instruments on the album, though.

H: It's hard not to.

I: How so?

I: It sounds like you could go on for quite some time about her.

H: She's just cool, you know? I was kind of intimidated when we met for the first time. She's quiet, but you never forget that she's in the room, you just want to go over and talk to her. Of course once you meet her she's incredibly kind and not at all intimidating, but still like chill and stuff. The first time we met we sat for an hour just talking about music we enjoyed and live shows we wanted to attend and things we learned while in lockdown. She's just effortlessly cool. An old soul, I guess. And somehow she translates that into her music. Her sisters, too. They're all just first-rate musicians.

H: Sorry. I kind of gushed for a minute there.

H: And the band. They're just so talented, you know?

harrystyles

liked by jeffazoff and 4,211,323 others

harrystyles: From start to finish, making this album has been such an incredible journey. It was so fun to try new things sonically while also making something that I'm one hundred percent proud of. I've never felt more myself while making music than I did while creating this album for all of you, and I have so many people to thank for that. Hopefully you know who you are. I love, love, love you.

harryfan16: 😭😭😭😭😭

harris_reed: little angel👼

harryfan3: WE'RE SO PROUD OF YOU

yourinstagram: congratulations h. you deserve it.💐💐💐

harrystyles: I couldn't have done it without you💐

yourinstagram

liked by yourbandinstagram and 53,089 others

yourinstagram: for one night and one night only...but in all seriousness shout out to my friend and his incredible album. happy to have been a part of the magic :)))

harryfan13: HAPPY HARRY DAY!!!

harryfan4: is she in ny??

y/nfan7: yes! she was spotted with harry before the show today

harryfan9: they're literally so cute i love their friendship

harrystyles: You made the magic happen. Thank you for everything. X.

harryfan3: they're so...

y/nfan2: i genuinely think they like fucking with us bc i legitimately can't tell if they're dating or not

y/nfan7: at this point i don't even care i love whatever they're doing they both just seem so happy to be besties/lovers/collaborators and i love that for them

harryfan5: ^^

y/nupdates

liked by harryfan10 and 3,742 others

y/nupdates: Y/n performing Keep Driving onstage with Harry in NYC tonight at ONO!

y/nupdates: When he introduced her, he said: "Tonight is special in a lot of ways. I'm sharing my album with you for the first time, my family's here, my friends are here, and...a very good friend of mine is here to play a song with me tonight. This album wouldn't have been possible without her, so please give her as much love as you've given me. Y/n L/n, everybody!"

harryfan4: stop they're so close it hurts😭

y/nfan7: i was there they were staring at each other and smiling the whole time!

harryfan12: that's the one where he says choke her with a sea view!?

y/nfan7: YES AND I SWEAR HIS SMILE GOT BIGGER WHEN HE SANG THAT PART AND LOOKED AT HER LIKE HE FULLY HAD TO TURN AROUND TO LOOK AT HER BC SHE WAS PLAYING THE DRUMS

harryfan3: i'm choosing to believe they're in love idc what anyone else says

hs/ynupdates

hs/ynupdates: Harry, Y/n, and her sisters in New York after ONO tonight! Apparently Harry and Y/n were standing and walking very close to each other. Like arms wrapped around each other close.

harryfan2: that could literally mean anything tho. they're good friends why wouldn't they walk next to each other?

y/nfan14: i feel like they don't know if they're dating or not at this point😅

y/nfan8: her sisters are so unserious i love it

y/nfan5: i love that they all showed up for harry🥹

yourbandinstagram

liked by taylorswift, harrystyles and 710,225 others

yourbandinstagram: Thanks for having us, London!

y/nfan1: i can't believe i got to see harry and y/n perform in ONE NIGHT

harryfan3: sending my love and my tears to everyone who got to experience this historic night

harrystyles: Thank you for taking the time to share the stage with me. X.

yourbandfan2: how do y'all always look so good 😭

I: So you opened for Harry Styles a few weeks ago and performed a song with him in New York.

Y/n: My sisters and I did, yeah.

I: How did that come about? Did your team call his team? Or was it more casual than that?

Y/n: Oh, definitely more casual. I think we were just hanging out together one morning and he kind of just suggested it. No bells and whistles or anything like that.

I: So can we expect (Your band) to join Harry on his upcoming tour, then?

Y/n: I don't think so. We're working on putting out a record of our own at the moment, but we do want to get back out on the road soon, but I will definitely be attending more of his shows in the future.

I: And what can we expect from this upcoming record? Did Harry help you the way you helped him out?

Y/n: I've sent him a couple things to listen to, and I value his opinion a lot, both as a friend and as an artist. He also showed me a couple records recently which kind of influenced how I approached some of the songs sonically. He's got a huge vinyl collection at his house. I'm honestly kind of jealous.

I: There's been some rumors running around that you and Harry are in a romantic relationship. Would you like to put any of those rumors to rest?

Y/n: I could see where people might think that. Harry's very affectionate by nature, and over the last couple of months we've become very close. He's not just someone I admire in the music industry, but as a person in general. I feel incredibly lucky to call him a friend. And a close one, at that.

I: So just a friend then?

Y/n: Yeah. Yeah, just a friend.

[rearranged-fanfic]

(Update 6/3)

Sit down a spell, weary traveler. Come and sit by my fire; bask in the warmth of the flame and rest your aching scrolling finger. You'll be sitting a while, for I have a tale to tell:

Okay, so I've had a Toshiba laptop for the better part of ten years. Maybe a little longer. That laptop has survived being struck by lightning, submerged in a bathtub, and literally having a whole bookcase topple down onto it. I thought it was immortal...

I was sadly mistaken.

About six months ago, I noticed that the typing was getting sluggish. I'd patter away at the keyboard and the letters would appear with a bit of lag. That's fine, since I use Dragon to talk-to-text for quite a bit of my writing. I really only use the keyboard for final assembly, editing, and doing quick rewrites. So, it really didn't bother me. Fastforward to April, which we will call The Great Depression. The time discrepancy between typing and having letters appear on screen became a whopping 40 seconds. Yes, I timed it.

But that was okay, because I could still use my Dragon headset.

Until I couldn't.

It would connect, but the words wouldn't appear on screen. I made sure that all of my programs were up-to-date, and that everything was working. The headset connected to my family's computers just fine. So that meant it was something wrong with mine.

Without being sure if it was the hardware or software at fault, I backed everything up to OneDrive and Google Docs.

I factory reset.

Twice. To no avail.

Over the next few days, my laptop stopped registering any keyboard input at all. It got to a point where I wasn't able to turn it on or off.

Taking it to an electronics store to get repaired didn't help, either. No luck. They said that it would be more cost effective to just buckle down and get a new one, since the age of the laptop meant that I would probably be constantly maintaining it.

My poor Toshiba died kicking and screaming, putting up a fight worthy of an epic ballad.

I saved up for a few weeks, got a new laptop, and went through the rigmarole of getting all of my programs back on it. My files are in order. My life is in shambles (but that's normal, LOL).

I DID do some story work without my computer, but... it's bad. Like, I'd die in shame if I posted anything that I thumbed in. So. Many. Spelling. Errors. How people write on their phone is beyond me. That's a talent I simply don't possess.

At this point, I'm thinking of renaming this story "HIATUS" lol. JK. But I'm seriously peeved that this happened after my last big break. Why couldn't the Depression and laptop breakdown coincide nicely? I guess that's too much to ask of the universe *Shakes fist at the sky*.

I'm creating a damn bingo card for every stupid thing that happens to me while I try to write. Because this is getting ridiculous. I broke my fingers, there was a total solar eclipse, I had a major-ish mental breakdown, and my computer bit the big one. With a free space, that's a bingo. Let's hope I don't get a blackout before the end of 2024.

I doubted the fanfiction curse. I really did. But it's apparently real. And this writer's curse has teeth, people. It bites hard.

I have my MerMay two-shot pretty well done (because I was typing it during The Great Depression), but the next chapter for REARRANGED is still rough. Crimson Chapter 3 is halfway done, but who knows how long that'll take.

The bottom line is that I'm alive and still working on the stories. The next update on this blog will be the posting of several chapters for a few different works. Fingers crossed.

Also, I'm very, very slowly answering the comments in my AO3 inbox. Some of them were pretty lengthy, so it might take a bit. Oof.

If there ever comes a time that I drop this fanfiction or am unable to continue for whatever reason, either I or my husband will be posting the entirety of my outline, as well as anything that's been pre-written for you guys to enjoy. That way there are no questions left unanswered or mysteries unsolved.

[imagine-you]

also regarding ‘I'm Coming For You and I'm Making War’… i wanna know anything and everything about ur whole writing process and the butcher’s background etc and AAAAAAH i’m so invested u have no idea

I've been saving this ask, because I didn't want to get it wrong and I also knew my answer was going to get ridiculously long and I'm so sorry for that.

This character has been in my head for months and months. I had wanted to write a Hunger Games fic for so long, but I always thought my first one would be Finnick/Reader. I didn't really have an idea, it was just kind of an 'I should get to that at some point,' kind of thing. It wasn't until a gifset crossed my dash that the idea for the Johanna fic was born. I saw that and thought what if reader is literally right fucking there and they have to hide how they feel about each other because they've both lost everything and don't want to lose each other too? 'There's no one left that I love,' is really the quote that created this fic.

And then I was like well that means reader has to be a victor, right? She's in the Quarter Quell, so she had to have won a Hunger Games at some point. So, which Hunger Games did she win? I started looking at the list of victors and there were a few years where it wasn't explicitly stated who won but District 10 was somewhere in there from like 67th-69th Hunger Games or something like that. I finally settled on reader being from District 10 and winning the 68th Games because I felt like it made the most sense at the time. I wanted reader to be young enough that when she met Johanna they would be about the same age, but I didn't want to usurp Finnick's achievement of being the youngest victor at the age of 14, so reader was 15 when she won her Games.

I also wanted reader to be all alone when she went into the Hunger Games. So, no family, no friends, nothing. She didn't talk to anyone. She was kind of in a daze for her whole Games, because she was very much of the mindset that everyone had given up on her just because she was an orphan. The Hunger Games sacrifices something precious, children, and when she realizes that people are like 'oh a year we're saved from sacrificing someone's daughter,' she realizes that even though she doesn't have anyone, that doesn't mean she can't still have herself. So, she goes into the arena, with the single-minded intent of winning so she can eventually find a way to not only survive and show everyone that they shouldn't have dismissed her for not being important to anyone, but she also is like 'fuck this, fuck the Capitol, fuck everyone who's making this happen.' A lot of that attitude carries with her throughout the story, but once she's given people to care about, she realizes that she now has something to lose. Before, she would only lose herself, but now she has friends and Johanna, people she loves more than anything, more than herself, and losing them would devastate her.

I am a sucker for found family and I wanted reader to have that. So, she not only ends up with Finnick, the Capitol's star as a best friend, but Johanna Mason as her love interest. And then eventually, she gains more friends like Katniss and Peeta and the OCs Jesse and even Ben. (Although, I will admit, Jesse is based on Jesse from The Last Of Us 2 because I'm in love with him and I'll eventually write my fic for him.) Since reader grew up with nothing, she would be hellbent on protecting and watching out for everything she's painstakingly claimed for her own, which is why when Johanna is taken by the Capitol, she literally lets Coin torture her (the snakes, drowning, claustrophobia, etc.) all in the name of being on the team that's going to rescue Johanna and fight in the war against the Capitol and Snow.

Reader grew up without any of those important formative relationships which is why after she's crowned victor of the 68th Games, she's basically a hermit in District 10. Her and Haymitch were a bit similar in that respect, except reader doesn't really drink like Haymitch. She doesn't hold much love or respect for District 10, because when she needed them most, they ignored her. When they thought they might get something out of her being a victor, they were suddenly interested in her, which is why she now ignores them. I tried explaining that especially when she's going into the Quarter Quell and the other District 10 tribute, Clay (another OC), tries to be all 'for District 10' and reader is like 'fuck District 10 they've done nothing for me and I owe them nothing.' So, when Clay tries to kill her later on and District 10 sends her the tribute gift, that breaks and heals something in her. Which is why she attacks a tree, which is more or less a symbol for Johanna. She takes her anger and frustration and pain out on that because everything she has in her at that moment is either for Johanna or for Finnick, so she has to learn how to kind of readjust her worldview to think 'maybe there's a home for me and it's not what I thought it was.'

District 10 is the livestock district, which means reader would have been forced to work in a slaughterhouse and process the meat from that as a child/teenager. Fortunately or unfortunately for her, she uses some things that she learned from that trade in her 68th Hunger Games. A lot of stuff she went through in those Games is a bit of a blur, because she was so angry and hurt and that really carried her through until the end. Which is why when she ended up with the nickname 'The Butcher,' it not only reminds her of the worst moments of her life, but also her childhood and things she wants to escape. The fact that it literally follows her everywhere and becomes her identity around everyone understandably annoys her, but she is willing to use that when it benefits her (usually when she wants to intimidate someone).

I didn't quite realize when I started this fic that it would be so long. I thought it would be 3 parts and I would just kind of gloss over certain things, jump to events with Johanna, and nothing else would matter. But once I started it, I started thinking about how much I really wanted to integrate the reader into the Hunger Games 'verse and the events that unfolded. She's going to influence some things and I hope the changes are welcome changes. The story will for the most part remain the same, but having another victor on the rebellion's side, one so single-minded and stubborn and with no self-preservation instincts when it comes to her loved ones definitely helps some characters more than others.

I wanted to show that reader obviously starts caring about Johanna and Finnick, they're the most important people to her, but also others as well. And in return, they care about her and are protective of her, even though she's obviously a badass and is now basically a trained killer where I left off in the story.

I initially was going to have it be tragic like oh Johanna and Finnick get called for the Quarter Quell and reader does too. But I was like what if reader volunteered? What if reader was like 'you know, might not make it out of this one alive, but I can sure guarantee that someone I love does,' because reader is a bit of a self-sacrificing idiot. Which is why Johanna understandably gets really fucking pissed and that anger is how they finally learned how to communicate their feelings for each other. They both have rage and hurt in them, but it displays itself in different ways, and they eventually find a middle ground to express those feelings.

I really thought I didn't have much at all to say about Mockingjay. Reader was separated from Johanna, so what did it matter, right? Skip to the rescue and they live happily ever after. But then I really was thinking about how much it would affect reader. She had Johanna and lost her and all because she thought she was doing what was best. She was following the plan because she was promised Johanna would make it out of the arena alive and mostly well and they could be together and the rebellion would start. But it didn't happen like that and she realizes she was kept in the dark for a few parts of the plan. So, she decides that now that going with the group's plan didn't work, that she would find her own way to save Johanna and reunite with her. Which is why she basically goes through hell all over again to get back to her. She trains and she passes her tests and she makes friends with soldiers in order to build whatever connections she needs to get to where she wants. She has to employ a more diplomatic approach to getting what she wants than just running at the problem full tilt and hoping she makes it out alive.

With the last installment, I really want to focus on more of the rebellion. Reader has been trapped with her worry over Johanna and now that Johanna is safe in District 13, now she's going to have a lot more to be concerned about. There's pods and Peeta's hijacking and mutts and Peacekeepers to contend with along with trying to ensure that Katniss kills Snow and Capitol rule becomes a thing of the past.

I've done my best to draw together a coherent story. I really hope it makes sense. I've refused to like reread the books or rewatch the movies while I've been writing this story, because I didn't want to produce just a straight copy of a story that already exists just with an extra character thrown in. I have researched the victor lists and timeline events and other little details that I've drawn together to try to make the story make sense, but a lot of what I've written has come from my memory of the books and movies, so some details might be off, but I've also just wanted the reader to have her own perspective on what's going on, which is why I had her on her own for like half the Quarter Quell and why I separated her from Finnick in District 13 up until the bombs fell.

I think once I finish this fic, I might focus on my Finnick idea. It involves them being childhood best friends who find themselves on opposite sides of the war. Reader's character would draw inspiration from Sejanus in Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I do want to write for Johanna again. I feel like there's a lot of her story that I still want to explore. Maybe I'll write snippets from Butcher's and Johanna's future together or maybe even their past.

Thank you so much for this wonderful ask. It really makes me so happy that you care about my fic enough that you want to know more about the 'behind the scenes.' I'm so sorry I rambled and I hope this made sense? I feel like it was just one long stream of consciousness and I didn't actually answer your ask at all. Sorry about that! I know I'm going to think of stuff I wanted to say or should have said, but didn't, so I'm just going to post this now before I chicken out.

Thank you!

[celestiall0tus]

Mental Health Awareness - Me, Myself, and I

This will likely be the last post I make for this regarding the month because everything hit the fan for my own mental health, and I'm crashing hard. So, let's be real for a second.

Since March, I've been transitioning in and out of depressive states. The whole not having a job and the constant being looked over or just not being able to meet the smallest of needs for a job was and is destroying my esteem. It's the biggest war I'm fighting with myself to remind me that I am a good writer and editor, that I just need to keep looking and applying, then I'll find the job willing to give me a chance.

The only escape I had was fanfiction, namely Bloody Bug. A big reason I was so hyperfixated on it was because I quite literally gave Alix my behaviors from those awful years (minus the whole dead mom, mine is very much alive) and there was a sense of catharsis and joy being able to explore that in a character. But I fucked up.

There was an incident a week ago writing this when I took a personal slight on Bloody Bug and reacted as I shouldn't have as a creator. I let their words bother me even long after the ashes had cooled and I see what I should have done in hindsight, which is what any creator should do, ignore the negative comments. I didn't, and reacted as I always have, with anger. I allowed myself to lose the fight before it had even begun and lashed out. I was a fool.

If not for my sister, I'd still be in that angry state, and not here, taking accountability for my actions. I fed into the negativity and let it sour my experience. I let words poison my love for the story from the few, when I should have ignored them. I even did a small reading and in my cards was the reversed three of swords, justice, and the hanged man, which told me exactly what my sister did.

Stop being so harsh on myself. Take everything in stride. Don't let things get under your skin and weigh you down. Take a moment, breathe, and collect yourself. Recenter and care for yourself before you head back into the thick of things. It's all easier said than done, but something must be done if anything is to change.

Despite my own demanding work ethic, I have made myself come to a full stop. I need to self-reflect and recenter myself before I can create again. Once I've done that, I'll be back to, well, a semi state of functioning.

[romana-after-dark]

AHHH OH MY GOD NO IM THE LAST ANON AND IM WASNT BEING SARCASTIC IM SORRY!

I'm also the same anon that gave you the really long reviews of tww and the alternate ending to tww a few months ago, so clearly, I can ramble a lot too.

I sent those reviews during the drama you referenced in your last response... so if you don't remember them cos you had other things on your mind, then nvm.

Anyways, I was just asking, cos I'm really eager to read it! I love everything about tww, but I still want to read the dark romance version you said that you're writing. (and I hope that after you publish stolen lullaby you leave tww up cos I want to be able to reread it... but obviously thats your choice)

Sorry for the confusion lol. I usually read most stuff as sarcastic as well, so I understand what your thought process must have been when you got my last ask. Sorry, I didn't consider that other people might have that issue too. I assumed that was just a me problem.

Anyways, I'm really excited for both books! Your writing skills and work ethic are admirable 😅👍🏻

ITS TOTALLY OKAY!!’

I just wasn’t entirely sure and I was a little on guard, but I like to assume the best out of anonymous messages so I just rolled with it!

I do actually very much remember your in-depth reviews and sometimes I go back and find them because hearing that people actually pay attention to the themes and the details and stuff like that and not just wanna eat. The smut really makes me happy.

Probably the wrong way up because it’s all gonna be different enough I think and I don’t want people to buy stolen lullaby because they can’t read the wrong way. Plus, I wanna be able to see all the nice comments and content that people made about it because that genuinely makes me so happy.

It all started just because I wanted to double in a little bit of non-con, but the story became so much more to me sorting out relationships with Joel Tommy Lorenzo little when and how they all interact with each other, made me fall in love with writing in a way that I can’t describe

If you’re curious, the title comes from Taylor Swift, my tears ricochet. I’m not a Swifty and I don’t listen to a whole lot of her music, but the playlist has a lot of Taylor Swift. That song just so fully encapsulates Joel and little ones relationship. I don’t know if I’ve explained it to you yet or on here, but the title references several things references ones innocent stolen at such a young point in her life by her dad the things that Jamie forced her to do. it references Joel, who, in the story will be called Abel and how the loss of his daughter affected him. People have also drawn connections between Joel’s wires, getting crossed with his need for parental authority and his lost for little one is created a fucked up mismatch of everything in his head of how he views her. And finally, of course, is referencing the fact that little one, or Clementine in the story, will never get to raise her child, and those lullabies have quite literally been stolen away from her because of Joel.

Thank you so so so much for saying such a nice things about me and my writing.

If you haven’t yet, I put up a bonus chapter that kind of explore Lorenzo jack and Tommy’s dynamics for my one year anniversary. I can’t remember if you read that or not, but that will give you a little hint into character stolen lullaby.

Appreciate you so so so much!

[annabawritersdream]

For the fanfic ask game (second attempt)

🌝

🧠

🌈 (for Lady of Ithilien)

🌝 Who is one character you haven't yet written for that you would like to?

Since the question does not differentiate between OCs and canon characters, I'm going to go with the latest OCs I've created aka Finduilas of Lamedon (daughter of Angbor the Fearless and Faramir's second wife) and their daughter Faelivrin also known as "my sweet angel Fae".

I'm trying to include Finduilas in the one-shots for Tolkien OC week but as of now I've written nothing about her. I do, however, have some ideas.

She was born in TA 3007-3008 (she's several years younger than Faramir. I'm not good at math, but since Faramir was born in TA 2983, I suppose she's 24-25 years his junior) and she's the youngest of five sisters that are all settled down with children. Her father is desperate because she's been consistently refusing every marriage proposal she's received since he was a teenager—she really didn't want to marry, I guess—and now she's considered way too old to be a bride of interest by the vast majority of people. Because of something that happens in chapter 4 (no spoilers), Aragorn sets them up and has them married (it's actually Enna's idea but I will say nothing more about that). It's an arranged marriage and I think it will be interesting to explore that dynamic, especially when Finduilas comes to realize that Faramir is infatuated with a certain Haradrim noblewoman who also happens to be the mother of his son's best buddy. (I also cannot wait to write about those two babies. Baby Elboron and Baby Selim are literally the cutest).

Another character I am looking forward to writing about (someone who is not a Maiarin character or included in Enna and Eönwë's family) is definitely Faelivrin. Fae is just...Enna's mini-me without Enna's mental problems. If you were looking for an unproblematic Enna...that's Fae for you. She will go through her fair share of troubles but it's mostly because:

-she adores her older sis and is constantly worried about her, especially when Enna starts getting pregnant every couple of months.

-She falls in love with either someone from Rohan or Harad (though I'm leaning more toward Harad) and has to have Enna's approval to marry.

Nevertheless, she adores both her siblings and Selim (he's technically not a brother but he's always been around so he's basically family anyway. I think Enna's growing affection toward Selim will be the key that eventually makes her approve of the marriage—Eönwë could technically step in and solve the matter but he chooses to stay out of it since it's a matter between sisters)

Faceclaim for Finduilas: Laura Berlin as Emma of Normandy (Vikings: Valhalla)

Faceclaim for Fae: Isla Merrick-Lawless (The Spanish Princess)

I'll include them in the character profile spreadsheets soon! I'm still looking for someone as adult Fae but I am mainly torn between Esmahan Sultan (Magnificent Century)

And another Esmahan Sultan (Magnificent Century)

The second Esmahan is probably more fitting. Too bad she only appears in the very last MC episode and there are no gifs of her.

🧠 What's an idea you have that you can't quite call a WIP yet?

Oh, that's basically the whole plot of Estel i Hína, the planned sequel to LOI, and it's also the plot of Nyerénya... Namárië!, which is the First Age fic I've been thinking about and the main reason why I've decided to include some Fëanorians in LOI. I have a general idea as far as Estel i Hína goes (it will be about Elenwë's remaining children—yes, I'll probably end up killing a few of them off. Mairon certainly won't spare them just because they're cute—and their children aka Elenwë's grandkids). I have only two planned at the moment: Elanna and Fionwë, Mírion's children. I don't know whether they'll return to Middle-earth. The story might be fully set in Valinor. Who knows.

As far as the First Age fic...I only know Enna is Hiril's daughter (Beren's sister that was later scrapped. She's thus related to Lúthien, Thingol and all of those people. I think Morgoth will have her captured, but I have no idea what I'll come up with. I think Eönwë will show up at the very end and I'm digging the idea of her being in love with a Fëanorian, but I really cannot tell you much about it as I don't really know what the fic will be about specifically. This will be it, I suppose. Enna existing in Beleriand and suffering at the hands of Morgoth. Seems pretty straightforward to me. 😂

🌈 What inspired you to write [The Lady of Ithilien]?

I actually have to mainly credit you @lucifers-legions & @saurongorthaur9.

Garo Estel (read it y'all) was one of the very first fics (if not the very first) that caught my attention on AO3. Before that, I didn't even know what AO3 was (I joined in March 2023). I don't exactly remember how I discovered the fic but I loved it right away and couldn't stop reading it.

The same applied and still applies to @saurongorthaur9's Gorthauro Estel, which is an absolutely amazing piece of writing. Check this one out too, people. Garo Estel and Gorthauro Estel. Trust me.

Both fics inspired me to write my own and then I had an idea for a one-shot as I was writing an original thing which is now on hiatus...the rest is history.😂

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SENDING IN THE ASK!

[muddyorbsblr]

ohh hey it's the last day of 2022

first of all, when the fuck did that happen??

There was so much that happened in the last year I could've sworn some of them happened in 2021, but apparently not…? It's honestly so hard to believe that when this year started, I was in a different mindset, a different community, struggling AF to get anything going creatively, and frustrated to the high heavens as a creator because I felt…well, I felt alone.

And that was how it felt for the first 8 months of the year. I felt like I was pushing this impossibly heavy rock up a steep mountain with no hopes of ever actually getting anywhere because I was in a community that gave such elitist vibes that even though I'd been there for 2-3 years, I still felt like an outsider. Surrounded by people who internally held you to this grading scale and only if you reached a certain "score" with them would they think that you're "worthy" of a like and comment.

Honestly there was a time I uploaded a video every day for two months and all I got was silence, and while I never gave a fuck about the numbers, admittedly it would have been nice to even get a "wow i loved this!" from the people who called me "one of their closest friends in the community". Like…you say that the love is there but…I don't feel it? And honestly being 'friends' with people like that felt a lot like this:

And then a shift happened, and I somehow found myself back here on Tumblr looking up Loki fan fiction because I'd just started simping over Tom Hiddleston full force and there's a warm fuzzy feeling I get from reading fanfics that never went away, and reading them again somehow felt like finally coming home.

I gotta admit though, I lurked for a few months. 🤡

Started off just reading stuff and not saying anything, then leading to me leaving likes on masterlists so that I could come back to them and go through them one by one, and I didn't do much besides that for a few weeks. And then I saw a post about how comments and reblogs kept the authors that we love motivated to keep on making stories for us, so I gave my trauma from bad interactions in previous communities a resounding 'fuck you' and began to comment. And then that led to me reviving this blog of mine so that I could reblog those stories to share them with all 40+ of my followers at the time who I knew would get whiplash because I'm not posting about Markiplier anymore.

All those little efforts culminated in me joining in on a thirst train that ended up rekindling my love for creating stories, which led to 'what's today again?' and I gotta be honest, I thought that was all I had in me. But then idea after idea came and I kept on writing stories, and suddenly we're here…a little over three months later, and those 40+ strangers who couldn't care less about what I was posting on this account became nearly a thousand (???) that saw the work I was putting out on the internet and actually enjoying it and telling me that they enjoyed it.

Suddenly I have friends again that I love talking to and that I want to give back the love that I receive from them with everything I've got. Talking with people about things that I love and not feeling like I'm being a burden to them (which is honestly the biggest thing for me 🥹). It's because of all of them that I'm looking forward to seeing what 2023 has in store because I'm surrounded by people who care the same way that I care, and we all get to be weird and thirsty and horny together.

So here's to the people who saved 2022 for me. For turning not only the year but my life as a whole around, for being there to talk to about literally anything, and for creating a place where I felt safe enough to start sharing parts of myself that I'd had locked away for years. Honestly, I never thought I'd be sharing my writing with anyone ever again, but I'm really glad that I had y'all to encourage me and tell me to keep going, and that it definitely wasn't going to be the death of me if I began creating a story about Loki falling in love with Thor's daughter 🤣

Here's to 2023. May it be filled with many laughs, thots, and mangoes.

@lokisgoodgirl @mygfloki @sarahscribbles @give-me-a-moose @mochie85 @fictive-sl0th @gigglingtigger @kikster606 @xorpsbane @mischief2sarawr @wheredafandomat @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @simplyholl @joyful-enchantress @lokiprompts @cake-writes @holymultiplefandomsbatman @loopsisloops @michelleleewise @vbecker10 @holdmytesseract @thedistractedagglomeration

[foodfightnovelization]

Chapter 24: Analysis and Discussion

So here we are at Chapter 24, finally at the end of this novelization. It's been a wild ride, right? From different dialogue, to entirely new characters, to scenes that weren't in the final film at all, this has been SO much more enjoyable than watching the actual movie. The changes made in the novelization add so much to the story, and a lot of what I didn't like about the movie was either changed or left out entirely. I hope you enjoyed reading about it and reading along with me, because I sure loved writing about it. With all that said and done, let's see how this story ends, right?

Hairy Hold finally shows up to join the Resistance...after everything's already over, of course. Dex congratulates everyone on a job well done, but tells them they still have a lot of work to do- the store opens in just four hours. It's then that Dr Nustrix shows up and says he's created an antidote that should bring all the Ikes they lost back to life. He spritzes Polar Penguin with it and he wakes up, as if he were just in a deep sleep the entire time. The only difference here between the novelization and the movie's version of events is the additional line from Dex about their store opening in 4 hours, which is pretty minor but does remind us there's still work to be done as well as the nature of Marketropolis' existence.

Polar says he knew Dex would save him, and Sunshine tells Dex how proud he deserves to be, jumping into his arms and throwing a raisin in the air for him to catch in his mouth. Dan lampshades how everything really turned out perfect in the end, and Dex finally pulls the engagement ring from his pocket (remember, from when he was going to propose to Sunshine right at the beginning of the story?) and she instantly says yes, the whole store cheering as the two finally kiss. Dan almost starts crying until he notices Sweet Cakes giving him a flirty look, and realizes he might be getting some action too. This scene is once again the same across both the novelization and the movie, with the exception of the brief exchange between Dan and Sweet Cakes at the end. So, this is the second-to-last page, and with only one more to go, you'd THINK things would stay the same and the novelization wouldn't end in a completely different way to the movie, right? Well, good guess but you'd actually be wrong!

We cut to the next morning, back in the supermarket. Mr Leonard looks around and sees burnt, destroyed Brand X products littering the floor and is mortified until he notices all the colorful, familiar products are back on their shelves, everything back the way it should be. He's suitably puzzled, thinking this must be some sort of dream.

A month later, he's helping a customer load groceries into her cart, with all the products at the top of the bag being ones we're now familiar with- Kaptain Krispy chips, Polar Pleasures ice cream, and Twinkleton toothpaste. As she leaves, a large delivery truck pulls up- but this time it's a shipment Mr Leonard's excitedly been expecting for a while now. He opens the box and pulls out a brand new box of cereal- "New and Improved Cinnamon Sleuth Cereal- Now with Sunshine Goodness Raisins".

So, uh...YEAH. This is COMPLETELY different from how the movie ends, and it's a total last-second left turn. For context, in the movie after Dex proposes to Sunshine, we cut to their wedding at the Copbanana. It's being ordained by a rabbi, and Dex stomps on a carton of milk before he and Sunshine kiss. Dr Nustrix is shocked by this, and loudly exclaims "Dex is JEWISH?" as the credits start rolling, interrupted several times by brief interludes showing all the Ikes having fun at Dex and Sunshine's wedding. There are literally no similarities AT ALL to compare between these two endings, it's crazy how completely different in tone and content they are.

I VASTLY prefer the novelization's ending, however. It's way more toned-down, with a quiet scene of Mr Leonard being baffled by what happened to his store overnight, like he finally gets a hint that something more is going on behind the doors of his supermarket after it closes, a brief wink toward the world of Marketropolis he'll never see. Although we lose the revelation of Dex being Jewish (losing out on some much-needed representation), the much more subtle implication that Dex and Sunshine are now married by showing a Cinnamon Sleuth box with Sunshine Goodness raisins now in the mix is a much sweeter and genuinely endearing way for the story to end. It does raise some questions about how marriage works in Marketropolis- for instance, if Mr Clean marries Charlie Tuna, do the two products combine and release an all-purpose cleaner that smells like fish?

Regardless, it's a lovely ending to the story, and I really hope everyone enjoyed reading along with me. I definitely enjoyed combing through this and talking about all the changes made, and I absolutely consider Foodfight! The Junior Novelization to be a far superior version of the story. Of course, a lot of that is likely down to the novelization being based on an earlier version of script and so the writers also deserve a share of the credit for that, but without this novelization we may have never even got to know what that early script was like!

Now that I've finished going through the novelization in its entirety, I'll put it up on the Internet Archive for everyone to read whenever they want- after all, this is the only copy known to exist, and I want to make sure it's properly preserved. Thank you again to anyone who's been reading this blog and joining me on this journey, I'm honored to have shared this experience with you. I mean, how often do you get to read the only copy of a book known to exist, share it with the entire world, AND unravel a huge part of the tangled web of mysteries behind the production of Foodfight!?

I'll update this blog again when I've uploaded the book to the Internet Archive, but for now this is Tiffany Amber, signing off!

[woodswolf]

3, 23, 24 for the fic asks?

end of year fic asks

thanks for the ask! :D

23. fics you wanted to write but didn't

answered here! :D

24. favorite fic you read this year

ohhh boy this is a tough one because there's A Lot. unordered list probably (actually ordered by approximately when i read them):

for Gravity Falls: Pseudomnesia by Greyingdawns. okay this one and this one only is unambiguously ordered in terms of favorites because literally nothing else comes close. i read this back in march and it's almost certainly in my all-time top 10. (do i know what the rest of my all-time top 10 are? i have no fucking clue my guy. like i definitely know some of the contenders but not the order.) genuinely INCREDIBLE fic (but tumblr killed my thoughts about how the brackets are absolutely amazing and create such brilliant inline poetry FUCK!!!!!!!!) and im probably going to be thinking about it for years to come. begging literally everyone to PLEASE READ IT!!!!

for Ninjago: tell it again by spinbitchzu. this one started as a tumblr post that i reblogged supportively and later got solicited in my inbox when the first chapter was up (lol), but hey im nothing if not a sucker for time loop stories and this is a really good one so far.

for Pikmin: the To Be (One With the Garden) series by MaideninOrange. To Live (As a Pikmin) was actually the first Pikmin fic I ever read, and the whole series is really good. i have some minor gripes with some parts of it, but where it hits it fucking HITS, and this is definitely the fic and series i re-read the most this year. similar to something else a bit later down this list, this very heavily inspired one half of my current wip, as a point of comparison.

for Pikmin: A Nightmare, A Dream by qwertycake. GOD this is fucking ough. REALLY REALLY REALLY nails the half-dreaming vibe in the simplicity and not-quite-sequitur of the thought process. OUGH.

for Pikmin: To Die (and be born anew) by Valkohai. where to start with this one honestly. really good execution of a well-trod concept, really good original ideas (the fucking puffstool thing HOLY SHIT), just really good all around. just like the To Be series, though, i have a lot of minor gripes with it, and it ended up heavily inspiring one half of my current wip. or, more accurately, i realized that i kinda really went off with my comment on chapter 7 and now we're 37k words deep. :)

for Pikmin: subterranean web, infest my soul by voidnight (aka you lol). really not sure what else to say about this other than that it's really really fucking good, i am Still thinking about it, and it in particular was really fucking ough. still debating on whether to list this as an inspiration for my wip when i get around to publishing it (which might be soon - first chapter is almost done, the reason it's taken over four months now was because i wrote all the way to the end of one of the halves before turning around to write the rest lmaoooo), but all of the themes (and dreams) of labor really helped crystallize some of my thoughts in a way that, even if it isn't immediately evident from the text, definitely helped ME to organize some things.

for Pikmin: the Protocol for Nonstandard Relations series by voidnight (also aka you lol). much more shippy than i usually like, but tons of really good world- and character-building that i personally can never resist. ALSO those labor thoughts.

for Pikmin: paulownia by mlkt. really good, short, mostly introspective piece. love me some really good, short, mostly introspective pieces.

for Pikmin (LAST ONE): Venus Flytrap by qwertycake. deliciously DISGUSTING vibes. literally LOVE that framing device too. just. OUGH.

for In Stars and Time: Bleeding in Monochrome by JustSalPals. just really love this writer's style and characterization.

for In Stars and Time/START AGAIN: a prologue: The Stars are Just Spotlights by JustSalPals. LOOP MY FUCKING BELOVED. love love love love love the way this writer writes them.

for START AGAIN: a prologue/In Stars and Time (but really just SASASAP): Half Masked by RuneSnap. simple but good.

3. favorite line/scene you wrote this year

OHHHHHH GOD DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE

okay so i have a few (all from my current wip)

first up there's this bit from the second chapter, which is intended to be read out loud:

When they eventually come across the blackened shell, after an age of wandering through smoke — shattered and silent and still, softly smoldering, with shredded scraps and splintered shards scattered circularly aside it like a halo, both hallow and hollow — they finally separate, dispersing through the debris field to search for any sign. Thirty minutes later, they find the body.

so this was normal prose originally, but at some point i realized that "hm there's a lot of S sounds in here hmmmm" and rewrote it to be almost entirely S sounds. it adds a cool auditory component - the hiss and pop of dying flames. this is unambiguously the coolest thing i wrote that had a non-contextual reason to be cool.

here's a larger segment, from the third chapter, which i think rather speaks for itself:

His thoughts are spinning faster than they have been in days. His mind seems to be on the edge of panic. He drops the mirror-thing unceremoniously and hurriedly begins digging through his back-pouch. His hands are shaking when he pulls out his notebook, and he turns the pages roughly, firmly, like if he doesn’t hold on to them as hard as he can they’re going to fly away. He stops on a seemingly random spread and scans whatever he sees there, desperately, furiously, like it’s going to kill him. It does. Whatever he finds on the page appears to confirm something that’s simultaneously a worst nightmare and a wildest dream. His chest spasms like he’s going to be sick. He rips his gaze from the notebook and stares back up at the empty slot, tears flowing freely from his eyes, and he smiles like he wants to scream. There’s an utterly alien emotion consuming the entirety of his mind: blazing with the fury of a thousand forest fires, spinning with the fervor of a million hurricanes, bursting with the power of a billion suns, crashing with the apocalyptic tide of every drowned memory. They have no idea what it is, but they would not dare to call it hope. It feels like madness.

as for other stuff, it's harder to pull specific segments for, but in general, for a fic that's about "unintentional abuse as consequence of repeated failures of humanization" — or, to put it another way, "it's still/not your fault if the other person/creature is a dog" — it's just been really really REALLY fun to write the premise! just the number of really subtle phrasings to downplay certain events from the dominant party's perspective. there's a particularly good example in chapter 2, where at one point i had originally written "force" and soon after intentionally changed it to "make"; you get the idea.

there's also a lot of instances where the gap between knowledge and understanding is almost bridged, but not quite: reaching just far enough to understand that something is wrong, and that the dominant party is responsible for it, but not being able to pinpoint what exactly it is. and never understanding, not fully, but using that moment of "almost" as a guide to move forward, as an olive branch, as something worth forgiving.

and then, for a more specific scene, there's a section in the fifth chapter (out of six; the first and last function more as a prologue and epilogue, though, and are more tangentially related, so essentially the fifth chapter is the "finale") where i was able to do something very interesting with tenses. the entire fic is written in present tense, but in this specific scene, there's a moment where the dominant party is highly distracted, but something happens very very suddenly and unexpectedly. so in that scene, there's a cutoff —

(and then there's a subscene, entirely in parentheses, trying to reconstruct what would have happened while they were distracted, based on what they know of the situation. this is also written in present tense, but it refers to the current situation in past tense, as if the thoughts were interjected from a future version of themselves. it's also just really sad, because the reason this future version goes to such great effort is because they think it's important for them to know — and it is important, but they also don't understand how or why or even what is important. so it's just. turning it over and over like a stone.)

— and then the original scene resumes like all of that prior introspection did not happen, because in real time, it did not.

thanks again for the ask! :D

[darsynia]

Hello.

If you prefer to keep this ask private, please do. I've been catching up on your fics and it has been a treat! One question keeps popping in my mind, and I mean this is the most complimentary way.

You draw me into a world and I want to stay there. The quality of your writing is so very good, a delight to read. And I admire the quantity and frequency of your posts, each one as good as the previous. Any tips/secrets for maintaining excellence time after time?

Hope you are well and finding peace during this month.

This is truly just the nicest thing to say and ask, and I greatly appreciate it! A flippant quick answer is 'obsession and mental illness' but honestly encouragement like this as well as people who read and enjoy is one of the biggest motivators EVER. I am lucky enough to like my own writing, so when no one else is interested, I'm still happy, which I feel very blessed for.

Having a crisis of confidence lately that's solely related to medicine futziness (had a stomach flu that prevented absorption), so I waffled about making this private or not. I hope I didn't misread you about whether YOU wanted it to be private-- if you do, just PM me or respond and I'll flip it to private ASAP.

Of my favorite things is just steeping my writing and planning in themes. Some of it is unconscious; my gender neutral Reader/Tony Stark story was titled with the word 'cocoon' before I reached a part of the story where I compared Tony to a butterfly, and I hadn't realized I was going to do that! Other times it's purposeful, especially with OCs. For Trust Fall, I wanted to create a character that causes Tony to examine his own narcissism and tendency to use people, and I did that by making the love interest a clearly smart, capable character who lets people walk all over her because it makes her job easier. Tony can't fall in love with her without understanding his own failings, so I basically used his personality against him, to write a growth arc.

For Ephemera, the phrase 'nothing gold can stay' really was in the back of my mind, along with the whole intangibility thing. The event they reference is a moment where a character erased half of the population (they literally turned to dust), and most of the people who witnessed this had no preparation, they couldn't reach out to hold onto any of the remaining pieces. So the artist burns people's valuable stuff into dust that she traps in see-through plastic, so they can hold onto that, instead. Similarly, she couldn't hold onto Steve, but now that he's back, she is deliberately letting him slip through her fingers.

Having a baseline theme or two for a story really helps make everything more REAL to me, that and my adoration for the source material and need to make it as real as possible. One last thing is I tend to hew very closely to what canon writers would choose, if that makes sense? Like I tend to try for as realistic as possible, and it feels more real, like it could be on screen without the people funding the project objecting to 'fan service' or whatever. I'm not sure if that's always the case but I've noticed that in my writing.

As for unhelpful to others, but big things that help me is that I used to procrastinate so much in high school that I'd wait till one or two days before a huge deadline and literally HAD to have my first draft be almost perfect. That's… poor planning and not really translatable, heh. It cuts a TON of time off, though. I COULD spend more time editing each chapter, and I do, for original work, but tend to just… not. Especially during focused times.

Another thing I was thinking about as I pondered an answer was… literally just being unnaturally obsessed/in love with the subjects, giving me a level of confidence that translates into the writing? Hah. Which is also not really helpful.

[suneiaaa]

2022 recap!

Hey so I want to reflect about 2022 cause it's been one hell of a year. I do this for myself, but perhaps someone else is curious. I also want to bring back writing blog posts. I hope you'll excuse me if that's difficult and ends up being just a wish though, cause nowadays it's very hard to drop the phone and stop watching silly videos. I hate how our attention span goes off the window just like that. Actually let me make that a New Year's resolution: stop with the silly videos, thank you. The only reason I don't feel guilty about it is because I know it's the way social media is designed that manipulates our attention span left and right lol

Anyways,

2022.

In summary, I finished artschool, found my first industry jobs, moved into a new flat with my partner.

That was a lot of changes in a short period of time and I feel like I'm still recovering from/processing it.

_

In January, I was working really hard on the last 8 pages of Crow of Stone for one of my projects. That was the steepest learning curve up to that moment. From having to change the plot 7 or 8 times, to thumbnailing and scribbling, to storyboards, to handling critique and applying it, to being hella stressed out because perfectionism & still being unable to guess correctly how much information 8 pages can hold. Doing Comics Is So Hard, it's so much harder than you think!!!

I also put myself in charge of putting together the InDesign document of the zine Crow of Stone was in and that was really stressful FUCK THAT!!!:) We sold our zine at Comic BCN a couple months later, that was also a nice experience.

--

Then I got a chance to catch my breath but not really because that project ending meant the start of the final project And I Did Not Know What To Do Yet

I focused on adding some more pages to Crow of Stone and make it to the deadline of the International Comic School Contest of Clip Studio 2022 that is very long to write so from now on it'll be 'CSP CONTEST'. That was very important to me! I had always wanted to participate. I couldn't make it during 3rd year (my classmate won though!!) and this year felt like my last chance. So I did that. I had already given up on the idea of making something new with the time I had so CoS would have to do! You can read it here.

We were also Kindly Asked to participate in another scolarship (?) contest and had to create several comic(al) strips as entry. That wasn't too bad even though it didn't go anywhere lol

------

A NY WAYS, there went my time for the final project lol

It must have been April by this point. At first I wanted to create a storybook with my OC Neia but I struggled to give the story a... story.

My brainstorming for a new idea started. And it was a bit desperate. What did I want to draw? Should it be a comic? What did I like to read? Should I make something according to my inspirations? Quick, what are my favorite genres? Tropes? And most importantly, what do I want to tell? Etc. 

Lots of little drawings ensued.

And I finally came up with something that I felt was 'me' enough, and cool enough, and worth exploring. Llamadas Perdidas (missed calls, or lost calls.). The plot is STILL very hard to explain so I will translate it literally below and make of that what you will...

----

May. So my final project was pitching this whole thing. Thus creating a portfolio with the premise, plot, synopsys and sample pages. Just like with CoS, storyboarding was hard, thinking was hard. Time was almost up when I decided to pour all my energy into 6 pages. I was even finishing up the cover just a few hours before my deadline. 

That moment was fun, actually. I showed my work to my professor full of self doubt and wondering if it would be enough. He looks at me like girl this is fantastic sdhsjdhsjdh 

I had barely slept that day. On the way to school I found some broken glasses in a puddle and wondered, who could have lost their glasses like that? Flash forward and I'm home and I had taken a quick nap. And I can't find my newest, goodest pair of glasses. Before paranoia got the best of me I went outside and looked for them on the street (yeah I couldn't believe it either). Halfway to my school I gave up and went back home... And I found them before that: someone had left my glasses, intact, on a windowsill. On my fucking street. I had dropped my fucking glasses on my way home. Hah. I'll admit I cried a little bit.

---

June. As an extraordinary school thing, we were visiting a publisher's installations that day. When we met up with my teacher, for some reason, he said to me something like 'Thank GOD you're here. If you hadn't come I would have killed you. Are you nervous?'

And I said 'No?'

And he replied 'You better be'

Which puzzled me for a bit, but haha... During our meeting with the publishers they actually said 'Later we want to talk to X and Sun' and OH MY GOD was I fucking shocked (laughs)

Yes, they told me they Wanted To Publish Llamadas Perdidas. They saw my pitch and thought it was very cool. So I'll let you imagine the look on my face. Finishing school and already landed my first gig and as an author, no less. Man.

I spent several days being in a weird high and processing and I'll admit I haven't processed it yet. And thus I finished 4 years of art school.

---

I've written so much so from now on it'll be an actual summary.

Dealing with my first contract, panicking a little bit... On July I also received this good news: Crow of Stone had been awarded a runner-up prize in the Manga category of the CSP contest!

This was really great!! I fucking loved reading the critique and checking the other entries and I felt very proud...!

Also!!! They contacted me from ANOTHER publisher to work on another comic project. Since comics aren't well paid I took the job too :^) Freelancing in Spain is also hella expensive like you wouldn't believe soo... No, but it's also a good project and I'm glad I'm working on it as well! Can't talk about it yet.

MEANWHILE my partner and I were LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO MOVE IN TOGETHER!! Barcelona is so fucking expensive and it was straight out impossible to find anything decent. Even in the suburbs. So it sucked for a while... but eventually we decided to live in the small town we live in now. And we could find something pretty quickly :') And we moved in in August!!! WAHOO big lifegoal achieved :')

---

Fall. I've become a freelancer (oh god finances are such a headache...) and have been working on my 2 comic projects mostly. It took a while to adapt to like working everyday but I'm proud at how hard I've been working. Llamadas Perdidas is definitely the most difficult because I want to get it right/so many demons to fight and so much to learn. I'm also happy about the commissions I've been taking and love the style I developed. In December my art school and Clip Studio invited me to have a small panel at Manga BCN where I talked about Crow of Stone. I was honored & happy, especially since I met with my professor (the same I mentioned before) and he was very happy to see me and encouraged me a lot!

----------

That's about the major events that happened. My reflections? This year has been the steepest learning curve by far and also my most successful. I hope I can grow as an author and artist and keep flourishing. Also I literally just want to pay my bills with my work lol so there's my hopes and dreams. I haven't had much time to draw for myself, planning and drawing comics is super time consuming. But I didn't want to force myself too much and properly adapt to my new life (deadlines deadlines...deadliens...dead aliens...)

Videogame wise? I played Earthbound. It was the greatest thing I'd played in the longest time. Definitely a highlight. Triangle Strategy was cool too, but I hate Roland with all my heart. Xenoblade 3 was a good game but a disappointment story-wise. I had genuine fun being hyped for it, and playing too, though. So as we say in Spanish 'you can't take away the time in which I've been dancing'. Endwalker was fine though I like Shadowbringers a bit more x) OST wise this year was super fantastic. There were more games but I forgor. Oh yeah, Paper Mario was being great but it broke on me :( Also I became addicted to Eve and blame myself for not discovering him before. It's my fucking jam I admire him a lot.

To wrap up.

Wish me luck, I'll be working on comics all year, head full, want to maybe try streaming with the mic on,aaaaahhh thank you all for supporting me ESPECIALLY those who have been there for YEARS those who have commissioned me and just. Thank you! Happy New Year 2023, manifesting good mental health for all of us.

[dragonsareawesome123]

2, 5, 8, 19 & 25 for the end of year tv shows asks!

2. Favorite TV show you’ve watched/discovered this year.

-I'm gonna exclude Bad Buddy from this bc only the last few eps aired this year and say A Tale of Thousand Stars and Triage. I actually put off watching ATOTS for a bit bc the plot synopsis on MyDramaList didn't really interest me but boy was I wrong about that initial first impression bc it's now my number 2 fav BL, closely after Bad Buddy. Rich college boy almost dies, gains a new perspective on life, and decides to go teach in a poor village and meets and falls in love with another guy there. Lots of pining, staring and fated romance ensues and creates a story so romantic and emotionally moving, helped by Earthmix's incredible chemistry. It's the BL to me that feels most like reading a really good romance novel. What's not to love? Triage is now my number 3 fav BL (topping WOH, which surprised me bc I didn't think that I'd be moving WOH from that spot for a good while). Resident doctor gets trapped in a time loop and can't get out until he saves the life of a rich college boy, and in the process, falls in love with him of course. However while trying to do so, the resident doctor discovers that this may not be that simple as he begins to uncover a whole conspiracy that's been happening right under his nose. I've been hyperfixating on this show for months now and still am (although I think Never Let Me Go coming out in a little over a week might pull me out of that bc I'm already going feral over that show). It's time loop medical drama romance with murder and corrupt higher ups and it's also basically a spinoff of Manner of Death since they take place in the same universe and this show sets up the plot of Manner of Death's sequel, Transplant. Tin and Tol are my blorbos who I would die for and I'm so happy that they got to have their happy ending after the hell they went through to get it (They better have a cameo in Transplant where they're just vibing like Tanbun's cameo in Triage). Honestly I've already said so much about this show these past few months so I'll just leave it at that before I start writing a dissertation about how much I love this show. Am just gonna add that I'm very mad about AIS Play for making this show basically impossible for international fans to watch legally. I hope they make this show more accessible to international fans sometime in the near future especially since it's gonna be necessary to watch this before watching Transplant.

5. Favorite ship you discovered this year.

-Tian and Phupha from A Tale of Thousand Stars and Tin and Tol from Triage. Village gays and time loop gays my beloveds <3 (Also thank you P'Aof for giving Phutian back to me next year even if it's just for an ep!!! ATOTS special ep let's go!!!!!)

8. A ship that finally got (back) together this year.

-Erin and James from Derry Girls!!! I'm so happy that Season 3 confirmed that they were each other's endgame romances. Oh, and also while this hasn't aired yet, it's gonna start and finish airing by the end of the month, so also Lyra and Will from His Dark Materials. I know their romance doesn't really last that long because I've read the book but it's still going to be incredibly sweet and heartbreaking while it lasts.

19. A TV show that shouldn’t have been cancelled this year.

-First Kill. FUCK Netflix for cancelling this show when it literally had the views! Netflix hates sapphics and it shows.

25. Rec me a TV show I should watch next year!

-Hm, well I'd obviously recommend Triage to everyone bc it's truly one of the best BLs of the year and it's criminally underrated. I'd also recommend GMMTV's The Gifted and The Gifted: Graduation bc they're just so good. It's a series about a school with a program where they basically train kids with superpowers. Nanon Korapat plays the main protagonist and he's absolutely INCREDIBLE in it. It's not a BL but there is definitely something gay going on between Nanon and Chimon's characters, especially in The Gifted: Graduation.

Ask me about TV shows I watched this year

[themildestofwriters]

How I Went Writing Today

Me: I'm going to get some writing done today! WIP: Nice! We're up to a part where we describe the festival grounds-- Me: Yeah! Might need to workshop the name, because I'm realising that it's not necessarily just a place for festivals, but also a place for student-led events and certain classes and the like, but-- WIP: We can get to that later. Me: Fair. We're just going to do a brief bit of worldbuilding, describing what the last holiday or festival that was held in the festival grounds. WIP: I think you mentioned Winternachten two chapters ago. Now would be a great time to bring that back-- Me: Wait. How long is a month in Halkyneyja? WIP: Er... I'm not sure how that's relevant. Me: Well, what if there was a holiday between chapter one and this current chapter? WIP: We didn't mention any holidays happening between then and now. Me: That's because I don't know what holidays they could have observed! Shit. I think I've gotta create a calendar and fill it out with some holidays before I can continue. WIP: It's literally just a short sentence or two. The holidays aren't important. Me: Okay, but that's the whole point of rewriting this story from scratch, to explore the cultural elements as part of a wider character narrative following Louise. WIP: Yes, but you still have ten chapters left to write of this book, no less the rest of the books. I think you can work out holidays later. Me: But if I figure out the calendar first, I can naturally reference it in the text throughout! WIP: That's... one way of looking at it. Later... Me: I have spent five hours working on a calendar and I haven't anything to show of it. WIP: Five hours, huh. Some of that time could've been spent on working on me, but you do you, I guess... Me: Fair. WIP: What are you getting stuck on, anyway? Me: Well... I don't want it to be a copy of our Gregorian Calendar, no matter how simplified, yeah? WIP: Yeah... Me: And, well, I also want it to be close enough to the Gregorian Calendar that people wouldn't be confused that Louise, who is approximately fourteen by our reckoning, being described as an eight year old or a twenty year old by her reckoning. It'd just confuse the readers. At the same time, the details, like how many months they have, how many weeks in a month, and how many days in a week are just really hard to figure out. Lots of small details I just straight up don't know. WIP: Well, what kind of calendar do you want? Me: I kind of want a lunisolar calendar with some leap-months with some eight or so common months and somewhere between eight and nine days of a week. I'd want the average year length to be a bit more than our 365 days, but also not above 390. WIP: Well, good luck with that. Me: Ugh... calendars are hard. Me: I'm gonna make a post on Tumblr about it.

[mentalblabbermouth]

I tell myself I am free to be silly and that includes feeling good about posting another ramble from my google docs

So anyway aside from Mario, I am also really into BATIM and when BATDR came out I lost my mind. Like 2017 me came crawling back from the depths of my mind and binge-watched Superhorrorbro Mike's gameplay when it came out. Distinctly remember having to pause at the biggest plot twist and just pace around my senior studio, rambling like a madman. (Little did I know someone was right outside the door, so whoever heard all that um no you didn't)

(From 9 Dec 2022) (Disclaimer: this is pure brainrot I guess but if you manage to read all this thanks so much! I get insecure about it, but I also really want to share my ramblings in the hopes of someone getting it so yeah)

Shut up I’m still thinking about Audrey, I have thoughts and questions like did she start out as a baby? How long did she even get to grow up with Joey before he died? If her story starts in 1973, and the first game was in 1963, and she has to be in like her early twenties, and Joey died in 1971, then what? That’s two years! Had she always known and just forgot when she entered the machine? Did he put her in an orphanage when she was little? And how did she even end up at Archgate? 

   Maybe she did get to grow up with her father and forgot when she entered the machine and she rediscovers the book with his notes, not understanding its true meaning. Nathan had promised to look after her, which is why she’s an animator at Archgate. She probably told him what happened to his son and after the damage the machine did, it hit the news and Gent got word and secretly took it away.

   Come to think of it, Allison works at Archgate, so maybe Audrey later realizes Allison Connor and Allison Pendle are the same.

   ALSO! Audrey didn’t recognize Henry, but she has the drawing he gave to Joey, so what? Does she put two and two together later on? Did she never get to meet the real him? Did Joey never talk about him? 

   THEORY TIME: There’s also the whole “uncle” thing. I feel like, bear with me here I promise, Audrey’s somehow connected to Henry. Think about it! She’s a talented animator and hard worker, literally employee of the month at Archgate. He originally created the toons and you know Joey basically took the credit. And the whole soul thing. You can’t separate the creation from the creator no matter what, and I think it’s parallel between Audrey with Joey and Bendy with Henry. Look at this weird family. Audrey’s soul was made, maybe from a piece of Joey’s soul, and a part of that was given to Bendy when they made it to the real world. 

   In “Dreams Come to Life”, Joey mentions how he shared his soul with Henry, so obviously the two were close, and whether they like it or not they influenced each other. What I’m getting at is that some of that artistic talent and creativity may have seeped into Audrey. If the Ink Machine is like a pen or canvas, and ink stains, then who's to say that in creating Audrey, parts of her are composed of the important people in Joey’s life: Allison and Henry? Writing it down kind of makes sense. Now, of course similar dialogue lines are probably just references to the first game, but what if?

As a treat for making it this far and while I have the confidence rn, here's some old-ish art technically from last year? I just like the potential between strained character relationships, the drama of it all ✨🤌.

Now, of course neither of the games are perfect and the storyline itself is kind of mixed up/confusing in some places, and this all may be a bunch of hogwash, but that's the beauty of fan work I guess, filling in the pieces and connecting dots like that one Charlie Day meme.

Once again I cast my lot into the digital sea of content like a note in a bottle, hoping to be uncorked and read by a stranger in the midst of multitudes, received not with scorn, but acceptance and understanding.

Anyway that's all for today, as always, thanks for reading!

[outlying-hyppocrate]

sixtine.

sixtine bourlange-toussaint is a 27-year-old from a city in the grand-est region of france (schiltigheim? or illkirch-graffenstaden??), and is fluent in french and english, and knows basic german and alsatian. they were raised by their grandparents, as sixtine's mother - a high school student at the time - had died while giving birth, and their father - also a high school student at the time - didn't even know that they existed. her grandparents brought her up as a fairly happy child, and encouraged her love for music even when she was little by giving her piano lessons

she realized she was trans when she was (ironically enough) 16 years old. they didn't come out to their grandparents yet because they were afraid of how they might react. but when she went on hrt at 20, she finally decided to come out to them. her grandmother wasn't the most supportive person, but their grandfather was delighted to have a granddaughter. sixtine chose their own name, but their grandfather wanted to give them a second name as well - colette, after her mother

shortly after she started transitioning, sixtine started making music by herself as sweet sixteen. they made three releases - two singles and an album titled "t'as encore le ventre plus gros que les yeux", featuring 16 songs. eventually, she stopped releasing songs under the name, and went through a phase of creating multiple different artist profiles with different names and putting various songs on them. finally, they decided that they wanted to work with other people, and start a band

starting a band in schiltigheim proved to be very difficult. so, she moved to kehl (in germany! which is right over), where she met clemens eisner and linus krause, who became her roommates and bandmates. they formed interrogation! exclamation?, a band that sang exclusively in german, with linus as the guitarist (and lead singer), clemens as the drummer, and sixtine as the keyboardist. (she was also a vocalist half the time, of course.) they briefly dated linus, but the two did not stay together, as linus slowly revealed himself to be a chaser. she and clemens left together. shortly after this, clemens came out to sixtine as a trans man, admitting that he did not feel safe saying so in front of linus. even to this day, he has not gone on t or gotten any surgeries. he decided that he didn't want them, and he was perfectly fine the way he was

sixtine and clemens ended up in detroit, michigan, where they met kristian martinez garzon. when sixtine was 22 - in 2019 - she, kristian and clemens formed the clearance aisle. kristian came up with the name when xe and everyone else had gone to walmart (to show the europeans a walmart for the first time. i have had this experience also. walmart is. something) and there were all these signs up saying "clearance!!" "clearance!!!" "clearance!!!!"

despite being together for five years, the clearance aisle only released their first song, covet cloth, in 2024. they have a whole album planned that they would likely release later in the year

and now that the life story is over. some silly facts. [:

sixtine's favorite number is 16 (obviously) and it is referenced in a lot of her past work. the last song on her first album (t'as encore le ventre plus gros que les yeux) is quite literally called #16

she absolutely loves strawberries. they are her favorite fruit ever. she would write a whole song about them if she wanted to

the only social media they have is a tumblr they started in 2014 and haven't posted on since 2020. it was a sort of diary for them - they'd make a post every single day to summarize what they did, and then would occasionally reblog pretty pictures they liked. they did this consistently until about 2017, where they mostly stopped, and would only update once a month or so. between the years 2018 and 2019 she didn't post at all, but she returned in 2020 during the lockdown

then again, there's also the band's collective instagram account, but sixtine doesn't really post on it. most of the posts are made by kristian (because of course)

her favorite color is orange. her favorite drink is red bull (the dragonfruit flavor. not the piss original). she has a tattoo of a small piano that her grandfather got her when she was little on her left shoulder. they may or may not have undiagnosed adhd. who knows? psychologists are expensive in america! (i think.)

they are a bisexual grayromantic trans woman

and that's about it for now! i will work on clemens's and kristian's stories later. (':

okay. so. more on the clearance aisle (because i am becoming ridiculously invested in this.)

sixtine (they/them, she/her) is the lead singer and also the bassist. which i'm aware is a complicated thing to do but. she is very good at it. well. adequately. this wouldn't be a loserband if they weren't all a little bit terrible

clemens (he/him) is the drummer. he really fucks it up!! positively meant. he just really. yeah. it's great

kristian (he/him, xe/xem) is the guitarist. xe's not the best at it. but some of the band's songs feature the use of a triangle for whatever reason and. he's great at the triangle