#this is the third time i've written this chapter and i'm still not 100% on it

[piratekane]

june reading wrap up

it's that time of the month again, folks.

the mission: read only queer books the side mission: read more than just sapphic books the side-side mission: read something besides fantasy/romance mission status: sick

some stats for those following along at home:

- i read 19 books - i attempted one buddy read (but my wife quit on me, guys) - 100% OF MY BOOKS WERE QUEER - still no audiobooks but there's a freshly peeled month ahead of us

here's the reviews:

the bad: - Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur, bisexual rep people in the circles i've been traveling lately love this book, but i just... didn't. the characters did a complete personality switch about three chapters in. one of them was a manic pixie dream girl. the other was so flat i dreaded reading her perspective. also the brother had NO boundaries and i hate third act breakups due to miscommunication. 1 star - Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly, achillean rep people also loved this one but my struggle is that i don't think gay men are it for me and also there were some things about Alexie that i just didn't jive with. there was, yet again, another third act breakup that felt contrived. the writing was good and it was clear Kelly knows hiking and they have a love for it. so i enjoyed that part! 2.5 stars - The Prospects by K.T. Hoffman, trans achillean rep everyone and their freaking mother LOVE this book but it just didn't have enough baseball. like, for a book about the first trans baseball player in the professional league, this book was about his love interest's anxiety. gimme baseball!!! and gene straight-up backstabbed luis, i stg if no one else thinks so. 2.5 stars

the great: - The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher, lesbian rep this is lit-fic and you should know that going into it. once i got used to the writing style, i was hooked on this book. it's an interesting POV and the love story is really the complex love between a daughter and her mother, and the daughter and get great-aunt. like, my brain is still bending around this one. 5 stars - The Z Word by Lindsay King-Miller, queer rep this book emerged from a tumblr prompt and it's incredible. tons of rep (sword lesbian, motorcycle lesbian, drag queen, bisexual mess, nonbinary pizza delivery person) and just a fun fucking time. it's all centered around Pride weekend and begs the question: just what do you do when a zombie outbreak fucks up your festival? 5 stars - Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun, lesbian rep two teachers go on a road trip with their terminally ill mentor and gosh, this is a specific setup but it works. i cried at the end like a little baby. the characters were fantastic (my favorite was their mentor) and the writing was superb. there's also really great ADHD rep in this and the growth of each character felt natural instead of forced. 5 stars - The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas, trans rep i knew this book existed and my cousin loves it but i never gave it a fair shake because i was like ONLY SAPPHIC NOVELS ONLY SAPPHIC NOVELS and was averse to reading anything but that but this one. this one is so good. the setting (a contemporary-fantasy latin america) is so lush and rich with detail. teo, the main character, had me rooting for him from the get-go. and the plot twist was so so good. i requested an advanced copy of the sequel through NetGalley and i'm hoping it'll come there. (i also bought Thomas' other novel, because now he is auto-buy author me) 5 stars.

honorable mentions: - A Swift and Sudden Exit by Nico Vincenty, bisexual rep also born from a tumblr prompt and just so much fun. i recommend purchasing this because it's just too good. time traveler meets and immortal (maybe you've seen the prompt). you won't regret it - Elatsoe by Darcy Little Badger, asexual rep an Indigenous girl who can see ghosts goes on a trip to hunt down her cousin's murderer. the writing is so punchy. i loved this one. - On the Same Page by Haley Cass, bisexual rep best friends become lovers through miscommunication. hilarious stuff. i will also read Haley Cass again because the characters were so funny and the plot was so good. - Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore, nonbinary rep this one was a mind bender in a good way. each of the characters were really fleshed out in a fun way. the timeline hopping was a little trippy, but i got my feet under me quick. - A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland, lesbian rep a selkie wife retelling. do i really need to say more?

okay this is long i am congratulating you if you got this far. now i need to go hibernate and slow down because i read too much and this month i want to write!

[kiefbowl]

so as you may know GRRM had a little bit of influence on the game Elden Ring and I specifically remember someone pointing out that he had to be the one to introduce the "unreliable narrator" element to the game's story/trickles of lore and that stuck with me a lot it's not something I explicitly realized myself until it was pointed out...george is all about that stuff like something he does really well and not to boomerpost but I think...like.......modern readers(?) have a problem that they have to take everything really really literally and that's why there's "problematic media" discourse

yeah, he did contribute to Elden Ring. My BF played it twice through and is now playing the DLC, and he's also reading AGOT for the first time, and he points out stuff he reads in the books that he says is "very Elden Ring" i.e. obviously GRRM's influence in the game :) it's cute.

Yes, GRRM's whole ASOIAF series is written 100% with unreliable narrators, bc it is constantly switching from different limited third-person perspectives. GRRM also uses, rarely, an omniscient narrator, for lines that are actually meant to be factual. He uses this with great success, imo (as a fan lol). A good AGOT example is ending a Daenerys' chapter where she learns she's pregnant with "It was her fourteenth nameday" which reminds the reader of Daenerys' reality (as oppose to her perceptions) and retroactively recolors the chapter. Or at least it should.

Not to boomerpost with you, I am truly not sure what is going on with many, many, many people engaging with HOTD online. It seems absolutely detached from reality at times. It's a bizarre way to engage with a tv show, it's a bizarre way to engage with Fire & Blood, it's a bizarre way to engage with GRRM's themes and writing. I truly have seen nothing like it, and I've seen a lot of bad hot takes in my time about all sorts of books and movies and tv shows. I don't know why these people don't just stop watching it! Maybe it's a generational thing? I'm just not sure. It seems like people are actually rooting for a side...in a fantasy fictional political drama that is already pre-written. And then they get mad when anything happens that is nuanced or even wrong doing...it's like they want the show to be conflictless. They want the conflict to be the war only, and they don't want characters to have interpersonal conflict. When the only way to adapt a history book is to ground it, and invent the interpersonal drama. I just do not know what people expected, and I never knew so many people loved Fire & Blood bc I thought it was kinda...whatever. It was fine. These are my favorite books, I don't think I've reread anything more times, and I still am happy to say Fire & Blood is just kinda fun, it's a bit silly and interesting. It's like a lore dump. So they could have done almost anything with the tv show, and I'd probably been like "sure, why not," but I find the tv show good and makes several good creative choices based on the unreliable text narration (and also some dumb ones, which like I've said in a previous post, is a grand tradition for tv shows so it's fine lol).

It's also not done, I have never seen a fanbase so eager to have a tv show be just a climax at every moment, and very impatient at scenes that are clearly setting up stuff for later. Weird ass people are watching and hating this show man, idk.

[ckret2]

Okok- not to bother you but I wanted to check my understanding.

So. Dimensions are directions by which we measure and perceive space. Things that have finite dimensions are measured by a finite amount of dimensions and, if they have the ability to perceive, would largely only be able to perceive those finite dimensions. Two dimensional things have length and width; three dimensional things have length, width, and depth; and four dimensional things have length, width, depth, and Something Else.

I've been thinking about time a lot, and to my knowledge, we don't really know exactly what it is. Happenings occur within it; it's intertwined with space in such a way that we can observe that they affect each other; we can measure it if we care to, but our perception of "how fast it's going" is subjective; and we seem to be bound by it in a way that thrusts us forward no matter what–but what is it, from what does it proceed, and where is it found? (your preamble about what the sun is to two-dimensional people made me think about that; unfortunately, i'm not educated enough to know if my definition of time–much less my questions about it–is valid)

If we think about a fourth dimension being up-but-not-skyward-and-down-but-not-earthward, the idea of a three-dimensional person having an eye inside of them in a way that's not visible from the third dimension and can perceive the fourth, and that this eye from that place on the person can see time the way normal people can see three-dimensional space, the dots sort of connect themselves: time, if it is not the fourth dimension itself, is found by it.

Bill was able to look up-but-not-north and see the sun and stars. As you seem to have written him, he was also able to stretch his eye up-but-not-north to be able to look "through" walls by seeing over them. It's my understanding, following this pattern, that when he sees time, he's just looking up-but-not-skyward, and when he's looking "through" something solid, he's stretching up-but-not-skyward. We haven't had a description (to my memory) of his eye "going white" as he's looking at the fourth dimension; it seems like he just does, without effort (perhaps because the fourth dimension has more intersection with a space as opposed to the way the third dimension does on a plane, just by merit of space having more points to intersect with; 100% of 200 and 100% of 50 are very different). We also haven't really seen him doing any kind of visible stretching (other than the bleeding, which is a byproduct) as he's looking from it, likely because he's stretching in a direction we can't see anyway.

That's it, really. That's all of my thoughts.

🎉🎉🎉 YEAH YOU GOT IT, A+, ROUND OF APPLAUSE

You're ahead of the curve on some stuff that'll help the next few chapters make a LOT more sense!

And that's EXACTLY what I was hoping you'd get out of the preamble about sunlight: a framework to imagine how people in a lower dimension might be able to sense, measure, and understand a force in a higher dimension, but not be able to witness it. In the same way that shapes can sense light without seeing where it comes from, so can humans sense time—but it does come from somewhere.

(Last I checked, the current scientific consensus on "the fourth dimension contains/is time" is that our current model of spacetime does say there's a fourth dimension of time, but saying time is in a geometric fourth dimension is sci-fi nonsense; but I happen to be writing sci-fi nonsense so I'm fine with that.)

And yeah, Bill's eye doesn't go white when he's looking toward the 4th dimension because the way the dimensions overlap is different and the way human biology & eyeballs are built is different. The eye bleeding is a way of representing that he's still doing funky stuff with his eye; it just cosmetically looks different.

[reachforstars1]

‎✧ hi, i'm reach. as of late, i've been letting my hyperfixations get the best of me which, of course, includes the chronicles of narnia.

the narnia fic i'm writing has explicit content in later parts, so please don't interact with this blog unless you're 18+

the beautiful anomaly series is the only fic i'm writing for this universe because i think that's all i have in me... aside from a small spinoff fic that i have planned...

the series is written in lowercase (forgive me)

i am not religious (although i was raised baptist on one side and catholic on the other)

this is also my main blog. there will be sideblogs for my other works(fixations) whenever i get around to it.

my asks are open 24/7 ♡

♡ ao3 ♡ wattpad ♡ beautiful anomaly playlist ♡

masterlist for the beautiful anomaly series under the cut

this is an edmund pevensie x original female character series

˖° seven devils [book 1]. takes place during the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe (in progress)

When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone, Sits at Cair Paravel in throne, The evil time will be over and done. Another Daughter of Eve will appear, Tethered to the Son of Adam Whose treachery is most severe. When the Traitorous Bond is set in stone, Their love will never be undone. Upon her arrival, Narnia will never again be as it once was, And should anyone stand in her way, Peace will never again know the light of day. The first and only prophecy Aslan ever had to amend in Narnian history was the Golden Age Prophecy of Narnia. Elaine Florence Woodard was an anomaly. An unexpected amendment that had Aslan and his followers on guard for her arrival and what would come with it. For no one could be entirely sure of what exactly her future entailed, not even Aslan. Elaine Woodard wasn't supposed to spend the summer at the Professor's, and she certainly wasn't supposed to end up in Narnia. But war had taken a toll on them all, and the five children would do anything to keep each other safe. Even if it meant breaking a few rules along the way.

ao3

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

chapter five

chapter six

chapter seven

other disclaimers for this series :

aslan is written as an antagonist in my story; if you don’t like that, that is 110% okay. i understand he is a nostalgic character for most of us, and it could be hard to see him in such a harsh light. this is based on my own characterisation of him, for i am aware that the canonical version of aslan is not evil. this is out of character aslan, canon divergent, etc etc, my retelling of things so to speak. all of the fanfics i read growing up (and now) followed the canonical characterisation of aslan which i still enjoy, but i wanted to see what it would look like if i didn’t follow that same route. kinda like those videos where a comedy movie is turned into a horror movie by tweaking the music, lighting, etc but unfortunately probably not as tasteful as i’m still getting the hang of writing. (that’s not to say aslan antagonist fics don’t already exist, i’m 100% sure they do, i just unfortunately never did stumble upon them growing up so if you know of some, pls send them my way- i would love to read them)

lots of angst/miscommunication

but also comfort

turns out i am a SUCKER for writing family dynamics, it might actually be my favourite thing.

written in third person

not entirely period accurate

extreme slowburn because 1. this series starts when they're children. 2. miscommunication 3. they go back to being children, and it all gets even more complicated from there, doesn't it?

mmmmm deals with religious trauma

everyone's a little gay on occasion... okay maybe not everyone but there are moments alright?

i've also frankensteined the main plotline, stealing bits and pieces from both the movies and the books

i think that's everything (for now), but thanks for being here, for supporting this series... this is the first fic i ever publicly posted on ao3 or even tumblr for that matter. it's been terrifying so far but still completely worth it.

and of course, thank you kat, a, and my partner for helping elaine and edmund's story come to fruition. i seriously could not have done it without y'all... i'm not crying, you're crying

[pirateboots]

Fic Number Tag Game

I was tagged by @youreorangeyoumoron, thank you!

Rules: give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the least words (feel free to interpret however you would like; if not on AO3, can be on Tumblr or FFNET!).

I'll only do fics from my AO3, here goes...

Most Hits - The 100: Like Hell I Do

Not surprised! This is my Lexa livesTM fix-it fic for series 3. I never finished the sequel because I moved on and every time I think about going back, I remember A. What a toxic dump the cast turned out to be and B. How old I am compared to the characters now. Still, I'm hugely proud of this beast, each chapter was at least 10k and spanned multiple POV, just like an episode of the show.

Second Most Kudos - Aimlessness and Inevitability

This was my very first 100 fic, written in the hiatus between seasons 2 and 3. I've improved a lot since then, though it is nice that I still get a trickle of Kudos from this trilogy.

Third most comments - These Cryptic Hours

My Bletchley Circle: San Francisco fic about Jean and Hailey. This is my favourite fic I've written. I go back and read it myself quite often because I adore these characters. Writing for more niche fandoms is a lot of fun and you do tend to get more interaction from other fans. Some of my loveliest comments are on this fic!

Fourth Most Bookmarks - Return to the Unfamiliar

The sequel to Aimlessness. I remember writing this trilogy so quickly. Where did that productivity go (the dying throes of capitalism, that's where)?

Fifth Most Words - Now I'm In It

My Sarah Morgan/f!Spacefarer Starfield fic. This is my most recent fic, being part of this fandom has been lovely. I'm even on Discord now 👵. I wasn't expecting to get so unhinged about a Bethesda companion. Space Emily Blunt, you know what you've done.

Least Words - Achievable Dreams

My Thasmin Docteroo fic. I do wish this one had a bit more reach, I love it a lot. 14 degenerates back into 13 and antics ensue. 🤫 There might be plans for a second chapter, but you didn't hear that from me 🤫

This was good fun. My main takeaway is how eclectic my fandoms are. I enjoy being a fic cryptid who disappears for years at a time, only to upload something in a completely unrelated fandom.

I'll tag @silent-moons-camp, @tolpotatowrites, and anyone else who wants to shout about their fics!

[blowthemoonout]

Hi! ✨

I just wanted to say how much I absolutely love Knee Deep in the Passenger Seat! I was listening to Casual (one of my favorite songs, by the way) and immediately thought of your story again.

It’s so captivating and completely draws me in, just like the song does every time I hear it.

Your writing style is absolutely incredible—it brings everything to life so vividly.

I was wondering if you might know when the story will be updated? No pressure at all, of course! I just adore your work and can’t wait to see where the story goes next. Thank you for sharing your amazing talent with us! 🌟

Thank you so much anon! I can't tell you how happy getting messages like this makes me, especially given that it's been so long since I updated the story. It really means so much and I've got such a bit smile on my face reading this.

I don't know when the next chapter will be posted. I've been making some good progress with chapter 6 lately; I feel like the pieces are finally starting to "click" there, and I'm happier with what it's doing overall. But I'm still leaning towards not publishing it until I have more of chapter 7/8 done, because those are all pretty connected and I'm not 100% sure where chapter breaks and some story beats are going. I've been working on those recently as well so it's all kind of getting done at once. Chapter 9, bless it, has been mostly written for ages.

So tl;dr: I don't know when the next update will be but this is all still very much in progress, and after the next update the subsequent updates will be coming a lot faster.

Again, thank you so much for this message! Every time I get one it makes my day. This final third of the story has been really tricky so I honestly don't think I would be pushing through it if it hadn't been for all the wonderful feedback I've gotten.

[meimi-haneoka]

Oh my!!!! Just read your post and the summary of the chapter and lmao, I am perfectly willing to wait for the volume to come out. First of all, congratulations to all of us YunaAki fandom that we actually got our favourite hobo to confess his feelings. Lmao, stuff his mouth with chocomint ice cream, Akiho! It feels a bit embarrassingly cute to finally have them being canon (officially that is!). Second, are we getting hints of a potential future arc that ties up with TRC/xxxHolic, especially since xxxHolic Rei is supposedly going to be revived? That description of Momo's scene makes me think that a book that is capable of rewriting the world would without a doubt be involved in TRC/xxxHolic shenanigans. I don't want to keep my hopes up too high given that CLAMP are ageing and have been working tirelessly for so long but maybe secondary author written light novels with illustrations from Mokona-sensei may be the way to go in the future, at least as far as CCS continuation goes? Given that Light Novels are at their all time popularity high right now and they have done it for CLAMP Academy before, fingers crossed! Although I believe we might take a few years before we get anything concrete on that side. Sigh! At least we have CCS CC anime Season 2 to look forward to now. Third, OMG!!!!! Tomoyo!!! I am now 100 percent certain that Sakura is going to be wearing a "King of Kwa" Qun Kwa, fully designed, hand embroidered and stitched by Tomoyo. There will definitely be two weddings - one at Japan (which will be whatever the couple chooses but I would love it to be a traditional Shinto one at the Tsukimine shrine) and a traditional Cantonese-Chinese one at Hong Kong (ain't no way the Heir of the Clan and his Japanese bride getting away without a "proper" and traditional Chinese wedding). Given that it takes at least a year for even an traditionally experienced embroiderer to create a King of Kwa, maybe Tomoyo mentioning this as they are entering 9th grade means that SS will really get married right out of high school. Like even her brain says whoops, I better begin the wedding planning and bridal dress designing already. Yes! Give us I-am-a-wealthy-Victoria-Peak boy Syaoran and his enormously large family being in sync over Sakura wearing a real gold and silver embroidered on finest silk from Guangdong with it weighing around 10-15 kg and that being the bare minimum because it brings the most fortune and fertility with its Nine Dragons and Nine Phoenixes. Buhahaha. And Sakura just going along with it because she does not really get to dip her feet into her husband's culture much and she is enjoying all the big family time because everyone, legit everyone in the family, is enamoured with her and how cute and absolutely precious she is. Ahahahaha. Sheesh, I am blushing so much. I had headcanons for so many years but these are all of them coming true!!! *shakes my head and arms vigorously in my fangirling heaven*

OMG Aubretiaaaaaaa!! YES!! We finally made it!! WEEE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIEEEENNNDDDD 😂😂 Ok excuse my silly little moment but yes, can you believe that I would've NEVER imagined they would make him say THAT in canon? I've always thought that they would go "the subtle way", for several reasons (and it also makes sense, character-wise) and leave it at the true name reveal, but nope, they had to SHOCK ME even in the final, definitive special chapter!! 😂 It isn't a shock that Kaito is feeling romantic love for Akiho, not at all: the shock comes from seeing it spelled out "clearly" on paper! 😂 I even imagined that this could happen a couple of years later along the way, but it's perfectly fine like this. We talked about this before, right? The attraction he feels comes from a chemistry between souls, and there isn't anything shady going on. So everything else will still come at the right time (and it's not like CLAMP will portray any of it, so each one of us can imagine it however we like). I'm gonna write another post later about the chocomint ice cream because I realized I forgot to point some things out in my commentary! 😁

About the Holic tie-in, in this specific chapter it doesn't look like there's any hint (the "appropriate price" Momo paid is a concept that exists in CCS too), but it can still totally happen, even in Holic itself. Like a cameo from Kaito and Akiho (since it would be kinda weird to feature Sakura herself, and she would steal the spotlight wherever she goes). I don't know, I won't hope too much for it, but things in Clear Card definitely were left open enough for them to reconnect to it in the future!

And yes, I also am totally convinced that SyaoSaku will have a double wedding! 😁 Tomoyo can still totally create a western-style dress for the celebration in Japan, since usually after the traditional Shinto ceremony, there's the party and that's where the bride changes outfit and can wear the western-style dress! But yeah, I also cannot see them going without a ceremony in Hong Kong too, and I really appreciated the description of the King of Qwa traditional wedding dress, especially cause I looked for it and...YES, I CAN TOTALLY SEE HOW THIS "BEAST" REQUIRES AT LEAST A YEAR OF EMBROIDERY!! If Tomoyo is going to undertake this challenge, SHE REALLY NEEDS TO START NOW 😂 I mean, look at this....pink blossom, it's perfect!

It is so beautiful!! I can totally see Sakura wearing this! And YES, I agree, I think SyaoSaku will marry right out of high school 🥰 This special chapter really gave us "fuel" for so many future headcanons, right?? I really can't thank CLAMP enough for this!

[thegreatwicked]

Letting Stories Go

I wanna talk about something that I've been wrestling with for a long while that I'm a little at odds about. So, back in 2012, I started writing a story in the Assassins Creed fandom, I've been a fan of the games for a very long time, and while I love the world within the Animus, the game itself has really become a shadow of itself after the third game. That's where this story took place in AC3 the game with Connor Kenway and taking place during the American Revolution.

By this point, I hadn't written fanfiction, probably since high school, and with the game's release I was compelled to write a character because, despite the disappointing ending, I really loved the characters in the game. I wrote an OC called Chenoa. She was the love interest of Connor, and I wrote her in about halfway through the game following the events of the game. She was the daughter of an Irish doctor (dad) and an Egyptian Assassin (mom.) She was orphaned at eight after her parent's death and raised by an associate of her mothers an Abenaki elder and thusly raised within the Abenkai community. It's a bit of a cliche but at the time I really loved what I was writing however, here in 2024, looking back at the story I never finished I'm really questioning whether or not I should.

My reasons mostly stem from the fact that I'm not sure it's the 'correct' thing to do. As a writer now, I pour in lots of research into my characters and the worlds they inhabit but back in 2012, that wasn't the case, I made it up to 30-odd chapters and I was pumping the story out as fast as I could type because it was just FLOWING.

Chenoa, is problematic because I did not pour much research into her, I was a different writer back then and the world was a different place with people not yet understanding just how murky the waters could be when it came to writing a character from a culture that wasn't your own. I'm a white woman with no indigenous background, and I was writing about Chenoa who was for all intents and purposes, an Abenaki woman but looking back now, I can see I wasn't being respectful or even devoting the care to writing her the way she should have been given that she was part of a community that I know nothing about. I had every intention of finishing the story now that I've changed as a writer but as I said, looking back at it, it doesn't feel right to do it now and I'm thinking it might be time to let the story go.

I'm sad at this realization because I think as writers we develop connections to our stories, like deep emotional connections and I definitely had one to this story. It was the most popular story I'd ever written with over 30 chapters, 74k words 100 comments, 89 favorites, and 103 follows. At the time it was some of my best writing and people really loved it. I'd wake up to new comments almost daily and people constantly telling me they loved the story and were excited for the next chapter. No story has ever reached this level of interaction/adoration/love, whatever you want to call it and it was one of the times in my life that made me the happiest (at the time.)

I had so much love for this story and the character I'd created but the more I thought about it the more I realized that continuing it didn't feel right. I've grown up and while I still love the story, I don't feel the need to continue it. I've decided to remove it and move on to other things. I've saved a copy of it so that I always have it for whatever reasons but I've also screenshotted the wonderful comments left to me. These comments are what make the fanfiction community so wonderful, guys, you're all amazing, seriously. That we form such great friendships with people we may never meet all because of people who never existed is something that will never cease to astound me.

I just wanted to get this off my chest and tell you guys about a story I began a long time ago and how you don't always have to finish things. Chenoa means 'Dove' and she was a healer like her father, she entered into the world of the Brotherhood and met Connor over chance and misdirection and the two became a team. There was meant to always be push and pull as to whether or not she would stay the path of the healer or take up her mother's crusade and take life instead of sparing it. In the end, her role was to remain a healer and stay by Connor's side, rebuilding the Brotherhood but not taking a direct role.

This feels like a eulogy almost, lol. I just wanted to share something that meant a lot to me. I'm onto working on my other projects including Shadows and Unbreakable Bonds and my army of one-shots. Thanks for listening.

[kyurilin]

I had so much fun making posts about my stories I did in 2022 last December that I've decided to do a post about the stories I've done in 2023 today! Unlike last year I'm not breaking it down by story so sorry it'll all be one post lmaoooo. And today's the perfect day to do it because this is the third year anniversary of when I started Stray! I'll throw it under a read more because it's a long post lol

Ironically I'm not starting this post off with Stray

FIRST UP

I actually did this one for a secret Santa event I was in a discord for at the time and it's the only instance of a story I've written that didn't have one of the rooftop gang as the main character

technically since the erasermic cats are named Present Meow and Fog this can count as a sneak peak into erasermic post Mic's Bullshit Life where they're now at the dorms lol

Also the Thirteen and Midnight bit of friendship in this story is kind of a subtle hint of where I'm taking their friendship in Crumbled Rooftops

NEXT

STRAY MY BELOVED

ya'll should thank @shabby-blog extra special for this one because they are 100% the reason this story even got dropped this year. They are also the driving force behind the fact I'm still working on it

as an extra special 3 year anniversary gift and because chapter two is taking so long to finish (it's a beefy bitch) everyone's Christmas present is access to the OG doc that was started on this day 3 years ago. Meaning this doc is from the era I was still writing Mic's Bullshit Life

the version on ao3 was started in October of 2021, then I don't think I touched it again until AFTER I had done the BNHA big bang and written some percentage of crumbled rooftops since that was THE focus

Genuinely one of my favorite things about Stray is the relationships. Emi and Shouta being exes and yet still close best friends. Nemuri showing up in Hizashi's apartment like "WAKE UP NERD". Oboro professing his love for Tensei and five minutes later hoping that Present Mic dropped nudes on Twitter. There's some great relationship things coming up in chapter 2 that I know you guys will love but writing the way these characters interact is a treat

I'm so glad that there are people who like this one and I'm so sorry it's taking so long to get more of it done but i promise. The next chapter will be worth it. And then chapter 3 will be extra worth it (even though I haven't even started that yet)

NEXT

This is so far my only published cloudnight story and it's also mistnight so it's obviously first and foremost the best thing I've published

I count this story as an apology for what I did to people in chapter 6 of crumbled rooftops

I LOVED writing this one so much. Particularly the opening bit where Kurogiri is like stunned into silence by Nemuri just being Nemuri.

Obviously it takes a lot of cues from the way I write Kuroboro in Crumbled Rooftops in regards to the dynamic between the two of them as well as introducing how late story Kuroboro will probably behave. Getting to go ahead and write Kuroboro where both parties are in agreement that this situation is permanent and are fine with that was a lot of fun since that's the end goal for CR.

And obviously it's always fun getting to write for Nemuri, particularly since the story I gave her the biggest role in is also one of my saddest. Getting to write a dynamic between Nemuri and Kuroboro was WONDERFUL. Obviously a lot of it is pure headcanon because, at most, in canon Oboro definitely crushes on her.

And on that note it's not that Nemuri has an easier time seeing Kuroboro as he is now compared to the Oboro she knew than EraserMic, it's just that the circumstances in this story are different. I didn't get to delve into it so much, but Kuroboro is on far better terms with them as well since he's not competing with them losing Nemuri. Obviously it's still hard on all of them to cope with Kuroboro as he is now but it's EASIER since theu'de not also grieving for Nemuri

obviously this is one of my favorites I've written this year but then again all my stories are my favorite

AND FINALLY

YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT TWO CHAPTERS OF CRUMBLED ROOFTOPS HAVE COME OUT THIS YEAR

Listen. I KNOW it takes me forever to update this one. And I'm once again going to say that shabby is a fucking godsend because they are the reason I managed to get chapter 5 done after I had to rewrite basically all of it just to get it to a point where it was good enough

This story is my BABY, OKAY. It takes a lot of cues from Mockingjay and the entire Hijacked Peeta storyline that I didn't realize until I reread that book earlier this year. And it WORKS.

We hit two pivotal points in this story this year, one of which has been in my mind since the story was originally outlined for the BNHA big bang last year and the other that I kind of happened into.

So to go into chapter 5 first- the Tensei reunion is one of my favorite parts of the story. The way Tensei interacts with Oboro was so GOOD. He is open and honest with Oboro (with the exception of exactly one moment) and it gives Oboro a perspective on things that sets into motion what happens in chapter 6

Not to mention the Eri and Oboro bonding in this chapter is absolute perfection. Eri dropping "your quirk hurts people too doesn't it" and Oboro realizing how similar they are is. Just. One of my favorite things.

BUT CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER. FUCKING. 6.

I am genuinely not lying when I say that one of the first scenes in my head for this story was Oboro confronting Hizashi and Shouta about Nemuri. I wanted the story to get to that moment so bad and I didn't know when or how I was going to get there

So obviously when I started chapter 6 and knew in my heart that THIS was it, it was going to happen in THIS chapter, I knew I had to do it right. And judging by the comments I got for it I feel like I nailed it (LET ME HAVE MY CONFIDENCE)

giving Oboro the single happy moment of finally being called Uncle Oboro was my apology to him

And I want to give a shout-out to the ending of that chapter specifically, since it's one of the few times I acknowledge the manga storyline that's currently ongoing rather than sticking to anime only information. Considering how long it's taken to write this story, when I knew for sure I was going to make Nemuri's death a pivotal part of the plot, that was going to be the major manga spoiler. But the anime beat me to it and suddenly before chapter 6 came out, the audience reading it was more likely to have the same information that everyone but Oboro had- that Nemuri was gone

HOWEVER while it's not particularly a big part of the plot character wise, the original ending to chapter 6 was going to be Oboro alone on the rooftop of UA. That had been set in stone since the reveal scene happened. But at some point in the final arc, at least two of the towers of UA get destroyed. Whether it's ACTUAL UA or not (thanks @machiroads for planting a doubt in my mind lol), my immediate thought was 'oh SHIT my FANFIC'. Because it was absolutely important to me that Oboro warp to the roof of UA, since in his mind it's safety. But suddenly that wasn't there and it changed how that last little bit of the chapter had to go and HONESTLY. IT WORKS SO MUCH BETTER.

I have no idea how long it's going to take me to get the next chapter out but I can tell ya'll this- we're entering the next arc of the story now. The biggest secret is on the table, and what happens next is going to define a lot of how the characters interact with each other and I am so looking forward to sharing it with everyone

AND THAT'S A WRAP. Last year I mostly did trivia bits but this year I just kind of went all over the place lol sorry everyone

[hithelleth]

Fic stat game

I was tagged by @eveningspirit. I haven't done this one yet, thank you! :D

i have no time or energy to write these days and although the muse was waking up at the beginning of August, life things and stuff put her back to sleep before she could flinch. *sigh*

Rules: Give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the least words. Let's see...

Most hits:

Each of Us Is Broken, Always and Forever (TVD/TO, Elijah/Rebekah/Klaus) - 15,886 hits.

Perhaps they are broken... but with the edges that fit together. (That could've been a great summary, but I've come up with it right now. :P)

Second most kudos:

Reasons to Fight (The 100, Clarke/Roan) - 305 kudos

Roan lives fix-it fic. He and Clarke weather Primefaya together and there's peaceful future for everyone, because that's how I roll. (All I wanted from this show was to acknowledge Grounds as more than just warmongering savages and different peoples finding a way to peaceful cohabitation. This was my writing it myself. Yes, I'm still angry, why do you ask? :P)

Third most comments:

Prompts exist to be filled (Revolution, various) - 30 comment threads (63 comments)

What the title says, lots of short chapters in answer to tumblr prompts.

Fourth most bookmarks:

Dominoes Falling (TVD/TO, Elena/Elijah/Klaus) - 60 bookmarks.

Preeemptive S5 HEA fix-it.

Fifth most words:

Alone (Revolution, Bass/Charlie) - 6,861 words.

Charlie and Bass are the only survivors after the Tower collapses at the end of S1. I projected my depression onto Charlie a lot.

The least words:

Shot Straight Through the Heart (Revolution, Bass/Charlie) - the one and only true drabble (100 words) I've written, short but sweet if I say so myself.

I don't know who to tag, hmm... @abedsmessedupmeta, @zoi-no-miko, @jadedbirch, @jaqofspades, @serinleone, @vesperass-anuna, @stargazerdaisy I think you people still write, right? (As always, feel free to ignore.) And anyone else who want to do it, consider yourselves tagged as well.

[thievinghippo]

Rules: Give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the least words.

@loquaciousquark said if I read her post, that I'm tagged. So I'm tagged! Because I was part of such a huge fandom with Wangxian, that's skewed all my stats. So I'm gonna do two versions. One with Wangxian, one without!

(And I'm gonna be like Quark. Please consider yourself tagged!)

Most Hits: Unsurprisingly, Waiting for Spring, aka The Untamed baseball AU, with 55k hits. I've never written anything this popular before and I probably won't ever again and that's okay. Writing this fic got me through my dad's illness and then his death, so it will always hold a special place in my heart

Second Most Kudos: A Knight in Shining Armor, another The Untamed fic. Fun fact, originally, I was going to make this a chaptered fic where WWX and LWJ both worked at Medieval Times, but scrapped that for a one-shot instead. I did a surprising amount of research about what it was like to be an employee at MT before that decision though!

Third Most Comments: The Boys of Summer, yet another The Untamed fic, this time the sequel to the baseball AU. (My most commented on fic is actually The Longest Distance, my 100 chapter TAZ fic, because some beautiful people actually commented on every chapter!)

Fourth Most Bookmarks: Nose to the Grindrstone, another Wangxian fic (see a pattern here? It's amazing what being part of a huge fandom will do to your stats!) I wrote this one in like a day and it still makes me laugh

Fifth Most Words: The Boys of Summer, with 83k words. My longest fic is Waiting for Spring at 133k

Then the non-Wangxian version!

Most Hits: Pragmatic Dreams - my Lana/Jedi Knight swtor fic that goes over the 5 years they were separated. ngl, this fic did way better than I expected, which is always a nice treat!

Second Most Kudos: The Longest Distance, my Barry/Lup fic. An absolute labor of love and I still can't believe I wrote a 100 chapter fic!

Third Most Comments: Scattering Grief! My post-ME3 fic that is not yet complete. That I started 10 years ago. I would like to finish it someday!

Fourth Most Bookmarks: Back to Pragmatic Dreams! Wonder what that says. Hmm...

Fifth Most Words: Interludes, my hodgepodge collection of swtor one-shots at 33k.

[claudiajcregg]

📈, 👀, and 😬 for the emoji fic writer asks. Please & thank you.

Thank you for asking, Danielle! Forgive me if half the things don't make sense... Still battling this stupid flu, but I'm finally on the mend.

📈 How many fics do you have?

This is such a broad question! The short but true answer is that the number is in the hundreds, between all the stories I wrote in my tweens/teens, to the ones I've written in the last few years. (I know I have probably reached and surpassed more than 100 stories all split between various notes, docs, and word docs.)

But if it's posted... 18 on AO3 (though one of those fics is like a small collection, so it could be 21). Then we have some of those stories in my teens, but I've lost count... At least 2 more on FF.net, and a few more somewhere on LJ and various forums.

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

I have a lot of them, to different degrees of “just need another pass before sending it to a beta” to “will I ever finish writing this?”

The one that I'm most focused on right now (even if I haven't touched it in ten days) is a pregnancy AU. I had the idea in February but only started writing it in June, and it's basically a TWW season 4/5 AU in which CJ gets pregnant. I'm still struggling with the vision already, but it's been fun to explore almost the same events from S5 on the show through this new lens. There are 9 chapters and 55k words written so far! As I mentioned the other day, I'd say I'm either halfway or two-thirds in, but I'm not sure how much I'll cover. And though I don't know what to think of it, those who have read it do like it. (I cannot post it until I am either done with the story, or know I won't tweak things. I would take so long to update.)

I also have a campaign vignettes fic that I still write from time to time, and a bunch of almost-ready stuff that I need to edit once I find some energy. (I also get the sense people are not into my stuff, so it's not like I prioritize it.)

😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

Part of me wants to say 'all of them' because my writing and stories still feel personal, and I don't know what they'd think about it. I'm not a writer!

But the true answer is another wip that Ally/@onekisstotakewithme has dubbed the 'one bed sexy bits' (I called it 'one bed 2.5'). The thought of anyone reading that is just too much two people have 🫣🫣🫣. This goes for other spice I've written in other WIPs, but that one is too much.

[therev28]

20 Fanfic Questions

Tagged by @bioticbooty (indirectly). Thank you!

Tagging @infiwrites, @ryqoshay and anyone else who feels so inclined!

How many works do you have on AO3?

99! Definitely hitting 100 by the end of the year ^_^

2. What's your total AO3 words count?

496,196

I'm 100% hitting half a mill by the end of the year, which is nuts to think about

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Lately it's been a lot of Project Sekai, but I still write some Love Live fic and the occasional one-off when a new fandom really grabs me.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Love Live! Nijigasaki Shipping Anthology - Exactly what it says on the tin. It's an anthology fic containing a single ~1000 word chapter for every possible Nijigasaki ship. I'm currently at 49/55 done!

Personal Choices - A Lycoris Recoil ChisaTaki fic. In fact, it was the third fic in the tag, written after episode 3 of the anime. The show went on to be fairly popular, and because I got in the tag early, it did some really good numbers.

Mutual Fantasies - Another LycoReco ChisaTaki fic, and this was the first smut fic in the tag, lol. Similar to above, it's done numbers by dint of being there first. (I do think it's pretty good, but certainly not my best work.)

A Sellout Night - A Bocchi the Rock NijiBocchi fic. Another case of a fandom being much bigger than my normal ones and thus giving bigger stats than typical. Tho I wrote for a slightly smaller ship, which makes me happier that it did well. I'm also pretty proud of it.

Leo/need Shipping Week - 2022 - Again, exactly what it says on the tin, lol. Because there are 4 members of Leo/need, there are six possible ships. Add a free day (aka, poly ship), and you've got a whole week! This was my first real time writing Project Sekai fic, and Leo/need wasn't nearly as popular back then. (They're still not the most popular, but the whole fandom is bigger.) Very proud of how this one turned out!

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

Absolutely! I love replying to comments. It just feels like the right thing to do? Like, someone took the time to leave a comment and tell me how my story made them feel! The least I could do is reply and let them know I saw it and that it was appreciated. And depending on the type of comment, I can sometimes talk about themes/motifs/motivations/etc. that I might not really get to talk about much otherwise.

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

Honestly, not many of my fics end ansty? I'm very much a proponent of angst with a happy ending. I don't mind making my characters sad, but I want them to eventually be ok.

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

Considering I live for fluff, happy endings are like 99% of my catalogue, lmao. But it's probably the 42k slow burn, Passion's Growth. The main leads spend years coming to understand the depths of their feelings for each other, and it was pretty satisfying to write them finally getting together.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Haven't yet, no. I've gotten some weird comments, but no hate.

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

I do, yeah. I'm incapable of writing "quick" smut. Almost all of mine has at least a few thousand words of build up. I tend to write couples (or polycules on occasion) experiencing something new in bed. Whether it's literally their first time together or they're deciding to try something new, I just like exploring how that might play out.

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

Not really, no. I wrote a short Love Live/Project Sekai fic, but that's about it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Don't believe so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! One in Spanish for sure (it's a related work on AO3), and I think two in Russian on a different site? (They asked for permission, I just never saw the end result.)

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Once, with some friends over a decade ago (on ffnet (hi @bioticbooty, lol)). Honestly, it didn't get very far off the ground before we all kind of dropped it. It was really hard to juggle between the four of us, and while I did enjoy it at the end of the day, I don't think I'll ever do it again. Not really for me.

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

God, this one's hard, lmao. Recency bias would have me say Setsuna/Ayumu from Love Live, but I think if I'm being truly honest with myself, I think it'd have to be Shepard/Garrus from Mass Effect.

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

I guess I could say my old ME self-insert, but honestly, I don't even want to finish it anymore. That fic is well and truly dead. Besides that, I make it a point not to start a fic unless I feel confident I can finish it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and inner monologue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptive prose. I've been trying to get better at it, but it's a slow process.

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

Eh, no real thoughts. If it makes sense to do, do it. Otherwise I don't see much of a point.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Mass Effect.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

You're gonna make me pick just one???

I think I'll pick When Everything Changes. This was the first long fic I wrote after almost 10 years of not writing much at all. After a series of oneshots, writing (and finishing) this fic made me really feel like I was back. Not to mention that it has some of my favorite hurt/comfort, smut, and angst, all in a single chapter! And in that order, too! I often joke that it's my masterpiece, but taken in the traditional sense of "a work that proves one has the skills to become a master," it kind of fits.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

fic writer meme: 2, 12, 22, 32, 42, 52, 62, 72?

Answering under a read-more!

2. Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

For long multi-chapter fics, I plan ahead by chunk but not necessarily by chapter -- I have a general outline and I write to that, and then after I write, I cut it down into chapters where there are "good breaks." I never decide ahead of time how many chapters I'll have and then outline to that, though! That's too much planning for me.

For long one-shots, I generally don't plan and I often don't outline more than knowing the beginning, the climax or big turning-point, and the ending? (And I often don't know the ending tbh.)

12. How does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?

I would say that not getting feedback affects me less than it used to, just because there are so many things that I write now that DON'T get any feedback that if it still made me feel like total shit, I'd feel like total shit all the time, and I don't have the bandwidth for that.

Getting feedback definitely makes me feel more connected to a fandom, though, and inspires me to want to create more for that fandom than the fandom(s) where I don't get any feedback. Fandoms like Steve/Bucky, The Baby-Sitters' Club, Scooby-Doo, and Miss Fisher give me more creative energy through feedback than, say, The Old Guard where I don't really get any feedback anymore, even though I objectively like TOG in a more "fannish" way than Scooby-Doo, or whatever.

I'm in fandom in large part for the connection to other people who love the stuff that I love. If there's no feedback, then a major part of the equation is missing for me, and if I don't feel like the other people who love the thing are out there, then it makes me love the thing less, too.

22. Are there certain types of writing you won’t do? (style, pov, genre, tropes, etc)

Not really -- it depends on the fandom and how to best serve the story. I've written in first-person, second-person, and third-person POV; I've written non-HEA darkfic; I've written kink and vanilla and gen; I've written slash, femslash, and het. There are certain tropes/kinks that I personally am not at all into and wouldn't write just because I personally don't think I'd ever like a fandom where those were in-character for the characters, but that's just kinktomato. There are a LOT of things that I wouldn't write "on request," though, because I would have to have an actual inspiration to be able to feel out the thread of the story -- like, I wouldn't write Steve Harrington/Joyce Byers for an auction/exchange fic, even though I wrote a 10k fic for them. Same with Poe Dameron/Ben Solo.

32. Name three of your favorite fanfic writers.

This changes all the time and I more have favorite fics than favorite writers, but I always love @dracosollicitus, @fille-lioncelle, and @kaikamahine when their fandoms-they-write line up with fandoms-I-read. But 99% of the time I pick to read something based on the summary and not the writer.

42. What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?

I've been in a book reading phase for a while now and less of a fic reading phase, so I'm not 100% positive what the last fic I read was! HONESTLY it was most likely a reread of owlet's Infinite Coffee & Protection Detail series, which I recommend to literally everyone all the time. It's a fic I would recommend to my DAD, it's that good.

52. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do but I'm slowwwwww at it. I get anxious that I'm going to sound stupid or conceited or something, so I let the comments pile up until there are an unreasonable amount and then I get overwhelmed by how many there are and how long I've been sitting on them. It's a bad system, but it's what I got. I do try to write back reasonably quickly if someone asks an actual question or something, though.

62. Thoughts on cliffhangers?

Very hard to write well. Even in books. I can count the number of actually good cliffhangers I've read on my fingers, and honestly at this exact moment the only one I can really say definitely counts is the end of Catching Fire (THG #2). I think A LOT of the time they feel really contrived and don't actually hit that emotional tension spot that a good cliffhanger needs to hit. Oh, you know what fic has a good one? The Maskfic (despite the threatening sky and shuddering earth (they remained) by @praximeter). It's not the ending, it's the chapter-ender of the Big Reveal.

72. What order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

It depends on the format! For a free prose longfic like Lent From Tomorrow, I write out of order and just go for the scenes in the way that they come to me and lead into/from one another. Usually it starts from either the climax or the opener and then jumps around to get from one to the other.

BUT if I'm writing something as a structured drabble series like Not In The Answer But The Question or Could Use A Guy Like Me, I write strictly in order chronologically. Those I can't write out of order because I would die.

[stillness-in-green]

Fanfiction Writer Bingo (+a silly poll)

Got tagged by @scumtrout, whose example I'm following in explicating a few squares, albeit with more shilling.

Talking Points:

Smut Content: For the most part, I virtually never get even as far as sexual content that would meet the bar for mature—two fics that depict sex acts without explicit details/body part terms. The only explicit sex scene I've ever written is still less than a third of the length of the fic as a whole, which I guess makes it only debatably smut. Is there a percentage you can exceed at which point the sex becomes part of the story rather than the story itself, or does any sufficiently explicit sex scene make the whole of the work smutty? Well, in any case, my writing is usually gen enough that the one story with the explicit sex scene the whole story is leading towards feels smutty by my standards.

Unbeta-d Fic Posting Crimes: I get extra pairs of eyes when I’m writing specifically gift fics, but otherwise I basically do all my own beta, which does mean I sometimes miss things.  That happens less if I take the time to paste a work into a different format or look at it on a different device—it’s true and good advice that doing that freshens up text to your brain!—but I’m just not hugely stressed about pruning out every single orphaned word or stray comma in writing I do for fun.

So Self-Indulgent: This will be more prominent if I ever do more with the ShigRD mermaid AU (which is, my god, so self-indulgent—mind control powers? 100% The Author’s Fetish), but the Gundam IBO Wedding Fic is pretty much twenty-two thousand words of me rolling around in post-series character dynamics and throwing worldbuilding absolutely everywhere I think it will stick.  I’ll also throw in a shout-out to the extreme silliness that was See the Blazing Sky Before Us, a Yuletide treat I wrote involving Doctor Doom, Gwen Stacy (Sorceress Supreme version), and Santa Claus, with the aim of replicating in prose the effect of reading one of those really over-the-top Jack Kirby comics from the 1970s.

Multi-Fandom Drifting: I have a very established pattern of fandom migration, so most of my fic writing is done in multi-year spans of same-fandom-ness.  That said, I certainly have written for more than one fandom in my life, particularly during the years I was doing Yuletide.

Research Before Riting: I often just bracket things off when I’m writing first drafts and do the deep research on the second pass, but there are also cases where the whole fic rests too much on research I need to do for me to even start drafting before I do the deep dive.  In either case, have a silly poll about it!

Deserves More Attention: I fear Moon Shot Aim is too spliced in with Overhaul/Nemoto to appeal to people who want more fic on Lady Nagant, and too Lady N-centric (as well as being a bit esoteric with its soulmate mechanic) for the people who want Overhaul/Nemoto, but I’m really quite happy with both ‘sides’ of the story, and wish it could get a bit more love.  Likewise, I wonder if all the OCs in the first chapter of The Way You Survive Is… scare people off of a story that is, in all of its subsequent chapters, much more focused on the canon characters.  Alas that my dedication to exploring the MLA as a group means I’m willing to make up a thousand MLA OCs before shoehorning in a canon character where I don’t think they fit!

Finally, have a few brief notes on two boxes I didn’t check—

1: Formatting my meta for posting is absolutely hellish, but I don’t typically do very complicated things with my fanfic.

2: While I did once want to be a professional writer, I fear it’s one of those ambitions that’s somewhat fallen by the wayside as I’ve gotten older.  Some of that is a matter of not having the energy/freedom to really focus on it in my financial situation, but it’s also the case that my two major original projects suffered from opposing problems—one was a story with a vastly underdeveloped world, and one was a rather nicely developing world with no specific story to happen in it!  But who knows; I do have periods of going back to dabbling with original projects, often in between my intense fandom periods, so maybe I’ll get something off the ground yet.

(Thank you for reading this silliness. Come back next week to finally talk BNHA's hospital attack.)

Tagging @codenamesazanka, @robotlesbianjavert, @leftofrevolution. @evilasiangenius and @megkips, if they would like to play. Here's the template!

[artikgato]

10/15/2023

Well, it was raining yesterday, so I didn't go out for the jogwalk. I did today, though! It took me until like 10:30 but I did do it!

I was also up until nearly 1am last night...reading a fanfic. A Slayers fanfic. A 60+ chapter Slayers fanfic, currently unfinished, in the year of our lord twenty twenty-three. I have no excuses. I make it a policy to almost never read unfinished fanfics, for one. I also knew exactly what I was getting into when I saw the chapter count and just shrugged and went YOLO I guess?

Okay, so it all started with Anime Weekend Atlanta announced, less than a month out from their con by the way, a whole slew of new guest announcements. The schedule is out now and it's less than two weeks to the con so I think they're done doing that now, but I digress. They announced Veronica Taylor as a guest. Well, years ago I already had the honor of meeting her and getting her to sign my VHS copy of Pokémon The First movie, so I don't necessarily need her autograph on any more Pokémon stuff. But of course she's in plenty of other things, including Slayers, which is one of my absolute favorite media franchises, period. So naturally I have to get her to sign for Amelia! And Lisa Ortiz, the voice of Lina, will be a guest at a convention I'm going to in March, so I can get her to sign, too! Fantastic!

And then, because I haven't really thought about Slayers in a long time, my brain went I should cosplay from Slayers again. I've been wanting to for a while. I cosplayed Filia (from TRY) waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day, maybe I could remake her? (I do still want to do that, FYI, talk about obscure characters though am I right?) Or despite being so tall, I've always liked Lina's character design, she'd be great. I can probably pull that off before Khromakon in March, but absolutely not before AWA. But do you know who I could pull off before AWA?

Yeah, so I actually cosplayed Xelloss all the way back in high school. I never wore him to a convention, and it was a very bad cosplay. Technically, my first cosplay. (Technically, because my actual first cosplay was a very, very very bad closet cosplay of emperor Hotohori from Fushigi Yuugi the year prior, my junior year of high school. Our high school banned Halloween costumes but a gaggle of my stupid friends and I decided to see if we could get away with just wearing regular clothes but clearly being in cosplay. So I was Hotohori, a friend braided her hair and was Duo Maxwell, etc. etc.)

Anyway, my aunt made the cloak for me, and I still have it all these years later. The rest of the cosplay would be easy, because of how skilled I am now. I can 100% do this cosplay in time for AWA, and it'll be fun! He's a pretty recognizable character from a classic anime, so while I'm sure The Kids won't recognize me, I'll get at least a few people excited to find someone else that remembers Slayers. And hey, I already cosplayed one evil purple-haired anime prettyboy this year (Okada Izou) so why not two?

So anyway, I made a deal with myself. I would go to no more than three thrift stores after work one day and see if I could find a yellow turtleneck. If I could, I would proceed with the costume. If I didn't, oh well, it's not like I don't have a closet full of cosplays to wear. And wouldn't you know it, I found the turtleneck at the third Goodwill. So I ordered a wig, and now I just need to do a few minor alterations and possibly make the staff.

And so, with Xelloss Metallium now fully on my brain, I remembered that, oh yeah, Xelloss/Filia was one of the OTPs for me back in the day. One of the very first ships I got really, really invested in. And I wondered if, in the fifteen or so years since the least time I probably looked, any good new Xel/Fil fics had been written. I mean, the last time I was really invested in the ship, Evolution-R and Revolution hadn't even come out yet! A03 didn't exist yet! What was the harm of taking just a little, tiny peak at A03, right?

And that's how I ended up binge reading a 60+ Slayers fanfiction, in the year of our Lord Of Nightmares 2023. I'm not even done reading, but I've got shit to do today!

Time: 21:41 Weather: 63, sunny Humidity: 60% Song of the Day: Ghost, Mystery Skulls