#this might be one of my fav things i've written here so far. damn

[rhpsdys]

                      morning breaks like shattered glass over the city at the heart of the titan’s chest. the emperor’s castle is a lonely foundry, but the bard library, strange && out of place as it appears ( ancient, predating the castle, the emperor himself )  is radiant in the sunlight, nothing like the impenetrable fortress built onto it, wrapped around it like a leech ;  there is solace there  /  a sanctuary for all who need it, but right now, it is yours. 

it’s the melodic call that stirs you from your sleep ;   you wake from a dream you cannot quite remember, && there is a hollow, empty ache in your chest for your palisman. SONGBIRD && SONGBIRD  /  one inseparable bond you thought would always hold, but you grew too complacent until even that, too, was taken from you. it is of no matter  /  you know better, now.

you drag yourself from bed to follow the sound, making your way to the rounded window, east-facing, where the sun streams brightly through tinted glass. 

THE BIRD IS ON YOUR WINDOW LEDGE SINGING; small sculpted red feathers ruffled in the gentle breeze. It’s clear that its partner is not near, yet it does not appear to be distressed. It hops, dancing from foot to foot, scarred eye turned your way - at ease in your presence. An offering of a duet - bird and bard. ( @grimmwulf​​ )

you have not seen it before, but instinct tells you this is no ordinary bird  /  you are reminded of the story of the first palisman  /  laurel && avalan, the bards whose home was visited by a goldfinch after the death of their son, who carved its likeness out of wood when it flew away for the winter. 

you cannot place the song, either  /  yet as you draw your violin from the air, raising it to your chin && close your eyes, the melody comes to you like something ancient you’ve known all along ;   something far more intrinsically primordial than you could ever put words to. 

&& so for a few moments, you share in the peace your visitor brings you  /  when the song is finished, you reach out the window && offer it the palm of your hand to rest on. “you shouldn’t be here,” you say, a warning. the castle snuffs out ALL life  /  demon, witch, palisman alike. “but you’ll be safe inside.” you draw it in with a fierce protectiveness you cannot explain  /  the law of sanctuary casts its mercy upon the fledglings which enter the hallowed halls of bardic history. birds of a feather, you are.

( they say that the words of a palisman can only be understood by the witch it’s bonded to, but MUSIC transcends all language. )

“you’re protecting someone. what brings you here now?”

UNPROMPTED.

[vaudeville-moggie]

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. (For the tmnt ask thing)

KELP THATS TOO MANY NUMBERS LEE

16.) Rise version of Casey, and her son are the coolest I think but I love them all they're my babies... The one from the 90s films is the hottest tho WHO SAID THAT

17.) I love 1987 shredder he's so sillies dad of two <3

18.) my favourite villain... Hmmmm 2003 had some really well-written villains I think? Baxter Stockman is one of my favs all-round maybe because he's abused a lot and he isn't really able to dig himself out of that... He gets really fucked up in 2003 but he kind of has a redemption in the future? Unfortunately 2003 didn't really explore that and I think it was more put in for laughs...

19.) my fav ally is probably Casey Jones or timothy (not including April because she's more like a main character, idk) or!! Carter, who appears in 1987 and then never again. I miss him 🥺

20.) theme song... I love them all... Rise's is objectionably the best but damn 2003 had some damn good bangers. I could listen to "back to the sewer" on repeat forever.

21.) favourite story arc? Like... Idk, one that appears a lot is the farmhouse arc (or country arc or rural arc whatever) that first appeared in the 90s movie (although it was probably in the comic first) and Leo or Raph is injured, and one sits by the other while they heal... It's a very soft moment for the brothers because they're usually fighting... If Rise gets renewed I'd love to see this arc again.

22.) I wasnt really a pizza eater before TMNT, it's not a big thing in Australia compared to NYC. I LOVE margherita!! Basil and tomato and boom, ya got yourself a pizza. I'll eat any pizza except any pizza with that horrid ham. Or anchovies. (Who does, wtf)

23.) fav TMNT fic dude idk I should read more... Uh tangledinink's teenage mutant what now?

Lots of TMNT fic recs on my side blog pinned post :3

27.) something I love to see in TMNT art/fics? Tails!! Hehe they deserve tails :3 also any references to sci-fi because that's very TMNT coded, it has a long history of star trek references

28.) what is one thing I'd like to see explored more in art/fics? uhmmm idk 🧍‍♂️as long as people are having fun idc... Maybe villain redemption? Like they did that in rise with draxum canonly so...

29.) what is one headcanon that I have? Uhmmm trans Leo I mean, always... Always.

30.) idk of any common headcanons that I reject... Every headcanon I've seen I've gone like, yeah, I can see that. Might not fully incorporate it into my headcanons but I've never blocked a headcanon or cringed at anything...

31.) one piece of TMNT canon that I dislike/ignore? Say it with me folks: Donnie's crush on April

32.) uhmm idk lol I think I got into it with rise so my first thing would be the thing I just redrew here the original being here

33.) my favourite thing I've made??? idk. I really like the pokemon au I haven't posted about at all and this!!:

only piece of my art on mah wall

34.) what character do i draw/write most often? it might... be mikey? idk... i think I draw them all evenly but i'd predict if you went through an actually counted out of the things I've posted, it would maybe be mikey.

35.) which character relationships are my fav to write/draw? idk I really like how mikey interracts with his brothers and sister(s) which is something I've found I enjoy playing with in my magic au... but I'm literally always drawing rise leo and yuichi usagi together in my tmnt sketchbook so

36.) which character I have the hardest time writing/drawing? Rise Raph for BOTH... sigh, I think I'm definitely better at drawing him than I was, but I've got a lot of practise to do. and in terms of writing, hes a very multi-faceted character and while he's the big brother and he has to responsible, he's also a kid and he can be silly and fun too...

37.) I write/draw multiple iterations of tmnt, but so far I've kind of only posted rise and 2012 drawings so...?

38.) Do you generally stick close to canon, or diverge from it?

my first instinct when writing fics is to make it canon-compliant... but I've made Aus too, so, both?

39.) Do you have any TMNT OCs?

ya, Jim (general tmnt sona or oc, and was my fursona for a bit) and this bat yokai oc I've only drawn like once, her name was ghost I think. I've also made an Usagi character for magic au 2012 leo... spoilers teehee

40.) Do you give the turtles tails? YES OFC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! unless I forget teehee

YAY!! happy 40 years TMNT!!!!

[shadesofmauve]

2022 Writing Wrap Up

Total words published: 149, 266. All but 947 of them published three days ago.

Additional words written: Oh, hell, your guess is as good as mine. I've got Perpetual Soup documents simmering over here, I take bits from them and add to them all the time. Like, google is crashing rather than admit that the Epic Scrap Yard doc has been around and perpetually changing since 2011. I know I had 4000 words on the next chapter before the clock struck midnight on the 31st; I can't remember how much I added to @swaps55' fav upcoming arc (aka Kai Leng's Worst Mistake Ever) or the Vortex of Tears, but I know it was something.

Grand total of words: 149,266++! Only not, because I didn't write all those; many were first published years ago, and even the re-writes represent about three years of work. So who the hell knows.

Fandoms: Mass Effect, of course. I've also added small amounts to an original novel idea, but mostly world-building notes.

Highest everything (raw kudos, hits comments): Of all time? It's always A Star to Steer Her By for hits, kudos, and bookmarks. I'm pleased to see Sunset and Evening Star beats it for subscriptions, though!

Highest kudos-to-hits ratio: Okay, I don't think this is fair. People come re-read aStSHB, but they can only leave kudos once. Like, far and AWAY the biggest k:h ratio is for Copilots, which is a tear-jerker short fic I gave to @musanocturnis in a holiday exchange because I'm a horrible friend. It only has 45 hits total, but people who go "I know, I want to CRY!" and click on it are apparently getting what they signed up for.

New things I tried: Um. Hrm. @swaps55, what did I try that was new? :P I wanna say there's something in the Emotional Cascade Failure chapter, but it wasn't so much new as hard. There's a lot of emotional stuff in SaES that's very much putting myself in situations I have no experience with — which is always part of writing, and is new every time.

Fic I spent the most time on: Sunset and Evening Star, no question.

Fic I spent the least time on: Shipmates, my lil' exploration of how Joker and Kaidan met.

Favorite thing I wrote: I like a LOT of what I wrote this year, which is an awesome feeling! I get giggly-excited over some space combat sections that haven't seen the light of day yet, and about anything with Alejandro. I'm very pleased with coming up with the Poss'm acronym. And Joker and Kaidan's ridiculous N7 Craft Hour conversation cracks me up more than it should, for sure.

Favorite thing I read: I've done way, way more writing than reading of fic, but it's got to be one of the scenes with the Yang Gang from @swaps55' Cantata. I just love their whole dynamic. The needlepoint wall sends me, and I'm going to work a reference to it in somewhere. I also really liked Wish I May, Wish I Might by @spaced0lphin, who's out there single-handedly providing every possible form of content for the Shoker fandom including a frickin' game mod. (Which I haven't yet played for the same reason I haven't read the Tiger By My Side rewrite, @spaced0lphin — keeping my own story clear while I'm neck deep in it, and not having time :( — but the original TBMS was my fav Shoker long fic, back in the day, so...)

Writing Goals for 2023: PUBLISH NEW CHAPTERS! We're lookin' good, just gotta keep going.

New works: Just Shipmates, I think. Though my main fic is so damn long I sort of feel like the new chapters count. That'd be A Bunk on the Normandy, Emotional Cascade Failure, and Possum, most of Trust, then the new chapter Shipmates (which is different than the short fic, titles are just hard, okay). There's other new stuff through-out, but those are almost 100% new.

Tagging: @writes-in-space, @spaced0lphin, @virusq

[mysdrymmumbles]

Get to Know the Fanfic Writer

Thank you to the wonderful @slothquisitor for the tag!

When did you post your first-ever fanfic?

First fanfic I wrote was back in like 2002 and it was for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It was taken down by ffn because it was in 'chat format' (script/play format, but they were little bitches about it). It took years to write and ended up something like 800 pages long? I still think someone just didn't like that it was popular and flagged it as breaking the rules.

First Character(s) you wrote?

Damn near every single character from OoT was in my Link's Revenge fic, though it was a parody, so I'm happy to say I butchered like 95% of their characters on purpose <3

First original story I wrote was waaaaaay back in Elementary school. It was a page long about two kids discovering that a school librarian was a vampire. I think that was like 3rd or 5th grade. I don't remember. But I do know I've loved me some vampires since forever.

Main Character(s) you're currently writing?

The BG3 crew. Mostly the story for Seven Days thus far is from My Tav Idri's PoV, Astarion's PoV, and Shadowheart's PoV, but there are bits from all of the main companions.

Character(s) you haven't written about before but plan to soon?

Minthara, whenever I finally get there. I love her. She's my favorite problematic fav atm.

Fandom(s) you're currently writing?

Baldur's Gate atm. I posted the first chapter for a wow fic like a day before bg3 came out and ideally I would like to juggle to two, but I have been sucked into new fandom hell, so things are lopsided atm. I might try to do both for NaNo this year and see if I can't have a consistent posting schedule for them for the new year.

Platonic Pairing(s) you're currently writing?

Well, in my long fic, there's gonna be all kinds of friendship going down, though I think rn it's mostly Gale/Idri becoming fast besties.

Romantic Pairing(s) you're currently writing?

Astarion/Idri (my Tav) for Seven Days and Astarion/Tav (gn Tav) for my short fics

Your top AO3 tags?

I don't really know how to check that? But they would probably be like: angst, slowburn, adventure

Current platform you use for posting?

Well, if a fic is short enough, I post it here and on Ao3, but the long fics are exclusively Ao3. I used to post stuff on FFN, too, but after getting a, "I'm not gonna read all that, but grats on writing such a long fic," comment for Of a Feather, I don't really think it's worth it to post over there? Idk, I might decide to give it one last chance later on. I did end up getting a nice comment on that fic after the whole thing was written, so there are some nice readers still over there.

Snippet of the WIP you are currently working on?

Idri stills for the fraction of a second. Gale is tired enough that he doesn’t seem to notice. “It’s a family heirloom,” Idri says, smile a little forced, though it could be mistaken for weariness. “My mother would be beside herself if I lost it.” She perks up a little as she adds, “And my grandmother might rise from the dead and go on a killing spree.” Even as Gale laughs, enthralled by the story of how Idri’s grandfather had the broach made for her grandmother in secret because their union was not approved of, Shadowheart cannot help but notice that the note in Idri’s voice is the same as when she told the adventurers about the mindflayer ship. How much of the story is the truth?

Tagging @mousterian-writes, @late-to-the-fandom, @gnomeskillet, @silver-horse, @wickedwitchofthewilds, @brianamorganbooks, and anyone else who wants in!