#tumblr writing workshop week 2

[sweetea-rosey]

I didn't see the first week, but here we go

The world is colder than it used to be- and she thought she knew what it was to be cold on winter days, wrapped in layers and layers of warm blankets and pajamas, struggling to keep all of her limbs cocooned as she sipped on cocoa and watched Christmas movies.

She can't wrap herself in blankets, now. She can't drink hot chocolate and movies seem pointless.

Why learn how to celebrate the joys of life when she is no longer alive?

At first, she thought it was cool. She could float, move through walls. But the reverie was broken when she saw her parents sobbing and was unable to do anything about it. She couldn't hold her mama, she couldn't reassure her father. I'm okay, I'm here, I didn't leave.

But she did. And it's so strange, that they are not alone, but she is.

She watched them mourn, and age, and she watched as they got sent to live with their niece because they couldn't do it alone anymore.

And all she could do was float.

It didn't take long for a new couple to move in, small child in arms and wonder in their eyes at the start of a new life.

The child got what was once her own room.

She watched the child one night, a little asian baby with fresh sprouts of hair and a round face. It woke up and stared right through her. She watched its face contort as tears welled and she scrambled to shush it.

"Shh, shh, don't cry! It's okay, you're okay."

But the first wale escaped anyway.

Not knowing if it could hear her, she began to sing.

Hush, little baby, don't say a word

I'm gonna buy you a mockingbird..

If that mocking bird don't sing

I'm gonna buy you a diamond ring...

Slowly, though she knows her voice must be unsettling, it began to calm, watching as she vocalized after being silent for so long.

When he turned three they placed a mirror in the room. She had avoided mirrors, unsettled by her ghostly reflection. She was a strange color, even more distorted for the living world. She never could get used to herself.

But it's around then that the child began telling its parents about "The Girl in the Mirror" who sings it lullabies. Only for its parents brush it off after a bit of being concerned.

She doesn't know why only the child can see her, she doesn't feel like thinking about it too much. What's the point?

After a year, he got used to her, having accepted her in that way children his age do. He even began to talk to her.

"What's your favorite color?"

She hadn't thought about it in so long.

"Green." She had said, unsure on whether that were true.

What she does know is that, soon after, she found herself drawn towards green things, the color seeming all the more vibrant.

"What's your favorite animal?"

"I like how cats can see me."

And she does. They make her feel less alone.

She watched him come back from his first day of kindergarten, all smiles and laughter at the new experience. She doesn't remember being that happy about school, the routine got old quite quickly.

She found herself smiling as he did. She wishes she could love school like that again. She wishes she could love her room as he loves it.

At least she loves green and cats.

When he turned ten, he started asking more complex questions. He was silent when he came home from school, a frown on his face as he watched her in the mirror. She always had to face the mirror and look at him through there, else he was basically talking to the back of her head.

"What's the matter?" She asked, vaguely aware of how genuine her concern really was.

"You're real, aren't you?"

"Yes." She thinks she is.

"I had thought you were my imaginary friend, like every says. But you're not imaginary. You're a ghost. You're dead."

"I am."

A week later, he asked her while doing homework on his bed, "Is it weird that I find that comforting? That you're dead? It gives me answers not many other people have."

"I think it's nice that you see it that way."

"I'm glad we're friends."

The room feels less cold.

When he turned thirteen he came to her with tears in his eyes. Middle school had taken a toll on him. He didn't fit in in many places, but he clings to the friends that he has. But something else is wrong.

"How old were you when you died?"

She frowns. She's always avoided thinking about it, what had actually happened to her is fuzzy in her mind.

"Not much older than you are now, I don't think. Thirteen, maybe fourteen."

That didn't help him. He laid face down on his bed and cried. Sobbing.

"What's so wrong with that?"

"You died so young," he said, having caught his breath. "You're my friend, I guess I'm mourning the life you never had."

"It's my job to mourn my life, not yours. What was out there for me, anyway?"

"I'll have to let you know."

He's sixteen, telling about highschool and his friends, telling her about his first ex and the extra workload from AP classes and thinking about college that's so far yet so close. Things she's never had to think about.

"I don't think I've ever told you this. And it might be strange, now that I'm so much older than you. But, you're really pretty."

She stared at him, not knowing what to say.

"You never smile. I've never seen you smile...on such a young face, it breaks my heart."

She rolled her eyes. "You barley smiled at thirteen, either. And I did smile once- when you entered kindergarten, you were so excited for it."

"What color was your room when you lived here?"

She looked around at the sage green walls. "Exactly as it is now."

That seemed to make him happy.

When he comes home from his graduation, it suddenly strikes her how young she is. She feels so much older. She hasn't experienced anything beyond these walls for her to even be able to say her soul is truly eighteen years older. She's just the spirit of a little girl and the life experience to match.

Thirteen. Even then, she felt Iike she was dying. She knows that she stopped being truly happy at some point in that year. Why, or when, or of that could have changed, she will never know. She doesn't know what happened to her parents. Are they also stuck in whatever house they died in? Have they died, yet?

She's brought out of her thoughts by him walking in, cap in hand as he sits, looking into the mirror.

"I'm going to be leaving for college."

She frowns.

"I don't...I don't want you to be here, left alone."

She thinks about this.

"I... appreciate that you care for me." And she does. It's strange to her, to feel something other than empty. But she has for a while now. She's loved how she loves the color of her room, she loves staring into the eyes of the cat that he begged his parents to get not too long after finding out she likes them. She loves talking to him and feeling seen. This friendship that's made her smile. That made her come to terms with her own death as she watched him mourn a life he never knew.

She regrets how this shows in her voice.

"But don't worry about me."

She looked at his dresser, organized with deodorant, a Tennis trophy, and a dolphin figurine. "I never could keep mine clean, you know? I was such a mess, I only got worse as I got older. I still am, really. I don't know what happened to my parents. The baby I sang to is now older than me. I am...broken. I am obviously not whole. And if I could cry, I think I would.

"But I like that. I feel warm, and solid. I feel more alive than I can remember being since I was ten. I'm here, and I know little things about me that I hadn't known to think about until you asked. I'm grateful to you. I didn't get to go to highschool, or think about college. I don't know very much. I want you to have that. Maybe I'll find company in your parents and learn how to be happy next."

It's then that she notices that he's crying.

"One day, we'll figure out how to free you."

She doesn't know what to say to that.

[books]

Writing Workshop Week 2: Paying Attention

Welcome back, writers of tumblr! I’ve loved reading your prompt fills for Week 1 and answering your insightful questions, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with for this next prompt.

Last week we talked about the things we love, the things we go and retrieve, that we can hold in our hands. This week we’re talking about loving the things that find us, the parts of the world that come into our gaze by happenstance. In other words, the anatomic matter of all art: observation. 

Observation relies on attention, and our ability to attend relies on circumstance. It’s impossible to pay attention to everything at once, so the mind selects what to notice and what to ignore. Sometimes we attribute conclusions to our observations and move into perception. I think as children we make great observers, but when we grow up and gather enough experiences, we fall into the trap of mundanity. Things we’ve seen before and that we’ll see again, so they’re not worthy of note—eating breakfast, putting on your shoes, going to a restaurant and telling the host how many people are in your party. 

The art of noticing, of curating all the rich details of life, is a fight against mundanity. To do that, you have to carry your inner child around with you, pointing things out that you’ve seen a hundred times before and allowing yourself to witness them with new eyes. As writers, newness is a skill we can always improve. 

Airports are one way I practice newness. If I have to choose between a one-hour layover and a six-hour layover, I’ll always choose the latter. There’s no mundanity in airports. Aside from employees and people who travel frequently for business, everyone is doing something outside of their usual routine, and it’s so much easier to soak up the minutiae that we otherwise miss when we’re walking our usual daily paths. 

On Love

Someone once told me, “Love is paying attention.” The person who told me this was an artist and her subject was her family. Portraiture of the people she loved was the closest attention she could offer. And I agree—you naturally attend to that which you love. When you love a person, you pay attention to the clothes they wear, the tenor of their laugh, their mannerisms, the things they carry in their purse or pockets. But I think it can also be expanded: the more attention you pay to yourself, the more you love yourself. The more attention you pay to the world, the more you love the world. This idea can be a two-way street: love will direct your attention; attention will lead you to love. In other words, if you practice paying attention, you will come to love things more than you already do.

A quick note about neurodivergence: some people attend to the world differently than others, in different patterns and with different guiding forces. Some people have the ability to shift attention quickly, and some slowly. Some people have more control over their attention than others. Some people attend more closely to certain senses (like hearing or feeling) than others. Wherever you’re at, whatever is driving your ability to notice, use it as a strength. There is no mode of observation that is inherently better or worse than another.

Many writers struggle with motivation to write. I have come to reluctantly agree that there is some discipline necessary in being a writer. I don’t believe in “butt in chair every day” mentality, but I do think any skill requires a patterned dedication no matter what your practice looks like. A self-promise. That promise is much more easily kept if you focus on love. 

I don’t mean writing love stories (although that’s often what motivates me). I mean sincerely meditating on what love means to you. What you love, who you love. I’ve participated in so many generative workshops and there’s always a moment I receive a prompt and go, “I have no idea what to write about.” And then I ask myself, “What do I love?” Many things come to me, both big and small, abstract and concrete. I love my family and friends. I love to travel. I love holding a book in my hands and the satisfaction of turning its pages. I love parts of myself and I don’t love others, and this is something I’m working on. 

When you ask the question, “What do I write about?” the answer can always be love. When I ask my students to write about what they love, some of them write about their relationships—the joy of a present relationship or the ache of a past one. They write about their hobbies and friends and interests. Once I had a boy write twenty pages of poetry about frogs. Some people write about passion that toes the edge of love and hate. Love is not always good. Love can be destructive. It can motivate people to cruelty; it can distort perception. Love can be complicated and weird. Love can lead to regret. But love is a strong feeling, and strong feelings drive creativity. 

On Sharing

I think sharing the things you notice, the way you see the world, is an act of love. Carrying around your inner child to show them what they’ve never seen is a way to nourish yourself, replenish what you expend. You can apply this to any aspect of writing you want to work on. If you want to set a story where you live, you can go around your city pretending you’re showing it to someone who’s never been there. If you want to develop your characters, pretend you’re about to introduce a close friend to someone else, and you know they’re going to get along once they meet. If you want to better explore your themes, pretend you’re talking to someone who has no concept at all of your worldview, who maybe has an opposing worldview but is interested in learning yours.

People, especially writers, can be so afraid to put themselves into the world. To see and be seen. But when you begin to view sharing as an act of love, it becomes easier to listen, to bear witness and say, “Thank you for sharing that with me.” And when you say that enough to others, it also becomes easier to share yourself, in hopes that you’ll be met with gratitude.

Prompt time!

What I’d like you to do today—or tomorrow, if it’s late—is to notice three things. Three seemingly insignificant details, things you would otherwise forget or maybe not even see (or feel, hear, etc.). Bonus points if you write them down in a notebook, but the notes app on your phone will do.

Even if you don’t want to do it, simply by virtue of reading this, I think you’ll begin noticing things. If you’re a very observant person with a good working memory, maybe you can think of three things you observed earlier, and maybe that’s effortless for you. If this is you, your task is to write not just three observations, but three paragraphs of observation throughout the day. 

Here’s an example: I am at this aesthetically pleasing coffee shop but I’m concentrating on the flimsy paper menu fluttering beneath a fan, held down with a ceramic plate. The tapping sound of my sister’s acrylic nails on her MacBook. My own self-consciousness that everyone has a better sense of style than I do. One of the baristas is a young man who looks like an ex of mine, and I’m wondering where that ex is, if his hairline has fully receded, if he still works at FedEx, if he ever married that nice veterinarian’s assistant who was way too good for him and always wore tye-dyed t-shirts for some reason, and I honestly liked her a lot, she seemed like a genuinely good person, and he knew it too and that was why he treated her well, so why had he treated me so poorly? 

And now I have a narrative question: Why do people hurt some loved ones and not others? What is it about the chemistry two people make that causes this to happen? The only way to answer these questions is to either live it all again and take notes—and I’ve had too much therapy for that—or write a story about characters navigating this chasm I’ve found in my understanding of being human. And I got all that from sitting here on this uncomfortable stool in this nondescript coffee shop, hanging out with my sister on a Friday afternoon.

I recommend taking an entire day to find your three things. You’ll find many more than three, but for the purpose of this activity, I think focusing on the three most interesting or compelling ones is best. Once you have your three things I’d like you to work them all into a piece of writing. Here are some ways you can approach this:

If you want to write nonfiction, write about your day, focusing on building around your three things to eventually pull a story out of them, the way I did above. Follow the associations and memories that arrive to you.  

If you want to write fiction, write those three details into a new story or the world of your current work in progress. If you’re not sure how, make the first your inciting incident, put the second in the middle of the story, and end the piece with the third. 

If you want to write poetry, make a poem of your three observations, and note what happens to the meaning when you squeeze three disparate observations together. 

If you want to do something experimental, convey your three things with a stylistic constraint of your choice. For example, write only in sentence fragments (by that I mean, no verbs).  

A quick caveat: You might be thinking, but Betts, I write science fiction (or fantasy, horror, etc.) and so nothing in reality is of relevance to me. I would argue that everything you perceive in reality can be applied to all things that are created. You think they don’t have pretentious coffee shops in space? Well, maybe not. And definitely not in a magical version of medieval Europe. But there might be something akin to a nondescript strip mall in Midwest America with cracked asphalt, half abandoned, with some kind of sketchy dentist or urgent care in it and a vape shop. Every place, even places that don’t exist, possess some realistic texture, and when you render these images, that space becomes real to the reader. You could argue, even, that the goal of genre fiction is the highest possible suspension of disbelief. And the only way to do that is to make the world you build feel as lived-in as reality.

Questions? Ask ‘em here before EOD Tuesday so @bettsfic can answer them on Wednesday. And remember to tag your work #tumblr writing workshop with betts if you want her to read your work and possibly feature it on Friday!

And, for those just joining us: @bettsfic is running a writing workshop on @books this month. Want to know more? Start here.

[kameonerd566]

Writing Workshop Week 2: Paying Attention

I'm a week late on this one bc I was traveling last week ;0; I'll put it under the cut

Today I've been trying, probably a bit too hard, to pay attention. I wanted to notice something magical today, like a bumble bee, or a baby's smile, but I didn't see any.

Instead, I paid attention to the raindrops on my car windshield. The way my hair sticks to my neck when it's hot outside. How the minutes drag on like hours during work meetings.

I would have much rather paid attention to the warm sun on my back, laying lazily across the beach. It would have been much nicer to breathe in the the sea shore: salty and alive. To hear the seagulls flap their wings overhead; To look up and watch them glide across the horizon.

Instead, I'll have to settle for the chatty turkeys outside my living room window, while I sneak in a nap before the evening.

I'll have to settle for the taste of ceramic, as an ihop coffee mug clinks against my teeth. I never quite know how to explain how much I love that.

I'll have to settle for the moon in my rear view mirror, bright and full.

And at the end of a long day of paying attention, I'll realize that maybe there was magic all along. I'll pay attention to how thoughts spill into my notebook like a snake scrawling wildly through ink. I'll pay attention to how, even now, the gentle rhythm of computer keys has its own kind of magic.

[scamuel-likely]

Week 2 of writing workshop with @books @bettsfic:

Paying Attention

Observations:

The walk down from my house into the town is one my feet take to as naturally as a falcon to flight. This is a walk I do daily, my battered trainers hitting pavement, sweeping across tire-streaked tarmac, and then hopping onto pavement again. After that initial road is crossed, I jaunt parallel to it until I come to the ever-familiar buildings, that pop up daily in my life like fan favourite characters in a sitcom. The shop where I was yelled at by a crazed employee, the pub that used to be one of my favourite restaurants, the tiny park where I recognise a student who is smoking a spliff behind a tree, the hairdressers where I see Paul in the window and turn away, so he doesn’t have to see my shaggy, messy, in-dire-need-of-a-cut hair. My college sweeps past me, all red bricks and empty classrooms; two weeks until they’re full of whispered laughter and overworked lecturers. After this, I stop. I stand at the maw of the high-street, watching shops spill out before me.

My brother and his girlfriend are sitting in a coffee shop somewhere within that sprawl. Probably the one next to the cinema.  Not wanting to interrupt some romantic middle-of-the-afternoon meet, I instead head to a new place that’s opened in the recent student housing development by the college. It’s directly opposite the angry, pockmarked, cinderblock of a building that is the disused bookshop. I eye up seats through the utterly spotless floor-to-ceiling windows and pick one that has a decent view of the whole place. A plush leather chair pulled up against an ovular table. Perfect for writing and avoiding eye contact from my fellow denizens.

I enter the shop, walk to the counter, and grab a rhubarb & apple sparkling juice. The guy behind the counter has short-cut dusty hair and awesome piercings. He’s wearing a little chain with a silver boot hanging on it and I really want to ask what it’s about but instead I ask for an apple shortcake. He hesitates for a second, comes around the counter to my side and starts looking at the cakes. He can’t find the pastry and I start to think I’ve conjured it up and I’ve made a fool of myself in front of this really nice guy. But then I see it and point it out to him. He apologises profusely and I do as well. He calls the cash machine a queen, and I laugh, but I’m so conscious of how awkward I must seem. I pay for my stuff and dash away to my seat.

I can hear the clicking of a uni student’s acrylic nails on a MacBook.  

I start to worry if this coffee shop experience is too similar to the example prompt on the Betts post. I shakily sit and start to type stuff and I’ve gotten to this point, and I don’t really know what my observations are, really. I’m just sort of stream-of-consciousing this shit and no one wants to read that. The couple who I sat next to have gotten up and left and I try to recall their conversation.

Okay, nothing.

It’s hard to snoop on people, and I’ve been listening to music this whole time so that probably (definitely) hasn’t helped.

No, no I can do this.

He was talking to her about this person that he works with who always sits too close to him, or something to that effect. He had to take a call and she looked out the window, which I thought was funny because most people these days whip their phones out if they have to wait. But she looked out the window. At the empty road and the beaten-up, cherry red ROAD CLOSED sign lying by a grassy verge smattered with dandelions. Maybe she was doing this contest. Unlikely but you know. If she is, then hi! Also sorry if I got the conversation topic wrong. Also, doubly sorry if he was your best friend or cousin or something. I assumed y’all were a couple but like then again that was a random assumption based on literally no evidence, save for proxemics.

If I was making this as a film, I would first put the camera over the road looking in, to get an extra sense of detachment from the scene occurring within. I'd pan along the window, positioning various characters so they'd all be visible; like a little diorama. Everyone would wear one specific colour each. Just for fun. And for style. We cut to an extreme close-up of laté art slowly dissolving into a mist of milk as a manicured hand stirs a teaspoon around the deep, bowl-like, earthen coffee cups this shop uses. Smoke drifts from a barely smoked cigarette sitting neatly in a glass ashtray. A folded newspaper sits in the centre of the table. We pan from this up to the face of our protagonist; an elegant elderly woman with silicone-framed glasses and a charcoal pinstriped suit. A handbag rests on her lap. Within it is, oh, I don't know, classified documents. Of course, there's no smoking in this cafe, and probably no documents in that handbag. She finishes her coffee and leaves, wearing not a sleek grey suit but a frumpy off-white cardigan.

The only others in the shop now are two people on their computers, same as me. I’m on the other side of the place to them and I’m stealing glances over whenever I can. One of them has stickers all over her Mac and I wish I could get a better look cause there looks to be a trans flag over the Apple symbol, but it could just be my colour blindness playing up again like it did earlier when I was looking at these 80s Japanese robots of my childhood. It turns out one of them was, like, green, not blue. Honestly eyes, why have you deceived me so?

The other computer person gets up and leaves the shop, glancing back at the MacBook girl, something left unsaid lingers in the air between them, static and tangible. She gets up and leaves a few minutes later, shrugging on a pink parka. I should probably go soon too. One fleeting glance at the counter to catch the eye of the barista, but he’s gone, eddying away in the wind of missed opportunities, down and down till he becomes just another face among many.

Home now. The sun sunk as I rose up the hill, casting longer and longer shadows. My original plan for this wasn’t to be the world’s most awkward observer but instead, to call back on memories of last week. I had sat down in my rocking chair, ready to sequester myself away in the observations of a past version of me, one who had done the humorous and dichotomic thing of paying attention in Bristol University’s art gallery, but not the art. As of last Wednesday, I had noted everything from this gallery that had caught my interest, save the paintings and sculptures that adorned the walls. A strangely chipped bit of marble flooring, the milk-bottle glasses of a janitor cleaning a statue, the vivid way a teacher described Monet's paintings to his bored-looking gaggle of field trip kids. But when I tried to go more in-depth, to construct a narrative from these lot, I found I couldn’t. As much as I wanted to stipulate if the janitor was half-blind from a car accident, or if the teacher had tried and failed to be a painter, I found I couldn’t flesh these out. I wanted something fresh, something more tangible.

And so I left that Bristol Wednesday behind and forged forward, an expedition to write in real-time. I think the only thing this has really made me attentive towards is my own inner monologue, and my tendency to overthink things. Which is not too dreadfully interesting for you wonderful Tumblr people (Tumblrians?). Maybe I've wasted an hour of my life jotting random things down. Maybe it's helped me put things into perspective.

Addendum:

Victorian single-glazing has convinced me to write one more, less utterly prosaic, observation:

The screams of cars, a cacophony of petrol and steel. Jarring, at first. Soon, it'll be background noise. A harsh accompaniment to the soft dawn chorus. A polluting alto to the chattering soprano of birdsong. Great gas-guzzling juggernauts, screeching wasp-like motorbikes, thrumming sleek electric sportscars. A mirror to the sharp call of a red kite, the light twittering of sparrows and the lilting tones of bluejays.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

post-s2. good omens mascot here, coping unhealthily.

This is the first proper post I'm writing since the audio breakdown, good thing I queued a POTC one last week, I suppose. Yes I slept through the entire day today, missed the theatre workshop I was supposed to attend and may or may not be listening to A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square on loop. Have an update on my coping because my social life and family are both Tumblr now:

Every song is about them now. A lot were before, but now every single one. Even an old Hindi song from a 1900s Indian military movie that I have not watched, by the way. But the lyrics (thank you Google translate) are: Everybody wants a handful of the sky, everybody searches for a handful of the sky, there is a world waiting to be hugged to the chest, the moon is a fair full of stars, but this heart is still lonely. And of course that makes me think of Crowley as the starmaker. Ow.

I made the very intelligent decision to rewatch the first three episodes of season 2, knowing what the Job minisode and the Edinburgh minisode do to me. I'll be here clutching Crowley, well, hugging him close to the chest, just like that song... ah, fuck, here we go again.

I listened to you all and am drinking a lot of water, since my tear ducts were emptied yesterday and now I'm unable to cry. I also ate too much chocolate.

I searched for sad Aziracrow edits and watched them. Don't look at me. I'm in a hell of my own creation.

I used too many emotions last night and now I feel hollow and achy. Maybe I should cope with humour and write the summaries.

Or maybe that will backfire and I will be filled with horrifying levels of emotion.

I slept. A lot. Many hours. Lots sleep.

So. Well. You know. Adopted child of divorce. You were all right, this is exactly like dealing with a breakup or divorce, but much more painful.

Someone please, please, please stop me from clicking the Crowley whump tag to find fanfiction.

I remember my initial Good Omens posts. I remember calling the fandom sad, desperate, queer and masochistic, and also pointing out how you all blame Neil and then sit and make headcanons that are a hundred times worse than canon.

I was so right. Look at me now, sad, desperate, queer and masochistic, making headcanons that are a hundred times worse than canon.

Wahoo.

[mrcowboydeanwinchester]

🌸 Sapphicnatural Statistics Spreadsheet 🌸

link for the spreadsheet here!

hello hello! in may 2024 i completed a university essay studying the subversive shipping conventions of sapphicnatural fanfic in the Sapphicnatural Collection over on AO3, with the thesis that sapphicnatural ships are often rarepairs with little-to-no grounds in canon (e.g: a guest character/one-off character who have never met on screen), conversely to standard fanfic practice. as part of this, i gathered some statistics about the fics in the collection, got slightly carried away with the scope, and made a giant spreadsheet with 6 sheets of various data. with the project over, i thought it would be nice to share it with tumblr in case anyone else finds it helpful or just interesting!! i'm likely going to post the essay that i wrote alongside this in the next few weeks, so give me a shout too if that's something you'd like to see

to pique your interest, the spreadsheet includes:

Notes on methodology and the vocabulary used

Statistics on the popularity of each sapphicnatural ship in the collection and the frequency of characters featured

Analysis on some significiant ship factors: whether the characters have met in canon and how frequently characters re-occured in the show

'Ship potency', a new framework i'm workshopping to quantify how 'viable/strong' a ship is, specifically when measuring the makeup of femslash ships against mlm ships

i've written up some of the key points i found and some extra analysis about them under the cut, so read more if you're interested! <3

Contextual note: there are 129 fanfics in the Sapphicnatural collection.

Top 5 most popular Sapphicnatural ships:

donna/jody (10 fics)

anna/mary (7 fics)

jo/cassie (6 fics)

anna/ruby (5 fics)

kaia/claire (4 fics)

21 unique ships have 3 fics per ship. 24 unique ships have 2 fics per ship, and 52 unique ships have 1 fic per ship. So, only a quarter (25.3% of ships) have more than 3 fics written about them.

Rarepairs (and thus multishipping) are much more frequent in Sapphicnatural fanfiction than across most fandom fanfic collections which often centre around a specific ship

Have the characters met in canon?

Only 34.2% of ships involve two or more characters who have met on-screen in the show, with 59.6% of ships featuring two or more characters who have never met

4 out of the 5 top ships are between characters who met in the show's canon

BUT the most common dynamic is between two characters who could potentially meet in canon (are alive through the same seasons/at the same location (hell/heaven) at the same time) but who never meet in the show

This idea of 'canon potential' is the most exciting space for a lot of sapphicnatural writers, where finding gaps in the existing narrative and placing two similar women together to explore what their relationship could look often seems to be more inviting than those established on-screen

What is the spread of side/guest/one-off characters in ships?

A third (32.9%) of ships are made-up side/guest character

None of the characters featured are main characters (as none of the women spn characters can be realistically classed as 'main characters' lolol)

17 ships feature at least one one-off character, with 3 being one-off/one-off

Sapphicnatural fanfiction has a unique appreciation for reinforcing attention to minor characters, often as part of a feminist agenda to restore their agency

How frequently are individual characters featured?

Jo Harvelle is the most popular character in the sapphicnatural collection, involved in 15 unique ships across 34 fics. So, over a quarter (26.4%) of the fanfics in the collection feature Jo

Author's note: honestly this could be my individual impact on the collection as a jogirl oops

Mary Winchester is involved in 14 unique ships across 25 ships, so both Jo and Mary are significantly multi-shipped. Mary features twice across the top 5 ships

Sapphicnatural writers often write in service of a particular character rather than a ship - ie. exploring Jo's sapphic identity is more important than who her relationship is with

Charlie, Anna, Ruby, Claire, and Bela are the other characters involved in more than 10 fics each across the collection

Ship potency:

I explain this concept more on the sheet itself, but I essentially assign numerical values to whether a ship is (possible in) canon or not, how frequently characters re-occur in the show, and how popular a ship is respective to the fandom (as sapphicnatural is small, donna/jody is popular with 10 fics, for example)

This is to gain a measure of how 'strong' a ship is, assuming that a standard mlm ship will rank highly in most of these criteria (control variable of destiel ranks 29.5/30, whereas the average potency sum for a sapphicnatural ship is 11.8)

Across the top 5 ships, the average potency sum is 20.9

4/5 of the most popular sapphicnatural ships are in the top 5 for ship potency, with donna/jody, anna/mary, kaia/claire and anna/ruby having strong canon foundations and so high potency ratings.

jo/cassie is irregular as the third most popular ship because they only rank 14th for ship potency, as the pairing have not met on-screen in canon, and features a one-off character

Ships with higher potency sums do tend to be slightly more popular, but there isn't a clear pattern among any of the ships. I'd like to do some more work with this to fine-tune the system

Wordcount, kudos, and hits:

Average wordcount of a fic is 3,511 words. This fits with my other working theory (links to my post about my history essay on women's fiction through the feminist waves) that sapphicnatural writers utilise short stories and one-shots to most succesfully explore sapphic identities

Average kudos is 48, with a median of 13

Average hits is 353, with a median of 122

So: sapphicnatural fanfics receive a fairly low level of interaction, especially when compared to the mlm ships in the Supernatural fandom (destiel, etc). This is in-line with most fandoms and femslash as a whole - a small, dedicated community are reading and writing sapphicnatural

I didn't explore much here, but it would be interesting to go into further depth anout how many fics in the collection are written by different authors, etc

and that's it from me! if you've made it down here, you're an absolute gem and thank you for sticking with me! hope you foundd it as interesting to read through as i did to write up - and that you give the spreadsheet a nosey too if you fancy <3

[inviisiiblelee]

Vintage

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel Word Count: 2,224 Rating: Teen and Up Audience Relationship: Alastor/Vox Additional Tags:

Mentioned Valentino (Hazbin Hotel), Mentioned Velvet (Hazbin Hotel), Vox is Bad at Feelings (Hazbin Hotel), One-Sided Attraction, Unrequited Love, Lost Love, Alastor is Bad at Feelings (Hazbin Hotel), Soft Vox (Hazbin Hotel), Soft Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Fluff, porting from AO3, link included above if prefered.

Notes: An entry for Tumblr RadioStatic Week Day 2: Vintage. I'm late by a week, but I will be writing for each prompt anyway. This definitely falls much more under the unrequited vibes. Vox is obsessive.

----------------------------

Glowing red eyes focused on the blueprints on the table. Vox’s hands were deft, gentle with the small pieces he was fitting together in front of him. The blueprints were as detailed as he could think to make them, but he rarely worked with wood products anymore. It had been years, maybe even decades since he had touched the material, especially a rosewood as beautiful as this. He usually worked with metals, able to use his power to work holes of good sizes and engrave himself. But he also hadn’t worked anything by hand in years just as well. The factories produced everything now, and while he often made prototypes of certain products, he still didn’t usually work the material himself anymore. He would put it together and handle the tech parts and the programming. 

But this was a simple wooden build, with only a few moving parts for a reason. Of course, those parts were metal, shiny and well polished brass. Recreating and making things a little more efficient was something he was good at, even if he didn’t do it often. He could cut out a few in between parts in favor of newer, modern pieces, while still maintaining the original effects. He had hired someone especially to make sure the music piece would play properly, and he was able to make those pieces himself with clear instruction. His fingertips could get hot and were easily sharpened, and he was more than familiar with ensuring holes in metal were an appropriate size. Plus, he had several sheets of brass ready in case he did need a few trial runs.

His work bench was covered in wood shavings and dust, the smell of burning fibers. But a few screws, several hours, an infuriating amount of time spent bent over into the light, engraving into the wood with red-hot fingertips and listening to the same little tune over and over again until it was perfectly placed. Vox stepped back to look at the completed box, closed and fully varnished and dried, something he’d done to the pieces days before assembly. The outside looked about the way it should have at the time of the original designs, in the late 1890's or so, clean corners and raised layers. A shiny little keyhole for a simple lock and key to turn and open it. The top lifted up, Vox had taken time to engrave the image of a deer on the inside in the unvarnished wood, grazing on some grass between trees. The inner parts of the box were otherwise everything they needed to be, the disk of brass meant to spin and pluck along a musical comb underneath. It looked perfect, and it put a smile on Vox’s screen, before it fell slightly. He tipped the box over, and there was the false bottom.

With the hollowed space opened up, he picked up a small sheet of paper that he folded into fourths before tucking it in and placing the bottom over it. A screw in each corner and it was hidden away. It was … unlikely to ever be found. But that was fine. 

Another quick set of checks before Vox gathered the music box, tucked it away in a bag, and left his little workshop area. He didn’t use the room often, it branched off of his office, something he’d built into the VoxTech building but hadn’t used almost at all since the early 2000’s. Sometimes he would build a thing or two, but that was typically at his desk, not in there. It was fairly late in the night, nothing unusual for him to be up at, but a time he knew the majority of the building would be shut off, Valentino and Velvette probably having already retired to bed. So it was very easy to make his way out of the tall towering office without any incident. He walked with purpose, entered one of his smaller vehicles that would garner almost no attention, and made his way to the inner city. 

Vox parked a few blocks from the destination, intending to walk the rest of the way. He didn’t have a clear idea of why he was really doing this. He didn’t … have a good reason. This was silly, a ridiculously sentimental impulse to have indulged for the last week. He supposed he thought he would give it up halfway through, and even now, he thought maybe he would make it to the front door, and then he would abandon ship. He could still go back. Destroy the thing, or repurpose it. 

But no, he was walking his way right up to that stupid Hazbin Hotel, and stood at the double doors for a little while. It was two in the morning, and it was unlikely anyone was in the lobby. He didn’t want to risk leaving the thing out on the steps, it would be far more likely to be destroyed before ever even being spotted. Or stolen. He pressed one hand on one door and pushed, feeling it give and open with slight pressure. It was quiet and quick, and he peeked inside. The worst that could happen was … well. A confrontation, he supposed.

But he was lucky. The lights were low, only a few around the bar left on to illuminate the area, which appeared to be empty. No patrons, no staff, and that was perfect.

A few steps in, closing the door behind him. The remodel had clearly gone smoothly, and it was definitely for the better, given what glimpses of the interior he had gotten before. It helped that Lucifer had led the efforts seamlessly, it took them all less than a day to construct. Lucky bastards. But as he idled in the lobby, he noticed a television set around the sitting area on the other side. Perfect.

A quick approach over to the tech, and Vox dug the box out of his bag. He placed a single note card on top, bearing the name to whom the gift was for.

Alastor.

Single spaced, typed out, using the basic Arial font. He didn’t want to be connected to this. The back of the card bore a simple set of lines. Enjoy. Hand-made for your listening pleasure. He didn’t think hand-writing the note would be a good idea. Signed or not, he was sure Alastor would remember what his penmanship looked like, given it had hardly changed in over fifty years. So typed it was. A soft sigh left him as he stepped back, looking at the gift left on the television for a long moment before turning and making his way out.

“Alastor! There’s something down here for you!” Charlie called out excitedly from the lobby. Alastor was not really in the vicinity to hear, but he did quickly appear at her call, as he always did, emerging easily from the shadows, smile wide. 

“Oh? What do you have for me?” he asked smoothly, glancing down at the wooden box that she was holding. He read the card bearing his name, and his brows furrowed slightly. If it were a gift from Charlie, why would she bother with a card as such?

“It’s not from me, and no one else is owning up to it either,” she said, also looking a little confused. “It was just sitting in the lobby when Husk came to open up, and he gave it to me when I came down.”

“Well, let’s take a look together, shall we?” Alastor said simply, placing his microphone in the crook of one arm and taking the box in his hands. It didn’t seem to be anything inherently dangerous.

“I did open it,” Vaggie admitted as she approached out of curiosity. “It doesn’t look like anything too weird, or like any sort of weapon.”

“Vaggie! It’s just a gift!”

“Oh, it’s quite alright, Charlie. Vaggie has the right idea, triple-checking things.” Meanwhile, he turned the card around and read the few lines typed out on the back. For his listening pleasure? Hand-made? Odd.

The key taped to the card – or rather, re-taped by Vaggie – was clearly needed to open it, so he pulled it off and opened the box, peering at the inside. The scene of a grazing deer, engraved by some sort of heat into the wood, greeted him first, and he found himself blinking in some surprise. There was no signature, no name anywhere inside, and he wondered if the hand-made comment was simply a lie. But there was a certain amount of humanity in the lines, flaws here and there that convinced him more that it wasn’t the case. It was clearly a music box. There was a crank left on the music disk, and he inserted it into the hole it was clearly meant to fit into. Setting the box down, he went ahead and turned it to allow the box to begin making its music.

The song began to play, and Alastor felt something shift in his heart. It was a song he recognized, a song that he was most familiar with in the 70’s, and his mind was left trying to figure out who would make such a thing, or send such a thing. His smile wobbled, but he forcefully kept it up, as a single name arrived as a possibility that he quickly shook away. There would be no reason he would do any such thing, surely. Charlie and Vaggie both appeared entranced by the music, and Alastor seemed stuck in place, so the song played in full and eventually stopped to leave them in silence. Alastor stepped forward and snapped the box shut, tucking it under his arm.

“That’s such a nice gift, do you know who- oh. Where did he go?” Charlie spoke to Vaggie, realizing Alastor had disappeared amongst the shadows again.

The Radio Demon was back in his room, and the box was back in his hands, opened and being examined. He was searching it for just about any semblance of information on who had sent the pesky little thing. He shook it a little in his hands in frustration when he found nothing at all. But he heard something seem to slide against the wood inside of it. 

He paused. Was it just a mechanism piece? Another shake gave the same noise, but it didn’t sound like anything that should have been in there.

He sat down with it, examining the well-crafted item, noting the screws on the bottom of the box after a closer look. He produced a small screwdriver and worked the metal out of their holes, finding the hollow spot where the folded paper resided. 

“Ah-ha!” 

A triumphant little noise and he withdrew the folded note, placed the music box gently down on his desk, and read it. 

Alastor.

Today marks it being officially eighty years since the day you saved me from Hell, in every literal and figurative sense. Technically, a total of a hundred years since meeting you for the first time. Things are weird and different now, and I wish that wasn't the case, but hopefully you have fond memories about this song, that maybe it can remind you of what we used to be. Who I … used to be. And maybe it'll bring you a little happiness, too.

With love, Vox.

Oh. 

So it was Vox's doing as he first thought. Somehow, it was almost relieving. That no one else seemed to be aware of that part of him, or that it ever existed. There were really few who remembered that once they used to be close, but … truly Alastor had thought that Vox was one of those people. There was a mix of feelings boiling in his chest, he felt like, and he couldn't begin to sort out what was more prominent. Anger? Rage? Something … softer? Sentimentality? Regret? 

His fingers pulled the box back into his lap, flipping it back over. He cranked the handle and let the song play again, his expression softening. He thought he'd buried most of this decades ago. He thought Vox had buried this all decades ago. Alastor was more than aware of the date, though he had no intention of being so actionable on it. It meant Vox came during the night, and Alastor hadn't noticed. For once, he had been able to sleep, and it appeared it had been conveniently during the time he had arrived. Stepped right into his domain to drop off a ridiculous gift that he made plenty of effort to be unattached to. 

He could remember the many times they'd danced to this song. It was an original piece by someone more local, Vox had been enamored by it, and Alastor had agreed that it was very good. Vox bought the record without question and when they lived together, back in the 70’s, they would often play it. 

Alastor shook his head, trying to dispel the memories. It hadn't been like that for so long. Vox moved out a couple decades later, abandoned him for work and profit and frivolity. Lost himself to the corporate world somehow, though it was frankly surprising he'd managed to go so long with any individuality in the first place. 

But he couldn't seem to harshen the smile on his face as the song played. 

Thank you, old friend.

[kandisheek]

FIC REC WEEK 32 - EPISTOLARY

Last train home by erde (orphan_account)

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 10,983 Tags: Post-CA:CW, Pining Steve, Angst with a Happy Ending

Summary: Steve writes letters to Tony that he never sends. By the time he hands them to their rightful owner, Tony has had a brush with death, has retired as a superhero, and now has a small town workshop of his very own. But it's okay, Steve has gone into retirement too.

Reasons why I love it: Aaaaah, the ending of this one is so sweet it makes me want to smother myself with a pillow. I love all of Steve's letters and Tony's retired superhero lifestyle, it feels like a missing part of canon. I adore this one, and I bet you will too, so please go and check it out!

a tweet is worth 140 characters by athletiger, BladeoftheNebula, march_hyde, starksnack

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: M Words: 7,614 Tags: Coffee Shop AU, Fluff and Crack, Twitter AU

Summary: From tumblr: "Ok but imagine it’s Steve on a date with a guy like this and Tony’s watching from across the coffee shop, live tweeting it!! And then Steve finds out that Tony Stark was tweeting about his terrible date and responds to the thread like “next time feel free to step in and save me!” And Tony’s like “next time you should just date me” and whoops, a twitter romance is born!" Well. It happened.

Reasons why I love it: The formatting in this is so fricking good, it feels like I'm really browsing Twitter. I love the back and forth and Tony live tweeting Steve's terrible date, it's hilarious. And there's just something about Johnny Storm getting roasted by the Avengers that I deeply appreciate. Pun absolutely intended. I love this fic so much, and I bet you will too, so I hope you check it out!

ctrl-alt-deceit by soliloquent

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 17,113 Tags: No Powers AU, Miscommunication, Getting Together

Summary: “Tony, I’ve completed the background check on Steven Rogers, and there’s something big you need to know. Like, massive security-threat level big. I’m sorry, sugar. He’s bad news.” Or: A corporate espionage story told solely through excerpts from CEO Tony Stark’s inbox. Featuring romantic pining, delightful office lunches, sarcastic super-geniuses, intense investigations, revolutionary nanotechnology research, unhinged arch-nemeses, haunting ghosts from the past, and an endearing emoji overload by a witty Peter Parker.

Reasons why I love it: The suspense in this fic is so goddamn good, it kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time! I really love the Knives Out reference here, it definitely got a good chuckle out of me. And Steve is such a sweetheart, I love him so much. This fic is fantastic, and you should definitely read it, if you haven't already!

🙀 ➡ 😻 ➡ 😽 by Anaxandria, BladeoftheNebula

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 5,159 Tags: Fluff and Humor, No Powers AU, Domestic Avengers

Summary: Tony puts up a "Missing Cat" sign and not only 1) gets his cat back, but 2) meets a cute guy named Steve who keeps refusing the reward. A story told in texts, voicemail transcriptions, and, of course, an overuse of emojis.

Reasons why I love it: Aaaah, I love everything about this! The Non-Powered Avengers group chat cleansed my soul, it's so funny. And Steve and Tony's voices especially are so spot on, it feels like I'm really reading their messages. This fic is wonderful, and if you haven't read it yet, then you're definitely missing out!

Collected Letters (1930-1943) by brokentoy, triedunture

Pairing: Steve/Bucky Rating: T Words: 16,654 Tags: PTSD, Roommates, Hurt/Comfort

Summary: The collected private correspondence—unedited, uncensored—of Steven Rogers, later known as Captain America, and his longtime companion, James B. Barnes, spanning the years from childhood to World War II.

Reasons why I love it: This fic just tears at my heartstrings in the most beautiful way. I love how their relationship develops while they're living together, and the glimpses into what their life was like in the 30s and 40s feel so real I can totally believe it's what actually happened in canon. Definitely check this one out if you haven't, it's wonderful!

[cloneficgiftexchange]

clone xreader exchange - sign up

the sign up is here!! if you like xreader fics and star wars clones, then this event is for you!! i know the announcement post said this post would be out on the 15th, but i wanted to give people as much as time as i could to sign up, because the more the merrier :)

here’s how it will work: 

1. Sign Up Here, and pick at least two clones that you would be willing to receive a fic for. for a prompt, please choose one or two dialogue prompts that the person who gets you will use in their fic. If you're stuck on a dialogue prompt, there are tons of lists on tumblr to choose from! Sign ups close at 8:00 EST on February 26th, 2023.

If you sign up, reblog this post to get the word out!! All writers are welcome, whether this is your first fic or you’re an already established writer :)

2. The day after sign ups end, you will receive two emails from me:

I’ll be using a secret santa website to do the matching, so one email will come from that website, and it will tell you who you will be writing for. I can easily randomize the assignments this way, and it ensures that everyone has a match. 

The second email will come from this blog’s event email (cloneficgiftexchange@gmail.com) and it will have posting information, general information for the participants, and a document of all the prompts. Once you find out from the secret santa website who your person is, you just need to find them on the list to see your prompt and the characters you have the option of writing for.

3. You will have about six weeks to write your fic, and the word minimum is 800 words. On Saturday, April 8th, participants will post their fics to tumblr. I’ll send out more details about posting when the event gets closer, so don’t worry about that. When you post your gift, make sure to tag your person and this blog, so i can reblog it here as well. I will also put together a list of all the fics when the event is over, which will be linked on my pinned post!!

And that’s it! This exchange isn’t really that in-depth, and I’ll be available throughout the entire event if you have any questions, you want to workshop your fic, or anything else!

If you do have any other questions, feel free to reach out to me here, or you can ask me on my fic blog @ghostofskywalker :)

tagging those who said they were interested: @dragonrider9905 @mayonnaisepudding @writing-positivelyexisting @pinkiemme @221bshrlocked @ihaveashield @imarvelatthestars

[threebooksoneplot]

Three Books One Plot FAQ

Who are you?

Hosts Shannon and G are both relapsed 2000s twihards from the DC-Maryland-Virginia area of the US who found their way back to Twilight fandom just in time for the Renaissance™. They met through fandom in 2019 and have been friends ever since!

Shannon (@flowerslut) lives and works in LA. When she’s not obsessively writing 250k-word fanfictions, you can find her at Emo Nite LA or making her own music under the name Maybe. Her personal blog is @uncancellable. You can also follow her on Goodreads/Storygraph!

G (@volturialice) lives in Colorado and works remotely, which leaves plenty of time for her to take long walks in the mountains and look for loose bears in the neighborhood. She is a graduate of the Fanauthor Workshop and spends a shocking amount of time at the library. You can follow her on Goodreads/Storygraph here!

What is Three Books One Plot?

3B1P (2022 - present) is a podcast created to compare and contrast Twilight and its two published rewrites: Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined (genderflipped Twilight) and Midnight Sun (Twilight from Edward’s point of view.) One part literary analysis, several parts jokes, and the rest utter shenanigans, it’s a bimonthly read-along in which hosts G and Shannon take turns reading and recounting chapters of Life and Death/Midnight Sun, and a rotating guest of the week reads and recounts Twilight. For more information on the podcast's genesis and the history of the three books, give Episode 0 a listen!

Where can I listen?

You can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts.

Are you planning to do episodes on Eclipse/Breaking Dawn?

Yes! Season 3 (Eclipse) will run from September 11th, 2024 (Happy birthday Renesmee) through the end of November 2025, with a few brief hiatuses. We are planning a Breaking Dawn season/Season 4, but dates are still TBD!

How have you kept your “three books” gimmick going into Season 2 and beyond?

In Seasons 2 and 3, we've kept Midnight Sun and Life and Death traditions alive by writing our own fake sequels (New Moon: Euphoria and Agony and Dark Noon, Eclipse: Warfare and Peace and Corona Light) from Beau's and Edward's POVs! G and Shannon take turns writing a chapter of each book and read them aloud on the air after each episode's normal chapter discussion.

For Season 3 (Eclipse,) we are also simultaneously be reading The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner! Look for Bree-inclusive episodes starting in March 2025, when the timelines converge.

When do you post new episodes?

We post new episodes every other Monday! Season 1 of 3B1P aired from June 2022 through May 2023, while Season 2 (New Moon) aired September 2023 through June 2024. Season 3 (Eclipse) will air September 2024 through November 2025 (reverting back to Monday releases after a Wednesday, September 11th premiere.)

Why do you have an episode 0/8.5/11.5? And why is your season 1 finale/season 3 premiere episode longer than Return of the King (2003, dir. Peter Jackson)?

Listen, we never claimed to be perfect.

What are the "show notes" and where can I find them?

After each episode, we compile any references we or our guests made into a post full of links, images, videos, articles, etc. Find them on our tumblr here!

How can I support the podcast?

You can slide us a few bucks over on the 3B1P Ko-fi. Anything we raise that goes over the cost of breaking even will be donated to the Quileute tribe’s Move to Higher Ground project! If you’d rather not shell out, we’d also love getting ratings/reviews on your listening platform of choice. Or you can recommend us to your goofiest friends!

Where can I find you on social media?

We post (and reblog) the most stuff here on our tumblr, but we also have an Instagram, TikTok, and previously had a (now-defunct) Twitter. You can also contact us with inquiries or long-form comments and letters at threebooksoneplot@gmail.com 🤩

How can I interact with the podcast?

We love responding to tumblr asks, emails, and other comments! Sometimes we even read out comments during an episodes. We also post weekly polls and short-answer questions both here and on Spotify (only accessible from the mobile app.) We even occasionally host contests and challenges! You can also join our spinoff project Bella’s Book Club, a virtual book club open to anyone, which meets on discord once a month in order to discuss “Bella Swan’s” (Stephenie Meyer’s) favorite books as listed in Midnight Sun chapter 11 (and sometimes watch movies!) More info on Bella's Book Club can be found on its dedicated tumblr (here) Goodreads (here) and Storygraph (here!)

[polizwrites]

PoliZ's WIP Update - 28 Aug 2024

Another productive writing week!  I touched four fics (1 new & 3 WIPs)  and wrote a total of  2930  words.   

On Ao3, I posted: 

 Chapter One of  Love is Like a Muscle (and you make me want to flex) - WinterIron mutual pining turns smutty.  

Operation Sun and Surf -  Tony & Avengers team-as-family one shot with touches of angst.  

On Tumblr I posted: 

A Symbol of Devotion - Stony one shot - friends to something more.     

I’m juggling  20+  active/semi-active WIPs with my current  deadline being the Tony Stark This or That event which runs til the end of August.  

See  below cut for what I’m working on/planning to work on - arranged more or less by bingos/challenges/etc.  As always, feel free to send me   prompts or plot bunnies as well as asks regarding  any of these projects  or any other WIPs I’ve got out there.   Interaction really helps feed the Muse and keep me motivated!

Hot Bucky Summer 2024 [HBS_R2] (Ends 31 Aug)

More fun from the @buckybarnesevents folks - this time weekly challenges to create (usually NSFW) Bucky-centric fanworks!   Thanks to plenty of cross-filling with other events  (I’m looking at you, July Break Bingo)  I’ve submitted something for the first eleven weeks and am working on one more with a vague idea for the final week - here’s hoping time & inspiration hold out!  

* Week 12 - August 17th - August 23rd  – “What should I wear?” + Nothing -  Posted Chapter One of  Love is Like a Muscle (and you make me want to flex) on Friday.    WinterIron massage therapy (Tony getting his hands on Bucky) leading to a  happy ending. It came in at 1200 words and  crossed over  with BaBB August: Body Worship, BBB K1 - Tony Stark's Workshop.  

* Week 13 (August 24th - 30th) -  FREE WEEK + Optional Prompts: Mutual Masturbation  –  Chapter Two of Love is Like a Muscle (and you make me want to flex)  is written and will post Friday.  It’s coming in at 1024 words and crosses over with my TSTOT Row 3: Lab Sex and  WIB N2 - Mutual Pining  squares.  

Tony Stark This or That  [TSTOT_24] (Ends 31 Aug 2024)

I signed up late and then promptly forgot I had a card - so am tackling this 8-row card with the hopes of getting it at least halfway done by the end of the month.  I’ve made that goal, and might try to squeeze in one more fill before Saturday ends! 

* Row 3: Lab Sex - see HBS Week 13 above

* Row 7: Beach Day - Posted  Operation Sun and Surf - a crossover with a previous Flash Fiction Friday prompt [#FFF266 Great Expectations]  & my TSB K2 - Miscommunication square.  Tony rents a beach house in hopes of getting the Avengers together for a bit of team bonding;  things don’t quite go as planned.  It came in at 835 words.

Build-A-Bucky Bingo [BaBB_R1] (Ends 31 Oct 2024)

Another fun year-long  event from the folks at  @buckybarnesevents!  Each month there’s a list of prompts and you choose (at least) one  each month for your card!  At thirty-two  fills and about two months to go, I seem to be going a bit overboard …. 😁

* May:  Bucky’s Trigger Words -  combined this with a previous  Flash Fiction Friday prompt [#FFF251 Out There] for Just To Live One Day Out There - a Winter Soldier self-reflective ficlet. It came in at 312 words and will get posted to Ao3 Real Soon. 

* August: Body Worship - see HBS: Week 12 above. 

WinterIron Bingo Round 2  [WIB_R2] (Ends 16 Dec 2024)

Signups are still open for pre-made cards for Round Two of this super-fun bingo event! I have seventeen  fills and zero WIPs at the moment - setting this aside for the moment, as I have other time-sensitive events going.  

* Iron Soldier (One Bingo, One Fill) - looking at combining my Column B prompts: Matchmaker, Bucky Riding Tony, Stark Gala, Inside Joke and Threesome.  Still working on a plot - if you have any suggestions/want-to-sees - let me know! 

* I3 - Car Sex -  Have a fun ficlet in mind for this - some of the dialogue & such already worked out in my head.  

*I4 - SHIELD HQ - Finally posted  Fathers Don’t Know Best  to Ao3 this morning.  A crossover with Flash Fiction Friday prompt [#FFF245 You Never Cared, it’s a No Powers AU with Bucky working as an analyst at SHIELD who stumbles across a late night visitor to the lobby.  It came in at 410 words. 

* N1 - Hair Pulling Kink -  thanks to a fun prompt from @scottxlogan  - I filled this square with Untangling Their Attraction - where Tony’s offer of assistance leads to mutual kink discovery (not as racy as it might sound).  It’s coming in at 544 words and will post to Ao3 before this event is over. 

* N2 - Mutual Pining - see HBS Week 13 above. 

* N5 - "I'm here for you."  - Possibly the next chapter of  Lady Natasha’s Consort and Lord Steve’s Companion ?  

* O3 - Love Confession - Circling back around to Chapter Seven of  A Little Bit Carried Away - where Pepper learns about the impulsive offer Tony made to Bucky after they spent the night together.   It’s drafted at  1029 words and will cross over with TSB K3 - Pepper Potts and my pJBB C1_A1 - "Promise me you won't get mad."  prompt.  Slated to post on 9 Sep. 

Bucky Barnes Bingo - Round Six [BBB - R6]  (Ends 31 Mar)

This amazing bingo event from the folks over at @buckybarnesbingo is back!  I have twelve  fills with one WIP at the moment, but a couple  more crossovers planned. 

* K1 - Tony Stark's Workshop - see HBS Week 12 above. 

* K4 - Last Times/Farewells - combined this with a previous  Flash Fiction Friday prompt [#FFF257 Count The Days ] for  Short-Timing It - a pre-war (just barely) Bucky & Steve (Stucky if you squint) ficlet. It came in at 313 words and will post to Ao3 before the event is over.   

Tony Stark Bingo - Mark VIII [TSB_R8]  (Ends 31 May)

This amazing bingo event from the folks over at @tonystarkbingo is back! Late signups will start next month if you want to join in on the fun!  I have  four  squares filled and one WIP - I need to plan out more crossovers! 

* T1 - Watching Helplessly -  Posted Stranded Among the Stars  to Tumblr on Friday as a crossover with the Flash Fiction Friday prompt [#FFF265 Galaxies Away]. It’s a Nebula & Tony ficlet set on the ship - it came in at 345 words and will get posted to Ao3 before the event ends. 

* R4 - Bartender - Got inspired by another song to start Some Other Beginning’s End - Tony’s a bartender dealing with an a-hole patron (Brock) and his just-broken-up-with boyfriend (Bucky).  It’s sitting at 1028  words and I plan to cross over with my  pJBB  C2_A2 - "You deserve someone who makes you happy."  square. I may try to squish a few other squares in before I’m done. 

* K2 - Miscommunication - see TSTOT Row 7: Beach Day above

* K3 - Pepper Potts -  see WIB O3 - Love Confession above

* K5 - Misunderstandings - see HBS Week 10 above. 

Hawkeyes Bingo [HB_R2] (Ends TBD) 

Working on this  Tumblr event - got a 3x3 card and am looking forward to creating more  Clint-centric content and trying my hand at a bit of  Kate Bishop fic as well!    

* A3 - Awkward Flirting – this might be a good entry into my first femslash fic with Kate/Yelena?    

* C1 - Magic -  Combined this with a previous Flash Fiction Friday prompt  [#FFF259 House of Cards]   for   Keep a Steady Hand.  Clint notices Bucky getting frustrated with a task and offers to help.  It came in at 632 words and will post to Ao3 possibly later this month.   

Post July Break Bingo 2024  [pJBB_24] (Ends 30 Jun 2025)

I requested two 2x3 cards for this  Discord-server only event from @julybreakbingo  – so if you want to join in the fun, let me know and I’ll try to get you an invite!  I have two fics in progress and need to figure out some more crossovers. 

* C1_A1 - "Promise me you won't get mad." - see WIB * O3 - Love Confession

* C2_A2 - "You deserve someone who makes you happy."  -  see TSB R4 - Bartender.  

Warm and Fluffy   Bingo  [WFB]   (no end date)

Eight fills on my card, courtesy of   @warmandfluffybingocards  - need to try for another crossover or two!

* I2 - Vulnerable Drunk - matched this up with a previous Flash Fiction Friday prompt of [#FFF258 Milky Way Dreams]  for Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines -  a MIT-era Tony & Rhodey ficlet, where a drunk Tony shares a childhood dream with his best friend.  It came in at 318 words and will get posted to Ao3 at some point.   

————

On  other creative fronts:  I am working on a brown bat  plush figure for a commission.       

If  you’re looking for one of a kind gifts for birthdays or other celebrations, check  out Stuffed With Character    over on Facebook for a full list of my designs (now over 150!).   These soft stuffed figures are  mostly Marvel and monsters, but I have some Star Wars, Star Trek, DC   and Disney figures as well. Plus I love to take custom design   requests  for any fandom!

[hibiscustea9]

i really hated blue velvet and i know a lot of other people did too. i can't believe someone who wrote as beautiful a love story as fire walk with me could write such an ugly, hate-filled story. you pulled the rug out from under us and that made so many of us mad. your writing is amazing and you're so talented and its a shame you wasted it on a story like blue velvet. when you write stories like you have, that's what your readers expect. go back to what you do best and the readers will follow.

Well. Hello to you, too, anon. This is quite a message to get at the end of a work week. The saddest part of this message is that I think you actually thought you might have been trying to help here. I can only assume that your absolute lack of tact and empathy comes from a desire to see more of the writing you previously enjoyed and that this is an attempt, however misguided, to motivate me into writing that. I'll respond more in detail after the jump.

You're not the only person to dislike "Blue Velvet," anon. In fact, I've gotten several comments on that story from people who didn't enjoy it. I'm aware that the shift in the story, and the revelations late in the game, did change what people's expectations were. That is one of the risks readers have to accept in reading in-progress works. I don't work by writing an entire story and uploading it all at once, so tags are updated as the story progresses, and as needed. I ensure that the tags are up to date for whatever the most recent chapter of the story is, but if you're going to read something that's still being written, you have to accept the fact that there might be something which occurs that you aren't in favor of.

As to your description of "Blue Velvet" as ugly and hate-filled, that, I would argue, is in the eye of the beholder. I received a number of comments describing the story as beautiful and full of love. You have the right to disagree with that, and so if you found it to be an ugly story, that's your perspective and you have the right to feel that way.

What you really don't have the right to do is come into my house and piss on the carpet. I can only assume that you haven't left comments on any stories I've posted on AO3, and since you don't have the courage to post this any way other than anonymously, I'm willing to guess this is the first feedback you've given me on any of my stories. I don't know what sort of perspective you have on the world and the way it works, and I'm not going to speculate. But the fact that you felt comfortable enough to come to Tumblr, fill out this form, and submit it, tells me that you don't really care about other people, and your pitiful attempt at giving advice - which seems completely to be about what you, personally, want to happen - underscores this.

Here's the reality, anon: I'm not your personal fanfic writer. If you want to pay me $5000 a month so I can quit my job and be your personal fanfic writer, I will absolutely write anything you want. But you're not going to pay me $5000 a month. Nobody is. Nobody has ever paid me anything for any fanfic I've ever written. You have never had to pay a single dime to read any of the almost 2 million words of fanfic I've written since July of 2020. Nobody has ever had to pay for what I write, and that's the way I like it. I like to have the freedom of writing what I want, and publishing it, and getting feedback.

If you actually had constructive feedback based on an aspect of the story, I'd be more than willing to listen to it. If you wanted to argue, for example, that Noah wasn't a realistic character, that his dialogue sounded false, that there wasn't anything clear about what his motivations were, or anything else, that would actually have been helpful. That would have been appreciated. But even then, you don't give advice like that unless someone specifically asks for it. This is not an advanced writing workshop and you are not here to give brutal feedback to get my writing in shape. You are a reader, I am a writer, and if you do not enjoy what I am writing, I have very good news for you - there are literally 11 million other works on AO3 you can read instead.

You might also be surprised that what you've said about readers coming back if I go back to what I do best isn't even true. "Fire Walk with Me" was the high water mark of my fanfic writing career in terms of reader response, as you've noticed. But since then, my readership has fallen off a cliff, even when I'm literally writing work in the same series. "Blue Velvet" has more kudos and more bookmarks than both "Cobblestones" and "Half Past Midnight," so you clearly haven't looked at the actual story data itself.

I'm not angry with you, anon. I feel sorry for you that this is how you choose to interact with the world and what you have to say to someone whose work you allegedly admire. And I'm frustrated, because all feedback like this does is make it less and less likely that I'll write anything in the future.

[books]

[Taglist] Writing Workshop Week 2: Paying Attention

For those just joining us, @bettsfic is running a writing workshop on @books this month. This is the taglist for participants. You can join this list by messaging us here on @books. Want to know more? Start here.

@scamuel-likely

@cheerfulmelancholies

@subversivegrrl

@jamiesshelves

@wanderingbandurria

@nana-glass-chillhop-radio-hour

@dragonnan

@sirswooshnoodles

@strexrep

@preternaturalrose

@funkynoshes

@medieshanachie

@stayfrosty2sims

@ashmariesstuff

@thesoapgirl

@bibliomancerkay

@jeanie205

@paulineagain

@youreonyourownkid13

@mxxnlightwriting

@randomafterthought

@karacat

@lilliebellfanfics

@haillily

@djinnhatescold

@liv-is

@rhysofcourse

@nix-rose

@little-tea-kitten

@petiolata

@xoxo-gothic-girl

@omg-elledubs-things

@reblogwhoreowo

@mclurky

@deplorablethoughts

@richardmurrayhumblr

@gluepoo

@valkyrhys

@x-soapbox-x

@winterstar1412

@themandilorian

@dinovom

@allaboardthecolumboat

@scorpio-and-a-half

@musicismagic-writes

@mywhateversite

@mtk4fun

@kameonerd566

@cardcaptorsakura96

@loiladadiani

@zacharialend

@tanthamorelover

@inflappible

@emptymanuscript

@deadrabbitohno

@slicesofapple

@goldenwatcher

@porcelaintoybox23

[s-ccaam-era-crepe]

ooo can I hear about the bap crew?

OF COURSE <333 i loveeee talking about the bap crew thank youuuu

okay so first off general warnings for the podcasts and all my posts about it for the most part <3 there are mentions of cults, death/murder, religion (and the like) and i think thats it mostly? (as a general) but sometimes it can be a lot, take care of yourself yall <33 and the rest is under the cut there is a lot <3

with that out of the way i guess if you didn't know already lol !! they are my podcast ocs !!! i'm in the works of creating a horror <3 podcast that takes place in an amusement park with 5 main characters and a god <3

so this post here explains a lot about the main characters personalities and stuff and the tags #brickwoods and #bap on my tumblr have some other posts related to the crew <3 recently i've been doing some extra stuff for fleshing out their families who will eventually be showing up in podcast and i can do a quick over view of them here tho <3

oh and not necessarily crew related but the length of podcast <333 imma ramble about that for a sec <3 so season 1 is going to be all amusement park stuff and the last episode of that season will be a major plot point/death (sorta setting the darker/more dramatic scene for s2) s2 is also amusement park shenanigans however now that the stakes have been raised the rest of the cast is pretty scared now yk. but they have still their motivations for wanting to get out and so <3

s3 is going to be after our final girl rebecca escapes the park and tries to a) sorta solve why that happened in the first place (why them. who is the god etc etc) and b) try to give closure to the others families so yeah. plus some other plots things yk <3

and then s4 will most likely be rebecca trying to stop/take down the cult because she doesn't want something like this to happen again and the ending is in workshop <33 (aka i can't decide between like. a couple possible endings i have planned but main plot won't change despite which one i eventually choose :))

okay so back to the crew lol <33 since that other post explains a lot of basic stuff about them feel free to ask specific questions about them now that you have info about them <3 but for now family time !!!

(specific warnings for this area some bad parents mentioned)

so david <3 ae is an only child with 2 moms, they are very sweet and amazing and extremely Extremely heartbroken when david never comes home after the park and stuff. they definitely had like plans for college visits and they had a car ready for when david was going to get aer license. the two of them are going to be pretty sad to write for in s3 i think but also i love them as characters (i was posting about them like last week lol they are very cute and fun when they arent sad </3)

hmm sophia's family <3 so her dad was born into the cult when it was a bit less strict (he was 'home-schooled' by the cult but also was allowed out bc his family is a main influential family) and her mom married in. they aren't the nicest parents by a long shot, and they only respect sophia because she became the leader. sophia does have a sibling however she doesn't know about them bc their parents kept them separate in order not to 'taint' sophia's godly touch

rebecca's family doesn't have too much going on, it is also an only child and her parents have been active in her life, not as great/caring as davids parents yet not uncaring either. rebecca really just lived with them her whole life and doesn't totally feel like it connected with its parents in any important way tbh

sunni ! so sunni grew up with only his mom and his sister and after the incident with carter (wait did i tell yall that was her name yet. thats the mutual best friends name in case i Didnt say that already <3) sunni's sister Mary ended up moving out with a friend and not keeping in touch with sunni or their mom again. she also changed her last name as soon as she legally could. but yeah so sunni doesn't have a very close relationship with his mom either and he has no relationship with his sister anymore which upests him a lot but he also keeps this close to him

and blair <3 so blair has 2 brothers (twins age 10 (i think)) named ben and bruno (named by My twin siblings so) and their parents are pretty bad. blair is very protective of their younger brothers and has been trying for a while to save up enough to move all of them out but hasn't quite yet. they fight really hard in the park to try and get out because they do not want to leave their brothers with out someone else to help and be there with them.

and i think thats it for a basic run over of all their families and the characters in general a bit <3 :)) feel free to ask any questions based on this post, the last post or like. literally anything <33 they are my passion project and i love BAP sooo very much <3

[soot-and-salt]

2 for fetch quest!

Hi anon!!

(Question from this list of fanfic author questions - come ask me more!)

2. How did you come up with the idea?

I've written some pretty cracked out ideas (I LOVE writing comedy!) but this one might be the MOST cracked of them all thus far.

Okay so listen. Picture it. There I was, sick as hell with the flu. I was having a Bad Time. So I was laying in bed rewatching Helluva Boss and scrolling through Tumblr, as one does, and for some reason I just thought... wouldn't it be fun to put these guys in a situation?

The idea of the item they were sent to find was based on the fact that Vox is shark coded pretty often in fan art and my 101 degree fever brain was like "GET THAT BITCH A BLAHAJ!". Which meant I had to send IMP to IKEA.

Which was fucking comedy gold in my head. I swear to you, the time it took for me to come up with the fic idea and then to open up a doc to write was like... fifteen minutes total. I was like, let's throw in Alastor, that'll be funny.

Writing Blitz is a JOY. I have SO MUCH FUN whenever I get to write him. I hope to do so again, though it seems I can only properly channel him when I have a fever. I don't know what that says about me. Or about him, to be honest.

But yeah, I'd love to tell you this was something I mulled over for weeks, carefully plotted, workshopped all the jokes, etc. But no. I wrote it in the span of like three hours, completely off the cuff, while sick as fuck, and once I was done I immediately threw it up on AO3, put my laptop to the side, and went to sleep. I think I did some light editing when I woke up though? So, you know, super professional work from me, really.

[tinyluminaryzombie]

Hi tinyluminaryzombie!! Happy Nice Ass(k) Week to you!!

I really like your username, but I must ask, is there a meaning behind it?? Also, is there a nickname you’d like to go by or should we just call you Zombie?? It makes me think of the Cranberries song.

Okay, so my question for you is: how long have you been watching lone star? How did you get into the tumblr ls fandom? Also! I see you’ve written some fics for other fandoms, do you plan on writing any lone star fic?

Thanks!! 🍋

Hi Lemon!!! Thank you for the ask - it made my day!

1. Ok so first, this is kinda embarrassing and mundane but there’s no story behind tinyluminaryzombie 🤷‍♀️. When I first joined tumblr I couldn’t think of a good username so I let tumblr generate one and then I started participating and felt like I shouldn’t change it???

2. I’m still workshopping but tlz or tiny works!

3. I started watching lone star during season 3. While it was awesome to be able to watch multiple eps at a time I can’t help but think of the fandom fun of beginning there from the beginning.

4. I def started lurking (and then liking and reposting) ls fanfom during the hiatus btw season 3 and 4. I started actually posting during season 4 and it was super fun to react (and see everyone else’s reactions) live.

5. I would love to write some ls fics but it’s def intimating…Writing an au seems so daunting so I’m hoping the rewatch will inspire me to write some missing moments or codas (I adore all of the ones already out there)

Thanks for the fun questions!!! 💜