#was this already a wip? yes. but i am killing two birds with one stone and the req gave me the idea of having tj torment nick 🤪🤪

[manitapaleta]

@owl-ghost 🎼 i need a big booaaooyy 🎶😩😩🤭🤭😳🫣

nicky’s reaction: 👇

[antipodeanpineapplelump]

Dear Starshot, I recently saw your latest artwork for #Shisui Uchiha and the Lost Treasure of Asura and I am DYING to learn more about this AU. If you're comfortable sharing, is there anything you can disclose about it?? Is this related to the ItaShi Indiana Jones AU you mentioned before?!!?!?!?!!

Hi Birk, thank you so much for dropping by with this ask! Are you really voluntarily asking me to talk about my current obsession and fanfic baby though? Because I warn you, you may live to regret that!!!

"Shisui Uchiha and the Lost Treasure of Asura" is now the official title of my ItaShi Indiana Jones AU. I realise it’s been over a year since I first mentioned it, and it’s still a WIP! Pretty sure that says absolutely nothing good about the speed of my writing, but a lot about how busy my life outside of fandom is. Anyhow, it’s definitely one of those AUs that’s got away on me. I was planning one story initially, but now it’s kind of turned into three (plus a cracky oneshot), and this is just the first.

I’ve planned nine chapters total so far, but the bane of my life is currently number four. It’s sitting at 16,000 words and counting. Succinct writing? I’ve certainly never heard of it… So anyway, I kind of hit a wall there and decided to take a little break to come back with fresh eyes. That’s how I ended up working on the art instead. But I’d say I’m probably about halfway through the first draft (47,000-ish words).

I recently shared the opening scene and my draft cover artwork here. Ummm… what else can I tell you? Madara is the main bad guy, and he’s definitely a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Shisui is an agent of disaster and chaos. Itachi is really… not. So their initial interactions go about as well as you could expect.

All the main characters have extensive back stories. I’m pretty sure you’re already familiar with my Machiavellian worldbuilding tendencies from reading Red Dawn, so it goes without saying I have just as many notes and plans, and as much fleshed out worldbuilding for this story too. And it will take a long time for all of that to be revealed! But the overarching theme is probably found family, which is different to anything I’ve done before.

At this risk of revealing too much, or boring you to tears, I’ll finish with another sneak peek, this time from Itachi’s POV:

When Itachi wakes, there’s nothing to suggest his day is going to be anything but routine.

He gets up at dawn as per usual, eating breakfast at the dining table alone, legs tucked beneath him on a comfortable zabuton. The solitude at this hour of day is something he prefers. It’s the only time the family home is quiet anymore—lacking the cold disapproval of his father’s increasingly judgemental lectures, the anger of his younger brother’s rebellion, or the resigned acquiescence of his mother.

By now, Fugaku should have left for work, and it’s still too early for Sasuke to be awake, given how late he’s been staying out at night. Either to irritate their father, or just avoid him entirely, he’s taken to frequenting the clubs and bars in Osaka. Mostly, he comes home. Some nights, he doesn’t.

More often than not, even when he is home his door is closed, the thumping bass line of some song or another seeping out from beneath it. Likely because he knows this angers their father even more than the leather jackets and spiked punk-rock hair style he now sports.

Part of Itachi has been glad to discover his brother possesses more of a spine than he ever has. But at the same time, Sasuke’s rejection of every last one of their father’s rules has only brought more unwanted scrutiny to Itachi’s far more minor transgressions. It’s as though, having decided his younger child is a lost cause, Fugaku now wants to be absolutely certain his eldest son and heir to the Uchiha family fortune is beyond reproach. To smother him with expectations until he emerges, a diamond from beneath the pressure.

But unbeknownst to Fugaku, Itachi has one flaw he can’t change. And it means that, no matter what, he’ll always be a failure in his father’s eyes.

Sighing, he swallows a mouthful of rice and fish, washing it down with the sweetened barley tea he favours. Pulling this month’s edition of Modern Archaeology across the table, he inspects its glossy cover and promptly chokes on his drink.

The face that smiles up from the page stokes a knot of hot irritation in his gut. Furiously, he skips to the article, skim-reading the text, despite the fact he knows it will only annoy him further.

"An up-and-coming star in the field of archaeology, particularly specialising in South-American cultures, Shisui Uchiha is an increasingly well-known fixture of the San Diego research scene. Curiously for someone so entrenched in the study of history, he is famously reticent when it comes to his own. ‘I did spend my early years in Japan,’ he confirms when pressed. ‘But I haven’t been back in a long time. The United States is my home now.’ Asked about his connection to the famous Uchiha family, he merely winks enigmatically. ‘Never heard of them,’ he says, before asking if we’d like a one-on-one tour of the dig site.

Equally at home in dusty ruins as surfing the palm-lined SoCal beaches, or scaling the cliffs of his native Joshua Tree National Park, he nonetheless shines in group settings too. At the party we attend that evening, to celebrate the opening of a new Aztec exhibit at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, he easily charms the crowd, finishing the night with at least half a dozen new admirers. It’s not hard to see why they like him. A conversation with Shisui is exercise in passion and obscure historical knowledge. Even so, much like the dig sites he frequents, it’s hard to say just how much of what he presents to the world runs more than surface-deep.

His motto in life? ‘Fall seven times, stand up eight,’ Shisui says with a charismatic smile. Where did he learn it? Chuckling, he brushes us off. ‘The school of hard knocks.’

Love him or hate him, one thing is certain—we haven’t seen the last of Shisui Uchiha’s brand of archaeology.”

Hate him, Itachi thinks, sipping his tea viciously enough to scald his tongue and immediately regretting it. Definitely hate. Hate how he’s reckless, impulsive, irresponsible, and doesn’t seem to take a single thing seriously. Hate that it looks like he’s never had to work hard for anything a day in his life—people only too happy to hand him whatever he wants on a silver platter, charmed by a pretty smile. Hate the fact that, despite their shared family name, he’s free to do whatever he likes. Hate the way people flock to him, falling into his orbit—and by all accounts, bed—like it’s somehow inevitable. And hate, most of all, that there’s a small part of Itachi which understands why.

Because hate or love him—and it’s definitely hate—there’s no denying that Shisui Uchiha is, objectively, a very attractive man.

Coming back to his senses and realising he’s been leaning over the magazine, frowning so hard his forehead hurts, Itachi straightens, closing his eyes and massaging the knot of tension out from between his eyebrows.

“Itachi—”

The tension sinks in even deeper. He opens his eyes. “Father.”

Fugaku takes in magazine, then his son, and Itachi really hopes his cheeks aren’t as flushed as they feel. It’s stupid, but merely knowing he feels the way he does about the man on the page makes him fear being caught. As though his father might somehow divine his deepest darkest secret, just by looking. Truthfully, Itachi sometimes wonders if he might not already know, or at least suspect. But if he does, it’s clearly a truth he’s chosen not to acknowledge.

“I take it you’re prepared for our meeting this evening?” Fugaku asks, grim as ever.

Attempting a composed sip of his tea, Itachi nods. “Yes. Of course.”

Mouth a hard, unyielding line, Fugaku makes some indiscernible noise of disapproval, sweeping an appraising glance over Itachi. “Well, I suppose it’s too much to hope that anything can be done about your hair between then and now. But they’re a modern family. New money. Perhaps it won’t matter so much.”

Fingers tightening into the flesh of his thigh, Itachi has to remind himself to breathe. “I will do my best to make a good impression,” he says, inclining his head towards his father, penitence for his innumerable shortcomings—not least of all the choice to grow his hair out. It’s a small act of rebellion compared to Sasuke’s effort, but one his father seems determined to curtail as promptly as possible.

Poker face easing ever so slightly, Fugaku’s brows trend downwards, though their slant is still severe. “I know. You are my son, after all. And it is high time you were married with a family of your own. Perhaps then you will see the value in giving up these frivolous academic pursuits, and taking your rightful place at the head of the family business.”

He might as well build a box and stuff Itachi into it. Mold him to fit his own vision of the future. But Itachi has long since learnt that what he wishes he could have from life, and what he can have, are two very different things. So, just like his infrequent clandestine trips to the less desirable areas of Osaka’s nightlife, this too, he realises he will have to sacrifice. Duty before self.

“Yes Father, I’m certain you’re right,” he says, bowing once more as Fugaku leaves for work, closing the front door behind him with a click that reeks of finality.

As his footsteps crunch away on the gravel path outside, Itachi can’t help clenching his fists, until long after his knuckles turn white.

Theoretically, it’s a good match. From a family of good standing, his potential bride is quiet and well spoken—the perfect future housewife and mother. Their marriage would kill two birds with one stone, giving her father the son he never had, and Itachi—and therefore by extension Fugaku—control of their biggest competitor’s business.

All it requires is for Itachi spend the rest of his life pretending to be something he’s not.

The weight of it burns tight in his throat, threatening to break free on a rising tide of bile. He longs to cast off his gilded shackles, take a leaf from Sasuke’s book and do something completely crazy.

With a sigh, he rises from the table, collecting his dishes and depositing them circumspectly into the sink. Another day of work awaits.

[febuwhump]

Quick question: can I use a story I've already written for this event to cross off a square from a prompt bingo? Like, would you be okay with that?

(Btw I have several wips for febuwhump and a entire fic written I am so proud of myself :D)

congrats on what you’ve got done so far!

this response is kind of a blanket response for not just this ask but all the ones i’ve been receiving just like it, so i don’t have to respond to them all:

if the story has already been posted, then no it can’t count for febuwhump, because febuwhump creations have to be posted in february for them to count towards the whole 28 prompts in a month goal. but, if you haven’t posted, and you don’t plan to until the relevant day in february, then yes i suppose you can technically kill two birds with one stone and fill a bingo prompt at the same time.

just reiterate a point that i’ve made many times on this blog, though: you can do literally whatever you want. i’m not gonna stop you, i’m not gonna be mad, i’m not gonna banish you from the febuwhump afterlife to the pits of febuwhump hell. the rules are basic and easy:

you post on the relevant day in febuwhump with the relevant tags

you tell me if you completed febuwhump by march 3 to be featured on the hall of fame

that’s it. the whole thing is an honour system. if you consider yourself as having completed febuwhump, having posted 28 creative pieces of media over the 28 days of february, based on 28 unique prompts, then you tell me and i hail you as a winner, no questions asked. 

if you want to write a single fic with 28 chapters or create a comic with 28 pages or make a selection of sonnets, you can. if you want to match a bingo card square to a prompt every day of the month, you can. if you want to take a word out of the prompt to make it work, you can. 

this month really isn’t about the rules and technicalities of febuwhump. i know other events can have lots of rules that are very hard and steadfast and clear cut and if you cross one of them then you’re banished for life or whatever - but this is about you being creative for february. and you can do that literally however you want.

if being on the hall of fame is your goal, then you just have to follow the rules provided. everything else is up to you.

[actual-lea]

7, 9, 17 for the weird writer ask thing 👀

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

100% I am always craving that Validation(tm) when I post a thing - one person liking or kudos-ing or especially commenting/reblogging will make my entire goddamn week and I will still be thinking about it with fondness in my heart months/years later tbh (also it's just very nice/rewarding writing the fic I wish to see in the world which is to say Lost fic about Dan because there is not enough of it in this world)

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

Not particularly? I don't really care enough to form a strong opinion either way :P

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

Boy howdy I am once again drawing a blank on interesting details from The Way Home that aren't already in the text/going to be in the text eventually hmmmmmm

The very beginning of the fic with Dan going to London takes place at the end of October 2005, specifically the day he arrives is the 29th (yes I have the exact date written down because of course I do) - this is incidentally literally the day after Ben visits Charles Widmore (in canon) in the middle of the night to inform him that he's going to kill his daughter (no there isn't an exact date for that canonically but it's somewhere around the 28th probably), so the timing of him finding out Dan is around/subsequently recruiting him to protect Penny from this danger that she's in (aka Ben) is kind of perfect?

Which is also why his plan of sending Dan to find her and "protect" her is kind of like. Two birds with one stone, because at least in Charles' mind Dan is probably in danger too, if Ben decides to not be picky and settles for killing his son instead of his daughter (if he actually knows that Dan is Charles' son?) - and so by sort of herding the two of them (Penny and Dan) together, it's sort of a way of ensuring that they'll both probably be safe from Ben. I started to ramble more about this but I just realized it might be mildly spoilery for Future Things so nevermind but yeah!!