#why does my brain always go blank when i have to tag people

[44whispers]

thank you for the tags @effervescentdragon and @whoregaylorenzo <333

the first 9 pictures of your pinterest are your moodboard,

uhhhh pretty much!

tagging (and i’m sorry if you’ve done this already) @eemaesesa @balaclavacharles @charles-lechristmas @valyrianviolet @h-f-k @glassdandelion @axlxya :)

[blueish-bird]

sorry if I don’t remember your name or conversations/experiences or basic things about myself, every few weeks my brain gets factory reset and I have to relearn how to be alive

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Writeblr interview

Thanks @paeliae-occasionally here!

Short stories, novels or poems?

Novels. My stories are already long for that word count, how am I supposed to write a short story?

What genre do you prefer reading?

I am not a picky reader when it comes to genres. I've literally retyped this section five times. Please just accept this.

What genre do you prefer writing?

Now that's easy: fantasy! I have a long list of ideas to write about and exactly one is realistic fiction. TSP is the only true sci-fi one I have because it's breaking my brain. I also didn't mean to make it sci-fi but I had so many scientists I kinda accidentally realized I did when I was in high school. I need some element of magic, usually, to write a compelling narrative. I don't know why.

Are you a planner or a write-as-i-go kind of person?

I've slowly become more of a planner as time has gone on. But I also plan and write as I go. Whatever I'm feeling, but I usually need an outline or I feel like bashing my head in. So planner.

What music do you listen to while writing the story?

Songs with words. I just throw on a playlist of random songs and I'm good.

Fav books/movies

I don't have a favorite book, honestly. Idk the books that come to mind are like The Martian and Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda. So I'll go with my instinct.

Movies? Oh I've been debating this one for years but honestly it's probably Megamind.

Any Current WIPs?

The Secret Portal is the main one! Also working on School of the Legends when I can. Everything else is just an idea.

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be?

Plaid flannel overshirt, tank top beneath, jeans, airwalks.

Create a character description of yourself.

I don't know why but this genuinely makes me uncomfortable. I have to pass, sorry.

Do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing?

I can't even describe myself! No!! But I won't lie that I have based characters off people, but I always try to make them distinctly not them.

Are you kill-happy with the characters?

I once was but now I can't do it. It's a problem. I don't know who to kill anymore.

Coffee or Tea while writing?

Coffee by default, if those are my only options, but I usually just write with water.

Slow or Fast writer?

Short term? Fast. Long term? Slow. I breeze through my writing sessions with ease. But like motivation and planning slow me down.

Where/who/what do you find inspiration from?

Me. And also the shows I watch.

If you were put into a fantasy world, what would you be?

I don't care just allow me to teleport.

Fave book cliche?

Ugh I don't know because most cliches work only in certain circumstances. I lose my shit at Checkov's guns does that count?

Least fave book cliche?

Hmm. I don't like love at first sight, I'll be honest. Like immediate crushes or attraction I've learned to live with because I realize me being acearo-spec means I'll never understand it, but I prefer slow burn romance.

Fave scenes to write?

Character driven scenes. I like conversations.

Most productive time of day for writing?

Evening. Probably will be early afternoon soon with my schedule.

Reason for writing?

I'd literally self implode if I didn't.

Tagging @illarian-rambling @mk-writes-stuff @the-golden-comet @thepeculiarbird @honeybewrites

+ ANYONE ELSE

Blanks below the cut

Short stories, novels or poems? What genre do you prefer reading? What genre do you prefer writing? Are you a planner or a write-as-i-go kind of person? What music do you listen to while writing the story? Fav books/movies Any Current WIPs? If someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be? Create a character description of yourself. Do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing? Are you kill-happy with the characters? Coffee or Tea while writing? Slow or Fast writer? Where/who/what do you find inspiration from? If you were put into a fantasy world, what would you be? Fave book cliche? Least fave book cliche? Fave scenes to write? Most productive time of day for writing? Reason for writing?

[ominous-feychild]

✦ Musical OC Tag ✦

Following this open tag from @mysticstarlightduck!

Rules: Share 1-3 songs you feel best embody a character from your WIP/s, either in general or at this moment in the plot.

Characters from Sun and Shadow: Crow and Freya

Using generalized songs! Though some of them are definitely better placed at various points in the characters' lives, but... oh, well!

CROW

1. Bring Me Down - B3LLA, CHENDA

Can't get my feet off the ground It's harder to fight now Things are different than before Can't find myself anymore I'm in a dark place lately Why do I feel so crazy? It's almost like I'm sinking deeper, deeper It's like I keep trying to be hurt, be hurt You're always in my head Reminding me of what can come next Lately I don't feel so bright I just wanna run away and go hide But you are always right by my side Telling me to go left when I should go right I feel like my hands are tied so tight I feel like I'm going to lose my mind But I can no longer justify My actions 'Cause you're always gunna bring me down

2. Mr. Capgras (etc) - WWatT

Damn, I thought you're not your imposter You're so sure you're not gonna get caught Dead in your own skin But you didn't choose what you were born in And add another man in your repertoire Ready in your head and fed upon your memoirs Still the same rules apply From the birthday to the mourning What you feel and what you do, are those things really you? And if not, then what is? (Never, never, never) So, my God, what's wrong with you? And I'm still asking who that is

3. Stop - Grace Blue

Don't try to make me feel worthless Trust me, you ain't the first to pull this Staring outside from my little cage May have built for myself, but I had help And now I can't, I can't, I can't break through it I can't, I can't, these walls are rooted I can't, I can't, I can't So stop, open your eyes for once Can't you see, we're wasting all we got Stop, our brain keeps tricking us We gotta fight, fight, fight 'til we get what's ours All this fake love that we've gotten used to No one to trust or share all the good news You liked me better when I'm in my cage Just so you can feel good about yourself

FREYA

1. Mad - Echos

Used to care if I hurt you But holding all this pain hurts me more All the things you put me through Yeah, I'm still fucking mad at you You love to say I can't feel this way, oh I'm so close to breaking down My head is spinning, I think I'm losing my control My body's shaking, can't take it (I'm fucking mad) My mind is blanking, don't tell me I should let it go I'm a time bomb, put it off for too long Watch me explode

2. DEBBIE DOWNER - Neoni

I wanna toss my social currency Pack up my shit get up and leave Reckless abandon everything And move where no would ever think To check Cause I tried my best Think it's time to eject I don't think I'm suited For society My anxiety Is certifiably Gonna be the death of me

3. Sick - Echos

Do you feel pleasure, when I feel pain? 'Cause people like you never seem to change Does it feel good when you take The glory for my bleedin'? So fuck you for leavin' You made me believe it I never want you back Don't make me say it So fuck you for leavin' You made me believe it I never want you back You've got me singin'

I had fun with this (and definitely didn't already have playlists half-built to make a longer version of this for several of my MCs--) so I'm working on another for the tAR main cast!

Tagging (gently!): @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet @the-letterbox-archives @yourpenpaldee @darkandstormydolls + open tags!

Divider by @cafekitsune

[katabaesis]

tag game

tagged by @basuralindo — it seems that I post a section of WIP and tag people to also do the same? I'm not sure if anyone else is writing fic on my TL right now hahaha but! If you see this consider yourself tagged :)

Thanks for tagging me! Er, dunno why this got weirdly long for an excerpt... anyway... a small excerpt from 'heir apparent' the next bit of 'long live the king' series...

There isn't a body to bury.

STYX takes Leona Kingscholar's body away. Idia Shroud knows that it doesn't matter. There isn't a body because no one will remember Leona was even ever at Night Raven College. There's so much work for STYX to do. Idia's father even comes to school — for work, he says, but the first thing he does is check on Idia and Ortho — and then goes to Sunset Savanna. It turns out easiest to say that Leona Kingscholar had died in childhood, Overblotted after he found his sick mother hidden away as the family secret. It's an odd lie, Idia thinks when he reads the report but it turns out that Leona's birth had been difficult on the queen and some part of her had never recovered. When Leona had died apparently Lethe's memory wiping hadn't worked on her so spinning the lie around her insistence her son had gone to Night Raven College was necessary. It leaves a bad taste in Idia's mouth. He thinks about Ortho and really the entire Shroud family, doomed to be forgotten and also to drag whoever had the bad luck to get involved with them or too stained with blot down to hell with them. But inevitably, as he always does, Idia settles into resignation.

They make Ruggie the Housewarden. Headmaster Crowley hems and haws about it clearly unsure what to do with a Housewarden who doesn't come with prestige, power or money. All the students though know that Ruggie is — was — Leona's right hand. Even if he wasn't technically Vice Housewarden Ruggie was the heart and Leona the brain. If asked Ruggie would have declined but there's no asking when it comes to Overblot cleanup. They simply make it happen. Replacing that many memories is difficult and it's obvious that Ruggie can tell something is missing. Idia is glad he attends Housewarden meetings via tablet because he wouldn't be able to hide his expression, not with the stumbles over things Ruggie should know — if he is truly Housewarden — or the blanks in memory that everyone seems to share.

"And, on the topic of academic eligibility. . ." Vil Schoenheit intones. There is the barely veiled something in his voice. Idia would call it judgey. Riddle called it leadership. Azul only ever commented on it if he wanted something from either the party under scrutiny or Vil himself. Scarabia had no horse in the race and Kalim couldn't read Vil's tone anyway.

"Hm? What about it?" Ruggie asks.

"Test scores are posted publicly." Vil points out.

"Yeah? An' so what? Savanaclaw's meeting what we need to." Ruggie is defensive and Idia can't see his expression but imagines Ruggie must look trapped. Leona had been able to field scrutiny with the swagger of any jock alpha male but Ruggie had never been the type.

"There are academic standards to uphold." Riddle breaks in. "While bare minimum is something students can achieve as Housewarden you should be — "

"Should be this? Should be that? Who're you all to say that? I never asked for this. This ain't my job. It's — " Ruggie snaps and then his words come to a halt.

"Ahhh. Right. Right. Let's all just remember every dorm has its strength, right? Here at Ignihyde we're technomantic specialists. Pomefiore's being super bijin and Savanaclaw is meatheads good at throwing rocks. All this arguing is cutting into my game time. Hurry it up." Idia mutters. it successfully derails everyone from whatever Ruggie was going to say. ("Meatheads? I'll show you meathead." "Bijin? Please, Idia use normal language that doesn't reduce my students to just looks." "I notice you said nothing of Octavinelle." "Let's all get along like Idia-senpai said!")

[sugdenlovesdingle]

Twenty questions for fic writers!

thanks for the tag @bonheur-cafe 💜

How many works do you have on ao3?

in total 265 - emmerdale 238, Lone star 27

What's your total ao3 word count?

659,962 (!!)

What fandoms do you write for?

Mainly 911 Lone Star at the moment but I do have a RWRB fic in the works (for a new years gift exchange 🙈) and I'm sort of playing with a Buck/Tommy og 911 idea because they've taken over my brain since That Kiss.

Top five fics by kudos

I'll just stick to Lone Star for this

Austin TX first responders week

It started with a concussion

Filling in the blanks

Love and Lou

See you later

Do you respond to comments?

I try to! I appreciate each and every one of them but I never really know what to say other than thank you (also I tend to over-think things). I really should make myself do it more often. We writers complain about people not commenting, but when they do, they should at least feel like it's appreciated!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't do angsty endings. Though PS I love you is kind of... emotional I guess

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

All of them. I need a happy ending in my media - always. Though Fire Camp, Love and Lou, and Love online (god I need to work on my titles) all end with tarlos getting married - so that's definitely happy.

Do you get hate on fics?

I have in the past but not on Lone Star fics.

Do you write smut?

I have attempted it... but that's as far as it goes. Nothing worth posting!

Craziest crossover:

I've never actually written a crossover. I don't really read them either. (911/lone star is the only exception)

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No but I have translated fics way back when I was into ATWT Luke and Noah, does that count?

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yep a few times.

All time favourite ship?

I don't have one favourite ship. I have a few favourites on rotation that sort of take centre stage every now and then.

Robron, tarlos, Nancy/Marjan, Buck/Tommy (my favourite at the moment), Kate/Anthony Bridgerton, Pacey/Joey Dawson's Creek, Ian/Mickey Shameless, Henry/Alex RWRB

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

All of my multi chapter robron fics probably 💀 I still get kudos on them every now and then but i'm kind of done writing fics for them I think. (Unless Ryan Hawley gets his ass back to Emmerdale, then I won't be held responsible for my actions)

What are your writing strengths?

I don't know... I like writing dialogue I suppose. Maybe banter™ I've gotten comments from people saying certain parts of my fics made them laugh. And most stuff i write is a fluffy "what if the bad thing never happened?" kind of deal.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Actually finishing things? lol I can't describe things for shit. And sometimes it's a challenge when writing tarlos fic to not slip in British expressions. I learnt British English in school and years of obsessing over British boybands and watching British soaps have *influenced* my writing/English skills in general.

And also sometimes it's "fuck what's [Dutch word] in English???" and then i spend way too long digging through online dictionaries and stuff because NOTHING FITS and WHY IS THERE NO WORD FOR [THING]???

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Don't do it unless you speak the language or know someone who does who can help you with it. I've picked up some Spanish pet names/words in the tarlos fandom (and Spanish shows on netflix) but I won't go any further than that in my fics. And I'd rather die than use Dutch.

First fandom you wrote in?

Luke and Noah (Nuke!) As The World Turns

Favourite fic you've written?

I don't know. Most of them have something special that makes them stand out (to me). But I got kudos on The first morning the other day (aka I saw it in the email from AO3 and didn't remember what it was) and the music/musical theatre trivia i slipped in amused me.

I have absolutely no idea who's been tagged so I'm just going to leave this as an open tag for whoever wants to play!

[p-receh]

Ooooooh love that concept, pls continue :0

Since this au was just in the brainstorming phase and I'm still gathering some ideas and references to this story so bear with me here, anon ^^')

Ehem.

Okay, Imagine that when the heroes thought the galaxy was safe when all the power spheres were secured, when all considered bad guys were gone for good, people were entrusting more to TAPOPS as they will always ensure the safety of each planet. And with all those new generations of heroes are more ready to face the threat than ever.

Nothing will worry them, right?

--- --- ---

Woke up,

Collect the dump,

Mold it into solid cubes using the cube molder tool.

Send it to the big boss at Gogo Ba's Barter Shop,

Get some food, then

Go home.

That's the daily order that he pinned in his brain. Simple for us as trash workers to not do political and complicated things like most Gur'latans to present new game-breaking systems; have no fear of death to survive in the harsh fields of Baraju; ensure billions of living beings to farm supplies and goods in Rimbara; or think revolutionary to manage the logistics and transportations like people of Windara.

No, Gugura is the last nation to end your life and once you move in, there will be no escape. Only higher-ranking citizens were allowed to go in and out of this city. Therefor, why do people visit this nation of scraps? The place barely has eye-catching sights and the only souvenirs for tourists were the bunch of cube-shaped leftovers' irons, woods, and any waste kinds you'll find.

Despite the fact it's a country of all wanted list persons that were mostly thrown by the Cubulus' authorities, Gugura is a fine city for this young teenager to live in. His life was already covered in the present and future. Does that mean he made a bad accusation that made him displaced into this area?

That part was still a mystery to the boy with a single white highlight in the middle of his black messy hair. He never remembered where he was born, his profile, even his name. All he knew, the tag number embedded on his neck was clear enough to remember.

...Or so he thought.

.

'No were to run, _____! Hand over your power watch!'

'Never! Now _____!'

'Wha-?!'

'Teleportation Power!'

'NO!'

'Time Manipulation!'

'____ Hepta Split!'

'You little--!'

.

"#319!"

The sudden high shout erased the boy's dream into reality. "Y-yes sir?"

The cubed helmet soldier pointed the taser gun at the teen's stiffness, "Did I command you to rest?! No sleeping on the job!"

Without protest, #319 hurriedly continued scooping scraps near his feet and throwing them into a mine shaft. It created a whirring sound of gear moving from a cube machine behind him. No need to wait long as it released a perfect solid cube shape from preseed scraps.

The boy peeked at the soldier from his window eye. The man already turned around to inspect the other workers in front of him. It made him at ease for a moment. The boy looked in his pocket and reached out for a small item he found not long ago.

A watch. Just a small, broken ordinary blank watch that he sure it would more useless to bargain for a slice of bread at Bago Go's. He should have put it along with other scraps in the shaft. He was not the kind of collector person unless it was useful and practical for his home. So what was different with this item? He never knew.

But....

That vision interrupts his routine for the fifth time this week. Ever since he found that watch, his peaceful daily work slowly bothered him. He could not sleep normally as that vision--no, nightmares that were done over and over like a broken record. Never once in his life he could shout such a high note while grabbing that old watch in tremor, as if his life depends on it in the next second.

If so, why was he still kept the cursed thing intact?

"....He's now under your supervision."

Hm?

"heh... well I'm in need for someone to replace my spot anyway."

A new replacement?

"You're in luck, Oju Ju! This youngster here is a keen eye for everything you missed, skillful and his snarkiness shows no mercy to command these workers. A perfect discipline for your replacement."

He turned around. A very peculiar shorter soldier who wears round helmet than other common taller and cube helmet ones. A human perhaps? Besides, did the higher ups are now recruiting new generations as well? To this nation? It did not matter to him anyways. Whether young or old, the boy should not underestimate them.

Especially with the new one who he bet from the height was as same as his age.

....

That's all for now!

In short, this is how Gempa and Solar met.

A bit fun fact, Some places like Bago Go's barter station are just a mere name as a legacy to the owners. Some characters are OCs but not too important since...I'm not the oc author. But I still want to interpret the similar traits from their ancestors. Also, I'm still trying to figure out when I use the original ones due to this concept.

Btw I got some inspiration to this au from another headcanon that I found in the same account.

Rough translation:

"What a plot twist indeed if that's the case, can't imagine how painful Oboi felt to join an organization that become spiteful"

Picture translate:

'The Kubulus nation is the creator of the power sphere, right? What if it turns out the purpose of Kokoci's joining TAPOPS is to collect all of them for himself? A bit wild but we can see it from the scene of Amato leaving from TAPOPS, can't we? Perhaps Amato realizes the Organisation's intention is not that pure, hahahah'

Whether it's true or not, it somehow a bit makes sense in a wild way. Oooooooh It would be an interesting twist and more in betrayal than Fang's statement in arc Gur'latan issue 24.

Anyway, apologies if you find any typos or weird meanings in my word choices.

[cerealmonster15]

Give me A D and L of your Twisted OCs do it

ty for always enabling me and my twst crimes despite not twsting yourself kjdsfj 🧡

also tagging @cosmiccoincidence ty for the double enabling WOO

ok here's the sketchy whatever i did 2night, was gonna do some basic colors but i got sleeeepyyyy so maybe tomorrow ill do that lol

HEHFHSFEHFJK anyway. alda beloved none of this will make sense to u so ill try to give spark notes explanations as i go but. these two goobers are rsa [royal sword academy - the rival school that seems to be more based on the Good Guy™ disney characters rather than the main school's villains lol] students.

the very short summary is guy on left (Char - I looked thru sooo many names for him and that's the one i ended up on lol. some twst names are really on the nose like VIL for the EVIL QUEEN so why cant i use char!) is cater diamond's [a canon character who's said to have moved around a lot] childhood friend from when they were like 5 but lost contact w/him. Dañarte (literally not a name. it's spanish for 'hurt you' and it only came up/his existence spawns from a typo turned autocorrect in a message i was sending my frined and we just kept it for funsies and i made a character out of it lol 😭) is his shady cousin that has a charming friendly appearance but is going to cause problems on purpose bc hes a bitter baby or whatever.

i have a lot more details w/them and their connection with BESTIE CATER but that's not what the ask was about so i will HOLD BACK!!! for now.

ok answering the actual questions under a cut bc blahblahblahblah

A) Why are you excited about this character?

because!!! i see a lot of people make really creative twst ocs based off other disney characters and i think that's SO FUN!!!! i dont really think i myself am very creative of a person, but this was something i kinda got to have fun with. i had the initial thought with char based off one random fanart I saw like forever ago, so i borrowed the starting idea and then just completely ran off with it to do my own thing, SPIN MY OWN WEB!!!! [i think the fanart was like, just some random rsa guy recognizing cater; it was japanese fanart so i had limited google translate on my side - idr if the childhood friend thing was part of it or if that's just a thing my brain decided to fill in the blanks?? anyway i went from there / designed my own random guy / started LORE BUILDING and EXPANDING]

also their involvement is very much a soap opera esque TEEN ROMANCE DRAMA which i think is funny. a lot of this came from just talking to my friend in discord cuz there was no engtwst at the time and she was the only person i knew that i could talk to about twst, so even tho these are my characters, it's something that spawned from me going ham in our discord messages and us bouncing ideas off each other and just havin private fun. unrestrained goofs!!!

D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?

HMMMM well according to all the doodles i'd compiled in one spot, it does look like i just went with my initial ideas for both of em and kept it. they r not that deeply thought out bc i am Not much of a designer - god bless the school uniform i could steal so i didnt have to come up w/clothes kfjlsdf. and tbh theyre pretty basic right now so for all i know, maybe this is the prototype. maybe they've yet to go through their first evolution. WHO KNOWS!!!! but in their case, their existence came more from the SOAP OPERA DRAMA storyline i came up with, and wasn't so much based on appearance/character design. i mostly just had doodles and sketchy concepts just so i could continue to doodle parts of said story for funsies to send my friend on discord lol

BESTIE THERE IS NO L!!!!! instead of asking u what u meant im just gonna assume u meant I since lowercase L looks like uppercase I 😌 SO YOU'RE GETTING I!!!

I) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?

ya lol. this 'story' is very much based off like a few lines of canon lore that i just SPRINTED OFF with. drag and dropping these 2 guys into the story - not really related to much of the main story, but just kinda there to cause more teen drama. for funsies.

ANYWAY THANKS FOR ASKING LOVE U BOTH BYE!!!!!!

[x]

[dawning-day]

RONAN LYNCH IN A TIME LOOP SAY MORE AT ONCE (but only if you want to no pressure the all caps is just my enthusiasm and also my brain being broken by those tags and that concept)

apologies in advance for what this turned into <3

so for context of me personally i absolutely adore a timeloop au in any context in general like there is something so funky so fresh about the whole idea of a guy getting worn down by time while everyone around him is experiencing something for the first time?? to be so jaded but still have to wait for the other people to go through surprise/shock at something that's already gotten old for the guy who's seen it more times than they can count????

so that's already delicious but Most Specifically i am a fan of the version of the time loop that is "a guy who has to go back and re-do the worst thing that ever happened over and over until they fix it" both from the perspective of (a) the lingering doubt of no matter what they change does it ever actually make a difference? is there anything that could be done that would Matter enough or is fate always going to lead them to the same place and we are doomed to repeat our mistakes ect ect but also (b) the thing about the worst thing that ever happened to a guy is that uhhh it sucks? like having to relive any period of time repeatedly is already concerning but when it's a moment that fundamentally defined the subsequent period of life ? to have so much urgency but still be repeatedly brought back to square one !!! and to have to see that worst thing over and over and knowing they failed !!!!!!!!!!!! terrible !!!!!

and if that wasn't already a bucket of laughs the most very absolute worst part is always when the person has to waste so much of their very limited time the loop resets and then they're all alone again??? to not have one person in the entire world who understands what they're going through and to have any progress they've made immediately get undone, but to do it all again anyways because fuck what other choice is there ??

all of this to say. ronan lynch. bc i'm not sure if you noticed by now but these freaks are literally all ride or die for each other from MINUTE ONE like ronan walked up and said hey i pulled this bird out of my dreams and no one blinked? like mild spoiler the third book and holy fuck especially the fourth one really lean into the?? fantasy side of things?? kind of?? (it will make sense in retrospect i promise) but never not one single page are any of these books about them not believing each other. there is an inherent irrevocable acceptance that when one of them has A Problem it is Their Problem and that's part of the reason they are soooo <333333

but yeah you'd damn better believe if ronan sat down and told those freaks this was his 18th wednesday in a row they would believe him without question or cause there would be none of that wasting time on that stupid trope of "ronan knowing everything the other person's about to say and that's why they believe him" nonsense. they are his family and they are fundamentally there for one another when it matters. when it doesn't matter. everything in between.

so ronan's time loop is just immediately about the finding solutions part??? about gansey sneaking Meaningful Glances at adam across the table because they both know ronan's more unhinged about this than he's letting on. maybe blue convinces them to go to fox way to ask maura and calla and persephone to read his future and the first time blue has ever seen those women look Genuinely Scared is when they have to tell him point blank that they don't see one. not that it's blurry or that the signs are unclear but that ronan lynch fundamentally does not have anything other than the Now.

ronan lynch the dreamer the dreamed afraid to go to sleep not because of what he can do when he dreams but because this time being awake is the scary part??? because he doesn't know where or when he'll be when he wakes up???? to have something so. core to who he is. be so fractured. and his family not really being able to help but being so willing to try anyway????

anyways sorry i didn't realize i had so many thoughts about this hi tldr i wanna humble that maniac sooooo bad

[plothooksinc]

fic writer asks: 🌈🎈☯️?

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

There is not! Not that I don't work hard/struggle with my writing, but if I'm having difficulty with a scene you can bet I've been whining about it to anyone who'll listen |D For scenes/themes I struggle with in general, though, definitely the connective tissue scenes which are required between Plot Point A and Plot Point B. In which just enough has to happen to pass some time or set things up, and very often my mind goes very ???? ????? for those and I keep sort of tapping away with random lines until something clicks and I'm like "ah yes this will work". (I can think of themes I would definitely struggle with, but those are themes that would not tend to surface in my work at all, for a variety of reasons. You won't ever get high angst in my stories, for instance.)

🎈describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

My style tends to be a kind of bastardisation between Janny Wurts, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Stephen King. 8|a It does change on the regular, subtle fluid changes which largely depend on who I've been reading more of lately-- I'm very easily influenced and inspired by the styles of others if I fall in love with their writing, but I suspect I have a base that stays the same underneath. The more confident I get with a piece of writing, the more experimental the writing may get, and sometimes I start something on a whim and go HEY YEAH LET'S BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and I end up first person present tensing all over the place or some such weirdness. I shift slightly based on the kind of story I want to write. Most of my stuff falls into the action/adventure category so that's what you'll see most of the time. But then I want to write something that focuses far more on environment and harsh reality, and I'll sit down and try and really make my writing reflect that. I can see the difference. (It's much, much harder and doesn't come naturally. I'd put Snowblind in this category.) So...mostly fixed, wavers a bit at the edges, then changes drastically for drastically different themed projects (but probably veers closer to what most people are familiar with as I go on those). ☯️how do you think engaging with each other through tumblr, twitter, comments, kudos, creates healthy fandom experiences? How do you deal with that if you're not a social person/experience social anxiety?

Oof. Okay, so, I actually have a social anxiety disorder and a generalised anxiety disorder, so... I can say that, for me, it's very hard to reach out to other fandom people. When they engage with me first I can meet them on their level and it's much easier from there as my brain has tagged them as "oh they want to talk to me! :D :D" and thus it's easier? This is why my reviews to everyone ever are extremely terrible and one note because my mind goes utterly blank when I try to tug on someone else's sleeve and go "...hey", but I can reply to people just fine! The onus shouldn't be on other people, though, so I keep trying. For the other part of the question-- I think engagement is very important. It allows people in fandom to feel seen, to engage and share their love of characters and find other people on their wavelength, and it keeps fandoms healthy and colourful and alive. (It also creates drama, yes, so navigate the waters with care and don't feed the trolls.) So I'm always happy to talk fandom with people and I reply to all comments I get these days (I did go through a huge portion of time I didn't respond at all and I'm sorry to all those people who wrote me at Underdark or elsewhere and didn't get a response, you were seen and I loved you) and I'm happy just being silly in my own corner with anyone who wants to come and be silly with me. \o/ ...just don't ask me for in depth analysis on stuff because I'm... decent at writing that in a fictional sense but not so much on the fly. lmao. Thank you! Ask meme is here.

[darks-arts]

It’s so fascinating how people can ship of Theseus a character into completely different dude and then when confronted about this, simply say the source material is wrong. I’m not talkin minor shit like “oh Aradia LOVES mcr” I’m talkin like have a whole OC and then slapping the name tag “KARKAT” on it. It seems less common these days at least in Homestuck spaces, but like it’s something I grew up around and still see happen to this day. Apologies for the Homestuck centered examples as i muse through this thing on my mind

Like I’ve seen dudes make the take that Gamzee doesn’t say honk, Nepeta hates cats , n jake LOVES peanut butter he drinks it by the gallon. This wasn’t like “oh cool edgy AU to explore the character” stuff just, at some point the character in their mind drifted, so what they associated with the character’s name no longer lined up with canon.

This isn’t nessisarrily a bad thing, everyone does this to some degree. Different aspects of a character stand out to different people. Rose is a cool girl with wizard powers to some, and a nerd in way over her head who uses big words to others. But at the same time everyone knows who Rose is, these are both parts of her characters dna. Then with some people “Rose” has drifted so far that she doesn’t even believe magic anymore in their heads, she thinks knitting is dumb and uses only the smallest of words. Rose means a different thing to them now and that’s so fascinating to me.

I have to wonder why at that point do they not just commit and make this blorbo of their own design an oc, why does it HAVE to cling to the nameplate that does not fit them anymore. Like at least in my view fictional characters are sadly set in stone so to speak. Even with the dif takes and drift I talked about, you can always just re-read/watch/listen/etc the thing. Doing this refreshes the brain version of the character, reminds you who the vague concept of a Kanaya is. Not to say there’s NO ROOM for people to fill in the blanks, lil joke fan fills for gaps are like a different thing. I’m mostly talkin when fanon mutates to its own original work I hope it’s clear.

All this to say I don’t think it’s a bad thing when this happens, it can make discussion around the character a head ache sometimes, but like it just really interesting. Wonder if there’s any studies on this or related psychology whateves I should shift through. Human brain be fascinating like this sometimes.

Personal example, one time I was talkin in a discord server about the symbolism behind Gamzee and hussies whole “religion is for fools, fools and LIBERALS” takes. Then some dude rolls into the convo and starts going off how Gamzee is “a good Christian boy” and there is nothing toxic about Gamzee at all. He just a good boy who does not curse and does not sin. When someone brought up that his catch phrase is “motherfucker” the Christian Gamzee take dude simply disagreed! No that is not a thing Gamzee has ever said. Then they just restated their take without like, elaboration. Felt like they had just emerged out of a different universe quoting a different Homestuck written by “Hussie from the universe where they have blonde hair”. The Gamzee they where trying to communicate wasn’t the Gamzee that everyone in the discussion knew about.

I don’t really have a conclusion just dang this is a thing that happens and why it happens is a mystery I’d love to see solved.

[topazadine]

#writing#oh fascinating I'm not sure my brain works with that#i can't just bang out words i hate it#they have to have the right texture in my brain kinda#i also can't imagine myself in a competition with myself that sounds mean#but maybe i'll give it a go idk

Thank you for these tags!

I want to address these because they bring up two really good points that I'd like to expound upon for everyone. (As usual this is annoyingly long - the whole wordcount spreadsheet is so bad for brevity I guess)

Firstly: it's entirely possible that spreadsheets don't help you, and that's fine.

Your brain may not work like mine does, and you may have completely different goals than I do. That's totally cool.

So let's look at who will this will help and who it may not.

The spreadsheet method may be good for you if:

You are motivated by wordcount

You're building a consistent writing habit

You have found that focusing on time spent (ie, "I will work for one hour") isn't getting enough done for you

You are writing a long work (more than 20k) that needs long-term focus and motivation

You find yourself overworking first drafts instead of just getting the words down (ie picking at every word, looking up synonyms for everything, stuff that happens in revision and not drafting)

The spreadsheet method may not be good for you if:

You don't have time to write every single day and thus would have blank gaps in your spreedsheet (ie people who work 24-hour shifts and so on)

You always want an extremely clean first draft and don't want to go through millions of revisions

You have a consistent writing habit and don't need to focus on wordcount anymore

You are working on a smaller piece or a set of smaller pieces, like poems, flash fiction, or novellettes

You want to focus on time spent actively writing, not wordcount

I do encourage people to give this a shot, though, for a few reasons:

It's completely free and takes less than a minute to set up

If you have access to Google Sheets/Microsoft Excel, you already have access to this

There's absolutely no harm in trying it out and seeing if you like it

You won't know if you'll like it unless you try.

It takes time to find the right tools to succeed as a writer; there are many methods others have suggested to me but that I hated or found counterintuitive. Since it's free and easy to use, why not give it an attempt? If you hate it, that's totally fine. I won't be offended, don't worry.

Now, the second point about being in competition with yourself feeling mean.

This has to do with a misconception that "competition" is always a knockdown, dragout, savage, all-or-nothing killfest. Sure, it can be, but that's not the good kind of competition. We're not talking Hunger Games here.

Instead, think about when you play solo games, like a fighting game. You want to beat your last high score, right? You want to do it better than you did it last time. Or if you play a sport, you might want to run faster than your best time, or shoot more shots in a game, or whatever. That's self-competition.

Self-directed learning of any form is self-competition. When you are learning anything, you are building on your skills you learned and attempting to perfect them through practice.

Competition does not need to mean brutality, degradation, or cruelty.

Those are counterintuitive to success. You can't abuse someone into being a world-class athlete, and you can't insult yourself into becoming a great author. It takes a special blend of kindness, constructive criticism, encouragement, and flexibility to do any of those things, and you can provide that to yourself, too.

When you self-compete, you are not putting yourself down for failure, but using that failure to identify how you can improve. With this method specifically, it's crucial that you give yourself grace when you don't meet your wordcount but don't let it drag you down into a spiral of "oh I failed already might as well not bother anymore."

As an example of what I mean when I say self-competition, I have just picked up rock climbing. When I try a problem once, and I suck ass at it but get to the top, I go "well, I got to the top! That's a victory!" Then I sit down and stare at the problem and figure out how I could do it better. Then I do it again, and I do it better, and I've succeeded.

And if I end up hanging off the wall by my fingernails, shaking uncontrollably, and they have to call the fire department to pluck me down like a cat stuck in a tree, well ... I guess I bit off more than I can chew. I'll sit down, think about what made me lock up like that, and keep working on the basics until I'm ready to try again. It doesn't mean I'm a worthless beast who is doomed to a fully terrestrial existence; it means I need more practice. And that's fine. I can't let one failure rip me to pieces.

I don't compare what I am doing in the gym to what ANYONE ELSE is doing. I may watch them to see how they solve a problem, and consider how I can use that in my next attempt, but I don't sit there and go "oh they're so so much better than me, I'm worthless, I'll never get to that level, might as well give up." I use what I see them do as "beta" (information on how to solve a problem) but I make absolutely no judgment on whether they are better or worse than me.

At most, I will go "wow, they're amazing! I bet they have a lot to teach me. They look so cool up there! Maybe one day I can do that too!"

And if they really suck, well, I suck too, so there's no reason to judge them. We all start somewhere.

Because, just as with writing, someone else's success in rock climbing has absolutely no bearing on mine. At best, they can give me advice and help me improve. At worst, they can make me feel a little insecure. But them sending the route that has been absolutely destroying me doesn't impact whether I can do it, because they're not me.

There are kids in my climbing gym who have been going since they were like 4 years old and can send V5s while I'm still doing the Baby Boulders. They have years of experience on me, a 30-something woman who is in terrible physical shape.

Is it humiliating to be wrecked by a literal child? No. It's unfair to compare us because though they are much younger than me, they know much more. (And have flexible goo-like pediatric joints while mine are calcified by years of misuse.) If I sat there and cried about a 14-year-old doing dynos that make my tendons whimper, I'd just pick up my shoes and never go again.

And if anyone is judging me for picking up a new sport at the wizened practically-retirement-age of 32, they can fuck off. Their assumptions and judgments are not my problem.

Self-competition acknowledges that only you can complete your writing - no one else.

Another person succeeding at rock climbing doesn't mean much about whether I can succeed at it because I have to haul my ass up the boulder wall myself; nobody else can do it for me. Similarly, another person getting a book deal or great reviews doesn't mean much about whether I can write my book because, well ... I have to write it.

Self-competition lets you push yourself harder and stay motivated because you're shutting out the soul-destroying desire to compare yourself to others, only comparing your work to itself. You see other peoples' writing as inspo and "beta" but not as competition.

And this helps you stay hungry for success because you recognize that since only you can do the work, why not be the best at it?

How to Build a Sustainable Writing Habit Through SCIENCE (Fuck Off, NaNoWriMo)

This is a lightly edited repost from a previous post on my mostly-defunct blog, topazadine.com. I feel like it's an excellent thing to highlight now that everyone's wondering what the hell do to after NaNoWriMo showed their ass as anti-creative idiots.

I have never liked NaNoWriMo and think, frankly, that it is a garbage tool for new writers. If you've done it and enjoyed it, that's great, but overall, it is not the best way to build motivation. At all.

But why is NaNoWriMo so bad? (Other than the current controversy.)

It encourages younger writers to think of writing as something they do during the months of October through November. Not something they do all year round, day in and day out. People will prep for weeks to do a whole novel in one month and hinge all their writerly hopes on that one singular month.

We won't even get into the fact that November is the absolute shittiest month to try to get a novel done because the holidays are coming up, and many working-class people are busting their asses off to get extra hours in before Christmas.

Writing is something you do all. the. time. It is not bound by a singular month. It is not limited to a certain time of year. And when you are working to complete a draft, it doesn't matter season it is. What matters is that you get it done.

So let me show you something better. But first, why should you listen to me? And why is my method an improvement over a shitty organization's AI-riddled contest?

I wrote the first draft of my novel, Poesy (104,323 words) in 39 days.

That’s an average of 2,647 words per day. It is also about twice as much as the typical person aims for during NaNoWriMo. I did not set out to get it done in any given time period, but I still completed way, way more than NaNoWriMo would require in just about the same amount of time (plus 9 days).

I didn't have a buddy group. I didn't have checkins. I just had me and my keyboard and my secret weapon, which I'll show you in a bit.

How is it possible to get so much more done without that external motivator?

Simple: I compete with myself.

You Need to Develop Intrinsic Motivation

What in the world is intrinsic motivation?

Intrinsic motivation is defined as the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence. When intrinsically motivated, a person is moved to act for the fun or challenge entailed rather than because of external products, pressures, or rewards. Frontiers in Neurobiotics

That is, in essence, what we do when we’re writing for fun; or, rather, it should be what we’re doing when we write for fun.

A lack of intrinsic motivation is why people who see novels as a get-rich-quick scheme tend to burn out when they realize that most writers make less than minimum wage. That's called extrinsic motivation, and it doesn't work well for things like writing, where there may not be any easily-defined goals or motivators. Most of us are not going to become rich from our writing.

Here's why extrinsic motivation is unhelpful:

Extrinsic motivation does not always work best; sometimes it can make us perform poorly at certain tasks. For instance, studies reveal that high stake rewards, like cash bonuses, can hinder cognitive capacity. This happens because they shift our focus away from the task and onto the outcome. We can become preoccupied with rewards and all the things that come with them, such as our social status, instead of just doing the work. Extrinsic rewards also tend to narrow our focus on a defined goal and reduce our ability to see other possibilities, hindering creativity. Studies find people perform worse on tasks requiring imagination and ingenuity when they are offered extrinsic rewards, such as higher pay. Nir and Far

And, well, note that "performing worse on tasks requiring imagination and ingenuity." Extrinsic motivation is literally the WORST motivator for writing specifically.

NaNoWriMo is extrinsic motivation, which is not anywhere near as powerful or sustaining as intrinsic motivation. You want to get the shiny achievement award, so you just bang out 50,000 words of slop because you want to say you did it.

You're not motivated by anything but the outcome. That does not a sustainable writing practice make.

But there’s something about intrinsic motivation I want to highlight, because it’s crucial to what I am about to show you: the challenge.

Sometimes writing is a total slog because we’re worrying about all the other things and not on the words themselves. We’re fussing about whether we will ever get published, if we’ve added enough tension in a certain part, if our mom is going to read our porn and realize what a freak they raised.

You cannot think about those things while actively writing.

Instead, you need to focus on the writing process itself. John Schinnerer, a psychologist and life coach, explains further:

Remember as you are in the process of achieving your goals that the enjoyment comes from the doing not the attaining. It is important to find contentment in the act of pursuing the goal while placing less weight on the actual fulfillment of the goal itself.  PsychCentral

So we know you need to find the challenge fun, and you need to focus on the act of putting the words on the page.

In other words, you need to make it a contest with yourself. Here’s how.

Use a Word Count Spreadsheet

Finally! We get to why I’m telling you this! It's free, it's easy, it can be done all year round.

A daily word count spreadsheet is an amazing way to stay motivated and to keep pushing yourself to write because you can literally see the wins rack up. Every day, the word count jumps significantly, which can be much more motivating than just “oh, I’m at 8,453 words.”

More importantly, you’ll start to want to beat your “high score” from the day before.

I’ve highlighted one of the cells so that you can see the simple formula that you need to set up: it’s just yesterday’s count minus today’s count.

Put that in one cell, then click and drag the bottom righthand corner of the cell, and it will populate the rest of the cells in that column with the adjusted formula (B4-B3, and so on).

This is very easy to create. All you have to do is copy-paste the wordcount from your document into your spreadsheet, make sure you have that super-simple formula, and you're done. I have severe dyscalculia and can still use it.

But you can see how much this really helped me:

Things started to really ramp up right at the end because I was getting so motivated by the word counts of the day previous. I wanted to beat yesterday’s high score and keep going.

At the beginning, I was writing maybe 1.9k words; by the end, I was an absolute demon, regularly breaking over 2.8k and then some. On the last day, when the rest of the family was in a post-Christmas hangover, my butt was glued to my chair, banging out those last few thousand words.

Psychologists and life coaches agree that self-competition, a type of intrinsic motivation, is one of the best ways to improve.

Michelle Gibbings, a workplace expert, explains:

When you compete with yourself, you don’t become fixated on what other people are doing; you set the direction and speed. You put yourself in the driver’s seat and control your progress, setting meaningful goals rather than focusing on the progress of others. Michelle Gibbings

Making a word count spreadsheet like this is the definition of setting your own speed and controlling your progress. You can decide on a threshold you always want to hit and then feel very satisfied when you go beyond that.

I set my threshold at 1.5k words every day so that I didn’t feel bummed out when I had an off day and couldn’t get a lot done, but I really wanted my average to be around 2k, so I’d periodically check how close I was to that. If I had a terrible day or was busy, then I’d want to make up for lost time and write more the next day so I kept my average.

Now, I live a life that is quite advantageous to consistent writing: I’m single, I’m childless, I work from home, and most of my hobbies are pretty low-key.

Your life doesn’t look like mine, and that’s totally okay.

There’s no need to match the speed I showed here.

What matters is that your schedule works for you, and that you are consistent.

If you’re a caretaker or have a strenuous job, then set your threshold at just 100 words and aim for an average of 500. However, you’ll be sad if your spreadsheet has a blank cell, so you’ll want to get down at least something, even if you only have 15 minutes to write.

Plus, it’s so encouraging to see the word count go up day by day: much more satisfying than just seeing it in tiny font at the bottom of a Word document or Google Doc.

Or getting some dumb t-shirt from an organization that is actively trying to murder creativity for commercial gain. (Oh, and they protected an actual pedophile from consequences for months on end while he continued to groom children. But that was last year's controversy.)

There’s another reason why this particular method works so well for writers, though.

Word Counts Banish the Urge to Edit

You know you shouldn’t, but you do it anyway. A single word here. A removed sentence there.

The first draft is just about getting everything out, not fixing everything that needs fixing. That part comes later during your five billion revisions where you tweak every single word.

Revising means you have less to work with, which means you have less development. You can get rid of anything that shouldn’t be there when you’ve gotten to that very satisfying “The End” page.

If you are motivated by the spreadsheet method, then you are screwing yourself over if you edit.

Your word count went down! It looks like you did less than you did! You’re losing! Best add more, and fast!

(I had to include my placeholder chapter names; it was obligatory.)

Use strikethrough! Now you know exactly what you’ll be getting rid of when you get to the end of your draft, but you’re not decimating your word count. I removed the entire beginning of the book; that scene is super cute, though, so I later turned it into its own one-shot on my AO3 page.

I prefer doing that because then, if you find that you actually wanted to keep that scene or move it elsewhere, all you have to do is copy-paste from the old version, remove the strikethrough, and you’re all good.

So that’s my tool. It’s really that simple.

But even though it’s so simple, it works wonders for your motivation and consistency, which are crucial for a good writer.

Are you going to give it a whirl? You may find it nervewracking at first, but I encourage you to sample this method, especially if you have a hard time getting motivated.

And if you enjoyed this article, maybe you'll consider purchasing my debut novel, 9 Years Yearning.

This is not the book I drafted last year; it is in fact a prequel of sorts to that first novel. However, it helps set the scene for Poesy (the sixth book in the Eirenic Verses) so that you'll be all prepped for the masterpiece.

9 Years Yearning is a coming of age romance that follows the life of two young soldiers as they go from sorta-enemies, to frenemies, to friends, and then finally to lovers. It is a short read; you can probably finish it in about 2 hours all the way through. Perfect for a weekend romp.

If you do read my book, please don't forget to leave a review!

Reviews are essential to success on Amazon as they boost visibility. (Yes, even bad ones.) Always leave reviews, no matter how short, to support indie authors!

[prncples]

i used to write so recklessly openly on my main blogs as a sort of self-taught journaling exercise, one where i really clung to the feeling that my posts were simultaneously accessible and yet unseen? like, the kinds of posts i know ppl wouldn't usually respond to and that i made with such frequency that i felt it was important to my comfort that no one much was reading them but that they were there bc i had written them and said them out loud in my way of talking out loud

it was like feeling i had things to say and no one specific i wanted to say them to, not out of avoiding people but because sometimes thoughts are just my brain never stopping and it doesn't usually feel like a necessity to seek out a social connection to release it. but i'd also just feel that need to just say something and i loved to let myself act on it and at the time, i knew i'd come to cringe now about it, but at the time, it just made sense in the moment and i knew i'd also like to have that!

and now that i periodically come back to browse my feed and save dozens of things to drafts for the next burst of energy i get to queue things up, i really enjoy getting to read the short little posts people write up for themselves on their blogs... perhaps i am a silly little internet voyeur, but i do think my favorite experience is when i find a point where someone writes short frequent posts, like, 3 to 6 lines long on average and abt 50% of the blog is just their own days or thoughts or problems or venting and then the other 50% is lovely content that also reflects them in it a little

now i wonder, are the feelings i get over reading the words and records of those absolute strangers at all related to whatever does happen or has happened with these posts? :o i remember when iris used to be the sole interaction on so many of those, or the comfort of the blank notes section...!

i think i write continuing with that feeling, which was how it was back in high school and never felt like it shifted significantly, even though i am godawful at interacting again :'^)

i've been quite decent at keeping up a very barebones but relatively consistent written journal for the last 2 and a half years, which has actually been very fun :] but i'm starting to fall off the wagon again and i think it's bc i want to delve back into these posts, which i honestly don't really encounter equivalents of in the wild!! which is why i guess i'm thinking abt them again! i see lots of short posts semi-frequent update types, but what about the long and aimless 6 paragraph addressed to no one talking about nothing kind of post? maybe i'd have to look harder, but i just don't think i will for now is all 0:

i will probably try to come up with a tag, bc i have always enjoyed the option to archive the thoughts i'm going through, but a part of me also anxiously relies on this feeling that i could create a marker that other ppl could mute too, even though i also feel like i couldn't imagine posting without the read more squiggly at the top. that's the soft barrier, but back when the read more used to break when posting, i just wanted to believe in people choosing to have those text post tags muted for their own sanity

[ssentimentals]

hoshi + confessing

prompt: 'i genuinely don't know why my brain just goes blank whenever i look at you. i think i'm going crazy.'

tag list: @pearlygraysky @woozionascooter (let me know if you want to be added!)

soonyoung is not exactly a coward so it's not the reason behind him taking his sweet time before confessing; it's more about him genuinely enjoying this feeling, this 'oh, i am in love' vibe with no need to turn it into an action. he loves being in love, romanticizes the way everything seems to be brighter: colors, events, people. he's very content in keeping things the way they are for some time, simply basking in the knowledge of him having a crush.

'how many times you asked for sugar from her now?' minghao asks, eyeing happily skipping soonyoung warily.

'four!' soonyoung replies, knowing very well how stupid he must look in his friend's eyes but also not deterred the least by it. 'i will ask for it again today, i think.'

minghao clicks his tongue in disapproval. 'can you ask for something else? she'll see right through you if you come to ask for the sugar for the fourth time this month!'

'i'm surprised she haven't caught up with this yet,' vernon chimes in. 'i mean, it's either she's really oblivious or she just thinks that soonyoung is some kind of pastry chef, which is, well. i don't think things can be further from the truth.'

soonyoung doesn't reply but internally he agrees with vernon. he tries, he really tries so hard to come up with something else but every single time he sees you, his mind just turns into mush and for whatever reason sugar is the only word on his tongue. he's surprised how you haven't caught up with his crush yet, he never could take a hold of his expression so he is more than sure that his heart eyes could be spotted even a mile away. but you said nothing so far, acting absolutely normal with him, so he does fall more on the side that you're oblivious. which is fine with him, by the way, because he's more than happy to continue 'accidentally' bumping into you whenever you go out for the groceries, or walking together with you to the metro station, or ending up at your door asking for sugar just to see you beam back at him.

'or maybe she pretends to be oblivious in order not to hurt soonyoung's feelings,' minghao challenges and then turns to look at his friend with a sympathetic wince: 'sorry, but i just think that's an option as well. i really can't believe that you asked her for sugar four times in a row and she's not getting the hint yet.'

that is also something soonyoung internally agrees with. at this point he has so much sugar that he doesn't know what to do with it because he sure as hell does not bake. you always give him so much and once you jokingly asked if he's ever going to share with you his 'baking masterpieces' and soonyoung freaked out so badly that night, he ended up guilt-tripping mingyu into making vanilla scones for him (which he didn't even share with you afterwards because he didn't want to lie). last time he asked for the sugar you did look at him weirdly for a second but then shook your head and said nothing, so minghao's option may be very close to the truth as well. soonyoung is less happy with this option but he knows he should consider it as well.

'why it's always sugar though?' minghao asks as they reach his home. 'and i swear to god, if you say something like-'

'-because she's soooo sweet, sweet as a sugar!' soonyoung interrupts and cackles, watching minghao groan and hide his face in his hands.

'you should have seen it coming,' vernon pats minghao's back and shakes his head when soonyoung gestures them to come in. 'we'll get going, just pass the notes please.'

soonyoung quickly rummages his apartment for correct notes and waves both of his friends goodbye, locking the door after them. his window is open and he can hear soft tunes playing from your kitchen, which makes him smile. after being your neighbor for six months and harboring a crush on you for the last two of them, he pretty much memorized your schedule, your favorite songs and dishes. without even changing, he rushes out of the door because he hasn't seen you for three days and that's three days too many; he misses seeing you and hearing your voice. after first two months he asked for your number under the excuse of emergencies ('in case something serious will happen, like arson or, i don't know, electricity cut'), but haven't texted you once, afraid you'll find it creepy. without thinking throughly what he's going to say, he knocks on your door, bouncing on his feet. today's a good day and seeing you will only make it even better. you don't make him wait for long and the doors swings open at him in few minutes.

'hi!' he beams at you, jittery just from seeing your face. you smile and greet him back and his heart happily does a somersault at the thought that you are happy to see him too. 'long time no see!'

'full three days, yes,' you confirm, nodding.

'how was your trip?' he asks, sincerely wanting to hear the answer. you open the door fully and take a step back and he allows himself to stand just a bit closer to you than usual; you two never invited each other over which is understandable, so he keeps his distance, not wanting to cross the line.

'it was great, very refreshing,' you share with a smile and he nods, listening. he can listen to you all day, he loves watching you talk about something that makes you smile. 'but it feels good to be back, you know how they say that there's no place like home.' you shift from one leg to another and then gaze up at him curiously: 'did you want anything, by the way?'

it takes a second for soonyoung to process the question. 'oh, oh! yes, um, i wanted to ask if you can let me borrow some..sugar?'

he immediately know that he fucked up by the way you freeze. he sees you tense up and smile on your face falters, which makes his palms sweaty. you clear your throat, looking at him in a different manner now, like you are almost assessing him. he gulps, a little bit too loudly, when you cross arms on your chest, looking uncomfortable.

'soonyoung, i-' you start and pause, unsure. 'i'm sorry, i don't want to assume anything, but i just- this is the fifth time you are asking me for the sugar this month and it looks like..um. do you-' you look up, make eye contact with him and immediately look away, blushing. 'nevermind, yes, of course i can give you some sugar.'

you are ready to walk away when soonyoung shouts out: 'wait!', making you turn around. 'what did you want to ask?' you blink at him and soonyoung persists: 'finish your question, please.'

your eyes dart from one corner to another before they stop on him. he can tell that you are as nervous as him and it makes him feel more at ease, to be honest, to know that he's not the only one who's a ball of nerves here. 'honestly speaking,' he starts, 'i genuinely don't know why my brain just goes blank whenever i look at you. i think i'm going crazy.' you still stand unmoving, mouth parted in a little 'o' shape. 'so please, for the sake of both of us, just finish that question.'

'do you...like me, perhaps?' you asks in a shaky voice, so quietly that he barely hears you due to the music on the background.

'yes.'

'forget it, it's so rude of me to assume-- what?'

you look so shell shocked that he barely holds back his laughter. 'i like you, i do. i thought i was obvious but apparently not. one of my friends told me that if you haven't got the hint yet then you probably just don't like me back.'

you still look like deer caught in the headlights and he gingerly takes a step closer, now fully standing inside your apartment. at that you unfreeze, shaking your head. 'oh my god, so you asking for sugar all these times...you didn't even need it, huh?'

'yeah and now i have so much of it, i might just start selling it now.'

you both smile at this and you come closer to him, laughing quietly. soonyoung reaches out for your hands, carefully taking them in his. you both just stare at each other with soft smiles and he thinks it's perfect. he imagined numerous times confessing to you and all scenarios were super romantic, but this right here? it's perfect, better than his scenarios because this is real.

'you do know that you could have just asked me out? like normal people do?' you ask, smiling at him. 'i would have said 'yes''.

'and what's the fun in that?' soonyoung asks, pouting and making you smile. 'is the answer still 'yes', by the way? just checking.'

you chuckle and nod. 'it is.'

a/n: went a little overboard with this request, hope it's not bad though :] let me know if you liked it! anon who requested this, hope this is up for your liking <3

here is the link to my writing list and requests are open, come say hi! :) - nini

[clairecrive]

hi! I just recently found your account and I've been spending all my time reading everything you've written, and I wanted to tell you that I absolutely adore your writing! it's so beautiful.

I also wanted to request a friends to lovers nikolai x reader fic (you don't have to make it friends to lovers if you don't want to!) something along the lines of this: they get seperated after the battle with the darkling at the end of siege and storm and reader has to go with alina but they finally reunite? and everyone is super smug because they knew it would happen.

sorry for such a long ask and no worries if you decide not to do it! I hope you're doing well!!

Fools, pistols blazing and shock

A/n: a promise is a promise and the second most requested fic was Nikolai and angst and so here it is! friends to lovers is not my favorite trope but I enjoyed writing this. I hope you will too x

Thank you so much for your beautiful words btw, they mean the world <3<3

tags: @jupiterandbutterflies , @agentsofsheilds , @for-bebbanburg , @randomoutsiders , @hannaxmaria , @vintagebitc , @story-scribbler , @crowssixof , @odetostep , @lizzie-he4rts , @korol-lantsov , @subjecta13-thefangirl ,@gallysonegoodlung , @a-c-lee , @mriddlemethis , @carnationworld , @thanossexual , @luvxginger , @sanna2020 , @partiesandblurrypolaroids , @edithsvoice , @wafflesandschemingfaces , @snugleo , @sugarmelonwater , @dobwhore, @sassybadqueen , @anything-forourmoony, @snokoi, @imaginingimagines, @vintagebitc_,

SHADOW AND BONE MASTERLIST

"So," he twirled around, "how do I look?" With a theatrical gesture, he stopped in front of you.

You looked at him, head to toe, before saying, "Like a fool I know."

He was imperturbable, by the smirk on his face one would think that you had paid him a compliment. "The answer was far simpler: handsome."

"You look like a prince," you conceded, " but so does your brother so take that as you will." And with that, you walked to your assigned post leaving a scandalized Nikolai behind.

The dinner went by smoothly even if you had to bear Vasily being his annoying self. So far so good. The important thing was that the people around the table were under no threat. The rest was bearable.

And no, it had nothing to do with Nikolai winking at you from time to time. Flirting was second nature to him and Alina's presence by his side was a cold reminder of how things were.

It took one look at her for your face to go as blank as Mal's on the other side of the room.

You had disconnected from the conversation at the table for a second, your attention going to the exit where a Grisha soldier had just walked in to talk to Zoya. If you had been paying attention to Nikolai, you would have known what to expect.

But you hadn't and so the next few seconds were pure chaos.

The unthinkable happened.

Black shadows filled the room, leaving no chance to the people they had appeared before. The Queen's scream brought your attention back to the table and consequently to the Vasily. Or rather, to what was left of him.

Beside him, the kind had crouched down to hide and was cowering behind the throne. The Queen clutched her son's body to her chest wailing and screaming. Then your eyes fell on him, standing tall in front of his parents shooting away.

You didn't know what you were going to do. You didn't think. You just acted and the next thing you knew, you were running towards him shooting fire at whatever tendrils of shadows you could see.

"Nikolai!"

In a moment, you reached his side, covering his back for every possible attack.

"You need to go," you urged him over the sounds of crying and shooting. A shot of light filled the room blinking you for a moment and panic shot through you at the possibility of Alina being hurt.

"Take your parents and Alina and go Nikolai. You can't stay here!" You insisted again, still back to back, unwilling to let anything happen to him. If he meant to argue you didn't know. You heard him speak but his words went unheard over the chaos in the room.

You turned around just in time to see one of those things trying to make their way to him. The tendrils of fire that shot through you slowed it down but it was only a shot of wind coming from a squaller that did the trick and sent it away.

Nodding in the squaller's direction you took Nikolai's shoulders and turned him towards the secret exit behind the throne.

"Stop playing hero and just go for Saint's sake!" Under normal circumstances, he was stronger than you. And well, he still was but too busy worrying about getting his family to safety and covering your back, he ended up succumbing to your shoves.

"I can't leave you here!"

"You can and you surely will! I'll make sure that Alina is safe," ushering him and his parents towards the exit, you didn't give him time to argue. Once they were through the door, you closed it behind them and melted the lock.

You allowed yourself only a moment to worry about him, to mourn him if things were to go downhill for you. Only a second for you to mourn the future that you knew you were never going to get with him.

Then it was over. Your heart locked away and your mind focused solely on the battle ahead. You needed to make sure that Alina was alive and get her to safety whilst also trying to save as many as you could along the way.

A piece of cake.

*+*+*+*+*+*

You knew that he had made it out of Os Alta alive. You had gotten word that he had arrived safe and sound to one of his hiding spots scattered around the country.

Alina and a group of other Grisha, including yourself, had managed to make it out alive out of the capital as well.

All was as well as it could be under these gloomy circumstances. And yet, you couldn't help but feel like you had lost.

Too many had fallen under the Darkling's wrath. Too many had given up their lives in honor of Ravka's freedom. Too many sacrifices for you all to be hiding in the tunnels like scared cats.

But you had a plan. You just needed to be in the same room as Alina, all of you at once, and you were going to make your way up.

It was only a matter of time before you were going to see him again.

*+*+*+*+*+*

It turned out that you were right. It was a matter of time indeed before you saw Nikolai again.

As always, he couldn't help but make a grand entrance while praising his good looks. For once, your eyes didn't roll in mock annoyance. The joy of seeing him again, safe and sound while also saving your asses, prevailed.

And the moment his eyes met yours? Priceless.

Despite being in the middle of running away and fighting the first army's soldiers, you felt like there was only the two of you. Nothing mattered besides Nikolai, his stupid smirk that shone brighter than all the stars combined.

It turned out that that moment came with a price indeed. Your distraction paved the way for an almost fatal mistake.

Too lost in Nikolai's eyes and restraining yourself from throwing yourself at him, you didn't notice the soldier sneaking up behind him. Or well, you didn't until it was too late.

The movement caught your eyes, but the bastard had his pistol already drawn. You had the presence of the spirit of pushing Nikolai out of the way before a shot was fired.

Focusing on the bullet you tried all your might to melt it, but you knew it was a desperate attempt since you had noticed it too late. Trying and losing was better than not trying at all so trying you did.

However, what turned out to be life-saving was Nikolai's counterattack. While you exercised the small science, Nikolai quickly drew his own pistol and shoot at the soldier.

Time seemed to slow down as you stared in front of him, hands in the air while Nikolai moved behind you. Right before your brain registered that while you had indeed managed to burn the bullet, it was still coming your way at high speed, another object entered your field vision.

At that moment you didn't exactly decipher what had happened, you blinked and the bullet was not there anymore. However, your stupor was short-lived as other soldiers were coming your way after hearing the noise.

At that point, Nikolai tugged you away and towards his awaiting ship knowing that the soldiers would surely outnumber you.

It all happened in a blink. One moment you were on the ground hellbent on not dying, and the other you were up in the air.

That, combined with the stress of the last couple of weeks. exhaustion and dehydration put you in a state of shock. Resulting in you staring numbly ahead of you.

Then, when you felt a hand on your face, your brain started working again and your eyes slowly began to focus.

"Are you injured?"

Nikolai was moving your head left and right to check for wounds and after that, he moved down on your neck and vital points. But you weren't hurt.

"It's so typically you to swoop in and save the day in the most dramatic way possible that I shouldn't even be surprised."

Your sarcasm reassured him that you were fine more than the absence of physical wounds. Leaning back on his haunches, he gave you a lazy smirk. "You know me, always read to save damsels in distress."

You almost hated how handsome he looked in that moment but the fact that he basically had saved your life made it really hard for you to get mad at him.

"Not a damsel and not in distress but I appreciated your gesture," you fired back falling naturally into your usual easy banter. "Thank you, Kolya."

"You shouldn't be thanking me. I did it for a whole selfish reason." His features morphed into seriousness which was usually something he left for meetings or that kind of stuff. Seeing it now directed at you, seriously worried you.

"Since when does Nikolai Lanstov shy away from gratefulness and compliments?" You tried to jest but to no avail.

"I'm serious."

"Alright, so why did you do it? You have tons of other Grisha available."

"Because a world without you is not a world I want to live in."

Well, damn. Trust Nikolai to make you completely speechless.

"That must be the shock talking," you murmured still taken back by his words.

"I've almost lost you, y/n, I'm not going to waste any more time avoiding my feelings." Crossing his arms on his chest, Nikolai lightly shook his head. Damn, there was no smirk on his face, no twinkle in his eyes. He must be serious.

"I should be having an epiphany moment since I was the one who almost died," you protested.

"Feel free to declare your undying love for me then."

"Ass. Now I'm tempted not to do it just to prove you wrong," you glared at him but sighed knowing what you needed to do. "But, as much as it pains me, you're right."

Your eyes flickered between yours and the sheer intensity of them gave you enough confidence to bear your heart to him, "I do love you, you know."

"Well, let's be honest, who wouldn't. I'm amazing," with a careless shrug, Nikolai gestured to himself. Which, of course, made you glare at him.

"Joking, I take it back. You're insufferable." Your mock-annoyance did nothing but amuse him to no end. However untruthful they might be, Nikolai played along with your words. While also progressively leaning closer to you.

"Nope, can't do that love. You signed your destiny, you're mine." You would have retired, of course you would have, but the truth is, his lips were more interesting than any witty comeback ever could.

[give-soup-please]

I can't sleep. A few thoughts on fictional characters. (long personal post)

Yeah, I should be in bed. I told my friends I was logging off. But I tried to sleep, and got caught up in memories of the past. It happens a lot when you're me.

So I didn't leave my parents place until I was 20, right? I've lived an approximate fourth of a human's lifespan in a bad home. And there are a lot of real people I could credit for helping me hang on long enough to get out. They more than deserve the credit that I could give. They all deserve their own happy endings and the best that life has to offer, there's no question of that.

But for a majority of my life, fictional characters also helped share the burden. My list of comfort characters is long. The first comfort character I had was when I was four years old. There was this movie that almost no one's heard of, called Doogal, also known as The Magic Roundabout. This was a bad kids movie, but when you're four, you're not exactly in a position to notice quality or do an analysis.

I've been through a lot of stuff that I don't talk about, partially for privacy reasons, partially for safety, and partially because I don't like to discuss all my trauma on a blog where anyone can read it. What I can say comfortably is that fictional characters have always acted as an anchor for me. They've kept me tethered, despite everything.

There were many times I came close to making a permanent mistake because life was too hard. I have a few... attempts under my belt. Nothing stuck, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be typing this. But I've been caught in this loop tonight about the power fictional characters have over our lives.

I pay attention. I lurk a lot over a broad variety of tags. TSP isn't my only fandom, though it is my main one right now. And I keep seeing these connections. I'm not the only one who's used characters to stay alive when things have been at their worst. Far from it. There are thousands of us, who have either been stuck in abusive situations or currently are, and we grip tight to these characters in order to have something, or someone who... Cares. Loves. Pays attention. There are so many ways to fill that blank, more than I have the ability to describe.

The thing is, I can't work out why. I mean, I can understand the need for the things our families can't provide, better than most. But why- or how, do they have this power? What is it about fictional characters that makes them have this ability? What does it mean to scream for help, and for a fictional character to lend a hand? I've been thinking about this for a while, and I can't come to any solid conclusions.

Do we use fictional characters to cope because a part of our brain knows that someone needs to be kind to us, despite all the things we've been told?

Do we use them to cope because our traits are recognizable in them?

Is it more metaphysical and spiritual than that? Can they see into our world at all? How many of us have discovered the media we needed at exactly the right time? How many of us have found something life saving in the most unlikely of fandoms? Is this fate? Is it chance? Do these characters in some universe watch us struggle and think, "I can lend a hand."?

Again, thousands of us have had these experiences. Undertale saved my life. Good Omens saved my life. Welcome to Nightvale helped me keep my sanity during the pandemic. Don't get me started on how many times Star Trek has given me something to live for. Redwall and Chronicles of Narnia too. I've been in a lot of different spaces. The perfect piece of media to distract and consume and daydream about, to get us through a few months. Again, and again.

I didn't know peace until I left home. But these worlds provided some small version of it. How did they do that?

I don't have any answers. Maybe the answers aren't important, but they feel important.

And I'm not ashamed that I use characters when tensions and stress or high. They've stuck with me since I was four years old, and I don't think they're going anywhere. Believe me, I've tried to rely on them less, and push them away in extreme circumstances. They won't leave me behind, even if I asked them to. I did. They refused point blank.

How is it that they've got a better grip on the inside of my head than I do?

Now chances are, relying on them is just what my brain learned to do to cope. But there's always a romantic part of me that wants to believe it's more than that.

I still can't get over it. How do fictional characters hold this much sway over us? I mean- I consume headcanons almost as much as I write for them. I've saved hundreds of them to my desktop to read when things are hard. And while I can't claim that those posts were lifesaving as much as the media was, they helped. They brought comfort. They brought relief.

Why? Why do these characters matter so much to us?

I have dozens of stories I could tell. Picturing Aziraphale with his wings stretched out, protecting me until I fell asleep. The narrator giving me comfort after dealing with my abusers. Julian Bashir and Garak helping me during recovery. Papyrus being proud of me for accomplishing things. Cecil Palmer helping me calm down from a panic attack. Fantasizing about living at Redwall Abbey, while stuck in a dangerous home. All of them helping me get back to my feet after being knocked to the ground again and again. All of them, and many others holding the line while I battled with my own brain to stay alive.

How were they able to convince me to stay, when I had no desire to do so? How did reading them saying kind things and writing them being kind to others help me believe I was deserving of kindness? How did loving them so deeply transfer to wanting to love myself?

None of it makes sense, but even if I wasn't invested in keeping myself here, they were.