#you know what i did do?

[catty-words]

finally back home from my family's and ready to put last year to rest with the

2023 fic writing roundup

Total 2023 Word Count: 95,451 published words, but 116,360 words written for the year   Total 2023 Hits: 25,513 Other 2023 AO3 Stats: Kudos: 1,272; Comment threads: 198; Bookmarks: 252; Subscriptions: 158.

Total 2022 Word Count: 36,969 published words, but 132,549 words logged for the year Total 2022 Hits: 17,797 Other 2022 AO3 Stats: Kudos: 1,910; Comment threads: 111; Bookmarks: 259; Subscriptions: 20.

links and titles to 2023 works

[cw's nancy drew] couldn't help noticing the gold mines glistening in your skin (3,966 words) - a birthday gift for bethany! what if nancy and ace hooked up pre-canon?

[never have i ever] one more last try (4,323 words) - for the girlies* who were/are incensed that the nhie writers had the audacity to make bad benvi sex canon and then UNINTERESTING. *it's me, i'm girlies

[cw's nancy drew] first contact (849 words) - nancy and ace texting can be poetry if you hold my hand and just believe!

[never have i ever] answering machines & how your voice says it’s gonna get back to me someday (3,163 words) - devi and ben's relationship through their first year at university as told by the voicemails they leave each other

[never have i ever] a lie away from getting you into the mood (77,482 words) - i mean. how could i possibly sum this one up? d/b FWB, sure, but also so much more than that. bitty spark 'verse pt 2.

[never have i ever] to nestle deep into the safe-keeping (3,440 words) - in a now time-honored tradition, i wrote rose some smut for her birthday! d/b being soft and in love their first year of university.

[cw's nancy drew] it’ll hurt like a mother when your foot comes out (2,228 words) - drew crew hike to commemorate a real life hike! fun!

Favorite Fic: 'gold mines' is a strong contender, but. you know it's 'lie away'. how could it be anything else? i spent a year and a half writing it and i finished the fuck out of it despite the tornado that stirred up my personal life this year. i don't know that i've ever been prouder of a fic. almost certainly not.

Hardest Fic: also 'a lie away'. the amount of material that i wrote and then scrapped because it wasn't right was A Lot.

Do You Plan to Take Prompts in 2024? haven't done a prompt game in a while! think it might be time to pull out that song lyric one, i've been gifted some exceptional music that way.

that said, though, when i do have all day to sit down and write, i've found myself more interested in chipping away at something longer-form. then again, it's been a while since i exercised the prompt-filling muscle in my writer brain, and i don't want that muscle to lose definition entirely. we'll see, i suppose.

What was the best thing about 2023? I FUCKING FINISHED 'A LIE AWAY' I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT

What was the worst thing about 2022? woof. i sure did split from my partner of a decade. which has actually been incredibly good for me, but living through it was a bit fucky, as you can imagine.

which makes this a great time to nod at 'answering machines' for being perfect creative fun and getting me out of my head during the worst of the breakup. looking at the title alone can make my brain stutter, though, it's a time capsule from such a tumultuous period in my life. probably doesn't help that i used a song from my unofficial breakup album to title the fic. i love you, 'answering machines'. i cannot fathom rereading you at this time.

Any last thoughts for 2023? i am content. the year was good to me, all things considered.

Goals for 2024

fuck around with devi the vampire slayer

original fiction???

fall head over heels for another show

continue writing devi/ben even if the audience for it dissipates entirely

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[hinamie]

mentor

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[cyancees]

i have neither a good imagination nor aphantasia, but a secret third thing

[artkaninchenbau]

A h-heartfelt reunion..?

Bonus

[spitblaze]

I guess Chilchuck has brought us right back to 'adults who are short are child-coded and if you like them you're a pedophile' discourse huh

[demaparbat-hp]

He truly did.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

obligatory beach divorce doodling

bonus rough cover redraw of x-men #41 (1995) But Beach Divorce below cut

[brainrotcharacters]

the easy grip on the knife. the leg over the seat. the hand over the other seat. the sassy "come get it" move. you know the bitch is smiling behind that mask even as he said the line.

[akanemnon]

I don't like this place. It's turning everyone edgy and sad.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[pokimoko]

Asexual bird? Please

How about two asexual birds?

[datcravat]

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection X Among Us Collaboration promotional artwork by Datcravat (me haha)

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

I love how on Tumblr, "media literacy" has become "Um, just because someone writes about this doesn't mean they're endorsing this. I hate all these media puritans ruining everything."

I'm sad to inform you that knowing when and whether an author is endorsing something, implying something, saying something, is also part of media literacy. Knowing when they are doing this and when they're not is part of media literacy. Assuming that no author has ever endorsed a bad thing is how you fall for proper gander. It's not media literacy to always assume that nobody ever has agreed with the morally reprehensible ideas in their work.

Sometimes, authors are endorsing something, and you need to be aware when that happens, and you also need to be aware when you're doing it as an author. All media isn't horny dubcon fanfic where you and the author know it's problematic IRL but you get off to it in the privacy of your brain. Sometimes very smart people can convince you of something that'll hurt others in the real world. Sometimes very dumb people will romanticize something without realizing they're doing it and you'll be caught up in it without realizing that you are.

Being aware of this is also media literacy. Being aware of the narrative tools used to affect your thinking is media literacy. Deciding on your own whether you agree with an author or not is media literacy. Enjoying characters doing bad things and allowing authors to create flawed or cruel characters for the sake of a story is perfectly fine, but it is not the same as being media literate. Being smug about how you never think an author has bad intentions tells me you're edgy, not that you're media literate. You can't use one rule to apply to all media. That's not how media literacy works. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Aheem heem. Anyway.

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]