#... I may or may not be planning to write a little something about them. Soon™

[0x1000]

Thoughts on Spamtenna? (Mostly past, in the present they seem like a bitter divorced couple)

A few. Mostly though I can't stop thinking about their stupid matching suits. Actually kind of adorable.

Anyway, from my cursory glances towards Spamtenna content, I've noticed that people are a lot more willing to portray and play up Spamton's sleaziness and overall willingness to be manipulative—which I think is fun, though I'm not sure if it's entirely relevant to the dynamic of their past relationship. Considering how fervently hateful he is of Tenna in the present, who is a sweet and adorable CRT who has not sold weapons of death to children, it's easy to see him as just, like, a Shitty Guy. But I don't think that's quite the whole picture.

Okay. So, we know that Spamton began having his fixation on "Heaven" before he was ejected from Queen's Mansion.

We also know that he only stopped talking to Tenna after this.

So, his abandonment of Tenna does not seem to be something he did in a sound state of mind or situation; he was having Shadow Crystal-induced religious delusions and literally being evicted from his home. It's worth noting that he had already stopped receiving help at this point, so him agreeing to "sign the deal" with Tenna could have been an act of desperation. In fact, it seems that his refusal to tell Tenna about "his secret" could have been for his own good, considering the involvement of Shadow Crystals (and perhaps a way to avoid competition, too.) Either way, Spamton's sudden willingness to divulge this secret at all speaks to a sudden and abrupt shift in values.

So, why were they partnered in the first place? Let's shift into Light World mode for a second. It's clear that Spamton and Tenna's partnership is playing on the idea of modern TVs being full of, well, ads and bloatware—internet connectivity, preinstalled apps, streaming, etc. A CRT TV is obviously not technologically equipped to do any of these things; Spamton and Tenna's partnership physically could not have functioned. They were kind of hopeless from the start.

There's a kind of optimistic naïveté from both parties, I think. Neither of them knew how to function without the people that controlled them—for Spamton, it was his benefactor; for Tenna, it was the Dreemurr family. Both of these figures were a kind of nebulous "higher power" for them. And both of them were eventually abandoned by it.

Their end motives are what differ the most. Tenna was desperate to find a way to appeal to this higher power—to still be loved by it. Spamton was desperate for a way to escape it, or to surpass it.

Basically: I think at the time they knew each other, they both had no idea what they were doing—maybe they pretended they did, and maybe they started to believe it when they were with each other.

Also they literally had a child together what the hell

[covetyou]

20 questions for fic writers tag game

thanks for the tags bbs 💛 @mermaidgirl30 @whatsnewalycat @sp00kymulderr

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

23 - I cross post to ao3 just before I post anything on Tumblr, so almost everything goes there first. The only thing that isn't there is y2k and two dress up!Joel lore posts that are in fic form.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

117,356

3. What fandoms do you write for?

almost entirely Pedro - a little bit of general TLOU if we consider honey, you're familiar (tess x reader)

4. Top five fics by kudos

something wretched about this

sleepless

first steps

baubles

just a taste

on Tumblr sleepless is my top fic before the first chapter of something wretched about this - I don't keep track of it after those two!

5. do you respond to comments?

I do! I'm a bit behind right now because May/June have been kicking my ass in every way possible, but usually they get answered within a day or two.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't write much angst! Feelings™ in general is not my thing.

the howler monkey is maybe my angstiest fic, but it ends quite fluffy. same as some good friend.

none of them really end too angsty! I'm all about leaving things vaguely good at the end.

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

the most typical happily ever after mush? jack of all trades and freeze-thaw. freeze-thaw's ending is quite cute now that I look back at it.

chaste also has a happy ending, just a very different one to a romantic feelings-y happy ending 💦 but you'll never see someone more thrilled than Dieter in that fic.

all of my fics do tbh, just not big I love you/happy families/grand gesture kind of happy endings.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've never even had a slightly mean comment tbh

9. Do you write smut?

predominantly! everything except for y2k (not on ao3!) and my Dieter's PA loose series is smut. Dieter's PA is super fun to write because it often toes the line between almost smut and not smut at all. there's a lot of nudity and references to past sexual events, and it's the perfect place to explore silliness with Dieter.

10. Craziest crossover?

it's gotta be my carnal-val series. it's a circus AU with P-Boys each playing a part - so far we have Dieter as a clown and Whiskey as a ringmaster. I have 4 WIPs currently on the go for it, so hopefully more will be soon.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

thank goodness no. not that I know it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no! I probably never will - I like to just finish and be done, and collaborating with a fic feels far more involved than my usual "fuck it, that'll do" process! I literally don't even get shit beta read.

14. All time favorite ship?

I genuinely do not have one 😁 I'm very easy to please and generally if you feed it to me I'll have a good time, so no favourite ship has ever really stuck. I generally don't care for romantic ships the same way most do.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I started a Marcus Pike fic over Christmas - I doubt that'll get finished. My OG plan for kinktober still needs to be officially scrapped (I wrote something wretched about this instead)

I also have a Dieter's PA WIP involving a coffee machine that 💀 I'm not sure anyone needs or wants to see.

not all WIPs deserve to see the light of day, and most of the fun is in the process of fucking around with characters for a little bit tbh

16. What are your writing strengths?

anything silly and slightly bizarre while somehow not being too out there. I think I'm decent at dialogue but honestly 🤷‍♀️ some days I'm shit

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

so many! I'm the vaguest amount of descriptive possible, with absolutely everything. not just because I write reader insert either 😅

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

love reading it - will probably never include it in my own fics. I don't know another language well enough to do it alone and I don't want to bother anyone to ask for help. add that to my "fuck it, that'll do" thing and it's just not a recipe for doing another language justice 😁

19. First fandom you wrote in?

h*rry p. I wrote two oneshots as a teen. one involved people getting turned into chickens and pecking someone to death and in the other someone's little toe got stolen and eventually kept in a jar. so if you're wondering if I've always been like this, the answer is yes.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I still really love best in show and some good friend. both were a little different to my usual way of doing things and I loved the result of both. I also really love the howler monkey - it opened up a lot more depth that I have planned for Dieter's PA, and I'm really excited about it

I have no clue who has and hasn't done this, but consider yourself tagged if you'd like to do it but also @strang3lov3 @beefrobeefcal @bitchesuntitled @corazondebeskar-reads toobif you're ao3 girlies.

[tc-doherty]

WIP Round-up

We are in the 2nd half of 2023 so I figured I would do something like this because I haven’t actually compiled information for a while.

Status updates, priorities, and which projects I’m dropping.

Backwards Tales:

 I’ve written Beauty and the Beast and I’m satisfied with that, I’ve written two pages of Cinderella and I’m relatively satisfied so far. I’m just going to see where time takes me with this one. I don’t currently have any specific fairy tales picked out for other ones but that won’t be an issue.

Celestials:

The Ghost is finished, but it will be getting some tweaks and a couple brand-new illustrations before it’s republished under Fabler :3

The Fairy, I’m about halfway through this draft, I think, but it has a whole new ending so it will still need another draft or two at least.

The Scholar, I’m more or less settled onto the idea of this but I haven’t written it yet.

The Knight, still in baby planning stages.

Coyote Song:

This is so stupid but I do love it and I still intend to rewrite it. I have to at least see if it has any value.

The Deadlands:

I do like the story but I’m slightly worried that it might get me sued unless I make some major changes so…status, unknown. I don’t know if I like it enough to put major structural repairs at a high priority at the moment.

The Desert of Claw and Fang:

I’m dropping this one.

Dragon’s Daughter:

Dragon’s Daughter is done except for the illustrations.

Dragon’s Choice, the first half is basically done, the whole second half is new so it’s sparse and needs plumping up.

The Gryphon of Sirray:

I’m still intending to write this one.

The Hildspel of Athelhyrst:

The publishability of this is 0% but I do intend to continue writing it whenever I have a free moment, which is not right now.

Hoofbeats:

This one has promise and I do intend to write a new draft of it once I get some other projects out of the way. I would say this is medium priority.

The Huntress of Anihwen:

I may be dropping this one.

Into the Witch’s Wood:

I’m almost certainly dropping this. I don’t know what it is about the story but I can never keep my interest up about it no matter how I change it, even though I like some of the cast members. Maybe I will just steal them and do something else with them.

Laero:

While this story may or may not actually ever work out, I fully intend to at least try to write a new draft since I’m much older and wiser now.

Magic Black as Knight:

I think I’ve written about a quarter of the plot. I do intend to finish it and see if it works out but it’s lower priority right now.

Miracles:

I just need to write the last couple of chapters, maybe 10 chapters or so. And then it will need a little bit more editing and filling out but it’s also basically ready for alpha-reading as soon as I write those last couple chapters.

Northbound:

I love these characters but I need to spend some serious time working out the politics before I go back to it so that I can make sure everything is intriguing enough but still makes sense. I would consider it medium priority at the moment.

The Race of the Midday Moon:

I 100% intend to write this one.

The Rose and the Egret:

I think I’ve written the first two fairy tales from this? I am going to finish it.

Second Chances:

This is in a weird place because it’s basically done except for minor tweaks and a little bit more fluffing (ready for beta-reading at least) but the idea of publishing it is strange to me due to Reasons(TM) so I don’t know what to do with it.

The Swan Husband:

This idea is still funny to me and I want to try it.

Temitope:

This is essentially still a novella and I’m having a little bit of time making it long enough but it’s still pretty far along in the process and I’m going to keep working on it.

The Thief Queen:

I will probably be dropping this one.

Untitled 1:

This may end up being one of the things that I just write for myself because it’s already extremely self-indulgent, we’ll see. I may also take the characters and do something completely different with them.

Untitled 2:

I pretty much have the whole plot line worked out in my head from what I’ve done so far, I just need to expand on some things and learn more about scriptwriting so I can do it properly. I love the story and this will be happening.

Untitled 3:

Absolutely, 100%, I’m writing this. Even if it turns out bad, I’m going to write it. I would like to write it soon actually, it’s relatively high priority for me.

Untitled 4:

I still intend to try this but because it’s a totally different genre and I don’t know if I’m suited for it it’s still fairly low priority at the moment.

Untitled 5:

This is still only a short story at the moment, I do have ideas for what I want to do with it but I would like to finish Temitope first given that they are set in the same universe. Not that they’re connected in any way, it just seems like I should finish the first one first and the second one second.

Untitled 7:

I’m dropping this.

[dhc-official]

Uh-oh master, a fourth rough draft has hit the attention span

State of DHC: #1

On top of shifting my focus to a new draft to take things in a new direction, I'm also procrastinating* starting this newest draft by writing about the older ones! (*we'll call it retrospecting, it sounds more productive that way) So I may as well finally tell you all what I've been up to.

Lilith, what in the ever-loving fuck is Devil Hunter Clara, you might be thinking to yourself as you read those words in the order that I wrote them. Well, I'm glad I asked! As it stands, Devil Hunter Clara (DHC) is a collection of rough drafts and scrapped chapters sitting in my writing folder, a handful of my dearest home-made blorbos, and the thing dominating a great many of my waking hours.

As I'm gearing up to start anew on a fourth draft, I am filled with a tantalizing mix of dread and excitement at the prospect that I don't really know what Devil Hunter Clara is. With each draft, the shape of what I want it to become shifts a little more, like chunks of marble falling away, coming ever closer to its final sculpted form. It's characters become ever more familiar to me, and I grow in confidence about what I do and do not want it to become.

Before me is the blank canvas and all the lessons I've learned so far.

The Before Times

I suppose I should say a little about how we got here. I've wanted to get into writing for almost as long as I can remember, but like many things in life I just kinda,,, never got around to it.

Of course, I had little snippets here and there, lots of ideas for stories, characters, worlds, plans and plots a'plenty, a few I even made halfhearted attempts at penning, but nothing I would say was anything resembling a readable work. I say this not to be self deprecating, I literally mean that the only thing I had that wasn't a note or a character sheet was maybe three pages of illegible scribbles in a forgotten notebook somewhere (something inspired by the hunger games -back when that was the new smash hit- that I attempted to share precisely once, then never touched, mentioned, or even thought about ever again). That all changed early last year.

To make this part brief-ish (lest I ramble forever) I got back into text based roleplaying. I'd made attempts in the past, but those were as shallow and brief-lived as my other foirés into writing. This time though, it was with someone for whom I harbor a not insignificant amount of love, and who assuaged some of my perpetual anxieties (I've played the role of dungeon master in our tabletop games so roleplaying with him was quite a bit more comfortable and familiar than with previous attempted writing partners) and it just sorta clicked. I went from timid wallflower watching from the sidelines to writing thousands of words at a time in longform response basically every couple of days for a few months straight.

I fell in love with the process of it. Taking my strange and broken wreck of a character and putting her in situations™ of her own making again and again, it's hard to describe just how enthralled I became. Eventually we had to slow down our roleplay correspondences (life happens) but now I had an itch to scratch. So I did the only logical next thing, I loaded up a blank .ODT file, and I got back to writing.

The Long Loooong Journey (First Draft)

The first couple paragraphs got kicked up somewhere around fall of last year. I wanted this newest project of mine to be unshackled from any established setting (or fall victim to world-building paralysis as my other project around this time did, a different story for a different blog perhaps). I wanted to get back into The Zone™ and hit that writing flow again as reliably as possible, so the star of the show -as I envisioned her then- shared a lot of surface level traits with the roleplay OC she was loosely based upon: The same hair, the same eyes. Soon though, she took on some more important traits, the same bone-deep transfeminity, the same blood curdling powers and a need to control them. Likewise, the setting was chosen out of convenience: urban fantasy, a familiar world with an underbelly of demonic monsters and a secret order of those that hunt them.

This was all still in the loosey-goosey figuring out the basics stage -nothing written yet. I had one image in my mind of what I (at the time) wanted Clara at her peak to look like but I wanted to figure out how she got there. How would a terrified teenage trans girl go from being a complete nobody, a total shut in and loner, to being the legendary demon slayer I envisioned? That is largely what the first draft (now totaling around 94K words) aimed to answer.

To my great surprise, such massive overhauls take time, if written out and explored in depth. I had a loose outline, a timeline of her evolution from A) confused and afraid inductee to this strange magical underworld, to B) semi-capable pawn in someone else's game to C) Fully Capable Loose Cannon (and perpetual headache to her demon hunting partner Zaid, more on him another day) to D) a rogue agent, even more feared than the demons she was once employed to hunt, and finally to E) Spiraling badly and becoming something of a complicated hero teetering on the very razor's edge of becoming an out and out villain-protagonist.

The problem with writing a teenage protagonist struggling to come to terms with powers beyond mortal understanding, however, is that they are a teenage protagonist struggling to come to terms with powers beyond mortal understanding. Jokes aside, out of all the outlined above, 94K words in and I was still sitting somewhere between points A and B. For all her exploration of the secret underworld, she was still largely a scared teenager tenuously wielding power outside of her control. I was learning a lot about her and Zaid, what makes them tick, as well as their extended cast of tag-along weirdos, but as I approached the 100K mark I grew more interested in actually sharing my story someday. I simultaneously grew more aware of the enormity of my task I was setting out on if I ever wanted to reach my image of Clara Prime following my current outline and at my current pace.

Just cut to The Good Shit™ already! (Second Draft)

My second draft started as much more experimental. I was unsure if I wanted to abandon all my precious progress so far, but I assured myself that it's not like I'm deleting it, I'm just trying out other things! Where the first draft was told in third person, largely following Clara but occasionally switching to Zaid when I felt it was more appropriate or impactful, the second draft started out entirely in first person, all in Zaid's eyes.

Here in the second draft we don't follow Clara's rise to power, instead we follow a version where she's not only reached the vision I had of Prime Clara's power in the outline of the first draft, but eclipsed it. I surprised myself in abandoning her somewhat singularly focused powerset (mostly relying on hemokinesis and some baseline demonic abilities, with a handful of other powers laboriously fought for deeeep into the outline). This more powerful Clara was fittingly more mature (still with her occasional dips into tantrums self aggrandizing tirades and mischief being a problem on purpose) and this version of Zaid was aged up to match, with his feigned veneer of confidence becoming an actual foundation of competence (with his trademark bone deep fissures in that foundation owing to the stresses of, well, basically everything leading up to that point in his life)

Besides our protagonists becoming competent and well rounded from the word go, the other major difference was a shift in their dynamic. In the first draft Zaid was somewhat of an unwitting pawn of the highly dubious and very unoriginally named secret organization (go ahead and guess what it's called). Their first meeting was in the end of the prologue where Zaid saves/ kinda sorta kidnaps Clara (she was unconcious and in need of medical attention, its totes fine). In the second draft Clara is already a prisoner, and Zaid has to prove himself to her to be allowed the privilege of her company. Rereading it earlier today (the impetus for me starting a fourth draft and writing this post) their dynamic feels a lot more playful* and fun than in the first draft! *Zaid is def having a bad time, but where the first draft often comes off as a lot of bickering punctuated by moments of something closer to horror than power fantasy, the second draft has a certain fascinating momentum to it, a real verve, y'know? I actually really like this version of Clara and Zaid. She's got all the arrogance and with just a hint of zaneyness that I love, and he's just the right mix of playing it straight, utterly tortured, and surprisingly, he actually manages to come off as fairly intelligent, always thinking quickly and making the best of his very, very poor circumstances.

Unfortunately, I realized after 15k words that first person with occasional POV switches just would not work for the story I wanted to tell in the long term. Thus,

In Medias Res (Third Draft)

While the first draft drags their meeting and growth out far beyond my current willingness to detail, and the second kick starts it, the third rebukes beginnings and doesn't concern itself with their first meeting during its brief stint, instead centering when Clara first dropped the mask. In this timeline the two have been working together for a little while, but Clara has been concealing the full extent of her abilities. This Clara was the scary powerful Clara from the second draft, but then said fuck it and has been pretending to be a 'just some schmuck' demon who just so happens to talk about herself with the same self-aggrandizement of your average chuuni.

The return to third person limited POV (close to equal screentime in each of their brains) does wonders for the flow, and we've moved entirely out of the secretive bases of the still genericly named 'The Order' (Yes, that's actually what it's called in all three drafts. Yes, its stupid and vague on purpose). The first draft is largely enamored with the physical spaces of its giant underground secret complex (and the single bedroom they share there), and the second draft intended to quickly leave its own remote hidden castle setting. The third still has them mentioning it as Zaid's employer but it has an altogether more mysterious presence (its only tangible actions being some encoded transmissions giving them vague orders, with a tacit implication of funding) The second and third drafts are roughly equal in length (with the third draft currently clocking in around 18k across two complete chapters, a third semi-complete, and a fourth that came to me like a vision, hastily scrawled to be worked in later)

Overall I do like this version of the duo, but it hews a little too close to the bickering of the first draft rather than the vivacious dynamism of the second. I mostly chalk this up to an issue of pacing. The third draft was fundamentally as much of an experiment as the second, and I've learned as much from it as its predecessor. Both were penned by the seat of my pants without any sort of outline, but the second was almost entirely contiguous, while the third feels somewhat disconnected because of frequent scene breaks. I had intended to make it more episodic, following a sortof case-of-the-week type beat, but I was more interested in the characters than the cases so I barely put any planning into them. I was perhaps too focused on getting straight to the juiciest parts...

Where to Next? (thoughts going into draft four)

That's always the question, isn't it? Big lessons, it's absolutely got to be in third person limited, the metaphorical camera is just so much easier to navigate in and out of their heads that way. I've sortof bounced off of the idea of them solving generic monster-of-the-week style cases, at least the way I framed them in the third draft. I just can't get myself invested in the day job part of their super-powered day job, not when the beat they were on was so vastly overshadowed by the tensions (of various sorts) between the main pair. Going forward, we'll have a lot less procedural investigations and a lot more over the top violence. I'd still like to see them engaging in some deductive investigation, its fun in spurts, but at its core DHC isn't aiming to be Holmes and Watson, its aiming to be about toxic romance, powers beyond mortal ken, and the frayed edges where the two meet.

Speaking of Zaid's employment status, It was an odd problem to have in the first place, considering that Zaid's motivation has been so singular and driving since at least the second draft. (The exact same motive was present as early as chapter 3 of the first draft, but bafflingly, I had chosen to leave it as already resolved and largely in his backstory?? This is my first serious project of this sort, so some ametuer mistakes are expected, but it's still baffling) It's apparent to me now that they don't need 'busywork'. So, this next draft should follow them on their 'main quest', not fucking around on side quests waiting for permission to actually do something.

To that end, I'm heavily considering axing The Order as a thing that either of the main characters are directly associated with. As dumb as it may sound, its not always easy to kill your darlings. The entire first draft (besides the prologue), 88 of the roughly 127 thousand words currently put into this universe (not counting the notes, which are similarly split) take place in its cramped hallways, and I find myself having grown inordinately fond of its little idiosyncrasies. Like a first kiss, it's hard to forget where the duo's strange approximation of romance began. But alas, as Clara faught to buck it's shackles, I must too let myself and the story be free of its tyrannical reign.

Oddly I find myself returning to a (paraphrased) snippet from another urban fantasy thing, specifically a bit from the rules of Eureka (the TTRPG). Your investigators aren't cops. They just can't be. You can try to force it, but this story just doesn't fit together when you have reinforcements, assets, and a chain of command. The Order aren't cops per se, but their narrative function is close enough to cause the same issues. I think they'll still be kicking around somewhere in the background, but not as an ally (not that they were ever more than two steps from enemies in the first place).

So where does that leave our duo? Well, the shift towards an episodic-ish style was partially inspired by a certain show with an emphasis on road tripping mystery solving/monster hunting, I could take a page out of a certain hunter's book and simply say that Zaid funds his single-minded investigative work through the careful use of a method known as 'lots of credit card fraud' (or I could handwaive how these misfits get money for food and hotels entirely) but I feel like this may be a problem better left grappled within the constraints of who the characters are and what they would do.

That leaves Zaid working odd jobs only because he needs to in order to keep perusing his own primary goal (Not because his boss paged him and told him to do it). That's Zaid's motivations laser focused in, but what about the charming woman for whom the series is actually named? Well, I'm a tad worried about leaving her at the frankly ludicrous power level I've established her at, but I think rather than nerfing her back to her teenager-era limitations, the more elegant solution would be to give her more opponents that require her frankly busted levels of 'oomph' to defeat. Parrying bullets with your blood-katana is kinda overkill for fighting run-of-the-mill humans, but it's not called normal human Hunter Clara, now is it?

So Zaid is 'self employed' and Clara is just as overpowered as she's ever been with all the baggage to match. So why are they even in the same room? The order provided a backdrop of casual callousness towards demons where Zaid was practically forced to keep Clara close (draft one Zaid tried his best to offer decency and agency to her but healthy boundaries and clear communication doesn't always make the best story to read, and the order wasn't too fond of it either) and in the second and third drafts she basically waited around for Zaid -or someone like him- to show up and let her loose to do some bombastic violence. Book one is called A Demon and Her Leash for a reason, after all. Currently I'm thinking that Zaid purposely went looking for someone like Clara, that after years of searching on his own he finally caved and sought a deal with a devil. Perhaps, in her own hour of shifting circumstances, Clara agreed to a less than favorable arrangement with her typical level of thinking ahead. (which is to say, not very much) Or perhaps the joining of their fates follows some other more fantastically twisted path. Who knows. I certainty don't, not yet anyway.

Thank you so much if you read this far. With any luck, someday I'll have more updates!

I think it's time I started writing a new chapter one...

[roomsbyadverbzine]

half bakery (aka why not) [0x763]

written by Angela Isaakidou | διάβασέ το στα ελληνικά εδώ

Eternity is now a reality!

Who said you need a body to live? With Afterlife™ you live forever!

Upload your consciousness to Afterlife™ and live with all your loved ones forever!

Communicate with the living people of your life at any time! It really works!

Don't miss the opportunity to live forever! Eternity suits us! Eternity is what we deserve!

(Subscription to the service: 12000 eternally. Contact your own insurance company to see the corresponding offers)

My dear grandfather,

It is strange that I am writing you this letter. I haven't had a real notebook in my hands for years. As I drag my pencil across the paper and watch its blunt nose shrink, I feel like I'm paying homage to your teenage self. I finally understand why your eyes glowed so beautifully under the artificial light in the emergency room when you talked about 2017 and your little black notebook. I thought it was silly, almost primitive to sit and write, but now I understand. My hand, as if it has a brain of its own, writes on its own before my head has time to think. I feel like I have a magical power that allows me to create something eternal and temporary at the same time.  

Right now you are sitting next to me on your white bed, your crazy bed as you keep calling it. You're sleeping peacefully, curled up like a baby. A moment ago you opened your tiny eyes and asked me, "What day is it, Mommy?" I didn't have time to answer you, you went back to sleep.

It's strange how even though we will meet again, relive it all over again, in a dimension we don't have the intelligence to comprehend, it hurts me to say goodbye to yourself in this body. I remember you saying that in this world we have numbered days and that's the way it should be. One day you told me that we are born into this world to love and write poems. You laughed and as your smile faded, you said that somewhere around 40 you lost your instruction manual and instead of poems you were drawing floor plans in Rhino and instead of love you had anxiety.

Ever since I can remember, you've had a worried look on your face and made hasty movements. You rarely calmed down, but when you did, you'd open your tablet and read "whatever I'm in the mood for at last." I'll never forget the first time I saw you cry. I was dancing Carmen, a role Grandma used to dance beautifully. Your favorite role from your favorite play. As soon as I got off the stage, I ran to say hello to you, Mom and the others. You said excitedly, "I wish your grandmother was here. She would have been so happy to see you dance..."

Just before you completely lost it, you vehemently refused to be uploaded to Afterlife. You may have never been able to tell me why, but I understood... I wouldn't want to be in an unknown place either, unknowable, dark and cold with all the people, or what was left of them, without the love of my life.

I love you very much, Grandpa.

I love you now. Truly, with my beating heart.

My great-grandfather was born in a village many years before the political transition. He was one of those who never thought he would live to be old. And yet he has reached the age of 126. Before he lost it completely, he barely spoke. All I knew about him was that he studied architecture, skated too much in his youth and that he was part of the last generation to eat chocolate. When he got Alzheimer's he talked incessantly, but only to me. That's when I also learned that my great-grandfather was a poet. A romantic, educated man who wrote in real pencil until he forgot his name.

He died on April 19, 2126, my birthday.

I read him my letter, he smiled. He took my hands, kissed them, and as he closed his eyes I realized that the last face he saw was Grandma's.

Angela Isaakidou is from Kavala, she studies in Ioannina. She shares stories usually with dance, she decided to try with writing. this is a machine-translation, later edited by humans.

photos: Fani Tranou | featuring: Stella Parastatidou, Christos Vogiatzis | graphic design: Stratos Politis | a&r: Konstantinos Karaiskos

[adelaidedrubman]

2,9,11,19,28,33 for the writer’s asks?

thank you amanda these were super fun ones!! sorry for the amount of times i bring up riverdale.

2. Anything that you’d like to write but feel like you’re unable to?

the concept i have for telling jenna and faith’s getting together story is something i feel unequipped to write, because i have the idea to do it as an epistolary work of sorts, told primarily through like, jenna’s research notes and possibly faith’s stray letters out to tracey or other folks. but it’s just such a different form of writing than i’m used to and the time it would take to orient myself to that method of storytelling is probably not worth it.

9. Thoughts on cliffhangers.

fine, as long as they aren’t used in a cheap, obviously there just to manufacture tension way. i’ve had plenty “find out next time on dragon ball z” moments myself. basically i think as long as you don’t make it like a riverdale episode you’re fine — if the build up feels like a natural progression of the tension and not just like you threw in a “and prom’s tomorrow!” as a cheap trick to make people hungry for more.

11. Three tropes that are fine but overrated.

soulmate aus soulmate aus soulmate aus. i’m sure there are some compelling, beautiful pieces out there but i’ll never find out. sorry i love divorce and i love love as a free, often stupidly made choice. (unless you count my mary may is the reincarnation of biblical cain and is cosmically linked to johnjess as eternal punishment as she wanders the earth through multiple lifetimes always to encounter them thing as a soulmate au.)

also i think like, “fix it fics” are fine in theory and i enjoy some but so often the effect is just completely draining canon of everything that made it compelling and emotionally engaging in the first place. like we don’t have to jettison everything into children’s cartoon story rules to have an overall happy ending if that’s what you want to change. a lot of what those fics are fixing ain’t actually broke imo. nothing wrong with it if that’s the stakes people want, but i like a little tragedy.

also, love triangles, if i don’t trust the author and know they’ll do something meaningful and fresh with it i’m just completely disinterested. too often they’re just an excuse to put down one character or just throw a lot of toxic jealousy and possessiveness out there for The Drama™ without exploring it as an interesting theme or character flaw.

19. Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

“No,” she scoffed in repetition. “No way in hell I’m ever coming back here willingly,” she spat. “This is your one get. And I’m not gonna change my clothes either, daddy,” she tacked on with a defiant upward shove of her chin, ensuring, of course, that not one request went without being spitefully disrespected. “I wore this shirt ‘cause I plan on going fishing as soon as I’m done here, in case you didn’t bother gettin’ your mind out of the gutter long enough to read and realize it’s a fishing shirt, and not everything’s about you and your stupid church club.”

“Oh, trust me I read it.”

“Pleasantly surprised to find you’re fucking literate after all. I’ll keep that in mind. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m missin’ the service,” she finally sneered before shoving past him towards the door.

28. Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?

if you’re stuck on a project, work on something low stakes or whatever happens to scratch your brain the right way to get remotivated, try something that gives writing a renewed novelty or fills the void of whatever you think is missing in your main work. (the johnjess 100k holding hands only marathon is sustained by frequent au smut oneshots.)

and watch riverdale that’s not a joke it legit helps me i will be like “ooooooh my pacing sucks so bad it’s so slow” and “waaah my characterization is so shitty i am a flop at character nuance” and “booooo showing and not telling is stupid i hate showing and not telling” and i will watch riverdale and remember why these things are important and that i’m not completely flopping at them. i cannot stress how important it is to watch riverdale.

33. Give your writing a compliment.

i think i’m really good at threading humor throughout! like, not just the snappy banter, but the subtle ridiculousness of the characters that seeps into everything they do. like the funniest wildfire moments to me are always tiny things you could blink and miss, like the image of jessie scarfing down a bag of communion wafers like chips as she yells about the fucking gas station.

[steponmepinkjun]

What if you were the LI, and the Arcana babes were romancing you? Here's a lil HC of what their fanblog dedicated to you might be like ❤️✨💋

The LIs Running a Fanblog About You 

Warning: This contains Spicey content. If you're not okay with the LIs being lusty for you, this may not be your cup of tea 🤷🏻‍♀️

Asra ~

Welcome to the land of Yearning™

If anyone wants moodboards, playlists, or fic recs for you… Asra is their go-to

He didn't plan to end up in this Fandom, like at all. He actually laughed when Julian told him he would love this dating sim

As soon as he saw your face on his phone screen, though, he felt something change in him. He couldn't place it at first, and he denied it for a long time

But after a while, he couldn't help but smile every time he thought of you. Your name gave him butterflies, your smiling face made him blush

He felt silly for being so invested in a character in a game… but he couldn't deny the way his chest felt lighter every time he thought of you

He started out small, searching for fanart of you, because the time allowed in-game just wasn't enough. Soon enough he's running a fanblog and gushing about you daily

Your CGs make him sigh with love and longing every time he sees them. (Your Love Confession CG is his phone background, and the header of his blog)

He makes gorgeous watercolor artwork of you, and is always open to commissions. You've brought him so much joy, he couldn't keep you all to himself

Asra's a little apprehensive of letting his followers know he regularly consumes Spicey Content about you… but once he does, he gets flooded with requests for increasingly kinky HCs/fics (which he may or may not oblige, but certain topics definitely, uh, pique his interest, so to speak)

Don't tell him I told you this, but ever since he played your route, he thinks of you whenever he's, ummm, having some Me x Me time 👀

Definitely says your name when he cums

Julian ~

You truly don't know the meaning of Horny Jail until you picture Julian's fanblog for you

First of all, you're the only LI he even bothers with

He's loyal asf to you. It's YouXJulian 10Evr, no exceptions. Even poly ships don't fly in his house. He's devoted to you and you alone

He sketches now and again, but is much more comfortable writing about his love affair with you

Definitely writes long, dramatic, beautifully poetic slow-burn fics about you, interspersed with some heavy D/s stuff that he openly admits might be OOC since it's purely self indulgent

The actual king of hurt/comfort smut

It physically pains him to read sad fics/HCs about you, but goddamn he loves the drama of a good redemption arc

May or may not have spent a fair bit of time searching his local cornhub for actors that resemble you to, uh, admire in action

Every song he hears, he imagines you dancing to. Every movie he watches, he imagines holding your hand as you watch it together

Knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he would treat you better than anyone else ever could

Any blogs that criticize/flame you? Blocked. And he won't apologize.

Cosplays as you to feel closer and more connected to you 🥺👉👈

Nadia ~

She is That Blog that's a Big Fucking Deal in the fandom because of her beautiful artwork

She may have played other routes first, or after you, but she's very vocal about how you are without a doubt her favorite, and no one could ever tear her attention away

Her artwork of you is always colorful and sumptuous, it feels intimate and personal, like she knows you better than she should be able to

Is a big supporter of other blogs dedicated to you or the other LIs, always reblogs talented work and boosts newcomers to the fandom

Takes her a while to be convinced to make Spicey/NSFW artwork about you… and even then, she keeps it Suggestive rather than All Out Nude

Does that mean she doesn't have some TRULY nasty artwork of you on her desktop for when she's in the mood? Absolutely not 🙊

Is the most Lowkey Horny about her obsession with you. Unless you're close with her, you'll never get to glimpse the depths of her Need™ for you

Super open to taking commissions for artwork of you and other people's OCs, or of you and other LIs from the game

In fact it kinda Does Sumthin To Her to think of you getting down and dirty with someone else 👀

(as long as she gets to watch)

Muriel ~

Get ready to get fucking SOFT AS HELL, yall

No one who knows him IRL knows he plays this game, let alone that he runs a blog dedicated to your character

He doesn't even put his real name on his blog lmfao he is on the DL for real

He mostly starts his blog so he has a way to feel more connected to you and to explore the small, quiet moments that must take place in between the major plot points of your route

It probably takes him several months of prodding and encouragement, but he eventually gives in to his followers' requests for original content from him

Cue the softest, most sunlit, loving, intimate, vulnerable artwork and fics you have ever fucking seen

He's really a sucker for depicting the little stolen moments in his imagined everyday life with you

His HCs are things like what you look like when you sleep, what music you listen to when you drive, what your guilty pleasures at the grocery store are, what your favorite hiking trails look like, etc

It's not that he's ashamed of having Certain Feelings about you

But he doesn't even trust having those kind of fics in his drafts. He screenshots them and consults them late at night when he's alone 👀

When he sees soft, intimate smut, oooooooo he's so taken he might just reblog it

Portia ~

Loving you is not a fad to Portia. It is a lifestyle.

Her blog is modelled after what she imagines her home with you would look like: soft, cozy, warm, unassuming, full of light

The undisputed Queen of Fluff

Whether it's artwork, long fics, HCs, or soothing playlists, Portia manages to evoke the feeling of spending a lazy afternoon with you under the springtime sun in every single one

She's big on protecting your character. Doesn't even dream of creating content that might make you uncomfortable, if you were to see it

MAKES THE MOST FUN AND ENERGIZED CONTENT EVER

What would you dress as for Halloween? Portia already sketched it

Your favorite Gaga song? Portia has a HC that outlines your thoughts on every album's major bangers

Movies that radiate your energy? Portia has an in-depth analysis on deck including what movies you'd love to Netflix and Chill to

Her Spicey Content is very intimate and personal, but that absolutely does not mean it's lacking in wanton, shameless horniness

Get a couple glasses of wine in her and she WILL be drunk-blogging about how unfair it is that you're not real

Lucio ~

100% thirst blog. Shameless asf about it, too

Definitely HCs that all his kinks are your kinks, too

Probably can't draw or write for shit but he'll be damned if that's gonna stop him

Mostly reblogs Spicey content about you, but gets highkey possessive asf if anyone else ships themselves with you

If anyone wants to ship you with their OCs? He's unfollowing

He played your route first, he knew you were perfect as soon as he saw you

Doesn't bother playing the other routes. He knows they could never measure up to you ❤

He's biiiiig into smut written about You x Reader, it lets him imagine himself being the one who's bringing you all that pleasure 👀

He always says he prefers fics where you take a more submissive role, but if he sees a fic of you Domming… he's gonna be in bed the rest of the day, uh, studying that fic, ahem

He knows he shouldn't, but if he sees someone talk about disliking you… He's gonna report their blog for hate speech and also block them

Doesn't want his followers to think he's sappy so he doesn't reblog any soff/fluffy fics about you. He will, however, save them to his drafts and read them over and over when he's having a bad day

[natalie-waite]

what Alina’s POV sounds like, when her stans defend her escape from Little Palace in the show

Alina after Baghra’s reveal; Shadow and Bone- second half of season 1

It’s not some dirty little secret he was hiding from her to make himself look better, but a strategic information that could cost his people lives and the only relative safety he managed to carve out for them.

No matter what the narrative tells us, this isn’t simple love story, he isn’t The Hot Bad Guy™ heroine almost fell for. He’s a survivor of so much trauma it’s hardly comprehensible. He’s the sole champion of a whole race! He “rediscovers” the possibility of having something for himself, but that doesn’t erase his need to protect his people, quite contrary! Now he has another more personal reason to do so.

(via stromuprisahat)

I like to think he would have started to reveal the truth to her after the Fete, had she not run away.

Definitelly if she tried to confront him about what Baghra said, but that’s a different story.

He wouldn’t tell her the full story right away, but bit by bit. He’d probably start with his plans regarding the Fold and the coup. They’re probably going to after the Stag soon, so that’s something she should probably know.

If he was smart, he would have started to see out the idea of “The Fold is kinda useful” and “The Lantsovs suck ass and need to be removed from power” from as early on as possible.

It’s a shame they have so little time to get to know each other, for him to get to trust her with these things. But especially in the show, there’s no more time to take things slowly.

Though in the show, he could probably just tell her about Marie’s death. (funny how she never learns about that one, huh? Might make her do a double take on a lot of things, like the destruction of the people who hired the assassin or aligning herself with the people who helped him get close enough to do that). Or that Baghra tried to have Mal killed (she tells him as much), after he captures the two of them. That might make Alina look twice at Baghra’s allegations (in an ideal world, anyway).

Just… if these two fucking talked. I’m not saying he has to tell her the whole story, but there’s so many surface level things that Alina probably should know. And maybe ask for a second opinion on whatever the creepy old woman, who calls hitting and drugging you training, said before accepting it all as fact.

(via black-rose-writings)

#miscommunication is the most frustrating thing out there #if these two just talked #but noooo #because the darkling is evil #i guess #surely alina would have something to say when it comes to two of her friends getting (almost) killed #with a great help from the people she considers allies #hell if Mal told Alina excatly what happened to him at the Little Palace #she might have been able to put pieces of Baghra tried to have Mal killed together #and realized that she may not be the most trustworthy source #in an ideal world

I wouldn’t even call this miscommunication. This is omission by writers so obvious it’s unreal. Don’t tell me Aleksander "I’ve just had a whole speech about Grisha safety” wouldn’t point out that safety was breached AND THAT’S WHY WE’RE DOING WHAT WE’RE DOING RN.

- I would’ve thought you of all people would understand what it’s like. To live in hiding for fear of being murdered simply for being. It’s why I built the Little Palace in the first place. And now that even this one certainty has been taken from us… Everything that I have done, everything that I have ever done, has been to make Ravka safer, to make Grisha safer!

~ Did you think Genya was safe when you placed her under the King’s watch?

- Genya almost died in your place! Marie did! The very same night you disappeared with some of their murderers! Did you ever stop to think, what did those people want? What did they do to get it? What happened to Grisha, who stood in their way?

(via stromuprisahat)

Oh no, my not-quite-boyfriend, who happens to be important political figure, didn’t disclose entirety of his life mere months upon meeting me!

[afoolforatook]

So, some replies to this preview, and some tags on it and the one from yesterday made me want to tack on a little author’s note/positive disclaimer (is that a thing???) This is something I plan to include in some way in all of the final fics but had originally decided not to on these previews since I already tend to kinda talk a lot. 

That makes it sound like I’m about to complain or scold y’all for calling this angst? But that’s not it at all. Literally no one said anything but wonderful, make me giddy and excited, stuff. Don’t worry..... anyway

On the topic of Angst™. 

So angst really hasn’t been my thing for a few years now, whether in fic or art or HCs. I just avoid it. Nothing against it -there’s some amazing, beautiful, masterful, angsty as shit work out there by creators I really like and admire- it just hasn’t been what I need or want in my fan content, for reasons that are very pertinent to my own writing (but that is an entirely different post).  

This applies to my writing/art as well. I don’t do angst. (again, I feel like this is coming off as me getting on y’all for calling this angst, and it really, truly isn’t, I have no problem with that at all, seeing that just made me think of this.  I just wanna give people a clear look at what to expect from my stuff, I guess?) 

There will be angsty emotional stuff, sure. (I guess? I personally don’t really think of hurt/comfort as true angst but I know that’s prob just me. Y’all might still think it’s angsty and that’s fine, I just wanna be clear on what type of angsty).  Hell, I’m a little worried about this first chapter of Loving Anyway because it is... a lot? But from an emotional/mental health place. I’ll write some intense hurt/comfort for years, but y’all don’t need to worry about ever getting just straight up Angst for Angst’s sake from me (again, nothing wrong with it, just not my game... actually my thoughts on the merits and drawbacks to Angst just for Angsts sake are very complicated and biased annnnnd why am I making this even longer, this doesn’t matter rn). 

Fairgame is the first thing I’ve written fic like this for in about six years and for many reasons it is not something I have any desire or ability to make particularly angsty. You’re not gonna get any Sick!fic or near death experiences or deaths in my stuff. I don’t even see a Clover resurrection plot happening from me anytime soon, really probably never. The closest I might get is talking about Summer’s death, but even that will be from a place of Qrow/others dealing with past trauma. I can pretty confidently say I won’t be doing anything that actually takes place around her death. There are some instances, especially that first chapter, that do get into some details from the end of Ep 12, but anything regarding Clover’s death will only ever be through a lens of a nightmare or maybe delusion/fear. It will never actually happen. 

Honestly, this Soulmates Au is, so far, the mildest in my opinion (granted it is nowhere near done and boyyyyyy do I have some /things/ about soulmate aus that could make this a journey but again WHY AM I MAKING THIS LONGER SOMEONE MAKE ME SLEEP)

I say all of this (which maybe nobody needed me to, but still) both because it’s an important aspect to what/how/why I write what I do -especially when it comes to Fairgame - and because I know many of us are still in a really vulnerable place, and while some people like a good dose of angst, others, myself included, try to avoid it as much as possible. 

And I say it because I’ve chosen most of my previews from now till Fairgame week and a number of them might come across as angsty, and some of my plot synopsis may come across as angst. But I want the people who try to stay away from that kind of thing to know that they don’t need to worry about that from me. They still might not want to deal with the intense stuff I do write, but that’s fine. 

There’s some intense hurt/comfort, and some intense, detailed descriptions of anxiety, grief, panic attacks, intrusive thoughts etc... (all of which I’ll be tagging thoroughly, and will probably make a post specifically about later) but it will never just end on that. Any of that type of thing will always be resolved. I will always follow up my Hurt with Comfort. With progress. And I’m extra careful about making sure that happens with Fairgame stuff. 

Reading and writing that kind of thing is very therapeutic to me, personally, I know it can be very triggering to some, and that is 100% valid and something I am very conscious of and want to help people navigate as best I can. 

Honestly the thought has crossed my mind to have versions of some of these fics (especially Loving Anyway chapter 1) that are significantly edited to be less triggering in these ways. Because I don’t want people to have to skip them completely just because they’re too intense, when a lot of those people are also likely the people I feel like could really use the comfort side of my hurt/comfort. (haha what if there were six versions of the same fic? that’s reasonable right? whydoIdothistomyself??)

I will also say (one of those other future posts will get into this more but) that I can’t stress enough the fact that 80% of my Fairgame work is a vehicle for self-projection and working through my own trauma. The intense stuff I write, the detailed meltdowns, intrusive thoughts, etc are almost always based, at least in part, on my own experiences. And I have no interest in reliving my own traumas just for dramatic effect. It is always with the intended goal of better understanding and sharing my own coping methods. Chapter 1 of Loving Anyway takes place almost entirely during a very severe panic attack. But it also explains in detail my own personal method of coming down from such an attack. Qrow and Clover’s POV versions are good, in my opinion, because they fully explore thought processes during different kinds and severity of episodes/attacks/meltdowns, show logical (and illogical) thought progressions, and show ways to internally combat that kind of thinking for yourself, based on my own experience. 

I write this as my own form of therapy, but I also try to turn it into something that can maybe help y’all. I’m by no means a psychiatrist or therapist and this is certainly not a replacement for those kinds of support. But mental health/lgbt/trauma/grief representation and destigmatization is the entire reason I write/create, whether it’s my original work or fanwork.  

This has once again gotten wayyyyy too long and probably isn’t necessary and could have just waited for my big ‘Foreword’ to Loving Anyway. But I just didn’t want these previews to set up an inaccurate expectation for the tone of my stuff. There are reasons I’ve chosen the previews I have, and I like them, and not all of them are that angsty I don’t think, but I just wanted to be a little clearer on that. 

(also this is probably really repetitive and rambling but I’m aaaaarealtired and have been rewriting the same two page synopsis for the past week for my scripting final and my brain is not being good about condensing....)

So still not sure about this one. This doc is mostly notes and I just thought of it yesterday and fleshed this scene out cause I liked it...

For Day 4-Soulmates -Seeing color only after meeting your soulmate.

I’ll be honest with you though, this one might not end up coming together.... I really like it, but I usually avoid soulmate aus for reasons... but at the same time, Fairgame is the perfect opportunity to do it because I can explore those exact reasons.... and I mean would it be a Farley Fairgame fic if it weren’t secretly a vehicle for self-projection? No. It wouldn’t.

Summary- Qrow found color before, and lost it. He had never even considered that someone new could make him find it again. But when he saw the teal eyes looking down at him, he realized just how terrified he was of that possibility, and now, reality.