#i mostly wrote this for fun and to play around a bit with the concepts

[bakubonez]

mayhaps would you write as little or as much as you’d want of dan heng x reader and how they slowly work their way into his everyday life??? Perchance the fic generally begins with reader’s arrival on the express and extends into how either of them confessed and how they’re an inseparable part of dan heng’s life now （╹◡╹）I am so sorry for the long ass request lol

Dan Heng x GN! Reader || fluff

Summary: After inserting yourself into Dan Heng’s daily life, eventually he comes to enjoy your company—perhaps a bit too much.

A/N: HOORAY I was so excited to read this request, it was a lot of fun to do 🦭 I hope you like it, I wrote it while a little bit eepy so hopefully it isn’t too bad 🙏 also the trailblazer is considered as a separate entity from the reader so,, there is a wild Stelle/Caelus running around on the express

Your arrival on the express had sort of been anticipated, considering how much time you’d been spending with the Nameless since you met them—but that didn’t mean that Dan Heng was entirely happy with the concept. It wasn’t personal, he didn’t mind you as a person, he just wasn’t the most eager to discover someone new had joined the crew.

Unfortunately(or perhaps fortunately) for Dan Heng, you attached yourself to him. He has no clue why you took to him, but you did, and he didn’t have the heart to tell you to screw off. Besides, you weren’t too much of a nuisance. Your annoyingness levels were similar to that of March 7th and the trailblazer, so it wasn’t anything he was unfamiliar with.

Wherever he goes, you seem to follow. The majority of your free time was spent acting as his shadow, poking around in the databank, lounging in the parlor car with him, and so on.

Your company isn’t bad and he eventually grows to tolerate you easily. He’d answer your questions with patience and allow you to just, well, be around him, without complaint.

Mostly everyone else on the express notices.

At first its just the wise Himeko and Mr. Yang who notice Dan Heng warming up to you, but eventually while March 7th and the trailblazer are up to their usual nonsense, they have their eureka moment, and suddenly everyone—except for you and Dan Heng—is on the same page.

After a while, some conflicting feelings start to brew within Dan Heng. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them, but he knew that they were your fault. He hardly even realises it when he starts welcoming your presence in his life, and missing you dearly when you aren’t around.

You’d formed a habit of bringing him food to share, when he’d lock himself up in his room and work tirelessly on the databank. When you missed a meal with him, it left a feeling of disappointment in his chest. He’d started to look forward to your mealtimes with him.

Times when you leave, maybe to go out with March 7th and the trailblazer, or are on a separate part of the train doing chores, he tends to notice your absence—whether it be him having to eat breakfast alone or work in the databank without you, he always notices.

Dan Heng isn’t sure how to broach the topic. He considers asking Mr. Yang or perhaps Himeko for advice, but just thinking about it makes his skin burn a bit. And he’d rather clean the floors of the express with a toothbrush than have to tell March or the trailblazer about it. So, he’s left to deal with it alone until he gathers up the courage to tell you.

Every single time you’re around, he’s tempted to just come out with it. When you’re sitting next to him in his room, when you’re playing chess together, anything.

It’s excruciatingly painful for the rest of the Nameless to watch. They can all see how you fawn over Dan Heng, and how he dotes on your similarly, but they can’t do anything to speed up your hopeless pining and finally get you two to start a proper, committed relationship.

Much to their delight, though, Dan Heng does finally cough up his true feelings.

It wasn’t a particularly romantic setting. You two were just spending time together as you usually did, taking part in some mundane activity, but a slip of Dan Heng’s tongue changed it entirely.

He seemed almost as shocked as you were when he confessed to you, staring at you like a deer in headlights, like something had possessed him and made him tell you how he felt. He braced himself for some sort of rejection, but it… it never came.

In fact, rejection was the last thing on your mind—only giddy excitement.

After some mildly awkward back and forth, the pair of you discovered that hey, you two had been pining over each other for ages, and now the truth had finally come out. It was a relief.

Not much changed after you finally settled on a label for your relationship. The two of you were as close as ever. Of course, March was delighted—everyone was, really.

You became an inseparable couple, and neither of you could be happier.

[leebrontide]

Hello!

I'm Lee (any pronouns), a middle aged queer writer from the midwest of the US. It's been a bit, so I'm doing another writeblr intro, to find more potential writeblr folks to chat with!

What I write:

- Mostly scifi! I have a bit of fantasy brewing in a collab project, but mostly, scifi.

- Queer stuff. Lots of different types of queerness.

- Community. Both in the group-hugs-and-support variety and the extreme-mess/everybodies-traumas-keep-smashing-into-each-other variety. I have training as a family therapist and am endlessly fascinated by interpersonal dynamics. This is the meat of my work.

- Grounded worldbuilding. My main project right now is near future scifi that diverges from our timeline around 2001. I'm enjoying the hell out of playing the US I know with some very key tweaks that changed society. I know a lot about medical systems, criminal justice systems, and legal systems and like using fantasy and scifi elements to show them as I know them. But like, in a way that should appeal to people who give 0 shits about US institutions.

- Disability stuff. Not that after-school-special shit. I am just tired of characters being generic pretty dolls whose physical attributes don't impact how they move through the world. That means not only writing a variety of different disabilities, but also different bodies. My characters aren't "inspiration porn" or just waiting around for less disabled characters to come save them. They are messy, with a wide array of relationships to their limitations and the things they use to cope with those limitations.

- YA into new adult. Not exclusively, but mostly. I really like taking characters from YA into early adulthood. Not just a standard coming-of-age arc, but the actually moving from a self-concept of a dependent teen into someone with legal responsibility for themselves, jobs, college, etc. Especially when combined with all of the above. I love a nice long character arc with lots of sub-arcs along the way.

What I have out, now.

- I have two books out so far, Secondhand Origin Stories and Names in Their Blood. I'm working on book 3 in that planned 5 book series now, which is currently titled Brittle Idols.

- I have a free monthly newsletter called Shed Letters where I talk about psychology, tech, queerness, storytelling, and the creative process, plus whatever random topic I've been researching for my books recently. Also contains pictures of my three very photogenic cats.

- Newsletter subscribers also have access to a novella I wrote that goes between Secondhand Origin Stories and Names in Their Blood, that's about an fictional AI (the only kind I like) trying to decide on a body for themself.

- I also draw and animate, with my first and still in-progress animation project being a "trailer" for Secondhand Origin Stories.

What I'm looking for

- writeblrs - especially writeblrs that aren't JUST writeblrs. I want to feel like I'm meeting people, at least in some manner, rather than just hearing about a product in process. That doesn't have to mean deep confessions or private information, but honestly I'm not likely to remember you for your writing project alone. Sorry. Please show me what else you care about!

- Bonus points for queer or disabled scifi or fantasy writers.

- I am white for most intents and purposes but I always want to find more AOC who write sci fi.

- Also always excited to meet more YA authors- especially the currently kinda sidelined YA scifi.

- People who care about where society is going but aren't posting that everything is doomed and pointless. I mean you post whatever you want but I don't need that on my dash. That shit is not helping me help.

I sometimes do ask games? It's fun when I have the time. It'd be fun to have more folks to do them with, provided those folks are patient.

Please interact if this has piqued your interest!

[leoruby-draws]

Decided to post some more random, mostly minor characters from the DC universe, mostly ones that seemed they would be fun to draw. I guess technically these drawings are all based in my TrWh au, as always. Here they are:

Wanted to draw heroes with wings, I draw Vanessa quite a bit so I had to learn wings and feathers. Still working on it, but its fun. You can see Vanessa there at the bottom middle, looking a little menacing.

The girl with red wings is called...Redwing aka Carrie Levine. I thought she was a sweet kid, so her ultimate fate was pretty sad. Wonder if she'll come back to continuity at some point.

The guy with the mohawk is Northwind aka Norda Cantrell, part of Infinity Inc the earth 2 version of a Teen Titans group. He honestly didn't get a whole lot of focus in Infinity Inc, like the writer didn't know what to do with him. Maybe they should've made him into the magic fighter of the group, almost felt like thats what they were going for him before they wrote him off.

The girl in yellow is Dawnstar, part of the Legion of Superheroes. I haven't read much of LoSH, mostly some 90's issues. But her design is soooo pretty I had to draw her, her costume here is a mix of her various outfits.

Lastly, here's Bluejay aka Jay Abrams again, part of Justice League Europe. Kinda thought JLE was a bit of a letdown, I mean the team's made up of mostly americans not europeans! I think Crimson Fox was the only european, I thought her set-up of being two people was cool.

Little extra Infinity doodle, here's Hector Hall (Silver Scarab) hating on poor Norda, with Lyta Trevor (Fury) looking on with confusion. Hector's just a hater (tho there's reasons for it ig), an archetype you see sometimes in some superhero groups, like Roy Harper or Guy Gardner. The plot-line of Hector's resentment of Norda was kinda interesting, but like with most things in Infinity it didn't get the focus it should've gotten. Speaking of Infinity, here's some more doodles:

There's Rex Tyler (Hourman 1) with little Rick Tyler (Hourman 2), enjoying some father-son time. Apparently Rick's first costume isn't well liked (so says reddit). I thought it seemed cute but maybe it works better as a kid's or sidekick's kinda costume?

In the middle is Jack Knight (Starman) suffering as he interacts with Sylvester Pemberton (Skyman, formerly the Star-Spangled Kid) and Courtney Whitmore (Stargirl, actually she should still be S-SK but whatever). In my au he actually joins Infinity Inc, since everyone becomes heroes earlier he's actually around when the team's still running. I suspect his dad (Ted Knight) forced him into it. Also Courtney doesn't respect Jack at all, he's so annoyed at this. Look at her mini-staff, I presume Ted made it for her.

Also there's Beth Chapel (Dr. Mid-Nite) and Jesse Chambers (Jesse Quick) looking cool. Jesse also joins Infinity Inc in my au, will there be a love triangle going on between Beth, Rick and Jesse? Don't think Rick's gonna survive that, aw well.

Look at baby Jade and Obsidian, Alan is overwhelmed by their antics.

In another post someone asked if I could draw more of the Relative Heroes, a super obscure hero group. So @draculaura1660, this one's for you. Here they are:

I kinda had a hard time drawing this group, cuz their costumes are so complicated! I wished there was a reference/concept art for them cuz it was a struggle trying to figure out the details, the comic art did not help matters at all. You might have noticed I changed details anyways, I tend to simplify costumes for my au both to make it easier to draw and also to signify their younger ages. It's just fun to play around with costume design ig.

Some more characters!

Jinx, who looks very different between her comic and cartoon self. I did like her pink hair, so decide to see how it would look on her comic self. There's Kole, who also has different designs in comic/cartoons. I think her comic costume is so cool, esp that color pallet! But I love her pink hair in the cartoon, so she's got pink hair here! Just like pink hair a lot lol.

The other pink haired girl is Laethwen, love interest of Ray Palmer in Sword of the Atom. I think I made her hair more pink to better differentiate her from Starfire, also, again I just like pink hair. I wished she and her little kingdom didn't die, in my au Ray saves them! Maybe he relocates them to his backyard or something?

Little Donna and Vanessa doodle, did you know they never once interacted on panel? The closest is when Donna brings her stepsister Cindy to talk to Vanessa instead. I wonder how they would even interact, I know Vanessa wanted to be wonder girl (and resented Cassie for 'taking' it from her). Did she look up to Donna, or wanted her out of the way? Funnily enough Donna wasn't even Diana's sidekick when post-crisis started, due to both their origins being reworked and contradicting each other's timelines. It's all very confusing.

Anyways, some bonus doodles:

Had fun making a new outfit for Laethwen, I imagine she took some inspiration from indigenous groups from the Amazon, seeing as that's where her people crashed into.

Kole's costume is just so beautiful but so complicated, maybe that's why she got killed off so soon in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Lastly, here's Bette bugging Dick with Barbara being super amused about it. I said in my post about her that I didn't really care about her crush on Robin, which is true, but I still wanted to doodle something making fun of it. Poor Dick is doesn't know how to get outta of this social situation.

Well that was a lot, hope you liked all that.

[aroacebaggins]

Everything is alright, tonight, 'cause I got you next to me

Hi, I wrote a thing.

This was inspired by some of the prompts for Cozy Cuddle Week, put on by @rivendellwatch (lovely event, thanks for all your work!) though I'm not actually sure if this technically fits the challenge, and I'm not posting on AO3 yet. But it's been far too long since I've finished anything I write. I'm also pretty new to fanfic in general and this is the first piece I'm sharing online so... again huge thanks for the prompts <3!! Also thanks to @varda-star-queen for tagging me on the event, that's how I found it! I've still been recovering from a rough flare-up so this was a great way to relax :)

This kinda fits into a larger concept I've been working on, sort of an AU. Inspired by the theorizing around Mirdania in tRoP, though not otherwise based on the show much, Celebrían is a member of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain and an apprentice of Celebrimbor (Art of Mírdain Celebrían). I made several Mírdain OCs as side characters in the overarching plot. This however, has no plot and is just an excuse for Celebrían and my OC gang to exist mostly free of impending doom for a while. Featuring a guest appearance by Celebrimbor's First Age wine. Also, all characters become queer when I get my gay little hands on them, and Celebrían is no exception.

I used the prompt "Sleepy Pile™", and added the soft prompt and cute word wheels for extra fun, I got "mug sharing" and "home" I think.

The title is from an unreleased song by The Crane Wives called This is Home. Fluff is not usually what I write so I do find it funny I had to go into unreleased songs to find a TCW lyric that was sufficiently wholesome.

Also if any of the elvish names are horrendously assembled, uhhh no they're not, ignore that (I'm clueless and tips on names are actually greatly appreciated).

Thanks to my wonderful partner as well, who is not on here and knows practically nothing about the Silm, for proofreading. You rock, melesellë.

Um yeah, as usual I'm incapable of not rambling. Story below.

The bustle of Eregion's streets had mostly died down by the time stars began to peek through the clouds above. A crisp breeze played through a set of chimes somewhere, and a moment later a matching peal of laughter rang out quietly. The door to one of the houses lining the street was ajar; warm light spilling out onto the mosaic-cobbled ground. Bits of conversation floated through the evening air.

Inside the house, the atmosphere was lively. "Mallos, close the door!" someone shouted over the chatter and laughter. "The wind is getting in!"

An elf with short, blond hair and a lanky build balancing entirely too many mugs in his hands turned around. "We're still waiting for people!" he pouted.

"Well they can open the door!" A broad-shouldered elf woman with long, rich brown hair spilling down her back gave him an exasperated look as she took some of the mugs. "Everyone knows you don't lock it."

"Yes, but-"

The brown-haired elf looked up suddenly. "You!" she exclaimed. Another elf woman, silver-haired and struggling under a heavy satchel, had just stepped inside. "You're late, Brí!"

The woman at the door flashed up a bright grin as she leaned down to unlace her boots. "I wouldn't have been if you'd helped me with this." She heaved the bag up on her shoulder as she stood, leaving her boots on the doormat.

"Hmph. Here, give me that." The first woman shifted the drinks she carried into one hand and grabbed the bag from the other, pushing a mug towards her instead. "Trade you. And close the door behind you, will you?"

The satchel's owner took the drink but made to protest, still blinking in surprise, when a hand landed on her shoulder.

"Celebrían." A tall elf with light in their eyes stood smiling behind her. They took their hand from her shoulder and made a graceful sign while pushing the wooden door shut with the other.

"Thúllindë!" Celebrían beamed and carefully transferred her drink to one hand to mimic the traditional Vanyarin greeting she'd been lucky to learn from her mother. "I'll be honest, I didn't think you would come."

"Ah, I wasn't planning on it. But Dinuial wanted to." Thúllindë shrugged and flicked a golden braid over their shoulder.

"Wonderful, I've been wanting to talk to her about some new projects," Celebrían said. She glanced across the room. "Sirhith, be careful with that!"

The woman who had taken her bag looked up. "What in Eru's name is in here, Brí?" She lifted it heavily onto a tall table.

"A contribution to the party!" Celebrían spread her arms. "You didn't think I'd come empty-handed, did you?" In truth, Celebrían had long gotten over the need to make a good impression, but the old habits were hard to break. She supposed this one did no harm. She enjoyed giving gifts.

Sirhith smiled and shook her head. "Mallos! Here!" She loosened the strap of the bag to pull it open and whistled.

Mallos leaned over the table. "Oh good, just what we needed." He lifted out two large bottles of wine. "Where did you get this? I don't recognize it."

"From Tyelpë," Celebrían said, coming up and placing a hand on Sirhith's shoulder, who reached up to clasp her own hand over it. "It's First Age, apparently."

"From Celebrimbor, willingly?" Mallos asked suspiciously.

Celebrían laughed. "Yes, I didn't steal it. It is a consolation gift though, he can't make it tonight."

"To be expected," Thúllindë said. "What now?"

"I don't know, I think he and Annatar are working on something new." Celebrían shrugged, trying not to show her disquiet.

Sirhith wrinkled her nose. "Of course."

"At least that means Annatar won't be here either," Thúllindë added. Dinuial, the short elf woman who had appeared next to them, shook her dark curls and made a series of signs with her hands.

"Good thing, too. I'll tell you what I think of him," she ended with a familiar and very rude sign.

Typically well-mannered Thúllindë snorted. Then they frowned and shook their head. "It's been too tense lately. I don't like it, and I'm not sure I like him."

Sirhith sighed. "Yes, well, tonight's not about Annatar, for once. So let's enjoy it. Now that wine sounds excellent, love, but I may have to stick with Mallos' tea, I am hearing it's worthy of a song or two. In fact I should finish passing these mugs out. I'll meet you in the main room."

"Suit yourself." A dark-haired elf coming from the other room shouldered his way past her and unceremoniously uncorked a bottle, pouring himself a tall glass. "I, for one, will appreciate our lord's generosity."

Celebrían rolled her eyes. "Because you definitely need alcohol to make bad decisions, Menel."

"I'm offended," Menelmirë said dryly, tipping back his glass and then pouring several more to give away.

"Anyway," Thúllindë said, guiding the others towards the main room. Celebrían took a sip of her tea. It was good.

There were maybe 20 people crammed into Mallos' main room, standing and talking or lounging on furniture, cushions, or the plush rug on the floor. Mostly apprentices, but there was no distinction tonight. Sirhith stood near the middle of the room, hands on her hips, seeming to have just realized she had given away the last mug she was holding. Celebrían walked up behind her and wrapped an arm around her. "No worries, you can share mine."

Sirhith turned her head and smiled into Celebrían's embrace before slipping out to pull her by the hand through the crowd. "Come on, let's sit." She soon squeezed into a spot at the corner of Mallos’ velvet sofa. Celebrían perched on the armrest beside her and pressed a kiss into her hair, breathing in Sirhith's familiar scent: metal and wood shavings and lavender, with a hint of the steeped herbs from Mallos' tea, the fragrance that had filled the house. Sirhith looked up with a twinkle in her eye and wrapped her arm around Celebrían's waist, pulling her onto her lap. Celebrían shrieked, grinning, as she worked to keep the mug in her hand from spilling.

"All right, that's enough from you two," Menelmirë drawled, plopping down onto the floor by their feet and stretching out his legs. He tapped a nail, meticulously maintained despite his work, against another dangerously full wine glass and raised it above his head. The room quieted. He looked briefly across the room at Mallos, who nodded. "To the Gwaith-i-Mírdain," he said.

Wine glasses and mugs of tea raised around the room, the light from Fëanorian lamps hitting laughing faces. Celebrían leaned into Sirhith, feeling her smile against her own face.

"To the Mírdain!"

It was nearly midnight by the time the house had quieted. Most of the guests had departed; even Menelmirë had reluctantly said farewell to Celebrimbor's First Age wine. "I'm presenting my study on the geologic composition of the Hithaeglir in the morning," he'd said. "You did all say you'd be there, you'll remember.”

Sirhith was leaning drowsily on the arm of the couch, an empty mug on the side table next to her, holding up a creased piece of paper full of sketches and diagrams. Celebrían had stretched out with her head in Sirhith's lap while Thúllindë sat cross-legged at the other end. Dinuial was curled up next to them, nursing a last glass of wine. Thúllindë's eyes were closed serenely, but from the flickering movement of Dinuial's, Celebrían could guess they were still conversing through osanwë.

"And so the fountain will move it?" Mallos asked, returning from the kitchen. He playfully shoved Celebrían's legs out of the way and sprawled out on the sofa between her and Dinuial.

"Yes, I've worked with wind in my sculptures before, but water is a more natural choice for the subject matter" Sirhith said. "I've always wanted to portray Lady Uinen. But her hair, you see, that level of kinetics is difficult to achieve with metals. I'm picturing… filigree segments, but free to rotate in the spray."

Celebrían floated a finger over the charcoal sketches in Sirhith's hand. "Your skills can meet the challenge, melissenya, I'm sure of it."

"You'll have to tell Falmawen," signed Dinuial, setting aside her glass. "She'll be ecstatic."

Muffled scratching noises came from behind the sofa, and Thúllindë opened their eyes as a long-haired cat climbed out beside their head.

"Oh good," Mallos said. "She doesn't like all the guests. Glindú!" He raised a hand and smiled as the cat walked along the back of the couch and pressed her head into his hand.

"But she likes us," Celebrían added smugly with a yawn, throwing a leg back over Mallos, who gave a long-suffering sigh.

"She's fine with a limited number of guests."

"Smart cat," Thúllindë said. Mallos yelped as the creature jumped heavily onto his chest, and quiet laughter filled the room again as Glindú set to kneading his robes.

"Contrary to popular belief," he grumbled, "I am not actually a piece of the furniture."

Dinuial grinned mischievously. "I think you're outvoted," she signed, making a point to lean an arm on him as she stretched out. She twirled one of Thúllindë's long braids in her other hand as they shifted to lean on her shoulder.

"We love you, Mal," Celebrían murmured as her eyes drifted shut, untangling an arm to clumsily pat his head. He snorted. She reached up, twining her fingers with Sirhith's, who folded her sketches and tucked them away to comb her other hand through Celebrían's hair as she leaned down to place a kiss on each of her eyelids.

"I assume we're all staying then?" Sirhith asked sleepily.

"If any of you get up I will be personally offended," Mallos said.

Celebrían heard Thúllindë ask, "How did I let you drag me into this?", followed by a gentle chuckle at Dinuial's response.

“Ah, nonsense, you're better off with us,” yawned Sirhith. “You should sing us something, Lindë.”

“And what would our gracious host request I sing?”

“Some of Din’s verses. I know you've set them to music.” Mallos suggested.

Thúllindë laughed. “I have. Well…”

They started to sing quietly as Celebrían dozed off, and she could swear she could feel Dinuial glowing beside them. She held Sirhith's hand tighter in her own, and in that moment, nothing else mattered.

Celebrían had spent too long uncertain. Legacy and memory had filled her head until she no longer knew who she was. But when the Mírdain, when Celebrimbor, had offered her a chance to forge her own path, she had seized it, her mother's opinion be damned. And that night, with the Mírdain around her, Celebrían knew she was home.

[meggannn]

Games I Played in 2024

I played a lot of games this year (finished 33 but dropped a few others) and thought I'd write up some quick reviews. Didn't include Metaphor Refantazio since I only played the demo of that (really enjoyed it though), but I did include Hades 2 since I put in 100 hours into it and I think it's pretty obvious I like it lmao. listed in chronological order of when I played it

Howl: Hate to start out with a game I dropped, but I was just really bad at the puzzles in this one lol. You play as a deaf woman who is immune to the "howling plague" which turns people into feral beasts, so she alone travels the land to help villagers and try to find a solution. Really neat concept, I was just bad at the grid-like puzzle system.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits: 3/5 Thematically it's maybe a story more appropriate for children, in that you play as a young woman charged with taking care of spirits who have moved on and looking after the environment, but the combat was hard enough that it felt more suited for adults, which made me kind of wonder what the target audience really was. Visually it's stunning, and it's got all the elements of a typical AAA game these days (collectibles, puzzles, zones to explore). I found the plot a little simple, like if Disney wrote the game and Pixar animated it, but the gameplay could occasionally get hard. I've never played a soulslike game before so I can't comment on whether it is appropriately challenging for a "soulslike," like some have debated.

Persona 5 Tactica: 4.5/5 I enjoyed this one! The gameplay feels like Fire Emblem strategy set in the Persona world, which can be a bit simple in the main story maps but gets increasingly complicated in the challenge/side maps, especially those where you have to accomplish an objective in one turn. The chibi art style might turn people off but this feels very at home with the main game's story and themes with two surprisingly fun new companions.

Venba: 4.5/5 What a surprise I like the cooking game about a family adjusting to life and dealing with Asian diaspora. I think it could've been longer because I was enjoying the recipes but it did make me cry. Phenomenal soundtrack too.

Eastshade: 3/5 The idea is that you're a painter and you can walk around an island and capture the scenery on your canvas to fulfill requests from locals. Unfortunately it felt more like Crafting: The Game which wasn't really what I signed up for but it's still a relaxing time.

Dépanneur Nocturne: 3.5/5 A short little game I picked up randomly. You go shopping at a convenience store late at night and find some weird things on the shelves. Unexplainable, cute, kinda fun.

Hidden Through Time: 3.5/5 A cute little find-the-items game with the ability to make your own themed maps. There was a lot of variety in the levels.

Yoshi's Crafted World: 3/5 I played this at May's when I was catsitting at her house lol. Cute time-waster for a platformer I'd recommend for kids but honestly got a little grindy at the end.

Hades 2: (Personal GOTY) 5/5 Though it came out in May, I played this pretty much throughout the year. It is in Early Access, but I truly believe this game has more polish and content than most finished games have on release, so in my heart it counts. Melinoë is a wonderful character, there's some real depth, heart, and humor to the writing, and the world has gotten even grander and denser than in Hades 1. The stakes are high in that she has to defeat an undying Titan over and over again to save her family, but the game still feels quintessentially Hades while also reshaped to fit Mel's character and journey. I feel like the team knows exactly what they want and what they're doing. Supergiant doesn't miss and I'm very excited to see what future updates hold.

Synergia: Dropped. This is a cyberpunk visual novel with robot yuri about an overworked detective who purchases a new household android for company. I ended up putting it down because the writing was... mostly fine, but when it stumbled, it felt very awkward and unnatural; I also realized the main writer was a man, which made some of the "oops, I have to sleep naked" lines coming from the childlike android feel fetishy at times. It wasn't constant, but it was prevalent enough to bother me. Still I've seen some wlw enjoy it anyway or even embrace those aspects, so what I don't like someone else might.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie: 3/5 This one has a neat concept. Polly, the main character, is tasked with keeping balance between two worlds while juggling the desires of Glory, Bliss, Power, Chaos, Bond, and Truth, who are anthropomorphized characters you can agree or disagree with in their direction to lead humanity. The gameplay idea is that you can see the consequences of your choices branching out before you make them, which at times is really cool because it lets you plan what you want, but at times also feels like you're really just looking at the behind-the-scenes of the developer code lol.

Hello Goodboy: 2.5/5 I must've misjudged this one because I think it was either for real little kids, or it just wasn't translated well. It's a story about a kid and his dog in the afterlife. Felt approachable for teaching kids how to play a video game for the first time.

Hohokum: 3.5/5 At first I could not get into this for the life of me but then it clicked after a few sessions and now I think really fondly on this weird, abstract experience that is more of a toy than a game. I only mark it down because I found the map so damn confusing.

Pentiment: 5/5 No notes, full stars, going right up there on the shelf of "games I'd recommend to Disco fans." This game officially made me a Josh Sawyer fan. I didn't think I'd get invested in a story about 16th century Bavarian monks but I cried several times.

A Tiny Sticker Tale: 4/5 A cute puzzle game set around the idea that you can pick up stickers of items and people, and place them somewhere else. Nice for an afternoon!

Pyre: An excellent 4.5/5 that I look more favorably on in hindsight than when I was playing; I want to give it a 5/5 rating but something about the combat really didn't click for me. You have been banished from the Commonwealth after an unmentioned crime, and after finding allies, you discover you can guide them to partake in ancient rites that will grant ascension back into the Commonwealth one at a time (if you're successful). To earn everyone's freedom, you basically have to play basketball while juggling all three of your main player characters on the field, who all have different abilities and movement speeds, and I struggled with that. That said, the story is Supergiant at its absolute peak, and I think it has the best soundtrack of all their games, which is saying a lot. There's light character roleplaying, but the main choices are made for you in how well you play fantasy basketball: the game will move on whether you win or lose, and the story will adapt.

Landlord of the Woods: 5/5 I really enjoy Madison Karrh's games and Landlord of the Woods is no exception. It's a short puzzle game about finding a new job and showing up on your first day... except your job is a landlord to a community living in the woods who do not want a landlord. Lighthearted yet also creepy, ironic without being jaded, it's delightfully unique.

Insomnia: Theater in the Head: 4/5 A short narrative/puzzle game about a woman's struggles with insomnia. Really captures the energy of all the wild thoughts running through your head at 2am.

Detective Grimoire: Secret of the Swamp: 3.5/5 Starting to show its age but I really like detective games where YOU have to figure out who did it. It is also fortunately not very punishing but you do have to think a little.

Roadwarden: 4/5 This gave me maybe the closest feeling of roleplaying Dragon Age Origins that I've had since playing Pillars of Eternity, just with a smaller budget and largely text-based. You play as a Roadwarden, who is charged with keeping the roads of a peninsula safe from monsters and bandits; but you have another job from your supervisors to see if the peninsula would be open to trade in the future, and would require new merchants and changing leadership. You can be a hero, an asshole, you can sell out the villagers, or quit your job and live with them... there are lots of small discoveries and connections to be had in this game.

Sarawak: 3.5/5 Another short little game, this one a literary mystery set in Oxford and Malaysia, about a woman investigating her parents' histories. I find myself really enjoying these small narrative adventure games as I get older.

Catlateral Damage: 2.5/5 Wish I enjoyed the "cats knocking stuff off stuff" game more, but truthfully it got a little boring after ten minutes.

Planescape Torment: 4/5 Clearly a long-beloved game for a reason, and I see how it inspired Disco Elysium. The combat is horrible and mechanics are old as balls, but the story and writing are top-tier. You play as a man who wakes up in a morgue after dying with no memory of who he is, and you have to hunt down your memories through the clues your previous lives have left you. But it's not a detective story, it's more about reinventing yourself and deciding who to be in your new life. The OG Harry du Bois, in a way.

En Garde! 4.5/5 What a goofy game! It's a quirky, funny action/adventure game that fully embraces the swashbuckling energy of fencing with a woman lead, which is a nice difference. The characters are flamboyant, the lines are overdramatic, and the game is very self-aware of its genre and embraces it. Found the enemy waves a little overwhelming at times but nothing insurmountable, it just has a lot of mechanics.

Robotherapy: 3.5/5 An interesting little premise about a robot that wants to be a therapist. The writing is fine, but occasionally weighed down by its need to be funny; still it's got a few interesting twists.

Lieve Oma: 3/5 A short story about a child who goes walking in the woods with a grandmother hunting for penny buns throughout the years. This kinda touched me because I never knew my grandparents well.

Hatoful Boyfriend: 4/5 Yes, I'm about a million years late to this game. Turns out the pigeon dating simulator is, in fact, really interesting, genuinely funny, and an absolute horror show at times.

Lego Horizon Adventures: 3.5/5 What the hell, it has Aloy shooting machines and Varl loving comic books and Sylens as a DJ. It definitely feels like it was made for kids who have watched for years over their parents' or older siblings' shoulder as they play the more difficult Horizon mainline games. I did wish it were longer and the gameplay a little more complex but I had fun with it.

stitch.: 4/5 Great little puzzle game where you group certain numbers of stitches together to form shapes with a truly INSANE number of puzzles.

Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery: 4.5/5 A short narrative adventure about an artist trying to paint "the finest scenery" with some simple puzzles. It reminded me a lot of Ghibli films, maybe not as polished but with some really heartbreaking twists and moments for me about inspiration, communing with your fellow artists, and also the passage of time.

Wavetale: 4/5 A 3d platformer about environmentalism and worker's rights that takes place in a flooded world with only boats to get around... until Sigrid discovers a supernatural ability to run/ride on water thanks to the help of a mysterious shadow. I didn't think this was going to get as deep as it did, and while I think it did go a little long, I respect the vision even if the platforming was kinda clunky.

Summerhouse: 3/5 Another game that's more of a toy than a game. You unlock different walls, windows, roofs, trees, people, etc. to build your house. I like the style of this one, just wish there was more of everything.

Between Horizons: (GOTY RUNNER-UP) 4.5/5 Hidden gem of this year! Despite having just a few things in common with Mass Effect 1, it reminded me a lot of that game (red-haired default female protagonist on a spaceship suddenly thrust into a position of authority and tasked with tracking someone down). It takes place on a generation ship deep into its journey when suddenly systems are sabotaged and rebellion looks like it's brewing. Stella, the new Chief of Security, has to find the culprit before the mission reaches a point of no return. REALLY good puzzles in this one imo, I actually had to pen-and-paper some stuff to figure out who did what.

Dungeons of Hinterberg: 4/5 Another hidden gem in which dungeons appear around the modern-day Austrian Alps, sparking a sudden wave of tourists and dungeon-crawlers to visit. Part Zelda and part Persona, you explore dungeons by day and hang out with friends and locals by night. The game questions us on if the tourism brought to a small town as a result of the magic spawning there is actually helping, or if the capital and greed it brings might change the village for the worst. The game is about 1/3 relationship sim, 1/3 combat, 1/3 puzzles; I enjoyed all three to varying degrees but I think the puzzles are the strongest.

Paper Trail: Another grid-based puzzle system I dropped (I'm noticing a pattern). You play as a young woman who runs away from home to go to college, and she can "fold" corners of reality to make bridges, connect landpaths, etc. Gorgeous environments and neat concept, I just struggled with it.

1000xResist: (GOTY RUNNER-UP) 4.5/5 Half of Tumblr should be playing this. It's a scifi game set in the distant future in which aliens have arrived on Earth and brought with them a devastating plague that kills most humans. A girl called Iris is the only person who seems to be not only immune but also now immortal, who is cloned/later clones herself throughout the years (first to study a cure, and then to keep company/create a new society). You play as Watcher, a clone created a thousand years later to record Iris's life, now known as the ALLMOTHER's, life, and ensure her authority goes unchallenged in a post-apocalyptic world. I can't even talk about it more without spoiling but it tackles authority and rebellion, identity, memory, bad friendships, generational trauma, modern Asian American/Canadian diaspora... If you enjoy any combination of the following you will probably enjoy it: Everything Everywhere All At Once, Evangelion, Imperial Radch, Arrival, Ghost in the Shell.

not included are my gatcha games lmao which are currently animal crossing pocket camp (og and complete) and fire emblem heroes

[lorelune]

o4o: extended author's note

🎀 masterlist 🎀

WOW!! i genuinely... genuinely cannot believe i finished this piece 😭 like truly. around a year ago, i was cooking up the idea for an a/b/o collab and to think... almost a year later i have finished my piece :3c

o4o was originally just supposed to be a one shot featuring beloved omega jing yuan and his heat, but the idea expanded into much more fleshed out world, reader and dynamic. i truly never intended to go explicit with the mommy kink but you Know. sometimes things simply occur and you gotta go with the flow!!

omegaverse is so interesting to me in so many ways... the social workings of secondary gender, biology, and the relationships characters can have based on secondary gender too. i've had this very clear vision of scent gland anatomy in my minds eye for literally two years and it felt sooo nice to get it down in part iii for folks to like see. the vision. in o4o there is also this element of queerness that like... cannot exist in the real world! which is very fun and fascinating to me as an author to explore. both reader and jing yuan are omegas and the dynamic they with one and other is inherently informed by their secondary gender, but they express that secondary gender in very different, complimentary ways.

when i was cooking up o4o, i wanted to try and lean away from the reading of a/b/o which boils down to "alpha = stereotypical man" and "omega = stereotypical woman". femininity and masculinity are socially-informed concepts, and thereby change by space and time, and i really wanted to (and attempted to) keep some amount of like... liminality to their expression. though jing yuan is perceived an alpha by the xianzhou alliance at large (because he is large, strong, and has a commanding presence), this is like... mostly coincidence and fabrication on his part. he cannot help that he is large (a great deal of which is soft omega pudge anyways!! and a slow metabolism adds to it), he's strong due to his lifetime of hard training, and his 'presence' is something he's like... constructed and honed because it is convenient and serves him well.

reader is more genuinely stereotypically in their world (at least what we see of them!!). they're a bit of a weakling, a lot of a crybaby, and very easy to coddle!! more like an omega kit than a grown one to be so real (see why jing yuan takes a liking to you LOL). but there's like embers of reader that distinctly aren't this stereotypical omega. they traveled to the Luofu alone, and settled without a pack or family unit. in part iii, we get a peak into reader's family, and you get a glimpse of reader's family, which is very non-traditional as well. they want to claim bite jing yuan. there's like!! in general lots of playing with perceptions in this piece. it's been very fun. playing with the expected bounds and outside of as well!!!

i DO have a sequel planned, a fun little spanking fic from reader's pov that truly i have been dying to write hehe. getting to do a deep dive on kink like o4o is very fun and like... rewarding. playing the long game on a kink to set up the Brain reasons why the characters involve enjoy it is like... long and hard. but very!!! gratifying. i'm excited to revisit these two, as both crybaby reader and milfy jy have altered my brain chemistry in unknoweable ways <3

finishing this piece would truly. TRULY. not have been possible without the cheering and support of multiple beta readers over each part. my pal honey helped out on parts i and ii and sadly doesn't have a tumblr anymore, but their jy thirsting and thoughts were VITAL!! @harmonydove was such huge help combing through part iii for clarity and cielo (@aimfor-theheart) did a much-needed final read through despite not going to hsr. and. AND!! truly truly TRULY this fic could not survived, lived and thrived with the continued, in-dms support of beloved mermie (@ofmermaidstories). she read this fic as i wrote and listened to my many questions and anxieties as this piece grew and grew. forever grateful. to all of these lovely folks!!!

thank YOU reader. for immersing yourself in this story and its world, and enjoying. truly there is nothing more that i desire as i writer. enjoy this piece this holiday season and be well 💗 🎀 💦

— lore 🩷

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2025-02-17

I have no idea how time works

Listening: New Friends at the Table series, Realis, because Austin Walker designed a game so they're playing it. It's interesting, diceless and based on pitting sentences against each other that become more powerful as they become more specifically situational. Basically built around rules-lawyering and bending the meaning of phrases. Interesting.

Watching: I started listening to A More Civilized Age and rapidly ran out of episodes of The Clone Wars that I had seen, so that a little. As far as children's shows go this one suffers from much less children's show disease than some others, I guess because they did have George Lucas looking at some of these and going "you guys have gotta make it look more like a world war II and/or noir movie.

Also, started rewatching the old Tom Scott And Friends wikipedia game show, because I realized I have basically forgotten what happens in them so I can watch them again.

There are a lot of like. Highly specific bits in here that you either don't get, or that take you out at the knees.

Reading: Over the weekend started to read Police at the Funeral, which I picked up randomly from the library and then discovered is a Campion novel and he's a big name detective character by Margery Allingham.

I am enjoying Stupid British Antics so far, the premise of "this huge manor house full of the various failsons and faildaughters of a wealthy family is ruled over in a kind of bizzare 24/7 findom thing by the elderly heir to the fortune" is my shit.

Making: Planned out a sewing project but that has been on hold because I'm waiting for fabric to arrive, hopefully that'll be here soon.

Gonna include "pies" in here because I made two different pies this past week, a big salmon pie which I wrote up the recipe for, and also a bunch of vegetable hand pies for game night.

Talking to Partner reminded me that like, standing crust and standing crust-adjacent pies are not really a thing in the Americas. You have either like, pot pies or custard pies mostly. The fully encapsulated pie is a really solid food concept, and a staple fast food back home in ZA. Consider it!

Playing: Game night was Drink More Glurp, a fun party game that I got really into after watching Loading Ready Run play it, so here's that.

It is effectively a pass-the-controller qwop tournament with various sports.

Tools and Equipment: There are these extremely cheap hot water bottle things that have a built-in heating element and a docking station, they're really great for quickly and easily getting a little pack of heat to carry around with you and they are like $15.

[browniefox]

2024 Fic Wrap-Up

Another year, which means another year of writing!

Most Popular (Kudos)

The Pines Paradox - Gravity Falls

Ford's research is interrupted by his estranged brother showing up on his doorstep with a kid who claims to be time traveller. Meanwhile in the present, Stan and Mabel try to figure out how to get Dipper back to the right time. There will be secrets revealed, old wounds readdressed, and above it all a one-eyed demon watches with interest. (Previously titled Twins Across Time)

Considering the Gravity Falls resurgance, hardly a surprise! Although it's been a second since I've updated this, I am actually really happy with it and how it's been turning out! It's a lot of fun to write, in no small part because of the love it gets from my sister haha.

Least Popular (Kudos)

And the World was a Graveyard - Trigun Stampede

Meryl notices Vash folding paper flowers. In time, he reveals what he does with them.

Like the last one, this isn't surprising other. I actually think I wrote this last year...? Zine pieces always perform worse once they're actually posted. That being said, though, I still find the concept of this one really cute and I'm glad it's finally out there so someone can read it, even if not many have haha.

Longest Fic

Death Does Not Us Part - FFVII Comp

In the Northern Crater, a year after Meteor with the world just barely beginning to recover, there's a shift in the flow of Mako, a call only certain individuals can hear, and the dead wake up. Angeal just wants to know what's happened since he died. Genesis has amends to make - if he can swallow his pride enough for it. Sephiroth thinks he wants to give destroying the world another go, this time with more support. And Zack mostly just wants to find out what happened to Cloud.

Another fic I want to continue sometime! I had a lot of fun writing this one - getting into the minds of all the Firsts can be a little tricky, but their dynamics are very interesting to mess around with. And of course, I had to shove Cait Sith in there somewhere haha. It's definitely the fic I put the most work into this year - Pines Paradox was more fun, while DDNUP was a bit more serious.

Shortest Fic

After the Rain - FFVII Crisis Core

Too late, Cissnei finds Zack's dead body.

If not for my Trigun fic, this also would've been my least popular fic. Hardly surprising. TBH, not totally satisfied with this one, but I do like that I wrote it. There were a few different ways I think I could've gone, but I liked the idea of Cissnei covering up Cloud's disappearance, just as a final act of good will to Zack.

Personal Favorite

A Spark in the Night - FFXVI

Elwin and Cid meet at the Remembrance Ceremony.

I always struggle with this category bc they're ALL my favorite, but I have to go with my niche ship of Elwin/Cid. In general this fic was a lot of fun to write, particularly exploring Elwin as a character and his thoughts on the bearer system and his sons and how thye play into that. Cid is also fun to write bc it's before a lot of his character development, so I get to plant the seeds of the man he'll become.

Honorable Mentions

I'd say sorry for putting so many fics in this category but it's my post so who gives a shit.

Encore - FFXVI - I write a lot of time travel fics, but this is probably one of my favs, in no small part due to it only being the 'fun' part. It was also a lot of fun to write how each of the dominants change from getting their memories of the future, and start to show how that's already changing the trajectory of the future. (Spectator's View, the companion is also really good. I love outsider POVS of time travel)

Singing the Sound (that You Found for Me) - FFVII - What if you were in a time loop but also weren't aware you were in a time loop at the same time. I love Cait and Reeve, and exploridni ghow the time loop doesn't totally affect Cait was a lot of fun, particularly in showing how the world around Cait changes and how his interactions with AVALANCHE change throughout the loops.

Cloud Watching - FFVII - Pretty high on the 'fics I really really need to update', focusing on how people react to Cloud's 'episodes'. A really fun character exploration, and I do have plans to continue it, but I always get caught up in a different project instead of work on it :P

Meeting Behind Enemy Lines - FFVII - OF COURSE I have to mention this fic! Tbh, I'd almost already want to rewrite, bc it's such a cool concept I don't think I quite did justice? In general, Reeve and Nanaki are in the same building for a long time, and writing them meeting before the events of FFVII is a lot of fun. I think they'd actually manage to get along all right, particularly Nanaki and Cait.

Those Trapped in the Tower - FFVII - Okay okay okay, last one I promise, but nobody write fics about Reeve and Chadley so I will! There's parallels between them and then between Chadley and Cait Sith, and I wish it was explored! Instead it seems like they're just giving Cait's plotline to Chadley whole-cloth :P.

[remimibanana]

A bit about Scales that Burn Flame!

I wrote a story about Sol Badguy!

It takes place during Revelator, around the time when That Man and his servants come to talk to Sol, Ky, Leo and Dr Paradigm. It focuses on what might have happened after Ky threw Sol out the door.

Mostly, it’s just Sol going through it and Ky trying to help alongside Jack-O’ but it’s kind of questionable if they actually did help at all in all honesty.

If you’d like to read it, please click here!

I wanted to talk about my thoughts in more detail, thinking that maybe you’d be interested to hear my thoughts as well! It's just me blabbing about how much I love Guilty Gear, mind you.

All under the cut!

Conception

It all started when I watched all of Sign, Revelator, REV 2 and Strive’s story and arcade modes after reading the digest mangas because I wanted to learn about Guilty Gear lore.

Is it a little crazy? Maybe.

I love Guilty Gear so much, you have no damn idea how it tickles my brain in the good way. All the characters have such depth to them, I have no clue how Daisuke does it but I bow down to his power.

The music is AMAZING as well. You don’t even have to be into the games to enjoy the sheer bangers that come from them. My favourite song is Freesia, the amount of emotion in it always takes me aback when I listen to it.

FREESIAAAAAAAAA HERE I AMMMMMMM—

My favourite story is the one that whole Xrd line of games tells! I think it’s one of the better ones in terms of how it’s told over the course of (technically) three games.

I also like Overture’s story for Valentine and the ending where Sol has to kill her but then learns that she was a clone of Aria…I think it has a great one. The game isn’t that bad to play either, I’ve done about half of the missions!

And Strive’s one too because it ends off Sol’s story and he gets to actually be with Jack-O’ by the end! Axl and Megumi too!

Fun fact, I’ve cried at the end of Sign, Revelator and Strive after watching their stories. They were all so good in many ways!

One of my gripes with the story in general is that we don’t get to see much of the in-between before major events, which is really apparent in Strive. Sometimes characters just appear out of nowhere and it’s a little jarring.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but I wished we got to see more of certain characters and how they got to the major events happening. I wanted to learn more about their thoughts and feelings that would give everyone so much more than they already had and make the overall story even better!

This is especially the case with Sol and Jack-O. I really think that they should have had more interaction during Revelator and Strive since their relationship is so important to both their characters.

For example, we get nothing from when Sol was thrown out the door to when they’re on Johnny’s ship on the way to where Elphelt is. You’re telling me that they did not interact once in between all that and that Sol was somehow okay with the whole idea of who Jack-O’ was just like that?

They deserve better and so I decided to take it all into my own two hands. I would write it out myself since I realised that I can cook my own meals and so I cooked (hopefully well)!

Why Sol’s point of view?

I chose to write in Sol’s point of view since he’s one of my favourite characters. I didn’t think I would like him so much when I first got into Guilty Gear, but once I learnt about his backstory….

THIS POOR GUY.

YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT HE KILLED ARIA MULTIPLE TIMES AND IS A SCIENTIST WHO IS SMART AS HELL????

MAN, I LOVE HIM. HE IS PERFECT TO ME.

I’ve never written someone like him before, so it was a fun challenge. I don’t know how well I managed to portray him in all honesty, I wanted a good mix between his whole asshole personality and the humanity that’s underneath it all.

I tried my best!

There’s a whole bunch of swearing everywhere as you can tell, I think Sol’s one of those people who swears more internally than he does externally. It was fun dropping a bunch of bullshits and fucks all around, but I hope I didn’t overdo it.

I’m sorry to whoever clicks on it without reading the tags and is just bombarded by swears. Sol swears and there’s nothing I can do about it. It wouldn’t sound like him otherwise.

The story was originally was going to have a different plot where I alternated between Jack-O’ and Sol’s point of views while focusing on their pasts but I scrapped it since couldn’t work out how to bring Jack-O’ and Frederick into it without making the flow of the story weird.

It also wasn’t meant to be this long but my stories always tend to be long as hell. I think this one is borderline close to my magnum opus, Paradox which is impressive!

I remember at around the 15k point, I thought I would be done and then subsequently kept on writing and writing….

I hope you all still enjoyed it none of the less!

Beginning

We see that the story starts off with a bit about Sol himself for the readers. We learn right away about his stances on various things and how he hates Asuka and how much he loved Aria.

It was the perfect place to start the story, providing the right amount of information I could work with for the rest of it! I thought it would also work for someone who didn't know too much Guilty Gear and wanted to still read it.

I liked writing the whole section where Sol just calls the whole thing bullshit. I think it’s a fun word, bullshit. Ah, bullshit.

The most important thing to this part is that it builds up to one of the main major scenes that features a wonderful person named Ky Kiske and his long wonderful hair who tries to help.

Why did you cut it in Strive????

Sol and Ky

This part here could be read as Sol/Ky in my opinion, because you can’t tell me that there isn’t something between the two of them. I didn’t really intend it to be but you really can’t miss the possibility of such things in the way I wrote it.

Anyway!

As we know, Ky threw Sol out the door and Sol let out his huge scream we see in the main story.

I think it’s strange that no one ever mentions it happening at all. There’s no way in hell that they didn’t hear from behind the door and yet it’s as if it never happened.

Once again, since we never got to see the in between…we wouldn’t ever know. I had a lot of creative control over here, but I tried to make it realistic so it could sound like something you’d see in the actual story if we got it!

Sol breaks down, consumed by his own damming thoughts that only told him how it was all his fault at the end for killing her. It’s the only logical conclusion after learning what he learnt from the person he hates the most and the girl who was technically Aria.

You can tell that Ky is pretty worried about Sol, because he’s never seen him like this. Sol’s not one to show much emotion aside from grumpy and royally pissed off.

Unfortunately for Sol, he keeps telling him to breathe over and over. I think that Ky’s trying his best to comfort his rival but it’s not working out since Sol’s not even listening.

Sol hears the words from Jack-O’ and Asuka behind the door, and well…all hell breaks loose. I don’t know how accurate his reaction would be, but I tried my best based on how he acts!

In After Story A, we find out that Sol was actually scared of Ky back in the days of the Crusades. I had to bring that into the story here, using that gaze as a way to snap Sol out of his state at times.

My favourite part I wrote was when Sol yelled at Ky that he killed Aria. I think it’s something that takes even you aback, because you don’t expect him to say it to anyone, let alone Ky.

I think I cooked here.

You can tell that I keep bringing up the concept of the headaches. We see them mostly in Overture when Sol is near Valentine (and when he sees Jack-O’ for the first time in Revelator and it’s mentioned in his win quote for Ram in Sign). I feel like we never see them again after that and I think it’s important!

I imagine his head hurts because of the fact that it is Aria in a way and he’s reacting to it (amplified thanks to the Flame of Corruption + the probable instincts that came with becoming a Gear).

How could I not use it?

Sol’s intermission by the fountain—

He breaks. Again. I’m sorry Sol, I swear I do love you, it’s just that it’s for the plot.

This is probably the most emotional part of the story, one where Sol is quite literally going through it.

You can tell that the style of writing is different here. It's more faster, more messy, almost chaotic. That's what I wanted, to reflect how Sol was feeling throughout all this.

I chose the Royal Court for this! I was thinking about where Sol could go after storming off from everyone, and all I could think about was a fountain. I had some ideas of using his reflection, but I wasn’t sure if there was a place in Illyria Castle that had it.

I searched it up and boom! I even played Xrd and checked out the stage, and there was definitely a fountain and a walkway that lead to it, so I went straight to writing!

During the part with Ky, I mentioned how Sol’s hand started to smoke twice. That was foreshadowing for him losing control of his powers. I think his power is linked with his emotions, flaring up when he’s more angry as an example.

I think he would simply transform into his Dragon Install if he’s overwhelmed, as you can see that happening at the end of this part.

I used quotes from the original game, Overture and Sign for the flashback scenes. I remember I was searching up for the script for Sign, but found this website instead where it had some of the messed up things that happen in the series.

I never played the original game, but seeing “Sol, the Guilty Gear, stared at his bloodstained hands and prayed. Prayed for the soul of the grotesque sacrifice laying before his feet.” made my heart drop in a good way.

IT’S SO GOOD.

I had to use it. I thought it would be painful if I mentioned every single time he killed Aria or she’s mentioned explicitly in the story, just to hammer it all in ehe

You can see that Sol punches himself at the end to knock himself out before he can fully transform. I think he ultimately does care about his actions and how he can affect everyone, and he didn’t want to become that monster he kept calling himself.

Poor guy….

Sol and Jack-O!

I wanted the two of them to interact one to one. We only got that at the end before Jack-O’ merged with Justice and that was only for like 30 seconds tops, which is so unfair!

I needed an excuse for her to come back to see him after she left.

I feel like Asuka would be monitoring Sol from the shadows like some creepy person. He probably has something that can tell him about Sol and the state of the Flame of Corruption inside of him.

The whole breakdown surely would have raised some alarm bells and so, he sends his remaining two servants out to see if Sol was okay. Asuka had an inkling that it was related to what Jack-O’ probably told him before she came back.

He’s probably like that.

This whole section jumps from one thing to another, which suits Jack-O’ perfectly. Poor Sol’s emotions are going from one end to another thanks to her antics and wonderful words.

I really like Jack-O’ Valentine, if you can’t tell. I wanted to show that more philosophical side we see in Jam’s story mode that we barely get to see otherwise in Revelator. Strive gives us a lot more of it, at least.

“Don’t be pushed around by fate, don’t be swept along by the time, don’t be fearful by parting, don’t run away from death, and go towards the future you believe in…Frederick.”

“As long as you remember me, my story will never vanish.”

These lines here are from Honkai Impact 3rd! It’s a game I absolutely love and I was playing through some more of Part 1 and these lines that Mei says when she talks about the Elysian Realm were perfect and I stole them.

I always keep stealing things from the game, don’t look at me lol

It sounded like something Aria would say. She would tell Frederick this if she had the chance to, giving him the hope he needs to continue on.

Sol (kinda) cries! I don't think we ever see him crying in any of the games but I thought that hearing such words would make him cry in some way. I made it up that it was the Flame of Corruption's fault that he can't have actual tears, since it would make sense!

High temperature + Tears = Evaporation after all!

You can see that Sol was thinking about kissing Jack-O’, just for a second. Look, you can’t tell me that he doesn’t see his lover (technically) and he doesn’t want to kiss her again as he used to?

Of course he doesn’t, he would never do anything to her without her permission. I think Sol would be a stickler about that, as seen when he asked her about if she wanted to go on a vacation or do work in Strive at the beginning.

I don't know how in character this is, but it's there.

The end makes me laugh because of how quickly Sol shifts from being (somewhat) happy to pissed off in a split second (LOL).

Candy, Candy!!!

We have Sol and Jack-O’ looking for the kitchen for candy, how fun!

This part wasn’t meant to be as long as I made it, but I got heavily invested into the plot I made up and it kept flowing out of me….

I think I overdid it, so much crazy shit happens in this part but I think it’s funny so…it’s okay? I hope you all liked it!

I like how Ky and Jack-O' have a little fun friendship here. I think they would good friends at the end if they had the chance to communicate, like so!

I think Sol would be jealous of them. I mean, they act like goodie goodie friends out of nowhere? I like how they mostly gang up on him and he gets all mad.

We have Alyssa in the story! You know, that one girl from After Story C that made that giant pudding. I just wanted to make Sol have beef for no reason and she sounded like the person for the job. He absolutely hates her for no reason.

We have a chocolate fight too. Uh...this idea just came up in my brain and I had to write it. I thought it was so damn funny that Jack-O' is attacking him a whole block of chocolate for no reason. The worst part was that Sol would actually get into it.

I think it was at this point that it started getting a little crazy but I think you could plausibly see this in game. I mean, after all the crazy stuff that happens in After Story C, anything is possible lol

Raven here is a little shit of course. I think he would shoot Sol with one of his needles for fun, and of course no one cares. Ky is sort of just there but he gets his parts too!

I had fun writing this part!

Leo.

Leo.

I mentioned how Sol was going to get a mouthful from him since he kept destroying public property and I couldn’t help myself from writing it out.

I just wanted to make Leo freak out and faint. I hope it made you laugh!

That’s a wrap!

Thank you for reading all this if you do!

I had a lot of fun writing this story while being very Guilty Gear brainrotted about literally everything and anything with this series.

These characters make me very happy. I could go on day about Sol and Jack-O', and it's not funny.

-Miku

[sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth]

I wanted to give you a fabulous question like you’ve been spreading around here and there, but I couldn’t think of any until now.

First off

I’m further emphasising my Oh. My. God comment from AO3 on Marked

And as a question from the fic, do you think Cas could read her mind or at least see her arousal and potentially figured out what was happening between them?

This stems from a theory that angels can sense things like cancer or STD’s, and I imagine Cas being Dean’s wingman and telling the potential hook ups something along the lines of - “Don’t worry, we fixed up that UTi last week. Dean’s a great guy.”

tl;dr (cause this got long): I think angels have concepts of arousal/sexuality, but are mostly clueless about the in's and out's (lol) and can't necessarily deduct this kinda stuff. Or at least Cas can't, the sweet lamb.

Helloooo my lovely! Thank you so, so much, I'm so happy you liked the first chapter of Marked (shameless self-plug, you can read it here). It's nice to finally have it out there!

Okay, on to your amazing question - I won't go too much into whether Cas in that scene specifically figured out what was going on with the reader. Let's just say the Cas I tend to write (for some reason) is usually well-meaning but a bit... slow? Which obviously makes sense when it comes to any human business, but I have a hard time writing him in any other way, because that is mostly what I take away from his character (no hate!). I'm rewatching the show right now and hopefully when I get to season 4, my Cas palate will be expanded a little.

Back on topic: I won't spoil whether Cas in this story figures anything out, but I think it's well established that even for an angel, he's a bit naive on what constitutes human behavior. So I think Cas would definitely be able to sense stuff like this (at least early, un-nerfed Cas) but I think it would be very confusing to him. He'd say shit like: "your body temperature is rising, do you require soup?" or something, idk.

This goes into the whole: do angels understand sexuality thing, and possession thing, which is... something I could talk about for days and days. It's one of my absolute favorite SPN topics. And since you asked (you didn't) I will quickly expand on what my view on this is:

Angels don't have a sexuality or gender. That's human nonsense. Some of them might have a more curious nature and watch us like ants and know more about us, and some are clueless. When it comes to taking a human as a vessel, they're suddenly thrown into this whirlwind of experiences. Some of it must be quite off-putting (explain keeping pets or social media to someone like that, it doesn't make sense without the human factor), but I think the longer they are in a vessel (especially if it's the same one), the more human sensations become a part of their everyday experience, and thus the more they understand about humans. Now, do they suddenly develop a sexuality just because in theory they have the ability to get physically aroused? Obviously that's the purview of the writer and I can see good arguments for "yes", but my instinct is "no".

(No one asked this either, but demons are a different matter. They used to be human, so they already know all this stuff. They might have a sexuality and a gender, but of course with how they're able to possess different bodies, it's fun to play around with that).

When I wrote Are You Now or Have You Ever Been I got to explore this a little through Gadreel, and the feelings he has for Sam's lover - does he have them because he experienced everything Sam experienced retroactively, or are they his own feelings for her? I'm also plotting a Meg/Reader fic (a sequel to A Walking Study in Demonology) that goes into this, but from from a gender envy point of view - does Meg want Sam's girl because she wants the girl or because she wants to be Sam?

Good times ahead.

I'm actually not sure if I answered your question but I will stop my rambling here. 😂 If anyone read until here - first of all, thank you! And secondly I would love to hear other peoples' takes on this. It's such a cool subject.

Love ya! ❤️

[picathartidae]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Wasn't tagged, but I saw @hyperions-light do this, and decided I wanted to play along because it looks fun and I never have the courage to talk about writing things. So here I am.

No pressure tagging;

@sandcastlekings, @derelictjunk, @shewolfofvilnius, @vestigialpersonality, @rinwellisathing

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

I’m up to 35 now, which is insane to me. Though I’m debating if I should delete one or two, so it may go down. I also mostly write shorts and oneshots, which is probably the main reason why the number is as high as it is.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

508,114! Which is also insane to me.

3) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Most is Closer, the first of my two slightly trashy Miraculous Ladybug fics, by a long, long way. Then its sequel, Further. After that, it’s Song of Songs, for GreedFall. Then a couple of Dragon Age fics, Home is Where the Heart Is, and Field Dressing.

4) What fandoms do you write for?

Video games (specifically RPGs), almost exclusively. My main fandom is overwhelmingly Dragon Age, and that is once again my current hyperfixation, though I’ve also written a fair bit for GreedFall, and Baldur’s Gate 3 is persistently sticking around as well.

I just seem to like video games because they leave enough room for me to experiment with characters (which I love), without having to worry about plot (which I hate).

5) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I didn’t used to, unless someone was explicitly asking me a question, but I try to do it as much as possible now. It just didn’t occur to me that responding was a thing I could or even should do, until I was informed that it’s considered good practice to do so. Nowadays, I’m trying to make friends. And as much as I am shy and scared of judgement, you have to talk to people in order to do that.

6) What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I write a lot of angsty or otherwise bittersweet endings, but the saddest and most brutal is probably The Last Day (Dragon Age: Origins). Honourable mentions to both Kings and Psalms (GreedFall), though.

7) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I’m going to say Father, which is the final entry in my trilogy about my human noble Warden in Origins, and serves as a little ending coda to his story. It’s cute! Especially given that this is me we’re talking about.

Edit: I foolishly didn’t consider To Save the World (Dragon Age: the Veilguard), which also has a very objectively happy ending, and is probably the sweetest fic I’ve ever written.

8) Do you get hate on fics?

Surprisingly, no. I have, through some divine miracle, managed to completely avoid getting any kind of hate for the entire fifteen years I’ve been posting fanfiction on the internet. Though I think if I’d left some of my oldest stuff up rather than deleting them, I might’ve seen some by now.

9) Do you write smut?

No. I am so intensely sex-repulsed it’s not even funny. I would rather turn myself inside out than ever willingly look at smut, let alone write it. Best I can offer is a supremely uncomfortable dissociative fit of a sex scene that is made up entirely of vague allusions and implications, or a fade-to-black. 

10) Do you write crossovers?

Once or twice, because I had an insane idea that I could not for the life of me let go of (basically just cramming the concept of the show Sense8 into Dragon Age: Origins, though we do not speak of that fic). I generally prefer to keep to one fandom. My autistic brain will only tolerate obsessive encyclopedic knowledge about one thing at a time, these days. 

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes, multiple times. I’m a little bit baffled by it, because I generally write genfic and otherwise niche stuff that doesn’t get a lot of traffic. The biggest and most egregious example was when my fic The Last Day was caught up in a mass-scraping a few years ago and ended up getting sold as an original story on Amazon.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! Way back in 2017, someone asked for permission to translate my fic After (Dragon Age: Inquisition) into Russian. I don’t think the translated version can be found anymore, however.

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

I haven’t! I’ve honestly never really had any writing or fandom friends to ask. I’ve been invited to participate in events in the past, but this was back when I was terrified of talking to people, and was too petrified to respond. Hopefully I’m braver now.

14) What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I don’t really enjoy shipping in general, and it’s very rarely how I engage with fandom. But if I was pressed to pick relationships I enjoy the most, it’d either be Scott Summers/Jean Grey from X-Men, or Astarion/Resist!Dark Urge from Baldur’s Gate 3.

15) What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Genesis (GreedFall), absolutely. Adore the concept, love the characters, utterly despise working on it. Now it is a monument to all my failures.

16) What are your writing strengths?

I don’t know, I think I’m decent with characters and dialogue. I’m reportedly very good at themes and making people feel things.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

Description. I hate it. I write relatively canon-compliant fanfiction with the express purpose of getting the hell away from it. I also like run-on sentences way too much. Trying to write a nice natural ending to a scene or chapter has also historically been the bane of my existence. I famously suck ass at anything even vaguely romantic, because it’s all extremely gross and cringey to me.

18) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I don’t usually mess with that at all. If the perspective character understands the language being spoken, I’ll write out the dialogue in English, or otherwise summarise the conversation in prose. If they don’t, I’ll just describe people speaking without doing any dialogue at all. Too much potential to cause offence with my ignorance otherwise. I might include a single word here or there, if it feels important to the characters or setting.

19) First fandom you wrote for?

I remember dabbling in some eclectic stuff originally (like, Shakespeare and some of the classics, because I was insufferable), but what I consider my first actual proper attempt at fandom and fanfiction was for X-Men.

20) Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

You know, despite the fact that it’s currently actively killing me and everything I care about, I’m going to say Breathe (Baldur's Gate 3). Like, it’s such a chaotic experimental disaster of a fic, with an incredibly erratic writing style, a metric shit-tonne of repetition, constantly shifting tenses, featuring way too many dream sequences and the single most complicated traumatised mess of a protagonist I’ve ever put to paper, and accidentally mutated into genres I normally would never touch. It’s wild and violent and cerebral and dark and tragic and introspective and a constant source of stress because it's always a problem that needs to be solved and maybe the worst thing I have ever done.

And ignoring my current ongoing garbage destroying all of my ability and willingness to write, it’s the fic I’ve had the most fun writing in a long, long time. Also the fact that it’s one of those rare ones that has a couple of regular commenters despite my non-existent update schedule helps massively (hello, love you guys, thanks for enduring my insanity). The fact that I managed to put out over 30 chapters in a single year (this is unheard of for me) is a testament to how much it captured my imagination. I am hoping and praying and begging all the gods I know of that I will be able to see it through to the end.

[fayedartmouth]

Well since it’s okay please share some info about your upcoming projects sorry but im too curious and excited for my own good and i genuinely love your work read every single one in only a week

Well, in truth, I have like 20+ fics that are technically WIPs, all in various stages of development and completion.  I tend to get way more plot bunnies than I can write, and my WIPs range from rough concepts to like 30k words or more.  So it's just a wide range.

As per usual, I can't shut up, so the details are below.

For the record, some of those WIPs I really really love.  Like I have a whole series of Shoupe and preseries JJ that I'm super excited about (their first meeting, the first time Shoupe realizes JJ's getting beaten, JJ taking all of Luke's pills as a teenager, and a few more).  I have one very well developed with a preseries JJ getting kidnapped by one of Luke's associates and Luke blowing off the ransom (spoiler alert: it goes badly for JJ).  And I have a few now completely AU takes post S3, one with Rafe getting revenge on the Pogues by going after JJ (forcing him to take an overdose of drugs, and it's so convincing that almost everyone believes he did it himself) and a Sarah and JJ as siblings fic.  That's just a sampling.  There are so many more that I can't even remember them all.

One idea that just got hold of me this week is an AU with JJ and John B in the military.  There are a few other takes on this on AO3 that intrigued me, and the brothers in arms thing could be so fun to play out with those two.  And I mean, the whump. I may have wrote a few scenes....

However, the fics that I'm actively writing right now.  I'd say there are four (beyond the car accident fic I'm posting snippets of and the town council AU I did a snippet of last weekend).

1. Best of a Bad Deal part three.  This one is still in the works though technically kind of on my backburner.  I have completed quite a bit of this fic, which spans five-six years after JJ goes into remission.  I think I have a cohesive narrative at least through the third year with a lot of bits and pieces completed after that -- including the ending, which I really love.

2. My long fix-it.  I have been actively plotting this with woudsohfiv and currently have probably 70k done.  It starts around the mid point of S4 and maintains everything we see in canon -- but adds a secondary plot that manages to subvert it completely.  LOL, I don't want to spoil too much, but it heavily involves Luke.  The Pogues will still (mostly) think JJ is dead while JJ hits absolute rock bottom.  This fic is planned to be the first of a series.  We've been a little ambitious with our plotting and have sketched out plots for three additional fics.  The second one will really dig into JJ facing his trauma and dealing with his family heritage and Goat Island.  I'm really excited about this one!

3. I write fics for my friends for Christmas, and this year, I have two friends getting JJ fics.  The first one is for woudsohfiv, and she requested an AU of the S1 ep where Barry robs the Pogues.  IIn this take, JJ goes for the gun and gets shot for his trouble -- and the Pogues are faced with the reality of what they were willing to risk.  My goal is to make it eventually fit back into canon, however.  It's probably 15k in and is maybe half done.  It will (hopefully!) be done for Christmas.

4. For my other friend, I'm going on one of her favorite tropes:  seizures.  It's a fic set in that happy 18 months of Poguelandia 2.0 where the Pogues get sick -- and JJ ends up getting very, very ill.  This one is a pretty simple straight up sick fic where the Pogues have to confront that they're not quite as together as they thought they were, and wherein John B and Kiara have to face the reality that JJ isn't really as okay as he seems to be most of the time. Again, my goal is to finish this by Christmas, and I think I can pull it off. This should be relatively short hopefully in the 10k range.

Feel free to ask more questions or specifics! I'd even post snippets if you wanted. I only do completed fics on AO3 but I'm a lot looser here.

[shadowshrike]

Fanfiction Year in Review - 2024

As this year draws to a close, I just wanted to take a moment to look back at and celebrate all the new fics I wrote this year. I encourage all you creative folks to do the same with your own works! This was a year of almost entirely writing for bg3 and pretty much exclusively very niche ideas. It's been a tough fandom to navigate, with much less community to others compared to what I'm used to thanks to the branching narratives, but I still love writing for it. We started the year with the first entry in The Monster and The Wild series, aka the Ascended Astarion/(eventual) Shadow Druid Halsin verse, as a gift for a dear friend. At the end of the year, that same series now has 5 fics of various styles and is about 70k words. Writing a story that plays with the concepts of corruption and conscience in markedly different ways between each entry has been a difficult and enjoyable experience. Besides finishing the lighter in tone 5th fic, there is a heavy 6th one plotted that I'm very excited about and hope to release in 2025. There are still many storylines to wrap up and characters to check in with, so who knows how much more I will write! In February, I finished up my one Ace of Diamond fic for Chrismiyu day called Full House. It's part of a mafia/card sharks inspired verse that has nothing to do with baseball. I don't know if I'll have anything in store for Chrismiyu day in 2025, but I still have a few notes and unfinished fics floating around out there if I decide I want a break from writing fantasy. Then in May was Girdled Roots, which was easily my favorite thing to write this year and the fic I'm most proud of. It is the amalgamation of a ton of research, combing obscure references to my favorite potential canon events that very few people have experienced in bg3 along with my nature nerd tendencies. I was so excited to write something dark yet hopeful about the post game; a character study where the characters didn't immediately get a happily ever after the credits roll and the epilogue was treated as a typical 'class reunion' where only palatable, partial truths about their day-to-day lives were told to each other. As a bonus, this fic also touched on almost all the companions, which allowed me to write some relationships I rarely get to in my other plots.

Past Meetings, Future Greetings was in November, a vignette fic following a mildly de-aged Halsin along with each companion in the Shadow-Cursed Lands. A mix of silly, a bit sexy, and serious, it was fun to write from everyone's point of view other than Halsin's for once. I'd love to come back to this one in 2025 and play with some other scenarios involving temporarily 100-year-old Halsin if time and inspiration allow.

And now, as we wrap up December, I'm just starting Polar Bear in a Snowstorm as a new entry in the Monster and the Wild series. This is mostly an excuse to write dragons and evil domesticity, and I'm having a blast with it. There are a lot of chapters planned for this one, though most are intended to be rather short. I'm looking forward to working on it in the new year, and hope the readers who enjoy my bg3 niche have fun with it, too! Happy new year to all. See you in 2025!

[gumnut-logic]

*sneaks into your asks with WIP questions*

8. ♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP

Follow up question if you’re up for it - how do you deal with shedding stuff that isn’t working?

(I’m struggling with getting attached to ideas or bits I’ve written and it’s hard to say nah I’ll bin it because WORDS exist 🥺)

11. 🛠Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

(Any tips on pushing through? You’ve written so many amazing epics I’m guessing there must have been times you got around a problem)

*lurks and awaits nuggets of nutty wisdom*

Ooooohkaaay, a scrapped idea ::pokes brain::

When I start writing, a good part of the time, I have no idea where I'm going. Sometimes I will have a single scene to write towards, sometimes I will scribble down a vague skeleton of an idea, but a lot of the time I have the scene I start with and then have to work out how the hell they got into that situation.

For example, my current 'Virg got shot' fic. I wrote that from a prompt that pretty much outlined the scene in purpose. Someone interrupting another person, trying to get their attention, but that person is too busy and brushes them away, until they say that they are shot and the freak out happens. Which is essentially what I wrote.

The purpose of writing it was just to write. I had zero plans of expanding it, I don't need any more wips. But then...

What about Scott's point of view? Would be interesting to see his thoughts, so I started writing that second bit. John poked his nose into the equation as I often like to let my characters' thoughts wander - it can be entertaining.

By the end of writing that bit, the fic is calling out for more. What's next? Could be a hospital scene...eh, boring...hmmm, why did he get shot? Is it related to anything else that has sprung up in the story? Damnit, I can't write tomorrow cos I have to work all day pretty much 8am - 8pm. But that is not going to stop me from building ideas.

But anyway, I'm waffling, I do that.

For Sweetapple part 3, I have a definite scene I'm writing towards. There will be a moment and I will love it and it will be great. Whenever I finally get there. And if it plays out as I see it or the story demands something else, well, hopefully that will be fun, too.

Cos sometimes those scenes change. 'Gentle Rain' was all about one scene that occurred in Chapter 12, but that scene never happened in the way it was conceived (cos it would have killed da Virg and we can't do that), so it came out differently. Ultimately I find character logic and plot demands write the story.

I have written myself into corners, even one where things took a sharp turn simply because I didn't have the energy to write what needed to be written if the story continued in the direction it was going. See if you can work out where I changed direction in 'Who do you save, John?' It bugs me each time I reread it and I'm tempted to write an alternative ending because it could have been so much more.

Then there are the fics with massive plot holes that I can't fix and just have to watch them as they sail past. 'The Tattoo' has a massive hole in it, but I wanted to explore the concept, so completely ignored it. The pedantic in me has a fit every time.

And I'm still waffling, sorry.

A scrapped idea...none in my current wips because...hold on...Callisto. I stopped writing Callisto because it was Virgil's birthday at the time and I needed a break, but mostly because I felt I was writing into a corner. Virgil was too whumped to function and I needed him to be funtioning. Multiple rereads has me questioning that decision, I could just keep writing and work around it. Also, Jeff isn't working the way I wanted him to, plus the Mechanic went on the voyage but hasn't had any impact on the plot. Wanted him to do stuff, but it hasn't written itself. So I stopped to re-evaluate. Unfortunately that is not how I normally write and stopping was a mistake cos I stopped...for years. I haven't thrown bits of the fic out yet, but it needs some fixing.

If I do 'throw something out' of a fic, I always keep it. I have a file that usually sits next to my main fic file that says something like 'Callisto - cuts'. I stash cut text in there just in case I need it later. Most of my long fics have one of those files sitting around somewhere.

What am I struggling with? This is also for @sofasurf ::hugs:: who also asked.

My problem isn't ideas, it is usually focus. Put it this way, if I was a kid in school now, I'd be diagnosed with some attention difficulties or executive dysfunction or whatever. I'm definitely on the spectrum (that was diagnosed when I was four, but my parents didn't believe the doctor apparently). I've had years of practise working with my brain and have minimised its effects on work and my life (being unable to finish things is a real curse) but as you can see, my creative life is still impacted.

So writing...I can only write in short bursts. My longest ever was 7000 words in one day, all day. Most of the time I write between 400 and 1500 words at a time. I use the Terry Pratchett method of 400 a day when I can, which is why you will often see short bits of my fic flung up on my blog. I try to write to a publishable point and not stop in the middle of a crucial scene or something, but both my working life and my attention span impact on what gets written. Some of those fics were all written on the side of the road outside my kids school in tiny little bits, fifteen minutes here, ten minutes there, that kind of thing. It has been a big thing for me to learn that little bits can make big things. I am now using this theory with my crochet as well :D

As for my current WIPs challenges. It comes back to asking myself questions - why was Virg shot? (I have an answer and I like it, but the fic will likely get bigger and Scotty might need to take out another country :D)

Vamp!Virg fic - currently deciding between POVs for the next scene. Also need to build some world rules.

Getting around problems can be simply switching POV or someone walks into the room. Characters can also be the greatest source of problems. Like the time Alan decided he wanted to visit the site of his mother's accident - I knew the moment I wrote his line that I now had several thousand more extra words to write and a pile of research to do (I now know a lot about Mount Rainier :D). But writing those words ended up with that ending....which I am so soppy about. I wrote poetry for goodness sake.

Ah, it's 10.30pm and I'm rambling all over the place making little sense.

In the end it is just writing. Don't push yourself too hard, remember it is supposed to be fun, not torture (yeah, right) and often a good thing to do is to poke a friend and ask them to slap you around the head a couple of times to knock some sense in. I have had several Thunderfam members do this for me. Thanks guys :D

Write little, write big, just write and see what happens.

Nutty

(sense is apparently optional)

[autumnalwalker]

Solarpunk Witch Masterpost

Note: This is mostly just a repost of a prior post of mine, but with a more indicative title regarding its content and thus more suited to future linking and editing should I ever get around to revisiting the project and adding more.

So anyway, back when I was working on @thearchivistsjournal, I made the ambitious-but-perhaps-ill-advised attempt to simultaneously write a second ongoing journal-style story on a fixed chapter schedule. This became what I've referred to from time to time on this blog as the "Untitled Solarpunk Witch Story." It was my first attempt at writing dialogue and proper prose (as opposed to all epistolary journal format) so it came out pretty rough and I put the project on hold indefinitely. It's something I'd like to revisit one day once I feel I can better do the idea justice, but I'm fond enough of the concept that I thought it might be fun to share the couple of chapters that I wrote for that rough draft.

Also, I wrote it as a part of playing the solo journaling game "Village Witch" by Eliot Silvarian. The idea was that each week I'd do a tarot card draw and use the corresponding prompt from that game as my prompt for that week. And, similar to The Archivist's Journal, the time passing IRL would correspond to the time passing in the story, albeit broken up into bigger chunks.

So, anyway, without much further preamble, here are the links to those rough chapters:

Prologue: Setting Out

Vernal Equinox, Five of Pentacles

Spring, Week 1, Seven of Cups

Spring, Week 2, Three of Swords

Spring, Week 3, Ten of Swords

Spring, Week 4, The High Priestess

Spring, Week 5, Five of Swords

See also: The Witches' Testaments, a series of interviews serving as a prequel of sorts regarding how the world made the transition from cyberpunk dystopia to what's seen here.

Also, a bit of worldbuilding trivia as to why the familiars take the form of robotic animals: Link

[coyote-nebula]

20 Questions for Writers

Thanks for the tag, @cuephrase and @wildsofmarch!

Also, thank you @motleyfam for locating the lost question lol

1. how many works do you have on AO3?

29

2. what's your total AO3 word count?

182,782

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Just Batman now

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Spike (3,470 words) - the kudos leader by far. I gave Tim roofie trauma, invoked by being stealth drugged at home. Kind of a spite fic categorically, but I think I'd prefer awareness as an intention over spite 😂 this author's life has been a bit weird Tim in a Bottle (38,683 words) - Tim, trapped in an industrial freezer with Jason, is attacked by memories in the text equivalent of a bottle episode. I know it combines two tricky qualities-- extensive conversation in one room and flashbacks-- but it seems to work alright anyway lol Tap Out (8,002 words) - Jason and family attend a gallery event for Damian, and Jason reflects on trusting Bruce. Now that I think about it, this is quite a lot like both Spike and Tim in a Bottle 😂 Except Tim (2,772 words) - Tim gets lost in the woods with his abandonment issues for company. Featuring both Bambi and Lady and the Tramp references Harvest (30,129 words) - Bruce and Jason harvest some corn and engage in hallmark movie emotion-having. I like the punchability to huggability ratio Bruce has is this

5. do you respond to comments?

Yep! Sometimes, lol. I'd love to answer all of them, but I don't have the spoons. I still reread and kick my feet over them though

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

Hmmm... Pretty much all my fics have some kind of comfort ending. I'm gonna go with a friend, though he may wander far, because of the guilt and injury it ends on.

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

Again, they all strive for a relatively happy ending... so I'll say sweetgum, which is pretty angst-free to begin with.

8. do you get hate on fics?

Every once in a while, but nothing memorable. Mostly they're some kind of out of nowhere complaint about deviation from canon, at which I tap the 'alternate universe' sign and delete

9. do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I don't. Not my thing!

10. do you write crossovers?

I haven't... if I did it would probably be pretty niche lol

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. There is a pretty cool fic inspired by TiaB written in Polish, though!

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

Not too long ago! Me and @batbirdies wrote Tip for a Successful Interview: Lie (Down) :)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Platonic: whatever I'm currently writing, usually 😂Tim & Jason, right now Romantic: This isn't my thing as much, but I do get a lot of amusement out of an ace batcat ship concept

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

I stubbornly hold out hope for the completion of all my WIPs. That said, probably the Jason & Tim horror one lol

16. What are your writing strengths?

Weaving in flashbacks has gotten good feedback. In general, I think I'm pretty good at being concise (at least, I find editing off words a lot of fun)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Being a little too concise or obscure, sometimes 😂 losing clarity. Overcomplicating things until I either have an unwieldy WIP on my hands or have sacrificed my motivation for solving all the mysteries before I write the fic

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've played with it a little. I think <using brackets> so the translation is in-text works best for me

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Trek: The Original Series, unless you count the thinly veiled MASH fan comic I messed around with

20. Favourite fic you've written?

make me a cradle (1,811 words) - wrote this in a semi-fugue state and I'm uncommonly satisfied with it-- Alfred's voice has a neat quality, it's sufficiently punchy, and it does exactly what I wanted it to do. It even manages a comforty ending! Ironically, it's my lowest ranking fic by kudos 😂 probably owing to the sensitive subject (attempted suicide) and being marked incomplete (with another sensitive subject, grief over Jason's death, promised). (Now that I think about it, I think I might have stealth released this also lol) Seriously considering marking it complete, though, since it stands well on its own. The mentioned follow up might happen someday, but the mood to write incredibly sad fic doesn't happen very often!

I will tag @batbirdies and whoever else would like to claim I tagged them 😂