#while I have two chapters written and a few partially drafted too

[velvetwyrme]

oouuouua please make a follow up on the superhero pap x reader theyre one of my favorites also im excited to see tf fic from yuo

im glad you enjoyed it!!! i got a comment on it recently while i was thinking abt how to continue it and that seemed to click my brain into action LMAO

EHEHEHE hopefully! soon!! ive got a few things in mind but im also waffling over Really Starting because i have so many things ongoing but... auauugh the IDEAS plague me!!!!

also heres a sneak peek into my brain because im in the mood to chatter, but feel free to skip it if you so desire:

for Origin Story im LOOSELY planning any continuation/s to be kinda standalone stories all centered around a superhero trope (like the Origin Story ;]) because i think that could be fun to work with. i enjoyed writing some of the larger Undertale cast, something that i WOULD have liked to do in FF, except Edge and the MC in that are both pretty reclusive socially abfjfbdjdghkf,, oh well.

anyway. i have tons of ideas for the various tropes, so its really a matter of picking a place and Writing. i really want to feature more of Alphys in this because i love her dearly <3

as for TF fic... most of them are reader inserts unsurprisingly lmaooo but ive got a few non-reader inserts floating around there too. im kinda just throwin stuff at the walls of my mind to see what sticks, but heres a few of my draft titles for your perusing pleasure:

into the fire: noble-ish au with a human reader who is supposed to be gifted to one of the members of the household. reader makes a failed escape attempt torn bedsheet style and is saved :] inspired loosely by the visual novels i used to read/play back in high school LMAO. skeletiano, i will forever be sad i could not romance you.

between you, me and soundwave: reader writes rpf abt mechs on earth LMAO. i see people mention humans writing fanfic about Cybertronians in passing but i think itd be funny to put that at the forefront. extremely silly and low stakes fic. probably.

drift compatibility: mecha! pilot! au!! exists purely because i read 1 (one) fic about plugsuits and just went "hmnngh... mecha pilots are fun to imagine interacting with Cybertronians... also there's DRIFT compatibility... i can totally do some fucked up shit with that" and now it's spiralled wildly out of control because at some point i started thinking about Governments and Social Structures and got distracted with worldbuilding lol. i have many many many ideas and i can only hope i can string some of them together so I can EXPLODE it out of my brain either through writing or art. also theres smut that happens wayyyy down the line which ill probably end up writing first and posting separately LMAO

penance is a prison: my take on Titan AU but as a fic because my brain is so so full of thoughts abt this au. i'll probably just end up drawing a lot of these scenes instead but like. its there! partially written!! im emotions abt it!!!

self explanatory long title: human/borrower au constructicons/jazz/prowl poly. i love rare not-so-pairs a lot and im particularly fond of this set. also i just like thinking abt either jazz and prowl getting menaced by a bunch of tiny guys OR the opposite where a group of construction workers have two borrower roommates. this one is more just random idea dumps instead of a fic but still fun to think about LMAO

ALSO! MINI REC. while you wait for me to (eventually maybe) write TF fic, you should check out boostergoldishh's works on ao3 for some tasty tasty TF reader insert fics. im still planning on making a rec list but they updated today and im filled w/ much love for good writing.

and as a bonus if you got this far (thank you!!): the super secret draft chapter title for the next NEXT FF chapter because its pretty silly

if my cowriter sees this hi. ill share the doc soon but its pretty much empty, its just there to remind me whats coming next LMAO 👍

[ladyswillmart]

2024 Writing In Review

I went ahead and answered some of the questions in this post! Mostly just the ones I can actually answer. Here we go:

One.) How many fics have you worked on since January?

Uhh. Two. Maybe three if ya count the massive AU timeline? I wrote a few small fictiony posts too but I wouldn't call them fics.

Two.) What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year?

I wrote a multi-chapter fic and made a website for it. I liked designing the site and adding pictures, and most of all I like having my own space to put my stuff!

Three.) What piece of media inspired you the most? (This can be the fandom you wrote the most for, the one that spawned the most ideas, the one you thought about the most, etc.)

Actually I think I wrote/thought about LotRO the most this year. Moria was such a surprise for me, I ended up really enjoying that part of the game's story. Unfortunately I haven't been playing it lately since the last major update completely borked my UI and as of today it still hasn't been fixed…

Four.) How many fandom(s) did you write for this year?

I wrote for Ultima VII Pt. 2 and a tiny bit for LotRO and I think that was it! Surprisingly no FF14 despite having a new expac. It was fine, I just don't have much to say about it, fic-wise.

Five.) What ship(s) captured your heart?

I don't really do ships, sorry. 😛

Six.) What character(s) captured your heart?

Princess Zelda from Echoes of Wisdom. She is so adorable! What a cute game! I don't know why I've never tried writing Zelda fanfic honestly.

Seven.) Did you write for any new fandoms or ships this year?

Nah.

Eight.) What fic meant the most to you to write?

Probably Ancient History because it also got me to work on a couple other non-fic things (website, timeline, etc) that I'd wanted to do for a long time.

Nine.) What fic made you feel the happiest to work on?

The ethically dubious wizard-turned-chicken POV one I just finished drafting (Ultima VII Pt. 2 again). It was the first thing I'd written in several months, plus I just like writing from weird PoVs I guess.

Ten.) What fic was the most satisfying to finish writing?

The chicken one. Felt like scratching a very annoying itch!

Fifteen.) What was the hardest fic to title?

LOL I still haven't come up with a title for the chicken story.

Nineteen.) Share your favorite piece of dialogue

"A crowd, eh? Eh, look, Morty! Looks like the gang's all here!" the thief observed, warmly. "Hooray!" "Looks like the gang would have our guts for garters, Stefano," Mortegro replied through his teeth.

Twenty.) Share your funniest line

I feel like this isn't up for me to decide. 🤔

Twenty-One.) What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

While writing Ancient History, I ended up feeling kinda more sorry for the story's antagonist than anything (though make no mistake, he is still a complete blister). I think maybe it did change the timbre of his parts of the story a little bit? My notes on him looked like this:

Torrissio: He has a burning ambition to learn as much as he can about the Ophidian people… Partially to recover their lost magics, many of which are very potent and dangerous (and now banned by the UCoTL, ala Elissa's Time Prism spell). But also, he really is just THAT interested in Ophidian lore. This in itself is not a bad thing, but his single-minded desire to learn as much as he can leads him to behave ruthlessly in this regard. He does not care who he hurts so long as he gets what he wants in the end. That said, although he wants to collect all these terrible, evil spells, it's not so much that he has designs on using them to Take Over The World or what have you. He does not care what others think or expect of him, and he has no other ambitions beyond the pursuit of knowledge. He is thus rather apathetic towards civic matters. The only person whom he ever really cared about is Columna, who is now dead. His actions are tinged with grief; he is drinking a lot.

So yeah, he ended up being more pathetic than anything. I might like to write him a little more some day.

Twenty-Two.) What writing programs did you use? Did you write by hand?

I use Scrivener to organize files afterwards but I actually write fics out in Notepad++, in their intended HTML files with markup. Saves a lot of time in the end.

Twenty-Four.) Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic?

Finishing the story is its own reward!! LOL

Twenty-Five.) How did you recharge between fics?

After finishing Ancient History, I barely wrote anything at all for months. It kinda burned me out I guess. I don't know if this counts as recharging. Mostly I just got really antsy about it!

Twenty-Six.) Did you create fanworks other than fic?

Yes! I made a very cool timeline for my Serpent Isle AU. I also fleshed out a new backstory for Sethys, and I wrote some LotRO posts and more Hivallion stuff.

Twenty-Eight.) If this were an awards show, who would you thank

Advil and coffee… The breakfast of champions!

Twenty-Nine.) What's left on your to-do list for 2024?

Not writing but I'm trying to finish some plastic canvas bird ornaments. I'm 2/3rds of the way there! I also MIGHT try to put my newer Ultima stuff up on AO3. Maaaaaaybe…

Thirty.) What would you like to write next year?

Maybe more Ultima fics? I set up my timeline specifically to accommodate one-shots (like the Chicken story) so I'd like to do more of those, I guess. On a related note, I'd also like to try to be kinder to myself.

[bourbon-ontherocks]

1! 7! 14!

Aaaah, thank you!!! 💖💖💖

1. What made you start writing fanfic?

So it all started with Beth shooting Rio in the season two finale, because that got me started on the brio twitter hashtag, which got me started on fanvids, and eventually in reading fanfics. And then, from reading fanfics, I wrote fanfics.

I sound like the least modest girl in the world every time I tell that story but it all started because I was way too invested in reading A Rational Choice, and while I was waiting for an update I started imagining what could come next, then wrote a follow-up, then wrote a bridge between it and the season two finale, then wholly rewrote the said follow-up because in the meantime it had become a completely different story. And this is how Love and War was born (and yes, obviously, eventually A Rational Choice updated and it was 1,000 times better 😂).

7. Name three stories you found difficult to write.

I mean, everything has been difficult at one point or another but I'll say:

Love Of The Game . A. Nightmare. I was too inexperienced to end up satisfied with what I created vs. how I envisioned it (also I was probs still too invested into pleasing people with quick updates), I finished it in a mad rush, it was all a very stressful experience. I'm still proud of it though, although it could definitely have been better. This is why I don't just throw myself into long and plotty multichapter fics without a solid idea of where I'm going anymore.

Take A Dip. One of my fics I'm the proudest of, but oh boy, what a ride!! From part one, which I insanely rushed myself to finish because of the prompt-athon deadline, to part two, about which I spent waaaaaay too much time wondering if it wouldn't ruin the balance I had found in the post S3 Beth/Rio dynamic...

It's All Coming Back To Me. It wasn't a difficult fic to write at first, but it's taken me much more time than I expected to (almost) bring it to the end, and lately the difficulty has more been about focusing on that fic state of mind for long enough to be able to write something. I feel like I've grown so much as a writer since when I started it that my interests and priorities are not the same anymore, and it's hard to go back to that fic to give her the proper ending it deserves. But we're getting there.

14. You’re applying for the fanfic writer of the year award. What five fanfics do you put in your portfolio?

STOP THIS I WOULD NEVER TO THAT IT WOULD BE FAR TOO EMBARRASSING!!!!!!!!!

So I guess that this question is a very odd way to ask me a top 5 of the fics I'm the proudest of, innit? But okay, I'll play along, since it's a portfolio it has to show different kinds of stuff, right? So I'll pick:

We're Living In A Powder Keg And Giving Off Sparks . A silent post S3 angsty huis-clos with a slow path towards reconciliation that I loved the writing of.

While Your Lips Are Still Red. Fun with a bit of angst. Fake-dating. Bed-sharing. UST. LOTS OF.

Please Don't Remember Me For My Crimes . Look, I can write AUs too!!

Envelopes Comin' In The Mail, Let Her Open 'Em . Rio x envelopes porn. Just because. I mean let's be honest, if one of my fics ever has a chance to win an award, it's this one... 😂

Don't Steal From Me . Because I like the dyptiche structure and the mirroring POVs, but I really really really hesitated with Take A Dip so maybe ultimately I'd go with the latter because it's my fic that has the most kudos of all and if I'm competing at all, then I'm here to win, bitch!

  Make me talk about my fics!!

[corpupine]

A Long-Awaited Update

I’ve been putting off writing this update for a while now. Not because I’m suffering or struggling at all—life is actually really good! It’s had some truly awful, crappy stuff mixed in, but for the most part my life is very happy. The reason I’ve been putting this off is that I really don’t know where to start. Most of you will have noticed that I stopped posting updates of NemaTale on here sometime last year. There are a couple of reasons for that that I want to explain, then I want to move on to life updates and what’s coming next for NemaTale.

First: Why did I stop posting on Deviantart?

There’s no special reason or controversy here. I post on three sites: Deviantart, Tumblr, and Tapas. Both Tumblr and Tapas offer a scheduling system so that posts can be queued in advance. I was able to schedule posts on those two sites, but Deviantart doesn’t have that function, so each time there was an update I had to go in and manually enter all the information. As my life got more and more hectic (which will be explained a little bit more in the life updates section), I found that I was forgetting to update on Deviantart. I kept on putting it off, figuring I’d get around to it eventually. But uh, whoops—the end of Chapter 4 has been posted everywhere but on Deviantart! I’ll get those last pages up and running soon, but I wanted to offer some sort of explanation before I did so.

(As a side note: I haven't been keeping up with updating the links between pages on Tumblr, for a similar reason. I'll hopefully get those up and going soon so you guys can read the comic more easily on here.)

Second: What’s going on with Corpupine?

So much, you guys. Soooo much, and most of it is—like I said—truly wonderful. I haven’t been posting updates about my life hardly at all, and I want to maintain privacy, but here’s a few fun things I wanted to tell you about:

-Got a big girl job working for a local publishing company (I’m an editor by day and I love it, but it’s very time and energy consuming)

-Helped my wonderful husband self publish a book (that I edited, naturally)

-Moved to a different city

-Finally, finally finished a draft for a novel I’ve been tinkering with for 9 years

Oh, and also, this:

Yes, in what may be the best (accidentally) kept secret ever, I’m a few months away from giving birth to a baby girl. That has been the main reason for my absence online as my husband and I have been preparing for her arrival. This baby has been very much something we have hoped for, and it took longer than we expected to get this far, so we are very happy. We are over the moon excited, a little freaked out, and ready to snuggle her sooo good.

So with that bombshell dropped, let’s talk a little bit more about the stuff you’re all really here for.

What’s next for NemaTale?

Months before I got pregnant, I had already finished Chapter 5. The script for chapter 6 is about 50% written—the broad strokes are there, I just need to nail down the dialogue. Then I started my big-girl job, and life started to get a little out of control. I was incredibly busy all the time with my job, and helping my husband with his book, and I really wanted to start using any free time just to rest and recuperate. I think that was the best choice for me; too much on my plate would have probably led me to have a nervous breakdown, haha. As it is, I’m doing well emotionally, but . . . I haven’t drawn anything since about June of last year. So we’ve got Chapter 5, totally finished and just waiting to be queued up; chapter 6, partially written; aaaaand then a big black void in front of me. (Why does that word feel so . . . familiar?) That should be scary to me, but it’s not. I’ve accomplished a lot, even if I haven’t progressed on the comic. I’m proud of myself and how far I’ve come. But what does that mean for you guys?

Here's the lowdown: I’m giving birth soon. I’m not going to be able to commit to any sort of comic goals in the near future. I’m not even sure what the future of NemaTale looks like, but I do know this: I still love this story. I don’t want to stop creating it, but now’s not the right time for me to be focusing on that. Sometimes life just gets too full to do everything on the list. I just can’t keep this at the top of my list for now.

Chapter 5 is, as I’ve said, completely ready to go (except for the chapter cover, which I haven’t made yet.) So I’m going to put this choice out to you guys. What do you want? Do you want me to go ahead and post chapter 5 over the next few months and then I’ll just see you all when I see you, somewhere down the line? Or do you want me to wait to post chapter 5 until there is also a chapter 6 officially on the way? That could take many, many months, so be aware of that.

I love the interactions I have with all of you. I’d love to keep having them, even if I won’t be able to post new stuff beyond chapter 5 for a while. But I really am okay doing whatever you guys think is best with regards to posting chapter 5. Just let me know in the comments below.

All right, I think that’s everything. I appreciate your patience with me in all this. In the past year, so much has happened. My husband and I have gone on adventures. I turned twenty-five and I’m finally starting to feel more comfortable in my own skin. I tragically lost one dear relative and for a while we thought we were going to lose another one—which, miraculously, we haven’t. Spring is here, and there’s a little girl kicking me in the ribs as I write this. Life is good.

[durotoswrites]

For the writing meme thingy: 🍄how do you get yourself in the mood to write? 🍑 do you/would you write smut? 📒 any fics planned?

🍄 How do you get yourself in the mood to write?

Getting in the mood to write and actually wanting to sit down and start writing are two very different things, but they're connected, so I'll explain both.

To set into “creative mode” it helps me to do these things:

Listen to music that makes me think of a character/situation in my story/stories. I've got playlists separated by character and pairing. Sometimes I also just work on curating those playlists for fun and get my brain going.

Bounce overall ideas off of my friends and husband/editor (but he's my best friend, too 💗)

Reread old chapters or recent ones and future snippets based on what I want to do.

Once I actually want to put words down, I get a little more strict with myself. I get distracted verrrry easily sometimes and I have to fight the urge to open a million more tabs when researching a small detail.

I move to instrumental music (I have playlists for different moods like “emotional”, “soft”, “sad”, etc. I usually listen to “soft” as a general soothing background sound, as I can get pretty dang emotional when I write, especially with the stuff I've been churning out lately.

So, yeah, I need tissues within reach if I get upset. (Wow, I'm not making this sound fun at all, lmao)

After sound has been established, I like to eat a snack (something with protein) because I can be under for hours, lol. Eat it and finish it. Otherwise, I get distracted.

I also like to have drinks available. I always have a bottle of water, but I also like having a hot cup of tea. I think it's the time of year for me to switch to cold barley tea.

I write while seated on a recliner with my feet up. I have my laptop on a lap desk and it's a pretty cozy setup.

I basically try to remove any excuse I have to get up once I start writing, because I am the worst procrastinator I know.

🍑Do you/would you write smut?

Heheh... heck yeah, I do. Waaaaay more than most people realize. Stuff I've actually posted? It's pretty limited. I posted a couple pieces (Let Me Love You and You're Like the Sunshine) a few years ago, but I've been practicing ever since. One of my planned stories literally has what I refer to as a “smut dump” in the draft where I've been experimenting with writing different moods. I like the intimate scenes to play a role in the overall plot or have it be a bonding experience.

Despite that, I do have a shameless Gray x Mary story I should just get out there that has zero plot, just two cuties in love. In my mind it's so naughty and kinky and I get flustered thinking about it (Mary is hot, okay?), but it's probably hella vanilla, lmao. I really am grateful that people have been really supportive about my writing smut despite what I usually write, and they've been so encouraging, too! I honestly feel like the smut I've posted is really stilted because I was so self-conscious about it. I don't feel like they are terrible for first attempts, but I have definitely grown more comfortable writing it.

Will The Shy Newcomer become explicit? I kinda really want it to, but I might separate the chapters for those who don't care for that content. Overall, I'd like to write more and post more, and I want to write more than just male x female smut as well. I have some of those in my planned pieces (more about them later).

📒 Any Fics Planned?

Firstly, I'm super tickled more than one person was interested in this. I copied the answer I wrote earlier.

Short answer: Yes. I also plan to bring more of my stories over from ffn to Ao3.

Long answer under the cut, heheh. I rambled quite a bit.

Ask me about my writing processes and stories!

I have so many WIPs that haven’t been touched in years that I’d like to finish, so new planned fics aren’t posted yet. Some of them have more adult themes than most of the stuff I’ve been writing, so I get flustered sharing them. I’ve been at a crossroads, as I feel that you can’t have growth without changing things up. On the other hand, I feel like a lot of my readers associate my works with a specific “wholesome” feel-good mood. It’s kinda nice to be known for something, although that might just be my ego talking, thinking that people recognize my work as a “type”.

Regardless, in the end, I feel growth is necessary.

I don’t want to leave a lot of unfinished WIPs waiting because they stress me out and I have too many of them already, so I’d like to have a bulk of my new stories with a good chunk written before I decide to post them.

Among those include:

A longfic featuring Pete’s farm in Forget-Me-Not Valley (A blend of HMDS with the FoMT plugin and AWL). It takes place in the same universe as The Shy Newcomer (Claire in Mineral Town) and there are a few overlapping moments, although Pete’s story starts first. Pete’s personality is verrry different from Claire’s, and his story was kind of supposed to be the yang to TSN’s yin. Pete’s best friends in his story are Ruby (not sure if I’m adding Tim yet), Nami, and Rock. Readers will be treated to a poorly-socialized pre-Mineral Town Cliff (if you think he was bad at the beginning of TSN, well… heh… he’s a wreck here).

Another planned unpublished story is a crossover of Harvest Moon and the movie “In This Corner of the World”, based on a manga of the same name by Fumiyo Kouno. It was written as a gift for a friend. I have the entire outline figured out and have slowly been filling it in. My friend asked for an AU where Claire and Cliff have an arranged marriage and live with his family in Akiyama, the hometown I had created for Cliff in The Shy Newcomer. I took the opportunity to expand the characters in his family. I have it written during the same time period and society as “In This Corner of the World”, but had decided to write a spreading disease as an allegory for war, but then COVID happened and some parts of it just got really hard to write. There are also a lot of sexually explicit content as Claire slowly grows and learns from her spouse that it’s okay to express what she wants despite sex being a taboo issue. If there’s enough interest in the story, I’ll post it, but I worry it’s a little too niche for there to be many people into it.

Pastor Carter and Doctor Trent are one of my favorite rare pair ships. I’ve had a partial draft for a story about them for a few years now, especially focusing on Trent growing up and acknowledging that he has an unhealthy addiction for things that he knows he can’t have. There are some more adult/sexual themes in this piece, too, including the main character lusting after a married woman (who also happens to be his patient) and some lemons. (Does anyone call it that anymore or is it just referred to as “smut” nowadays? Haha) I always feel so bad for neglecting the folks at the clinic in-game and wanted to write a piece that focused more on them, Trent specifically. It’s a multi-chap fic, but I don’t think I’m going to let it get as long as some of my other pieces.

I also really want to write a short romantic oneshot for every marriage candidate in Mineral Town, around 1,000 words each. So far, I have one for Cliff and one for Gray. I want to write Claire with everyone, because I think it would be fun to explore all the different personalities.

I have more installments planned for A Single Day, including a day in the life of the following characters, all with drafts in varying degrees of progress:

Anna

Doug

Nora (yes, I’m writing from the point of view of the cat living at the inn)

More to come – I think Lillia and Thomas would be especially interesting to explore

I do still have that Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask piece I’ve been pondering where Link befriends the soul of the deku scrub child while possessed by the mask. I don’t have much written about it, but I really love the world of Majora’s Mask. Such a fun game.

I also think about the lead carpenter’s son in Ocarina of Time and that weird side quest involving the blue chicken and the son being lost to the forest. Then that unique-looking kokiri girl explaining that all who get taken in the lost woods become stalfos. Like, did the guy die? Was he sick? Did he want to die? There’s just so much going on there that would be fun to explore.

I also have played OMORI recently and have like… A LOT of feelings about it. I don’t know what I’d write, but I’m still damn impressed at how well the characters are developed in such a short game.

Other games I’ve had vague ideas about writing for include the following:

The Flame in the Flood: I’m thinking a survivalist/action story fleshing out Scout’s backstory a bit more and her thoughts as she’s traveling. I feel like she’s a very lonely person, but isn’t given the chance to really dwell on it.

Night In the Woods: I’d love to write more about Mae’s dreams and what they mean to her. She doesn’t really talk to anyone about them openly, so it’s really hard to tell her feelings about them in some regards. We know that she’s distressed about them, but I’d like to dive a little deeper. Do the nightmares end after the games does? What about Bea’s new nightmares?

Hades (Supergiant Games): I think it would be fun to write more about the events that take place before the game starts, like Zagreus’s duties in the house of Hades, and expand on the strained relationship with his father.

[statusquoergo]

Hi! I was wondering if I might ask for some advice? A few days ago, this idea for a Marvey fic came to me randomly and it's been running circles in my mind ever since. It's gotten to the point where I even started to rewatch the show after three years. I've got certain scenes in my head too! The problem is that I'm quite terrible at seeing projects through. I don't really have the time lately to put a lot of my effort into this story unfortunately, but I also have a track record of giving up on stories I'm super passionate about halfway through. I was wondering if you had any tips or advice? You're one of my favorite writers and I hoped you might be able to help. Thank you!

Hi! Wow, am I really? Wow. I never think of myself as being one of anyone's favorite anything, that's really sweet of you to say, thank you so much! And of course you're more than welcome to ask, I'll do my best to be helpful!

Oh boy, I've been there... Having scenes already playing out in your head sounds like a good start, though! Better than having a vague premise with no concrete ideas, anyway. But seeing projects through can be tough, for sure, and the inherently fickle nature of fanfiction's feedback loop doesn't make it easier. So! Tips and advice!

A lot of people, especially those with little free time, benefit from a schedule, blocking out time in the day to dedicate to writing without distractions. If that works for you, great! But if it doesn't, that's cool too. It doesn't for me. Forcing myself to sit down and write at any given moment is one thing, but making it an appointment is something else entirely, and it messes really badly with my productivity. I guess the point of this is, don't feel bad if you don't stick to a strict schedule, but also don't let yourself totally off the hook; if you want your story to get written, you'll probably occasionally have to make yourself write it, even if you don't think you want to. Moments of vivid inspiration are amazing, yeah, but they aren't all that common; sometimes you've just gotta sit down and crank out a few paragraphs. A shitty first draft is better than no draft at all, and you can always go back and edit it into something you love!

When I'm not actively writing, I do my best conceptualizing while I'm doing other fairly low-energy things, like going for a walk or watching television or something, and then writing down parts of scenes, or even just thematic ideas I want to include somewhere in the piece, as they come to me. (I have also been known to force myself out of bed as I'm trying to fall asleep to write down snatches of dialogue that have just occurred to me... I recommend keeping a notepad and pen close by, it's much less hassle.) Whenever I can find the time, I'll turn them into a chapter, or part of one, but this method allows me to keep engaged with the story even when I'm not actually drafting it.

Lack of inspiration strikes us all, though, and in that case, it's totally fine to leave a story alone for a little while. The key there being "a little while"; give it a good night's sleep or a day off, but then, even if you don't get right back into writing, at least start thinking about it again until you're ready. Or maybe do get back to writing first thing! Sitting at your computer and making progress, even if it's progress you ultimately delete, at least puts you back in the writing mindset and gets you back into the world you're creating.

This is partially specific to the world of fanfiction, but don't be afraid to vary your chapter length. If you like to get your chapters up to 5000 words before you post, great, that's a fine baseline, but if you've managed to put together a few scenes that only get to 1500 words and still tell a cohesive story, or part of one, it's perfectly okay to post that, too. Getting feedback on new material can be a great motivator, but it can also be really motivating just to have that sense of accomplishment of putting more of your writing out into the world and seeing that word counter go up. Not to mention, updating the Last Updated date can make a fic seem more current, and maybe help get it back to the front of your mind!

I think the main theme here is, do what you can to keep yourself immersed in the story you're working on, even when you're not working on it. And I know this sucks to hear and nobody wants to think about it, but sometimes you do have to force yourself to write. If you haven't worked on your story at all for the past two weeks, ask yourself what's holding you back. Did you lose your passion for the material, or are you just frustrated? Did you even realize it had been that long? What made you want to write the story in the first place? What's the ending you want to get to, and what's keeping you from getting there? Remember that even writing a little bit is better than writing nothing! It's fine to take a break, but don't give up!

These tips aren't universal, of course, no advice works for everybody, but I hope at least one thing I've said can be helpful to you! Best of luck!

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

‘author’ self interview

thank you for the tag @itsmoonpeaches!! sorry im a few days late getting to it 😩

Name: thinkingisadangerouspastime / faerialchemist / amy

Fandoms: all of them, lmao? well, according to ffn:

Author has written 61 stories for Teen Titans, Fairy Tail, Fullmetal Alchemist, [redacted], Ouran High School Host Club, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir, Avengers, Dragon Prince, Good Omens, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Fruits Basket, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Avatar: Last Airbender, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Winx Club.

right now, i am active(ish) in atla and the mcu as well as monk and medium, although those last two don’t really have fandoms (at least not large ones, lol)

Where do you post: faerialchemist on AO3 is where my better works are, lmao, but i also post on FFN, Wattpad, and Quotev under different handles. and when i remember, i try to promo my works on Tumblr, too!

Most popular multi-chapter fic: in terms of true multichapter fics (i.e. not a oneshot collection), No Ordinary Exchange wins for hits, kudos, everything. i think that can be attributed to the fact that a) it’s long, b) it’s complete, c) it’s rayllum (most popular tdp ship), and d) it’s a college!au (a popular trope in fandom overall). although tbh, i only have like one or two other true multichaps posted, one of which is incomplete and the other of which is half-focused on an extreme rarepair, so there’s not much competition 😂

Favorite story you’ve written so far: i am going to cheat and say my favorite fics i’ve written so far are the three in my why’d you have to go and make things so complicated? series. here’s the series “summary”:

A series of (mostly) Flash Thompson-centric fics set in a canon-divergent AU beginning after Spider-Man: Homecoming. Niche headcanons*, one-sided rivals to friends (to lovers), and Flash Thompson appreciation abound! 

*Headcanons I have pioneered so far: Flash Thompson has dyslexia, Flash Thompson likes art history, Flash Thompson likes origami. Stay tuned for more. ;)

basically, it’s 50k worth of fics (so far) that serve as a testament to how much i love mcu flash thompson 🥺💛 he deserves the world!!

Fic you were nervous to post: i was pretty nervous to post one of my more recent fics, actually! the fic is called Is This Love?, and i was nervous for a few different reasons:

- it’s half sambucky, which was fine bc sambucky is popular lmao, but it’s also half sarahmay, which is a sapphic rarepair i came up with between sarah wilson and may parker. the mcu fandom has a heavy preference for mlm pairings, so i was nervous by virtue of the fic being partially wlw-centric, but it all ended up being fine! i have converted so many people to sarahmay 😤

- the fic also features my demiromantic!sam headcanon. i myself am aspec but (maybe) not demiromantic, so i wanted my portrayal to be respectful, and as such i was nervous despite everything i’d looked into prior to writing and posting the fic, lol

- it’s a multichap. multichaps make me nervous solely because they are multiple chapters. adds stressTM 😂

How do you choose your titles: song lyrics, randomly coming up with them, a specific line/word used in the fic, and brainstorming with friends are probably the main ways!

Do you outline: sure do 😤 it varies from fic to fic, so some outlines are a detailed list of events in the appropriate order, while others are a more general idea of “here’s stuff i want to include,” lol. generally speaking, though, i always try to go in with some sort of plan!

Complete: all of my recent fics are complete! (although that’s bc i primarily write oneshots 😂) on ao3, i think i only have one fic that’s truly incomplete. (oneshot collections are a weird in-between, because they essentially are always complete unless i feel like adding to them.) on ffn, though, i have four incomplete fics, three of which are from middle school. i don’t think they will ever be finished 😩

Do you accept prompts: technically, yes! but my policy is that i am under no obligation to write any of them. i write fanfic for fun and as a stress reliever, so if im not inspired by a prompt, i am not going to stress myself out trying to write for it, lol

Upcoming story you’re most excited to write about: i actually just finished writing this story today (by hand, it’s not typed yet lmao), but im gonna let it count for this question anyways! it is probably the most self-indulgent fic i’ve ever written: a monk and medium crossover. that’s right, two fandoms absolutely no one in the world cares about but me. i wrote this fic solely bc it was something i wanted to read 😂 it is - if i counted correctly - 78 1/2 pages long, which is probably in the range of 30-35k words? once i type it up (in like,, december lmao) i’ll have more specifics, although the “patching” that occurs when i type handwritten drafts could push the word count closer to 40k. but who knows? time will tell!

anyways, im just so excited about this fic bc it has so many things i like lmaooo (examples: allison whump, joe x allison content, sharona being her wonderful self, and what i hope is an interesting murder mystery!)

Stories you’re most excited to read: literally anything and everything my friends are working on! off the top of my head: @shifuaang’s tysuki fic, @praetorqueenreyna’s dark!zukaang fic, @itsmoonpeaches’s fruits basket fic, and @ambivalentmarvel’s spider kids fic 🙌

i think a lot of my atla mutuals have been tagged to do this already, so tagging some marvel friends! (this is starkravinghazelnoots, btw 💛)

tagging: @ambivalentmarvel, @friendlyneighborhoodsecretary, @lunannex, @kalliopecosmos, @omg-just-peachy, and anyone else who wants to do this! just say i tagged you 💕

[sapphicscholar]

2020 Fic Year-in-Review!

It has been ... a year (both for global/national and personal reasons). I did less writing than I had planned to. Didn’t finish those WIPs like I promised myself I would. But! I worked my butt off to be there 110% for my students, and I still managed to write words and new fics! (According to AO3, I came in just under 200,000 words written/posted this year, which is more than I expected and a nice little boost.) 

With the whole “5 fics you’re proudest of” end-of-year meme going around (thanks for the heads up about it @chainofclovers!) and having been tagged at some point in a fic-in-review thing whose questions I’ve lost, I want to focus on being happy with some of the things I did! So, without further ado, 5 fics in chronological order of posting that I’m proud of!

1. Swipe Right for Soulmates - Supercat, T

In general, I really dislike soulmate AUs, and that’s putting it lightly. I’ve read a handful I adore; I’ve tried to write through my issues with the trope a few times; and this is perhaps my favorite of my attempts at playing with it! I got to do a few fun things with genre in this rival-CEO fic and write Cat and Kara into a rivals-to-friends-to-lovers arc, which I don’t think we get too often with this pairing. Anyway, it was fun and felt different, and it still makes me smile!

2. Your fav is in fandom series - one Supercat, M; one Sanvers, T

These two one-shots are meant as a  kind of cracky love letter to fandom and the kinds of relational practices it can foster at its best. It came to be in the early weeks of the pandemic and lockdown in the US when, utterly unable to sleep one night (all the nights?!?), I turned to my wife at 1am and asked: “So...which one of the Supergirl characters would be the fandom asshole?” Originally there was meant to be a third fic feat. Lucy/Alura (Majorly Judging You) with my personal headcanon that Lucy organizes the big annual events like fic exchanges and ship weeks and that Alura takes the whole “thank your mods!” A/Ns very seriously, messaging Lucy each and every day of an event with personalized thank you notes that lead to a friendship, then more. 

3. If you give an alien a syllabus... - General Danvers, G

Another love letter--this time to community colleges and the wonderful people who staff and attend them. This fic felt vital when I was writing it (there was a lot of stuff going on at my own university and many across the country that I was putting my job on the line to fight), and it was meant as a gift for a close friend who teaches at a local community college at a time when we couldn’t see each other in person. Even though I’ve only ever written a couple General Danvers fics, I quite enjoy fics about them (they were some of the earliest ones I ever read in the Supergirl tag!), and it’s always a lovely fandom to visit!

4. you showed me colors you know i can’t see with anyone else - Supercat, E

Despite being the only angsty thing I’ve written in quarantine when most of my fics have trended toward the cracky or the weird, I actually really enjoyed this smutty, feelings-heavy, years-later/post-breakup Supercat fic! I know that fic often shows some of the best of what life and love can be (which is awesome, even if I’m partial to messy characters who don’t do well with or think of themselves as deserving or wanting a neat happily ever after trajectory), but this felt a little gritty in ways that I personally like. It’s the aftermath of two complicated women coming together and shattering, showcasing all the messy emotions that remain when they start the process of picking those pieces back up and finding a new way to put them back together. Hilariously, I went into it envisioning something with a similar premise but lighter--essentially what would be a part 2 to this fic if I ever wrote it. It was meant to be about Cat and Kara after this initial moment of coming back together for the first time in years, seeing them sneak around almost like teenagers as they tried to keep this precious thing to themselves while they rekindled it and figured out what it could be away from the judgment of everyone who was there when they fell apart the first time. 

5. Writing Retreats Are For Lovers - Supercat, M

Another AU! Well, Cat’s pretty much canon Cat, but featuring ABD PhD candidate Kara who meets her at a writing retreat as she tries to get the dissertation written and Cat finally gets a writing coach to help her through the worst case of writers’ block she’s had in years. It hit close to the heart and was very, very fun to write! I always have fun getting to bring characters into new settings to see what about them is integral to who they are and what is context-dependent, much like I’m intrigued by the different (and very similar!) ways relationship dynamics play out, especially early on, when the characters are in new settings and/or roles.

Honorable Mention: Queen of All Mediums - Supecat, G

It’s weird and quirky and a first foray into writing a historical AU based on a period I know so much--like, too much--about to start figuring out how to strike that balance between “what do people need to know for your fic?” vs. “what do you want people to know but honestly it won’t hurt their experience of the story if they don’t?” I have a very long nineteenth-century authors period piece all outlined, which I’ve debated trying to make original fiction or a Supercat fic. I don’t know where it’ll go, if anywhere, but it was nice getting to dip my toes into the historical romance genre here, even if it’s just a tiny little one-shot about spiritualism with a sprinkling of nineteenth-century class and gender politics in the US. 

Theres a lot I could say about trends in my fic writing this year (so little angst! largely AU! no new WIPs!), but I won’t bore you all with my theories about why x or why not y. I wasn’t surprised by most of what I found looking through what I wrote, though I was shocked to find that I wrote only Supergirl pairings this year--a variety of pairings (only some of which appear on this list), but still. My writing and reading didn’t match up at all, and my random fic outlines and drafty drafts also include a much broader variety (some seeds of what was, at one point, to become a multi-chapter Grace/Frankie fic that I think I’ll need to ease into with a couple one-shots; several fully sketched out SwanQueen fics from binge-watching the whole series for the first time during the pandemic and having SO MANY thoughts about both the show’s promising notes and its many disappointments, as well as the fandom’s fabulous works; and a handful of notes about Dead to Me that are honestly closer to meta than fics proper anyway).

Honestly I’d love to see other people doing this! Consider yourself tagged, and feel free to tag me in your responses--I’d love to hear all about what writing you’re proud of!

[lower-east-side]

I was tagged in this combo picrew and fic interview by @glittering-git​ quite a while ago, and it sat in my drafts, but I have a few new followers so here you are!

Name: Chantal-Marie

Fandoms: I write for HP (and apparently now Devilman) but I am a multifandom reblog whore. You'll see Captive Prince, Song of Ice and Fire, Buffy, Sailor Moon, and other goodies around here.

Where you post: AO3 with the very occasional drabble here. I've tossed around the idea of xposting my T-and-under-ratings fic to FF.net even though, deserved or not, I still can't stop calling it the Pit of Voles.

Most popular one-shot: by hits, To Keep The Heart's Action (the second chapter is art)

Most popular multi-chapter: Variation

Favorite story I’ve written so far: I go back and forth on this but usually end up with Variation. It is my only novel length, after all.

Fic you were nervous to post: Most recently, New Chevrolet in Flames, because it was my first non-HP fic on AO3.

How do you choose your titles: Almost always song lyrics and titles. I'm a musician, I can't help it. Poetry and novels get in there, too.

Do you outline: For anything over 3-5K, yes absolutely. I sometimes veer away from that outline or, more often, end up writing more, but I love having a skeleton to work with.

Complete: Everything posted is complete except King's Crossing. **side-eyes self in mirror** 

In progress: Every time I look at my WIP list I want to curl up in a ball and cry. Obvs King's Crossing is a WIP, a couple other Drarry fics are partially written (that damn Pearl fic!), and the makings of a sequel to Hero and The Harpy. Also I started a Ryokira fic that was going to be two scenes and now might be over 30K so *shrug*  (omg someone do a Devilman big bang so I can write this) and I have a very angsty mcd fic for that pairing partially written too! Ouch. Just, ouch.

Coming soon: I’m doing Drarry Big Bang again because I'm a masochist. That will take precedence because of the deadline and collaboration. The next chapter of KC will publish first, though. I hope.

Prompts: I generally don't take prompts because I don't lack for ideas, I lack for follow-through.

I waited way too long and don’t know who was tagged already. 😫  If you didn’t do this one, do the picrew or interview or both and tag me to let me know!

[fiddles-ifs]

Your writing process, hand it over

And give you my secrets????

Of course!! I’ll put it under a readmore so it’s not clogging the dash.

I tend to break things down into different chunks, and I do A Lot of prep work before I actually start writing things. That’s just how my brain works. Keep in mind that my writing process might not be good for you.

PREP WORK

Step One: brainstorm an idea for a thing, usually in the shower which is, like, the ultimate ideas font. A lot of your ideas will also be at least partially inspired by media you consume, which is okay! Art is derivative. Just be sure you’re not plagiarizing.

 Write all of these ideas down AS SOON as they happen, or as soon as possible. Look over them later but don’t get too attached to them -- you’re going to throw a lot out later.

Step Two: start writing the thing. I usually do a few snippets before I’m satisfied that this is actually A Thing that I want to work on and devote my time to. Start making an outline of important plot points, make a timeline/chapter index, write down important characters, make worldbuilding notes.

ACTUALLY WRITING

Step Three: write what you really want to write, it could be a snippet, it could be a whole chapter. Save it for later. Preferably do this in a program like Word or Google Docs, which can check your spelling and grammar for you -- I am infamously bad at both.

Step Four: slog through the initial setup to get to the good parts. Continue writing snippets to incorporate later like eggs beaten to stiff peaks.

Step Five: incorporate snippets into the actual work. Continue writing and connecting things. Make sure you have your notes on handy so you don’t accidentally Joss Whedon yourself.

Step Six: rinse and repeat.

EDITING, REWRITING, AND FINAL TOUCHES

Step Seven: go back and reread every single thing you’ve ever written. The whole thing. Have a notebook/note-taking app on-hand and take notes on things that could be improved or reworked while you read. This will take a while.

Step Eight: using your notes, go through and rewrite your initial draft. Hammer out plot wrinkles, weird characterization, cut out scenes that don’t work, etc. etc. Do this until you’re completely, wholly satisfied with what you’ve written, and then do it again. 

Optionally have a friend or a professional editor help you out. with steps 7 and 8. 

Step Nine: add in any flourishes you’d like -- like CSS for a Twine game or fancy .pngs for ChoiceScript, etc. etc. etc. Have these reviewed by a third party to make sure it’s cohesive with the story you’re trying to tell.

Step Ten: Publish! Get bank. Do it all over again.

[chaos-monkeyy]

State of Chaos

For WIP Wednesday, I thought I’d try something different! So instead of sharing an excerpt from a work in progress, here is a list of the WIPs I’m working on in my too many fandoms at the moment, both published and not; as well as some blathering about other *ideas* I have that I (probably) (maybe) plan (hope) to write at some point. Feel free to ask for more details or ‘vote’ on what I should focus on if you want, I can’t promise anything but I am highly impressionable, and when people get me excited about something there’s a good chance I’ll work on it 😂

(it’s a long post so I’m just putting it all under a cut! There’s mention of kink fics & ships, but I don’t go into any detail about them)

Assassin’s Creed

Diletto (working title) Ezio/Caterina and Ezio/Caterina/Leo, where Caterina wants to be the one to do the fucking, Ezio is more than amenable to this idea, and Leonardo da Vinci makes the world’s first strap-on. First chapter rough draft is written, as well as a few little chunks of chapter 2! Writing F/M fic is always a bit out there for me, but I am very excited about how this one is coming along. 

The skills of Assassins  The Ezio/Mario sexy training one! Three chapters published and while I’ve got several ideas for other chapters, I haven’t started actually writing them yet 🙈 I’m at that point where I need to balance I want more porn with not just getting repetitive… 

Plans  I really want to write some Ezio/Leo smut, got this idea for playful ‘how much can I distract you’ while Leonardo is deciphering one of Ezio’s codex pages (he always bends over the worktable to do it and I just. I can’t not). I also have Thoughts about a couple more kink fics, including a Shaun POV sequel to Not here 😏 And I just, I have to write something with silver fox Revelation’s Ezio. No idea what yet, but god damn he’s sexy. 

The Dresden Files

Nothing really in progress, exactly, though I’ve been kicking around a Dresden/Marcone idea where Marcone hires a Harry look-alike to play out his fantasies of Domming the fuck out of that fucking wizard. (Honestly, there’s so many pairings in TDF that I love the thought of, but just never quite manage to come up with something to write for them… Perhaps I’ll continue my read-through of the series in a search for inspiration.) 

The Expanse

Also nothing actively in progress; I have a couple fic ideas that I still really like the thought of (including a ‘proto-Miller getting freaky with the mind games and double-teaming Holden’ threesome), but I’m not sure if/when I’ll get around to writing any of them. If a new book or season comes out, that might kickstart the interest again.

Midsomer Murders 

A short holiday (working title) Just a standalone PWP / Porn with Feelings for my OG OT3. John, Sarah, and Ben spending a long weekend together in a nicely remote cottage with a hot tub and a fireplace, and having a whole lot of sexy sex and cuddles. Probably featuring needy bottom!John and Sarah demanding some good old-fashioned DP from the two of them. I’ve got some of the start written and I pick at it every now and then when I’m feeling sappy. 

Behind the scenes The companion fic to Falls into place. I still have ideas that I wanted to do, but ever since MM got taken off Netflix, it’s made it harder to write for the show at all and for this little ficlets collection in particular 😭 

Midsomer x Wallace and Gromit crossover  This is a semi-secret project I’ve been working at slowly for over a year now, and a rare non-smutty work 😱 I really like it and do plan to finish it.. someday, but given that it’s an actual fucking story, with no sexy times or shipping, it’s very very out of my comfort zone. So… slow going, to say the least 😅

Plans I really do want to write a werewolf!Jones fic for Bobbit, I just need to figure out what it is exactly that I want to do with it… I also I had a few more ideas for Just Relax (the John dealing with / helping / being there for stress-bunny Ben series), but I have no clue if I’ll ever get around to actually writing them out or not. 

Star Wars

(Come) Ride With Me Got some sexy stuff written out for Chapter 3 (I actually wrote it before even finishing BLJ, it’s what got me writing the damn sequel / companion fic in the first place), but I’m having trouble getting the chapter set-up started. It’ll happen eventually!

Orgy fic That self-indulgent fuckfest I’ve been working at with Jewell for ages, ft. Formbi/Ronan, Ar’alani/Faro, Thrawn/Eli/Nightswan, and Thrass/Everybody. It’s maybe a solid half-done? But damn it’s a lot of POVs to get right and a lot of… bodies and activities to keep track of 😆 (it’s frikken hot though, if I do say so myself)

Sequel to Pinned and Control  I did write out a little tiny chunk for that, and Rev and I have Ideas(TM) for it. I’m still tentatively hopeful they’ll come to fruition someday 😂 experienced young sexpot Eli and older flustered inexperienced Thrawn is just too good to leave dormant forever. 

Plans  Still got a couple more Thrawn/Thrass oneshots I wanna write for the Stripped series. But I know it’s going to make me sad as well as horny if you’ve read Outbound Flight you know why so I haven’t been in just the right mood to actually write them yet. I also really want to write a crack-adjacent Thranto gloryhole fic, a deliciously sacrilegious modern Earth AU with Eli essentially dirty-talking priest!Thrawn in the confessional, a Thrawn/Eli/Thrass ‘he had to marry both brothers’ AU of some kind, a NightThrawn ice to fire sequel, and a part 2 for Consequences. And maybe some Thrawn/Fenn porny oneshots set in the Peace Bearer universe I mean what 😇

The Witcher

Flagrant Indecency Chapter 4 is partially written, and I have basic plans for chapter 5! This is a tough one just cause… yeah. More panic / embarrassment than what I usually write for omo, but I am happy with how it’s coming along. I signed up for Wolfie’s finish your fic fest with this one, so I plan to have ch 4 up in a couple weeks and the fic finish by (…whatever the event deadline is, september I think?) at the latest!

No title yet  I got ambushed the other day by a Geraskier fic idea involving an incubus hunt gone wrong, juiced-up demanding bottom!Geralt, and inappropriate (but consensual) use of Axii. It’s coming along very nicely 😏 chances are good it’ll be the next thing I publish but honestly, I can never be totally sure what the Brain will decide to do.

Plans  There’s a few things I want to get done at some point, including: Geralt discovers Jaskier’s glove kink by accident and they have a lot of fun with that; a sequel to Undignified with more omo thirst trap Jaskier; Geralt’s first time getting fucked / being with a man at all because he walked in on Jaskier and now he’s curious and Jaskier is more than happy to oblige; and possibly one or two sequels to Intoxicating as well because I love my problematic dynamics too much to leave it there. Oh! And maybe a sequel to Tight Fit as well, Jaskier is nothing if not determined 😏

[cecilspeaks]

165 - Charlie

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are written about on Wikipedia. Welcome to Night Vale.

Charles Rainier grew up in Becket, Massachusetts, nestled in the rolling small hills of the Berkshires. The fiery fall leaves, pristine winter snowfall, lush spring flowers and sparkling summer lakes belied the average life of young Charles. He went to school, passed his classes, he spent time with friends seeing popular movies and playing popular games. His family ate food together and generally got along. When he wanted to be alone, he went to a small pond, hidden in the woods, to fish. He studied sociology at Amherst College and graduated in the top 50 percent of his class. Nothing about his unremarkable upbringing indicated he would one day be standing in the middle of a desert, behind a roadblock, holding a rifle and a flashlight, and searching for fugitives from his own asylum.

Last month, a dozen inmates of the Night Vale Asylum escaped during a production of a play. As an attendee of that play, I would say that while the escape was clearly not part of the original draft of the script, it made for an exciting resolution. I mean, bout 30 minutes in Carlos and I were like, is there going to be a car chase or a shootout or something, I mean that play was bo-o-o-orring! And then suddenly, there was both! But the warden, Charles Rainier from Becket, Massachusetts, did not like the last minute edits to the plot, as he and the Sheriff’s Secret Police have yet to round up any of the inmates now on the run, somewhere in our vast desert. Night Vale citizens have expressed deep concerns about their safety. A scathing op-ed in yesterday’s Daily Journal by Leann Hart read: “Warden Rainier should never have been in charge of such an important institution. His unchecked irresponsibility will lead us all to be killed by psychopaths, who surely hide now inside our basements, our attics, our laundry hampers, perhaps inside our own pants pockets.” The editorial continued: “They wield knives, ropes, wrenches, candlesticks, or pipes. And when we least expect it, these crazed killers will leap out at us, screaming bout eating our faces or feeding us to rodents. Or whatever other evil actions those two very funny women are always describing on “My  Favorite Murrderrr”. Charles Rainier called Hart’s claims “neurotypical ableism”, saying that we become too biased from movies and TV shows that play up harmful tropes about mental illnesses. He added that none of the peoples inside were of immediate anger to any individual in Night Vale. The Night Vale chapter of the ACLU then responded, calling for in investigation into a public facility that would imprison people who had committed no criminal acts and were of no harm to society. Charles Rainier replied: “I said they wouldn’t hurt any individual. I didn’t say they were of no harm to society.”

But who were the people in the asylum? Carlos and I attended the production of the play “18713/NTSB”, partially to have a nice date night, just the two of us. But also because I was curious if I would see Amelia Anna Alfaro there. The air traffic controller has not been seen since 2012, after hearing voices from the missing flight, Delta 18713. There were rumors she was checked into the asylum. Other rumors, that she had gone off to find the missing plane, and other other rumors, that she was disappeared by a Vague yet Menacing Government Agency.

Amelia was not inside the asylum the night of the breakout. But Doug Biondi was there. He played the pilot of the missing plane in the play we saw. Doug was the impetus for this entire story, really, because it was Doug who, according to Sheriff Sam, had real information about the missing plane. Members of the National Transportation and Safety Board had also come to Night Vale to talk to Doug about what he knew, and Sheriff Sam obliged by sending those agents from Washington DC on an undercover investigation into the asylum. Yet, like Doug and the dozens of other inmates in that fearful place, they did not return.

According to to Doug Biondi’s journal, which Carlos and I found inside the asylum after the play, warden Charles Rainier developed a paradoxical logic for dealing with these inmates. He encouraged them to talk openly bout their feelings under the guise of healing them, but the more they expressed their thoughts and emotions, the more the warden used this information as proof of their insanity, and by extension, ineligibility for release. But as Doug elaborates, if inmates refused to talk, they were deemed uncooperative and of course, ineligible for release. Reading further into Doug’s journal, I realized it’s just like that novel, “Catch-22”, in that there’s a bunch of talk about airplanes. What stood out most to me, though, was the fact that every other inmate Doug mentions also talked about the missing Delta flight. Every single person in there either heard voices of the passengers, or had theories about what happened or were, in the case of NTSB agents, just open to find survivors of a missing plane. Doug railed against the collusion between the warden and the sheriff to imprison people simply because they knew something, anything, about flight 18713. “This is the last thing,” Doug wrote the day he escaped. “This nefarious conspiracy runs deep. Deeper than we can imagine. There are innocent people on a missing plane, and our government wants to destroy us for seeking the truth. Oh well. In other news, they fixed the TV in the rec room so I’m hoping to finally watch ‘Cheer’ on Netflix. Everyone says it’s super good.” Doug makes a compelling claim here, but he is wrong. About the conspiracy thing, not about “Cheer”, that show is super good.

So. Back in 2015, my devoted husband and devoted scientist Carlos, was heading a research project into a desert otherworld, a place very similar to our own. We spent almost a year apart while Carlos was in this alternate dimension performing experiments and drawing charts and pouring bubbling liquids back and forth between flasks. It was hard. We had only been dating a year when he left, but we kept in touch talking almost every day, sending each other text messages at night, like a kissy face emoji with a big red heart emoji. Or sometimes we sent racier messages, like [naughty voice] the safety goggles emoji with the police siren emoji and the first place ribbon emoji. Oh, sorry if that’s a little too graphic.

Anyway. Carlos made friends during his many months out of town, and so when he finally decided to return to Night Vale, some of those he met followed him. They came through a portal Carlos discovered in the Desert Otherworld: a one-sided door. It was difficult to find in a never-ending sandscape, but it is still there. And as Carlos said, once you know the way, you never forget it.

One of the people who came with Carlos through the portal in 2015 was Charles Rainier of Becket, Massachusetts. It was not easy for most of these new arrivals to find comfort or employment in Night Vale, but in just a few months, Charles had become friends with our new Sheriff and secured himself a job at the Night Vale Asylum. Few people looked deeply at the asylum, nor at Charles Rainier’s quick appointment as warden. Few people, in fact, looked closely at anything to do with mental disorders. It it almost as if we prefer not to see the mental illness at all. It is almost exactly like that. Well below the radar of public attention, Charles settled into his new position. And because there are no accounts of what went on in the asylum, and thus no stories of failure, it was inferred that he did a good job. But Carlos discovered something this week. In reading Doug Biondi’s journal, Doug makes passing mention of warden Rainier cautioning his inmates against listening to the voice of the pilot. The warden warns them that the pilot can control other beings with his mind. It is odd that the head of a mental health institution would patronize his patients with their own inner demons. Carlos at first thought the warden was manipulating the mental stability of his charges to stir up their fear and confusion in order to keep them there. We don’t know if the warden profited from retaining inmates or if he just felt an evil thrill from playing these games. But in Doug’s notes, the warden apparently said: “It is possible to escape the allure of the pilot. The power of his voice. Some have, but it is rare. And it is dangerous that you can hear him at all.”

Carlos remembered when he first met Charles Rainier, five years ago in the Desert Otherworld. Charles was so enthralled with Carlos’ stories of Night Vale. Charles Rainier could not wait to see this fantastic town and more importantly, to leave the terrible place in which he lived. He told Carlos that he escaped some – frightening people there. Charles Rainier said he had live in a commune for a couple of years. It began OK, they foraged and hunted their food, they helped each other and shared shelter inside the fuselage of an old plane. Everything was fine. They were alive, but soon the group became cult-like and aggressive, fashioning weapons and manufacturing enemies. The constant threat of violence toward other, towards themselves, shackled Charles’s every move. But he could not leave. Every time he tried, he heard a voice that called him back. So he trained himself to block out the voices. It took him weeks of determined practice, but finally he broke free. Carlos said to me: “Cecil, sweetie, my hypothesis is Charles Rainier was flying home from Detroit to Albany on June 15, 2012.” And I said: “What are you saying, honey-pop?” And Carlos said: “Babe, his plane blipped out of the sky and into the Desert Otherworld.” And I said: “Are you saying, kitty-cake, that Charles ws a passenger on Delta 18713?” But then Carlos aid: “You know, little piggy-pie, all this work talk is exhausting. Let’s have a glass of wine, sit out on the deck, and enjoy the nice weather.

[“Breathe” by Tanja Daub http://tanjadaub.bandcamp.com]

Listeners. I called Charlies Reinier, and I told him what Carlos and I talked about, and he confirmed what we discovered. He was indeed a passenger on 18713. They landed roughly but safely in the Desert Otherworld in June 2012. They ate their few food items and drank their water stores in two days. And soon they began spreading out to find civilization. But the desert was vast and seemingly uninhabited. They were too afraid to venture far from the plane, the only symbol of recognizable society. The pilot lead expeditions to find plant life and sources of water. He exuded calmness and clarity, and the passengers followed his example, occasionally finding peace in this unpleasant and frightening desert. Within a few months, they had developed a rhythm. They were finding food to eat, water to drink, the pilot seemed to know exactly where to hunt, exactly what to say, exactly how to behave.

Every passenger fell in line. They all had jobs to do, roles to fill, in this little commune. The fuselage kept them sheltered from the searing white days and the icy black nights. Sometimes they sang together, walked together, taught each other how to sew, how to cook, how to make tools. The passengers’ fear became comradery, which became unity, which became family. Which eventually became religiosity.

One day they were making salves from cacti, and the next they were crafting weapons. Charles hadn’t realized it at first, but every person on that plane could communicate telepathically. They could speak without talking – no, without learning. They were becoming a single organism separated into dozens of bodies. The loudest voice in their heads was the pilot. They had grown too complacent, and the pilot began to fill them once again with fear, fear of outsiders, of the rest of the world. They began to make barbaric expeditions hoping to find people or things to destroy. “I tried to escape,” Charles said to me. “I tried to escape over and over, but the voice was too strong. It was only when I thought about a little fishing hole down near Stockbridge that I would go to in summers by myself, to get away, to be alone.” Charles said he began to pantomime fishing, casting his imaginary lure on an imaginary line into and imaginary pond on hot desert sand. And when he did this, the voices quieted in his mind. He could free himself from the pilot’s voice, from the pilot’s control. I asked Charles why he and Sheriff Sam were locking away people just for knowing about the plane. He said: “Cecil, I locked up Doug Biondi before anyone else. He’s from that Otherworld, and he knows how to get back, and if he knows how to get back, he’ll join the 18713 and lead them into Night Vale.” Charles said he was protecting our little town from the threat of the passengers of Delta flight 18713. “If the pilot enlists Doug and gets into Night Vale, he’ll recruit who he can and destroy the rest.” “But why odes he communicate only through Doug? I-I mean why not Carlos or, or Dana Cardinal or Sheriff Sam themself? Why not recruit everyone who knows the way into Night Vale?” “I don’t know, Cecil,” Charles snapped back. “But I don’t will into existence by yapping about it either, so drop it!”

Listeners, Doug Biondi is about six foot tall. With an unsettlingly… long smile and dark nightmarish eyes. If you see him, contact the Sheriff’s office immediately. If you do not see Doug Biondi, then close your windows, hold your family close, and repeat a mantra that will clear your head of all outside thoughts.

Stay tuned next for a meditative oummmm. A single oummmmmm. For one full hour, uninterrupted by breath and commercial free.

Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

23:07 time traveler 30:32 pottery class

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

WIP Wednesday - “Someplace You Belong”

Wow so Aziraphale clearly has the best home and I want to move in there. I bet he wouldn’t even notice, he’s super distracted with Crowley these days, right?

So I’ve already mentioned my newest fic, “Someplace You Belong.” I have mentioned it’s a sequel to the bookshop deleted scene. And I’ve talked about how it was inspired by the line of description, with Aziraphale being “as content as it is possible for him to be.”

When I read the bookshop scene, I just immediately needed to write something to process the many feels it gave me. I had already written two Crowley-centric stories from this approximate time period (this Saturday’s “Three Little Words,” set in 1849, and next week’s “In Love With My Car,” set in 1933), and I’d wanted to include a story with Aziraphale from around this time, too. My first idea was a story set in 1967 about his feelings before giving Crowley the holy water. I’m still going to write that one, but turns out HE HAD A LOT OF FEELINGS and I’m not ready to tackle that one quite yet.

Soon.

There’s other possibilities, including something set closer to the church scene, something right after the fight itself, or something in the interim. Also there’s the option for Crowley-centered stories at each of those points as well...

What I’m getting at is, there’s probably going to be another series of stories down the line where I look more directly at the Argument, whereas this set of three is more tangentially around it.

Fortunately, I read the book shop scene, and immediately had lots of ideas!

Unfortunately, this scene came with a couple of big surprises.

First surprise: Crowley showing up with pastry. In the deleted scene he has chocolates, although someone pointed out hard chocolates wouldn’t be available for a few more decades, and much as I could see Crowley convincing some German confectioner to create a never-before-seen sweet for Aziraphale, I also wanted something more period appropriate.

Cue two or three weeks of insane research into Regency Era pastry recipes desperately trying to describe the flavor some mille-feuille because, damnit, the version that existed in 1800 isn’t the version we eat today and that would be like 15 years out of date, and it says icing but not what kind of icing and my God I’ve never been so consumed by a research project!

(If you’ve read the story, y’all now have some inkling of the amount of work that went into those, not even joking, five sentences.)

Second surprise: I expected Aziraphale to talk about his sense of connection to the bookshop, and instead he starts talking about the War! This was a pleasant surprise, because it had been over a month since I’d written “Obedience” and I was ready to revisit his backstory, this time touching on some themes of identity. But I had to kind of pull things around a lot to get us back to Aziraphale feeling like he belongs in the shop. I think it worked out in the end, though I did have to drop one or two details about the shop itself that I’m not sure where to weave in now!

Third surprise: Aziraphale starts talking about his old friends by name. That shouldn’t have been a problem, as I’d written down some backstory notes on them ages ago, but turns out they needed some personality, too, just enough to make the scene work. So I did a lot of research into angels - looking for angels with appropriate specializations, replacing almost every name from the original list in an attempt to strengthen the knowledge connection, even adding some notes on their appearance as needed. Again, a ton of research for just a couple of sentences, but honestly, when I read that part of the flashback it’s a real punch in the gut to me. Now these aren’t just names in a book, they’re characters I know.

Fourth surprise: once I realized I was apparently writing a hurt/comfort, my brain panicked and I forgot how to do the comfort side. Or, more accurately, I couldn’t find anything Crowley could say that would be real comfort given how much Aziraphale had lost - especially given that Crowley only knows part of the story. Aziraphale kept all the most painful parts to himself. And so I could only have Crowley offer a partial comfort, and Aziraphale partially comfort himself, and leave you all with the hope that some time after the Apocalypse, they would finally, really talk about this. (I’m now starting to think of the whole of “Sawdust of Words” as a 6,000 year slow burn hurt/comfort, with me writing all the hurt stories now and just REALLY PROMISING we’re going to get to comfort some day.)

Fifth surprise: all through the first draft, the thing that bugged me was, what does Aziraphale think their relationship is right now? I mean, the Angel has many layers of denial going on, but what was the story he told himself? When the answer hit me, it hit really hard and I had to sit an process it for a bit. I don’t spell all of it out explicitly in the story (I did, but then deleted that line), but you can at least get part of it: that Aziraphale knows what their relationship looks like, but he doesn’t think it’s real.

It’s an elaborate act they go through - Aziraphale gets to pretend he has companionship after being denied it for thousands of years and Crowley, well, if you look closely there’s a few hints what Aziraphale thinks Crowley gets out of the relationship. (While you’re at it, try to spot how many times Crowley attemtps to say ‘I like being around you, you’re genuinely my friend, please don’t feel lonely, I love you’ but something else comes out instead.)

Wow this is a lot of surprises.  And there was one more.

Sixth surprise: there was actually supposed to be a long story (probably another 5-chapter story) before this set of 3 shorts. But I wasn’t ready to write it. So I started writing a different long story. That one got way out of hand with some deeper Crowley characterization stuff, and I can’t finish it. So these stories got bumped way up. The only real issue was it put the two Aziraphale backstory fics back-to-back, but now Crowley feels a little neglected.

Don’t worry. So much Crowley coming up in the next stories you may be sick of him. I’ve been using him as an emotional pinata, sorry not sorry. :p

(Also I’m tired and I think I just cracked a scene I was stuck on so I’m just gonna toss this into the void without even spellchecking so I can get back to that. I’m living on the edge!!)

[imagines-dreams]

Beauty and the Spirit

Rating: PG

Warnings: mentions of some sort of war and imprisonment

Summary: Beauty and the Beast AU.  You, Katara, and Sokka, were travelling around the world with the avatar, hiding him from dangerous Fire Nation soldiers and finding ways to teach Aang how to master the four elements. However, when Aang disappears, and spring turns into winter, your journey comes to a stop at the ruins of a palace.

Word Count: 2426

Notes: I don’t know if I’ll continue this. I’ve written up a partial draft for the second chapter, but this story’s updates will depend on how much time college gives me to write. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please tell me!

It was winter in this part of the woods. How… It was a few weeks into spring. Is this how he got lost? You gulped and urged your horse onward. He couldn’t be too far.

“Maybe he’s just lost in the snow? You know how much of a child he is. I propose we go back-”

“Sokka!” Katara pulled on her hood. “Aang is our friend, and we know he wouldn’t spend so much time tarrying.” She reached out her hand and examined the gentle snowfall. “This winter is widespread. I don’t think it could be bending.”

You stared ahead. Katara was right. There seemed to be no out. “Maybe Aang conjured this up?”

“He’s twelve,” Sokka deadpanned. “Look, he might be the only avatar, but he hasn’t even mastered air yet.”

Katara rubbed the snow between her fingers. “It’s possible that he went into the avatar state.” Her eyes widened. “(Y/n), if he went into the avatar state…”

“Something scared him enough to do it,” you finished. You licked your lips and looked back on your friends.

Sokka gulped, and his hand went to his sword.

The three of you were alone, and the three of you needed to find Aang before something else happened.

You wanted to do more. More than just looking for one of your best friends. You felt absolutely useless riding a horse and searching the storm for someone you had no clues to where he would be. You were doing nothing while Katara was bending snow out of everyone’s eyes and Sokka was standing guard.

What were you in a fight with, Fire Nation guards or ill-intentioned spirits?

You squinted in the harsh cold. Hopefully, it was spirits. You didn’t have any combat abilities, but at least your home was among the books and scrolls of the spirits. You learned quite a bit about talking to the tricky bastards.

Then, just as you reached the peak of the hill, something like obsidian rose from the next valley. You smiled. “Guys.”

Katara’s eyes lit up. “He must be there!” Just as she raised her reins, Sokka rode his horse in front of her. “Are you crazy?!”

“Sokka!” you scolded.

He groaned. “That place is obviously Fire Nation. We can’t just storm the place. We’d need an army.”

You stared at the place. “Actually, I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean by that?”

You smiled at pointed at the black structure. “They’re ruins.” You reviewed the maps you committed to memory as you took out the modern map from your backpack. You quickly scanned it and pointed at where you are. “Nothing. The most recent map I can remember having a castle in this location” --you tilted your head back and forth-- “Maybe a decade ago.”

“A decade ago?” She smiled. “That means it’s long abandoned by Fire Nation.”

“But someone is still there,” Sokka explained.

You shrugged. “We don’t know who, though. It’s still possible that someone Fire Nation resides there.”

“And they won’t like Water Tribe visitors,” Katara mumbled.

You smiled. “It’s my turn then!”

“What?” Sokka squeaked. “You had the last raid.”

You laughed and started removing everything with the Water Tribe insignia from your horse. “You can lead the raid when I come back from searching the castle.”

Sokka lit up like the Northern lights and pumped his fist in celebration.

Katara shook her head. “Shouldn’t our main focus be Aang’s safety?”

“Nah.” Her brother stared at the ruins below. “He’s the avatar. He’ll be fine.”

“You just said that he was twelve, Sokka,” you reminded him as you handed him your map.

“Who has been training since he could walk in combat based on airbending and has learned a lot from the Air Nomads.” He wrote on some empty scrolls and used your map as a reference. “Just, no dying, yeah, (Y/n)?”

You scoffed. “I’m amazing at looking like a helpless girl, and I got some tricks up my sleeve.” You reviewed was with you. Your horse, your bag, your books, your simple inventions, and a bit of food and water. Enough to last you two nights.

That was all the time you needed.

You smiled at your friends. “Wish me luck.”

“Come back safe!”

“Bring back food, too!”

You rode towards the ruins, slumped against your horse. When you reached the gates, or what once was gates, you looked back to where your friends would be. You couldn’t see them, and you felt pride in how many times the four of you have done this.

Logically, it would be a simple mission for you. See what’s inside, find Aang, escape if easy enough or go back and come up with a different plan.

Still… whatever spirit or Fire Nation guard that caused the storm… it was unsettling.

Once inside the courtyard, you yelled in a hoarse voice, “Hello? Is anyone there?” You coughed and let your horse lead you around. You dismounted your horse and smiled at him. The stables you happened upon wasn’t in complete disarray. You left him there and grabbed your bag before going to the two huge doors and asking again, “Is anyone here?”

You pressed both palms against the door and pushed it open. “I’m sorry, but I’m lost.”

The place was dark and damp. A thin layer of snow covered the floor. Columns had crumbled to dust and rubble by your feet. Rust had already covered and clung to the metal decor. There were a few things that were still intact. A few utensils on the table seemed untouched by time. You smiled and walked towards the table. A beautiful teapot was set at the center, still ready to be poured. The teacup next to it was still pristine as well.

…

In fact, the teacup held tea. Hot tea. Steaming hot tea. How… It was below freezing.

You blinked a few times before picked up the cup and gasping when heat engulfed your hands. “What?” You lifted the teacup above your head. “What sort of invention or magic…”

“I’m pretty sure it’s magic, little one.”

You set the cup back on the table and whipped around. “Who’s there?” You sucked in your breath and readied yourself for any sort of fight. You searched for any sort of movement. But the only thing moving was the falling snow. You took deep breaths. You heard that some people went crazy on missions, but you never thought you would be like that.

“Relax.” The voice laughed.

Male, old, and… jolly?

You whipped around. Why couldn’t you see them? Where were they?

“You are looking for that boy, with blue tattoos?”

You squinted against the darkness. “What have you done with him?”

“Don’t worry. Go up and to the left. Top of the tower.”

You blinked a few times. “What kind of trick is this? Are you a spirit? Why would I take your advice?” You turned and turned, and yet you still couldn’t find any movement. If the spirit could communicate, it must be visible.

“Because I want to free him from my nephew’s mistake.”

Nephew? That’s odd. Sure spirits are like humans in a way. They have families. But… it was still weird.

“So you’re in charge of this place?” you asked the void.

The voice laughed. “If I was, I would’ve just sent your avatar off with a cup of hot tea.” It laughed again. “Now, go on. I’m sure your friend is waiting.”

Well, it technically was a clue. It was just a very suspicious clue. You patted the dagger Sokka gave to you and dug through your bag. You had a slingshot, so you put that on your belt, too. When in doubt, you had that one heavy book you could chuck at a Fire Nation soldier. Or spirit. Hopefully, it worked on spirits, too.

You carefully stepped around the obsidian castle. Everything was broken and dull and dark. There were paintings that were ripped to shreds and iron bars that had rusted away. You couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a castle of a prison.

Then, you saw him.

“Aang!” You gasped and rushed towards him.

The boy beamed. “(Y/n)!” He rushed to the bars and squealed with excitement. “I’m so happy to see you! There are so many cool things in this place! Did you see the-”

“I know, but we have to get you out of here, first.”

Aang blinked twice. “Well, uh, you see, (Y/n), I’m kinda stuck here.”

You nodded. “I know. That’s why we’re going to get you out.”

“Wait!”

“Aang, please.”

“No, I committed a crime, (Y/n). I gotta do my time and all.” He flashed a brilliant smile, and you were so confused. You opened your mouth, but you just shook your head. “I’m sure you can make up for it when you save the world. Now...” You stepped back and examined the prison. The bars were a tad rusted. Not enough for you to get it loose with your bare hands. The lock system was simple, though…

You dug through your bag. “I think I can pick the lock if I can just find it.”

Aang took a step back from the bars. “Uh, (Y/n), I think you should go.”

“I’m not leaving you, Aang,” you stated. “Now, just let me-”

Fear prickled the back of your neck and ran down your spine. It was suddenly too dark, and you knew you were being watched. You slowly turned around.

You gasped and backed up so your back slammed against the prison bars. You pulled out your dagger. “Who are you?” you screamed.

The shadowed figure loomed before the two of you, and you knew it must’ve been a spirit. A Fire Nation guard could not strike that much fear into you. Well, you knew what the threat was. You just needed to get the avatar to safety. Somehow.

The spirit’s voice was tired when he spoke like he had been in this situation too many times before. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that your friend stole from me. He must pay the price for what he has done.”

“Yep!” Aang agreed. “I’ll be out of here in no time, (Y/n). Promise!”

You stared at your optimistic friend. Aang was still a child, and spirits it showed.

You sighed. “What exactly did Aang do?”

“He stole from my garden! For that, he shall rot in that cell for years.”

“Wait, years!?” Aang grasped the bars. “I can’t be in here for years. I’m the-”

“Most valuable friend to us,” you finished for him. Problem with training and taking care of the child avatar was that he didn’t quite understand who should and who shouldn’t know who he truly was. You glared at Aang before facing the shadow again. “I’m sure we can replace whatever my friend stole. What was it? I can try replacing-”

“You can’t just replace anything in the garden my mother cared for!” He grunted. “To think so is stupid and careless.”

You scoffed. “Well, I’m not going to let my friend rot in a cell for any duration of time.” You turned around and whipped out your lock picks. Just as your fingers grazed the lock, the metal became scorching hot. You yelped and dug your fingers into the snow nearby.

“(Y/n)!” Aang cried out.

“I’m fine,” you told him.

Some sort of fire spirit? A dragon? That was not good at all.

And Aang. Aang was terrified. His grey eyes widened, and his lip began to tremble.

You growled and turned back to the spirit. You couldn’t leave Aang there alone with a spirit and horrified at the possibilities of what could happen to him. No, you had to do something quick and fast. You didn’t have Katara’s waterbending or Sokka’s plans, but you had… yourself. Maybe a few knick-knacks and books maybe in your bag, which probably couldn’t best a fire spirit. So, you just had yourself.

You blinked a few times. “You want someone to pay for my friend’s crime, right?” You took a deep breath and lifted your head. “Well, why can’t I pay for it?”

“What?”

“No, (Y/n)-”

“Aang, I’ll be fine.” You smiled at him. “You need to go back out there,” you explained. “So, spirit, what do you think?”

The shadow was silent for a few moments, contemplating the twist of events.

You took deep breaths, preparing yourself for the worst. Either he didn’t accept your deal, and you had to comfort Aang before leaving and reconvening with Sokka and Katara to find a plan to break him free from the spirit’s clutches. Or you would be stuck in that castle. You would be rotting in the cell, waiting for your friends who may or may not be able to get past this spirit.

Your friends were talents, and yes, you four had gotten through many sticky situations through your journey, but a spirit that was this spiteful and powerful? You weren’t so sure.

“Fine.”

You blinked. “Fine?”

“You can take his place.”

The door to Aang’s prison opened, and the airbender hugged you immediately. “No, (Y/n), you can’t stay here forever. I won’t let you!”

You laughed. You hugged Aang back and squeezed him a little before kissing the top of his head. “Hey, it’s not forever, yeah?” You knelt down and put your hands on his shoulders. “Aang, Katara, and Sokka are on the top of the hill where the moon rises. Make sure to find them, ok?”

Aang sniffed. “But-”

“I’ll be fine. I promise, ok?” You rubbed his cold cheeks and kissed his forehead. You pulled his hood tighter over his head, covering his airbending tattoos. You smiled a little. “GO find our friends.”

“(Y/n)-”

“Aang, go. I’ll be fine.”

Aang stared at the spirit. Then, he glanced at you.

“Go.”

Aang inhaled shakily. He closed his eyes, and you kissed his forehead again. Just as your lips left his hood, Aang sprinted towards the exit. Your eyes didn’t leave him until he was out of sight. He’d find Katara and Sokka. They’d figure out a way to help you. You just… You had to trust them.

You gulped. The shadows moved again, and your bag was swept into the darkness.

They would come get you. They would come get you, and you could find your bag and escape. Soon.

And so, you stepped into the cell. The shadows moved around you, and suddenly the door to your cell was closed.

I hope you guys liked it. Ik ik, its late. I’m sorry. I told everyone I wanted to do a fairytale AU with someone, but unfortunately, life doesn’t allow me much time for writing. Feel free to suggest any ideas you have for this story, and if you like what I write and have a coffee to spare, please consider donating to my Kofi page, which is linked on my blog page. Thank you so much for reading!

Edit: Part 2 has been up for a while but I forgot to link it! So here it is!

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Fic-Writer / Vid-Maker Meme

Tagged by @educatedinyellow and @gailbsanders, thank you!

Author/Vidder Name: sanguinity

Fandoms You Write For: Lately it’s mostly book!verse Hornblower and ACD!Holmes (although the ACD!Holmes is largely behind the scenes with a long-form WIP that I’ve been focusing on). I also write for assorted small Holmesian fandoms as the whim or prompts take me, and I used to write fairly prolifically for Elementary, before that show wore me into the ground with how persistently they don’t care about Joan Watson. I’ve written a fair bit of Strange Empire, some Doctor Who / Torchwood, and quite a few one-offs in random fandoms, from the Oz books to Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Fandoms I Vid For: Mostly one-offs or small batches that overlap with the fandoms I write for: Holmesian multiverse, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, plus a number of rarer Festivids-qualifying fandoms like The Middleman or Noah’s Arc. 

Where You Post Fic: Most of it is on AO3, excepting some three-sentence and five-sentence fics that I’ve never collected. 

Where You Post Vids: Variously Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion, depending on who threw a fit about what copyrighted music the week I posted it, but all my vids are listed at AO3.

Most Popular One-Shot: “The Sincerity of Dust,” a BBC Sherlock Mystrade flash-fic I banged out one morning and which then went on to eat Cleveland. It has 1400 kudos and is working on 14,000 hits. Its nearest rival is “Score: Q to 12,″ an Elementary flash-fic featuring Sherlock and Joan playing Calvinscrabble, which performed modestly on AO3 but cleaned up on tumblr to the tune of 1700 notes.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: “Holocene Park,” an Elementary case fic featuring dinosaurs under the streets of New York City. If I’m remembered in the Elementary fandom for anything, it’s probably for this or Calvinscrabble.

Most Popular Vid: “Something Good (Will Come From That),” my Holmes/Watson multiverse vid. It has 10K plays, the AO3 page has 2.5K hits, and the tumblr page has almost 800 notes. It escaped my corner of pseudonym-based AO3-centric fandom and has made the rounds of the Sherlockian scions on Facebook, as well as being rec’d on non-fannish websites in French, German, and Japanese. For a little while there it was making me anxious with how popular it got -- at the height of its popularity, I was worrying my mom was going to email it to me. After it hit it big I almost completely stopped making things for a while, because I was pretty sure that nothing else I made would be even half that good ever again. Happily, that turned out to be a stupid reason to not make things, and so I started making things again.

Favorite Story You Wrote/Vid You Made: Yeah, sorry, no, my brain burns out on “favorite” questions, especially ones that have no criteria. I’ll just refer you to my Fic/Vid Speed-Dating Score Card, which can be construed as a list of my favorite works on various axes, and is still fairly accurate despite being a year old. (Scariest nowadays is probably “Tea for Two,” a Moriarty-centric story from this last round of Holmestice.)

Story You Were Nervous to Post: “Any Service Required,” which is dark Bush/Hornblower porn. I always feel hideously exposed when publishing porn -- I’m nervous about posting it even in the best of cases. But what with this being dark-fic, I was half-expecting the self-appointed morals police who get prescriptive about “healthy” relationships to show up and make a stink. Or along similar lines, I was fearing that followers who are used to a certain kind of thing from me will look at this one, think it base trash, and lose respect for me over it. I’m happy to say that nothing like that has happened so far, and while readership has been light, I’m fine with that: I’d rather a story have a small readership who is genuinely into it than a large readership who isn’t, and I’d like to believe that this story’s small readership is mostly due to people taking a look at the tags and making good decisions about the kind of thing they enjoy reading. 

How Do You Choose Your Titles: BY ANY MEANS I CAN MAKE WORK. My preference is to grab a meaningful phrase from the text, but I’ll also use quotes and popular phrases, sometimes straight-up and sometimes with a twist, if it seems a decent fit for the story. Ideally, a title will speak to some deeper truth about the story, but when push comes to shove, I’ll settle for a title that is short, clean, and memorable: basically, anything that I and others can remember without having to look it up all the damn time. (This is my main problem with people using lines of poetry or song lyrics as titles: they tend to register in my brain as generic word salad, and in many cases I couldn’t say without looking it up what the title actually was, let alone what it had to do with the story.)

Do You Outline: For long or complex stories, sure, yes. If there are many scenes or multiple chapters, I tend to jot down a few lines listing out the succession of scenes or chapters; for “The Next World,” whose main body is a long and rambly conversation, I had an outline that listed out every twist and turn of that convo. The outline for “Langstroth on Bees” (WIP, currently 58K) is a monster of a thing, listing out the internal timeline (five years of current action plus another ten of backstory), various promises I’ve made that I need to deliver on, assorted events that I want to remember to include, and rough ideas about where chapter breaks should maybe fall. Given that I’ve been working on that story for five years now, often with breaks from it of nearly a year, that outline has saved my ass. I guarantee you that without it, I would have picked up this story at some point, tried to remember where I was going with it, come up with nothing much, and shelved it permanently. If anything, I really should outline more often -- I have a few long-standing drafts in my WIP folder that I just... don’t remember where I was going with that. I remember that I did have a destination in mind, yes, but what exactly? WHO KNOWS. Btw, my outlines are living documents -- I revise them often, as my understanding of the story develops. In fact, revising the outline is one of many tools for understanding where a story is going and what is still needed to bring it together.

How many of your fanworks are…

Complete: 92 stories or story collections (I have a few AO3 “stories” that are actually collected ficlets from tumblr or Sherlock60), and 26 vids and vidlets, 

In-Progress: Nothing published to AO3 -- it makes me crazy to have a partially-published WIP. My drafts folder has 36 partially completed stories in it, and there are probably a half-dozen vids that I started but haven’t finished.

Coming Soon: Four? For various values of “coming soon.” I have two Hornblower stories that are mostly done (one for the Tegmore verse and another for the Kraken verse), and I’ve been working steadily on “Langstroth on Bees” in the hopes that I’ll finish it this year. And I’m signed up for Remix Revival -- whatever I do for that will probably be the very-most-next thing.

Do You Accept Prompts: Yes! Although I have only a 1/3 to 1/2 completion rate on prompts -- I do hope that no one minds that too terribly! But I’ll actively solicit prompts from time to time -- to celebrate something, or if I’m having a shit day and want to turn it around -- and some of my best stuff has come from prompts people have given me. I never ever guarantee filling them (see my above mentioned completion rate), but if someone wants to prompt me something, my ask box is open. Even if the prompt never gets filled, I still get a warm flutter of “They want to play with me!” from it.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: “Langstroth on Bees,” a 58K-and-counting Holmes/Watson retirement fic that I’ve been working for five years. I added a solid 13K to it this month, and have maybe 20K left to go -- I’m hope-hope-hoping to have it done this year. But I’ve gotten far enough into it that “Langstroth” has finally begun overlapping the territory covered in “From Allegany,” and by the end of this chapter I’ll have passed it entirely. Then I’ll be in unwritten territory, wheee! (Speaking of titles, I never really intended to call this thing “Langstroth on Bees” -- that’s just a working title for my drafts folder. But enough of you now know it by that name that I think I’m going to have to stick with it? So I’m desperately trying to figure out how to justify it. ONE OF MANY THINGS TO DO IN THIS DRAFT.)

Tag Five Fanfic Authors to Answer These Questions As Well: @beanarie @quipxotic @phoenixfalls @xserpx @amindamazed And of course anyone else who wants to play!

[trash0lympus]

I Knew You When 1a - Malec fic

So this is just a very early draft of the first scene of the first chapter, but I've made some progress and I wanted to share!  Magnus isn't going to appear for quite a while, I'm sorry.

Title: I Knew You When

Pairing: Alec Lightwood/Magnus Bane

Warnings: Some swearing, puberty, light homophobia

Summary: Alec is starting his senior year in less than a month and if he can't find a way to deal with this insomnia he's never going to make it through the year.

Or: The one where Alec and Magnus have the same therapist, meet in the waiting room, and kind of stalk each other for a while.

ONE - Somnambulate

August, 2007

Alec can't sleep. It's nothing unusual, to have his thoughts swirling around in a sickening downward spiral of anxieties. It's the same invasive thoughts he spends his days distracting himself from, only to have them assault him in the safety of his bed.

He rolls over for the hundredth time and punches his pillow in hopes of getting out some of his anger about still being awake at 3:05am, a good four hours after he'd laid down for the night.

It's always the same, a veritable hurricane/tsunami/? On the variation of the theme not good enough/repulsive/worthless/no one would miss you if you weren't around.

Alec punches his pillow again, then throws his face into it and lets out a small scream of frustration. He doesn't have to worry about anyone overhearing, since Izzy and Max sleep like the dead, and his parents' master suite is at the opposite end of the apartment. He drags in a deep breath, meant to calm the frantic staccato his heart is playing in his chest, and keeps his eyes closed while he lets the sounds of New York drifting through his window wrap him in familiarity.

His senior year is starting in less than a month, and Alec is already starting to feel like the might crack under the pressure, his father's voice echoing in his head as a steady beat, 'this is the most important year of your life, Alec. Getting into law school is your only priority. You'll be a Yale man, just like your father'. Or, even worse, his mother: 'Columbia is an amazing school Alec, I spent the best years of my life there, you could be something great if you'd simply apply yourself'.

He needs to deal with this, or he's going to finish his senior year in tatters, his former face cut away to spite his former nose. And as impressive as that college entrance essay might be, he's not sure there's any special admission allowances for partial humans.

Alec snorts at the delirious image his brain conjures at the thought, and then presses his face as deeply into his pillow as possible and groans.

He's going to have to tell his mother. Dad would never understand, his world consisting only of the endless parade of 'get up, go to work, eat dinner, sleep, get up, go to work' - a monotonous, nauseatingly infinite loop of responsibility that Alec can't even conceive of. No, it will have to be mom. Alec can tell her that he isn't sleeping, and he won't have to explain to her the true depth of what's keeping him up most nights, and with how busy she's been since formally accepting a teaching position at Columbia last month, she probably won't care enough to ask any follow-up questions.

With a defeated sigh Alec sits up in his bed and throws off the sheets, knowing that he'll never be able to relax enough to fall asleep now that he's started this train of thought. He needs to make a plan of what to tell Maryse in the morning. Maybe if stayed up the rest of the night it might help his case? If he looks as exhausted as he truly feels the she couldn't possibly say no to his request for some kind of sleeping pills, or really anything. Alec would be willing to try hypnotic suggestion at this point. He's always been a bit of a night owl, too caught up in his own thoughts to shut down when everyone else seemed to, but it's one thing to be getting less sleep than everyone else, and quite another to be getting none. He only hopes his mother doesn't dismiss his concerns as his usual problems dropping into sleep, that she simply makes a call to their family doctor and continues not to look too closely at him.

Robert and Mayrse Lightwood are by no means neglectful parents, but in the last few years they have certainly begun to shift some of their parental burdens onto Alec himself. Robert finally made partner at his firm when Alec was 14, and a few years later Mayrse had offered a position as guest lecturer at Columbia Law, her alma mater. Just last week a formal offer had been made to her to join the faculty in a permanent position, and while Alec had never seen his mother happier, she had been so busy she was barely home at all anymore. With Max being just nine-years-old, and Izzy still 15, that meant Alec was in charge of making sure they stayed out of trouble, went to school on time, and completed their school work. His senior year came with both a blessing, and a curse, however. His parents had made two announcements during a rare family dinner last night: firstly, they had decided that Max was now old enough to start spending the weekdays living in the dorms at his boarding school; secondly, Jace would be moving in with them for the school year.

Jace is Alec's best friend - well, his only friend really. It's too pathetic to even consider Izzy as his friend, seeing as she's a sophomore, not to mention his little sister. But Jace, a year younger, and the golden boy of their school, has been by his side since their first meeting when Alec was 11. Jace had just been adopted by the Waylands. He was quiet, but not sullen, and Alec remembers the strange way that his eyes seemed drawn to Alec just as Alec couldn't keep his own from seeking out Jace. They would spend that first meeting sitting in silence in Robert's study, Alec pretending to read and Jace staring at him while making a poor mimicry of investigating the knick-knacks and awards on his father's bookshelves. It was at school that first week Jace had been transferred in that Jace had come up to him in the yard at recess. Alec had been sitting under a tree, trying to enjoy the last of the weakening September sunshine with his latest book in hand when a shadow had loomed over him and blocked his light. It was Jace.

"You don't have any friends," he has said. Not accusingly, just flat, like he was reciting a fact. Two time two is four, two times three is six, Alec Lightwood doesn't have any friends.

Alec had scowled, but responded simply with "no," and sent a challenging glare at Jace.

It had the opposite effect than he'd anticipated, and he was momentarily baffled when Jace just huffed out a small breathy chuckle.

"Okay," was all Jace had said, and all but threw himself onto the ground beside Alec. "You can be mine then".

And that had been it. Jace would show up next to him at every recess, sought him out at lunch and ate beside him. After a few weeks Alec had snapped and asked him why.

Jace had shrugged and said, "your eyes. You don't tell lies, but your eyes say what your voice doesn't".

It's been nearly eight years since then, and Alec still isn't really sure what Jace meant, but he's never been comfortable examining the reasons why a ten-year-old Jace had already known to read people so well. He was the first person to see Alec, and if he was going to be living with them for the next year Alec didn't know how he was going to keep everything together, to keep his secrets locked away where Jace couldn't read them in his eyes, couldn't see it written all over his face.

Alec figured it out for real at 13, during one of the countless sleepovers when they're wrestling like they always do, but this time Alec really enjoys it. He goes so quickly from tussling on the floor with Jace to running through the bathroom door and locking it behind him. He's terrified that Jace felt it and he's willing himself not to panic. He's had the talk by now, even had a sex-ed class at school, and he tells himself that it was just hormones. It doesn't mean anything, it has nothing to do with Jace, he just got too excited, a little over-stimulated. Almost convinces himself it's true until he has the dream. It was all Jace's flashing eyes, his smile and his chest and his arms around Alec and when he woke up his pajamas and sheets were ruined. He had stuffed them into the garbage chute before anyone woke up. From then on when Jace stayed over they didn't share a bed.

He starts to base most of his decisions on a creeping paranoia of being discovered. He knows, without a doubt, that his parents would not like this, and while he can't put his finger on what it is about him that's different, he knows that it's wrong.

He starts trying to pay attention to the girls in his grade, and panics when he realises that he should have already noticed them. Jace is a year younger than he is and he's been talking about girls for ages.

That was the year before high school. When he started ninth grade he planned to keep flying under the radar, but his parents insisted he needed to participate in extracurriculars for his college applications. He tried to argue that he could volunteer in the library, take extra AP courses, or get summer internships, and while they agreed he should still do all those things they believed a sport would create a more well rounded application. It was the first time they had implied he wasn't quite enough on his own. He'd chosen archery only because the club was small, and he thought that at least it would be easier to hide away in a corner of the locker room inconspicuously while they changed, to lag behind and shower last.

Alec dragged his hands roughly over his face, feeling exhaustion clawing at his body while his mind churned, considering and discarding ways he might bring up the topic with his mother in the morning. His bare feet hit the hardwood floor of his bedroom and he decided a hot shower might be the thing to clear his head, or at least pass some time while he waiting for his family to wake up. There was nothing to do until then but wait.

--