#you might even recognize it from the chapter ... maybe its just another perspective? :thinking:

[goodfellowe]

Everything inside of her being felt off in a way that she couldn’t exactly pinpoint, her head pounding in that same rhythmic motion as she blinked her heavy eyelids open. It was as if she’d stepped out of her body and hadn’t managed to fit all the way back in, leaving the entirety of her being to stand at an angle. Her memories were there, but the world they'd all happened in... wasn't. Something else had clearly taken its place, so where was she? When was she?

Jamais Vu (AO3)

Chapter 2: Home

Mu wakes up in Mafia Town— but it’s not Mafia Town anymore.

Art by @mebssann.

[filthforfriends]

Hello :) I am an avid reader and big admirer of your fics and I have a little question. I have noticed you mostly (maybe even exclusively) write from the reader’s pov. And I really like it that way. I’m curious if you would ever write a bonus chapter or a passage from Damiano’s pov - for example in GA. Maybe that might help you with your writer’s block with chapter 14? Also I’m generally interested if you ever considered something similar or what you think about it. I’d love learning more about the process and thought behind your writing.

Actually the reason I write in second person is because I noticed that was the most common perspective fan fiction is written from. It was actually difficult to get used to. I think a chapter in Alpha!Damiano's perspective could be cool, I think thats been suggested once before. tbh I'd probably do the chapter half in y/n's perspective and half in his. It's not gonna help my writers block though because I'd have to intentionally choose a plot that I feel sorta confident writing about in his perspective, which would mean scraping what I do have. Y/n is a character I make up all on my own, but Damiano, while a fictional character in my stories, does need to share enough traits with the real person for people to recognize him. Whatever they like about him, I want them to like that same thing in my character. So that means I can't just do what I feels right to the story and wing it

Winging it is always how I write here. I've never sat down and drawn a plot out before hand, but I spend a lot of time in my own head. When I imagine a story that feels so compelling I can't not write it, I force myself to stay there and flush it out. With smut I try to find something thats a little gross or weird or intense or not sexy and then make that sexy. Because all the times I've done that and been nervous about the how its received, those are the fics or chapters that do best. When you push things just slightly past the comfort zone its exciting and honest and raw in a way I believe people crave. I try to find a couple points where it isn't ideal but that humanness actually ends up making things more passionate, more intimate. My experience as a smut writer hasn't been that people desire an ideal portrayed in media or porn. Based on reactions I think that, at least in this little corner of the internet people desire sex and connections with other flawed, quirky, and real people.

Sometimes as soon as I come up with a story, I come up with another one based on that, and I really get into the idea of the characters. So without trying, I have a few ideas that are 4k-12k words long with those characters If I can find a thread that attaches them and flush it out, sometimes it turns into a series with those stories being the chapters. Of course, writing this way you have to lay seeds so theres plot points you can circle back to so the whole thing is cohesive. Eventually, like I'm doing right now, I have to go through a whole fic and all my notes on it to list all the possible plot points and make sure I'm coming back to those. Because I think in collections of stories like this, I write my chapters our of order.

honestly my writers block is a combination of can't focus, too depressed to do anything, and a fear of failure so poisonous that it makes me freeze up. Like right now I'm currently writing chapter 19 for TSITCOE which makes my brain go "No point in posting this fic if you can't even finish it. You're never gonna make it in time. Better just pause the upload schedule now." Meanwhile I have the next two week's worth of chapters totally done and another two weeks after that 90% done. My brain is just really fucking mean as hell and lol. My confidence in my own intellect was very much based in external validations and meeting criteria society told me I should be proud to achieve. Being disabled these past few years as really taken a toll and now I have a voice that always insists I'm going to fail.

anyways thank you for reading and being so supportive! I hope some of this was interesting writery inside scoop type stuff

[iviarellereads]

The Fires of Heaven, Chapter 29 - Memories of Saldaea

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Ravens icon) In which oh good, that's great, just fabulous.

PERSPECTIVE: Hadnan Kadere ponders a note he received that reads: You are not alone among strangers. A way has been chosen.

There's no signature, but he has some clues as to its origin. The word "chosen" makes him sure it's from another Darkfriend, and the letters are shaped in a way he now recognizes as being an Aiel tendency.(1) He knows the letter cannot have come from Lanfear, because she spoke to him in a dream once and left him with scars to prove her identity, and he suspects she would just have spoken to him in another dream if she wanted something. He worries at receiving instructions from another Chosen, thinking Lanfear probably a jealous mistress.

He wishes badly that he were back in Saldaea, that he could see his sister Teodora again.

Isendre comes to his door, so he invites her in. He asks if she has anything to report on Natael or al'Thor, but she doesn't. He asks if she's been able to get into Rand's bed yet, but she hasn't. He says he grows tired of her failure, she'll have to try harder.

Isendre says no, no more. Tonight the Maidens caught her before she got within ten paces of his tent, shaved her bald, and whipped her with nettles, said she'd WEAR nettles next time she looks at him, and then they'd give her to Aviendha. When Kadere asks what she has to do with it, Isendre says she's been bedding al'Thor since Rhuidean.(2)

Kadere accedes and says fine, no more with al'Thor, but she can still get something out of Natael. As she's explaining that Natael won't want to look at her for days, Kadere closes a kerchief, spun to a cord, around her neck. He sees Teodora in her struggle, the same way she struggled. He couldn't let her live, not even his sister, after she discovered what he was.

He waits longer than necessary before letting the kerchief go, thinking to himself how the Maidens broke her, she'd have been confessing next, and pointing the finger at him.

Rummaging in the cabinets by touch, he pulled out a butchering knife. Disposing of a whole corpse would be difficult, but luckily the dead did not bleed much; the robe would absorb what little there was. Maybe he could find the woman who had left the note under his door. If she was not pretty enough, she must have friends who were also Darkfriends. Natael would not care if it was an Aiel woman who visited him—Kadere would rather have bedded a viper himself; Aiel were dangerous—and maybe an Aiel would have a better chance than Isendre against Aviendha. Kneeling, he hummed quietly to himself as he worked, a lullaby that Teodora had taught him.(3)

=====

(1) Finally, a nod toward linguistic drift. (2) We know otherwise, of course, but a good reminder: none of the characters knows everything, they are all unreliable narrators, and even what we know might not be the whole objective truth. (3) Great, we have a serial killer on our hands. But it's just a teensy bit hilarious that he wants someone to seduce Asmodean. Kadere has NO IDEA.