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Readers, make sure you have all your favourite Ao3 fics downloaded.

Writers, make sure you have copies of all the fics you have posted on Ao3.

I don’t want to be alarming, but things could get really bad really fast. OTW shared this today on Twitter, and I'm a bit worried about it 😅

Ao3 is a non-profit organisation. If they have to start paying taxes, I have no idea what will happen.

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asexual heteroromantic & heterosexual aromantic people I love you <3 never ever let anyone tell you you’re “not queer enough” or “aren’t lgbtq+”. doesn’t matter if you’re cis. I love you forever and always.

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My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.

I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”

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there's oceans between you and me (once again)

rated: E | wc: 9.5k | chap. 1 | chap. 2 | chap. 3 | chap. 4 | chap. 5 | chap. 6

summary:

Bradley doesn’t really know when it ended. If he’s honest, he doesn’t know when it began, either. He and Jake are like the tides, pulling in and pushing out on an endless cycle with no discernible edge. Sure, there’s a pattern there, but Bradley can’t find it, can’t control it. Or maybe he can, but he doesn’t want to. If there’s an end to be found, he doesn’t want it. Even if that means he’ll be dragged out every time he’s pulled in.

or

bradley's afraid of fate, and jake doesn't believe in it

or

the soulmates au

header my the loml chloe @bradleybonkbradshaw

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A great Twitter thread on character-driven stories, character arcs, and agency by Naomi Hughes

(The link she referenced is this article)

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ok lmao I would think this was like. public fucking knowledge or whatever but apparently it isn’t so. fic writers do not owe you a regular updating schedule. they don’t owe you an update, period.

if you want a new chapter for a fic I’m writing, for the love of god, just wait. I’m not gonna abandon my fics, but I do have a life of my own. so sometimes life catches up with me or a new plot bunny for another fic hits and I get a little slow. but I’ll get round to it! so please, Please, don’t leave me messages like this LOL.

trust me, demanding new chapters from me is going to make me want to update the fic even less. exercise a little courtesy when requesting me for an update! be nice about it! don’t be a dick! thanks for coming to my ted talk

edit: also. received this comment under an update for ANOTHER fic, which is.... yeah! like absolutely none of you are obligated to read every single one of my fics but to demand an update for a different fic when I’m updating another one entirely is kinda like going to a house you’re visiting and taking a fat shit on the carpet. like. don’t do that. come on

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my brother in fanfiction, you chose to open the bag why are you surprised the dove is dead? 

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weeks after the mission, rooster meets mav at penny’s for dinner. he’s seated at the picnic table on the back deck, chatting back and forth with amelia about one of her assignments for school as maverick covers the grill.

when they’re finished going over her paper, rooster’s notes written in the margins of her latest draft, amelia heads inside to help her mom with the last bit of dinner prep.

rooster waits until mav’s shut the lid to the grill and seated across from him before he works up the courage to ask something he’s wondered for years.

“do you ever regret pulling my papers, mav?”

maverick lets out a soft noise like he’s been expecting the question, sitting up a little straighter and shifting his beer bottle from his right hand to his left and back again.

“I’m not trying to start anything,” rooster promises. “it’s in the past. but I’m just. I wonder, sometimes.”

nodding, maverick meets his eyes. “I know, kid. I get it. I wonder, too.”

“it really fucked me up for a while, mav,” rooster admits. “felt like you’d lost faith in me.”

“I know,” maverick whispers. “honestly, bradley, that’s what I regret. the fact that I’m the one that made you doubt yourself, that’s. i’ll never forgive myself for that.”

rooster looks down at his hands, picking at the dry skin on his palm. “i’d be a different kind of pilot if you hadn’t done it. I know that much. I just — I don’t know if that would make me a better pilot now or a worse one.”

maverick gets up and goes back to the grill, opening the lid and grabbing the tongs as he admits, “I think I’d have been a little less reckless as I got older. wouldn’t have taken so many chances in the air if you and I were still talking. but being reckless is also what helped to get you home safely.”

“you got all of us home safely,” rooster reminds him.

maverick just nods, jaw clicking shut for a moment.

“you and i lost a lot of time, mav,” bradley continues, chest aching with the weight of years spent without a parent. “we almost didn’t get the chance to make it up at all.”

“but we did, bradley,” maverick counters, voice gentle. “because of you. because of the pilot you are. and like you said, we’ll never know what the alternative is. but what I do know is i’m grateful as hell for who you are now. despite everything I screwed up, you turned out alright.”

rooster hums, shrugging a shoulder. “you didn’t screw up everything. you did a lot of stuff right, too.”

maverick meets rooster’s eyes, smiling a little before he shifts his focus back to the grill. “well. one of the things I should’ve been better about was making sure you knew how much I believed in you, kid.”

“I know that now.”

“still gonna tell ya,” maverick says firmly. “you are one of the best men I know, bradley, and I am so proud of you. every single day.”

there’s a lump in rooster’s throat when he swallows and looks down. “thanks, mav. that’s — yeah. thanks.”

somewhere in his mind, the eighteen year old boy he used to be — orphaned, hurt, and alone — finally finds peace.

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I'm not sure I can express this sentiment strongly enough, but I'm going to try via the medium of large bolded text.

Write what the fuck you want.

Write what makes you happy. Write what makes your soul sing. Write what fucks you up and makes you cry. Write what comforts you. Write what distracts you. Write what you want to read. Write what you want to watch.

Write what you want to dream about tonight.

Write what you can't get enough of. Write what you're completely obsessed with. Write what wakes you up at 4am and drags you out of bed because you can't stop thinking about what your characters are going to do next.

Write what turns you on, if that's your vibe. Write characters you're in love with and characters who inspire you and characters you want to be friends with and characters you fucking hate but oh my god they're so much fun.

Write about things you would sell your soul to do in real life and things you would never do in real life. Write about things that are happening right now and things that happened a thousand years ago and things that might happen in the future and things you wish could happen.

Write to get a publishing deal or to sell your books yourself or not to sell your books at all. Write for your friends or for strangers or for the people who reblog your posts on Tumblr and send you songs that remind them of your characters.

Write for yourself.

Fuck any system that tells you there's only one right way to create or one valid way to share your writing. Your story, the way you tell it, has so much value. Make people smile or piss people off or do both of those things because art is divisive and fascinating and beautiful.

Start writing. Keep writing. And write what the fuck you want.

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If posting fic online has taught me anything, it’s that I have no idea how the reader will react to anything. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Not the faintest clue.

Fics that I think I scribbled off just to get them out there get the kindest, most rapturous feedback. Fics I slaved over, agonized over, bled my soul into get a couple tepid replies. Fics I thought were me revealing the darkness and weird kink that lives in my brain, scared to even post it for fear of judgement, get, “Aaaw that’s so sweet!” replies. Baffling.

My conclusion? You just never know. You really just can’t know. When I did a workshop with 20 other writers I would try to guess what their critique of my story would be and I was right maybe 1 in 20 times. Only one other writer would have the same critique for my story that I had. And it wasn’t even always the same person.

The encouraging part about this is, if self recrimination, the fear that you know what people won’t like about your story, is holding you back, just say fuck it! You’re almost certainly wrong! All you can do is make it the best story you can for the energy you have. And yeah, sometimes that means scribbling it out in an evening and kicking it out to the void of the internet before you can change your mind or worry about editing it more than once because then you’ll never post it.

It’s all chaos, man. You don’t get to decide what the audience thinks. All you can do is create it and put it out there for them to decide.

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sometimes I think about the power we, writers, hold in this world.

we create entire worlds from words and thoughts and pictures. we create things, things that love and hurt and feel—just like us. we create things who stand by people like us at our lowest, and bring them to their highest.

sometimes I think of the writers like us who hold such incredible power, and the things they do in the world with it.

something one person decides to put to paper one day could eventually be someone else's universe. writing is an all-consuming thing, and it is oh so powerful.

sometimes I think about that.

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Writeblr PSA

PUT YOUR WRITING UNDER A READ MORE IF YOU POST IT ON TUMBLR!!!!

If you don’t, any reblogs will still have the writing if you ever delete it. Using a read more is just a little bit of protection in case you ever need to delete the writing/excerpt. It’s just a nice bit of security to have.

If you’re on mobile, you can type “:readmore:” in order to get a read more if you didn’t know that already!

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Self care is listening to the beach boys and imagining an ending where Iceman and Maverick retired together instead of the canon.

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SMILE

They often forget that those who smile,

Most often cry when left alone. 

To mask their pain and their deep sorrow, 

They greet their torment with a smile.

For if they smile then all is well, 

And others won't ask why it fell.

To smile means protection, a way to preserve, 

What little soul is left from this cruel, dark world. 

A smile means joy, so that they can pretend

To be that free little child, who will never live again.

To smile means you're fine, 

So they can ignore the breaking of the soul. 

To those that smile, not for themselves,

A smile I give, and the rest of my joy,

So that when you smile, it may be a little more true, 

So my dear friend, I smile for you. 

-Vieno

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THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN WHATEVER DC HAS HIM !!!!

Been working on a costume design for Damian