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[starwalker42]

Personal favourite headcanon: mulder and scully kept the bad blood tape.

For prosperity. For sentimental value. Just because it's a laugh. It's 2018 in the unremarkable house and mulder can't find anything good on the radio so he puts it on and listens to him and the love of his life from 20 years ago arguing about vampires and whether the sheriff in the small texan town had buck teeth or not. It's on in the background as they make (real) cream cheese bagels for breakfast and they're mostly ignoring it but then scully snorts into her plate because: shaaafft !! Can you dig it ?

[starwalker42]

in the google doc. straight up "writing it". and by "it", haha, well. let's justr say. Nothing

[starwalker42]

Things That May Be Causing Your Writer's Block- and How to Beat Them

I don't like the term 'Writer's Block' - not because it isn't real, but because the term is so vague that it's useless. Hundreds of issues all get lumped together under this one umbrella, making writer's block seem like this all-powerful boogeyman that's impossible to beat. Worse yet, it leaves people giving and receiving advice that is completely ineffective because people often don't realize they're talking about entirely different issues.

In my experience, the key to beating writer's block is figuring out what the block even is, so I put together a list of Actual Reasons why you may be struggling to write:

(note that any case of writer's block is usually a mix of two or more)

Perfectionism (most common)

What it looks like:

You write one sentence and spend the next hour googling "synonyms for ___"

Write. Erase. Write. Rewrite. Erase.

Should I even start writing this scene when I haven't figured out this one specific detail yet?

I hate everything I write

Cringing while writing

My first draft must be perfect, or else I'm a terrible writer

Things that can help:

Give yourself permission to suck

Keep in mind that nothing you write is going to be perfect, especially your first draft

Think of writing your first/early drafts not as writing, but sketching out a loose foundation to build upon later

People write multiple drafts for a reason: write now, edit later

Stop googling synonyms and save that for editing

Write with a pen to reduce temptation to erase

Embrace leaving blank spaces in your writing when you can't think of the right word, name, or detail

It's okay if your writing sucks. We all suck at some point. Embrace the growth mindset, and focus on getting words on a page

Lack of inspiration (easiest to fix)

What it looks like:

Head empty, no ideas

What do I even write about???

I don't have a plot, I just have an image

Want to write but no story to write

Things that can help:

Google writing prompts

If writing prompts aren't your thing, instead try thinking about what kind of tropes/genres/story elements you would like to try out

Instead of thinking about the story you would like to write, think about the story you would like to read, and write that

It's okay if you don't have a fully fleshed out story idea. Even if it's just an image or a line of dialogue, it's okay to write that. A story may or may not come out of it, but at least you got the creative juices flowing

Stop writing. Step away from your desk and let yourself naturally get inspired. Go for a walk, read a book, travel, play video games, research history, etc. Don't force ideas, but do open up your mind to them

If you're like me, world-building may come more naturally than plotting. Design the world first and let the story come later

Boredom/Understimulation (lost the flow)

What it looks like:

I know I should be writing but uugggghhhh I just can'tttttt

Writing words feels like pulling teeth

I started writing, but then I got bored/distracted

I enjoy the idea of writing, but the actual process makes me want to throw my laptop out the window

Things that can help:

Introduce stimulation: snacks, beverages, gum, music such as lo-fi, blankets, decorate your writing space, get a clickity-clackity keyboard, etc.

Add variety: write in a new location, try a new idea/different story for a day or so, switch up how you write (pen and paper vs. computer) or try voice recording or speech-to-text

Gamify writing: create an arbitrary challenge, such as trying to see how many words you can write in a set time and try to beat your high score

Find a writing buddy or join a writer's group

Give yourself a reward for every writing milestone, even if it's just writing a paragraph

Ask yourself whether this project you're working on is something you really want to be doing, and be honest with your answer

Intimidation/Procrastination (often related to perfectionism, but not always)

What it looks like:

I was feeling really motivated to write, but then I opened my laptop

I don't even know where to start

I love writing, but I can never seem to get started

I'll write tomorrow. I mean next week. Next month? Next month, I swear (doesn't write next month)

Can't find the time or energy

Unreasonable expectations (I should be able to write 10,000 words a day, right????)

Feeling discouraged and wondering why I'm even trying

Things that can help:

Follow the 2 min rule (or the 1 paragraph rule, which works better for me): whenever you sit down to write, tell yourself that you are only going to write for 2 minutes. If you feel like continuing once the 2 mins are up, go for it! Otherwise, stop. Force yourself to start but DO NOT force yourself to continue unless you feel like it. The more often you do this, the easier it will be to get started

Make getting started as easy as possible (i.e. minimize barriers: if getting up to get a notebook is stopping you from getting started, then write in the notes app of your phone)

Commit to a routine that will work for you. Baby steps are important here. Go with something that feels reasonable: every day, every other day, once a week, twice a week, and use cues to help you remember to start. If you chose a set time to write, just make sure that it's a time that feels natural to you- i.e. don't force yourself to writing at 9am every morning if you're not a morning person

Find a friend or a writing buddy you can trust and talk it out or share a piece of work you're proud of. Sometimes we just get a bit bogged down by criticism- either internal or external- and need a few words of encouragement

The Problem's Not You, It's Your Story (or Outline (or Process))

What it looks like:

I have no problems writing other scenes, it's just this scene

I started writing, but now I have no idea where I'm going

I don't think I'm doing this right

What's an outline?

Drowning in documents

This. Doesn't. Make. Sense. How do I get from this plot point to this one?!?!?! (this ColeyDoesThings quote lives in my head rent free cause BOY have I been there)

Things That Can Help:

Go back to the drawing board. Really try to get at the root of why a scene or story isn't working

A part of growing as a writer is learning when to kill your darlings. Sometimes you're trying to force an idea or scene that just doesn't work and you need to let it go

If you don't have an outline, write one

If you have an outline and it isn't working, rewrite it, or look up different ways to structure it

You may be trying to write as a pantser when you're really a plotter or vice versa. Experiment with different writing processes and see what feels most natural

Study story structures, starting with the three act structure. Even if you don't use them, you should know them

Check out Ellen Brock on YouTube. She's a professional novel editor who has a lot of advice on writing strategies for different types of writers

Also check out Savage Books on YouTube (another professional story editor) for advice on story structure and dialogue. Seriously, I cannot recommend this guy enough

Executive Dysfunction, Usually From ADHD/Autism

What it looks like:

Everything in boredom/understimulation

Everything in intimidation/procrastination

You have been diagnosed with and/or have symptoms of ADHD/Autism

Things that can help:

If you haven't already, seek a diagnosis or professional treatment

Hire an ADHD coach or other specialist that can help you work with your brain (I use Shimmer; feel free to DM me for a referral)

Seek out neurodiverse communities for advice and support

Try body doubling! There's lot's of free online body doubling websites out there for you to try. If social anxiety is a barrier, start out with writing streams such as katecavanaughwrites on Twitch

Be aware of any sensory barriers that may be getting in the way of you writing (such as an uncomfortable desk chair, harsh lighting, bad sounds)

And Lastly, Burnout, Depression, or Other Mental Illness

What it looks like:

You have symptoms of burnout or depression

Struggling with all things, not just writing

It's more than a lack of inspiration- the spark is just dead

Things that can help:

Forget writing for now. Focus on healing first.

Seek professional help

If you feel like it, use writing as a way to explore your feelings. It can take the form of journaling, poetry, an abstract reflection of your thoughts, narrative essays, or exploring what you're feeling through your fictional characters. The last two helped me rediscover my love of writing after I thought years of depression had killed it for good. Just don't force yourself to do so, and stop if it takes you to a darker place instead of feeling cathartic

[starwalker42]

Some writers: *meticulously plan out every plot point and the tone and meanings before they start writing*

Me:

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[starwalker42]

one of my favorite subgenres of writing tropes is "[insert common trope] but how traumatizing and emotionally taxing it'd actually be to go through is addressed and worked through."

I eat that shit UP. I love you chosen ones with massive emotional trauma and a crushing fear of disappointing the people around you! I love you kids who were lied to that they were chosen ones to manipulate them and were taken advantage of via being promised a purpose and something to keep them going! I love you stories where the hero and villain used to be best friends that show how horribly painful that split is and how crushingly isolating it feels! I love you stories where the comedic relief character has massive fucking issues nobody pays attention to! I love you stories where teenage heroes are actually addressed as "hey why the fuck is everyone treating a child like this???" I love you stories about siblings on the other side of a war that show how crushing that separation is! I love you stories where the protagonist not having parents isn't just played for explanation or tragisad points, it's addressed as massively traumatic! I love you isekais that address how terrifying itd actually be!!!! I love you sins of the father stories that address how unfair and horrible and painful it is and the complicated emotional reality that is revenge and guilt and grief and responsibility!!! I love you stories about monster slayers that actually address the potentially gray or difficult undertones!!! I love you stories where the protagonist was on the wrong side and abandoned their home that address how terrifying it is to leave behind everything they ever knew!!!

I love you trope subversion in the form of "yeah, we're gonna do this trope. but how do THEY feel about it?"

[starwalker42]

[starwalker42]

[starwalker42]

[starwalker42]

Halfway through working a case with Agent Ritter in New York City, Scully gets caught in the crossfire and badly injured by a gunshot wound to her stomach. But what if Mulder is in the room when it happens? What if it doesn't have a happy ending after all?

A Tithonus AU.

---

I bring gifts !!! Hope you like this fic <3 Sorry in advance, the angst is real. Don't say I didn't warn you.

[starwalker42]

prompt: mulder and scully having an intellectual discussion as a method of flirting or seduction.

It’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.

***

“Honeycomb conjecture,” he says at 1:17 AM, like he hasn’t kissed her in front of Casey Kasem and god and everybody, even with a busted arm.

Like he hasn’t been nibbling at her warm, honey-salt mouth for the better part of an hour. Like she doesn’t smell of damp wool and almond soap and the sourdough scent of arousal.

“Mulder,” she murmurs, a cantrip. A spell that must be real because it is his true name from the mouth of his true love. These are the rules.

“Varro in 36 BC, but only just proven.” He kisses her again, her mouth so wide, and sweet as well.

Scully’s lush mouth, the click of Scully’s teeth and the weight of Scully’s breasts against that flimsy blouse. A glitch, a snag, an unfurled dimension in the homeomorphic strings.

“You know Thomas Hales?” She pulls back, props herself up on her elbows, gazing down in what can only be described as adoration.

Scully’s lashes like the fibers of a dusting brush, Scully’s hair like Dragon’s Blood fingerprint powder.

He beams up at her from the bed, the way her aristocratic cheeks are a little bit soft from this angle. He wants to kiss her lovely bones, wants his face between her firm thighs but there is so much time. They have nothing but time at the end of the millennium.

Is it the end of the world? He’s fine with that, he’s so fine to die here. She tried to die for him once; let’s die together, Scully, if we must. Even if it’s zombie bites.

Eyes of lapis lazuli. Eyes of a Renaissance Eve in the sweet tropic warmth of the Garden. Eyes like the Mariana Trench.

“I knew you would. I looked up things to impress you.” He has no secrets now. He has no shame; not with her.

Her eyes widen, hot blue stars that usuallly die young. But she is still years in remission and he nips at her mouth as though there isn’t a star in the cool white flesh of her belly as well. The aftershock of Ritter’s gun, even after so long, like cosmic microwave background. Echoes of the first explosion.

“Mulder,” she says, and he loves her and loves her and loves her. He would bite from the fruit that the woman gave to him; he would always want to know what she knew.

He thought about killing Ritter. He thinks about killing Ritter.

He will have thought about killing Ritter.

I amabo eam.

If he warms her skin enough he can burn Ritter away. Schnauz and Jerse and Waterston and all the other men who have not deserved to touch her kidskin body. To breathe her air. He ignores the details; he makes her into a palimpsest, untouched by the unworthy. Sacred. Virginal.

He does not contemplate whether she would want this absolution.

“They can be non-Euclidean, honeycombs,” she mumbles, her breasts warm as summer peaches. Hot in his hands, but if he tastes them now he can never taste them for the first time again.

Dear Diary, today I discovered that Special Agent Dr. Dana Katherine Scully MD has breasts like a naiad. The Captain’s daughter, of course, of course. The Captain’s daughter tastes like a Quonochontaug summer. Funnel cakes and lobster rolls and whitecaps just before the lightning.

Is she real? She must be. She is a thunderstorm in August. She is dark wet earth in April. Her nipples are raspberries in June.

She is a forbidden, fallen angel. Human kindness, altruism. All the ways we fall short.

“It was postulated in 36 BC. It was postulated before Christ.” Her thighs tight as drumskins beneath his palms, her own cupped palm over his straining fly.

Mulder allows himself the luxury of leaning in, of pushing himself against her, as the year dies. Is born.

“God,” she says, in wonder. Tightens the thick muscles of her hand around him. Sucks at his tongue and his chin and the curve of his brow.

Nipples back in his mouth, the tautness of them. The sweet, ripe heat. He’s a dazzled teenager in the velvet dark as he kisses her mouth, her clavicles, her beautiful hands like white stars.

“Please,” she says and it’s both vague and devastatingly specific. Her fingertips, her eyelids, and the cool bridge of her regal nose.

She wants him, him, him. Her hand curls, her mouth sucks like wet sand at high tide. Nips like the biting sting of a jellyfish on a forgotten summer morning.

Scully tugs at her trousers. Tugs at his. He helps her along, straining now only against his boxers, against his own desire. His damaged arm, her professional concerns.

“Mulder,” she hisses, a shantung voice. That sourdough scent again, absolutely maddening. She thumbs the head of his cock and he wants to grab her in some primal caveman way he didn’t know was in him. Wants to fuck her until she’s flushed and raspy and all hot lower brain need.

Her trousers have slipped down, just nylon and cotton and the last part that has a shred of propriety, some social hymen he wants to make bleed.

“Scully,” he says, grinding against her. Claiming her warm-milk body, her glacial eyes. The nascent year. He thrusts past her hand into the hot crease where her thigh meets her underwear.

She arches back, cries out a little, and she’s hot as chamomile tea and goose down comforters and flannel pajamas and all of the other luxuries she’s brought back to him, like lost treasures to a prince in a fairytale.

“Please.”

“You sure?” he sighs and prays to a god that he doesn’t believe in.

She drags the crotch of her cobweb panties aside in reply, clamps her thighs around him like a bull rider.

“Mulder,” she moans, and the third time binds and he’s probing and then thrusting and then spine deep in the scandalously drenched, blissful heat of her.

Scully’s little claws in his bruised shoulder, Scully’s silent tears on his bottom lip. Her nose still cool against his cheek but her belly scorching.

Stars dance like they do. Angels, too, on the head of a pin. It’s cosmic and base and perfect and clumsy and he says “Scully, Scully, I -“

“Don’t stop,” she gasps, and he doesn’t.

***

Later, he thinks, they made their son here. It only took a bit for the universe to catch up.

[starwalker42]

the "canon isn't real we make our own rules" to "i am begging you people to revisit the source material" pipeline

[starwalker42]

Im just feeling a certain way rn

[starwalker42]

Ficlet: Highways and Backroads

Just a little ficlet thinking about Memento Mori.

Keep reading

[starwalker42]

“Is it okay if I draw fanart of your fanfic?👉🏼👈🏼”

My brother in Christ we shall have a spring wedding

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Story of my life

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“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you