#I actually was writing a lot this weekend I just wrote a scene that took a LOT out of me emotionally ahaha and then I was like shit

[bardofavon]

Not trying to pressure you at all please take your time but when you say you’re hoping to finish the latest chapter soon are you meaning like within a day or by this next weekend?

I just can’t help myself and keep checking if you’ve updated because I love your story so much so wanted to ask

Really no pressure though thank you for your great story

AHA you’re good!!! I meant I finished the latest chapter while I was at work and I’m going to post it sometime either tonight or tomorrow morning (based on timezone stuff, it’s like 4pm for me rn)!!

also don’t ever feel bad about asking me personally! generally it’s considered rude socially to ask for updates and like, demands for updates authors get miffed at but I don’t mind a check in like this. knowing people are banging on my door and refreshing when I haven’t updated is what actually holds me accountable to meeting my self imposed deadlines LOL.

[xlpoww]

Jealousy, Jealousy

i really loved how bad for business turned out, and it seems you all did too!! so here's a continuation of the bfb universe/storyline :) it's not exactly a part two

warnings! jealousy (sanji's)

word count: 1,720

opla! sanji x f! reader

i actually took the time to reference back to this scene in the live action to make sure i got their orders right :) !! also hi i am alive !!! i just got busy with work- and i had a mini con to go to this weekend and i cosplayed nami! :D -> i have also been struggling with tremendous writers block, and was trying to force myself to write about zoro for days! but i couldn't, and i was frustrated with myself untill i rememebred this isnt a job, this is for fun for me and you guys. so i went back to some of the things i've written and felt like i could continue this one :) the story really flowed from there and i wrote a lot in a short span sooooooo &lt;3 ily all! thanks for reading as always <3333

sanji vinsmoke is jealous. 

the cook is used to woman falling at his feet, swooning over his flirty personality. either that or they get annoyed at him and clearly show disinterest. (oftentimes calling him names and sometimes resulting in him getting hit)

but you, the one girl he actually held a candle for, he couldn’t even seem to get a rejection from you. that would’ve made things so much easier for him and his heart. it’s gotten to the point he’s wishing you would tell him you don’t return his feelings. sure it would hurt in the moment, but at least he could have (hopefully) forced himself to move on.

but no, you won’t reject him; nor will you swoon at his advances. they seem to roll right off you like beads of rain on a window. never a hint of blush on your cheeks, no angrily quirked brows. how was he meant to understand? there are two reasonable reactions to such a forward man, either interest or not. how do you manage to toe the line so perfectly?

it drove him mad, not only were you horribly hard to read, every once in a while you would flirt aggressively back at him. it would always catch the poor boy off guard, leaving him stunned and blushing standing wherever he was. oftentimes you did it right in the middle of the kitchen, leaving him to deal with the playful teasing of the other workers, walking off to continue doing your job. 

you would be the death of him surely.

especially when the sight of you smiling so sweetly at that stupid swordsman causes a painful squeeze in his chest. his grip on the tray he was holding is bruising, and there’s a jealous rage brewing inside of him.

-

“hello my name is y/n, and i’ll be your waitress today. can i start you guys with any refreshments?” you flip over a page on your notepad, ready to write down the group's requests. what a charming bunch they were, with just a glance you could tell they really cared for one another.

“i’ll take a beer,” the green haired man speaks up, and you nod with a smile.

“i’ll take two beers, i normally have three but..” he trails off as the woman at the table speaks up.

“i’ll take a water.”

“and a glass of milk!” the endearing boy with a straw hat adds on, his words are muffled by the bun he was still chewing. when coming to greet them you’d brough over a basket of perfectly warmed buns with butter. nodding at them all, your pen into your apron as you repeat back to them. 

“three beers, milk and water, coming right up you guys.” you step back with a bow, turning towards the kitchen. doing so you notice your best friend is glaring in your direction, and as you walk back you tilt your head at him. when you get closer you realize his glare wasn't directed towards you, but the swordsman you had taken the order from. he doesn’t even seem to pay you any mind as you approach him, too focused on the table you had just walked away from. when you reach him where he stands in front of the doorway, you snap your fingers in his face. it seems to snap him out of it, and he looks down at you with a charming smile.

“hello my love, what can i do for you?” his hand is placed on your shoulder sweetly. the touch warms your body, but you shake it off to cross your arms. 

“what’s up with you, why were you glaring at my table? do you know them?” you gesture back towards your table, and a flush washes over his face when he realizes he’d been caught. he straightens his tie in an attempt to shake off his shame,

“not a clue who they are darling.” your eyebrow raises in suspicion, you’re not buying it. he seems to know you won’t, and he tucks his hand into his pockets as he shrugs.

“you just glare at people you don’t know now sanj?” a pout forms out of frustration. while you were wondering why he was lying to you so blatantly, he was internally swooning at how adorable you looked in that moment, and the sweet way you'd shortend his name. the grip you had over his heart was the strongest in all the seas.

“don’t worry, pretty lady, it’s nothing. now if you’ll excuse me i’ve got my own tables to wait on.” he’s internally scrambling to figure out how to distract you from what he was caught doing, in a moment of boldness (or a crazy attempt to change the subject), he leans down to press a kiss to the side of your head.

the action causes your eyes to almost bulge out of your head as you begin to blush. a smug smile forms on sanji’s face at the sight, he’d never felt more accomplished than he did in that moment. not only had he distracted you, he’d made your face light up all pretty and embarrassed. he winked at you before brushing past you to do his job, pushing open the swinging door into the kitchen behind you.

you’re left in shock trying to wrap your brain around his actions, ‘what had gotten into him?’ as bold and flirtatious as he was, you would have never expected a display like that in front of all the customers.

oh shit, the customers. ‘had anyone seen that? oh gods.’ your hands clench into fists as you attempt to bring yourself back to reality and calm down, and you push past the doors of the kitchen. your eyes are focused on the ground as you collect the drinks needed for your table, placing them all on a tray and balancing them on one hand. you take a moment to breathe in and compose yourself before walking back out into the dining room. 

you eyes scan the room and find your favorite blond waiting on a table on the opposite side of the room of your own. his location makes it easy to return to the table without incident, placing down the three beers before the milk and water. with a smile, you tuck the tray under your arm and pull out your notepad again to continue taking their orders. maybe doing your job could distract from the rapid beating in your chest.

“you guys decided on food yet?” 

“one of everything!” the boy with a straw hat speaks up, and you quirk your eyebrow. they didn't look like the big spenders you were used too, but it wasn’t really your place to mention that. your smile never slips as you nod, writing it down and once again bowing before you leave. by your luck sanji seems to be waiting for you at the doorway of the kitchen. so much for the idea you had to avoid him until you’d calmed down.

he holds his hand out, offering to take your tray from you. his kind offer brings a smile to your lips, and you decide to shove down whatever inner turmoil was happening and act like what he did hadn’t happened. (he sure was.)

“any interesting orders?” he smiles, quirking a brow at you as you offer him your serving tray. you laugh, holding out your notepad to show him where you had written down ‘one of everything’ sanji’s heart squeezes at how cute your handwriting is, and he can’t help the chuckle. “well it looks like you’ll need some help taking out this order then, love.” the pet name causes the usual skip in your heartbeat, and you smile, nodding in acceptance of his offer for help, pushing past him into the kitchen to get your cooks started on the order of everything.

-

the food gets taken out in waves, sanji always accompanying you with an extra plate or two. the table is rather nice about it, they’re always caught up in conversation. even still they thank you for every plate you place down, they seem like genuine people. it warms your heart to see such a close group of friends. 

you can’t help but notice the way sanji doesn’t even pay the girl at the table any mind, too busy glaring at the green haired man, his hands lingering on your shoulder or back longer than they needed to. how he’d managed to add on to his unusual behavior, you wouldnt understand.

not that he really had any reason to be placing a tender hand on your back while you were serving guests. the third time it happens you turn to look at him with a raised eyebrow, and he turns to smile down at you sweetly, his hand on your back rubbing up and down. you look at him incredulously, sanji steps back, bowing before walking back towards the kitchen. before he left his gaze lingered on the man longer than should have been acceptable. you have to hold back a frustrated huff, turning back to the table with a plastered smile

“don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything! i hope you enjoy your meal.” you finish off the sentence with a bow, turning to look at the swordsman when he speaks up with a snort. “are you sure, wouldn’t want to make your busboy anymore jealous than he already is?” your eyes widen in confusion, not only at the notion, but the unnecessary insult towards your sanji.

“whatever could you mean.” the whole table turns to you, and the redhead quirks a brow at you, adding on.

“you’re not really that clueless, are you?” your mouth drops open, and a blush begins to cover your cheeks.

“no, i didn’t think i was.”

and then you’re even more confused. what reason would he have to be jealous over you and a random guest? it’s not like the man had even given you the time of day, or you’d even wanted it?  all you’d done was take his orders. 

the thought feels so impossible, even so it has already quickly begun eating away at your brain and heart. it was the only logical explanation for all his odd behaviors tonight.

sanji vinsmoke, was jealous. over you.

taglist: @the-maladaptive-daydreamers @teenyforestfairy @gothicuwusposts @cheesesoda @scentisterror @shuujin @gcldtom

[gmariam321]

So I binge-read my biggest Torchwood fic this weekend. I'm still cringing over some of my writing, but otherwise you know what? It was still pretty good, particularly with plot and character. I'm proud of what I accomplished with my beta, who helped hash out so much of it. We had such fun working together! There's nothing like coming up with crazy ideas and figuring out a way to actually make them work. I also really like some of my original characters. Kind of makes me wonder why I don't ever write original characters with an original plot, but then I remember they need an original world, and I like the ready-made fictional worlds I write fanfic for. I have no real desire to build my own.

Anyway, the story was an alternate version of Children of Earth. I came to Torchwood after the series was over, but I think CoE did well in the ratings, didn't it? I feel like it was generally well received . . . until it wasn't. Aside from the devastating death of Ianto, there are countless plot holes that I'm guessing fans really started picking part online and then thought, hmmm, maybe it's not so good after all. We got some great Janto pics and gifs but their actual moments on screen were not the moments they could have been, you know? (True story: I convinced my parents and brother to watch it with me after they gave it to me for Christmas and at the end my dad had no idea Jack and Ianto were a couple. I think my mom figured it out but my dad totally didn't see it because it just wasn't enough. I still want to know why they were so weird from the beginning. I'm trying to remember if I wrote a story about it now...) And then fanfic exploded and there are now countless versions that are just..better. Stories that fix the plot holes of CoE and give Jack and Ianto the moments they deserved.

Fanfic really took Torchwood and elevated it. Sure, we wrote lots of smut (tentacles, anyone?) but we also gave relationships the depth we rarely saw on screen. We explained how Jack and Ianto came to be, even through all the new Big Finish revelations. We gave them real moments (and not just smutty ones.) We made them mortal and immortal. We saved Ianto countless times and let them travel the galaxy. We gave Gwen actual consequences and growth and even made her and Ianto good friends. We took the potential of the show, of 31 episodes and a few Doctor Who crossovers (sorry, I'm not counting the fourth season since most fanfic is set before it) and explored it over and over, showing readers not only what TW was but could have been. We filled in the missing scenes, expanded it, even rewrote it. I wrote over a hundred fics and probably read ten times that. What an amazing thing!

I'm so glad I was a part of it and have both good memories and some good stories to look back on. ❤️

[professorspork]

I hope this doesn’t come across as like a pushy “update pls” I promise that’s not how I mean it. I’m curious at what point you feel like a multi-chapter fic is ready to post? Do you write it in its entirety and then edit chapters in between updates, write and edit it in its entirety, write most of it and continue writing the rest between updates? I’m very curious about your process since you’ve been writing some monster word count fics

I really appreciate you asking!

The short version is that I've learned over time that what works best for me is completing a work in its entirety before I start posting; above all I like posting on a reliable schedule for my audience, and I simply do not write quickly enough (or coherently enough) to do that any other way. There are a lot of reasons for that and I WILL ELABORATE ON THEM AT LENGTH:

I have several multi-chapter WIPs from the Glee days-- when I was in college-- that I never finished because I'm a delicate hothouse flower when it comes to maintaining hyperfocus, and I found a new fandom to be in before I could complete them. Back then especially, I was much less disciplined about writing sequentially: I would write parts of the story wildly out of order, focusing on whatever interested me most at the time. That means my hard drive is a graveyard of unpublished content, which sucks-- not only did I never give my audience the resolutions they were looking for, but I never got to receive feedback on parts of the story I was really proud of. I found that really dispiriting.

Going to grad school for screenwriting really helped me focus on telling a story in order, because there is literally no other way to write a screenplay than one scene at a time; it's far too reliant on momentum and consistency to jump ahead to "the good bits" and come back. I also did several projects-- writing my multi-chap Frozen&Tangled polyamory epic for a friend's birthday; pre-writing all my 2015 Cartinelli Week one shots far in advance so I knew they'd be perfect come posting day-- where I had a deadline I wanted everything Done By, which got me in the habit of writing to completion before posting. It wasn't something I thought I was going to be capable of because I'm like Tinkerbell, Finn, I need applause to live feedback is incredibly motivating to me, but having the ability to go back and change things in chapter 2 if I realized they weren't adequately setting up what I wanted to do in chapter 5, or whatever, proved to be just as powerful a motivator in a different way-- it meant I could tell the stories RIGHT, if I took my time with them. I also learned to get at least one cheerleader I could leak snippets to as I went, so that I still got the dopamine hit of the feedback even though I'm ages away from posting for real.

I also found that, as a reader, I always really appreciated when authors could stick to an update schedule so I could look forward to new chapters like I would episodes of television. It's not a standard I expect from anyone, but it is something that makes me really happy-- and the two ways to do it are to either write fast enough that you're just constantly churning out new content (not an option for me, especially on the occasions when I'm actually employed and can only write on weekends) or to pre-write and then slow release. it gives me a feeling of... mastery, I guess? Like "hey everyone here's a gift I'm giving you," as opposed to writing and updating when I can, which makes me feel like I'm always chasing something (BEING chased by something?) and risking losing my audience/my own fickle concentration if I were to wait too long.

My "ONLY post after everything is done" rule is a new one, because I burned myself on rely on certain certainties, the last D/s epic I wrote (lmao can you tell this topic interests me). I worked on that for a year and was 132k in with no end in sight when I started posting, but I was part of a Kristanna discord at the time, and I wanted to seize the audience I had before it disappeared-- which is always the danger of movie fandoms, which never have as much staying power. I had hoped that because I had such a big buffer I could keep writing ahead of the updates as they came up from behind, but I tapped out at 172k when I finished the end of an arc. That kills me, because I have SO MUCH unreleased content for that story which will never see the light of day, because-- again-- I'd let temptation win and wrote ahead to The Juicy Bits instead of forcing myself to go in order.

So, two things I've learned:

Only ever outlining the juicy bits that come late in the game, instead of lovingly finessing their every word, is a great way to trick motivate myself into continuing to write in order so that I can GET to the juicy bits, full stop; if I don't exorcise them they keep haunting me and that helps me stick it out until the end

By holding stories back until they're complete, I give myself the ability to complete them because I'm able to dig myself out of holes I've written myself into. In the old days, if I got stuck because I realized the real root of my issue had come chapters earlier and that's why it's not working now, I'd just... be stuck at that wall, unable to move forward, and that would be that. The idea of going back and editing a published story for narrative content is mortifying to me and something I personally could never do, so-- this way I'm giving myself more tools and options, so that I can tell the story I want to tell and tell it right.

In terms of my actual process, I tend to work like this: my most productive time is when my ADHD meds are at full power, so in an ideal world I am writing new content from like 10am to 3pm or so, getting as far as I can in New Content. Evenings, when I'm no longer in Hyperfocus Productivity Mode, I'll go back and reread things-- sometimes chapters from much earlier-- both to entertain myself and to make edits and changes. Often, that's just moving words around here and there for cadence and flow; rarely, it's adding whole new moments or thoughts to the chapters. I try to write In Order as much as possible, getting chapters beta'd as they're completed. I'm a nitpicky perfectionist, so keeping a hold on my early chapters until everything is posted means I can change them over and over and over again without anyone knowing but me, which I love-- and those changes are getting made right down to the wire. even when the fic is "complete" and I'm "only posting" I'm still making edits; some of people's absolute favorite parts of Newsbees were added literally the night before, when it was the "get everything into AO3 and do the final pass for typos and formatting" stage. Like, Penny writing sudokus on the fly for Ruby at the hospital? Ruby thinking in Adam Font? Those were 11th hour strokes of genius.

So yeah-- that's a very long-winded way of saying that I've found writing to completion first not only makes me more likely to actually finish my WIPs, but it makes my WIPs BETTER because it gives me far, far more time with them. I know it's not something that works for everyone, but in terms of my own sense of like, duty and responsibility and goal-setting, it keeps me on track without risking Guilt completely paralyzing me-- which is what happens when I post as I go and then get interrupted.

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY RAMBLE.

[nonchalantatall]

PRSK Kamikou Phantom Thief/Detective AU

For any issue that gets brushed off by the state, any personal problem too embarrassing to file a legal report for, or anything too small, simple, or mundane to bother paying actual professionals a different business to handle, there’s a member of the White Rock Detective Agency—or R-A-D-W for short—ready to assist you!

(Don’t ask why the letters are out of order, it’s a touchy subject among the staff.)

Explanation of the AU under the cut

All of the relationships are ambiguous, so you can apply your own connotation headcanons as you wish. There are strong mizuan, mizurui, and mizuena vibes lol

The explanation includes mild fic spoilers, but you can read it before the fic if you want and be fine. Although if you want to figure out the mystery while reading, then I recommend coming back to read the explanation after. The plot in the fic is very vague in the scenes I wrote, and I also don't really feel like writing any more, so you may need to come back to get the full picture afterwards

I know I said it's a kamikou au, and the fic itself technically is, but Mafuyu, Shizuku, and Emu are all kinda important to what little plot actually exists in the fic, but they really aren't mentioned by name except for Mafuyu at the very end (K also gets a name drop at one point). I left all of it kinda vague on purpose to emphasize the kamikou characters since it was based on a kamikou event to begin with.

The full story starts with the disappearance of an Aristocrat’s daughter (Mafuyu). This daughter had a fond friend within the aristocracy (Shizuku) who became seriously worried when she disappeared. Shizuku hired a high-class private investigator (Emu) to find her.

But Emu doesn’t work alone. There’s only so much she can do when there's so many people looking at her in high society. She can get away with more than the usual aristocrat, being the 4th youngest in her moderately prominent family, but she has 3 officers (WxS) running more of the dirty work out in public. Emu took the case of Mafuyu's disappearance seriously because she's also emotionally involved like Shizuku is.

WxS quickly realized Mafuyu covered a lot of her bases when she vanished. It was almost as if she never existed at all. It doesn't help that Mafuyu's parents don't want to talk with WxS despite trying to find their daughter. They're lower class, no-name, prying eyes who are sticking their noses in someone else's business where they don't belong.

Despite being backed by Emu, they needed to get access to a detective agency's credibility to go searching in more places for any clues as to where she could've gone all while without giving themselves away to mafuparents who grew to be strongly against WxS' involvement in their daughter's case.

They heard of R-A-D-W (White Rock Detective Agency), a "new" office trying to get its feet off the ground, and they saw an opening. They're posing as rookie detectives there while still investigating the missing daughter on the side and keeping it a secret from the agency owners (VBS).

It's important to me that you know Emu is WxS' sponsor while living on her family’s estate, and Kohane has a real job that pays for VBS's room and board (me, coping with not including them)

VBS... they're just trying to do their jobs man, they had no business getting wrapped up in this but oh well. "White Rock" is a direct translation of An's last name (Shiraishi, 白石). The White Rock Detective Agency or R-A-D-W (please notice how I stupidly rearranged the letters to make it close to rad weekend) is her family’s agency that fell off a few years ago after a tragic loss, but she is determined to restore the agency name to its former glory with a few other aspiring detectives--particularly two young gentlemen who have been helped by R-A-D-W in the past and are determined to repay that debt.

As you can probably guess, Mafuyu is being hidden by Niigo. More specifically, she's being sheltered by Kanade, while Ena makes their money with her art, and Mizuki steals back things Mafuyu used to own. In the months buliding up to her breaking point and running away from her abusive household, Mafuyu's mother took things from her that she deemed to be a distraction as punishment for not focusing on her studies and family affairs. The other 3 are enraged by what mafumom has done to her and will keep Mafuyu safe and hidden from her old life, no matter the cost.

This AU has been a great source of brainrot for me the past few months so if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer 🥹

[grimmbitty]

Okay guys here’s my writing sample for my current work in progress!

└── ⋆⋅⚡️⋅⋆ ──┘

Shazam: City of Brotherly Love

Chapter one: Work in Progress

(Revision: fight scene fix & grammar fix )

It was an early autumn day. The kind of day where the wind was cool and brisk, but the sun covered everything with a subtle warmth that I could feel against my skin. I was intermixed in the small crowd that was my new foster siblings as we walked down the block, on our way to school. It was my first day at Fawcett High, my second day at the Vasquez house, and my third time getting reassigned to a new home this year.

I’ve done a lot of moving around, especially these past few years, but I don’t let that stuff get to me. I am so close to actually finding my mom this time around. I’m just really hoping the kids in this group home actually leave my stuff alone. I always keep the most important things in my backpack anyways, because I get tired of people rummaging through my belongings when I'm not looking.

As Freddy and Mary talked amongst themselves, the youngest kid in the group home was most excited to give me a tour. Her name was Darla, and it was the easiest to remember because she wrote it on a banner she hung on the wall, over the bed I was sleeping in this past weekend.

She talked the entire time. And I felt kinda bad that she was wasting her breath, because I was only half listening anyways, tuning in and out of her descriptions as we made our way into the school. It was a very familiar scene. A sea of a thousand faces passing by. People talking, people screaming, people jumping, hugging, and twirling each other around as if they didn’t just see each other yesterday.

Darla’s voice pulled me back out of my train of thought. “And here’s the main hallway. This school is pretty big so if you get lost, there's a map over there. But I think for today I could walk you to your first class just in case.”

Freddy cut into the conversation , “Hey, I think he’s got it from here, D. I know you’re excited for him to have his first day at Fawcett, but let’s just give him a little room to breathe for now.”

As we made our way over to their lockers, Darla went with Mary and stopped at her locker first. I continued walking down the hall following Freddy’s lead as we made our way to his locker. He looked over at me with a hint of concern in his eye. I felt his gaze look me up and down quickly before taking a step closer. “Hey dude, you’re okay, right? I know this is a lot for one morning.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose while I took a second to think. Doing the whole “new foster kid” thing at almost every school in West Philly didn’t really phase me, but I was pissed that I got reassigned to a group home on the other side of town. I knew getting caught was going to be a major setback and I still had a lot of work to do if I was gonna keep trying to find mom. Not to mention I already spent what little money I had on bus passes and subway tokens.

I look back at Freddy, “Yeah, I’m fine.” I let myself fall back onto the lockers to lean on them as we continue talking.

“Don’t worry. I know new faces, new school, new home. It’s a lot. I get it, but I genuinely think once you kinda get the feel for things around here you’re gonna fit in perfectly.”

“Everyone says that, Freddy.” I look off to the side, avoiding eye contact as he shoots me an abrupt look of confusion, tilting his head to one side as he furrowed his eyebrows, seemingly at a loss for words.

“Look. I don’t mean to be a dick but, I don’t plan on staying here for long. I'm sure you guys are lovely, but I already have a family. I already have a mom. They’re out there, looking for me. I know it.”

Freddy let out a small sigh. “Billy, look. I know this shit sucks, hard. Everyone in this house has done their fair share of running away too. We’ve all tried it at least once. But, you should at least give this place a chance.”

I lightly scoffed at the idea. “Yeah, well whatever, I guess.”

“Listen I know I can’t stop you if you’ve already got your mind set on looking for your mom. But, just between us, I would just try to settle down somewhere until you age out of the system so you can at least keep a roof over your head.” I could see his expression grow more concerned as he spoke. “I just don’t want you to run out of places you can fall back on.”

As I opened my mouth to reply, I was interrupted by the loud crash that was two upperclassmen barging down the hall. To my unfortunate surprise they slam open the locker door next to Freddy, nearly crushing his hand in the process. Freddy scoffed, annoyed as we saw them jam wads of crumpled papers into their lockers.

“Hey Freeman, you wanna keep your crutches to yourself bro?” One of the guys said as he pushed Freddy’s crutch with his shoe.

“Seriously man, how many peoples toes do you smash with that thing in a day?”

Freddy took a step back. “Dude, I was here first, and I was almost done anyways. What’s your problem?”

Both of the upperclassmen started to smirk at each other in amusement. “It was just a joke man, you don’t have to be so soft all the time.” Then he pushed Freddy backwards into me and I felt the weight of his body hit me like a bag of sand. I helped him regain his balance so he didn’t get the chance to fully hit the ground. But these douchebags were seriously just okay with doing this?

“Freddy, who the hell are these guys?” I whisper to him as I hear Mary shout in the distance. Slamming her locker and starting to yell at them as she stomps over.

Freddy says, “They’re the Bryers. Most annoying dudes in school.” He rolls his eyes. “They’re both technically in my grade but one of them is a super senior, so he should’ve already graduated by now.”

“Yeah, that guy who shoved you looks like he’s pushing thirty. He should probably worry more about figuring out his plans for retirement instead of being a dick.”

Freddy covers his mouth with his free hand as we both start to giggle to ourselves. Then as we regain our chill we start to tune back into Mary’s scolding. “And another thing, literally half the things you guys say aren’t even “jokes”. They’re just shallow insults you guys laugh after saying because you guys are assholes.”

Freddy seemed a little taken aback by Mary calling someone an asshole, especially since Darla was standing only a few feet away.

“You guys need to grow up. You’re not funny, no one here likes you, and you guys need to learn to keep your hands to yourself and leave people alone!”

I started to wince a bit at the scenario playing before me. I could tell that Mary was pissed, and that she meant every word she said. She was standing up for her brother, and I respect that. But, after every word the Bryers just smiled and giggled to each other more and more. They didn’t care about anything she was saying, they were just getting entertainment out of the fact that she was so mad her face was turning red.

They continued to take turns taunting. One of them jumped back into the conversation, “What are you gonna do about it Bromfield? Give me a lecture? Send me to my room? Mary please, you’re such a baby. Just because you like to boss people around all day and play pretend mom for your fake siblings doesn’t actually make you the boss of anyone. It just makes you look like a massive dork.”

Mary recoiled in disbelief. Any red in her cheeks that she lost catching her breath in the passing moments came back twofold.

I spoke up from behind Mary as she whipped her head around, almost seemingly like she forgot that Freddy and I were witnessing these boneheads too. “You guys are being total assholes for no reason.”

The brothers pushed Mary out of the way and walked over to me and Freddy. Their faces etched with both disgust and confusion. “ I don’t know who this guy is, but let’s get one thing straight. We weren’t being assholes, you guys are just babies. Do none of you guys know what a joke is or are you guys just soft or something?”

“At least I’m not soft in the head, like you two are.”

Freddy shot me an alarmed side eye as the brothers talked amongst each other. Under their breath I could hear one of them say. “Did you just call us stupid?” He said as he shoved me with annoyance.

“Get your gross-ass hands off of me!” I fired back as I shoved the younger brother into his older brother as a taste of his own medicine.

Then they both started to walk closer to me, their figures blocking out the lights in the hall as the smell of body odor and old milk started to creep into my nose. I took a step back to try and preserve my personal space.

“We’re not soft in the skull, dipshit. But you might be.” One of the brothers said as he grabbed my head and slammed it into the wall of lockers behind me.

A sharp jolt of pain shot through every inch of my skull as I grabbed the back of my head in sudden agony. I accidentally let out a small yelp as the feeling erupted through all my nerves. Overwhelming me before I could even process what just happened.

The loud crash of the lockers made everyone in the hall start to look in our direction.Their faces slightly blurred as a sudden wave of dizziness tuned out the shouts of the growing crowd. It was time to go. I ducked under one of the brothers arms and tried to make a break for the exit, only making it two steps before I was yanked backwards by the hood of my jacket.

I tried to squirm around to break free, trying to focus more on escaping than landing any hits, but I was hardly able to keep my feet on the ground. The younger brother put his arms underneath both of my armpits, locking me into place and forcing both of my arms out to the side. Leaving me in an extremely unfavorable position to win this fight.

The older of the two brothers started to roll up his sleeve as he stomped closer to me, winding up his fist to punch me as hard as he could. The faint sounds of Freddy and Mary shouting at them to stop faded into the distance as I saw his fist come hurtling towards me.

I had only seconds before I was either about to lose either some of my teeth or some of my breakfast. So I had to think fast. As the younger of the two brothers was still struggling to hold me still I reflexively ducked just in time to hear the *click* of his brother’s knuckles colliding full force into his jaw.

The feeling of the icy cold floor was an immediate taste of relief that I never thought I’d feel as I got up and started to make a run for it. The bell for first period rang throughout the halls as I saw a flock of adults running over to the Bryers. I escaped and made my way out the front two doors. As I sprinted out to the sidewalk I heard the Bryers burst out of the school’s front doors right behind me, cussing me out as they began to chase after me.

Not the best first day I’ve ever had, but definitely one of the most entertaining ones.

End.

[freeuselandonorris]

hello freeuselandonorris! i’ve asked you for writing advice/ideas a couple of times (POV decisions and something in Nov, can’t remember exactly what it was), and i find your advice so helpful (/srs) so i hope it’s not annoying i’m asking again lol.

i find i can only write when i have extreme motivation, like an idea literally possesses my brain and the words almost write themselves - gonna out myself here, the last thing i wrote was the water inflation fic i appropriated from you; it just took over my mind and i wrote/edited it in like two days (though the speed is for sure because the entire plot was essentially your idea lol).

basically, i have lots of ideas but it’s hard for me to actually think of scenes in specific, and then i just end up not writing at all. do you have a method for coming up with a progression of a specific scene?

i am doing a horrible job of explaining my q lol so for example, my current wip involves interview panels/youtube collabs etc, but i’m finding it hard to write those because it’s so different from anything i’ve tried writing before. what do you do in those kinds of cases?

sorry for the ramble and if this makes no sense, love u 😭

hiiii lovely anon (or semi-anon lmao) you are not annoying in the SLIGHTEST, i love talking about stuff like this and it makes me really fucking happy to know that my self-indulgent rambling about writing is occasionally helpful to read ❤️

SO. i have two pieces of advice on this one, speaking from my own experience because for a very long time i was also like this and would write in fits and starts and felt very like i had to ~wait for the muses to bless me~. it’s actually something i was taught at a writing course i took years ago now and it sounds so blah and obvious when you first read it but if you stick with it, it works. BRIEF DAILY SESSIONS.

aka, you write a tiny little bit every day. if you can’t commit to every day, say five days a week (but every day is better). i do NOT mean write 1000 words a day or spend three hours doing it or freak yourself out or beat yourself up or abandon your social life or your responsibilities! the idea is you just pick a time that feels feasible (i started off with 15 minutes a day and i think this works well) and you commit to doing that every day. it doesn’t have to be anything good. it can be 15 minutes of you describing lando’s eyelashes in minute detail. it can be 15 minutes of notes for a plotline. it can be 15 minutes of dialogue you KNOW is shit and wooden and will be getting deleted the minute you get to the edit stage. doesn’t matter. just do your 15 minutes.

what this does is it breaks the hold your brain has on this idea of “oh no i have to be INSPIRED before i can possibly think of writing”. at my course they compared it to musicians practising scales, or athletes doing training. we could think of it like drivers doing their sim runs. they don’t just turn up on a race weekend and expect to be great, they have to keep their eye in.

side note: it’ll feel horrible at first, you’ll hate it and resent it and everything you write will feel awful. stick with it. if you miss a day, it doesn’t matter, you haven’t failed, just start again tomorrow. if you miss a week, you haven’t failed, start again tomorrow.

this is more of a long-term thing, so for your specific piece and the issue you mention about progressing a scene, the way i get around this is to start by writing the bit(s) i CAN imagine. so for instance here, you’d write one interview scene, or one youtube collab scene. even if it’s just a little bit of dialogue, or a couple of paragraphs of like, oh i can see oscar rolling his eyes and lando sees it and gets annoyed but he can’t say anything because there are cameras on them… or whatever. just write that bit. then leave a blank space in the gdoc and write the next bit. don’t worry about the order or anything.

once you’ve written all the little bits you can think of, read them through and you might be able to see links between them, like — oh that bit could follow on from this bit up here, or these two bits could kind of go together. reorganise stuff a bit, chop it up, get rid of anything that doesn’t work (copy it into another document called ‘cutting room floor’ if you don’t want to fully get rid).

THEN write yourself some notes. go through your bits and bobs and in between them, just write stuff like [SOMEHOW THEY GET FROM THE FILMING TO THE HOTEL ROOM???]. don’t just write [SOMETHING HAPPENS HERE], you need to give yourself little breadcrumbs to follow. so like there you go, okay, so they need to be in a car or a lift or some sort of transitional space (you see these crop up a lot in my fics — lifts, hallways in hotels, the backs of taxis). or if they’ve started off talking about one thing and you want them talking about this other thing by the end of the scene, write [THEY CONTINUE TALKING ABOUT LUNCH UNTIL IT GETS AWKWARD AND THEN THEY SOMEHOW END UP TALKING ABOUT OSCAR’S CHILDHOOD]. okay, so it got awkward. how did it get awkward? write that bit. what happens after it’s awkward? does lando double down or try to gloss over it? write that bit. how does oscar react to that? write that bit. etc.

in essence, don’t try to see the entire thing at once because you’ll paralyse yourself. give yourself a direction to aim in, and a place to start, and then just focus on the next bit until you get from A to B.

and if all else fails, find a nice pithy line to end the scene on, use an asterisk scene break and start again somewhere else 🤷

SORRY THIS IS SO LONG i really hope i didn’t bore the hell out of everyone afkjeskfjkldsj but yes THANK YOU AGAIN and i hope this is useful in some way!! you can do it i know ittttt

[aprillikesthings]

YOOO time for more she-ra rewatch

lolol at myself bc when I opened Netflix it was clear I'd left it paused right at the end of that sword-dragging scene eheheheheheh

so I watched it again

ahem, anyway

s1 ep 10, the beacon

my headphones aren't buzzing this time, thank fuck

(lol I got real distracted during this one)

oh right they all think Entrapta's dead

Also ADORA STOP

I mean I can't blame any of them for feeling that way

lol and then I got distracted and wrote a bit on my fic--I got some ideas at work today and wanted to pursue them.

and by "ideas" I mean I suddenly thought "hey remember that one bad breakup when you were 23, how the weekend after when you were alone in the house you cried so hard you worried you couldn't stop and started to panic and hyperventilate, and it only ended because a friend called to check on you? you should put that in the fic :D"

back now.

I dunno if they meant to do this, but to me it looks like Adora's WAY more upset than Glimmer and Bow are. I know part of it is her blaming herself.

yeah that's not good

"I'll recharge, stop glitching, and my mom never has to know :)" that's not how that works bb but okay

(hordak is speaking here)

And...that's a good point. She-Ra is even more dangerous than Hordak thought before, because she was part of the Horde and knows a LOT about them.

BAHAHAH I WAS WAITING FOR THIS

So this is one of the episodes I watched the first time with Daci over rabb.it. (That was actually our first "date," which is THE MOST LESBIAN THING EVER. Literally watching She-Ra online together in voice chat because we were long-distance.)

And I know this because I made a joke post about it to tumblr referencing K/DA, my fandom obsession at the time. That was on April 30th, 2019. I think that was the day Daci bought the plane tickets for their first visit. They moved in with me less than a year after that first visit.

Okay I looked up that date in our discord chats and

EIGHT HOURS lolol okay we watched the show the day before I made the post. Also Daci had just bought the plane tickets I was right-- that visit was the last weekend in June.

We'd been flirting for months but I didn't actually believe Daci was serious about it until they bought the plane tickets. And then the NEXT WEEKEND after watching she-ra and Daci buying those tickets my dad had a brain hemorrhage and we took him off life support a few days after that, and Daci and I started video chatting EVERY DAY because I was alone in the house and off work for two weeks of bereavement leave.

ANYWAY OFF TOPIC

Fuck one of my keys is acting up and the the paintbrush I use to dig under my keys to fix it is upstairs where Daci is sleeping, if I drop any r's that's why

I mean that seems fair. Also: Emily!!!

I'm trying to suppress how hard this is making me laugh and FAILING

Also her nose is wiggling omggg

Did you know it's canon that Catra is entirely covered in hair like an actual cat? Or at least it's "word of God" via the showrunners on twitter. But outside of fan art by furries nooooobody includes that. Especially not in fic. Which is fine. Because I personally do not want to write that. Her ears are fuzzy, the marks on her arms are just birth marks, but the hair on her body is just normal human body hair and that's it.

THAT SAID I think I've only read one fic that intentionally included her sense of smell being stronger, and it was referenced in ONE LINE for smutty reasons eheheheheheh

Anyway it's this fic and it's by a friend and it's good

SURPRISE!

Catra's expression is so often some variation on "...the fuck?"

Literally read a fic last week with a scene about how getting ill in the Horde was a good way to end up dead from a combination of bad nutrition/healthcare and being a victim of bullies but I cannot remember which fic it was

NO WAIT it's this one I think. I've still got two chapters to go reading that fic because I've been intentionally savoring it, the character stuff is just SO GOOD and it's just such the opposite of my own writing style. (But it's also the fic that has a scene of "Adora has a nightmare and injures Catra in her sleep," and I really hope nobody thinks I copied it considering I wrote mine before I read it in their fic, aaugh)

oh god there's a gif I can't find of a guy pressing his lips together like he's trying not to laugh and then looking at the camera and if you know the one: that one

Entrapta and her lack of ability to understand personal space or normal boundaries is just so great but also the phrase "another woman's tail" is just perfection

Yeah yeah I know Catra's being a manipulative little shithead here but also if I were to meet Entrapta and she didn't mind I would absolutely be twisting her hair CONSTANTLY just like I do my own

the weird noises she's making must've been so much fun to voice-act

So like, the whispering woods are like that one forest the hobbits walk through in the book version of lord of the rings where the trees keep like, closing in on them?

DEEP SIGH

that's the name of a g-idle song

oh right I see what's going to happen here

DO YOU THO

DO YOU

she's trying to comfort Shadow Weaver after immediately insulting her, bc of course she is

DIE, BITCH

"I was hard on you, I won't deny it; and I won't apologize. I just wanted to prepare you for the world. I just wanted you to be strong. :(" BULL FUCKING SHIT

well, for a given definition of "strong"

oh shit

Yeah that's a weird thing to bond over but okay

I dunno why they did the cute little fangie thing here but I'm not complaining

Okay so her face is stupid here (couldn't get a screenshot that included the caption and not the terrible face) BUT she really leaned into the sexy voice for this one and I made a noise and my laptop nearly slid to the floor pfft

[inaconstantstateofchange]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

thank you @hereforanepilogue for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 2!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? about 19k

3. What fandoms do you write for? baldur's gate 3

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

finirà bene [been posted longer]

hold me (like a knife) [literally posted today 😅]

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? i try to! i love talking about my thoughts and plans for the story and the background brainstorming that goes into it

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? i don't know if it's applicable because i'm incapable of writing actual angsty endings? angst, absolutely, but I can't end it that way. the closest would probably be the WIP oneshot i have exploring raphael and haarlep's dynamic? and that's less angsty ending and more just... The Way Devils Are™ y'know

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? currently it would be hold me (like a knife). the characters are still working for their happy ending in finirà bene.

8. Do you get hate on fics? not yet, but i don't get much interaction on them in general, so that mostly makes sense

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? i do! the more unusual and inhuman the better, usually. i love exploring what the lived experience of someone not standard-human would be.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? not yet!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? certainly not to my knowledge

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? no afaik

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? not unless mutual brainstorming over an unhinged wrestling!au counts

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? probably shen qingqiu/luo binghe from svsss, with a possible addendum of shen qingqiu/luo binghe/liu qingge

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? none so far! everything i want to finish right now i still very much have motivation to complete. finirà bene is going to take the longest just for its length, but so far i've been able to keep at it.

16. What are your writing strengths? from my own perspective and feedback i've received, i feel like i'm pretty strong in my descriptions and dialogue/characterization. those are two things that i used to consider my primary weaknesses so it's nice to be able to see them now as my strengths.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? i resist splitting sentences as long as i can. like are they technically correct? yes. should i please give the narrator a single moment to catch their breath? also yes.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? hmm... i don't foresee a lot of cause for it? so i'm not opposed theoretically but i can't really see it happening

19. First fandom you wrote for? that i posted anywhere, naruto. that i just wrote longhand for me and my one friend in middle school, twilight and/or harry potter.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? hold me (like a knife), by a slim margin. it is so self-indulgent and everything i wanted to read myself, and the fulfillment of a scene that's been in my mind for months, since playing through bg3 the first time. i also took it from an unedited 4.5k to a fully-edited 10.5k words in a fever-dream of a long weekend, which is an absolutely unprecedented accomplishment for me.

tagging @selkie-of-sule-skerry, @edda-grenade, and @childofyuggoth, as well as anyone else who wants to participate!

[chocolatequeennk]

NaNo update, 11/24-11/27

Usually the Thanksgiving weekend is a great writing weekend for me. Not so this year! I had a lot of things going on, and I ended up getting behind almost three whole days.

Today, however, today I caught up.

So, over the last 4 days, I have:

Written the whole scene of them actually capturing Gallifrey in the stasis cube

Figured out a few issues in Forever Timeless--I'm eager to do some editing tomorrow, now that my word count is caught up

Plotted out several of my Ficmas fics and written a couple of them

Ficmas took most of my energy today. I needed stories where I could just sit down and write a huge amount of text all in one go, without having to hop around in the story for a paragraph here and there.

Oh! I almost forgot the word count update.

Today's words: 3949 Total wc: 45002

I think for a sneak peek today, we're going to go to a scene I wrote last week. This is in the 50th rewrite, between Ten and the younger Rose.

~

Rose looked at the TARDIS her Doctor had just entered, along with her older self. She wasn’t exactly jealous, but it was weird to watch him with another woman—even if it was herself.

“Ah!” Pinstripes pointed at her in jubilation. “You always tease me when I’m jealous of myself, but now you get it!” 

Rose blinked. “How did you know what I was thinking?”

He blushed and tugged on his ear. “Welllll…” The word dragged out in a way she’d already become familiar with, but this time she had a feeling he was stalling for time. 

She crossed her arms over her chest and he looked over at his younger self. “A little help here?” he muttered. 

The younger Doctor shook his head and laughed. “Oh no, Doctor. You got us into this; you can get us out of it.” 

The Doctor sighed and turned back to face her. “Ah… you remember I’m not human, right?”

“It’s hard to forget when you keep insulting humans every time you cut yourself shaving. ‘Stupid apes!’” she said, in what she felt was a pretty good imitation of him.

If possible, the pinstriped Doctor turned even redder. “Yes, and… you know Time Lords are telepathic. I told you that on Platform One,” he added.

“Yeah, I remember. After you told me—or let slip—that the TARDIS was in my head.” He flinched, and she smiled. “S’ok, Doctor. I forgave you for that a long time ago.” 

“So… would you maybe forgive me if I told you that some day in the future you and I form a telepathic bond and it means that even right now I can kind of follow your train of thought? I’m not trying to read your mind, I swear, it’s just that I forgot that you didn’t know that I could do this and—”

Rose stepped forward and put her hand over his mouth. His brown eyes widened even further as he looked down at her. 

“Can my Doctor… Does he…” 

A furrow appeared in the Doctor’s forehead. “Ish it okay…” He pointed at her hand.

[honeyhotteoks]

I’m sorry this is going to be a little long… oops? I finally have a long weekend and now that I’m home I’m ready to dive into TNT (which I’ve been holding off for so long it’s insane I didn’t cave in earlier lol)

“Yunho would recommend we all stop drinking water if Mingi said it was a good idea.” I actually giggled at this and scared my parents’ cat lmao T^T This is hilarious and I already love the character dynamics! Also, kudos to woo for helping mc by giving her lozenges, I already love his character juygtfdfghj (I have a feeling he’s gonna be my favourite)

Oh gosh Mingi’s “it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you” and Yunho's “I’m just worried about you, I want you safe” had me melting on the floor. T^T

As someone who finds… the whole abo thing slightly… *sigh* how do I put it nicely? A lot of it goes very close to the nc category and always manages to make me uncomfortable especially since boundaries are not set before and just... Yeah. So, the fact that they’re talking about it beforehand and setting boundaries makes this so much better? I mean I know you said that ch 3 borders on dubcon, but they did talk about it so I guess that worked out well?

Bruhhhhhh I LOVE HOW YOU’VE WRITTEN MINGI HERE JKHTYRDFGCHJH the no-nonsense, level-headed guy~ T^T (who also runs away when things calm down lmao... Well... We can give him this one though, the aftermath is quite awkward)

JKGFVHKJIU You’ve got me all blushing and giggling with the dialogue especially the “Alphas are meant to provide,” He reminds you, “so let us.”

I love the awkwardness and the lingering feelings that are there throughout chapter 4~ And the last line obliterated me jkhgfjlui T^T She just wants her yungi T^T

OKAY CAN I SAY I LOVE JUNG WOOYOUNG? Remember when I said he’s gonna be my favourite in the beginning (lol I started writing this ask like… 3 hours ago oops?) I KNEW THERE WAS A REASON FOR THAT HAHAHA~ Can I get work friend!WY too please?

Oh gosh, okay Seonghwa! LMAO I love how he took the whole thing in stride. We love an unphased man~ And he offered himself up for the next heat??? AND THE WAY HE DOES IT OML. “you’re pretty, I’m pretty.” I was literally rolling on the couch in laughter.

Oh gosh, Sannie being the voice of reason is so on brand. (And side note, the whole, “but being a romantic doesn’t mean you have to let people hurt you” seems like such a San thing to say I— *sob*) I honestly love chapter 5 so much? Can’t wait to see how the friendship between mc and woosanhwa grows (because I literally love them so much rn ahaha) and how things turn out with yungi~

P.S. sorry if this is weird and feels more like a smash of random words jskmsns T^T I'm always kinda nervous to send asks but I loved the fic so much I just had to tell you ;-;

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! okay so i was literally giggling and clapping my hands reading this review i LOVE it thank you so much for taking the time. it means so much to me that you would do this 😭

but also YES to work friend wooyoung, like in my opinion he just has the makings for the perfect best friend character and there's so much more to come with him and the MC here. he's the most fun to write every time, he gets to have the best dialogue lol

also regarding your note about dubcon/noncon, i couldn't agree more! i'm comfortable reading both of those things if called out clearly in a fic, and i recognize why it's a kink, but it's really a sensitive topic that isn't for everyone and should be handled delicately. that was a big reason why i wrote the consent scene pre-heat in, and i'm glad that resonated with you! i've mentioned this on the blog before, but there will be a noncon scene in a later chapter between the MC and another character however, i just want to be clear it is not actually sexual, it's more just the implication of it and reader grappling with being an omega and feeling like she doesn't have the autonomy she wants to have. i really hope that is taken well by everyone, but just wanted to mention it again since you talked about it and for any other readers that may not have seen my earlier note.

also wait yes protective mingi / alpha mingi makes my brain spin. i'm excited to write yunho later on being a little more self assured about everything because he was leaning more hesitant in earlier chapters and letting mingi take the lead.

thank you SO much for your comment again, you pulled out some lines that honestly i was really proud of when i wrote them, so this comment means a lot.

[carlos-tk]

Nice Ask Week: what's your favorite thing to write (dialogue, inner monologues, scenery?) and what's your favorite spot to write in and how did you find 911 Lone Star? :D

Hi Michelle! Thanks for the question! Sorry it took me so long to answer it 😓

My favourite thing to write: Well I’m just getting back into writing in the last two months. But my favourite thing and easiest to write atm is definitely dialogue. My WIPs have all started with the idea of a conversation and then constructing the rest of the scene around that.

My favourite spot to write: Probably my desk or bed. Lately my inspiration has been striking at midnight like clockwork 😭 which is good because I have so much to say but the timing is SO bad when I have to be up early for work. My brain is torturing me. So I give myself 30 mins to an hour, to ramble a little (a lot) in my phones notes app and then revisit in daylight hours before or after work to actually write something sensical on the google doc. The first night I had a fic idea forming in my head it was thankfully a weekend and I wrote from 12am to 4:30 straight 😵 I feel like I was in a daze when I started writing and could not stop myself. Mostly stopped because my hands started hurting after nonstop typing on my phone in the dark for hours. When I realised it was 4am I died a little because wtf! In disbelief that my brain actually knows how to write a story still. When I moved it from my notes app to google doc the next day I’d somehow written approx. 4000 words. Since then I’ve started a fair few WIPs so this is a reminder that you can revisit old hobbies and maybe still know what the hell you’re doing 😅😂

How did I find 911 Lone Star: A bit of a long journey that I’ve answered here

[underthetree845]

ask game

😅✍🛒🛠💖👀🤗

Hello darling! Thank you for the ask (<3)

😅 (What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?)- God, um, I have this one x reader thing I wrote, and it was the very first piece of fanfiction I ever came up with. I wrote it in eighth grade (T-T). It wasn't super terrible and I didn't say "orbs" instead of eyes even once, I just kind of didn't know what I was doing. No planning took place, it was just a little forced, but I'm kind of proud of myself for just getting it out. It was an Armin/fem reader thing where they were going to a party dance thing and there was a confession. Kind of like a less evolved version of my recent masquerade fic, actually. I guess I enjoy writing dancing. I know I was young and everything but I'm so thankful that I hadn't figured out that I could actually post on fanfiction websites yet, I kept writing and thankfully (at least I believe/hope) that I got better. ✍ (Do you have a beta reader?)- I do not. I'm not against it or anything, I just don't. I do have this one friend that I send e v e r y t h i n g I write to though, albeit after it's published because she's not really an experienced writer (not that she's bad, just not the right person to ask for feedback). She's even read that dance fic I mentioned in the previous question.

🛒 (What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.)- Mutual pining is a big one for me 😭. Whether it's friends to lovers (which is what I mostly write), strangers to lovers, enemies, coworkers, etc. etc. there will always be mutual pining at some point. Even if one has had feelings for longer and I depict the growth of the other's feelings (which I find really interesting). Also- random- but I feel like hand holding/focus on hand touches is always a light thing I find myself wanting to incorporate. Not sure why.

🛠 (What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?)- I like to use google docs. It syncs to my phone too so I can write on the way to school or in public if I'm bored, stuff like that. Straight up writing in the tumblr drafts scares me, it's too easy to delete O.o. I oftentimes keep one doc for notes (if it's a longer fic) and write the fic separately. Fun fact though, when I started out, I was actually using the notes app on my phone. That didn't last long, but I still have my first few unpublished 8th grade fics on there.

💖 (What made you start writing?)- Okay so what made me REALIZE that I liked writing was my English classes in school. I've always been a bookworm- ever since I was a little kid- so it was amazing to me that I was able to create stories and show them to people in the same way real authors could. So middle school me loved doing creative writing assignments, I always went way over the wordcount, I loved reading books, etc. etc. Eventually I start getting into fandom, and through internet browsing, I come across fanfiction for the first time. I have to say, it kind of blew my mind. It's hard to explain that I never really stopped reading as much as I did in middle school and elementary school, I just read a lot more ~digital works by unpublished authors~ now (and I still do read books, I'm currently reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson and I love it). The rest I kind of already explained. I tried my hand at it for awhile in the notes app, eventually made an account, read, liked, etc., started posting, and the rest is history. :)

👀 (Tell me about an up and coming wip please!)- *Rubs hands together.* Okay, so: First of all, I'm ALMOST, almost I swear! I'm almost done with the next chapter for my ongoing fic. I'll probably post it sometime next weekend (I don't know if you follow it but there's that). I'm currently working on a Dazai oneshot with the pocky game (you know what that is, right?) And then someone sent me a jealous Chuuya request which I plan on completing after my other two wips since they won't take long.

🤗 (What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?)- EEEE! Okay okay!

Dear new writers, WE ARE SO HAPPY TO HAVE YOU HERE. Please don't be shy! Reach out, interact, share your work (if you want to) and there will be people who say hello back! Remember, don't compare yourself to other writers. We all started at some point. We all had a first post, we all make mistakes, we're all human. On that note, don't beat yourself up about making it perfect! Getting out a first draft is a great first step. It can include notes, errors, run on sentences, and that's fine because it's a draft! You do not have to be perfect, none of us are. Do not feel bad about not having the time to write, or even if you do have the time but lack the energy. Take care of yourself first always! Remember to have confidence in yourself. You created something that wasn't there before and put it out into the world and it's a story and it's yours and that is amazing in every aspect. Don't give up on yourself, take care of yourself, be kind to yourself, and you will slowly but surely find your place in the writers' community! <3

Thank you again for the asks! I hope all of you sleep well tonight. <33

[kinetic-elaboration]

May 28: Zombie Feeling

I've been having such a weird weekend. I've just been in my apartment, doing things, but like, not really deciding to do them. Going where the spirit takes me, I guess. It's hard to describe, but it's like no action is really consciously taken nor truly settling in to my brain. Zombie mode completely.

So I don't feel particularly good about the things I have accomplished. Which are not nothing, but if I'm going to be in this weird state, I do wish I was doing more. Yesterday, I did some organizing, and today I did a bit of cooking and I also finally sat down and finished New Man. It took a while but I also did it in the easiest, most low key, low-stress way possible, which is a nice change of pace for me when it comes to writing.

It felt anti-climactic to finish the last big scene earlier this month--because I still had these extra bits and pieces hanging over me--and it feels anticlimactic to finish the whole draft now, because all I did was write about 1,000 additional words in the form of 'social media' scenes. Now I can fully move on from this fic, at least for a while--but I also moved on from it a few weeks ago! So what is the truth?

The total word count came out to about 16.5k, which seems a completely fake number to me. It seems unnecessarily long for the plot and also like a decent justification for why it took me so long to finish. I don't know. I just feel so divorced from this story. I could re-read it tomorrow and not remember anything I actually wrote.

Nevertheless, I shall not re-read it tomorrow. I'm keeping it in the vault for some as yet unknown period of time, and then rereading/editing it with fresh(er) eyes later. Much later.

This has been a pretty lame long weekend I feel bummed about it. The forecast for the next two days still has a lot of rain in it. I deeply need something to snap me out of this trance and getting out would help a lot, so I hope the "scattered thunderstorms" tomorrow are very scattered and I can just ignore them.

I'm trying not to feel bitter, but ugh what a waste of a long weekend. I should have binged S2 of Yellowjackets instead.

[loverscrossmp3]

HI LIV!! HOW IS YOUR DAY HOW ARE YOU!! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! for the directors cut thing...i was wondering if you could talk a little bit abt the role of james in and still the fire burns xx because i just loved the sort of part he played there in that its a jily fic but actually its not? because most importantly its a lily fic...its about her growth and her internal conflicts and her identity...and yet james and the romance between them is so wonderfully present...was that always like. the plan? for the fic to be about lily first and foremost and to explore her and james that way? or did it sort of become that over time? do any of these questions make sense? i dont know xx (also anything you can say at all about remus and sirius...you know how i weep and wail when they turn up in your writing...) MWAH!!

HELLO LOVELY!!! I AM WELL - worked all weekend but got out of classes early today so took a well-needed nap! HOW ARE YOU!! how's halloween on the other side of the world!!!

answer under the cut i am. so sorry. i am so sjrry

FANTASTIC question!! the thing with astfb is considering it was my first *actual* canon fic, i wanted it to be... essentially perfect. obviously, it is not, but i am still very pleased with how it came out! anyway, as a result of that it went through several drafts. 

when i first began the story, i honestly had no idea where i was going with it. the summary was actually sort of the basis i tried to keep it centered around cause i had that jotted down in my notes since. probably last year. and originally when i had written it, i thought it would be more of a light-hearted, happy fic centered more around the boys and all their shenanigans. but! after lots of re-writing and shifting things around into places that fit or getting rid of them altogether, you can find that that is not exactly what happened!

so, to answer your actual question, it definitely wasn’t my initial intention to focus solely on lily! 

to be completely honest, when i first began writing, my ideas on her were still somewhat vague and certainly not as solid as they are now after exploring her character more thoroughly. and actually, i think i did try to sort of fight writing her perspective and do james’ instead but that... would not happen (she’s insistent like that). 

as i wrote and slowly got the hang of lily, i realized that, actually, i hadn’t included much of james at all. everything i was writing was a study on her character, and her alone, more than anything else. 

once that was put together, from there it was like okay, this is gonna be lily’s story; and then, it’s gonna focus on her and her relationships more than anything else — james is obviously the big one but you’ll see petunia and snape are also scattered throughout, even if it’s only a passing thought (did this especially bc i think it’s these three relationships of hers that really play a significant role in who she is as a character).

over time, i think that subconscious thought had already been there from including smaller scenes that basically gave a small insight into how lily viewed james (and how he was) through the years (unreliable narrator woohoo!!). like, for example, our first introduction of james reveals that he was the one who had the idea of sending lily the book full of condolences after her dad died. and then in the great hall after the first attacks in february, their eyes catch and despite everything that’s going on, lily still has it in her to think about the sweet small moment they had in transfiguration the week prior. 

with it being a non-linear timeline, you aren’t exactly given the full story all at once. like, reading that latter example, you won’t know that lily’s actually been noticing james (‘The final, a secret: this one, fresh as potted plants on a windowsill, edges yellowing ... Her eyes flit. The boy with glasses is grinning, saying something wild.’ — this is revealed at nearly the end of the story) or how they sat in the quiet of the common room before christmas hols a few months ago until, sometimes, much later. 

SORRY this got so long i am genuinely flushed in embarrassment but the short, redundant answer is: it wasn’t the original plan for the main focus to be on lily, but pretty quickly i realized that - that’s what it was going to be whether i liked it or not. then, once this epiphany struck many drafts later, that’s how i knew i was going to explore lily and james’ relationship: in small bits that don’t overshadow lily’s actual story and character. 

and as for remus and sirius!! 

so, my personal hc (at least for the sake of this fic) is that sirius and remus don’t officially get together until some time in seventh year (i usually picture the prank taking place the spring of fifth year, so it being sixth year still, i imagine it’s still a bit of a tense topic between the two). 

but, obviously, they are pining like fools off screen — which lily does notice btw (they hardly spoke a word in divination until some time in december!! sirius will tilt back on his chair legs and watch remus when he’s engaged in his work!!). 

“It sounds very nearly like he’s your lover, the way you go on about him,” Lily interrupts.

James’ head snaps to her and then he is turning back to doodle on his parchment, laughing. “Nah,” he says, “couldn’t handle him, me. He needs someone with a bit more… head.”

“Ah.”

“But he is great. Once you get past the whole… him aspect of it.” He glances up, a grin making its way to his lips. Lily looks away, blinking rapidly.

really wish i could give you more on them but! in this scene, i imagine james isn’t nearly as oblivious as he seems and definitely knows both r and s are absolutely mad for each other. and that, like he said, s needs someone who’s a bit more solemn, who can take him down a notch when needed. once they’re closer, he and lily regularly talk about it. one day they even catch the two of them sitting near the black lake, remus on his back with his arm over his eyes, laughing; oblivious to sirius watching him like it’s his only goal in life to make remus laugh. 

director’s cut!

[mercurygray]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💖

A Rose Among the Briars (Lord of the Rings, 2009-2015) Pressured by his father into a marriage of convenience, Boromir of Gondor is forced to reconsider his views on married life and women in general while his intended tries to come to terms with her own dilemmas.

This isn't the best thing I've ever written, but it's the story that taught me a lot on how to be a better writer. I wrote the first version in my middle school fandom salad days, and came back to it three years later during late high school. It took me six years to finish, including a year and a half when I wrote practically nothing. It was my first practice making sure characters had reasons to be places, and making sure they had things to do while they were there. It was the first time I worked with a large ensemble. It taught me the importance of giving my characters friends and scene partners. It taught me how to kill my darlings and keep focused on where the story was going. I love this story like it is my firstborn child and I will never stop talking about it.

A Woman Well-Reputed (Downton Abbey, 2014) Testing the waters of her interest in Charles Blake, Mary accepts an invitation to his cousin Sir Severus' house for a shooting weekend, and gets more than she bargained for making new acquaintances, and putting past love affairs to rest. Mary, Evelyn, Charles, and others.

This was one of the last fics I posted on FF.net. Practically no one read it, but I loved writing it. I got to research Irish stately homes, and the Ascendency, and 1920s politics. It was just a lot of fun for me - and it was a challenge to myself to tell a story completely and actually finish something, which I wasn't doing a whole lot of then.

The Cross, The Crescent, and The Star (A Discovery of Witches + Kingdom of Heaven, 2019)

Everyone comes to Jerusalem asking for something - forgiveness, glory, fame. Most questions go to God, but some come to the King, who wields a different kind of power. Baldwin the Fourth has a new chess partner, asking for land for a new monastery, and not all the members of his court are happy about it.

This was one of the first longer-format things I wrote after some time away from fandom; I like it because I set out to tell the whole story in six chapters and did. I also got to use one of my favorite original characters in a different context, which was fun to revisit and explore.

A Goddess's Lament After many years of silence, Amphitrite, the wife of Poseidon, recounts her life and how she came to be the figure she is in song and story, and how she met Percy before events in The Last Olympian. Bookverse.

There is a kind of sick, sad joy in coming into a fandom for a younger demographic than you and blowing the present state of fic out of the water, and I'm still so glad I did it. This is one of the most-reviewed things I've ever written, but I would love it endlessly anyway.

The Darkening Sky (2020 - present) "Some will say that it is a sad state of affairs when a country asks its women to go to war. But there is nothing sad about patriotism, and from coast to coast, America's women have answered the call in record-breaking numbers, happy and willing to serve in all branches of the service."

It's summer of 1942. America's at war, and all kinds of opportunities are opening up for women - including, if the recruiting posters are to be believed, as co-ed additions to an entirely new unit of parachute infantry. Will they have what it takes?

My newest, biggest, most ambitious baby since I finished Rose, and, dare I say it, the best thing I've ever written. If Rose is my firstborn, this fic is my secondborn triplets.