#I am in that learning phase of posting and writing fanfic

[silvers-starrway]

AHHHH Finally finished the first bit of writing for this au! If you wanna learn how Shadow meets Mari then this is it! It's still very weird posting to AO3 so here's to hoping it all worked out alright.

Words: 2,642

[mindsetecho]

Hellooouu!!

My names Echo and this is my tumblr blog :3 I’m a 18 year old autistic trans guy and by heart a creepypasta kid. (It turned out to not be a phase lol)

Fandoms I’m in: Creepypasta, The Magnus archives, Slenderverse, MARBLE HORNETS, WTNV, CH&T, Hannibal & more

Hobby’s/Interests: Taxidermy, Bones, collecting dead stuff, Art, Writing, Reading, Photography, Unsettling metaphors, DIY stuff & Sewing

Musik!!!: METAL, Folk-ish, weird & Alternative Music

(prog metal, dsbm, post hardcore, gothic, new wave, emo, midwest emo, folk punk, Industrial, some indie & more)

Here is my Linktree!! Check out my Creepypasta/marble hornets crossover fanfic Im currently working on if you feel like it! (Or any other of my socials)

And! I have a Crp AU playlist on Spotify if anyone’s interested ^_^

(Fun facts! I speak russian, English and German fluently plus currently am learning Norwegian. I’m pagan and practice witchcraft!)

Thanks for reading and interacting!

Happy rotting!!!

[mk-writes-stuff]

Writeblr and Whumpblr Intro

Hi everybody! I’m MK, he/they, and I don’t want to share exactly how old I am but I’m over 20.

I write work that teeters on the edge between classic fiction and straight-up whump, generally fantasy with a bit of sci-fi. I write a mixture of original work and fanfiction, mostly for Magic: the Gathering. If I get the courage, I might eventually post my finished fanfiction work on AO3, but I’m a bit shy of that right now.

I tend to write work that isn’t appropriate for younger people (minors please block the “18+ content” tag), and often discusses and shows abuse, both physical, emotional, and sexual. There are frequent depictions of trauma and mental illness. Please avoid my work or ask me clarifying questions if you want to avoid any of that.

Please feel free to message me and talk about my work, I love to talk about it! Or feel free to tag me in games - I’m a bit shy but I’m working on getting comfortable replying.

WIPs:

The Seven Station Chronicles:

Early writing phase, my main active WIP. Original fiction, space fantasy. Tells the story of a young woman coming into her own and learning to navigate the complex political landscape of the isolated group of space stations she lives on, with the reluctant aid of her unwilling bodyguard who has her own secrets, and all the complicated people they meet along the way. Four books planned. Full intro post is here.

To Kill a Dead Thing:

Early writing phase, mostly on hiatus. MTG fanfic. Loosely a sequel to my finished fic, but you can read one without the other. Tells the story of an elvish parole officer at the end of her tether with a mysterious figure that seems determined to break her to pieces, her human friend desperate to help and hold her falling-apart office together while she’s at it, and the chaotic people they meet along the way.

The Pirates’ Roost:

Told in a periodically-written series of nonlinear short stories. MTG fanfic, mostly unrelated to the others. Tells the story of a group of abused pirates escaping their abusers and recovering from trauma, primarily through the story of a young man’s ascent from the groomed plaything of a violent captain to the captain of the most successful ship on the sea. Intro post for the series is here, the wiki is here, and the story archive is here.

Finished work:

The Breaking of Kelsey Karlov:

Finished, needs minor editing. MTG fanfic. Tells the story of a human noble turned into a vampire by a violent vampire pontiff and their attempts to escape him while he pulls them ever deeper into his web.

[pricemarshfield]

Writer Interview Game

thank you for the tag @wetcatspellcaster! honestly just this morning was talking about writing and inspiration and motivation so it was super cool to get to dive in-depth with this :) under the cut because uhhh i am chatty as all hell <3

tagging @reallyhatethiswebsite @goldfyshie927 @prettyaveragewhiteshark @pouralaura @atrueneutral @bravestworriers AND anyone else who'd like to! as always, no pressure :)

When did you start writing?

i genuinely have been writing so long that i don't remember when i started. i have distinct memories of being 6 and writing about my oc who was a babylonian priestess raised by alligators and living in antarctica in a compound full of animals, and despite being babylonian she was named athena. honestly a baller concept for me at 6 years old, i kinda still fuck with it (though i'd tweak some things. world-build a little more. probably rename her. read more than one encyclopedia page about mesopotamia)

i wrote a LOT of original stuff (read: knockoffs of whatever novels i'd read at the time) and a bit of fanfiction as a tween, got into a phase where i hated and deleted all of it and wrote WAY less as a teen, and then jumped back into fanfic with requests from my high school friend group and haven't stopped since. even when my posting has slowed, my writing hasn't; i just waffle between "post a chapter as soon as it's done" and "wait until the fic is finished and fully edited before i post a word of it". the former approach definitely works better for me because otherwise it languishes in my drafts forever (i'm sorry pricemarsh longfic. one day i will muster up the motivation to finish you).

i write Some original stuff, but more short stories than longform things. actually someone yell at me to post my molly drew backstory thing because it's one of the best things i've written in years AND fully original! (well. project zomboid. fanfic gray area but it's basically a stand-alone zombie thing, it doesn't pull from the game's lore because i don't know it lmao)

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

hm...i think i read a long more long genfics than i've written or attempted to write, which is funny because longer genfics are definitely some of the best things i've written and that have resulted in the Nicest comments and response i've ever gotten. (the only fic i've ever joined a server and had someone go "i've read this and i loved it" is a 30k genfic, and also is my magnus opus). also, i read MUCH more original fiction stuff than i write these days, even if i DO have a lot of oc ideas these days.

i'm not sure why! i don't think it's coming from a concern of lack of interest...compelled as i am by platonic dynamics, i think i just have more fun writing shippy stuff. also i write a lot of smut, so there's that. thinking about it, there mayyy be a level of spite in my not writing more original stuff, or at least not sharing it? my family is very annoying about the fact i write fic instead of original stuff, and that i am Not interested in being an author as my career. but that's a silly reason so maybe i'll hype myself up about my original stuff more lol

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

not that i can think of? not unless i'm writing something in a very specific genre, anyway. when i wrote my noir au martian thing i was very specifically trying to emulate works from that genre but even then not Authors so much as Works and even then more movies than books...i think there are some fantastic authors (both published and fandom!) that i'm very inspired by and learn from but none that i'd point to as a Style To Emulate. but in terms of writers, both the person who tagged me and everyone i'm tagging have writing i love enough that it makes me want to work on my own stuff. all of y'all use words SO well.

again, not a style i'm trying to emulate BUT in terms of books that got me thinking about words and world-building and writing in such a way that i was inspired to Create (a VASTLY incomplete list): mexican gothic by silvia moreno-garcia, exercises in style by raymond queneau, 253 by geoff ryman, the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson, this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone, the martian by andy weir, and in the dream house by carmen maria machado. ALSO READ MORE CLASSICS AND NONFICTION AND POETRY...get thinking about words in different ways even if it's not the genre you want to write because it WILL help your writing grow...this is getting so far away from the question oops

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

...the amount of fic i've written on my dinky old laptop, in bed at 2am, directly in the ao3 textbox is FAR more than the fic i've written in any other space. (no one should do this btw.) unfortunately i write most when i compelled by ideas at at a time i shouldn't be, and my laptop is convenient

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

stepping away. forcing writing puts me back in a mindset that'll burn me out Longterm, and i won't even be happy with the end result. writing and also any other creative endeavor isn't something to do on its own forever; if you're not inspired, go read something! play something! draw something if you write/write something if you draw! go on a hike! try and fail to learn to crochet!

on top of helping yourself decompress from writer's block and burnout (if you're dealing with either), i feel like the muse always comes easier when i give her space. sometimes she comes back with a vengeance and that's when i write at 2am (that's when most of talk was written, and it haunted me for MONTHS. MONTHSSS. so i guess also you can muster up the muse by being down bad for the devil)

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

all my ocs are autistic women who mask (either well or poorly) and feel fundamentally not in line with the worlds in which they're living. which could mean nothing

but also i don't really think so! i try to very consciously write different genres and themes and ideas; i think i revisit the idea of two characters who are in some way opposed realizing they're more similar than they thought, or else finding compatibility In their differences maybe?? which isn't surprising but also i think indicates more a desire to build up a relationship as part of a plot rather than saying something about Me, Specifically

wait no i lied. in dnd and dnd-related fandoms specifically i write a LOT of stuff vis a vis divinity and expectations and the dichotomy of good/evil in the setting not necessarily matching with any sort of real-world morality/philosophy and the horror inherent to godhood (on both the side of the god and the follower.) i'm not a particularly religious person nor was i raised as such, so not sure Why, but it's very interesting to me!!

What is your reason for writing?

i want to read it and no one's gonna write it exactly like i will!! but also...it's fun. i like getting into a character's head. i like figuring out how to get from scene a to scene b in a way that doesn't take away from the narrative. i LOVE getting to see the ways a story can shift outside its outline (my outlines are very bare-bones, so this happens a lot). it's something that i enjoy and that i can share with people.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

any comment that shares something about my writing that either i was actively trying to do or that i didn't notice at all. the first is a delight because it means someone gets what i'm going for!! hell yes! and then the latter is a look at my writing through someone else's eyes which is just so so nice. either one feels like Connecting with people over my writing which is! the goal! so hell yes!

really though any comment that isn't "write more" is motivating to me. someone once left a keysmash and nothing else in the comment box and it motivated me to pick up another wip for the same pairing and write another chapter

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

i am a human being and not a content machine <3 this doesn't come up a lot anymore but i used to have to deal with a lot of asks and requests that would demand more fic even as all my posts were about the immense grief i was dealing with at the time lol.

but also i want to be seen as a person who can be approached! send me asks about what i've written, dm me, tell me about zines and fanweeks and things like that! i literally live with someone i met in a fandom space, fandom works best when it's a thing you share with people rather than a thing you Consume and expect Recognition for. (not that recognition is BAD, but like...see it as connection first and content second, ykwim? i also say this knowing i'm bad about reaching out first but. yeah. i'm working on it!)

slight tangent but you've already read this far so <3 i also feel like fandom these days has moved to more private spaces rather than public appreciation...like, how many fandom events get shared primarily in discord servers that a new fan might not know to join? how many people only get hyped up by people they've already talked with? how many people gush over a fic in a server and then never mention it to the author? i want to be approachable because i want to actually Engage with people without having to join 80 discord servers for different niche things and hope i find a place i vibe with. (nothing against discord specifically--anyone can ask for mine, and i met some dear friends that i'm tagging through a fan discord server, but i hate social connection in fandom being Limited to that.) okay tangent over

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

this is so specific lol but i think i'm really good at flow and sentence structure. like...i feel like i space out my sentences and paragraphs well to keep things from getting too jarring even while being wordy as all hell in a smut oneshot. (there's a reason my first tav is a bard multiclass with the sage background, and it's because neither of us can or will shut up <3)

How do you feel about your own writing?

honestly? pretty damn good. i'll still go through what every writer does where i reread my own stuff and think it sucks sometimes, but i think i've gotten to a place in my writing where i can enjoy it as it stands even if i notice something i'd edit differently. it helps that i've started writing a lot more SELF-indulgently rather than request-indulgently (though please do still send requests if you want! <3 i just mean that i'm not ONLY writing things for other people)

[revols-headcanons]

dipper and mabel: piedmont life

also this is borderline a fanfic but i have no motivation or peer pressure to actually write one. also warning there are OC’s in this post. this is potentially part 1 of a series?

both of them are autistic but in different ways. dipper is a “i am so insecure of my place in the world that I can immediately notice when there’s a dip in a conversation because of me” who would rather be alone then face social rejection. mabel is a “i think im really good with people because i am so unaware of social cues that i think everyone is being nice to me” who learned how to tell fake vs true niceness.

neither of them were diagnosed as kids, and how they both figured out was due to mabel helping the disabled classroom at her school and noticing similar habits and thought process from them. then dipper did research and they were like “oh okay that makes sense.”

in their sophomore year of high school, they both had identity crisis’ but in different ways: dipper became an overly cocky ‘too cool for anyone’ loner while mabel had a raging emo phase. both of them became deeply embarrassed of those phases the second they got out of them.

in their 8th grade english class, they did a duo project where they explained their entire summer (the prompt was to tell a fantasy three act story). dipper did the reading while mabel did the visuals (aka one of those pop up books but bigger and with her sound effects). their teacher asked them where their vivid imaginations came from and they told some excuse about being bored all summer.

their parents (who i am naming ingrid and robert) are (rightfully) pissed and confused when their kids start showing major symptoms of ptsd and depression. stan has literally no excuse for it and the twins keep dodging the questions.

ingrid is a anxious, stuck up mother who prioritizes education while robert is the relaxed father who expects the world but refuses to give help or support. let’s just say the twins don’t stay home as much. especially after the disaster the first week at home was when the twins brought waddles home.

after the summer, mabel gets into the trivia club and also tries out the science/engineering/robotics club (she also plays soccer, golf, and volleyball). her arts and crafts skills become incredibly useful when making a wooden structure with the purpose of finding the exact angle and falling distance for a marble. meanwhile dipper decides to try out for both track and football (he’s also in photography club and the school newspaper). dipper is the weakest member on the football team, but he’s the quickest runningback they’ve ever had, so the team doesn’t bully him too much for it. he’s consistently in the top 5 for his school during track.

mabel’s first high school friend is a black girl in her robotics club named aubrey. aubrey has adhd and has basically the same hobbies as mabel (i.e: karaoke, shopping, dancing, art). her second friend she meets at theater auditions (for the school musical, into the woods) where mabel watches her do a 10/10 audition performance and compliments her. she is south asian and named kamini, and her interests consist of theater, soccer, and english. her third friend ends up being the emo loner boy that she talks to on the first day. he’s latino and his name is dante. his hobbies consist of skateboarding, karaoke, and video games.

dipper’s first friend ends up being the younger brother of the football team captain, which is what makes the team stop bullying him. his friend is this kind of egotistical, yet himbo nerd of a dude named ethan— who’s a white boy with blond hair and freckles. ethan is interested in soccer and track as well as trivia, and they met during orientation week when they were the only two kids being ignored for the track club. dipper’s second friend comes from his ap english class, where he watched them cuss out someone for trying to harass a girl in the class. they’re asian and non binary and they go by paine. they like chess, english, and dnd, which is why dipper gets along with them so well.

dipper is able to convince ethan and paine to start a dnd session together, with dipper as dungeon master.

mabel eventually forces dipper into joining the program and dipper agrees to be backstage crew. it works out fine until they realize that their play has an unusually low tryout for men so mabel begs him to tryout for a lead role. he gets it because the programs desperate. he ends up playing either percy or grover in the lightning thief, and mabel gets casted as clarisse/katie/etc.

mabel loves taylor swift (specifically red, 1989, and lover) and also doja cat. she dabbles in ariana grande and marina from time to time as well. dipper has nightmares when he hears mabel, aubrey, and dante singing karaoke for first time.

dipper listens to cavetown and mitski mainly before paine and ethan lightly bully him into listening to the arctic monkeys and gorillaz. he creates aesthetic playlists for when he’s monster/creature hunting. neither of his friends believe him when he describes super natural things until (on two separate occasions) he shows them videos of gravity falls shenanigans and when they run into anomalies in piedmont.

mabel ends up getting a crush on ethan and then dipper has that tragic disaster to deal with.

dipper gets a minor crush on kamini before he learns that she views him as this cute little thing to watch but not dateable.

due to dipper’s boost in confidence, girls notice him and try to ask him out. he gets really flustered and confused, especially when girls who bullied him suddenly want to be with him. he rejects them all.

mabel realizes she’s bisexual when she gets a crush on aubrey and has a mental breakdown about it. she confesses, aubrey says that she doesn’t like the concept of dating at all, mabel takes the rejection decently, and they continue being the best of friends.

mabel gets jokingly asked out by a football boy and then dipper gets so pissed off he punches the dude in the face (mabel had no time to react, because if she did, she would’ve also joined the fight). a fist fight ensues, they both get suspended, and no one messes with mabel ever again.

mabel ends up befriending nearly everyone due to how kind and considerate she is. even girls who hated her from middle school soften because of her. she is a god.

most people are neutral towards dipper due to how he doesn’t really initiate social interactions, but that’s how he likes it.

dipper is an avid buzzfeed unsolved fan while mabel watches danny gonzales, drew goodman, etc.

dipper is trans. he realized he was trans when he was like 8, and he’s been a boy since. he was mainly bullied for being trans, but ever since he got confident, learned how to kick ass, and started taking testosterone, people have left him alone. also his name ‘mason,’ he specifically chose to appease his parents (who wanted two twins with ‘m’ starting names that had 5 letters each), but he goes by dipper because that’s the name he would’ve actually chosen.

the twins have separate rooms at their parents house, but they keep accidentally passing out on each other’s floors (or on mabel’s beanbag, or at dipper’s desk). their parents ask why all of a sudden and the twins say they just got closer over the summer. they would never admit it’s because sleeping in the same room as someone who experienced the same trauma is relieving.

mabel constantly calls grenda and candy, reassuring them that while she also loves aubrey and kamini, that her gravity falls friends will always be her favorites.

robert’s favorite child is mabel because, although he has unfair expectations of them, he gives mabel excuses because she’s more art and people focused, while he’s overly harsh on dipper. ingrid’s favorite is dipper because he also likes puzzles, board games, and higher education, while she looks down upon mabel for being childish and irresponsible.

dipper refuses to give any explanation for having wendy’s hat instead of a normal cap. theories range from ‘he has a girlfriend’ to ‘he murdered a man for it.’ he also cried when a bully threw it in the trash once.

the twins have a bet for whoever becomes the tallest by the time they enter the mystery shack the next summer: whoever’s taller gets to pawn their summer chores off onto the other one for the whole summer. mabel gets at least 8 hours of sleep a night to help herself (though her diet is wack) while dipper eats a lot of height-growing food items to help himself (though he’s never had a consistent sleep schedule in his life).

[anxiouspotatorants]

Hey I am trying to write a fanfic right now and I saw you had some Dave Rygalski headcanons before so... do you have any Dave headcanons about his home life and like him outside of the characters we see on the show?

Hey, I am so sorry for not replying sooner but how sweet of you to think of my headcanons! It really warms my heart to see people still actually interacting with those Dave posts. I’m guessing my input will be irrelevant for your fic by now but I still love this as a prompt so I figure it would be fun to still write and post a reply. Also if/when the fic is up and running please send me a link so I may devour it!!

I never thought all that much about Dave’s homelife. I assume he’s in a two-parent household, but unsure about siblings pets and general family dynamics. Now that I’m thinking about it Dave does seem like the type to have sisters, maybe two or three. He doesn’t strike me as someone with active drama going on with his family during the show (which would be a rare sight on Gilmore Girls), but then again that’s just my take. If I remember correctly he is canonically Jewish, but as a European gentile I don’t exactly find myself informed enough to make religious or too culturally specific headcanons for a Jewish US American boy in 2000s New England.

What I do headcanon is that Dave, Zack and possibly Brian all come from a neighbouring town instead of Stars Hollow. I know US small towns can be a lot bigger than what we define as small towns where I’m from, but Lane’s never met Dave before the band and Stars Hollow is a tiny town with presumably only one high school. They should’ve met by season 3 if Dave was a townie.

I also headcanon that he can’t wait to get out of small town life, which is why he applies to study in California. I don’t think he hates small towns (if he did he would spend a lot less time in ST and a lot more doing daytrips to NY) but he’s probably never truly felt at home and hopes to find that sense of belonging in a physically bigger place. Whether he’s right about that assessment or not is a whole ‘nother case though. I think he has a really tough first year in college getting used to a far noisier and busier city and not having that safe group to constantly fall back on like he would back in New England.

Another headcanon specifically about everyday homelife is that Dave is the technician of the family. Because of his audio-tech passion his parents and potential siblings just assume he’s great at all tech and electricity, forcing him to be the one who has to figure out how to fix a faulty satellite and learn the fuse box, and at some point just switch out all the lightbulbs in the house.

Other headcanons I have which have little to do with homelife include:

Dave’s more of a sci fi geek than fantasy geek (not that all fantasy fanboys know Tolkien inside out but in GG he would’ve picked up on Mrs Kim’s quote… also he’s big into sound tech and I headcanon him as eventually getting into tech period). The boy knows his Asimov, his Analog, his Star Trek, his battlestar Galactica and most definitely keeps tabs on the Syfy Channel.

Sci fi preference be damned that boy is doing something tabletop related and my money is on either Dungeons & Dragons (the guys is studious af and has Brian and Zach as friends) or Magic the Gathering (and yes he would spend all his lunch money and then his student loans on the damn cards)

He might have anxiety (not to do armchair psychology but there’s a vibe. The ones who know, know)

He could become a little tech broish while studying in California (I mean Silicon Valley is right there) but I think it would just be a phase and that he’s more obsessed with nerding out over how things work than spreading the Web3 gospel. And I still stand by my headcanon that he goes into sound engineering or sound related tech for work after college.

Tardiness be damned I hope this was a fun and somewhat insightful read, if only on how I tend to headcanon these folk!

[inconsistentlyunhinged]

Info about me??? I guess???

I saw that people do this these days, I’ll probably do it wrong but fuck it.

- I’m a ‘00 baby and come from the land down under (where women glow and men plunder)

- Am a raging dyke with the wife to prove it.

- Mostly just here to interact with other people’s fandom shit, but will post on the rare occasion I’m struck with a thought.

- Fandoms include: Total Drama, South Park, Warcraft, Star Wars, LotR, yada yada. I go through phases.

- I’ve been writing fanfic for about ten years, and subsequently abandoned accounts as shame set in. BUT for TD people, I have a scike WIP which is 3/4 done and I expect to clock in at 35k words. I’m hoping to finish in the next fortnight if god doesn’t hate me. Might post a link if I don’t chicken out about linking my Ao3 to tumblr with fear of criticism 💀(edit: that bitch is done, look up “you know the devil hates a loser” by GenavieCallow)

- Really don’t care who interacts with me. But if you come at me with unhinged energy I will match it.

No I’m not hip and with the kids. I never learned how to use tumblr when it was cool because I hated the layout. Now it’s my only option to find my kin without the tik tok/twitter discourse. So bear with me as I struggle🤷‍♀️

[callipraxia]

Things I Learned This Morning:

1) Using print instead of script, which would be faster but less tidy, I may hand-write not far under 1300 words per hour when things are going well. (The exact number was 1267 words)

2) My brain harbors an irrational hatred for the number 4 apparently? (I kept almost skipping it and having to go back and erase the little number above fourth words because I wrote 4 as 5, for instance, going straight from 223 to 225 before I caught myself.)

3) Taking a pencil and individually numbering every word you wrote takes a really long time.

4) Apparently my brain also cannot handle writing a series of numbers that consistently go above two digits. I transpose digits, forget the first digit, write 8 instead of 3, write 5 instead of 8, write 2 instead of 9….I made it through the first 1000 but counted the remainder in blocks of 1-100 in the interests of staying tolerably sane.

5) My print is indeed much more legible than my script, but also, oww, my elbow feels like it’s about to crack right now and my hand feels all twisted up inside, ow ow ow.

(Backstory: I’ve been stuck in a rut for a while, so I decided to say “what the heck” and try to force myself to write a rough draft of one of my fanfic ideas for NaNoWriMo. I’m printing because I am currently Resolved to write a complete rough draft and then revise it, all before posting anything. Then, in theory, I’ll post it by chapter on an actual *posting schedule*. However, since I have never managed to muster the kind of discipline needed to keep working on a project nobody has seen and praised some part of for that long in my entire life…we’ll see. Plus, it might be easy enough to make it to the word count minimum today, but I only just finished the setup phase of the first scene, getting Pacifica from “the alarm clock rang” and through “Pacifica reflects on what mornings in Northwest Manor were like compared to her new life” to the point of “Pacifica has gotten out of bed.” That kind of writing is super-easy for me, but the kinds where things actually happen can be…much slower going. Which means I’ll have to apply even *more* discipline to make quotas on some days. So basically I, a deeply scattered and undisciplined person, am basically attempting to overhaul my personality for at least a month, lol. Wish me luck, folks….

For my GF peeps, I hope that you’ll enjoy the results if this project does amount to anything, even though it is a bit of a departure from my ‘usual’ material. You see, I have a lifelong, deep-seated love for books set in schools/based around school years, and I have decided to combine that with my desire to write some post-canon material. We’re picking up very shortly after the finale, with the first day of school in Gravity Falls - the Pineses should have some involvement, here and there, but mostly via phone and Internet. I’m sufficiently addicted to the “greater scope” that I don’t think I‘ll end up with something that is purely YA or a “girls’ book,” but it will involve focusing on more girls and therefore “girl stuff” than canon/anything I have written previously - Pacifica, Wendy, and Candy are all projected to be narrators, with Grenda also at least being an important character and possibly a fourth narrator. Compare to FWJB, where the narrators consisted of ten dudes, Bill, and Mabel…and although I put him in his own category, Bill does seem to use he/him pronouns when interacting with English-speaking mortals, and so one could very reasonably argue that the narrators consisted of eleven dudes plus Mabel. Soos may well get some narrator time, but this one also seems on course to primarily focus on the kid characters. Gulp. We’ll see how it goes….)

[apictureofelizabethdarcy]

Y'all. I might be a little emotional tonight due to the overlap of post-period blues and being very very sick, but like... I am so excited for this new wave of PJO love. Because those books meant and continue to mean so damn much to me.

When I was 10 years old, I my dad bought the boxed set of the first four for me from a Scholastic book order. The last Olympian hadn't come out yet - it came out a month later. My dad chose it for me because it had Greek mythology, and I was going through a mythology phase at the time. I didn't know what he ordered, because he filled out the forms and sealed the envelope after my brother and I went to bed, and I took them to school the next day like a dutiful kid. When they came in, I had no idea what to expect, but I ended up devouring them. Because they made me feel seen in a way I never had before.

TW: adults not being assholes about neurodiversity, brief mentions of sexual harrassment and bullying, brief vague mention of self-harm, death of a loved one

You need to understand that at this time, I was your stereotypical "gifted" kid - undiagnosed dyslexic autistic with OCD and ADHD comorbidities. We lived in a super tiny rural town (like 16 people in my graduating class tiny) with very limited internet access (I had dial-up until I was 13) and virtually no support for my needs even if I had been diagnosed. The first time I had a meltdown from sensory overload, I couldn't stop crying and went catatonic - rather than being comforting, my teacher grabbed me by the shoulders and condescendingly asked if I'd "gone off my meds or something" and told me to pull it together. I also hit puberty super early, and was being sexually harrassed daily because of it, and nobody did anything about it. Not my teachers, not the principal, no one. When I told my parents, I was accused of being "melodramatic" and "overreacting." I learned pretty early that adults couldn't be trusted.

And then came Percy Jackson. And for the first time, I had a character like me - a nerd who played trading card games, who loved being in the water, who had ADHD and dyslexia. Who talked back and defended himself against the adults who talked down to him. And the whole story was about not being like your parents, about fighting for a better and more just world. A character who was powerful and funny and tough and whose disabilities were a part of his super power, not something to be overcome. And I fell in love with the series as a whole.

Like head over heels in love. It was embarrassing, actually. When I would lie awake at night, I would pretend that my parents weren't my real parents and that I was actually a child of Hermes who hadn't been claimed. I became obsessed with Ethan Nakamura - or at least, the self-indulgent, angst-and-lore fuelled fic version of him I created in my head. I started writing my diary entries pretending that I was Nico di Angelo. One of my first eer fanfics was just Clarisse and Percy talking and bonding over having shitty families, and her apologizing. It was VERY important to me that Clarisse be forgiveable back then. I sought out PerNico fanart when I was at the local library after school, and tried to create my own myth-o-magic cards but gave up when I couldn't figure out how to draw a manticore.

And then House of Hades came out two months before I turned 14. I borrowed my friend Axel's copy because I couldn't afford it, and oh boy did that hit me. I was going through a religious phase at the time but I was also coming into my bisexuality, and that caused a major personal crisis. So the scene with Cupid hit me really, really hard in a not good way. I remember sitting in my living room with my parents and brother while they watched Big Bang Theory, and I had to close the book and go to my room. I couldn't read for three days after that. But it also solidified my obsession with these books. 😅 A lot of other bad shit happened that year, to the point I started self-harming, and the PJO fandom provided comfort and community and distraction.

I spent the summer between eighth and ninth grade writing cringey Solangelo fic in which Will was a chronically barefoot Texas boy who got his first kiss playing truth or dare with Charlie Beckendorf. He liked Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, and they had their first dance to "Thinking Out Loud" while Lee played guitar by the fire. I set the wallpaper of my first ever cell phone to Nico fanart that I had to photograph because I didn't have internet access to download it. I played Paola Bennet's "Soldatino" on loop when I was having a bad day and pulled multiple all-nighters on my worst nights drawing PJO fanart.

Sword of Summer released my freshman year of high school. I borrowed a copy from an older boy I was hanging out with - I think his name was Michael? our friendship didn't last, but I'm grateful anway, because that book did. I had only been identifying as gender fluid for 9 months when that book came out, and my coming out was far from ideal. Meeting Alex was the coolest thing that could have happened to me. AND (s)he helped me to bond with my niece, who was 12 years old and already so much more aware than I had been at her age. I called her Magnus and she called me Alex - until we got the point in the book where they started dating.

And the summer after high school was super traumatic. I spent my summer helping my grandfather take care of my grandmother while on home hospice. It was emotionally draining, because this woman had as big a hand in raising me as my mother, but as the end got closer, she got mean and then violent. I was watching her die in slow motion, and it fucked me up big time. But during our moments of quiet, when she would be asleep and my grandfather was out in the garden, I would read Trials of Apollo, and even though those books hurt so deeply, it helped break me out of my numbness, and provided some great laughs along the way.

And when I got to college, the Riordanverse was one of the first things that helped me bond with the people who would become some of my best friends! I'll never forget sitting at the Rachel Carson dining room debating the phylogeny of sandwiches and discussing Red Pyramid with Sage and Kailtyn. I even tried (unsuccessfully) to make us Camp Halfblood T-shirts for candlenights one year. 😅

I know there are parts of the books that are problematic. But I also love this fandom so, so much, and I am so glad that it was able to touch so many of us. I still lay awake dreaming of Camp Halfblood. Of capture the flag and the rock wall of death, of blue coca cola and jelly beans. I buy blue Takis whenever I see them because they remind me of Percy. I can't drive past our local dam without snickering over the "dam snackbar." I know how much this series meant to my little queer neurodivergent heart, and I am really excited for the younger generation who may be discovering this world for the first time.

[deedah]

Hey y’all! I’m back!

Today's post is a list of the different fandoms that I am in or will take requests from.

Murder drones

The Amazing Digital Circus

MCYT (some, not all of them for reasons)

FNaF

Ramshackle

Cliffside

Heathers

HTTYD (don’t judge me it was my childhood)

Keepers of the Lost Cities (not finished the series yet)

Warrior Cats (not finished the series yet)

Poppy Playtime

You may request certain things like art or a short story (mostly no longer than 4 printer pages for a chapter). Just be warned I suck at art but I try my best. I like memes btw :)

Most of the time I will make cover art for my fanfics, if I don’t then I’m to busy irl.

!Boundaries!

No NSFW fanfiction or art requests!

No bullying anyone who responds or me who posts

If I make a mistake somewhere please tell me but be respectful and I’ll be respectful back

I’m fine with swearing but don’t aim it at anyone

There will be no racism, homophobia, or any problematic ‘ships’

Be appropriate with your requests

You may ship the oc’s that I create in the fanfics that I write (if it’s appropriate)

I’m still learned to draw anatomy so it will be sloppy

I would be overjoyed to draw your memes if you wish

Speaking of fanfics and cover art, I have wrote a slightly too long fanfic bout a personal au in Murder Drones world.

The cover art will be posted sometime tomorrow or the next day (still in the coloring phase)

Anyway, have a silly Cyn! :D

[misfit-mania-the-first]

Okay I know this is old news or whatever but I am so mad about how much hate the artist/author of Boyfriends on WEBTOON gets.

From when I was more into the comic, the main reason ppl had to be upset at the person were:

A) They drew BTS nsfw art in their teens

B) They fetishized trans men

C) The characters are all Asian and do not look Asian

D) They had the nerd say he was a proshipper

These reasons are honestly so bad to me. Idk if anyone else has extra info or maybe something else he did was bad, but I’m going to explain why I think these are such bad reasons.

1. BTS nsfw art

I’m just going to come out and say it’s bad to write or draw fanart/fanfics of any real person if they haven’t given consent to. It’s different from characters because these are Real People with real emotions and such. And yeah, that wasn’t good. But a couple things. They stopped drawing it around 17-19. For some people that’s way too old to be drawing that, and many think that it’s an attempt at an excuse.

I don’t think that’s the case. I can’t tell you how many posts I’ve seen online of people having bombastic crushes on singers and actors and doing the most heinous shit because they were teenagers. Teenagers just Do That. Yes it’s creepy, but many people go through a phase of having to learn how to seperate fiction from reality and it’s in your teen years. It’s not odd, and I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility to consider that a 17-18-19 year old would learn that and send out an apology. I mean our brains apparently don’t even develop till 25. There was also one point that many believed that the artist actually liked someone else’s nsfw BTS art recently, but I saw the post they liked and in my opinion…I had no idea who tf they were drawing. I’m not into BTS but I’ve seen pictures and if I was just scrolling one day and saw it I’d like the post. I don’t remember any BTS specific tags or a BTS related caption. Maybe the entire account was about that and so they didn’t feel the need for tags but I have no idea.

2) They fetishized trans men

Writing four trans men acting stupid and cringy in college and having healthy relationships and discussing boundaries and consent in a polyamorous relationship is not fetishizing. The artist himself is a trans man.

Sidebar, many critiques also center around the unrealistic portrayal of four ppl being in one polyamorous relationship together which honestly? Who cares if it’s unrealistic, it’s a good portrayal and it’s a romance, why can’t gays just have a happy story for once.

3) The characters are all Asian and do not look Asian

Hey, I didn’t know they were Asian either. I mean, I figured jock was but not the others. But honestly it’s not that big a deal. They’re the only four characters in the entire series I believe( other than their girl counterparts) and I’m sure if there was another character that wasn’t Asian we’d be able to tel. But even then, many many comics have a similar simplistic artstyle online, and race and ethnicity are not always obvious. Also the artist is Filipino, so I really doubt there’s anything iffy going on there.

4) Nerd is a proshipper

There’s nothing bad about thinking fiction ≠ reality and that you can act independently of the fiction you consume. Most people irl are proship without realizing it. Most literature is proship, because it explores every single aspect of storytelling. Antis really have not chosen the best hill to die on.

And that’s all I’ve got.

[kimbureh]

oh it just dawned on me why some (hobbyist) authors are so concerned about "lost writing", which is writing that never gets shared with anybody.

-

every time I see one of those posts where writers congratulate each other for the shared misery of having to write, I am so utterly alienated. "I don't like writing, I HATE writing, I only LOVE having written", is what they repeat as if there was anything inspiring about self-inflicted suffering. I mean, you do you. But, oh, what wasted potential.

Yeah, writing is hard. Writing in a second language is incredibly difficult for me. It's exhausting. Mind wrecking. And I am so glad I learned to cherish the journey instead of only focusing on a shareable "product".

Most of my writing is what some authors would call "lost writing". I'd say, at least 80% of my writing never gets shared with anybody, never turns into a finished product, because that was never the goal of me writing it.

And I don't mean huge portions of fanfic that get cut in the editing phase (though I am doing that rigorously), I mean writing that exists solely for me to revel in the *process* of writing. Warm ups in different languages, journals of different types. I write those because I love the feeling of the pen gliding over the paper, because I love the sensation of my fingers hammering on the keyboard in a rhythm, because I love to hear myself think and surprise myself with new ideas.

The process of writing is magic, whereas having written is not an activity I can engage with. Yeah I guess there is a feeling of accomplishment in having Done A Thing. But that's only one very small part in the creation process compared to the experience of spending time with interesting ideas, emotions, and oneself.

"Lost Writing". The whole concept that a piece of writing is for the trashcan just because it's never shared is so alien to me. All writing *is* shared. With yourself. Respect yourself as an audience. (or don't. but that's what I'm doing, you can do whatever)

tl;dr: it's possible to adopt a perspective of writing as process, not a product, without romanticizing self-inflicted suffering of an imaginary artistic stereotype (you don't have to suffer to make art)

[fanby-fckry]

📌 Welcome friends, foes, and passersby to my personal piece of fandom hell.

About My Blog:

18+ only; minors will be blocked

Please, please put your age in your bio!

No further DNI, but I will block bigots, bullies, and blank blogs. Terfs, aphobes, and exclusionists please exit the blog and find a hobby that isn’t bullying queer people on tumblr.

This blog was originally created as a way for me to share my fanfiction and accept requests, but has since expanded to incorrect quotes, memes, and occasionally non-fandom bs.

It runs pretty much entirely on queue and scheduled posts. I don’t have notifs turned on for the app, so I may take a while to respond to messages and asks.

Fandoms:

The Amazing Devil (Band)

Doctor Who

Fullmetal Alchemist

Harry Potter – I do not support JKR

Hazbin Hotel

Helluva Boss

Steven Universe

The Witcher

I tend to cycle through them based on the whims of my ADHD brain, and when each is posted is unknown even to me.

Tags:

#Fanby’s Fuckery – All original posts (minus ramblings)

#Fanby’s Fics – My fanfiction

#Fanby’s Headcanons – My headcanons and occasionally a few scattered plot bunnies

#Fanby Answers – Answered asks

#Fanby Adds – Reblogs where I add something (that I think is) significant

#Fanby’s Ramblings – Rants, ramblings, screaming into the void, and other general mumblings of madness that I don’t want clogging up my main tag

#Not OSHA Compliant – Content with kink and/or sexual and/or suggestive themes; original posts may also be marked with the mature filter

#Undescribed – Posts with images that do not have image descriptions

#Functionally Described – Posts that don’t have dedicated image descriptions, but describe the image in the post

#Not Fandom – Any posts not related to fandoms or fics

Posts and memes about my fics are tagged #Fanby: [fic name]

Common triggers are tagged #[trigger] cw

If you’d like something tagged, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Accessibility:

I’m currently going through old posts for an accessibility update, but once that’s done…

Original posts will all have image descriptions

IDs under two-hundred characters will be in the alt text.

IDs over two-hundred characters will be in plain text.

If an image is meant to be reposted – for example, a meme template – then the ID will be in plain text for easy copy-pasting.

If you find my content inaccessible or have a way to make it more accessible, please please tell me. I’ve been doing research, but there’s a lot to learn – not to mention the conflicting information. Criticism in regards to accessibility is more than welcome.

Refs, Recs, and Resources:

#Fanby’s Ref Folder – Catchall tag for things I want to save to revisit later (working on phasing it out)

#AO3 Tips

#Crisis Tips

#Donate Here

#Fic Recs

#Inspo

#Internet Tips

#Life Tips

#Palestine Resources

Black-and-white thinking in fandom and resources for CBT, DBT, and addressing cognitive distortions.

About Me:

My name is Nico, I’m 25, and I write fanfic. I use they/them and xe/xem pronouns, and have a whole heap of queer labels I fall under. For more info on my labels and term preferences, check out my pronouns.page.

I’m part of an real life love triangle made up of myself, my fiancé, and our boyfriend.

If you wanna read more of my work, I’m on AO3 as fanby, and have some exclusive fics posted there.

Blog’s new, but I’m not. I was on this hellsite back in the ‘go nuts, show nuts’ golden age and when they finally shut this place down, staff will have to call animal control to remove me from the air vents like the rabid little raccoon I am <3

I have a twitter, but there’s literally nothing there that isn’t here. Check it out if you prefer Musk’s bird app, I guess?

Fanfic Masterlists:

Harry Potter – WIP

Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss

The Witcher

Kinktober

AO3 Exclusives – Links to the AO3 collection

Requests:

Requests are currently open for mutuals only. I’m trying to limit requests at the moment, but will make an exception for mutuals if I think I can swing it.

Will Write:

Angst with a happy ending

Hurt/comfort

Fluff

Familial relationships

Found family trope

X reader

OCs

Canon x OC

Any relationship style: platonic, queer platonic, romantic, sexual, D/s dynamics

Most kinks

Explicit kink

Non-explicit sexual content

Might Write:

Hurt/no comfort

Crossovers

OOC

Non-canon disabilities and mental illness *1

Alastor as a Voodoo practitioner*2

Explicit sexual content *3

*1 If I’m going to represent a marginalized group, I’m going to do my best to do so respectfully, even in fanfiction. If I’m not confident in my ability to do that, then I may choose not to.

That being said, I’m down to research and I have lived experience with chronic pain and a few mental illnesses. I am extremely confident in my ability to project my own experiences onto my blorbos, and do so quite frequently.

*2 This is mainly for the same reason I won’t write non-canon disabilities. Voodoo is highly misrepresented and I don’t want to contribute to that. I may write him as a past practitioner depending on the circumstances and as long as his current magic is not Voodoo-based.

My personal headcanon is that he grew up practicing Voodoo and ancestral magic, but burned bridges in the pursuit of power and lost support because being a serial killer is generally frowned upon. I usually write his current magic as non-specific, demonic, or Eldritch in nature.

*3 My ability to write explicit sexual content varies, so I’ll be taking this on a case by case basis.

Won’t Write – This Fandom-Specific Content:

Note: These are due to personal preference, deeply ingrained headcanons, and nunn’yuh (none ya business). I am not judging or condemning any of these ships/headcanons/etc. or people who make fanworks involving them; it’s just a comfort thing.

Hazbin Hotel:

Rosie in an NSFW context

Chalastor

Alastor x Niffty

Angel Dust shipped romantically with women

Vaggie shipped with men

The Witcher:

Yennefer bashing

Ciri (including adult!Ciri) shipped with any Wolf School Witcher

Ciri (including adult!Ciri) shipped with Jaskier/Dandelion

Won’t Write – This General Content:

Note: A good deal of this section falls under Kinktomato or YKINMKATO (Your Kink Is Not My Kink (And That's OK)) and DLDR (Don’t Like, Don’t Read) – just like, with writing instead of reading.

I’m not here to take sides in shipcourse or police other people’s writing; this is, again, about my own comfort level with writing certain topics. That’s it.

Scat/watersports/emeto kink

Adult x minor ships

Underage NSFW/smut/explicit, including any underage kink

Incest, including adoptive/step family

Detailed or romanticized non-con *1

Detailed or romanticized dub-con *1

Detailed or romanticized suicide *2

Detailed or romanticized self harm *2

*1 I can write aftermath of non-con/dub-con or attempted non-con/dub-con, but will not go into detail or portray it as in any way positive. I won’t write the reader or a canon characters as the perpetrator, unless it’s already in canon – AKA: The Valentino Exception. This does not include negotiated CNC, which I would consider writing under specific circumstances.

*2 Any time I write content involving suicide or suicidal ideation, I write with the National Recommendations for Depicting Suicide in mind.

The way suicide is portrayed in fiction can have real world consequences:

“Studies have shown that both news reports and fictional accounts of suicide in movies and television can lead to increases in suicide. In contrast, when depictions are done responsibly, the media can help to encourage help seeking, dispel myths, and reinforce hope – and ultimately save lives.”

(Source: Alliance for Suicide Prevention)

I am a suicide survivor and have lost loved ones to suicide as well, so this is deeply personal to me. If you’re struggling with self harm or suicidal thoughts, please hold on, and don’t be afraid to ask for help:

International Suicide Hotlines

Australia Lifeline: 13 11 14

Canada Talk Suicide: 1.833.456.4566

UK Samaritans: 116 123

USA Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: 988

[angelsarecomputers]

tagged by @meatballerino aka one of my favourite fic writers in the DE fandom, tysml

last song: ‘what you know’ by two door cinema club. a song I saw ion tumblr and fell in love with

favourite colour: purple! used to be black during my edgy phase but then I realised you can’t go wrong with a nice bruised purple

currently watching: not really watching anything atm, if you don’t count watching silent hill cutscenes on youtube lol

last movie: annihilation! recommended to me by the friend I tagged in this post, it’s a really great film if you’re into body horror, psychological horror, cosmic horror, the works! was a great way to start off my spooky season

currently reading: just finished reading ‘Open Veins of Latin America’ by Eduardo Galeano- an excellent read for anyone who wants to learn more about the shadows of colonialism and the ravages of imperialism in the region prior to the 1970s.

sweet/spicy/savoury: each have their merits, and if I eat too much of one tast then I inevitably end up craving another, but sweet has to be my favourite

relationship status: wants to be a slut but is too autistic to get laid (being pre-T doesn’t help either)

current obsession: disco elysium! (as anyone who follows my blog would know.) nine months after I played for the first time we’re still going strong, though I only really fell into the hyperfixation hole around june. I am not joking when I say that game changed me as a person

last thing i googled: old jerma. lmao

currently working on: getting through college, writing a disco elysium fanfic, working on my own original story, learning how to do art, building an itty-bitty bit of communism, trying to be a more outgoing and less anxious person, and transing my gender

tagging: only one person I wanna tag in this; @celeste-i come get your juice

[soccerpunching]

(if you haven't already answered this before:) how did you get into Ina11 and made you make this blog for it?

I dont think I've answered this before either (correct me if im wrong though). This goes under the cut like all of my long answers to personal asks...

For some context (this is relevant to my relationship with anime and fandom), I used to be nonverbal for the good 11-12-ish years of my life until I was traumatized out of it so now I'm semiverbal ((with like auditory hallucination, anxiety (general and social), depression, ptsd, etc)). I won't tell anything regarding this experience.

It's not really uncommon for Filipinos my age and older to be into anime because this is everything that the afternoon and morning television have for you. You would know naruto, goku, luffy, etc against your will and I was not immune to that. During that time also cable was really common (and was not paid per fucking channel, that started a few years later though) so I used to watch a lot of anime in Hero TV, Animax Ph, Cartoon Network PH, etc i dont remember the others.

I found inazuma eleven and other anime on one of them and got into it immediately (also because of my trauma) but because some personal things have to happen, I started watching all the anime I got into that time on illegal sites instead.

I was not an internet person and i cant get into chats because of the experience I've mentioned above so even though i like anime and have been reading every fanfiction about my fav shows that time and were even writing some of my own (mostly fairy tail and dbz but all are now deleted or orphaned), I never tried to get into any fandom (I am aware of how fandoms are because i had a personal twitter that i only use for rts that time but i never engaged because they were big fandoms who have... issues)... this was all until the pandemic happened.

After the pandemic, it was like people can understand my experiences suddenly and it made me feel like there are safe spaces now for me to be in so somewhere in 2021 I created a fandom tumblr and twitter account at the same time. Tumblr was overwhelming for me initially so I stayed in twitter (this is during my Encanto phase so my twitter has a small following even right now from that small fandom)... it was a so and so experience but it is my first so it was made better because of that small welcoming fandom...

A bit after that, I got into the naruto and dragon ball fandom which was a big mistake because it made me picked up some toxic feelings and even behaviour that I do not want. I tried learning tumblr more and decided that I'll stay here at the moment. I realized that the dragon ball fandom here actually have nicer people and are more mature and critical while being respectful of others so I enjoyed my tumblr stay!! I made a lot of dragon ball posts that gave me great tumblr mutuals that I still talk to to this day even after my dragon ball brainrot is gone.

Before 2022 ended, I needed a break because of some personal matters. I got into inazuma eleven again during this time after rewatching galaxy (i wanted to be inspired by their alien character designs but it had a different effect). It sparked my love for the series and made me reopen some old concepts and fanfic ideas I had for it before (this includes the vent fic I mentioned once where Kidou was evil, Endou was dead, Gouenji was a pediatrician, and Aki was the leader of a rebellion against kageyama's reign with Fudou by her side). And then, I started writing new ones nonstop for about 4 months (80k words for two different fanfic series btw that are both unfinished).

I started following some inazuma eleven blogs in May this year until I feel like I needed to make posts myself at about the start of June. The fandom had the encanto vibe to me with a cross to how old fandoms feel so it was really nice to be here!! And the rest is history ig?? hehe

Sorry for the really long answer and thanks for the ask!

[nihilnovisubsole]

Thank you! That actually helps a lot. I'm the anon who sent you that question you about what your writing journey has been like. I just recently graduated from an M.A program in English and so I'm sorta in a slump and feeling dejected as I look for jobs, so I think it is more so professionally as I'm in an in-between moment in my life. I've been writing for a long while, my own snippets of original works as well as fanfics in my free time while I was earning my degree, though right now I do feel in a similar spot that you describe being in during your late teens. I'm scared of failure, the thought I might be wasting time, and that I'm not good enough. Writing is something I love and hunger for in a professional scope, but my worries are also getting in my way and make me feel as if I am at a standstill or making no progress. Though I know I just have to start and go and that writing something is better than not doing anything at all. So I just need to get out of that funk I'm in now.

And if it's no trouble, I would love to hear about your job-hunting. I think it would be very useful to hear.

well, it sounds like you're already most of the way there. you're right. we do just have to start. the only way out is through. i find transitional phases in life are, in general, hard, and it's difficult to set off when you don't know where you're going. i think it's why i've thrown myself at so many over-scoped, half-cocked, abandoned story ideas in the past three years. pandemic time is altered, and you have to put that energy somewhere, even if you later find out the project isn't going to work.

so, job-hunting. full disclosure, i can only speak to game writing, because that's what i've been working in since 2017. game writing - or narrative design - is odd. full-time, salaried NDs are a small group, and big studio openings are very rare. i also take rejection hard, which made things interesting, because applying to jobs is like baseball: 90% failure. you have to have a thick skin to make it in a creative industry. i do not! i've just developed coping mechanisms for it. there's nothing like vacuuming the whole house when you're upset. you know that scandinavian guy who said, "i chop wood until i'm too tired to care?" he gets it.

[although, it's funny, since you brought it up: the "academia to gamedev" pipeline is more common than you might think. i work with a former professor, and i have another pal with a Ph.D. my theory is that all the research trained their brains to crunch systems.]

sometime in 2019, i became unsatisfied with the mobile romance job. it happens. time to go somewhere else. i learned fast that i couldn't go on indeed and search "narrative design." most openings came through word of mouth, and some weren't public at all. in short, if i were to hear about a writing job posting, i'd hear about it through the grapevine, and that meant networking. being active on twitter became non-negotiable. i had to meet other game writers and see what they were up to. there's an inherent tension there, because you're looking for a job, but you have to genuinely want to share your work and learn about theirs. i mean, we should always be genuine, but people can tell when you're only out to get something from them. [not that you would! it still bears bringing up.]

if this sounds excruciating, remember, despite the permanence of the internet, people don't get hung up on awkward encounters like we think they do. i was so annoying that first year, faking it 'til i made it, like a 21-year-old who insists she's mature enough for her parents' martini lunch. in time, i met people who were closer to my pay grade. i did a couple of game jams. i settled in. it felt good.

but i still wanted a job! so i timidly applied to a few studios. it took me three months to land an interview. i bombed it. it was humiliating. the thing about being early-career is that every app feels life-or-death, like every interview will be your last chance to prove yourself. "if you screw this one up, nothing will ever come around again!" and it often didn't, for months at a time. but i was stubborn. i kept at it.

still, after a year of that, i grew so burned-out and desperate that i had to swallow my ego and ask people for help. a friend of mine hooked me up with another indie contract. i got job coaching, which prescribed some hard-to-swallow pills. mainly, i needed more experience. mobile games could be a tough sell to AAA studios, and dangerous crowns would never substitute for game work. i can't lie, that frustrated me. i had to go through a grieving process. when i emerged, i gained a level of emotional detachment about it. when you realize you have homework, it doesn't matter how you feel. your assignment is to do a good job and meet your intended goal. i made contrition. i joined a portfolio-building workshop. i began planning dressed to kill. if that was what it took, that's what i had to do.

that's when, mysteriously, things shifted. i got more interviews. in summer of '21, i applied to obsidian for the first time. i said, "what the hell, college-me would kill me if she heard i didn't apply to The New Vegas People." i got rejected, but learned i'd made it to the final round. that was different. that was intoxicating. they liked me. i'd almost made it. they encouraged me to apply again, something i once found unthinkable. but, hey, i'd gotten close, right? so i took the company of heroes contract, which ended up being great. and in winter, when obsidian posted another job, i applied again.

there were other things. participating in the VOW writers' strike put my friends and i in game news. that was a pleasant, intimidating surprise. if nothing else, i learned that, like love trouncing your fear of failure, your desire to push through has to be stronger than your shame. trust me, i know. i'm ashamed of everything. but when it really counts, i think your instinct will tell you that it's worth sticking with it.