#Idk I’m messing with worldbuilding again and it’s fun to plot out what people do and don’t know

[gravedigest]

Trying to figure out how to word the fact that old people in a future setting would be elite video game experts.

Like with handling a controller, like all these kids these days and their newfangled computer brains, back in MY day we could type 500 words a minute with our FINGERS and had the twitch responses of a god.

Doc headshots Deimos 6 times in their game and Deimos has no idea what the fuck is going on because he doesn’t know how to aimbot.

[formula-fun]

Ah! (lightbulb) we definitely have very different understandings of angst, or I was more thinking about relationship-wise because the current fic feels like the story of them coming together despite everything on themselves and between each other. And internal and external perception of gender roles, external expectations and judgment hahahaha is simply part of the “everything”. I definitely is not expecting fairytale happily ever after (not that my expectations should matter).

It’s not pretentious at all hahaha, maybe it’s just even though world-building is very important for me even in fanfic (I get stuck thinking about logistics a lot of the time) , I still looked past the heaviness of gender roles, expectations and judgement because it feels like something jumping on the back of their minds and the story constantly, but when I am way too focused on “how they are feeling” instead of “how they are going to make this work” it’s kind of shoved out the way.

Though now typing this out is really making it like I’m just ignoring the elephant in the room ha. I do really like the “huge fucking mess” though, besides the glorious horse metaphors, your way of writing and very smooth incorporation into personality and interactions make the underlying discussion so much more interesting. Like it’s a very important part of the story but not center-staged with neon flashing lights, instead has the constant lurking in the shadows air to it. It is technically heavy but both of them thrive on challenges don’t they!

Oh! Or maybe I have always associated the heaviness in the background for Max in the story with his father which is being counterproductive to him embracing himself, and Charles with embracing himself, this actually is the more specific version of “gender roles, expectations and judgement”.

Forgive me for thinking that even if the plot is trying to gender stereotypes into mush they could still get ostentatious diamond engagement rings hahahhahah, maybe it’s just me thinking this would be funny, especially during the time they would literally be facing media judgement about how the “omega wife” should be home with the child not out fucking f1 with his greatness. It could (or not) be in line with Charles change in dress style!

Sorry I pretty much just wrote down my very nonlinear thought process.

Happy Wednesday! (At least we are pull through half the week now right?)

Xxxxxxxxxooooooooooxxxxoo

Hi hi again!! mwah

Yeah I think that probably explains it!! i mean it'll probably all result in some tension in their relationship but you know...it'll be fine. idk. we'll have to wait and see!! once again i am answering your ask too early in the morning and dont have the braincells i am so sorry

i do completely get you about worldbuilding too, I tend to think about writing in a really mathematical/analytical way in terms of how people and relationships fit together so i know it's easy to get caught up in logistics!! theres a lot of worldbuilding cmoing up now for me as well though because the last chapter has to do with like how mating works vs how weddings work and things like that. like mating ceremonies were already mentioned and they're different than beta weddings, but im still working out what exactly they look like. Also how gender works for kids since gender and biological sex don't really have anything to do with each other in this universe? I think i've figured out what its going to be like but i dont know for sure yet. fun fun fun

but yeah anyway i like the way you put it because they themselves exist kind of in an internal relationship and that's where the story is being told, but everything else is an external pressure that's guiding them in certain ways or making them feel certain things. Without all of that they'd probably be fine, but there's a lot going on outside of just them and we're not so much seeing those things as we are seeing how it changes them as people. So 'how they're feeling' is really what the story is about, but it's all a direct result of those things that are lurking in the shadows.

and hashshahd i'll get back to you about diamond rings!! i guess it all depends on what exists in their bubble vs what exists in the external bubble!! at this point they're starting to prioritize only what makes them feel good and completely put aside things that please external forces (max finally told his dad he needed space, charles wants to court max, charles is exploring his own self-expression in ways that make him happy--all of these things directly contradict what other people expect or want from charles and max, but they're both doing them to make themselves feel happier or more secure, which in turn makes their relationship more secure), so going forward that will probably be what they continue to do. if they want to get beta married and throw a big celebration then they'll do it, but they probably won't do it just for the sake of appearances/to show off! it's more about doing what makes them happy

but also my brain was like melted the other day from this stupid academic paper about public vs private life and i think that is now unforutnately influencing this fic. the public/private life academic paper is an external pressure on my internal relationship with my own fic. this is why we cant have nice things

anyway sorry for this long ass answer, thank god its wednesday tho and i hope youre having a great week!!!! sorry if none of this makes any sense but please know i enjoy your questions so so so much <333

[galacticlamps]

Tagged by @the--highlanders​ ! Thanks!

How many works do you have on AO3?

13

What’s your total AO3 word count?

76,200

(oh what a nice even number - I should try to mess that up as soon as possible, shouldn’t I?)

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Aw man is this intentionally worded to be really hard to answer? I get that it says ‘written’ and not ‘posted’ but then what constitutes a ‘fandom?’ I definitely wrote fics for stuff I was interested in long before I even knew the word ‘fic’ - I did it throughout my childhood, and then in high school, and while I didn’t do it as much in college, it still happened from time to time. So a lot of the books/movies/tv shows/plays/musicals I wrote things for aren’t really fandoms, and frankly, I had to check my old folder just now to even remember some of them existed. I’ll just list the ones that I know for sure had fandoms, since that’s more fun (and embarrassing), right?

Obviously Doctor Who, classic and modern, Torchwood, Sherlock Holmes (ironically more of these seem to be about the books, but yes, I will admit, some for that tv show too), Les Mis, a couple different Marvel comics & movies, Good Omens, hell, I even found a Night Vale fic in there just now.

And I know there are other older things not even in that folder, some of which never made it to a computer at all, so if I had to ballpark a number I’d probably say around 25ish but really, who knows?

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Across the Gap

On the Spot

Expectations

Shards of Memories & Fragments of Glass

Itemized

(this was fun, I’d never noticed Ao3 even had a stats page until now lol)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to! Sometimes I take a long time to do so but for the most part, I usually get around to it. The rare exception would be if I first saw the comment when I was super busy/distracted and then felt like way too much time passed before I noticed it again, that it might be awkward if I said something at that point.

I do genuinely enjoy hearing what people think, but I’m also weirdly terrified of making anyone feel like they have to reply to my comments. I know that’s probably a little strange, but it’s actually a large part of why I made this Ao3 account in the first place - my original one, from high school, is followed by some long-time friends of mine who aren’t interested in this fandom, some of whom are involved in art & writing professionally. The thought of anyone like that reading something I wrote out of friendliness or even just curiosity and potentially having to pretend they liked it for the same reasons stressed me tf out, so I like having this virtually anonymous one because I can relax knowing that anyone who reads or interacts with something I wrote has probably done so only because they wanted to, rather than feeling obligated, and there’s no pressure on them to be nice to me about it if anything I write or post annoys them - so I really hope nobody who does just know me as an anonymous blog has ever worried about offending me by not replying to something, trust me, I’m perfectly happy with it!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don’t think I’ve really written any angsty endings? I guess the answer would have to be Reckless just because it involves the characters arguing about sad/weighty things and there isn’t really any solution to those issues - but even then I think I ended it with a kind of acceptance that stops it from really qualifying as angst? I also set it in the the same universe as other fics, so maybe that doesn’t even count as an ending? Am I that bad at ending things on angst? Lol

Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Obviously none of the fics I’ve posted are crossovers but I’m trying to think now if any of my WIP’s are - I’ve definitely poached setting/premise ideas from other media, but in terms of actual crossovers . . . I’ve got a few cross-era or cross-Doctor, a few involving Torchwood, but that’s already the same universe, so the only thing that’d qualify as a true crossover would be some vague pieces of a fic where Jamie, Zoe, and Two end up on the Enterprise, since I think the 60s series of Star Trek and Dr Who feel kind of compatible, don’t they? In fact, aren’t there like officially licensed crossover comics or something? Or did I make that up? Idk, and the ideas are very loose, so it’s not much of a WIP either

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope, never

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I’ve never written smut, but I’m wondering if it’s possible that could change soon. There’s a longish multi-chapter fic I’ve been working on for a frankly embarrassing amount of time, and the plot does call for a sex scene at one point towards the end, but I can’t seem to make up my mind on how - uh, I guess the word is explicit? - it should get. I know I could easily do a fade to black/implication thing, but it’s kind of a source of contention and anxiety for the characters, so to skip over writing the actual scene and just revisit them afterwards rings of “and they slept together and now everything’s fine!” which feels kinda cheap to me - in this context, anyway - and not the right payoff for a long fic that’s otherwise more of an interpersonal drama/slightly a period piece, if I had to place it in a genre. I feel like my aversion to actually writing the scene might just be prudishness I should get over, or maybe just self-doubt, because I know I’d rather have a well-written, funny, character-development-supporting sex scene than nothing at all, but since I’ve never had any interest in writing a scene like that before, I don’t know if I can do it well, and I also don’t want to ruin a fic I’m otherwise proud of by doing it badly... ugh I have to figure this out

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I seriously doubt it

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

What’s your all time favorite ship?

I mean, it’s gotta be Two & Jamie. I’ve shipped things before with varying levels of investment, but I’ve never been able to use the term ‘otp’ in a literal sense until I came across them, and now it’s already basically gone out of fashion, go figure!

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I’m not sure if I have one? My WIP doc is huge, but I don’t actually intend to get around to finishing everything in it, so I’d like to think that anything I’ve currently singled out to complete can actually get done.

That said, I do have a few AU’s that I don’t really plan to finish, but it might be cool if I could. Two of them are for all the main + some supporting characters of the Second Doctor’s era - one’s a modern day school teachers AU, and the other is a typical fantasy/fairy tale AU. Another is just Two/Jamie, based on Doctor Faustus (specifically the Marlowe play version) but right now there are two different versions of the ending coexisting in my head. I’ve written parts of scenes & some gen. backstory for all of those ideas, but I don’t know if I’ll ever try to finish them, or what form a finished product would even take - a series of one-shots set in the same universe? one long multi-chapter fic with some kind of overarching plot? And the amount of context/worldbuilding a big AU like these would require might not make them very appealing fics for people to read, so maybe it is better if I just keep them to myself, since in my head I already know what’s going on in those worlds lol.

What are your writing strengths?

I honestly don’t know. I haven’t had a creative writing class since middle school, and since then I’ve only ever shown creative writing to others in a fandom context, so it’s been a while since I’ve discussed it or gotten critical feedback. I suppose when I work in other arts or even academic writing contexts, people usually say I’m kind of insightful or at least detail oriented, which might just be another way of saying I overthink things, but I like to imagine I’m decent at finding little points of interest to expand upon.

What are your writing weaknesses?

If you’ve read this far I feel like you must know what I’m about to say: I do not know how to be concise.

Usually when I’m writing a fic, I put down the dialogue first on its own, leaving out the action of the scene and whatever plot/context led there, even if I’ve already figured all of that out. But then when I go to add those things in, they’re always longer than I wanted them to be. I don’t mind writing something long, but I don’t want my fics to be a slog to get through either, and there can be a point at which the stuff I’ve added for context overwhelms the stuff that I wanted the fic to be about in the first place, so it becomes a structural/proportion issue too. I haven’t completely given up on any fics because of this yet, but there’s one I’ve been struggling with for a couple months now - probably because I’m even second-guessing myself on which scenes need to be written out and which can just be referenced like a recap. Hopefully I figure that one out soon.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

((this is karma isn’t it? i posted a fic last week with two words of gaelic in it and was worried about that and now this is karma))

In general, I don’t want to do it. I feel like you’ve gotta have a really good grasp of a language to write dialogue & speech patterns for someone who’s a native speaker, and since I’m far from fluent in any language the characters I write for are, I wouldn’t feel confident writing any significant amount of dialogue in, say, Gaelic.

As a sidenote, though, I kinda love it when other people do it, particularly for Jamie. Irish (Gaeilge) and Scottish (Gàidhlig) are both languages I’ve wanted to learn for a long time, because my family’s fresh out of living speakers of either & I think that’s a shame, but I started with Irish and at the moment I’m still very much learning it. As different as they are, it still helps me understand parts of lyrics or texts that I come across in Gàidhlig fairly frequently, so when it comes up in a fic I get to feel like I’m being responsible and practicing, and it’s great when I can actually understand what’s being said.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I’m gonna go with Harry Potter even though that’s probably not a perfectly accurate answer - it’s almost certainly the first thing that has a fandom that I ever wrote for, but it was in a notebook when I was a kid and never something that I even typed on a computer, much less posted online or shared with other members of a fandom. But even then, I’m sure it wasn’t the first pre-existing fictional universe I ever set an original story in, because I did that a lot when I was a kid, it’s just hard to remember those clearly or on any kind of timeline.

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

I’m very partial to Across the Gap, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that ranked first on the kudos thing above - but I’ve also got a soft spot for So Merrily We’ll Sing. It’s so self-indulgent it feels silly saying ‘it was so easy to write!’ but I guess having a fic that’s already just 100% headcaonons and fluff tied together by a song you really love does prevent it from being much of a labor (I also managed to refrain from making that one unnecessarily long, so that’s another win there)

tagging @terryfphanatics and anyone else who wants to do it - sorry I’m bad at remembering whose tumblr goes with whose Ao3 account, but I really would be interested to read this if anyone else feels like answering them!

[chaoticspacefam]

2020 In Review: Wordcount Tag

I was tagged for this by @actualanxiousswampwitch​ , thank you! I’m not sure who’s already done or been tagged for this cause I am, once again, late to the party LOL but I shall (no pressure and sorry if you’ve already done it!) tag: @rainofaugustsith​ , @darth-bagel​ , @thatmmolesbian​ , @thelastenvoyyy​ and anybody else who wants to do this. Yes, I promise I mean you!

Words: 45,314

Published: 0 (I’m not counting the couple of Six Sentence tags I’ve gotten, they’re snippets of an unfinished piece & are included below instead :), or roleplay replies, cause that feels like cheating lol.) I actually wrote a lot more than I thought I had, this is a rough guesstimate as well, as my oneshot WIPs tend to be all over the place across something like 6 different documents, some of which have existed since 2018, so I had to guess at how far up to count from the end for some of them, but I think it’s a fair guesstimate XD I also have included lore/worldbuilding docs in this because that was a 3-month long Lockdown 1.0 Boredom/”Canon is a trash fire so I’m ignoring that and making up my own lore” passion project and I’m goddamn proud of how much I wrote for that. It’s the most I’ve written in one stretch (think I finished it over a span of 3 nights or so, once I’d done all the research and made all the notes ofc ^^)

Not Published: 45,314

The Breakdown:

swtor - 45,314

for creeping shadows (my main longfic/part one of the subterfugeverse series) - 1,553  - Aria, stop being difficult! *shakes fists* XD

oneshots - 16,223

lore/worldbuilding (for subterfugeverse naturally) - 23,001 (is this ALL tomato alien lore? pretty much, yes, yes it is :’D ~400 words is “the WIP reworked timeline to correlate my worldbuilding with the canon timeline that was released”, but 98% is just...me thinking way too much about Purebloods and how they deserved way better goddamn lore. I blame @fluffynexu ‘s amazing tomato worldbuilding posts,  reading them when I went looking for “canon” lore one day for the rp is what got me started down that rabbithole (it’s awesome and if you haven’t already you should totally go check hers out too :DD), I had a “fuck you then canon I’ll do it myself too >:L” moment and once I started I couldn’t stop until I’d crapped out literally over 20k words on the subject *whispering* thank you LOL)

zephyrverse au bonus oneshots - 4,537 (stuff I wrote to fill in time gaps or “just cause I had a plot bunny”, relating to mine and k-christine’s zephyrverse au rp. None of these will likely be posted publicly, but they still deserve to be counted as words I wrote this year :’D

As you can see, most of my “muse” this year came from sporadic oneshots :’D The Ahaszaai twins also properly plot-bunnied their way into my brain in late 2019 and haven’t stopped making a nuisance of themselves the whole fucking year. Every time I tried to carry on with a chapter, one of the two of them would pop up like “Nooo write about ME! pay attention to ME!” - Yes, Ni’kasi, I will get to you this year, I promise XD

New Things I Tried:

Just Writing. Not worrying about whether “it wasn’t part of the next chapter” or “it comes from a part in the story that I’m nowhere near close to posting yet”. If I felt like writing something, or for a specific pairing/feeling/scene, whatever. I wrote until I ran outta muse juice. Yeah, it meant I didn’t technically “finish” anything this year BUT - the important thing is I wrote stuff. and that’s all that really matters, eh? :’D

Polyam ships! May not seem like a big deal but I spent a long time talking myself out of them because of internalised toxic monogamy and finally saying “you know what, fuck it! I can ship three or more people together and it can still be a perfectly wholesome, healthy and loving relationship and that’s okay” was a BIG thing for me this year.

Dialogue Scripts: which I didn’t count as wordcount because really it’s just word vomit of general tone/inflection and dialogue that I came up with right before falling asleep which I didn’t want to lose. Basically, if an exchange or a particularly punchy or moving line of dialogue popped into my brain but I wasn’t ready to write the whole scene that it fit into out, but didn’t want to forget the line(s). I wrote it out in movie script/script-style roleplay fashion e.g. Character’s Name: (emotion, hand gestures etc.) [Dialogue here] and so on. I know this is probably a well known trick of the trade, but I never took it seriously until this year. Seriously, do it. It’s great.

Favorite Thing I Wrote:

Hmmm, a snippet for Andronikos/Ni’kasi that I started this week which isn’t posted yet (saving it for this week’s Six Sentence Sunday so look out for it! :D) was pretty fun to work on, I love their dynamic and Kas is suprisingly fun to write for.

Also the Aria/Vano proposal scene that I posted a snippet for the week before last. I’m having great fun with that scene, and I really enjoy putting a non-serious spin on the classic “proposal scene” tropes. Can’t wait to finish it, though it may be a while before the full one goes up on AO3, as it depends whether it ends up fitting in as part of the mainfic or as an additional oneshot

And I have a D’leah/Kissai oneshot that I need to give another once-over before I finally yeet it onto AO3 and Tumblr for you guys to see :’D

Favorite Fic I Read:

@sleepswithvillains Eleanora/Quinn fic, Helplessly Hoping. I’m horribly behind on chapters and I gotta catch up and read the finale this week, but it’s been a helluva great ride and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the story! <3

Also The Invitation collab with @tishinada featuring Zas and Fiona had me squealing, I can’t wait to catch up on HH and see more of these two, they’re adorable ;-; @a-muirehen​ ‘s Relu/Merkara series of course! I’m a complete sucker for (friends to lovers to in Ariano’s case but yea pfpfpf) enemies to lovers ships and these two are just so good, I am on the edge of my seat every time we get a new snippet for them, ngl (grimace emoji) @darth-bagel ‘s Sylvas/Graz’zt and Sylvas/Liz/Rilfaen snippets which they’ve been spoiling me with on Discord @mercurypilgrim ‘s Ven’fir/Quinn AU oneshots, Cloudbank (Western was a particular favourite, but all are very good!) and of course @rainofaugustsith ‘s Lana/Viri updates are always fantastic, some personal favourites from this year were Almost There & Memory of Healing :3 (I totally still go back to read Commander & Advisor too sometimes, getting to see Viri be a little diabolical and messing with “MiNiSTeR LoRMaN!” was and still is my favourite thing XD)

If I’ve left you out I’m sorry!! These were the ones that stuck out in my memory, but I’ve loved everyone’s writing this year, it’s been great :3

Writing Goals:

to actually finish and post chapter 8 & 9 of Creeping Shadows. Then we’ll get to the meat and potatoes of the story and maybe Aria will stop being a brat and fighting me every time I try to stick to a semi-regular update schedule Get off my butt, finalise the name and get started on Ni’kasi’s part of the Subterfugeverse story. Maybe run the updates in-tandem with Creeping Shadows but idk if I want to wait till after CS is done before I start posting Kas’s side, or do them side-by-side yet, we’ll see ;) Keep writing! I know better than to pressure myself by setting a specific word count goal, that’s never worked well in the past

At least 2 chapters of each of the works mentioned above would be great though, more would be better! We’ll see how I go

Words of Thanks:

honestly, to everybody in the fandom I’ve met this year. Anybody that I follow, thank you for being there and engaging with me and/or posting amazing content for me to look at! I came over from deviantART where the SWTOR fandom is incredibly small and generally quite inactive and the contrast since moving over here has been incredibly uplifting. I very nearly cancelled Creeping Shadows and stopped posting fic for my SWTORverse altogether because I got next to no engagement on dA and it was very disheartening to the point where I felt I could enjoy the game and the rp partners I had, but the solo projects I’d put so much thought, time and love into already weren’t worth continuing. You guys took that spark and kept it going and I really don’t have enough words to say how grateful I am for that. Even if I haven’t published much this year, making posts on this tumblr, interacting with everyone and working on lore, plot points and so on for Subterfugeverse has kept me going through the Hellish Year of Nightmares that was 2020 <3

to the amazing new friends I’ve made in this past year, who have listened to me ramble about headcanons, character backstories, writing snippets (and rambled/sent some back), keep being awesome: @walk-ng-d-saster , @darth-bagel , @kyber-heart , @deepseacritter , @thedinalixlegacy to further friends and meme tag buddies, I get so excited every time I see a mention for a new meme or ask game in my inbox, so thank you!! : @mimabeann , @palepinkycat , @a-master-procrastinator , @raven-of-domain-kwaad , @actualanxiousswampwitch , @thatmmolesbian , @a-muirehen to my regular commentors/rebloggers/likers/askbox lurkers, I see every one of you and every time your users pop up I grin like a kid in a toy shop: @starlightjedi , @sparkles-and-rust , @wilvarin-chan , @sunsetofdoom , @ask-an-andalite , @thelastenvoyyy . @lyrishadow and more because Tumblr only goes so far back and I have the memory of Swiss Cheese. If you regularly comment, like, reblog, or anything, from me, know that I see you, and I love and appreciate you for it! <3

I couldn’t possibly remember to tag everyone and I promise if I missed you out it’s not because I hate you! Anxiety just sometimes be a bitch and I don’t wanna look like a clown calling someone a “friend” if I’m not explicitly sure we are, in fact, friends. I think you’re all awesome and I’m so glad to have moved over here and met you all <3

[butididnottried]

I’m late to the party, but whatever. After a (ehehe he) few months of thinking about it, i finally watched netflixs “She-Ra and Princesses of Power”.

- Oh. Oh... Oh wow. Just wow. All these jokes and memes about Catra and therapy makes so much sense now. Like, even TOO much. This show have no business in showing all these issues so good, and yet, there they are.

- Scorpia is such a cinnamon roll. But she’s so stressed. She tries to play it cool, but man, her stress level is on some cosmic level. I have no idea how she do not lost it and not murdered anyone. Come on big girl, i’m going to be your best friend and you can hug me as much as you want. <3

- Hey Adora.

- I hope that Shadow Weaver will not pull some betrayal shit right now and will stick with the rebellion against Horde Prime. I don’t need her to be redeemed, she don’t really deserve that and probably don’t even want that. Also, she’s on the good side out of bad  motives, so that’s that. But her changing sides again would be just stupid and too predictable. It’s obvious that she will again try some shady magic to “save” the planet, while also at this same time gain more power, but i hope that will blow up in her face. Badly. Buuut. Since king Maika is alive and back at Bright Moon maybe he will have some good influence on her. Strongly doubt that, but its always a possibility. 

- Bows voice acting is probably my favorite in the whole show. The comedy timing with his voice, when it’s going a little to high and cracks up? That’s The Good Stuff.

- And i don’t really like Entraptas (not Entrapa, what) voice timbre. This voice actress is very good - like every other on this show tbh - but something about her voice alone annoys me. She also often sound like her nose is stuck? Which is a nope for me.

- Hey Adora.

- Ah, Entrapta, my adorable science baby. How someone so smart can be so dumb at this same time. I know that she’s autism coded, but im not talking about that. She figured out this whole The First Ones tech, this whole connection of magic, princesses and rune stones to the WHOLE planet, but didn’t thought even for a second that maybe activating this machinery could most probably blown everything up. Really? ReaLLY? But maybe that’s just a science people thing, being sooo much into it, that nothing else matters? Idk, i’m a dumbass, i do not get science very much. But when she was like “we need to turn this portal thing off, Hordak will understand” i was like “oh no, oh honey, no, he DEFINITELY will not” and this moment was kinda hilarious. Oh well.

- And they we’re lab partners. _^_

- I don’t really know why, but i like Hordak. He’s that good kind of dumb, angry and nor very well socialized villain. Well, he lived in a place not very well suited for proper socializing. Yeah, that - he got a nice, kinda different backstory. Usually when a character is a clone their big and dark torment is the fact that they’re a clone. But he’s even proud of that? Because the original one is powerful and magnificent Horde Prime, so it’s an honor to be his clone. His problem is that he is a defective clone, unworthy, when he was made for such grande purpose like conquering the galaxy. I can’t even very much blame him for his bending for murder and destroy. Not because he’s sad, but because he was made in a lab to be like that, more or less programmed - murderous, angry and destructive. In cases of characters like that it’s not very much like an explanation, but almost an justification (but hey, that’s me, about fictional people, so chill please (: ). It’s like blaming a not self-consciousness machine for going rouge. Well, Hordak is not a stupid, unaware robot, but idk, there’s no real analogue in real world for a beings like this, so i “choose” to feel like that about fictional characters being made to be put-there-whatever. Also, he’s physically so fragile? It’s hysterical. It feels like the faintest wind would blow at him, and every bone in his body would broke. 

- And what i wrote about Hordak i think also about Light Hope. Shes and AI, probably almost at point where she could obtain self-consciousness, but not quite yet there. And she did what she did because she stick to her main program, she really didn’t have a choice. But she had! This one time. Because she is capable of learning and grow beyond her program. I don’t now if younger audience is going to catch that, but i’m happy that AI was showed as it is - just an very advanced AI, and not a mean, bad person. Or maybe she is self-aware and i just didn’t noticed that. Also, her design. <3

- hEy AdOrA.

- I was so ready to like Double Trouble, and eeeh. The only magic here is acting. I do not copy, i perform. I put everYTHING into ROLE! I’m an Artist! ArTiSt! IT’S ART! asdfghjkl just go away with that you pompous prick. Uuuugh, this is just the worst kind of artists. But, i still appreciate how they do not have any sad backstory (yet?), and are there only for money, drama and spreading chaos. At least someone is having fun in all this mess.

- Adora is so gay for big ladies. When all this mess is going to end, she deserve some romantic plot with gentle butch. Give Adora some big woman to love, you cowards!

- One of Bows dad is wearing socks and sandals. That’s it. 

- Swift Wind was visiting madame Razz all this time, because shes and old lady living alone in the woods. My heart just melted. <3 Also, i really want to know whats going on with her. Like, no one cares that’s shes probably more than a one whole thousands years old? But it look more like she has some time bending powers, that she do not control? And it messes with her memory and mind? Poor lady. ): 

- I had this feeling deep in my guts that The First Ones are going to be revealed as stupid bitches. And hey, they turn a magical planet into a super weapon. Why these ancient civilizations are such ignorant morons?

- I know that relationships between characters are the most important thing in this show, but man, i was so much there for the worldbuilding. The more information they were giving, the more i was like “just tell me what’s going on!!!”. And wow, i’m not disappointed. A++. But tbh, if we put aside all this cute stuff like magic, princesses and shiny, magical stones, this whole shit is pretty terrifying.

- When during daring rescue of Glimmer and Bow in Fright Zone Perfuma admitted that working with Entrapta can be... kinda difficult, and Entrapta - with a smile! - just nodded in agreement. This. This is probably my favorite joke in this whole series.

- h e y a d o r a

- Seahawk. Much love. Much joy. Gold of heart, dumb of ass. Yes.

- Also Huntara. Damn, woman, can you maybe tune down your attractiveness? I’m trying to keep myself together here.

- Designs in this show are just top notch. Bon Appetit.

- I love how this world is inhabited by so many various creatures, not only humans. NICE.

[cruelfeline]

can I just flop into your inbox and despair for a hot second about how like. bewildered I am over the lore of spop??? I thought about doing this as proper asks but then it got... long.

Sure! Anyone can flop into my inbox c:

idk if it's me and I'm just dumb and not getting it?? I've gotta go back and comb through the show I guess bc the wiki and google and the internet at large are the opposite of helpful.

but no okay the show kept saying that the first ones were basically - etheria's first settlers or whatever the hell right?? something along those lines? am I remembering this correctly? that's why the etherian's CALL them the first ones? (I mean but Prime did too didnt he now that I think about it. I'm not sure why he would though, the context for why the etherian's would use the term and why he'd use the term are different?) ugh whatever, like I said I gotta go back and comb through but I wanna say that the implication was that the first ones were the...First Ones to be on etheria. which is like....??

Mm... it’s a bit unclear, but Mara speaks in a way that highly implies that there are native Etherians already on Etheria when the First Ones arrive. One of them being Razz. 

I doubt that Etherians really know much about their own history; their records seem sporadic to me, so they may or may not know that the First Ones weren’t actually the first sapients on the planet.

And Prime doesn’t really call them the First Ones; he simply acknowledges that that is what Adora and the Etherians call them. I don’t recall him calling them anything specific.

bc then when it comes to the whole, heart of etheria thing, and the runestones, and all of that? and then the princesses? I'm honestly just so confused as to how it all is supposed to fit together. bc then uh where did the five royal families come from to begin with? were the runestones there from the start? were those five families magically connected with those runestones from the start or were they only connected and whatnot after the first ones were all like "hey so uh, if you synch up to this rock you can do cooler magic" but then if etheria was already being ruled by several different courts of elemental royalty or wtf ever, then they couldnt really call themselves the first ones. but Also it's just (and I think you've addressed that the showrunners seem So Much More Interested in telling the catradora gf drama angst saga then fleshing out their world building lmao) it's kinda just like... why do all of these families only have one child? why do each of the princesses of power not have a sibling? like what if - considering mooooost of them seem to be orphans lol - one of them trips down the stairs and smacks their head on the floor and dies?? I guess uhhh, now your kingdom doesn't have a ruler??

So, my understanding of the runestones is that they were devices created by the First Ones in order to enhance and better control the magic of those naturally in tune with certain elemental aspects of the planet. I don’t think this is explicitly stated in canon, but I assume as much by extrapolating from the purpose of She-Ra’s sword. As we learn over the course of the show, the First Ones did not create She-Ra, but they did create the sword. She-Ra is an Etherian entity, some form of planetary guardian or what-have-you, and the First Ones created the runestone sword in order to control that entity and incorporate it into the Heart of Etheria. I would assume that the other runestones serve a similar purpose.

Now, as far as our current Etherians not knowing this: this is a fairly common sci-fi trope. The idea of the original purpose of something (usually some form of advanced tech) being lost as information is lost to the ages is often used to facilitate protagonists not immediately knowing what a thing is for. Like... oh, if you’ve ever read the Dragonriders of Pern series. That’s a good example: Earth colonists land on a planet, find it inhospitable, genetically engineer empathetic dragons to help fight the threat, and... well, people live there for generations, forget their origins, regress technologically, and just assume that there have always been dragons on Pern.

As far as single child Princesses and whatnot: likely a by-product of the show already having a million characters, and siblings not being needed for the plot! I mean, the show already had enough to deal with; no need to add more fluff.

and yeah it's a kids show but it doesnt ;__; none of the any of it makes sense to me.

what is the Heart of Etheria even supposed to Do again??? like we know it's a superweapon that channels magic and like, Mara trapped etheria in despondos 1000 years ago so my soft theory is that the first ones were maybe using it as a last ditch effort against Prime? I mean is the sword just.... gps coordinated to fire at prime regardless of where he is in the universe or whatever?? bc I mean at that point is prime on etheria's doorstep?? I don't! I dont understaaaand.

Well, since it never fires, we cannot know for certain, but Death Star-style planetary destroyer seems logical. 

I do like the headcanon that it was actually a last ditch effort to defeat Prime, especially since we now know that the First Ones fought him and apparently lost!

This is an interesting concept to me because, while their colonization of Etheria is widely regarded as Bad, because colonialism is Bad, the idea that they did it in order to try to save their own lives, and potentially the lives of others in the universe, makes the situation far more morally grey than it might initially appear. Yes, their colonization harmed the Etherians, but might it have been worth it, if they had succeeded and killed Prime a thousand years ago? Would that have prevented the genocides he committed on other worlds? Would sacrificing Etheria have been worth it if, say, a thousand other inhabited planets had been spared as a result? Not a set of questions the show asks, but meaningful ones, in my opinion.

why does Prime want it? like is he not under the impression that messing with it is gonna like... pretty much blow up everything within a big ass huge af radius? he said something or other about purifying the universe and starting over or some nonsense like that but??? like you'd be dead too my guy. you might be egotistical and narcissistic and vain af but I dont think he's that stupid as to think he's somehow immune to giant fricken explosions.

Oh, I think he has some idea of how to survive it. He can body hop. He is, in some sense of the word, eternal because of that. If She-Ra hadn’t stepped in, he likely would have succeeded in continuing his existence. The way he speaks, one may even infer that this sort of thing has happened before.

But, hard to say! Thankfully, we don’t have to find out c:

and I'm just. I just wanna know more about the spop world at large you know?? like. I just want All the world building and backstory and explanations to things. I have so many questions.

anyway sorry for kinda dumping this giant wall of shrieking nonsense in your inbox I'm just like. I dont... I dont get it. I dont get any of it lmao and I wanna get it! like the whole universe of this show could be so cool and so fun and interesting but it's like... some of the pieces dont seem to.. f i t

yeah

Ah, such is the burden of a world that has only enough worldbuilding done to facilitate its story, no more and no less. But! At the same time, this means that we as viewers can infer many things from canon and fill in the blanks with whatever we prefer. Leading to a lovely variety of fandom content to amuse us for some time to come c:

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide letter

I am laughingpineapple on AO3  

Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic (when in doubt, tell me what’s happening to them five, ten, twenty years in the future!), hurt/comfort, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, tropey plots that are already close enough to characters/canon, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploring the ~deep lore, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played entirely straight, sensory details, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, unrequested characters popping up.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings, consent issues, actual covid (fantasy plagues are okay)

Les Cités Obscures: any

This is a very general “please, anything in the style of canon, just maybe with less thoughtless sexism” request. I want to lose myself in these cities again, and in the strange lands that connect them. I’d be happy to follow any of the known characters and/or OCs, or eschew characters altogether and write about the cities themselves. What caught your imagination in Brüsel, Xhystos, Taxandria, Alaxis...? The history of some cool building that was only marginally featured in one of the stories? Or an OC city! If you’ve got a favourite European city that doesn’t already have its obscure counterpart, please tell me all about it! Go big, go wild! What strange and classically surrealist happenings take place within its walls? Or even... outside Europe... Nerding out about architecture is of course very welcome. I would also love to read a story based on any Schuiten illustration, contextualizing it as if it were part of this ‘verse. Here’s a bunch of them, for example!

Ghost Trick: Cabanela

You know.. him. Dazzlingly OTT, untiring, rock-solid self-esteem, loyal to a fault, following a rhythm of his own, flawless intuition until it fails and it all burns down… him. I just want to see more of him doing stuff! The way he’s chill and open toward new people (like Sissel and Missile in ch15) makes him perfect to throw at most other characters and see how they react to the sparkles… I’d love some focus on how ridiculous his aesthetic is, half Saturday Night Fever half hardboiled detective half bubbly preteen (for a total of 150%) and yet he makes it work. Or how ruthless he can be, possibly for the sake of the people he cares for. The quote “The intimacy of big parties”. Him and Alma in the new timeline bonding over knowing (once Jowd has spilled the beans) but not remembering that terrible timeline. Some tropey scenario on the job. Snark-offs with Pigeon Man, by which I mean PM snarks and it bounces off him like water off a spotless white goose’s back.

Ship-wise it’s only Cabanela/Jowd whenever it’s not infidelity, Cabanela/Alma in what-ifs also if it’s not infidelity and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd for me (and Lynne/Memry and Yomiel/fianSissel on the side). There are a bunch of shippy prompts in all my past letters - I would however reiterate here that Jowd. is. the worst tease. always. Like, just saying, but assume he’s pining big time and Jowd and Alma figure it out - they’d make a national sport out of excruciatingly protracted teasing.

Conversely, Cabanela/Lynne and Cabanela/Yomiel are NOTPs especially from Cabanela’s side. So while I appreciate the thick tension of a good Yomiel VS Cabanela confrontation like everyone and their cat, and also really appreciate a roughed-up Cabanela, and I do love Yomiel in his own right… I don’t want Cabanela being into it. Adrenaline junkie he may be but this hurts and his coat’s a mess and there’s no perfect winning scenario so he hates every second of it. (JOWD being super into Cabanela being roughed up is another matter altogether and he should probably mind his own business. ...incompatible kinks, truly tragic. they’ll have to find some other common ground. they’re smart, resourceful, playful fellows, I’m sure they’ll manage)

Kentucky Route Zero: Donald kentuckyroutezero

I love everyone in the cast, all acts and interludes, and I am extremely into all the themes this incredible work of art ended up exploring. Agreeing with the overall doom and gloom up to Act IV, I was blown away by Act V’s strong affirmation of the importance of the arts and of the bonds we make and of carving up spaces for ourselves in capitalism’s wake. Donald was, indeed, not a part of any of that. Even the final interlude updates us on Lula and mentions Joseph, but the big guy is nowhere to be seen. So, you know, there’s fanfiction! He’s so static, defeated. I am fascinated by the chain of metaphysical spaces that goes surface -> Zero -> Echo -> Dogwood and even within that framework, the hall of the mountain king is like a hopeless dead end. Dude’s terminally stuck. So - once again, in the spirit of transformative works, how could he get... you know... unstuck? Did Lula’s momentous appearance in Act III shake him? Having a functioning Xanadu again, perhaps? How could he interrogate that oracle, what recursive wonders would it show him? If he decides to leave, what does it feel to be on the surface again after so long, or on the river perhaps? Maybe he is forced to leave by the flood, if not this one, the next... Having him meet any other character would be amazing. Past or future time spent with Weaver... seeing Conway again, changed... programmer guy chatting up musician androids... did he know Carrington from his college days or was Carrington only a friend of Lula’s?

As for Lula herself and Joseph too: “Flipping through the pages, Conway is able to gather that it’s a story about three characters: Joseph, Donald, and Lula. It’s something like a tragic love triangle, but much more complex. Some kind of tangled, painfully concave love polygon.” 😔 I ship them as a full triad, if you can nudge them in that direction, good. But I’m very open to non-romantic resolutions as well, going past their messy feelings to find each other as friends after so many years maybe. Or... a start. idk.

I’d be interested in fic that leans on the game’s adjacent genres: wanna go full-on American Gothic? Dip into surrealism? Take a leaf from Twin Peaks with tulpa / split narratives to explore the characters’ issues? I’m also open to AUs, real or through Xanadu. This also feels like a good place to stress that I really, really like caves.

And now for something completely different: FAQ:  The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense is in the tagset this year. I’d say that the crossover with the snake portion of Here and there along the Echo writes itself, but it would not be correct, as in fact I would like you to write it for me. Feel free to not feature Donald if you focus on this crossover instead!

Uru would be a fun crossover too, for Donald specifically. He’s very DRC-shaped in how he tilts at doomed projects which just so happen to be deep underground.

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood

This is a Volfred solo, Volfred&literally anyone or Volfred/Tariq, /Oralech or /Tariq/Oralech request. I adore everyone in that Blackwagon+Dalbert+Celeste, so if you want to add a Nightwing or two to any prompt, please do! I also love all the Scribes and find Erisa a compelling tragic figure, while out of the other triumvirates, I’m “love to hate them” for Manley, Brighton, Udmildhe and Deluge and would not like to see them featured in sympathetic roles. fwiw I also enjoy Jodi/Celeste and Bertrude/Pamitha a lot!

I feel deeply for all of Pyre’s main themes - literacy, degrees of freedom, the fragile time that is the end of a historical cycle, nobodies rising up to the occasion, building a better society, and of course found family, “distance cannot separate our spirits” and all that jazz, and Volfred is squarely rooted at the center of all of them. I really really love everything he stands for, even if he’s overbearingly smug in standing for it. Just please tell me things about my fave. His relationship to the Scribes (as a historian, a some kind of vision, via *ae or once he’s a star himself)? A ‘forced vacay’ Downside ending where he looks at the Union from afar and keeps living in this strange transformational place? Life in a cramped Blackwagon that was meant for like 5 people tops and is currently eight Nightwings, a herald and an orb? Since he picked him for the job to begin with, does he respect and cherish Hedwyn as he dang well should? What does it feel like to try and Read a herald? Was he ever in danger, in the Commonwealth or in the Downside? What daring act of resistance did he and Bertrude pull off at some point in their past? It’d be cool if one of his old pamphlets came up at some point. Does he puff up as prime minister because he’s nervous, and who can see past his hyper-professionalism and lend a hand? Please roast him big time about the votes he assigns to the various Nightwings in his planner? What’s his attitude toward the flame’s purification (what with being a tree but mostly like, as a general concept. He did nothing wrong!) (well he definitely said some things wrong and sometimes oftentimes the ego jumps out, but his intentions did nothing wrong)? When did his calculating approach fail him? Something with Pamitha along the lines of that edit that goes “Can we talk, one ten to another?“/"I am an eleven, my girl, but continue”? Dude could easily be voted sexiest voice in the Downside - how much is he aware of it? Does he sing? I love how he bears his ‘reader’ brand proudly. And speaking of scars, I have to wonder, looking at Manley for comparison, if the shape of his head, with that massive crack, isn’t also due to injuries.

As a refrain from my general likes: emphatically yes xeno to both shippy interactions at all ratings and to gen explorations of what a Sap is like… I’d love to read all your headcanons.

Ship-wise, I enjoy him with Tariq as this kind of esoteric connection of minds, guarded words full of secret meanings, long contemplative walks together (is any external pov watching...?), Volfred’s Reader powers brushing against Tariq’s mind and getting weak in the knees at the starlit expanse he finds there, so unlike mortal thoughts. Tariq finds his individuality learning from him; Volfred presumably gets a transcendent glimpse of the Scribes. And I enjoy him with Oralech as pretty much the opposite of that, Oralech is so very mortal compared to him, such a precious, fleeting, burning life especially after his fall. Oralech’s idealism is very dear to me, it was their plan, their shared revolutionary spirit, I find it deeply moving. And I am very interested in seeing them rebuild their connection now that Oralech is back, changed, and in some ways he can learn to let go of his misconceptions and slowly open himself to Volfred’s love again, but in other ways that’s who he is now, with this deep-set anger, and what does it even feel to realize that you’re the symbol of the end of an era (the end of the Rites, the fading of the Scribes). I’m interested in both topside and downside endings for all of them, as long as they end up on the same side, the revolution was peaceful and they don’t angst too much about the side they ended in. Tariq can ‘find his way home’ in the near post-canon somehow or even be summoned again, as a different aspect of the same ‘moonlit vision’ that once inspired Soliam Murr.

Strandbeest: any

https://www.strandbeest.com/

I would just like words to go with these, please and thank you so very much. Worldbuild to your heart’s content! Specifically: I’m fascinated by the premise that the strandbeest are living creatures that evolve and adapt to their ecosystem. A world where life is just wind stomachs and sandy joints, and the tide that can catch you unaware. I would like a story that feels distinctly inorganic. The wonder that is the existence of these creatures. Their unique struggles. Weird and experimental if you like. With a mechanical focus, maybe?

I nominated four critters as a selection of the different cool things they can do - Percipiere Excelsus is huge and has the hammer mechanism, Suspendisse’s tail senses the hardness of the sand, Uminami is my fave caterpillar and the caterpillars overall feel like a new paradigm after a mass extinction event, Ader straight-up flies... but they’re all wonderful. If you want to focus on different strandbeest, please do!

Twin Peaks: Lucy Moran

Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. Transcendence. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. Whatever goes on on Blue Pine mountain or the even more mysterious things that go on on White Tail mountain where exactly zero canon locations are found. Twin Peaks is all about the mystery to me, the awe of mystery and unknowability and the human drive to look beyond and the risks of getting a peek, and about shared consciousness and trauma taking physical form in an uncaring world. Go wild with the ethereal whooshing! But I also love the human warmth at the heart of it all, and sometimes it’s enough to anchor these characters and let them have a nice day. A fic entirely focused on some instance of coziness against the cold chaotic background of canon would be great too.

For Lucy specifically, a big draw for me is how canon (...s2 need not apply) empathizes with her way of processing the world. Not just Peaks, but On the Air’s protag who is basically a Lucy expy also gets the narrative completely on her side and that’s great. And I love how in s3, her focus on the small things around her is always echoed by bigger, climactic events beyond her horizon (bunnies / Jack Rabbit’s palace, chair order / Garland’s chair, her first scene talking about the two sheriffs / doubles everywhere...). It feels to me like some kind of off-kilter mindfulness and I love it. She’s also got a loving husband and an amazing son, which, in this economy and also this canon? Damn. The one functional family, imagine that. I am not interested in focus on family dynamics, but singularly, either Lucy/Andy or Lucy&Wally are great - in particular, I’m interested in how strange they are and yet they make it work. With the ruthless critique of traditional family structure that’s all over canon, maybe they make it work specifically because they’re not doing any of that. A bit like the Addams family... but... not goth...? Anyway. I’d love to see Lucy interact with and maybe strike a friendship with any character she’s never shared a scene with in canon! In the tagset, there’s Diane for some secretaries bonding, Audrey because??? why not?, Albert because it’d be an epic enemies to friends slowburn, some version of Laura in the future, if we’re feeling really daring maybe even some version of Coop in the future, still fragmented... or anyone you want! Outside the tagset I’d be curious about Hawk, Margaret and maybe Doris in particular, I think, and Phil, and Nadine and the Invitation to Love fandom in general (Frost says it still airs - did it get as weird as TP s3 did?), but if you have an idea with someone else, absolutely go for it!

Canon-specific DNWs: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, clear explanations for canonical ambiguities, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman’s House by the Sea being the White Lodge, whatever Twin Perfect’s on about, Cooper/Audrey, Cooper/Laura

[bronanlynch]

writer rec meme

tagged by @girlfriendsofthegalaxy thank u friend!!

1. A fic you are proud of?

so I wrote my youth is yours (friends at the table: spring in hieron; benjamin/blue j) for secret samol this year during a time when I was. not having a good time and also had lots of essay deadlines and I was behind on my penumbra minibang fic so I. started working on it really late and barely finished it in time to not miss the posting period and I was so worried abt it and then somehow wrote the entire 5.3k thing in a few days and it turned out well?? people liked it??? so I’m proud of myself for somehow managing that

(side note looking back at it now is funny bc u can tell I wrote it before I fell completely into ephrim/throndir since the background ship is still throndir/red jack. although like. throndir has 2 hands and should kiss both of them tbh)

2. A fic you are excited about?

of the things that I’ve posted so far, I’m still really happy abt lend me your heart and I’ll just let you fall (julius caesar; brutus/cassius) which is. incredibly silly and self-indulgent like. is it my best work? probably not! did I have a very fun time writing it? yes I did! it’s caesar but In Space and the worldbuilding is a mess of things stolen from various other sci-fi franchises and I’m so glad it exists in the world

a slightly more serious answer is I’m gonna love and give it a name (transformers comics; bumblebee/starscream) which I like bc. ok. there’s not much beescream fic and I’m super picky abt it and I like being able to reread this and get hit w exactly the emotions I want from this ship. I think the beginning could’ve used just a lil more editing but the whole second half makes me emo so

I don’t. do multichapter fic so I can’t really rec any wips which I feel like this is actually asking abt lmao. my main wips are the friends at the table thing I need to hurry up and post before the next episode drops, and the g*me of thr*nes fix-it/rewrite of most of canon bc it’s bad that I’ve been picking away at for. literally three (3) years now including when I lost all of it when my hard drive died in fall 2017 and I learned a valuable lesson abt backing up my shit. someday I’ll finish that fic and then I’ll be free of the hold that mess of a series has on my brain

3. A fic that was challenging to write?

when the sun comes (try not to hate the light) (the penumbra podcast; juno/nureyev + sasha/rita) was my penumbra minibang fic and it was. also written while I was having a hard time, I struggled w the deadline, and I’d never tried to write fic that long or plot-y before (I also ended up cutting basically the entire ~plot that was in my outline and just focusing on the emotional arcs and the vampire tropes which is. valid of me)

4. A fic that was something you hadn’t tried before?

bringing the heat and the word is out (friends at the table: counter/weight; diego/augustus) which I wrote for the fatt rarepair swap was the first time I tried to do something non-chronological and I was also balancing 3 point of view characters when I usually stick to one or two but I really like how it turned out, figuring out how to arrange the different sections was really fun

(also that’s a fic that I would rec even if u know nothing abt the fandom bc it’s minor side characters and has very little to do w the main storyline but it’s good and fun and up until the penumbra mini-bang I considered it the best thing I’d ever written)

5. If you had to choose one fic above all to share, what would it be?

tbh probably when the sun comes, bc it’s the most ambitious fic I’ve written and it’s recent so it’s prob a pretty good representation of me as a writer, but since I wanna. share something different for this question so

I could be violet sky (friends at the table: spring in hieron; samothes/hadrian/samot) is one of my absolute favorites tbh, I’m not sure how much sense it makes if u don’t have at least a little knowledge of hieron lore but I’m kinda tempted to say just read it anyway. there are divorced gods who are still in love and also both probably into someone who’s kind of the paladin of both of them. there’s clothes sharing and also dream sharing

sorry I know I was supposed to pick one and also that I’ve recced so many fatt fics even though probably only like 5 of you care abt that but I reread made of nebulas and novas and night sky (friends at the table: counter/weight; sokrates/integrity; written for the fatt nb swap last summer) for the first time since I posted it while looking through my ao3 for this meme and hey? it’s good actually?? do you like estranged siblings learning to get along again and someone realizing they’re basically married to the alien ai who shares their mind + body (think venom but they’re both a little less of a disaster)? then I have the fic for you! (can also probably be read without much background knowledge bc they’re fairly minor characters and also Imo u should read it anyway bc I think it’s p good)

oh man Idk who to tag for this, if you write things and you wanna do the thing, consider yourself tagged

[sundaynightnovels]

11/11/11.... again!

ive been tagged by @surroundedbypearls & @elliswriting for 2 different sets of 11 questions, so i’ll be doing them both here! for @surroundedbypearls

What’s your favourite genre to write in and why? contemporary!! because contemporary issues are fun, and i like to write about people interacting with each other more than anything else!

Do you think you have a style/voice that you use more often in your writing? When did you develop that style? hmm... from the one creative writing class i took a few semesters ago, i guess it was kinda odd to a lot of the students there that i wrote in present tense??? i didn’t always write in present tense, i used to write in the past, but idk, over the years i just felt that present tense has a ... stronger sort of.... hmmmmm.... idk how to explain it. i just like how it feels or sound more than past tense at times.

Do you play video games? What’s your favourite? i don’t really play video games! not really a gamer. but i did play FFX and FFXIII (+ XIII-2 and lightning returns) before, though i sucked HAHAHAHA but i enjoyed them! and the only game i’m actually playing now is like... pubg on mobile, so yea. not a gamer! prefer watching people play games!

If you were going to do a WIP crossover, which OCs would be most interesting together? (If you’ve only got one WIP crossover with something else) oh yea i’d totally cross over with percy jackson that’ll be really fun! i love greek mythology anyway & i’d love to add some chinese mytho into the mix (even if i’m not particularly well-versed in it)

Do you prefer to plan WIPs in a document or through handwritten notes? in my brain, where it goes missing like, 98% of the time. sometimes i try to write notes in my phone, where it also goes missing when my phone dies. so basically... there’s no planning.

Do you multiple languages exist in your WIP? If so how do you address that in the story? not really i guess, but... well because i do imagine some characters to speak cantonese instead of chinese, and jun might also speak a lil hokkien since he’s from taiwan... i mean, i don’t really address that HAHA they are just presumed to all be speaking chinese. or, yknow, i’m doing what the good place is doing and like, everything is kinda translated for them. but it’s not said outright in the novel itself. idk man

What’s your favourite animated film that’s not Disney or Pixar? this is TOUGH because there are so many!!! hM. maybe grave of the fireflies. i love myself some history and angst.

Do your real-life surroundings influence your WIP’s settings? not at all

Which OCs would be most likely to breath the fourth wall? jun and zhen. the former has already done that.

How do you work out your OCs’ personalities? well i just observe things that i like and get inspired by them!

Do you prefer worldbuilding or character building? character!

now for @elliswriting! 

What genre do you write? contemporary / fantasy

Are you a planner, pantser, or planster? i have no idea what this means but if you’re assuming i plan things out, you’ve thought wrong!

What is your approach to research? google a lot, open a bunch of tabs, let them fester while i wail over the amount of text i have to read, and leave them to lag my computer over the course of a few months or even years while i never get to them

What POV is your novel? Why are you writing it this way? third-person multi POV! well because they all have their own stories and you’ve to understand things through various characters. also, it’s more fun that way

Do you know how your story ends before you start writing? yeah, most of the times i do. the middle is the amorphous mess that i try not to touch, though

When creating characters, what comes first: appearance, backstory, motivation, personality, something else? personality! most likely, i have something that i am VERY EXCITED for the character to say (usually like... humour stuffs) and that’s where their personality gets built from

What trope do you actually like? ummmm... enemies turned friends. love it when it’s done well!!! look at zuko!!! look at scar (from fmab)!!! look at law (from one piece)!!! my loves!

How did you come up with your title? HAHA tbh i can’t really remember. i guess it’s like... okay so my title is like all things out of season, and yknow, fruits and stuff are out of season when they’ve... well, past their season. or like, when they’re no longer ripe and might be wilting and people just throw them away. and it’s kinda related to death also i think??? and since my wip is about death, they’re all kinda like... out of their ‘ripe season’ or their ‘prime’ so to speak and ... yea. HAHAHA. i don’t know. the name just gives me a sort of really strong feeling that i like.  also since where they live, it’s always like... between spring-winter, those are the out-of-season months, don’t you think?

If your WIP had a theme song, what would it be? i’ve answered this here !  go check it out!

How has your MC developed, not within the plot, but since you first created them? well, i never thought that shou would be this absurd a person. or this dramatic. he was supposed to be a lil spooky yknow, kinda weird but also creepy. now he’s just weird. 

Your MC faces certain death.  What are their last words? i think for shou it might be “i’m sorry”, but to what exactly, i’m not sure even he knows.

thank you for the tags!!! i’ll be tagging a few more new followers, and yall can either use the same questions / pick and choose what you want to answer! @lexaawrites @francestroublr @rebelwritingwild @ruthewriter

[fae-fucker]

Shatter Me: Chapter 1-2

Oh God please no. Yes, finally, the book you’ve all been thirsting waiting for. 

I have to preface this by saying that I know that the protagonist has been in solitary confinement for super long and I know her narration is supposed to be terrible unconventional.

But! It doesn’t mean that this works, or that I have to like it. Just because I understand what the author was going for does not automatically make it good. 

And as someone who has an extremely low tolerance for purple prose, I can safely tell you that I took a quick peek at the mess narration near the end of the book and it was still garbage not great. 

With that out of the way, let’s begin.

Chapter 1

I’ve been locked up for 264 days. 

I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space. 26 letters in an alphabet I haven’t spoken in 264 days of isolation. 

6,336 hours since I’ve touched another human being.

Our protagonist tells us that The Reestablishment (yes) has locked her away because of something outside of her control, which, based on the book’s tagline, must have something to do with her ability to hurt people through physical contact. 

I only know that I was transported by someone in a white van who drove 6 hours and 37 minutes to get me here.

Her being able to figure out how long it’s been since she’s touched someone and how long the van drove implies that she knew she had to start counting right after it happened, which idk how much sense that makes, but ok. 

I know my parents never bothered to say good-bye.

I didn’t do that btw. This is this book’s “thing”. It’s supposed to be deep and show us how conflicted the protagonist is, how she actually thinks one thing but forces herself to ignore it in favor of something more “acceptable”. 

Again, I get what the author was going for, but this quickly becomes a one-trick pony, and the trick is kicking you in the face with how deep it is.

In this particular case, it just becomes weird. If we remove the crossed-out words, we don’t even get a complete sentence! It doesn’t make sense in context either. What a mess. 

I know the sky falls down every day.

When you’re writing a super deep YA novel, you probably don’t want the reader to think about Chicken Little.

Anyway, the protagonist angsts about how the planet is fucked, so that’s fun. Some generic attempt at post-apocalyptic worldbuilding for ya.

She’s supposed to get a cellmate but falls asleep before he arrives.

My eyes open to 2 eyes 2 lips 2 ears 2 eyebrows.

Would you say that it is, perhaps, a face of some kind?

Supposedly the narration gets more ... er, lucid, eventually, but this is still very bad and I hate it.

Anyway, turns out that her cellmate is!!! 

A BOY!!!

Dear God. 

They’re trying to kill me. 

They’ve done it on purpose.

I’m not exactly sure why she’s freaking out over this? Like I honestly can’t tell if she’s afraid of him, or if she’s so Very Heterosexual™ and so unable to control her goddamn self that she’ll just touch him all over and kill him? 

I honestly can’t figure it out. Maybe she has limited meta knowledge and knows that this guy will be driving the plot forward or some shit. 

The guy is obviously

Gorgeous Dangerous. Terrifying. Horrible.

because we can’t have anything else. I also love how she’s supposedly weird in the head after being in solitary for 264 days but is still somehow able to go “omg he’s HAAAAAWT” instead of just going “OMG ANOTHER HUMAN!! ANOTHER HUMAN!! ANOTHER HUMAN!!” 

But what do I know.

The guy tries talking to her but she’s having a BSOD.

He glances at my bed. Glances at his bed. Shoves them both together with one hand.

[...]

He’s stolen my bed my blanket my pillow.

And also your commas, apparently.

Chapter 2

Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too. 

I always wonder about raindrops. 

I wonder about how they’re always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It’s like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn’t seem to care where the contents fall, doesn’t seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors. 

I am a raindrop. 

My parents emptied their pockets of me and left me to evaporate on a concrete slab.

I honestly have no words. I think this speaks for itself. 

I could pick apart this entire metaphor, because that’s what I do to purple prose, but then I’d have to do this to every stupid metaphor that shows up in this book and that means I’d be stuck here for years. 

And for someone who can’t put a few commas in her sentences and whose narration is supposed to sound incoherent, she sure can conjure up extremely intricate shit like this. She’s somehow not lucid enough to understand that a face is a face, but finding/making up similarities between her own fate and the weather? That she can do.

He’s wearing a navy blue T-shirt and khaki cargo pants tucked into shinhigh black boots.

Fashion disaster.

Cellmate looks at protagonist and she blushes. Because after not seeing another person for 264 days, she still somehow feels shame when a pretty boy looks at her and she feels that she's not hot enough to be looked at, like she’s in high school or something. 

I catch the rose petals as they fall from my cheeks, as they float around the frame of my body, as they cover me in something that feels like the absence of courage.

Ah, yes.

...

What.

“They cover me in something that feels like the absence of courage”? 

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN AND WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT FEEL LIKE?!

He shifts and my eyes shatter into thousands of pieces that ricochet around the room, capturing a million snapshots, a million moments in time. Flickering images faded with age, frozen thoughts hovering precariously in dead space, a whirlwind of memories that slice through my soul.

Holy shit. What have I gotten myself into?

Cellmate tries talking to her again but food arrives. 

My throat is tight with something familiar to me, something I’ve learned to swallow.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Cellmate tries to get the food but burns himself because the tray is hot. Protagonist warns him after the fact, and cellmate gets reasonably cranky. 

Protagonist’s response is to go stare out the tiny window in their cell.

There will be a bird today. It will be white with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. It will fly. There will be a bird today. It will be white with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. It will fly. There will be a— His hand.

On me. 

2 tips

of 2 fingers graze my cloth-covered shoulder for less than a second and every muscle every tendon in my body is fraught with tension and tied into knots that clench my spine.

Despite this, she gets over it right quick.

Sometimes I’m so desperate to touch to be touched to feel that I’m almost certain I’m going to fall off a cliff in an alternate universe where no one will ever be able to find me.

Cellmate asks if protag is hungry. She lies and says no.

His lips are only barely parted, his limbs limp at his side, his lashes blinking back confusion

His lashed have their own eyes now. Talk about body horror. 

Protag realized that there’s something ~*~familiar~*~ about his eyes. 

My eyes break open. 2 shattered windows filling my mouth with glass.

Ok.

Protag starts writing in her notebook.

These words are vomit.

You’re not wrong.

Protag tells cellmate that he can’t touch her. 

Please touch me, is what I want to tell him.

But things happen when people touch me. Strange things. Bad things. 

Dead things.

Cool. 

Touch this book.

[niennavalier]

OC Ramble Pt 3!

Alright, this is gonna be my last OC post for now (unless I feel like unleashing the D&D character creation hell onto the internet) (which is a possibility but idk, cause I actually can't include all of them anyway). Just gonna do a little bit of a talk about my other ship, which I tend to call my City Boys, because a suggestion from a friend stuck. Also a few of the characters connected to their story. Which I will talk about... someday. Also the world for this. Which isn't fully fleshed out yet, aside from being sorta... medieval/renaissance vibes? (I clearly know history). But essentially kinda how fantasy vibes work, just minus magic. But the whole story has been centered around the one city that they're both from, which has really strict economical divides and such.

But okay, gonna start typing on the boys, here we go, hopefully won't be writing too much here (it's late and I'm sleepy).

Alaric Hastings: Mid-20s ish, born into a noble and really traditionally minded, old school type family (the really haughty, uptight sorts - basically just huge dicks, to be concise). But it's not the kind of life he likes - big social gatherings and keeping up appearances and having to present yourself in a certain way just to maintain your family's pride. He's very much an introvert, gets anxious and nervous really easily in these sorts of situations, and has never really had a way to deal with it? (He got basically thrown into the deep end with this sorta stuff at a young age and isn't naturally a people person. Which didn't really get him any friends that could make this all easier, and it's just amplified by his parents being super uptight, even compared to other nobles. It's all a big mess, really). When his parents find out he's gay, that goes as well as you'd expect and he ends up disowned.

(tbh if you check my other posts, he's the one that I posted the song for. The idea of male!Elsa lives in my head rent-free and made it into this character)

Then there's y'know, plot stuff that I'm too tired to get into. But in general, he's real warm-hearted and gentle - lots of very soft vibes here. (even if that's coupled with self-esteem issues and such). (Although he's also the type of person who will really latch onto something as a way to cope, whether healthy or not? AKA alcoholism is uh... a thing. But hey, this is what plot is for - to address things).

Random fun fact: he's actually one of few males characters I have who doesn't fit into that super pretty aesthetic? He's more conventionally handsome, although he himself doesn't really care much about his looks. Which is a nice lead in to...

Silas Reyes: The other half of this pairing! He comes from the poorer part of the city (but a much better family environment. He didn't know his dad but his mom is wonderful) (Actually, cause I did come up with some story stuff for his parents, his dad is also a noble, but from a much nicer family, and has some big idiot golden retriever energy). But he's the charismatic people-person of the two. Without getting too far into the worldbuilding, he basically worked his way up into this crime syndicate of sorts, and ended up becoming their negotiator and face, so to speak. He's just good at reading people and understanding what they want, and he knows how to sort of dance around those desires and play whatever part he needs to, so long as it gets whatever outcome he wants. Which is the more sinister side of what he's capable of, but he's just really adaptable when it comes to social stuff. Outside of that, though, when he's able to take off all those masks, he's genuine and... I guess blunt? He'll say what he thinks, albeit in a way that still comes off as friendly and ribbing and generally warm, not cold (though he does have a somewhat sharper way of speaking, especially compared to Alaric. It's sorta hard to just explain without examples though).

Him and Alaric meet under...not so great circumstances - lying is involved at the early stages - but, again, plot and development and etc etc.

And as for why there was that attempt at a transition up above: he cares a lot about how he looks. Presentation and stuff. It's important to him that he looks put together, especially in the presence of other people (ie. people he's not super close with). Especially his hair? He's particular about it and puts a lot of time into it (because it was actually an early part of his character design IRL. I had an idea, and said idea had me actually looking up stuff like medieval techniques to dye hair).

Emerson: Again, no last names, but she's one of Silas' friends. Two ish years younger that him, hardcore insists that everyone calls her Em. She's got this big and exuberant personality. Very talkative and just a bit dramatic (more than a bit). She loves being involved in all the goings-ons and has been known to basically be the local rumor mill. That whole nosy side is really on display when she's with Silas and Bennett (who I'll talk about a bit down below). She loves knowing what their plans are, especially when it comes to their love lives (she's very invested in all of that. When she first met Alaric, she shipped the two of them from the start and was more or less determined to make sure they worked out their issues). She's panromantic and ace, and so when the boys talk more on the sex side of all of this, her opinion is the "okay I'm glad you two enjoy this but also why? Aren't there better parts to talk about?"

Bennett: Alright, I mentioned him above and frankly, I don't have him fully figured out - just some bits and pieces I wrote to get an idea of his voice. But he's the other one of Silas' friends, and of the trio, the sorta more serious one. He's much more grounded (no-nonsense seems a little too harsh, so I'll go with grounded) and gives off this air of just knowing how to deal with situations. He's much more of a listener than his two friends, but also naturally intuitive (especially when it comes to reading Silas. The two of them met as teenagers, so there's a lot of unspoken stuff that he can read. They didn't meet Emerson for another handful of years, at which point she just sidled up to them and became part of the group). But also, all of that can go out the window when he's with the two of them - especially Emerson. They'll just bicker and banter with each other constantly over whatever weird topic of conversation someone brought up.

Side Notes: Yes, most of these characters are attached to Silas, but to be fair, Alaric's parents are huge assholes and I've just not cared enough to flesh them out. They suck and that's all that matters for now - whatever excuse they think they have for not accepting their kid is dickish and dumb (to be fair, I do have their reasons in mind, and yeah, bad parenting). Also, I do have another character in the works who's connected to Alaric's backstory - a brief, past love interest that he meets again later. But I don't have a lot of ideas for how that all goes, so I haven't experimented hugely with his character (although I do have a name I like!) And other last thing: I do have Silas' parents worked out a bit - Delia Reyes and Alonso Oriol - and have actually written down how they meet (it's incredibly stupid and fitting). I just didn't feel like going into them too much here? Maybe I will later idk; his dad is a riot (big dumb idiot who just adopts people).