#i actually had this as a wip like months ago and decided to sit down today and finish it :D

[candyheartedchy]

Inspired by this post here by @savoryangel!

[ohbutwheresyourheart]

I have far too many half-written things in my google docs that have never seen the light of day, so I've decided to start buffing up the best ones and posting them unfinished. Maybe I'll come back to them later, or if not at least someone will hopefully enjoy reading them as they are.

First up: fragments from a WIP based on the concept that Eva did not actually die when the twins were children; instead, she got caught in the magic field of a Geryon and sling-shotted to the middle of Devil May Cry 5. What I wrote revolved more around the aftermath, and Eva trying to come to terms with the modern world, her losses, and not knowing what happened to her sons.

The building is echoing once the buffer of trash is removed. High ceilings dissipating into shadowy un-shapes. Dark corners shifting like predators turning and twisting. It’s too like the manor in those early days before she tamed it as Sparda had; made it respect her for all she was a mortal woman.

Made it respect her because she was a mortal woman.

She feels so tired, though; too tired to start a fresh war. So Eva lives with the shadows and whatever they may hide. At least it’s not outwardly hostile. Even if it was, by rights she shouldn’t be comfortable here.

This domain, this world, empty of her sons.

----

Swollen and fragile all at once, like a wine glass held too long in hot water - ripe for shattering with a single thoughtless move.

Midmorning is an inauspicious time for any demon to appear; Eva uses the reprieve to walk the city streets. Capulet is smaller than Red Grave but still a decent-sized city in its own right, checking off all the requirements: university, libraries, museums, churches, arts district, cheerful cafes dotting the sidewalk…

A few months ago -- no, thirty years ago -- she would have delighted in browsing the art supplies store, or checking the museum events for child-friendly exhibitions (but boys you must behave), or laughing into her coffee as two eight year olds descended into extensive debate on the merits of chocolate cake over strawberry tarts.

Now she buys peppermint tea in a to-go cup and takes it to the park.

Capulet is unexpectedly windswept in August, errant breezes stirring up the parched over-long grass around her ankles and pulling her hair, strand by strand, out of the confines of her ponytail.

The park is quietish; the younger children are out in force but a university city never really feels alive during the summer while the students are away. She follows the winding gravel path towards the duck pond at the centre and circles it once, twice. Watches other mothers with children tossing breadcrumbs to the ducks; running; playing.

“Why don’t you go and play, boys? Just--”

“Be careful, I know.” Vergil’s eyes, already so much older than they should be. “Why even try when we have to pretend?”

She’d never come up with a good enough answer for him.

Trish finds her on a bench. She sits down without ceremony or preamble, sunglasses her one concession to the summer day but otherwise as unaffected by the August sun as she no doubt will be by the coming autumn chill.

(Eva is rapidly coming to dislike Trish. Not because she is a demon, per se, but because it’s so fucking demoralising to constantly see the perfect version of herself; an Eva who will never succumb to sagging tits or a bloated stomach or even messy hair.)

“Are you all right? You’re sitting there like a ghost.”

Eva sips her tea to save herself from an immediate response. The cup is almost empty and the dregs are cold; she doesn’t remember drinking it.

“I’m fine.”

“Mm.” Trish doesn’t look as though she believes Eva in the slightest, but thankfully doesn’t push the issue. “Well, in that case, I have a favour to ask.”

“Oh?” Eva becomes instantly wary. Even as despondent as she feels, she knows better than to thoughtlessly promise a demon anything.

Something flashes in Trish’s eyes, gone too quickly for Eva to define it. The slow smile that curls the corners of her lips is equally inscrutable.

“Don’t worry, it’s not a favour for me, exactly,” she assures her, waving a perfectly manicured hand (again that familiar burst of jealousy towards a creature that could control their human physical appearance at will; Sparda had never had a bad hair day in his life--). “Lady heard you’re quite the dab hand with magic and she wanted to know if there were any goodies you could make for her, or teach her, or… whatever, really.”

“Last I saw, Lady has a tongue in her head,” Eva replies coolly.

Trish’s smile widens. “Oh, she does, but she’s out of town this week and when I saw you I thought I might as well ask now as later.”

“Mm.” Now it’s Eva’s turn to give Trish a searching look. She taps her nails (not perfectly manicured by any definition of the term) against her empty cup, wishing there was some left; she could make use of a timely pause to sip her tea and give herself a moment to think. “Well, I’m happy to talk to Lady about what she needs when she’s back in Capulet.”

“I’ll pass the message on.” With one flowing, elegant movement, Trish gets to her feet and stretches like a languid cat. “I’d better get going. See you around, Eva.”

“Yes, see you,” Eva mutters to her back; Trish is already going, sashaying through the park like she owns the place.

Something about this doesn’t smell right and Eva has sense enough to be cautious.

And yet… When she returns to Devil May Cry, she spends time going through the cupboards she’s restocked and checking her herbs. She uses the laptop Nero and Nico set her up with and finds websites that sell the supplies she needs -- whether advertised for witchcraft or otherwise -- and prepares lists of useful tricks; things that used to give her the edge she needed to survive another night.

It might not be useful for Lady -- if, indeed, Lady even asked the question -- but it’s useful for Eva. Practically, because she can’t be too careful even now, and in the abstract;  when she goes to bed that night, Eva sleeps better than she has in weeks. Her hands might be dry and her nails might be broken, but with her fingertips stained and smelling of herbs once again she almost begins to recognise herself.

----

To Eva’s palpable surprise, Lady does actually swing by Devil May Cry the following week.

“Trish told me she saw you,” Lady explains as she unholsters Kaline Ann and sets her down on the desk. “Did she tell you the kind of thing I was looking for?”

Because there is truth in this cover story that Lady and Trish have concocted between themselves. Yes, mainly they want to check on Eva, but it also never hurts for an old bitch to learn some new tricks.

And how does Eva look? Less like Trish than she used to; Eva has taken to shoving her hair up in a loose bun at the back of her head (the better, Lady assumes, to keep it out of her face now she was no longer playing lady of the manor) and has swapped her elegant black gown for a serviceable sweater and jeans. On her feet, Doc Martens. On her hands, broken nails and stained fingertips. In her eyes - fire.

“In passing.” Eva is - suspicious? Well, Lady can’t entirely blame her for still finding her feet with all of them, particularly Trish - though Trish herself had taken it as a compliment that Eva considered her enough potential trouble to be wary of.

“You’re welcome to anything I can teach you, although…” Eva’s gaze slides across and down to Kalina Ann. There is something distinctly hungry (covetous?) in her eyes. “You seem to have the offensive side pretty well covered.”

Lady grins, one firearms aficionado to another. “Give Nico a call if you want anything - you can’t beat the Goldsteins for guns and for you she’ll probably do it for free.”

That does it: the reserve cracks and Eva grins back. It is not the kind, motherly smile that Dante probably remembers. This is the smile that a tiger would give you if it could.

“Noted.” Eva pulls out a stack of books from one of the desk drawers. “Now, where do you want to start?”

It does not take long for Lady to be very, very glad she arranged this meeting. Eva is an absolute trove of knowledge. Much of it Lady already knows, and some of it is interesting but not strictly relevant -- Lady’s fighting style being much more full-on than Eva’s tactics lend themselves to -- but she still picks up plenty.

----

Nero is a dutiful, darling boy. He checks in with her, regular as clockwork, trying to disguise the anxiety in his voice. He doesn’t know how to be with her, but he tries nonetheless.

He asks her, often, to visit him in Fortuna; to meet his girlfriend and the children they have adopted. Eva demurs and lets him think she’s still putting off the inevitable label of grandmother. It’s not a total lie, but it’s far from the primary reason. Maybe, perceptive as he is (and he is; Sparda’s eyes staring at her, seeing straight through her despite the un-Sparda-ish mouthing off), he knows that, too, and is giving her time.

It’s just… what if they come back, and she isn’t here to greet them? What if they think she’s truly gone again? She can’t hurt her boys like that a second time. She can’t let them down again when they look for her, reach for her. God knows she was worth fuck-all to them then and even less now, as much protection as a paper cut-out, but if they know she’s willing to put herself between the two of them and danger, then… that’s something, isn’t it? However little, it’s something.

The latest attempt comes on a late autumn evening. October is slipping away, each dark evening bringing them a little closer to Halloween. The most enterprising of the local children have already ventured out trick-or-treating with the excuse that the 31st is a school night, and Eva watches troupes of ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties parade past the windows with a bittersweet smile. She bought a bag of candy but doesn’t really expect any trick-or-treaters; Dante, with good reason, didn’t take pains to encourage the local kids to come calling.

Nero and Nico pull up, a welcome interruption to her descent into melancholy, out of breath but radiant from their latest skirmish. They stop by Devil May Cry on the pretence of leaving word for Morrison that payment is due, but Nero could do that himself on the little computer phone he carries around with him. In reality, they’re checking on her.

Eva doesn’t mind, really. She likes the company, and the kids (God, she calls them kids, they’re not that much younger than she is) are energetic; it’s hard to be actively maudlin when refereeing a shouting match. Nico especially is nosy and almost impossible to brush off or offend. On every visit, she wheedles a few more secrets out of Eva’s recipe books. Lately, Eva has been amusing herself by giving her tidbits and letting Nico reverse-engineer either the process or the product. Usually, she gets it right. Occasionally, she comes up with something better.

Tonight, though, Eva feels even harder to cheer than normal. Nico is put off by a wad of cash to get takeout -- Sparda laid the bounty of the world at her feet, but Nero and Nico are giving her a world tour laden with grease -- leaving Eva and Nero alone for half an hour. Nero has unchecked notebook privileges, as long as he’s careful with them, and he flicks through the entries thoughtfully.

“How did you learn all this stuff in the first place?”

“It depends which stuff we’re talking about.” Eva leans over his shoulder, pointing to the pages. “Sparda gave me a lot of them; things he’d picked up over the years, I don’t even know where from. But this one -- here -- that was from a hunter I partnered up with a lot in the early days. These tisanes were from my aunt. I used to say she should have been born a mediaeval herb-woman, except they’d have hung her for a witch.”

But Nero has stopped looking at the pages. He’s looking at her instead; thoughtful, in a way that is so Vergil it makes her heart skip a beat.

“What were they like, your family?”

“My family...” How long has it been since family wasn’t Sparda and the boys? How much longer since it meant the house she grew up in, and the people who populated it? “Oh, they -- they’re long gone. Better not to dwell. I have the boys,” Except she doesn’t. “And you, of course.”

Nero isn’t diverted, not for a moment, and the tilt of his eyebrows is pure Vergil. But he lets it go for now.

They taper off into silence. It lasts for a few minutes, Eva turning over possibilities in her mind. The words, when they come, are nevertheless a surprise; something she hadn’t meant to let loose.

“My father was a twin,” she says abruptly. “He and my uncle were thick as thieves. I always used to hope I’d have twins -- they say it skips a generation, so I thought it was likely I would -- and then they’d both always have a friend.”

She lets out a hollow little laugh. A friend. What a fucking fairytale.

Where did she go so wrong? Yes, the boys had always had their spats, but Eva had chalked that up to a mixture of their demonic blood and the marked differences in their personalities, watchful but not truly worried. She tried to encourage them to get along, to talk out their problems, but had also comforted herself that it was something they would grow out of as they got older and developed a bit more emotional maturity. Siblings fought; it was perfectly normal. Even she and Elijah--

Eva squeezes her eyes closed. She can’t think about Elijah right now.

A warm, calloused hand covers her own and Eva opens her eyes to see Nero watching her, his expression unusually serious.

“It’s not your fault,” he tells her, quietly but with a forceful conviction behind his words that reminds her of Sparda. “Yeah, they’re idiots, and they’re both kind of fucked up in their own ways, but it’s not your fault. They’d be a lot worse if it hadn’t been for you.”

Is that true? Eva isn’t sure which is worse; that she has ruined her boys, or that they would somehow be even worse without her.

But none of this is Nero’s problem. Grandson, she reminds herself once again. Grandson. Not a peer, not a comrade to lean on. A young man she needs to protect.

Pull yourself together, Eva.

----

Eventually, Eva gets sick of sitting around Devil May Cry waiting for something to happen.

She has never been a passive person. Eva makes things happen. Ever since Lady asked for some tricks to help her on hunts, Eva has been building up her supplies again. Restocking her herbs, potions, and powders. Dusting off Dante’s collection of magic books (a surprisingly comprehensive collection; Vergil had always been the bookworm, while Dante was too much of a fidget-bottom to sit still for five minutes)  and reminding herself of her favourite cantrips. Eventually, she contracts Nico to make her a pair of guns like her old ones.

The last time Eva felt so lost, she was drowning in grief for her husband and it ended in tragedy for her sons. She will not make the same mistake twice. Reaching back through the years, breaking down the walls she had so carefully built up, she remembers how it felt to be fifteen and alone; fifteen and desperate; fifteen and unstoppable.

Then she asks Morrison for some work.

As a young woman trying to break into this line of work, Eva had gotten used to the looks she elicited from these “brokers”. The initial amusement, thinking she’s joking. The surprise when they realise she isn’t. The patronising shake of the head as they assure her this is no work for a pretty little lady like her. Finally, the shock and anger as they hastily reconsidered their position with a gun jammed up against their throats.

Over time, she’d gotten a reputation for being an infernal bitch who was extremely good at what she did, which meant the work came easier. Eventually, by the time she met Sparda, she’d been running her own jobs without a broker at all - unless they were coming to her for a favour.

But that was then. Now she’s back to square one. Unproved. Untried. Untested. It’s aggravating but Eva knows she’ll have to just deal with it if she wants an in.

Because Eva is pretty sure she can talk Morrison into kicking a few jobs her way. Asking Lady, or Nero, or Trish to share, though? It will all be there - amusement, surprise, disbelief - and the worst thing of all is that they will be speaking not from baseless stereotyping but all too real knowledge.

Dante told us all about it, Eva. You barely lasted a minute when the demons attacked, isn’t that right? This is way too much for you.

No. She will work until she has beaten the softness out of herself. Until she can go back to them on an even footing. Until it’s second nature once again to have gunpowder on her clothes and the spark of magic at her fingertips. Until the Underworld has learned to fear Sparda’s whore again.

Then she will get their respect, rather than their pity.

Morrison drops by periodically for coffee and a chat. There hasn’t been any money-grubbing yet; Dante owns the office outright - Eva has seen the deed and it’s real enough - and the bills are being paid out of his last earnings. It won’t last forever, but it’s been enough to take one worry off Eva’s mind so far.

Instead, Morrison seems to simply enjoy her company, or maybe he just can’t kick the habit of showing up at Devil May Cry to see Dante. Whatever the reason, Eva enjoys his visits and his dry humour. What Morrison makes of her, she’s not sure; Eva had told him, in a tone that made it clear she was lying, that she was Trish’s long-lost sister. Morrison had simply chuckled and refrained from asking any questions.

That’s one thing Eva always did like about brokers; they’re the kind of people who don’t ask difficult, unnecessary questions.

“You’ve got this place looking real good, Eva.” Morrison looks around with genuine admiration and gestures with his lit cigarette to the spider plant growing ever larger in the corner. “Way better than Dante ever did. Mother of God, the state I’ve seen this office in… well. Maybe best not to elaborate too much there.”

Eva laughs, remembering how Dante always tried his best to weasel out of his chores. Even getting him to make his bed was a challenge. It seems he hasn’t improved with age.

“It’s certainly been quite the project. But, now that it’s done, I’ve been thinking I need something else to do.” Eva watches Morrison carefully, waiting for his reaction. “Do you have any work for me?”

Morrison smirks. “Getting bored already? Yeah, I got a few things on the back burner - the kind of stuff the other ladies think they’re too good for, if you catch my drift, and the kid really has got his hands full.”

...Okay, that was absurdly easy. Eva narrows her eyes, but Morrison doesn’t look like he’s trying to mock her. On the contrary, when he sees her expression, he holds his hands up in mock surrender.

“Hey, I don’t control the work that comes in! Besides, pay is pay, am I right?”

“I’m looking for hunting work,” Eva says pointedly, wondering if he’s mistaken her meaning.

“Yeah, yeah, I got you.” Morrison chuckles as he takes a drag on his cigarette. “What, were you expecting me to say no? If nobody will do the work, I won't get paid either.”

“I…” Eva is floored. All of her preparation, all that time spent rehearsing her arguments, and it turns out she doesn’t need any of them. “I was expecting, uh…”

“Pushback?” Morrison gives her a knowing look. “Do you really think I’d have lasted this long with those ladies if I trotted out that kind of line? As far as I’m concerned, if you hang around with Dante, Lady, and Trish, then you know what you’re doing and you can take care of yourself.”

Morrison pulls a notebook out of his pocket and rifles through it, humming under his breath. He tears out a page and walks over to lay it on Eva’s desk.

“Here are the details. Just give me a call when you’re done with them and I’ll arrange your payment. Damages come out of your cut, mind you. If everything goes well, I’ll see what else I have for you.”

----

It really is grunt work, but Eva doesn’t mind; she’s not arrogant enough to think she could jump single-handedly into something like Red Grave, guns blazing.

The job also isn't urgent - hence Morrison being lackadaisical about bullying someone into taking it - which gives her the leisure of reconnaissance and planning time.

An empusa nest out on some waste ground that a local developer bought before noticing his unexpected squatters. Straightforward enough, although Eva takes more precautions than she thinks are necessary just in case. After all, she’s seen her judgement is far from perfect.

But in the end, all goes smoothly. No nasty surprises. Just some nasty stains on the concrete from empusas blown to kingdom come. Eva grimaces at them, hoping they don’t count as “damages”. The land is being developed anyway, right? Surely they’ll be putting down fresh tarmac?

In the end, Morrison does take a cut from her pay, but it’s less than she feared and so Eva swallows it with as much good grace as she can muster. The stack of notes is a reassuring weight in her hand. Ballast, though for (or against) what, she’s not entirely sure. The important thing is that she’s done a competent enough job that Morrison leaves her with the details of another couple of jobs. In this way a reputation is built.

“Morrison,” Eva calls out just before he leaves.

Morrison pauses on the threshold. There’s a beat before he looks back at her over his shoulder and Eva gets the impression he knows exactly what she’s about to ask.

“Do you think he’s coming back?”

Because Morrison is not Trish, or Lady, or Nero. He does not know her connection to these people. To Dante. So he has no reason to lie to her or spare her feelings.

He sucks in a breath, considering. “You know, I’d gotten to the point where I never thought I’d see anything Dante didn’t come back from. So many times I thought he was in way over his head, only for him to walk away laughing. But this job… this felt different from the start. Gave me a sort of -- premonition, you might say.”

A soft hum; something that might have been a laugh, if there was any humour in it, and Morrison shook his head.

“The truth is, Eva, I don’t know. I really don’t. He could come waltzing back in here tomorrow, carrying a pizza and laughing at us all for ever doubting him. Or we might never see him again.”

Eva sinks slowly into the desk chair, feeling the truth of it in her bones. A tidal wave of exhaustion crashes over her, threatening to drown her in one clean swoop. Tired of worry. Tired of uncertainty. Tired of never even having the cold comfort of a body to bury. Tired of that tiny speck of hope that even now refused to be snuffed out completely because, however ridiculous it was to expect it, there was still the chance--

“I knew someone else like that, once,” she hears herself say. “He never did come back.”

Morrison gives her a searching look. He seems, for a moment, to be on the verge of saying something more, but in the end refrains. Instead, he tips his hat to her.

“You take care, Eva.”

“Yeah,” Eva replies distantly. “You too, Morrison.”

----

The work is important for more than Eva’s ego.

Her blood sings in her veins once again. The hum of power at her fingertips, like the whine of electricity. A promise, maybe even a vow if you were so inclined to call it such, that one day in the none-too-distant future a small slice of the world would once again turn at Eva’s call and beckoning. She has known this once before when playing lady of the manor. Now, the power is both weaker, for lack of Sparda’s force bolstering her, and sweeter, for knowing it is all of her own clawing and devising.

Her blood sings and Eva tastes iron and lightning on her tongue. Her fingers smell of metal and herbs and something no mortal can rightly put words to; the tang of the Underworld and the burning sulphur of demons.

When Eva looks at her reflection in the chipped bathroom mirror and sees an old, familiar light in her eyes, she knows it is time.

Very little magic needs to be complicated. The point is will, and the directing of it. For those unfamiliar with the craft then the trimmings of rituals and candles can go a long way in finding that direction.

For those who live long enough to become old hands, just the thinking, coupled with the right runes, is enough. Eva takes a sharp knife, a handful of herbs, and a silver-backed mirror (in this, old ways are better; a mercury mirror would work better still, but this will do for now)... and she searches.

Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, soul of my soul, I seek thee now. Come to me, come to me, come to me…

It is a powerful spell. Kinfinding may not be enough to physically draw her boys forth from the Underworld, but it should at least show them to her in the scrying mirror.

Eva seeks until her blood runs dangerously thin and her head pounds and her vision begins to darken. She seeks further still until she knows herself at the very precipice of what she can safely come back from… and only then, with great reluctance, does she let the spell go.

She has not seen them, either of them, even once.

----

Eventually, it feels meaningless to even keep up the pretence she thinks the boys are coming back.

What has happened to them is almost immaterial. The nightmare scenarios are so numerous that eventually they blur together into one long snuff film that leaves her numb. Like Sparda, they were there and then they were not. Like Sparda, she will never know what exactly happened.

Devil May Cry becomes part tomb, part cocoon. She has saved enough money to keep Morrison at bay for a while even after Dante’s funds run out, and she continues to take work for the sake of it, though she doesn’t keep track of her income versus expenditures. If or when the money runs out, she’s not sure. It’s pointless to think so far ahead. Perhaps she’ll just die, like she should have before.

A wife without a husband. A mother without sons. Once, she would have vomited at the thought of a woman identifying herself by the men in her life, but somehow it crept up on her over the years and now she’s left with gaping, bloody holes that gung-ho feminist rhetoric does nothing to paste over.

Nobody seems to notice the change in her philosophy. Though, she gets precious few visitors anyway. Trish and Lady leave her to her own devices, having apparently satisfied their curiosity about her. Morrison has tapered off their tete-a-tetes and only shows up when he wants money. Nero is a busy boy these days.

One night she dreams about them. The dream is very similar to the ones she used to have about Sparda; lifelike, almost lucid dreaming, where everything was the same - she is in bed, having just awoken - except he is there, smiling gently, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

Sleeping in, Eva?

Dreaming about the boys is very similar. She dreams she awakens in the night to a sound downstairs. There is no panic of a break-in; nobody bothers her these days. Voices, muffled, from the floor below. Eva calmly gets out of bed, registering even the rustle of the sheets and the cold, bare wooden boards under her feet. She pads slowly out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs.

There they are, standing in the centre of the office, illuminated perfectly by a strip of moonlight through the window. It is like a picture. It is too perfect and too easy. This is how she knows she is dreaming.

Still, for the first time in months, her heart eases.

They are talking softly to each other, too softly for her to catch the words (there is a limit, she concedes, to just how much even her vivid imagination can conjure). Eva doesn’t mind. She stands at the mezzanine and soaks them in.

Dante gestures to the stairs and looks up. He freezes as their eyes meet. Vergil, a half-heartbeat behind his twin, mirrors him.

“...Hey,” Dante croaks, the gesturing hand that had fallen still now awkwardly waving. “We’re home!”

This is more than she expected. Eva’s throat constricts. Even her dreams of Sparda were not so vivid or so long.

“You’re late, boys,” she manages after a moment. “Dinner was hours ago.”

She is trying for levity, trying to play her part in this scene, trying to piece together something happy for when she wakes up, but her voice cracks halfway through the sentence and she finds herself choking on a sob.

Dante is halfway up the stairs in a moment, hand outstretched to her. Eva, too, is reaching out to her little boy and she cries out when she finally has her arms around him again.

She does not get even a heartbeat of joy before the world collapses into shadows and flames. Dante dissolves, her arms closing around thin air, and the staircase morphs into an endless corridor to hell. Her boys are nowhere to be seen, but she can hear them screaming.

Or maybe she just hears her own voice, screaming herself awake.

There are more dreams, afterwards; more recognisable for what they are. Her life runs before her eyes in reverse. Searching for the boys. Watching Sparda walk away for the last time. The face of every person she never saved. Then, at last, the denouement: Elijah, torn open. Her father and uncle staring sightless into an abyss. Her mother reduced to so many scattered chunks of meat.

Eventually, because Eva is someone who makes things happen, not someone things simply happen to, she makes the decision to go back. She has faced Red Grave; faced the ruined manor. It is time to face much older ghosts.

It is a private matter, and so Eva tells nobody of her intentions. She lets Morrison know she will be out of town on personal business, timeline uncertain; she will give him a call when she’s back. He is free, in the interim, to pass her usual work on to other sources.

For anyone else (because she still hopes, deep down, that her boys will one day come home), she leaves a note on her desk.

Out of town for a while.

Eva re-reads the brief scribble and wonders what else to add before realising there really is nothing more to add. No forwarding address or contact number, because she does not want anyone to find her. Anyone who wants her, can wait until she comes back.

She makes it ten minutes out from the city before she turns back to scribble an address at the bottom of her note.

Just in case.

----

Plane tickets are cheap these days, and she has a passport courtesy of Morrison, but Eva elects to drive. Call her old-fashioned, or even just plain curmudgeonly in her old age (ha), but Eva likes the hum of a good motor much better than the press of noisy crowds.

Besides, she’d need a car at the other end of the flight anyway, where she’s going. She can even call it a vacation if she finds a motel to spend each night in. If not -- she’s slept in a car before and it won’t kill her to do it again, especially when the rental is much more comfortable than any old banger she’s passed a night in before.

Highways turn to country lanes as she veers further and further off the beaten track. The temperature drops, too; winter in the shadow of the Appalachian mountains is nothing to sneeze at. Eva has forgotten a lot of things over the years (too many things), but she remembers that. Funny how events and people slide slowly but surely from her mind but sensory impressions remain: the icy, pinesap-tinged tang of morning air in winter; the crackle of a fire; the warm doughy smell and pillowy softness of homemade dinner rolls.

Become someone else, she’d told her younger son as their world burned around them. Change your name, change yourself, and hide. Not easy, no, nothing like easy -- but possible, for the right price. For the price of giving up who you were before.

Except no bargain is ever so neat and no transaction ever so complete.

[sipsteainanxiety]

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

i was tagged by @coopigeoncoo @andypantsx3 @willowser and @namodawrites to do this lil self fic rec game and after finally sitting down to think about it for a very... long... time... i have done it! thank you all for the tag i kiss you each on the forehead and give you a bowl of sliced fruit<3

after looking at all the wips i have in docs right now, i can definitely say that this list would be completely different if i had finished a few of them, but for now this is my ranked list for things i've published already lol

devil's glare — demon!bkg x reader

bakugou katsuki is a powerful demon that you have the pleasure of dating. but when he pisses you off one day, you decide to get back at him in a pretty petty way: drawing a salt circle around you to force him to apologize 

i had THEE most fun writing this one shot LMAO. it was based on a tiktok of all things that i'd found back when i was still on the app pfft. i just loved the idea of bkg being all surly and aggravated that his little human had purposely drawn a salt circle to prevent him from encroaching on their space. and like... him dealing with wanting to idk kiss you so bad but you're trying to teach him a lesson and he's sooooo mad and fuck, he's gonna do whatever he can to get you to comply to him lmao. if i could draw, there's this one scene where you're wearing this like. cute little set of pjs staring up at this big ass demon, wings unfurled threateningly, snarl on his face, arms crossed with a line of salt in between the two of you. like i have a vision. too bad i can't draw it LMFAOO. maybe one day

2. holding out (just for you) — dragon!bkg x reader

in which you find a horrendously injured dragon in a cave and make it your duty to heal him, not knowing that he’s the infamous dragonshifter, bakugo katsuki, who has been cursed to remain trapped in his dragon form forever—unless the spell is broken

this fic... oh boy. i've been working on this fic since mmm 2021 i think? i can't believe it's been a year since the big bang LMFAOO. i also can't blv this shit evolved from being a standalone to having 3 spinoffs and a sequel but well. here we are. complaints aside i really do have fun writing this fic!! i dunno!! i dont think i'd ever read a dragon bkg fic before and i was like fine i'll do it myself and this happened. i added way too much plot and you guys don't even know about half the worldbuilding and shit i have planned for the sequel HAHA. i can't even talk about it bc it would be major spoilers rn rhrsfjhrjfrjrhjg. it's also been giving me such a rough time lately pfft, especially with having to make sure everything lines up for the spinoffs n stuff. im so afraid of publishing ch4 and having to go back and tweak things bc i havent planned out far enough sdkjfsjkdf. i think it just means i'm gonna have to go on a hiatus or smthn and write out all the spinoffs + ch4 at once idk

3. and i give my all (to you) — merman!bkg x reader

you think you bit off more than you could chew when you decided to do your dissertation on ocean acidification, leaving you stranded out in the open ocean. alone. for months. well… maybe you weren’t so alone after all

this is another fic that i've been working on way longer than it's been posted for pfft. i can't blv the first chapter was released over a year ago LMAOOO i am so sorry. i do like this fic tho bc it's one of the easier ones to write and i go back to it sometimes between writing for dragon bkg lol. like i have the chapters all mapped out, all i have to do is sit down and write em. ch2's at abt 3k rn tho and i hit a spot where i'm like oof i dont wanna write these descriptions dfhdkfg it's just a silly goofy story with merbaku and dealing with some of the subtle intricacies of getting to know a mermaid. actually, fun fact, this originally started off as a fic for jotaro from jjba, back when i was in my jjba era. but then i went back to my bkg era and switched it over. i didn't even have to change much LMFAOO jotaro and bkg act the same sometimes. also!! this is the first fic where i'm like... drawing little doodles for each chapter!! and it's so nice but also i'm like damn wtf do i draw for the rest of these chapters.... i'll figure it out ig

4. loving all the parts of you — pro hero!bkg x reader

in which you learn to love all the prickly parts that make up bakugou katsuki

i.. don't think i've thought about this fic for a very, very long time. but i just scrolled thru the masterlist and stuff and i... really liked writing it (when i was focused on it anyways). it's one of my gentler fics tbh. it's more of a character study of bkg, exploring a different aspect of him in each chapter. tbh i need to go through and reread it and make edits so it can better match the writing style i have now, but i rly liked thinking abt what would make bkg tick as a pro and as a person. and tbh, with what i know now of the manga and anime i think i could go very deep with it pfft. also the banner i made for this fic is so cute LOL. it's not high on my priority list rn bc i have other things i wanna work on, but i do hope to return to it one day.

5. forget me not — pro hero!bkg x reader

When you first woke up, you found yourself in a white room, lights blinding you from all directions. A bit disoriented, you squinted and looked around, realizing you were chained to a chair, your arms locked behind you. In front of you was a poster of a man, muscles rippling throughout his body, a spiky mess of ash blond hair nestled on his head, and striking crimson eyes glaring right at you from behind a black mask. In the upper right corner was the name “DYNAMIGHT” in black and orange letters. As you observed the poster, the sound of a P.A. system suddenly rang into existence, the deep, hoarse voice of an unknown person echoing around you. “Your name is [Name] [Surname],” the voice said without emotion, “and you hate the man named Bakugou Katsuki.”

THIS FIC... THIS FCKIN FIC. i have so much i can say about this fic and i am so sorry for the oncoming ramble pfft. firstly, it's both my baby and my number one fucking enemy. like, holy shit i think it gave me the most paralyzing anxiety and bc of this it took me like 3-4 years to finish (apart from being generally busy of course). i started it literally while i was in high school n applying to college, so of course there are aspects of it that i look at now and i'm like mmm don't like that. not to mention there have been so many things that happened in the anime/manga that i wasn't able to add or delve deeper into!! like the war!! bkg's fcking trauma!! midoriya's quirks!! i was an anime only when i first started releasing chapters (and i still am), so i didnt know about the endeavor agency arc or anything so i defaulted to shit with best jeanist and idkidk.

if i could rewrite all of fmn, i think i would. or maybe not all, but a good chunk of it. like i'd condense the first few chapters probably. i also have a different grasp of bkg's characterization now compared to when i was younger lmao. putting bkg in that specific circumstance (iykyk, i wont spoil it) only happened bc of certain outside factors that forced him into that position. which was how i was able to justify it. but... idk. IDK!! this fic had so many things to it that i was not knowledgeable about so i winged a lot of things without doing proper research (i.e. hospitals, police investigations, general bureaucracy and whatnot) and i feel like this has caused certain plot holes that i am not able to detect, but like.... it's been so long already that i'm too lazy to fix it.

i just really wanted to write about having amnesia but... still having this muscle memory and ache of the person you were in love with. that you can fall in love with them all over again. but, jeez, i put the reader through so much that there's so much... trauma and brainwashing and just rhhrhjrkhrhgrkjg. she's a mess and a half!! and this makes it so difficult to read fmn bc she's so frustrating!! but! at the same time idk it was interesting exploring that kind of ptsd and recovery. i think at my core i love writing about truly heartwrenching topics and horror. i rmb i had the most fun writing about reader's nightmares or that one chapter where she was messing around with illusions. actually- one of the things i would change is the reader's fckin quirk and hero name LMAOOOOO what the fuck i made her so op i basically just smashed together dr strange's and wanda's powers for her pfft. i'd also tweak her personality a little, i think.

i digress. anyways. im in the process of editing all of fmn (just like. writing tweaks. changing the phrasing of certain sentences. adding more fluff to descriptions) and i can really see how much my style has evolved lol. like, i am the most happy and proud of the later chapters, where you can really feel certain emotions with bkg and reader. like... the beach scene, or the stakeout scene, or the party scene!! i think i would also add more substance to the investigation and how being a hero is like post-war. the antagonists as well!! there's just so much that could've been built on, but at the same time... i didn't want to go too deep into it bc i was writing an amnesia recovery story.

flaming aside, i am very glad i was able to pull those plot twists successfully LOL. i loved reading people's theories back when i was still updating it, seeing them question things and being like wait a minute... no way... it can't be... it was an era i will never forget pfft. but... because of that expectation i think i was very nervous to reveal specific things or even write the ending bc i didn't know if people would be satisfied lol. fmn was so complicated and for what sdfkjhs. fanfic shouldnt make you this anxious fr and yet there i was. i'm glad im done with it, but at the same time.. i do miss it.

tldr: fmn is the fic that i am the most proud of but also the most insecure LMFAOO. i do eventually want to get to the extra chapters from bkg's pov for it but... idk. i don't wanna even look at it right now sdhfskdfjsf

thank u all for coming to my ted talk B) i'm sorry if u've been tagged alr in this but here we go anyways!! no pressure tags: @earthtooz @call-me-ko @thecatduet422 @boo-kugo @theloveinc <3

[shhh-secret-time]

I was going through my drabbles and WIPs and found my first rough draft on Craig’s Soulmate fic. I didn't wanna share it at the time because I was afraid of the backlash I would get with it, but I think part of the "Finding fun in writing" again is to stop caring and just doing it. So here's the snippet! It'll probably stay in WIP hell, but I'm glad I didn't delete it.

Warning: Angst, Strong Language

'Come back to this when you're ready, don't push yourself okay?'

Craig reads the scratchy handwriting over and over again. The ink bled into the napkin long ago, coffee stained the corners. It's lost the scent of whatever brew it was, but he thinks he still remembers the smell.

How could he forget the smell? It was on his shirt almost every day. On his lips when they kissed. Sometimes grounds of the brown powder would be in his hair, Craig would spend hours picking out the little bits.

"You don't have to do that." He'd tell him with a feeble attempt to swat his hand away.

"I want to." Craig would say back.

Now, all is left of the bittersweet memory is the napkin in his hand. Craig presses his thumb into the napkin, grimacing at the texture. He sends a shiver down his spine that's far too uncomfortable, but he doesn't stop. The material is old, likely to tear at any moment. It wasn't designed to be kept this long. Or at all, for that matter. But he can't bring himself to get rid of it. It's the last thing he has of him that he hasn't thrown away or given back.

Tweak Tweek had a soulmate. And it wasn't Craig Tucker.

Craig Tucker did not have a soulmate. Born without one.

Funny how that works.

Except it wasn't. It wasn't fucking funny, it was cruel. That life would determine such a thing for people. What gave life the right to decide who falls in love and who doesn't?! And how come it saw fit to keep him out of the loop? Why didn't he get fancy ink on skin, stupid flowers growing out of his face, or a damn counter that counts away at the moments until you finally meet your so called forever partner?

Tweek had turned sixteen when it happened. A clock on his wrist began to count down, at first he panicked, because of course he did. It was the first time in years he had actually managed to pull his hair out. Of course Craig was there to calm him down, to put his hat over his head so he could pull the strings instead. Did he still have that hat?

After calming the blond down, they worked together to find out what it meant. Mr. Tweak explained it to his son with Craig sitting right there. Right in front of his partner, the man explained that Tweek had a soulmate. That the timer was going to keep ticking away until he found his soulmate. When it hit zero, they were destined to meet.

Four years, eleven months, twenty-two days.

That was how much time he had left. How much time Craig had left before he lost Tweek to destiny. Stupid fucking unfair destiny.

The whole town had made a spectacle about it when they heard the news, of course Richard Tweak couldn't keep his mouth shut. His gay son was going to lose his boyfriend, because Craig didn't have a timer on his wrist. The only other thing he could say about the whole situation was that the breakup was going to be bad for business.

Craig was determined to prove him wrong, that Tweek wouldn't leave him because of some soulmate bullshit. And at first he was right. Four more years went by and they were still going strong, hell Craig would have said it only brought them closer. Then on the twenty second day of the eleventh month, Tweek met a man who swept him away.

It's been almost a year since that day and he can still smell the coffee in his hair, he can still feel the tears on his face. Those angry defiant tears that came with words that shouldn't have been said. Things he could never take back. No matter how many times he drove his fist into the dirty brick wall, it wouldn't bring him back.

Fuck it.

[eyes-inthe-dark]

Hi Hello I actually make things sometimes

I don't know if anyone who follows me is interested in this stuff bc I very rarely post things from my own life, but I decided to be a little more active on here besides reblogging funny shit regarding my current hyperfixation.

So, here is the (incomplete) crafting diary of a neurodivergent trans person surviving christmas with the family and the dark and dreadful times (winter) in general by making shit! with my hands!

First: fiber stuff

I picked up tablet weaving over the last few months of 2023 and made my first pair of somewhat mistake-free shoelaces over the holidays! Only got the pattern completely right on the second try with the red but both laces now get to add a fun little detail to my shoes.

Next I tried a more complicated pattern and experimented a lot, hence the irregular pattern and troubleshooting at the start of the band. I'm now repurposing it as a camera strap and I learned a lot from it tho.

My current setup is basic cardboard tablets (I had to make extra ones so I had enough for the last band with 30 cards), tying the warp to something sturdy like a bookshelf, and sitting down with a backstrap belt on the other side of the room. I used thin wool yarn for this, which stuck to itself quite a lot, but not too much to be unmanagable, and I really like how the finished product feels.

If anyone's interested, I could make a longer post on how I made the shoelaces, I think it's a very beginner friendly project.

I managed to get my hands on a drop spindle and gave that a try, but I ran out of wool after making a very small amount of very chunky yarn and am currently working out where to best get sth local. It was fun tho!

I also finally finished the knitted scarf that has been in my wip pile for... approximately three years? I started it when I was still in school, feels like an eternity ago. It's just a simple (although very long) red wool scarf, but it keeps me nice and warm in this cold, harsh- *checks weather* ...5°C and neverending rain.

Next up: woodworking!

Noodled around with my grandpa's old dremel that we still had lying around, which resulted in this truly terrifying weapon:

Behold! I named it Toothling. It's great for poking friends and family when they least expect it.

This was more of a test run to see if it all still works and to try out doing small scale work with wood, now I gotta think of something fun to make. (I say, as if I didn't already have 50 different ideas)

Before that fuckery, I made this magnetic dice box/rolling tray for my lovely partner's birthday.

Though I don't feel like I can take credit for working the CNC magic on this, I did all the hands-on work with the sanding, assembling the magnets, shellac coating, and whatnot. I'm pretty sure wood is some sort of fruit tree, since it smells strongly of what I suspect might be plum or cherry.

Last but sure as fuck not least: embroidery

This I actually get professional instruction for at uni. I've kinda lost patience for it atm, but mostly because I cannot resist making unnecessarily complicated pieces with tiny little stitches and then am forced to finish it because I do actually kinda need to pass this class. My lecturer keeps telling me not to go so detailed, yet I have proven resistant to her good advice. But, I figured if I have to make two full pieces of embroidery to be graded on and put hours of work into, I might as well choose designs that I can turn into patches for my jacket:

Catha and Ruidus! I love me some big moon little moon imagery. The prompt was to incorporate most of the techniques/stitches we've learned so far. Added the little gold chain stitch around ruidus for the arcane latticework. It came out a little wonky shape wise, but I love it nonetheless.

And my most recent wip, a stained glass window design with the Ninth House skull and Gideon's sword behind it, to feed my current Locked Tomb obsession.

And that's it!

[bloustorm]

10 first lines fanfiction game

Rules: share the first line of the last ten fics you wrote and tag some people :)

So I got tagged a while ago by @cryptid-crawly, most of these titles are still a work in progress as well

Authors of Gotham: (in a screenshot because of the code) (inspired by this tumblr post)

Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss, The way to Brotherhood

"Okay, so for this to work, we need to make a few things clear. First of all, for the love of god, don't call him Mr. Wayne. If you do that, the gig is up faster than I can swear."

And when the darkness comes, you shall call my name

Hood grinned under the helmet, breaking into the tower had been a fun challenge, he had debated about if he wanted to test out his old codes but in the end decided against it. He still didn’t know how he wanted the reveal to go exactly so it was better to not give the old man too many hints and give up the game too early.

Courtmaster (more on tumblr here)

Red Robin flickered on his night vision the moment he entered his apartment, he couldn’t quite say what felt wrong, nothing had tripped his alarms or disturbed his otherwise carefully cultivated mess, he just knew that someone or something was in here.

Oh my Talon (more on tumblr here, here, here, here and here)

Tim wasn’t surprised in any way when he walked out of his bedroom all bleary-eyed and saw a Talon sitting on his sofa. In fact, he didn’t even register anything wrong with the picture until after he took his first sip of morning tea. Processing what his eyes were telling him and drawing the right conclusion, there was someone in his living room, there was a Talon sitting in his living room (a Talon that looked way too small to be an adult and thus was likely a child) took embarrassingly a few full seconds. (He would later say it was because the Talon didn’t register as a threat.)

I'm running out of fanfiction (or well recently written ones)

Cat!Tim and Damian (tumblr post here)

Damian frowned down at the cat.  The cat who was Drake merely blinked up at him with his huge blue eyes.

Small acts of kindness can go a long way

It started like most good things do, with a thoughtless act of good will. Something that over time spiraled into something much greater than anyone could have anticipated.

Red Robins magical adventure as a hoarding Dragon

Red Robin cursed himself for his carelessness, he knew that he shouldn’t underestimate these guys, as stupid as they seemed to be, they still had noticed Batman, when he had tried to bust them at first, and managed to hit the already injured Bat enough that he had to recover at home.

I will stop here because everything else is literally several months old or on some scrap of paper somewhere

I'm going to tag uh (i really need to make a list of people I can tag and who write so if anyone sees this you can tell me)

actually

IF YOU READ THIS write 3 sentences on you rcurrent wip YOU ARE TAGGED IN THE GAME

[thnxforknowingme]

Thanks for the tag @forabeatofadrum! It's been SO LONG since I've posted one of these lmao, I have not been writing at all recently. However, this weekend a couple friends and I had a "writer's retreat" where we all hopped on a Discord call together and each worked on our own writing projects, which has been super fun and productive. Because of that, I managed to finish TWO MORE CHAPTERS of my Kurtbastian WIP All's Fair - those will be posted in the near future!

When I hit my mental limit for working on that fic, though, I decided to have fun by just writing out a little bit for another fic idea I have, which is a Klaine reunion fic. I am extremely unclear on the details, but the basic premise is this: Klaine gets married after their S4 reunion, but haven't resolved any of their issues, so they end up getting divorced a few years later. Then, like 10 years after that, they run into each other again (how? why? I don't know yet 🤷‍♀️), and get back together. Sort of an S6-esque reunion but on a much longer timeline. I don't actually really know what the plot is going to be so everything I've written is subject to change. But here's a snippet I quite enjoyed (under the cut because it's much longer than six sentences):

It’s odd to be divorced at the age of 27. Most of Blaine’s friends are just getting married now, instead of having that life experience firmly in the rearview mirror. When he looks closely, he can still see the faint band of paler skin around his finger where the ring used to sit. But he doesn’t look closely very often anymore.

The worst part of being divorced at age 27 is having to tell the people you date. It usually comes up by the third date - stories about your life or questions about your dating history end up revealing it. The reaction is often disbelief or confusion, followed by alarm. How terrible of a partner must Blaine have been to get divorced so young? And how irresponsible to have gotten married even younger?

If he were a heterosexual woman with a religious upbringing he might have some culturally-acceptable excuses. But as a gay man, it pretty much boils down to: we were young, and in love, and stupid enough to think that that was all that mattered.

Tagging @blurglesmurfklaine because I know she specifically was interested in this fic idea when I mentioned it a few months ago, and also tagging @special-bc-ur-part-of-it @wowbright @backslashdelta @starpunchsoup @redheadgleek @rockitmans @cerriddwenluna and anyone else who wants to share!

[searchingwardrobes]

The morning a comment made me cry . . .

I have been wrestling with posting this for ages. On the one hand, I want to let people who follow my fanfic to know that I haven’t left. On the other, I am an INFJ, an introvert, and a highly sensitive person who never wants to feel like I’m bothering people or whining about my life. Everyone has problems, everyone is busy, am I right? But then last week, I woke up to a comment on Ao3 for a fic that I wrote years ago, and I ended up sitting at my kitchen table and crying.

It wasn’t just the comment. It was that I had just spent the last night in the house we have lived in for the last 17 years. The house each of my children came home from the hospital to. A house I honestly didn’t want to sell or leave. And it wasn’t like we were moving because we found our dream house or because a new job opportunity came up or anything like that. We sold our house because the church my husband just took a new job at has a parsonage, and that means we can live there rent free. You can’t pass that up from a financial standpoint. 

Even if the parsonage is way smaller. And darker. And filthy. And smells bad. And looks like the Byers house in Stranger Things AFTER monsters started coming out of the walls. (ie 80s but gross)

And what makes it harder is that people berate me every time I try to share how hard this is. “You can’t beat free.” I know, I know, but can’t anyone try to imagine how I’m feeling? If you were in my shoes, would it be easy? 

Anyways, so back to the comment. I’ve been doing this fanfic thing long enough that in some ways, the comment just made me roll my eyes. But it was kind of like the proverbial straw, you know? I had been trying to hold it together for days, and this mean comment pushed me over the edge. So there I was, crying at my kitchen table surrounded by moving boxes. 

To compound it all, I haven’t written much at all since November. Scratch that, more like October. This is frustrating because it’s something I love, and it also causes guilt over all my WIPs. But we decided to put the house on the market in early November, and our realtor said we needed to get it listed before Thanksgiving, so there was the frantic race of “decluttering” ie half-packing the house and a million and one little home repair projects and deep cleaning. Then the house was shown only four times, and we got an offer. Great, right? Only they wanted to move in TWO DAYS before Christmas. That was a hard no for me. So they comprised and said two days AFTER Christmas. Their offer was over the asking price, so we had to take it. 

But did I mention the parsonage isn’t livable yet? So yep, we have no home right now. (I won’t say homeless because that word means something very different and much more serious than what we’re going through.) I’ve slept in so many different places over the last week, that this morning I woke up and couldn’t remember where I was. 

Did I mention I also have three kids? 

If you’ve stuck with me so far, don’t worry, I won’t go into all the details. Just understand that our family of five (plus a dog) will soon be living in my aunt and uncle’s basement for possibly two months. While I homeschool. 

And now I feel like I’m whining again. I’m really not a whiner, I promise. I’m just trying to a) explain why I have disappeared for so long and b) why that negative Ao3 comment came at the absolute worst possible time. 

That comment was the least of my worries on that particular day, and a week later, I just don’t think it’s worth discussing. Maybe, though, this tale will help people remember to pause before they type something on the internet. Because the person you are addressing has a real life, and there is no way for you to know what they might be going through. I was actually a little happy when I saw the email because a nice comment would have been a bright spot in an otherwise tough day. Instead, it was a kick while I was already down. Comments have a lot of power for a creator. I wish they didn’t. I wish we all “just wrote for ourselves” or could brush it off easily. But writers are sensitive creatures as a rule, especially fanfic writers who are only doing it as a hobby, not for a career. So, you know, just stop and think for a sec. That’s all. And this comment served no purpose whatsoever. I wrote the fic so long ago, there’s no way I’m revising it. Ironically, the person ended the comment by saying, “Enjoying it so far, though.” Which rang totally false after their long list of what was wrong with the story. 

Side note: the comment has made me contemplate a post on writer’s tips for writing children well. I’m not just a homeschooling mom, I’m also a former teacher. People seem to seriously not realize this, but teachers have to take college courses on child and adolescent development. We are around children a lot, too, so (shock!) we actually are experts in the field. I don’t know - is that something anyone would be interested in as writers? Because you don’t have to be a parent to write kids well - @whimsicallyenchantedrose and @distant-rose are awesome at it, and they don’t have kids. So if you want tips on that, I’d love to share. It’s something I can kind of get on a soapbox about, lol. 

And as for my readers, I’ll tag you all so you know where the hell I’ve been. So here comes the tag list, and I’ll now shut up: 

@snowbellewells @teamhook @kmomof4 @jrob64 @xhookswenchx @thisonesatellite @welllpthisishappening @spartanguard @ohmakemeahercules @tiganasummertree @sparlecorn93 @sals86 @pirateprincessofpizza @xarandomdreamx @zaharadessert @huntressandlioness1 @jamif @undercaffinatednightmare @onceratheart18 @sparlecorn93 @sals86 @pirateprincessofpizza @xarandomdreamx @zaharadessert @huntressandlioness1  @winterbaby89 @hollyethecurious @svenjaliv

[paradoxolotl]

hello para! I started writing fics some months ago but i made a pause. I posted some but i have a lot of wips that I dont know I will finish so I am debating with myself if i want to just post them and put my progresses when (and if) I have something or if I keep them on my docs

do you have any advice?

(I love your fics!!)

Mmm I have been thinking about this for a while now, trying to think of how to answer. And really, I keep coming back to one thing: what do you want to do?

There is no wrong answer here, which makes it both easier and more difficult, I know. It’s just one of those things that you will be happier with when it’s done for yourself (as your writing should be). I know people who post as they go, schedule consistency be dammed. I know people who will. not. post. until it’s completed to their liking. Neither of those methods are “wrong”. I myself, have an entire work on ao3 filled with nothing but snippets of my WIPs, but refuse to start actually posting another long fic until it’s near completion or until my current one is finished. Some of those are ones I don’t know if I’ll ever return to, even if I originally planned to. I have countless more sitting in docs, never posted at all. That’s just what makes my brain feel settled.

You could try things like WIP Wednesday, or teasing a fic here or there to see if you like having the response to an unfinished work. A couple posts floating around will probably receive less of the dreaded “are you still working on this when is the next update” comments than an actual fic posted to read would. You might also find that seeing people excited for your story gives you a little boost, or reminds you of a fic you meant to come back to.

Saying this, your will and enjoyment of writing should hopefully come from yourself, as depending on engagement is a slippery slope that leads to disappointment and worse. But I know I love going through old comments, seeing people enjoy something I loved making. Even rediscovering little things I had hidden in my writing that time had faded from my memory, but someone else had pointed out.

So should you post now and update as you go, if you even do? Should you keep them in your docs until you know for sure? I can’t really tell you. But here’s the nice thing: whatever you decide, you can change your mind. You can post things now and then take them down or private them later if you want to. You can keep things to yourself until you feel like you want to share. You can change your mind a million times, as long as you’re doing what makes you the happiest.

Remember this: it is your writing, your fic, and you get to decide what to do with it

I hoped this helped, even a little

[wrencatte]

How about nightjar for the wip title game?

hello!! That one was going to be my first jump into magic!Jason. Bit off a little more than I could chew, but i feel like i could tackle it fully now!

Basic premise was "Crime Alley takes in catatonic Jason todd" in the sense that he crawls out of his grave, wanders Gotham after the hospital, and then someone, legit out of the kindness of their own heart, takes him in. He slowly regains awareness, but not his memories, but he's still a hero, he's still a good kid, and he goes out tackling crime - and, whoops! what's this? he's got a little soul magic going on.

And that's as far as i got in terms of premise. I'd posted the snippet before long long "long" time ago, but here is it again!

A cloud drifts and reveals the moon for a long, glorious second. Tim scowls as his shadow lengthens instead of deepens, making his safe spot skinnier, and hunkers down, bringing his cape closer to his body to conceal muted yet still bright colors. The gangs below don’t notice him, too busy yelling at each other as their talks dissolve into violence.

He wishes he could go home; wishes he could be anywhere but here. But he can’t. Something’s had the Gotham gangs riled up these last few months and Batman actually trusts his skills enough to send him on a recon mission on his own – with Oracle listening in closely, of course. He can’t let Batman down. He’s pretty sure his heart wouldn’t take it.

Tim shifts then freezes when the shadowed opening of a hoodie turns his way. He’s been keeping an eye on that one – a slight figure, tall and built, but…awkward in a way, sitting on the edge of the group all night. They haven’t spoken to anyone but gets nods of acknowledgement and friendly elbows. They wear no affiliation, their scuffed jacket over a red hoodie free of patches, and they just…sit there so casually, so nonchalant. There’s something off about their body language and Tim hasn’t been able to pinpoint what exactly rubs him the wrong way about it. He sees a flash of blue-green in the dark, a pair of eyes shining like a cat, before the hoodie turns back to where two leaders are getting dangerously close to starting a war.

He fades further into the shadow, a curious tilt to his mouth as he eyes the shapeless figure. They definitely looked right at him. He could almost say their eyes actually met. Even though he’s pretty hidden and, well, people don’t look up in this city. After years and years of Batman, you’d think born and raised Gothamites would learn, but even Tim never thought about it until he was well into his rooftop photography years.

So, why did this random person decide tonight was the night to look up?

Unease curls in his stomach. Especially when the gangs finally decide that threats and half-hearted punches aren’t enough and pull out the big guns – literally.

A shot rings out, making Tim jump, and someone screams in pain – or rage, he can’t tell – and the warehouse below is a swarm of bodies. Tim presses himself against the beam he’s been straddling, keeps his face directed at the chaos for the camera. There are about forty people down there and only one of him, even if he calls Batman there’s too many people for just the two of them.

There’s a flash of dull red that grabs his attention. The figure from before is skirting on the edge of the all-out brawl, not doling out their own punches or throwing themselves into the fray. Now that they’re standing, Tim can see the bulk of a holster, shaped for a knife not a gun, on their thigh.

“You good, Robin?” Oracle crackles in his ear.

Tim keeps his eyes on the figure, drawn to them despite the violence below. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Headin’ out soon.”

“Cops are on their way. Drop a few pellets and get out of there.”

Oh, right. The new knockout bombs Mr. Fox developed. They’re for large groups and, well, he’s got a large, active group right here, hasn’t he?

He digs them out from his belt and hesitates, holding them tightly midair. The figure has made it to the entrance, but they’re not leaving. They fade into the shadows – a lot like…a lot like Batman does, Tim realizes, confused and surprised – but by virtue of being Tim (not-a-stalker-I-swear) and Robin (trained by Batman), he sees them linger behind the only other person not joining the fighting.

This person is an adult, probably in his mid-twenties. He wears a long coat and there’s a flash of slacks not denim in the light. Tim can’t describe his face, can’t tell what his hair color is even though he’s not wearing a hat. He can’t even tell if he’s white or black or brown.

What Tim can tell, though, is that there’s something weird about him. Not human weird.

[blueflyingturtleontheway]

Can you tell more about Diaries of the old chancellor/Diaries of the traitor?

Oooh yes! This is actually one of the older ideas, hence the double title, the one referencing "Lalka" is obviously the later one. The basic idea was that after the events of TMW Isa tries to hide somewhere to think about evereything that happened in peace and accidentally stumbles into Esteban's room. Now, normally she'd never look through his stuff, but now she's desperately trying to make sense of it all and understand what really happened today and those 44 years ago. While looking through the things on his desk she finds a notebook that she soon realizes is Esteban's journal. She fights with herself but eventually starts reading through it and notices that it only lasts a few months back, but according to the number on the cover there should be over ten more. So she searches his room and eventually finds the rest in a chest with many trinkets and memoirs from his youth and childhood. For a moment she hesitates since this is technically stealing and those are his private possesions, but eventually she decides that she's doing it with a good intention and if Esteban was here she'd simply ask him, but since she can't then, well... And so she takes all his journals and starts her journey into her cousins past.

I've started writing it in Polish but here's a quickly translated fragment.

This afternoon everything had been happening all at once, so quickly and chaotically that now that everything had finally calmed down, a whirlpool of thoughts didn't allow Isabela to fall asleep. The reason for those thoughts had obviously been Esteban. She simply couldn't understand what he betrayed them, and Isa hated not understanding something. But more than that, she was hurt by her cousnin's betrayal. He was familia and she always thought of him as of her older brother, so why? Suddenly a memory came to her mind. They were sitting under a tree in the garden and snacking on some tamales swiped from abuela. They were watching the jaquins proudly soar the skies when Esteban said he'll tell her a secret. She leaned closer and he whispered quietly to her ear "You're my favourite cousin. Just don't tell Elena." He winked at her and they both burst into giggles.

While searching for a fragment to translate I also found a version in which Elena was supposed to find his journals, but now I really can't see her reading them if she knew they were his, and someone would have to go through a lot of trouble to censor them if she was to not know.

I really like this idea and I think this fic is a great opportunity for me to finally introduce all those random headcanons (and allude to other unwritten fics), the only thing stopping me is that I have no idea how it's supposed to end x)

Still, thank you for this ask!

WiP list

[jujitto]

post snippets from 3 wips and 3 published fics!

( thank you Mattie @stealanity for the tag! I love and appreciate you so fucking much! And I hope you’re taking care of yourself! )

3 published fics:

𝟣. 𝗉𝗋𝖾𝗍𝗍𝗒 𝗅𝗂𝗍𝗍𝗅𝖾 𝗍𝗎𝗍𝗈𝗋. 𝗅𝖾𝖾 𝗁𝖾𝖾𝗌𝖾𝗎𝗇𝗀

This is one of my most recent one shots that I published like a month or two ago I think. It really just came to my mind because I already had it in the works and decided to just finish it because it’s been sitting in my drafts for way too long. And plus I really love it because it’s cute.

𝟤. 𝗍𝖾𝗅𝗅 𝗆𝖾 𝗂´𝗆 𝗉𝗋𝖾𝗍𝗍𝗒. 𝗃𝖾𝗈𝗇𝗀 𝗒𝗎𝗇𝗁𝗈

One of my favorite one shots that I have written for Ateez since I’ve started writing for them. I know I shouldn’t pick favorites because it’s kind of like a parent picking their favorite child but I’m sorry this will always be my favorite one shot that I have written. It’s just so cute and feels very summery which was the season I posted it in.

This is also a fic I didn’t spend too much time on writing because I had an idea and I knew what I wanted to write so I just wrote it within a week or a few days. I’m not sure how many because it’s been so long since I’ve published it.

𝟥. 𝖿𝗈𝗈𝗅 𝗂𝗇 𝗅𝗈𝗏𝖾. 𝗄𝗂𝗆 𝗀𝗒𝗎𝗏𝗂𝗇

This is an another story I didn’t spend too much time on writing because I already had the idea in my mind. I wanted a cute idea for him because just the way he acted in Boys Planet really inspired me to write a story for him. The fact that he seems so sweet and just so innocent, I was like what why would he be like as a boyfriend and so I pictured him being loving, and yet clumsy, not really knowing how to show his love and always causing himself and his partner harm but innocently and clumsily. But this fic didn’t actually come out until after he had debuted in Zerobaseone, so it was kind of crazy. But anyway, I love this fic because it’s so cute which I love saying about everything.

3 WIPS :

𝟣. 𝗏𝖺𝗅𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗂𝗇𝖾. 𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗄 𝗌𝖾𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗁𝗐𝖺

This story fic came to me when I was deep in thought. Sometimes I usually just get an idea and start writing it down so I don’t forget it. And this is one of those moments. I wanted something cute for him, but didn’t know what until this idea came to my mind. I’m not sure how long it will be but right now it’s currently 398 words. 😭

𝟤. 𝗉𝗈𝖾𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗁𝗂𝗆. 𝗃𝖺𝗄𝖾 𝗌𝗂𝗆

This is one of the stories I will be publishing during October of this year for spooky season. So this one will have it mentions of gore or murder but it’s just a fic. This was an idea that came to me because I was like I need a spooky idea because I haven’t started writing any of them so this was one of the first ones I thought of.

I’m not finished with it quite yet but when it’s done, I will be posting it on the first day of October. Also during the month of October, I’m not gonna be posting every single day but I’m going to keep up my schedule from how I was posting before I went to hiatus.

𝟥. 𝗎𝗇𝗍𝗂𝗍𝗅𝖾𝖽. 𝗃𝖾𝗈𝗇𝗀 𝗒𝗎𝗇𝗁𝗈

Another idea for Yunho. Because I just have really cute ideas for fics for him. Because he deserves it. I’m low-key competing with @hotteoki for Yunho lover. This is actually an idea that came to my mind and I just started writing because it’s a fucking cute idea. And I will be finishing it very soon because any Yunho projects I have are not getting abandoned. I’m sorry because I love him too much. 😊

𝗍𝖺𝗀𝗌 : @misokei @hannahhbahng @hotteoki @hsgwrld! @mochamvgz sorry for unwanted ones! I love you all and thank you again, Mattie for the tag!