#i don't remember what i wrote very well but i just reread my notes and it's entertaining me so much that i included them in this post

[restinpeacesensei]

- characters: kinshirou, akoya, arima just a little bit - meant to be gen but sort of akoya > kinshirou comfort Summary: Kinshirou is obviously not getting any beauty sleep and Akoya decides to try to help. starts out light humor, turns into angst and then some kind of hurt-comfort, which is actually a great summary of my presence in this fandom

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HIIII listen... i dont write proper summaries but this fic is truly an homage to all of my time and feelings here all these years... T//////T (there’s even a reference to akoya wearing a bra at the end which you may get if you remember me from way back in the beginning SKVJSHDVH)

[philosophiums]

hi sam!! 1, 2, 6, 8, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 50, 51, 55, 57, 66 (lmhs), 71, 72, 76, 78, 79 😊 i just love picking another writer's brain hehe

KSJDBVJKDFBV MARIAM IM CRYING HELP 😂 *cracks knuckles* okay let's gooooo 💜 (there's gonna be a read more somewhere)

questions from here!

1. Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike?

Truly depends on the length of the wip! For short stuff that I'm confident will be under 10k, I just go in swinging. For longer stuff, I'm daydreaming constantly, even during the writing process. When I had a desk job, I would spend Work Time thinking and then write stuff out in my notes app, but now that I operate a moving vehicle for 7+ hours a day, I just spend the majority of that time Daydreaming, Thinking, and Planning for LMHS.

2. Where do you get your fic ideas?

It's about a 60/40 split between original thoughts (as much as anyone can claim to truly have original creative thoughts that are 100% not inspired by anything else) and ideas that are based on or inspired by the premises of other fics or by fanart (sometimes not even from the same fandom).

6. What’s the last line you wrote?

From LMHS, last line of chapter 3: "Sun shining on their backs, sweet snacks in their stomachs, and laughter in the air, the three of them take off together, venturing once again deeper into Changyin’s busy streets."

8. Post an out-of-context spoiler from a wip.

Not written out yet so I can't post a snippet, but in LMHS, water is so important to Megumi's character, way beyond just bending.

12. Do you outline your fics?  If yes, how detailed are your outlines?  How far do you stray from them?

Sometimes! I did outline LMHS, though that was mostly an attempt on my part at keeping track of all the thoughts @hinamie and I were throwing at each other. It's not very detailed at all, just a bullet point list of things like "they travel to [location] - remember that [this character] is with them" or stuff like that. It's a guide for the like... movement™ of the fic, but less so the nitty gritty details, which I kind of enjoy discovering as I go (be it while I'm writing or while Hina and I are talking). But the last long fic I wrote (250k) did not have an outline. I just followed my heart and the vision I had of the end of the fic <3 The back half of that fic did have a canon timeline to follow, though, which made it easier.

14. What is your favorite location and position to write in?

SJKDBJKSDB I do about 95% of my writing in a big leather wingback armchair in my living room, usually with one leg hooked over an arm of the chair. The other 5% is bleary-eyed, 2am in bed, notes app, half-finished sentences with just the worst spelling you've ever seen.

15. What’s your favorite time to write?

It used to be between 1am and 3am, back when I was unemployed/working a job I didn't have to properly sleep for. Now, the only time I seem to be able to write is from about 8:30pm to 11pm. It takes me forever to unwind after coming home, so I can really only get myself to focus way at the end of the day. 100% if I went back to a desk job or stumbled into a pile of money that could let me stop working, I'd be right back to typing away well after midnight.

17. Do you have a writing routine?

Sit down > open word doc > reread last paragraph > dissociate > walk away > come back three hours later and write SKJDVBDKJBVJKDFBV

18. Do you enjoy research?  Which fic of yours required the most research?

I don't necessarily enjoy it, mostly because when I'm researching, I tend to get pulled down a rabbit hole of stuff I don't need to know and will never use. However, I do find that I end up doing impromptu "shotgun" research a lot while writing. Literally while writing the first chapter of LMHS, I had to pull up some research on trees just to make absolutely sure I was describing something correctly. It's 100% an inconsequential detail, but at least I know I wasn't pulling it completely out of thin air KSJVDBDKJVB I don't think I could honestly say which fic required the most research. If we include the amount of time I spent on the respective fandom wikis for character/canon details, then Swallow the Stars for sure. But if it's only for Other Stuff™, then I think they're all about equal.

19. Do you enjoy creating OCs or do you prefer to stick solely to canon characters?

I love making OCs in general, but not really for fanfic. I'll make an OC for an inconsequential side character no problem (did this a couple times in Swallow the Stars), but, for the most part, I prefer to stick to canon characters. I've never written a fic from the POV of an OC, and I doubt I ever will. I would much rather explore the dynamics between canon characters than insert a new main character into a story that already has one.

22. Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process?  How do you come up with titles?

Depends! I've done all three before SKJDVBDKJVBF Sometimes, a title comes to me right away, and I can sort of circle around it while I'm writing (this is more common for me with short fics). Sometimes, I get a few thousands words in, and have played with the themes long enough to have it just sort of come to me. Other times, I'm fully edited and just staring at the words begging a title to appear so I can post KSJDVBDKJFVBDFV LMHS had a title before I even started writing, because I wanted to have a title when I posted the fic announcement. As far as how I come up with them, I've pulled directly from words in the fic, I've gone on random quote generators and pulled from those, I've sat down and literally just strung words together based on a theme or a single specific word I wanted (LMHS, for instance, came from a desire to use the word "haunt"). It just kinda depends and is different for every fic!

23. Is writing the beginning, middle, or end of the story easiest? Hardest?

The beginning is easiest because it's fun character introductions and scene setting, not a lot of plot yet. The middle is by far the hardest because that's where the plot is beefiest and where a lot of the transition spaces are, and at the same time you're starting to gather up the threads you want to tie off at the end.

24. How do you choose whose POV to write in?

I choose based on whose thoughts I'm imagining most when I'm first thinking of the story! When I'm new to writing for a fandom, I will sometimes have to start a fic 2 or 3 times to find the voice that comes easiest to me, though. I have a tendency to lean towards the quieter characters, but that's not always true! For example, Andrew Minyard's POV is easier for me to write in, but I have more fun writing Neil, so I tend to gravitate towards Neil for AFTG fics.

25. What’s your favorite part of the writing process (worldbuilding, brainstorming/outlining, writing, editing, etc)?

World building my beloved..... I love coming up with Reasons for things that I want to happen, tying things into the setting and the history and making sure it works for the characters as well. The moment when everything connects is so magical.

26. What’s your least favorite part of the writing process?

Writing KJDBKJDFBVJKDBFV Words are just.... so hard 😭

28. What area of writing do you want to improve in?

Detailing! Descriptions! I am constantly fighting with myself over how much detail I actually need to include in my descriptions, because on some level, I want to describe it as much as I possibly can so that it can be envisioned easier, but on the flip side I know for a fact that no matter how much I describe something, no one will ever see it exactly the same way I do. And so then I pull back too far, I think, and keep my descriptions bare minimum, which I think is just as unhelpful. I need to work on finding a balance. Maybe metaphor can be my friend here.....

30. How much do you edit your fics?  Do you edit as you write or wait until you finish the first draft?

I usually go through for edits a minimum of two times and a maximum of 4 times. I always do an initial read-through for details that I missed or clarifications I need to make or continuity problems, stuff like that. Then I'll go through for grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. If I end up rewriting a lot during that second edit, I'll go back through yet again just to double-check everything. And, more often than not, I do a last read-through right before I post. Though, inevitably, there's always something that I don't catch until it's already posted KJSBDVKDJBV

42. What’s your favorite title that you’ve come up with?

I'm really quite keen on Like the Moon Haunts the Sun !! It's longer than what I usually go for with titles, but it's sooooo thematically fitting and just really really pretty imo. But, This Is What Hollows holds a special place in my heart because it's a bit different and yet perfectly fitting for that fic. Plus, it was titled loooong before I came up with a way to include it in the actual writing of the fic, and I felt like an absolute genius when I managed to do that organically.

43. Is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet?

I have a world mostly built for a fantasy setting with dragon gods and stuff that I've planned out all the lore for and yet cannot for the life of me actually think up a plot that would be interesting to write SKJVBDJKVB I have characters, I have setting, I have themes, but a plot? Evading me. And it's been haunting me for like 7 years.

44. What is your favorite genre to write?

Urban fantasy 100%!! I love writing magic systems without having to do historical research SKJBDVKJDVB Also just the idea of magic in a place that we live in is so special to me like... there is magic everywhere in the world, but sometimes that magic really does come from a spell book like Yes Please.

45. What genre/trope do you tend to write the most?

Found family trope my beloved,,,,,,,, don't look too closely at it; it doesn't say anything about me as a person I Promise.

47. Is there a trope that you’ve written before but are now sick of?

Not a trope, but when I was younger and Working Through Some Shit, I included a, I guess, circumstance™ that I will not actually say (bc it's like. triggering) in just about every fic I wrote, but I'm past the point now (thank god) of needing to vent through it, so I truly don't think I'll ever include it in anything ever again.

50. How would you describe your writing style?

HHHHHHH I have no idea. I think I am incapable of looking at my writing objectively enough to describe it.

51. Does what you like to write differ from what you like to read?

Very much so! I love reading prose that is rich in metaphor and simile, but for the life of me I can't write like that. I don't have the gift of constantly being able to turn a phrase so beautifully, but god is it gorgeous to read.

55. Have you noticed any patterns in your fics?  Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

I don't even want to think about the words and phrases I overuse because I'm sure there's plenty JSKDBVKJDFVB I do have a recurring theme of like... healing, though. This deep inner struggle of the characters to get to a better place is just... so important to me. I want them to heal, but more than that I want them to want to heal.

57. How conscious are you about including symbolism or foreshadowing in your fics?

I'm certainly conscious of it, but less so on the first draft. I think foreshadowing has a way of sneaking into my writing naturally (especially because I write chronologically), and then I can really hammer it in during the edit. Symbolism is purely being brought in during the first edit unless it's something so important that it was underlined a lot during the drafting/planning stage.

66. What’s a fun fact about LMHS?

It started as me just randomly thinking about ATLA and sending a question to Hina about what she thought the main trio's bending elements would be, and it just tumbled out of control from there SKJDVBDJKVFB

71. Do you spend more time reading or writing?

Writing, which is... saying something because I really don't spend a lot of time writing on a day-to-day basis. But I haven't read a published book in.... 4 years? And I don't read fanfic very often either, despite my bookmarks tab being overflowing with fics that I would like to read at some point. I just feel like I never have the time or energy to sit down and read.

72. What’s your favorite writing compliment you’ve gotten?

I have gotten a similar comment from multiple people that is about my characterization of canon characters within AUs and how it still feels like the canon characters but with realistic changes based on a different setting, and in fic writing I can't think of higher praise. Like... that's exactly what I want. I don't want the characters to be exactly the same as canon because their circumstances have changed, but I still want them to be recognizable. That's always what I'm striving for, and it makes me happy that people notice and think it's executed well enough to comment on.

76. How do you deal with writing pressure, whether internal or external?

Poorly KDEJVBKJDEFVBJKDFVBJF Really though, I struggle managing pressure when I'm writing. And it's always internal, because external pressure on fics just makes me petty since it's Free Labor, and people who complain about a slow upload schedule or whatever just make me Mad. But internal pressure is HHHHHHHHHH I am Going Through It with LMHS. I want it to live up to expectations, but I also want to finish it quickly, but I also want it to be lush and complete, and there's always this voice in my head telling me I'm not writing fast enough or good enough. Mostly I work past it by reminding myself that the time will pass anyway and that it's a miracle that I can even write ~1k words a day with how tired my job makes me. And on the days when that doesn't work, I have loud music KSJDVBDKJVBJDKFV

78. What motivates you during the writing process?

Up to the point where I start posting (for my last long fic, I was >100k in before I uploaded the first chapter), the motivation comes from a simple desire to write that particular story. For me, it can't come from anywhere else. If I don't want to write on a fic anymore and I haven't uploaded yet, I'll just stop. However, once I start posting, comments and general interaction with the fic gives me a huge bump in motivation. Engagement and talking about the story and the characters and the plot just makes me so excited to keep going so that I can drop the next plot twist or cliffhanger and read everyone's reactions. This time, for LMHS, I am very very lucky to have my own personal cheer squad of one (Hina) motivating me daily through memes and character discussion and new pieces of art and other various things <3

79. Do you have any writing advice you want to share?

The best actual constructive writing advice that I can give is: Do Not Edit Something Until You're Done. And yes, I mean the entire story - do not go back and reread/rewrite until you're done with it. Nothing will make your forward momentum disappear faster than going back to edit. If you're too hung up on details and perfection right away, you're never going to get done. You have to just write and accept that things will need to be reworked. Make notes for yourself on things to fix later or whatever, just do not scroll back up and start editing before you're done with something. It will only make you disappointed that where you pick up again isn't going to look as nice as what you just edited.

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: A Preface

I want you to think back to what it’s like to reread your old work from years ago—your old stories or poetry, your old school papers, or even your old tumblr posts. Sometimes you’re actually kind of pleased, sure, but I want you to really go back and locate yourself in the heady cringe of that feeling.

In related news, I'm going to pick back up with the Varney the Vampire recaps I started in late 2010 CE. I got about nine chapters in, and then something, who knows what, derailed my life, as things tend to. Like, I'm used to this, it happens with the regularity of a lunar cycle. But I like writing about vampires (clearly), and since I feel like Dracula has been tread pretty thoroughly in recent times, I figured I might go back to something different; we had some lively discussions about Varney back then.

But 2010 was a time before A Lot of Things happened. I was in my early 30s at that point, so I won't say, "Oh, I was so young," but I had a very different energy as a blogger 12-13 years ago. So I've decided to rewrite the recaps a little—some more than others, some not much at all. I just feel like I have a really different perspective on the first chapter in particular, in 2023.

As before, I'm using the full, unabridged text. It is hideously long, something like 230+ chapters, but go big or go home, I figure. The thing is, I was using the files hosted at the University of Virginia, and now you can only get those through the Wayback Machine, but they are still usable for now. I have various backups saved, but I do want you to be able to see that I am, as ever, Not Making It Up.

I'm also not going to quibble anymore as to whether James Malcolm Rymer or Thomas Peckett Prest wrote this behemoth. Per Wikipedia sources, scholars seem to agree that it was all or mostly Rymer. When it's mentioned that they figured this out based on his dialogue style, I went... yeah, that checks out. Because it sure is A Style, and I'll be honest, the repetitive filler dialogue in chapter 10 was such a speedbump for me that I just threw up my hands and said, "I don't know how to recap this. Something I can't remember now is going on in my life and I Cannot. I no longer Can."

Well, it's the 2020s and we're gonna. Like I can't tell you how much stress I do not have about this. I've had covid three times and also spinal surgery. Varney the Vampire can no longer hurt me.

To start, this ordeal has a preface—apparently written upon the occasion of collecting the serial into book form—wherein The Author expresses his gratitude for "unprecedented success of the romance of Varney the Vampyre." First off, Rymer uses "vampire" and "vampyre" interchangeably, because fuck me for caring about consistency, I guess. Second, as Wikipedia notes,

It first appeared in 1845–1847 as a series of weekly cheap pamphlets of the kind then known as "penny dreadfuls." The author was paid by the typeset line [YEAH, I NOTICED], so when the story was published in book form in 1847, it was of epic length: the original edition ran to 876 double-columned pages and 232 chapters. Altogether it totals nearly 667,000 words.

For comparison, all of Lord of the Rings plus The Hobbit is 576,459 words. I sure do blanch every time I see those numbers! It's fine. We're gonna be fine. Back to the preface:

The following romance is collected from seemingly the most authentic sources, and the Author must leave the question of credibility entirely to his readers, not even thinking that he is peculiarly called upon to express his own opinion upon the subject.

"Seemingly" is doing a lot of work here.

Nothing has been omitted [for real, nothing down to the tiniest fly-swat has been omitted] in the life of the unhappy Varney, which could tend to throw a light upon his most extraordinary career, and the fact of his death just as it is here related, made a great noise at the time through Europe, and is to be found in the public prints for the year 1713.

I've seen more than one Dracula multimedia art project where people recreated the letters and diaries and recordings in the book (have you heard my whole thing about how Dracula actually was a cutting-edge techno-thriller back in 1897?), but I've never heard of anyone creating ARG-style media for the Totally for Actual-Fact Real tale of Sir Francis Varney the Vampire, and I think it would be hilarious if someone did.

I won't belabor the entire preface, but what I do want to touch on is Rymer's mention of "unprecedented success." Varney is actually standing on the shoulders of a vampire giant, and it's not the one we would think of. Nowadays, our big touchstone—the influence so great that most works either evoke it or take the trouble to say "Our vampires are different"—is Dracula, obviously. Which was published exactly 50 years after Varney, in 1897. But Varney's touchstone is Polidori's short story "The Vampyre" (1819). And for most of the 1800s, this was everyone's touchstone. Per Wikipedia (which I'm going to lean on for how concise it is, but I concur with this from my own research as well):

An adaptation appeared in 1820 with Cyprien Bérard's novel Lord Ruthwen ou les Vampires, falsely attributed to Charles Nodier, who himself then wrote his own dramatic version, Le Vampire, a play which had enormous success and sparked a "vampire craze" across Europe. This includes operatic adaptations by Heinrich Marschner (see Der Vampyr) and Peter Josef von Lindpaintner (see Der Vampyr), both published in the same year. Nikolai Gogol, Alexandre Dumas [note: I have the Ruthven play he wrote around here somewhere] and Aleksey Tolstoy all produced vampire tales, and themes in Polidori's tale would continue to influence Bram Stoker's Dracula and eventually the whole vampire genre. Dumas makes explicit reference to Lord Ruthven in The Count of Monte Cristo, going so far as to state that his character "The Comtesse G..." had been personally acquainted with Lord Ruthven. [...]

In England, James Planché's play The Vampire, or The Bride of the Isles was first performed in London in 1820 at the Lyceum Theatre based on Charles Nodier's Le Vampire, which in turn was based on Polidori. Such melodramas were satirised in Ruddigore, by Gilbert and Sullivan (1887); a character called Sir Ruthven must abduct a maiden, or he will die.

Back when no one gave a shit about copyright, Polidori's work was spun out into a cottage industry of knock-off stories and plays, an entire horror zeitgeist. Lord Ruthven was, for 78 years, who you copied, who you riffed on, who you parodied, what Count Dracula is to us now: the archetypal vampire. The Big Guy. And Varney is clearly cut from his cloth—the ostensible gentleman who worms his way into the lives of respectable, unwitting people. Unlike Dracula, there's no foreigner Othering, no "historical basis," no undercurrents of contagion and infection, no ambition to make the world his wine-press, none of that; Ruthven is a simpler figure, but the dominant one of this time no less. He is a stranger who shows up in the middle of London high society, icy and distant, his eyes “dead grey”—stern, yet somehow compelling when he cares to be. And when he cares to be, you're in trouble.

And this is the cultural consciousness when Francis Varney shows up.

[Chapter one will go up sometime this week, March 8-10 or so.]

[cloud-somersault]

If you’re shocked that people reread your fic then you’re SOOOOO WRONG

I literally open the epilogue or constellations whenever I have food like it’s a movie😭😭 I usually just finish rereading it or get distracted by the scene playing out in my head 😭 I love your fic!! Fics!! You’re amazing!!

It really sucks you don’t enjoy writing it anymore, but im at least glad you got to share it in the first place! You’ve brought a lot of people joy and that’s really amazing , you! Literally got me into writing!!!! Thank you so much for that😭 your characterization and story is so complex and I really strive to be cool like you😭 thank you so much!

Im sorry this isn’t an actual ‘ask’ but yk, I’ll be sad to see this end but im glad it happened in the first place, thank you cloud!!

LMFAO LIKE A MOVIE I really haven't heard that before! That's amazing! Thanks for reading and enjoying it. That makes me very happy.

The thing is -- I do enjoy writing this AU, it's just the sharing part I'm hesitant about. But I think turning off comments and all that will help? Frankly, it's just that, every update, someone has a problem with what I wrote and that's all well and good -- I just don't wanna be aware of it 😅

And that's so true!! At the end of the day, Constellations exists and is out there. And once the epilogue is finished, it'll feel like a good note to end on. Of course, major plot points won't be solved; that's what the sequel and follow-up were for. But...we'll see what happens. 🤷‍♀️

I'm happy to hear you got into writing! That's great!! Remember to read everything you can and don't be afraid to just write. It's not going to perfect right from the start; that's what editing is for! Editing is the most important part.

Thank YOU so much! And I like that outlook. I'm glad that some instance of Constellations exists and people got to enjoy it and read it. 😌💕

[cerealandchoccymilk]

Trigun Bookclub: Trigun Vol.1, Chapter #02

previous | all | next

Continuation of my Trigun annotation for the book club. I'm doing a deep-read of the Japanese original print (reread) and Overhaul 1.0 (first read) side-by-side, and writing down everything I notice from small details, version differences, translation differences, etc. (and being gay about the characters <3 always important)

Here are the beloved non-analysis sillies...

And the rest is under the cut. read my notes boy!!

[link for if the images aren't in horizontal rows]

The second page has an error - 悪夢 was probably misread as 悪魔 ("happen" and "awaken" are also the same kanji). It should be "Then, the nightmare occurred." It's really cool that this still works really well considering...y'know (not saying for the first-time readers ;) )

I just love how that drawing of Vash is so cool and serious...

...and then you turn the page and he's in the most pathetic cunty pussy-out pose you've ever seen. Easily one of my favorite panels. Also made a math question for funsies. sorry to anyone who got high school flashbacks, but I absolutely loved trigonometry lmao. I could do this forever.

A little pun(?) that may or may not be intentional - In Japanese, someone with a bounty on their head is called 賞金首, lit. "bounty neck" ("neck" sometimes signifies the entire head). The locals call out for the bounty-neck right as Vash hurt his neck lol

I love how creepy Vash moves sometimes. absolute cryptid

This is entirely a Japanese-only detail, but I really loved how Vash said バヤイ (bayai) in the sobbing in French line, because my mom also says that instead of 場合 (baai) when she's being silly lmao. Also, it's notable that in Japanese, Vash says フランセ語 ("Francé-go," where "go" is the suffix for languages) which may be either another miles->iles/double-dollar situation, or just him speaking silly like バヤイ.

Also, the line after that would more accurately be "How am I supposed to deal with all these locals?"

Here, the "Really?" is actually Meryl saying something like "I'll give you a hint."

Meryl tends to be the one responsible for the braincell in fanworks but it's important to remember that she absolutely is dumb too (affectionate).

I'm so glad I wrote that reminder about Meryl's speech, but I don't think I'll be able to do it justice here when I have so much more to talk about. I'll have to write another post later, so I'll link it when it's done. The gist is that she talks like a stereotypical high-class anime girl, and the trope is from how a similar demographic in Meiji-era Japan actually spoke.

The boy's pussy faces the world yet again. I love all the faces he makes!! look at him!!!!!!!!!!! he's so cute

The text on the board here was very messy and squished, but it says something like "Vash the Stampede Absolute Capture Task Force Headquarters." Honestly don't know how to fit all that into the board though so uh good luck on that for 2.0... Also dear god Vash has so much energy... He's just been running for 3 hours straight...!!

Fun fact: the equivalent idiom to "fight fire with fire" in Japanese is "use poison on poison."

Love how Nebraska is just like "no we didn't jailbreak, we just let ourselves out :/"

Translation error for Milly and the chairman - Milly is saying "Why do things keep getting worse and worse!?" and the chairman is mumbling "What's the deal with you two..."

Showing some love for his pretty pretty eyes..........(gives him so many smooches in my head)("i can imagine anything" image)(can't add it because i reached the 30 image limit)

The "Freeze!" is actually untranslated, just re-typed to match the surrounding font. Also, that panel is the first time Vash's antennae is shown bent!! It goes back up immediately after that though.

Fun fact #2. Vash says ara ara. if you even care.

This line never fails to hit me hard. They're all desperate mothers and sisters, and they're taking on the bad role because nothing's more important than their dear children. (reminds me of a certain someone...)

I've seen someone mention this before, but Trimax definitely adjusted the number of plants. Fifty!?!? Also, in Japanese, "plants" and "died" were in quotations.

I love the gun pull in the right panel. Vash obviously definitely doesn't intend on shooting, but is rather showing off his skill and resolve as an intimidation tactic to throw the girls off-guard.

God this entire spread is just so RAW.... (here's the post that's mentioned in blue. it just reminded me)

Some more hypes and sillies. The impact that "KISS MY ASS!!" had on my first read was phenomenal!! It's so silly!! and cool!!!

And then there's this!! Another favorite part of mine. Vash's antennae are bent again! They kind of alternate between straight and bent from here.

The green writing about the onomatopoea are more of just a translation note rather than a suggestion. I can't think of any good beckoning noises in English :V

And finally, Milly calls "Mr. Bomb" "Bomb-kun" in Japanese which I think yall would enjoy lol. And happy strangling her saturday tuesday.

The Japanese version of the annotations are in the reblogs, if anyone wants them.

I have Chapter #03 mostly ready, so I'll probably post it tomorrow morning and try to speedrun the rest of the chapters because this is taking longer than I expected!! God there's just so much to say!! (Also gotta remember to write about Meryl's speech!!)

And thank yall so much for the feedback on the Chapters #00-01 post!! I didn't know so many people were interested in such small details!! Love (and peace) yall 🫶🤞

[violsva]

July and August Reading

So this summer was not a great time for reading or for anything else. Except crafts. Last week I did so much crochet I bruised my fingertip.

Recent: A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard started good but got more irritating over time, and I ended up skimming the last few chapters.

Very much liked Patchwork: A World Tour; I still really want a general history (specifically one starting before 1700), but this was very diverse and very pretty.

I read the first of Jewelle Gomez's Gilda Stories, which was very well done, but the author's note was more evidence that debates over moral storytelling are not limited to modern tumblr.

In August I finished another Biggles book, and now the next time I feel like Boy's Own Adventures I can get on to the resolution of Von Stalhein's arc and widen my fanfiction options.

And then I deliberately picked up Circle of Magic: Sandry's Book for comfort reading, which it provided. Also more craft books and more RWRB fanfic.

Current: Just finished Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger in audiobook for more comfort reading. I remember liking but also being annoyed by a paranormal romance about how great small towns are, and it probably says something very clear about me that Horrible Things Happening in Nice Small Towns are, conversely, very comfortable.

Terry Pratchett's Interesting Times, because I wanted to reread a Discworld book and I knew I'd only read this one once ... but unfortunately there was a reason for that. Which of course is going to be true of anyone who wrote that many books over that much time.

Sarah Caudwell's The Shortest Way to Hades, which is great. One of the nice things about this series is that I can think things like, "Ah, what an interesting choice to refer to Euripides' Helen in this particular narrative. What might that imply for the main mystery plot?" (I'm less than halfway in and don't know if I'm guessing right yet.)

My current purse book is The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman, which will probably go slowly but which I am enjoying very much when I remember it's there.

And a facsimile copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

Future: The library for some reason hasn't got any of K. J. Charles' recent releases.

I have another Christie audiobook lined up. In print the Caudwell will probably take me a while yet. But it's occurred to me that autumn is coming up, and this year I want to actually read The Haunting of Hill House.

[kingwithpaintedfingers]

An Update on the Status of My A03 Fics!

Hihi! I have no idea if anyone who follows this blog reads any of my fics on AO3, but if you do, then you might like to know what the heck is going on with my fics, and why I haven't posted any updates in over six months.

First of all, I am alive! I wrote a lot of fics in the summer of 2022 when I had just gotten active in a fan server on Discord where there was a lot of encouragement to write fanfiction. In the spring of 2023, I started a medical assistantship course, and in order to keep myself focused in class, I turned off notifications for the server. And then I just kind of...didn't turn them back on???? In my defense, I was intimidated by the amount of time it would take for me to backread everything I missed, and that eventually snowballed into me just no longer looking at that server. I should honestly become active in it again, because it did a lot for my writing productivity. I also have a lot of hobbies both in real life and on my computer, and those take up a lot of my time as well. So that's why I didn't post much last year and haven't posted anything yet this year.

But I want to let you all know, that I do fully intend to complete the fanfics I have already started on AO3, and I do intend to write the sequels I promised a year and a half ago.

So without further ado, here is a status report on the incomplete fics and series I have on my AO3:

How to Live With Fire: One of my most popular fics! I have two sequels planned, and a rough idea of what I want to happen in each of them. Both of them are probably going to be only a few chapters long. The delay on this one is mostly on Part 2, since Part 2 has only the vaguest ideas of what I want to do with it (how Mortarion and Vulkan become a longterm couple, and how their legions react to this change). The trouble with this one is, I haven't read any Salamanders novels, let alone ones that take place during the Horus Heresy. I think I will at least have to read Deathfire for this one. I am praying that I don't have to read Vulkan Lives, since I understand that one has less tasty Salamanders content than I would like, and way more John Grammaticus than I find tasteful. But I will still try Deathfire at the very least, if I can find a physical copy at the library or a used bookstore or something.

A Matter of Trust: Another one that's going to end up being a trilogy. I have figured out what happens, now I just need to read the Plague Wars trilogy, because those events are going to be kind of important to the rest of the plot. Again, I'd like to read physical copies of the books so that I can flip through them easily. I'm going to see if I can find copies of the first two novels through the local libraries. Fingers crossed!

Until the Bitter End: Ohhhh, this one's gonna make me cry...this one is mostly hinging on me rereading The Buried Dagger and taking notes. Much lower barrier for entry for this one, since I've read it so often that I mostly remember where to find the events I'm looking for.

Lantern and the Child: This one is going to have like, a billion chapters. It's going to become episodic for a while, but I'm looking forward to it. In this case, it's a case of figuring out which characters I want to introduce. The idea of it being episodic is kind of exciting for me, because it feels like it will be a fun thing to do, and because it goes along with a writing conceit that my co-creator and I have for this AU, that it's the events of a theoretical (very dark) Pokemon anime.

This Once Nearly Was Mine: This one should literally be the easiest one to complete, I am ashamed that I haven't finished it. There's only one chapter left, and I don't even have to come up with all of the events. Again, this one is going to dip into Horus Heresy events that I haven't actually read, but I think I've heard enough from osmosis that I can skip most of it. I just need to, y'know, actually sit down and fucking write it.

Deep's Embrace: I've got an outline! And I've even got some scenes written out! As I type this post, I am preparing to submit chapter 2. I'm having a lot of fun with this fic, as you could probably all tell.

Anyway, that's basically it for now. If you have any questions, please let me know! And if you have any friends who you know enjoy my fics but aren't following me or aren't on Tumblr, please link them to this post so that they know just what the hell is going on with me.

[ardenrabbit]

Do you have any tips on how to be more confident in what you write? I feel like no matter what or how I write, it could always be better, and I fall into the trap of comparing my writing to others.

I also feel like my lack of confidence is very apparent and worry that it annoys others or makes for a self fulfilling prophecy.

Ahh pls always take my writing advice with a block of salt! 😅 I'm by no means the most well-equipped writer out there, but I'm happy to share what I've learned.

I truly understand this feeling. It fluctuates for me, like, some days I feel like I'm a writing god, and then some days I feel like everything I touch turns to incomprehensible, structureless, stale, and poorly researched gibberish. Unfortunately, my confidence is largely at the mercy of a personality disorder. 😅 BUT! There are some habits and rules that I've set for myself that make it easier!

Your writing could always be better, and that's okay! You will frequently read back on something you wrote a year ago and wish you had written it differently. That's inevitable and normal. Most of the time, that's just a great indicator of progress that you've made in your writing skill. The important part to remember is that there is no perfect way to write, so cut yourself some slack and just write what you enjoy at the time. Yeah, endeavor to do your best and present a product that you're happy with, but don't ever expect it to be flawless. Embrace imperfection and keep going. It's the only way to practice and get better.

Everyone writes differently, and that's good too! It can be hard to see your own writing as good enough after you read the kind of content that makes you think, "That. That's how I want to write." There are works that have me screaming into my hands and wanting to hold myself to a higher standard, but I can't afford to let that paralyze me and keep me from writing to the best of my ability. The best I can do is take a deep breath, come to terms with the tragic fact that I will never have written Boomchick's No Water Is Enough, and take notes on what I liked about their writing and how I can learn from it. Don't do content that you admire the disservice of letting it make you feel bad about yourself. That's not why its author wrote it.

Do not show weakness. I definitely don't always follow my own advice here, but it's just like in art school: don't point out the flaws in your work to your audience, or it will be all they can see. Resist the urge to type out anything self-deprecating in the author's notes. If you start, hit that backspace key. You can trick yourself into thinking you were more confident when posting it, too.

If you feel like your writing doesn't come across as confident within the work itself—why? Are you pulling punches with narrative decisions to avoid confrontation? Are you leaning into patterns that you've already seen written because you're hesitant to branch out? Find out where and why you're doing it and rework it! Take risks! Ride the adrenaline! Be free!!

Periodically reread your own stuff and take note of what you like about it. Don't just nitpick at it; consciously and deliberately point out to yourself the things you think you did well. It doesn't have to be perfect or the best! Also take note of the things you had the most fun with. What lines of dialogue made you happy to write? What event made you happy to see executed? Example: I'm proud of how I handle characterizations and dialogue, and I have the most fun when there are big turns in events!

Along with that, pick a technical weakness you want to work on. Don't beat yourself up about not being the best in that area; instead, keep it in mind and put a little more effort into that when you write. Again, it's okay if it's not perfect. Don't agonize or let it get you stuck, but gently acknowledge that you want to get better at that specific thing. Shoring up your weak spots will make you feel more confident about the work as a whole, and it's reassuring to feel like you're strengthening your skills. Example: I feel like my weakness is scenery/environment, so I stop and try to add a little more detail about that in each scene that needs it (otherwise I will just breeze right over it and only write dialogue lol). It helps me feel like I'm taking control of my weak spots and improves the scene from the bottom up.

Above all, WRITE FOR YOURSELF. You won't make everyone else in the world happy, and you won't write anything you like if you don't write what you want to read. Be selfish when you write and just do what makes you happy! Dance like nobody's watching and all that.

I hope there was something helpful here for you! The best advice I can give is to be patient with yourself, keep practicing, and write what you're excited about. You've got this!! I believe in you!!

[the---hermit]

hello cris! i would love to ask as someone who is currently learning a language (i'm currently trying to learn italian again for the nth time) what are your favorite techniques when it comes to learning a language? i've been trying to study italian for two years now but i always end up giving up immediately 😭🫶🏻

Hello anon!

Firstly I had a vague memory of talking about this before and I checked my masterlist so in case you want to read more here is another similar ask I answered to a while back and here an ask in which I meanioned a few italian fiction books for people who are learning. I'll be honest I did not reread those and I don't remember what I wrote lmao. But you have some more reading to do after this just in case!

At the moment the main language I am very slowly trying to learn is Irish. But I will be honest it's more a free time hobby than actual studying. In the sense that I don't have a schedule for it and I have ups and downs in which I am able to focus a bit more, and times like the past few months in which my energy is nowhere to be found so I do very little progress. The main way I am dping this is with duolingo, which I feel is a great way to start and to keep a tiny bit of practice in your everyday life which is fundamental. Of course if you want to have more progress I would suggest coming up with a more structured study plan and schedule, but I'll talk about it in a bit. The other thing I am implementing is a grammar book that of course is what requires more mental energy. My technique with that is, as everything I study, to read it, underline important things and write my own set of notes. That is because I know it is my main way of learning in general.

And with this we come to a important point, before getting into learning anything try to figure out what are the ways you learn things best. Everyone's brain works differently, I personally have awful memory and my brain works way better using logic (which is why the way duolingo is structured works wonders for me, because it forces me to learn grammar rules with logic and it repeats vocabulary so much that even I end up memorizing it). Writing notes down, even several times, is my go to way of learning in general so of course I focus a lot on that. Clearly with learning a language you also need to implement a lot of practice, which is way I recommend trying out a well made plan. This doesn't mean create insane goals that will make you feel overwhelmed. Instead create a low effort plan in which you regularly do a bit of everything:

Learn vocab and practice it

Learn new grammar rule and practice them

Work on booktext esercises

Active learning with a book

Active learning with a video

These are just some ideas. When I self studied english what really made me learn the language was active learning by immersing myself with the language. That forces you to learn. Watch youtube videos in italian (I am pretty sure there's some people who make specific videos for language learnera in which they speak slowly and focus on certain vocab, so I highly recommend those, but when you feel more comfortable with the language go for pure entertainment, that will have you learn actual spoken Italian which is of course different from textbooks). Approach the language with written texts with either children's books or those novels simplified for language learning (those are great because you often get exercises to practice how much you understood of the story).

I know I have probably mentioned it before, but the first way I got into self studying English when I was younger was by writing down lyrics to my favourite album. I think I have it lying around still, a notebook filled with the lyrics to all the songs from Imaginaerum by Nightwish next to the translations. Listening to music in your target language is such a good trick imo. Take my brother, the guy does not speak one word on English but he knows by heart all the lyrics to Iron Maiden songs all.of.them. he never really had to practice English but if he had to I would suggest he started there. The more you get your target language into your daily life the better it is, and I don't mean just learning from books. Force yourself to describe the room you are in in your target language, write about your days in a diary and do that in your target language. When you are waiting in line list all the words that come up to you in your target language. It's hard at first, of course it is, but with time it gets easier and easier. The final goal is to be able to think in your target language, even if the grammar isn't perfect and it takes a long time to remember the correct words.

Think of yourself as a young child. They are learning languages like you, starting from zero, so focus on things that are for them, books and movies. You cannot expect to learn a language like a native speaker of your age right away, they have years of experience speaking it. If you instead think of yourself as a kid you will approach things that are at your current level, and after you can move on from there.

I think the goal is to make a plan and to fit even the tiniest bit of language learning into your everyday life. The progress might be slow but you are training your brain anyway. When you see something isn't working change it up, give yourself reachable goals, and keep it fun.

I hope this was somewhat helpful! If you have any other questioms my inbox is always open. Buona fortuna!

[pocket-lin]

9 and 10 for the fandom asks!

hi!! thank you!! I apologize if the formatting is weird for this, I wrote half of it on my phone notes app the the rest on the Tumblr site and also I just generally don't know how to do things hahah

(i'm focussing on the sandman cuz I think that’s the biggest fandom we share!!)

9. a ship that isn't your OTP but that you enjoy

so dreamling is my ultimate sandman ship, BUT. two other ones I love are:

dream/hob/corinthian aka hobrintheus. everyone go read @softest-punk’s fic self-abandon, and the confounding effects thereof !! hob humanizing the corinthian (calling him cori), the corinthian being so genuinely in love with hob, dream being being so very dream about the situation… pure excellence. I have a handful of other fics I can rec for this ship, too!!

dream/hob/daniel. this is 10000000% @moorishflower’s fault because their Beautiful, Strange and New series is fucking unparalleled  (tbh everything they write is like a drug to me). the main fic was so incredibly fun to read while it was a wip!!! especially when the story gets to that part (ifkyk). 

10. a blog (mutual or one you follow) that has made your fandom experience brighter

okay this question is so hard to answer because I’ve only got back into any fandom in 2022 (long and kinda sad story) and I haven’t quite gotten up the gumption to talk to many people outside of commenting on fics. so!! I’m just gonna shoutout some more fics I love from the people I talked about in the other answer!

here’s a few more @softest-punk fics that I recommend, especially if you like alternate universes, a hopelessly-in-love hob, and support the Trans Agenda:

Catching Up - human/no powers au with alternating pov. all that post-fishbowl trauma goodness with an incredibly sweet hob who just wants to take care of his dear friend (who he is also hopelessly in love with but that's nbd)

Falling - another human/no powers au! strangers to friends to lovers story with extremely hot sex. i'm remembering how much I love this one and I'm about to go reread it!!

Half sleep, half waking- this is one of their most recents fics and it's a rivers of london crossover!! 1989 fishbowl rescue au (alternating hob and nightingale pov) where hob enlists the help of his friend (and ex-lover) dci nightingale to figure out why his oldest friend (who he is hopelessly in love with) missed their centennial meeting. I love hob's whole "thing" in this one–I have a personal head canon that he would absolutely have all kinds of rizz with the potentially less than human and/or immortal components of the world.

here's some more @moorishflower fics I recommend, especially if you like alternate universes, delicious angst, and extremely well thought out world-building! I don't know the best way to word this (fiction writing isn't my strong suit), but the way that this author describes things makes me go insane. they know exactly how to describe how things taste/smell/feel and it just completely transports me into the story.

iron, glass, bones, blood - monster4monster, love but the kind of love where you want to pin them to a board like a butterfly and find out what their blood looks like under a microscope, kink as a way to reclaim trauma... I literally cannot tell you how many times I've read this fic. it feels like it was pulled from the very depths of my subconscious.

On sexual dimorphism in C. urophasianus - (if you know me irl, no you don't) very lighthearted, non-traditional a/b/o, omegas are very empowered. they've only been together one week and it's still very new between them and now dream has to "court" hob because of his instincts going all crazy. very, very sweet!!

17th Century Knife Restoration - this fic made me cryyyyyy. hob watching a restoration video on YouTube and uh oh its his knife and uh oh now he has many feelings. to be loved is to be known, and also to be changed 💜

also their Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs series' most recent fic, Basic Needs, is currently posting and is making ME have many feelings!! check this one out if you want mutual pining of the most desperate nature, down and out dream and caretaker hob (oh and hob has a gigantic dick and dream is obsessed with it)

[heartfeltletters-written]

20 questions for writers tag game!

tagged by @widebrimmedhatsblog (thank you so much!!)

Total number of AO3 works

Six 

Total AO3 word count

150,968

Fandoms I’ve written in

Empyrean, Harry Potter and One direction

Top 5 fics by kudos

we never knew peace; here at your doorway; the ghost scar; when the flames burned green the dragons danced; between me and louis (this fic is a fever dream I do not remember it lmao)

Do I respond to comments? 

I always do !! or at least i try my best. I absolutely love receiving comments it's my motivation to keep sharing my writing tbh the least I can do is answer my readers !! i reread the comments an obscene amount of times so yeah I always answer

What has the angstiest ending? 

when the flames burned green the dragons danced. i mean it is inspired by blood & cheese of hotd so obviously its very very angsty and sad and just tragic.

What has the happiest ending? 

idk about happy fics, since i haven't finished my big fics but maybe here at your doorway has the happiest ending.

Have I received hate? 

Yes both in HP fandom and in the Empyrean (although I have to say this fandom is much more chill) and it's awful lmao. stopped me from writing for a few months and it was just so ??? because it's always hate about how I handle my characters and my plot and just ... omg go write your own fic then ?? But yeah if you have nothing nice to say then don't say it

Do I write smut? And what kind? 

I have written smut but most of it isn't published lmao. I write all kinds of smut like idk what u mean by that lmao. kinky, soft like idk

Do I write crossovers? 

I haven't written any !!

Have I ever had a fic stolen? 

Nope! and thank god for that

Have I ever had a fic translated?

Nope! My fics are not worthy of a translation lmao

Have I ever co written a fic? 

Yes I have !! but tbh we were both on the verge of sleep when we did it it was like 3am and I remember almost nothing of the process except it was so much fun. 

What is my all time favorite ship? 

According to Ao3 its Daemyra and Riorgail but i will always have a very special place in my heart for both hinny and jily. like those are my first loves fr and what got me into fanfiction

A WIP I’ll never finish?

I have a few thousand words of a riorgail canon divergence au where violet figures out venin are real after reading the note from her dad and confronts xaden about it. i started writing it before iron flame came out but at this point I don't think I'll ever finish it lmao.

Writing strengths? 

I get a lot of comments saying I write trauma responses really well (what does that say about me lmao) and also characterizations which is baffling bc I've always thought that was one of my weaknesses so I'm really happy.

Writing weaknesses?

I really struggle with writing dialogue i overthink it too much sometimes trying really hard to not sound cringy, Sally Rooney has helped a lot with that btw !! and I would also say I sometimes forget what I wrote in previous chapters so it can be hard to follow along some plots I introduced. I think I have the same problem as GRRM I want to create so many storylines and lore that I sometimes lose myself and idk what to do with so much information but oh well

Do I like foreign language dialogue? 

I do! Especially when i speak the language the character is speaking lmao. but one thing that annoys me is pronunciations, like for example hangrid and fleur like omg just write it in English or make her speak french !! but other than that I do love it. i don't think I'll ever write it tho

First fandom I wrote for? 

One direction (i was 15 guys and deep into the larry lore)

Favorite fic I’ve written? 

We never knew peace definitely. That's my baby, i work so hard on it and I think it's coming together much better than I expected. My writing has improved a lot and I think that fic is the prime example of that. I also really like what I've done with both violet and xaden in there.

I'd like to tag: @creative-girl; (and i feel like every other writer i know has done this already so yeah if u haven't feel free to)

[sevens-evan]

Would love your director's commentary on the Ruby and Blake locker scene in Twilight AU -- particularly why you wanted to use Ruby to triangulate the bees in that moment, the ways Ruby maybe fails her intended mission but doesn't push, and how Blake's psyche filters all of that.

this is more or less a deep cut for me since i forget literally everything the second i post it SDLKJHG but i dug out the outlines and reread the scene and i will do my best. actually here is the paragraph of my outlines pertaining to that scene:

scene where ruby tells blake to be kind to yang. happens in the hall at school, by blake’s locker. blake asks if ruby is going to threaten her, and ruby is of course like no absolutely not. i don’t want to do that, yang wouldn’t want me to do that, and i wouldn’t hurt you anyway as you well know. blake does know. ruby just says that yang is lonely. she has been lonely for a very long time. she was before they were turned, she has been since she transitioned. part of it is the nature of their existence, and part of it is just who yang is. but she’s been better lately, since blake showed up, and ruby would just…like her to keep getting better. ruby says she knows that’s a lot to put on blake, and of course blake isn’t Responsible for it all. ruby just mostly wanted to say that she really likes having blake around, and she knows yang likes it more than she’ll admit—at least to ruby—and she figured blake should know.

so here there is obviously some stuff that did not make it explicitly into the scene but informed my writing of it. "ruby tells blake to be kind to yang" is not dialogue that actually occurs in the fic, but is very much ruby's intention in the conversation—to make sure blake understands the gravity of yang's feelings for her and basically just ask her to be gentle. ruby is the one having this conversation because yang is not in a place in this fic at this point to ask for what she needs herself.

and i just wanted to have a scene stressing the importance of ruby and yang's relationship, and since this fic was pretty tightly planned, and because it felt like true twilight fashion, it made sense to have that scene be bees related in some fashion. since ruby was basically the only person yang had for fifty years, i liked the idea of ruby trying to take care of yang in this arena.

in terms of why ruby leaves things confused, with blake thinking that she has been handed responsibility of yang's happiness in its entirety, behind the scenes it's because ruby doesn't fully understand the significance of yang's eyes. she also doesn't fully understand that, to blake, Everything In The Universe Is Blake's Fault Forever, and that blake is therefore going to spiral about this later.

some of the dialogue mentioned in the outline got assigned to blake instead of ruby in the final draft; that happens all the time because my outlines are usually more melodramatic and about getting the Feeling of the dialogue across than anything. figuring out what actually flows in a scene happens later.

another interesting note is that i open the outline with the setting, which is Not typical of me but is maybe typical of this fic? since it's based on the first twilight movie, which, for whatever else you might say about it, has a very strong sense of place with the trees and the rain and the green-blue coloring. i wrote this fic in general with a lot more attention to that sort of thing than i usually do (as you may notice that all of milf blake au occurs in murkily described apartments and nondescript parks and whatnot). unrelated to your line of questions but i think it's neat.

i honestly don't remember too much else (and some of this is me speculating on past me's intentions) but i hope this was interesting! twilight au my beloved i miss milf vampire raven every day

[f-oighear]

For the ask game, how about 16 for Where The Heart Is, 17 for I'll Follow, 22, 25 and 26, 30 for the SAU ✨

Heyyy! Thanks for the ask! All about the Soulmate AU, huh... Obviously, spoilers for the entire AU under the cut. Also, it'll be a long post. I'm rambling quite a bit.

WTHI- 16. Talk about the fic’s biggest moment & how you came up with it It has to be the confession... That's the scene I wrote and rewrote the most in WTHI. I came up with it quite early in the AU iirc. I had it almost from the beginning— you can tell from the title drop and the callback to the first chapter...

I knew what I wanted Nozel to say, but I didn't want it to be perfect. So they had an absolutely awful date before to counterbalance everything fhdkkhfds. Also, I think that... had they had a good date, he probably wouldn't have said anything. I think that the fact that they got stuck in the rain and the date went horribly made Nozel think he had nothing to lose anymore. The birb was far too anxious to do anything right— he needed to lose some of that pressure. (I mean. Imagine you have one person. only one. you can truly connect to. andyou have a Nozel mentality which is if I fail once the world will end. ofc you'd be beyond stressed). So, I needed this extra element as a push for him to make a move. As we know, that worked splendidly!

What else can I say about the confession... It was first written in Nozel's point of view (which is why there's a sudden shift in the pov at the belvedere), but then I thought. We already know what's inside the birb's head. We don't need to know more. And so, I wanted to have Vanessa's reaction to it.

IFW- 17. Talk about the fic’s ending. Why did you end it where you did? I suddenly can't remember how I'll Follow ends. Sorry. Okay. Reread the last chapter and how could I forget! I love that scene!

I'll Follow is probably the gloomiest part. There are very few happy moments and even the happy moments we get are tainted and most of them are more... bittersweet than anything. It's quite heavy (and god knows it was heavy to write...). So I wanted to end on a good, refreshing note... A party! I thought that New Year was the best moment to do so. (which is why the events at the end of I'll Follow are all crammed so tightly in so little time— I wanted that symbolism). Let's be honest, everyone involved in this Soulmate mess has just had the worst year hgjfhkjdg. It was time to start anew and let go of the past year's difficulties.

A small detail about the very last scene because it still makes me smile every time I read it. Nozel says that the bottle is half full. Not half empty. Half full. That means everything to me.

SAU- 22. What is something you learned about yourself as a writer from the experience? That I cannot be trusted when it comes to how I feel about my writing fjdjsld. There was a point when I was publishing chapters because I had to and I, uh, hated them haha. I had spent too much time editing and doubting. I probably should've taken a break back then but oh well.

So now, I try to yeet the fics in the wild even if I'm not 100% satisfied with them and remember how much fun I had when I was plotting and writing the first draft.

SAU- 25. Share your favorite line Favorite line in the entire AU? That's tough! I' happen to have been rereading've reread the beginning of Your World lately and I had completely forgotten this bit that made me laugh out loud, so here it is:

True, the night before had been, for Zora, the first time he ever celebrated Vanessa’s birthday [...], but he [...] had collected insights; these parties were ‘something’ (Finral’s word), ‘useless’ (Gauche’s word), ‘fun’ (Luck’s word), ‘a blur’ (Magna’s words), ‘never again’ (Noelle’s words), ‘embarrassing’ (Grey’s word, although Zora learned nothing from that intel) and ‘hell’ (Nero’s word, although she had participated as a bird so Zora wasn’t sure what that meant). So, Zora thought he knew what he was getting into (a mess). But it ended up worse than expected (the biggest mess). 

SAU- 26. Share your favorite detail Again: in the entire AU?? hjkfdkhjs. I wrote the last chapter a good while ago and I have Swiss Cheese Brain so that'll be challenging to think up a detail.

OH. I HAVE ONE.

Noelle fiddles with a bracelet at the end of They Don't Need To Know and the beginning of Stargazers. This is the bracelet Nebra gives her in Your World, the one that belonged to Acier. I'm pretty sure I've already said this somewhere— if I didn't straight up write it in the text— but that's a nice detail I remember...

SAU- 30. Would you ever return to the story’s universe and write more?

Well... Brittlest is still ongoing (I know— one chapter a year isn't a wonderful publication rate but it's still something!) and I'm technically still planning for the Yamichar part... Still, nothing's planned in the immediate future for this AU.

It was a fun AU to make though, and I hadn't planned writing a bad ending for the Nozessa part during Angstpril either, but it somehow happened sooooo who knows.

[myevilmouse]

I finished re-reading Dis Manibus for the hundredth time, and it’s still 100/100. You made me enjoy Luke as a character, and I think you really highlighted his compassion and gentleness, which not all stories do well. I also loved the Thryce, of course.

Two questions, if you don’t mind: 1) At the end, is Luke coming to like Pryce due to the residual influence of Thrawn, or does he genuinely like her as a person? Maybe a bit of both? 2) I vaguely remember a sequel being mentioned on your blog. Do you still intend to write one someday?

Thank you so much for this amazing note @mireilleblue! So happy to hear Dis Manibus holds up on the rereads!  And your words about Luke and Thryce just turn me into a puddle of happiness.

I do not mind questions at all (I love asks!) and in this case you gave me an excuse to talk about a fic that is a fave!  It was such an unexpected story that really wrote itself, and it was a real pleasure to get it on the digital “page.”

I am putting the answers to your questions below the cut because there be spoilers if anyone hasn’t read the fic! Anyone who would like to, please come back later and... 😊

So to your first question, the answer is definitely “a little bit of both.”  My idea was that Luke, being Luke, can see the good in everyone, including Pryce.  Early on, he believes she can be reformed and forgiven, even if she doesn’t see that as a real possibility.  He admires her resilience and skills, and because he is so compassionate, he tries not to judge her for the sins of her past (even though he does have initial reservations about it, he is able to trust in the Force enough to let them go).

But when he wakes up after hosting Thrawn, there is most definitely some spiritual residue coloring his perception, as you know.  Our first hint is this line:

“Something twinged inside him, an immediate sense of concern. Luke wasn’t quite sure where it came from.”

And then it continues to manifest in subtle ways, from being warmed by her compliments, his reaction to her touch, the way he knows how she wants to argue as if they had done it “a thousand times”, etc. 

Luke has the presence of mind to recognize these traces of Thrawn, and while Pryce doesn’t understand it, she also obviously senses something isn’t quite right when he “sounds like” Thrawn.

Poor Luke, complicating his own life to help others (he’s good at that).  But as the ending indicates, he’s ultimately at peace with how things turned out.  However, my intention with the last line regarding Luke’s dreams.was to suggest that Thrawn’s psychic residue may be quite a bit stronger than expected.

Now…about that sequel...

I think at this point it’s fair to say I probably will write it. I went into a lot of detail about it in this old post below (another wonderful ask from @beebee-76) that you can read if you would like spoilers for what is to come.

If you don't want to spoil it, I'll give some more general thoughts:

The point of Dis Manibus was, as I mention in that above post, to get Luke and Pryce to hook up…that was my original and only intention, and well, you can see that didn’t work out (not that I am complaining!  I love when stories write themselves).  But I do feel like there is more to Luke & Pryce's story, especially now that we know a little bit of Thrawn’s influence and love has seeped into our handsome Jedi’s soul.

So the sequel would explore that.  When I came up with the concept for the sequel, fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus, I decided “well, if I just type it up for everyone on the Thryce Discord, then I won’t have any more desire to write it.”  Well hah, the joke is on me because this is one plot bunny that is not leaving my pasture, just hopping about, grazing, and reminded me occasionally that there is a rich and emotionally very complicated tale to be told. 

In the meantime, if you’d like more Dis Manibus content, I wrote a little drabble from the "someday sequel" here:

and the amazing @blackmonitor did some glorious fanart inspired by it here.

Thank you again so much for this wonderful ask and your kind words—it just makes my week to know you still love it! Readers like you are gifts. Please have this pic in gratitude!

[fearowkenya]

Winds of Change

Chapter 4: Stemming the Tide

It’s hard to hold onto hope when panic and fear take root and start to spread, climbing the notches of his spine and weaving back and forth between his ribs. But Ryo knows now, that hope and fear can both exist at once—he’s seen it for himself.

The group witnesses something that looks a lot like a miracle, but it's still not enough to chase away everybody's fears. Ryo and Shuuji each find themselves with separate demons to battle as they resist the pull of despair.

ao3 link in source, extended end-of-chapter author's note below!

editing this chapter took WAY longer than usual. I do two proofreads per chapter before i post, and if i edit more than a couple of sentences at any point, i start the entire proofread over. needless to say, i did a LOT of editing and rereading before finally making it to my posting checklist. ultimately though im pretty happy with it. mostly im just so glad to have finally posted the scene that was jokingly titled "labramon the egg wizard" so i could talk about how much I enjoy the title "labramon the egg wizard". jokes that are for me

anyway, "labramon the egg wizard" is one of the first parts of this fic that i wrote! there's a skeletal outline of the events in that section in my replay notes, though a lot about that scene has changed since then. it was always going to be labramon who was gonna help out though! why labramon..? … … well she's a dog , and it made me go 'heheh' to think of her doing pointer behaviors. no other reason (:

i know we get renamon egg in moral, but i don't actually remember much of what that looked like because it lasted like 2 seconds. thats absolutely NOT what i wanted for shuuji - i wanted it to be a scene that completely bodies him, where hes got this unexpected second chance hovering just beyond his reach, but he has to confront exactly what he's done in order to get it. i dont remember a lot of 02, but that one episode where ken goes looking for wormmons egg has this very specific vibe where its like, "here's some hope for you when youre at your lowest but never forget that you seriously fucked it up". it was brutal but beautiful and then i cried a bunch i think. idk it was a long time ago. maybe im completely misremembering that scene, who can say. thats how it lives in my memories tho

in any case, i definitely wanted it to be from ryo's perspective for the same reason that the aftermath of wendimon was from his pov. he's so much more observant than shuuji, who would not take notice of what the others are doing and saying while he's in the middle of getting pingponged between hope and gut-wrenching remorse.

the middle section, titled in the draft as "mcfreakin losin it", was a lot of fun too! the Plan(tm) at the beginning was something i edited in pretty late in proofreading. having an itemized list like that might feel more like a "shuuji thing" than a "ryo thing", but i think ryo's active effort to take responsibility and try to help kunemon with what hes stressed about would lend to him trying to come up with something a little more concrete. unfortunately for ryo, he has no backup plan for when the first one is turned upside down, and we all know what happens when something catches him off guard lmao. it was actually really interesting to write ryo in a position where he's witnessing more or less what he himself is like when he shuts down. being the one who has to snap shuuji out of this state has ryo realizing that this is what takuma and kunemon have to deal with when he's the one freaking out. i think that's kinda fun.

the last section has what feels to me like the most editing. it really wasn't a section that i spent a lot of time fiddling with until now because the bulk of it was quoting or paraphrasing existing dialogue from the start of part 6 for context, then diverging into what that scene looks like in a world where lopmon isn't around to be unable to explain what happened. like i said on ao3, as i was reading over the canon dialogue in truthful for reference, i realized i really just…didn't like it much. the argument escalates and de-escalates several times but never to a degree that feels all that extreme, and ends up feeling like it's just dragging out for no reason. people make their points at times that feel WEIRD, particularly ryo. lemme see if i can explain this.

so ryo doesnt say this til the latter half of this argument, and i HATED THAT because it's like… after everything he's been through with kunemon, it doesn't feel right that he's having those doubts. but i thought about it and i actually think it makes sense for him to have a momentary lapse where he slips back into old habits - letting fear take over and pushing away anything and anyone that has even the slightest chance of hurting him. he spent a LOT of time in that mindset, and even though he's working on reversing it, it's not gonna happen in a day. that said… the placement of ryo's doubts in the canon dialogue still feels super weird. i think it makes a lot more sense for him to panic at the very beginning of this argument, and then calm down as he remembers how solid his bond with kunemon is before sticking up for the digimon a little more aggressively. it just feels so passive in-canon when i think he would have taken a much more active role in defending falcomon and the others once 1) he remembers the context surrounding what happened in the waterway, and 2) he's reminded of how kunemon has helped him change.

i know some of the weird pacing of this dialogue is because the player needs to have input at some point, but i think takuma could've been much more powerless during this argument - the game has no problem taking away agency, since saving ryo is the only thing that will save shuuji, no matter what the player does. maybe im nitpicking, idk.

regardless, minoru's dialogue makes the most sense, but i still think it could have been condensed into a much sharper and more sudden escalation. it keeps being like "(minoru voice) IM MAD IM MAD" "(takuma voice) chill" "(minoru voice) oops sorry. … … … IM MAD IM MAD IM MAD" "(takuma voice) calm down" "(minoru voice) oops. … … … IM MAD IM MAD" etc etc etc. it just made the argument feel weak and drawn-out instead of intense and explosive.

i did keep some of it though! i thought that minoru's paranoia and sudden fear of trusting his partner was pretty compelling, which is why i kept those doubts in and quoted the lines about him wanting falcomon to prove his loyalty.

i chose those lines specifically because they say a LOT about minoru once you connect this argument with what i think is the root of his insecurities - his parents' divorce.

it's funny because as far as im aware, The Divorce doesn't even come up unless you choose an INCORRECT ANSWER in an OPTIONAL affinity event with minoru. im not 100% sure thats the only mention though! im currently at pt8 of my replay where the goal is to see every bit of truthful route dialogue possible. if it comes up in other routes, i managed to miss it lmao. anyway, because of that, for the longest time i thought The Divorce was just a popular headcanon, and didn't actually see that dialogue until recently. but as soon as i did i started looking at the stuff he does and says through the lens of somebody who was affected extremely poorly by his parents divorce, and it contextualized A LOT for me. suddenly the way he reacts in pt 6 makes so much sense, because imo falcomon turning around and killing him isn't his only concern: he's also terrified that he was vulnerable in front of someone who doesn't actually care.

pre-game minoru lacks a support system, and is afraid to rely on a new one. im not going to go on about it for too long because we'd be here all day, but im pretty sure that his parents divorce was MESSY, and he witnessed all of it. that same event where he mentions to takuma that his parents are divorced is also when he says that he doesn't think his mom has noticed that he's missing, even though at this point the kids believe that they've been gone for several days. he doesn't see his mother as support because she's too busy working, and since he doesn't even know where his father currently lives, clearly he doesnt get much if any support from his dad. the difficulty minoru has in shedding the goofy exterior and being genuine and vulnerable in front of people makes me think that he never found a support system to replace the one that he watched crumble in realtime when his parents split.

prior to part 6, we can assume that minoru started to see falcomon as someone that he could allow to see his insecurities. i also believe that minoru understood that shuuji and lopmon's relationship was supposed to look a lot like his and falcomon's, or like anybody else and their partner's. minoru could see lopmon trying to be supportive, so the dysfunction only seemed like it was on shuuji's end. so when lopmon flies off the handle and tries to murder shuuji, one of the things that minoru gets from it is that, no, actually, the trust and support that the digimon have for their partners is NOT unconditional. i think that watching this happen looks exactly like how it felt when the support system he'd had in his parents completely fell apart, except the lopmon situation comes with a fun extra "I'm going to kill you" sort of vibe that tells minoru that his relationship with falcomon is just not safe.

or worse, maybe that support system was never real in the first place. what if there was something darker beneath the surface that he just couldn't see?

anyway.

now, as dracmon says, all we gotta do is hurry up and wait. well. you do. i dont, im gonna be editing chapter 5 til the cows come home. im getting the distinct impression that it's gonna require even more reworking than this chapter did.

but that's neither here nor there - id love to hear your Gamer Theories about what im cooking up. there are a few things that are still going unaddressed after four chapters, and i wonder how much of it can be puzzled out based on what i've said so far. obviously im not able to see the story from a reader's perspective, so im not really able to gauge if the stuff that's being foreshadowed or otherwise implied is starting to become clearer. so please consider leaving a comment with what you think, or your favorite part or anything else that stood out to you! I'd much appreciate it. thank you for reading, and see you… mm… nnnnext…week…? ideally.

[okaylikeschaewon]

you say you hate your twice book 1, but i regard it as one of my favourite collections and one i keep going back to. I appreciate the continuity, relationship between oc and chars, balance between smut and story, and general writing style. which applies to all your other books as well. just came to say this. keep it up!

I appreciate that a lot! I've had a couple people with the inform me of similar sentiments. I'm truly not trying to fish for compliments when I say I find Book 1 impossible to read now, it's just that I think most writers might be able to empathize with this feeling of finding their earlier writing "cringe" or "painful" to return to and reread.

To be very clear, I don't "hate" everything about it. I still like the actual story (to a degree), I still like how I wrote the members (to a degree), it's mostly the way I attempted to articulate what I had in my head. Stuff like dialog being extremely crass or uncharacteristic or unnatural.

I could make a huge list of everything that I find painful from my first few chapters, but at the same time I understand that it was literally my first attempt at writing and that I went in with zero expectations. Seeing the growth as a writer since then is always a nice feeling.

I haven't really talked about how I started (I think), but I still remember laying in my bed and saying screw it let's write and see what happens. I ended up writing 8 chapters of that first story in 1 week. If you find the story on AFF, you can go through the Author Notes I left after each chapter (I don't think I included them in the Tumblr version).

I have a lot of extremely fond memories writing this story over the last year or so, and I still love Twice as a group. Did I go through a bit of a low phase with Twice recently? Sorta. There are other things that also played a part regarding why I stopped writing about them.

ANYWAY, I'm rambling. Yes, my writing pace is going to be a lot slower now because of life reasons, but I'll give a tiny little teaser. I'm working on the Twice story again, so if anyone is here for that - it's coming soon(ish)!