#i got weird and emotional doing this

[allwaswell16]

2022 Writing Self-Evaluation

I was tagged by: @boosbabycakes28 @chai-hat-tea @lunarheslwt @larrieblr @wabadabadaba @disgruntledkittenface @onlythebravest @starsweredible @thedevilinmybrain

1. Number of stories posted to AO3 this year: 7

2. Total word count posted to AO3 for the year: 100, 852

3. List of works published this year: these are in order by date posted

Ace of Spades

But We Could Be So Good

Should Have Known

Walk of Shame

Next Door 

St. Elena 

This Beautiful Fantastic 

4. Work you are most proud of (and why): Probably Ace of Spades. It's a fic I've been thinking about for years, probably since I started writing fics. It was the first time for me writing a true adaptation, and it was a subject matter...pirates...that I hadn't ever written before either. It was quite interesting adapting something like this. In the past I've adapted things but made them into something modern, whereas in this one I made the story a/b/o and changed the point of view. lol is that actually different than what I've done before? I don't know, I'm tired.

5. Work you are least proud of (and why): I wouldn't say I'm not proud of any of them. I'd say I mostly just wish I'd been able to write more.

6. A favorite excerpt of your writing: from Ace of Spades

“Louis?” he asked, frightened at the sound. The room seemed to vibrate with it.

Louis smiled down at him. “Don’t worry, love. Just whales. You can hear them talk to each other on nights like this. They sound a bit sad at first, but the more you listen to them the less melancholy they sound. When I hear them now, their voices sound as charming as a songbird. Would you like something to drink?”

Harry nodded, so Louis held him up, supporting him in his arms as he helped him sip a cup of water. When he was done, Harry had no desire to be released from Louis’ strength. “Could we sit by the window? I want to hear the whales more clearly.”

Without speaking, Louis picked him up and carefully brought him to the window bench. Harry kept his hands clutched to Louis’ shirt, staring into the chest and soft hair he found there. Louis seemed to know what he desired and opened his shirt further so that Harry could press his cheek against the skin there. 

“I wonder what whales talk about,” Harry said against Louis’ chest.

“Mm? Well, I suppose they’ve heard you’re ill.” A loud moan called from the sea. “Ah, now they’re saying how terribly sorry they are to hear of your sickness. They’ve decided to send one of them to fetch cool breezes from the Arctic to keep you comfortable.”

Harry smiled against Louis’ skin. Another whale moaned an answering call.

“Now they’ve saying that when you’ve recovered, you’re welcome to go whale back riding.”

With a snort, Harry curled into Louis’ body further. They were quiet for a time, simply listening to the whales in the night.

7. Share or describe a favorite comment you received: This is part of a comment that I loved..."i wish i could erase all memory i have of this fic just so that i can read it again with fresh eyes again and again. i will definitely reread this one"

8. A time when writing was really, really hard: All the time? lol. That's not entirely true, but I just didn't find myself with a lot of time to write. Or maybe the emotional capacity to write. It's been a hard year.

9. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: I wrote a lot of Zayn this year, including some Zayn pov, which was new for me, and I really enjoyed writing the Zayn characters more than I ever have.

10. How did you grow as a writer this year: I noticed something surprising happening this year, which is that I became someone who can write thousands of words at a time. That used to be something that rarely happened for me. I would be good about writing almost every day, but not writing a lot in one sitting. I'm not entirely sure how this has happened, but I'm not mad about it lol.

11. How do you hope to grow next year: I always want to find something new to write and work on, so I'm definitely have some new things planned for that Chicago fic for sure...kid fic, mpreg. New territories for me right there. Also, I want to work more on how I write details in my writing. I feel like I've improved a lot, but I have more there to work on.

12. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): I feel emotional thinking about everyone who has helped me this year. Always always always @taggiecb, my writing soulmate, read everything I wrote (even though she's never even read or seen Harry Potter and had to google things to understand my Drarry fics) and gave me the motivation and desire to keep writing. @louandhazaf for being such an amazing beta and polishing everything up and always being willing to jump in with whatever genre I've decided on next. @lululawrence is always there for me to kick my ass when I need it and also keeps me from doing stupid things lol. @nouies for being so kind and supportive and generous with her cheerleading and art. My Drarry fics would not have existed without @haztobegood and @fallinglikethis dragging me through them when I felt like giving up. I feel like I could go cry now.

13. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: not really. I think I subconsciously stayed far away from my real life. lol.

14. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: When I talk about the things I want to work on in my writing, it's because I've read it elsewhere. The more I analytically read, the more I find things to work on with my own writing.

15. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: I'm signed up to write a fic based on Chicago for the @faithinthefutureficfest which I'm really excited about! And I'm going to run the @louisrarepairfest again in 2023 with the same schedule, so I'll definitely write something for that, too.

16. Tag 3 writers whose answers you’d like to read.

I'm going to tag more than 3... everyone I've tagged in the post for other reasons + @kingsofeverything @thinlinez @homosociallyyours @louistomlionson @jacaranda-bloom @pocketsunshineharry @phd-mama @evilovesyou @parmahamlarrie and anyone who wants to do this!

--Went looking for @juliusschmidt's original form and realized how much it's changed over the years! So I just picked one and went with it--

Past years: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 , 2021

[welcometogrouchland]

ANOTHER SKETCH DUMP! Featuring more of me playing with lineless art. Batman reborn era trio (dick, damian and steph) I miss you...when will you return from war. Also featuring Steph designs bc I've seen ppl dissatisfied w/ her current look, some good mom Talia, and Jason Todd poetry club. Duke is confused not that Jason would start a poetry club but that he'd have such mid poetry opinions. (ID in Alt)

[dreamsy990]

you know i used to think it was weird how sora and roxas have such different personalities for supposedly being 'the same person' but after playing a few games i sort of realized that they do have similar personalities, because roxas acts how sora does when he's under extreme stress.

compare roxas to sora in, say, kh1. that's where a lot of peoples idea of sora's personality comes from. sora is generally very upbeat and optimistic in that game. not very similar to roxas, right?

but let's switch the game and talk about a game where sora is ABSOLUTELY GOING THROUGH IT. chain of memories.

sora's resting state is melancholy in com. he only ever cheers up in short bursts, usually when he's joking around with friends. just like roxas.

he's quick to anger, and tends to lash out at the organization members. best example of this is when larxene makes him 'remember' namine, and he swings at her repeatedly, even after she's gone. he only stops when jiminy is able to snap him out of it.

you know what scene that resembles?

sora, while a bit more on the angry side and less sad, continues to act like this in kh2 when he's in stressful situations. (he also has a tendancy to insult people which, while it's not very related to the point, is very funny and sora saying 'gonna cry?' to xigbar is great.) i cant comment any further than that about kh2 off the top of my head.

so, roxas acts like sora does when he's stressed, right? but why is roxas always acting like that? to which i say, he isnt!

he only ever acts like that when he's also in fucked up and stressful situations, which happens to be a CONSTANT in his life. but when he's hanging out with axel and xion, a decidedly NOT stressful situation, he's a lot more like sora. he's teasing his friends and insulting his coworkers and joking around and acting like a normal kid. not really important, but unless i misremembered some sora lines which is VERY possible, both roxas and sora respond to friendly insults with "oh thanks!" a lot. just a funny little detail that felt relevant.

the biggest differences between roxas and sora boil down to environment and... i dont know how to put it besides volume? roxas is very quiet and tends to keep most of his thoughts to himself, while sora is very loud and expressive in comparison.

there is one other huge difference i noticed, which is less character based and more story. sora wanted to get off destiny islands and explore with his friends, but roxas just wanted routine. sora wants adventure, and roxas wants things to stay the same, for days where he gets off work and eats ice cream with his friends to last forever, to keep having conversations about nothing and watching the sunset. roxas wants normalcy, sora wants excitement. it's just interesting seeing their contrast.

not sure if this is very well said or anything i just wanted to talk about my boys

[royalarchivist]

Jaiden: Cucurucho, you have a lot of power, right?

Cucurucho: ...I don't know. Maybe.

Roier: Ah... Yes, you know, don't act like a dumbass, you have it. You have it, man. Eh?

Jaiden: Is there a way for us to protect all the Eggs? Do you know? I don't want anything to happen to the Eggs that happened to Bobby.

Cucurucho: Ha ha ha

Roier: WHAT? [Smacks Cucurucho]

Jaiden: [Bops him] Headpats.

Cucurucho: Maybe.

Jaiden: [Continues to bop him] Headpats. C'mon, I can get it out of you! Headpats! Chin scratches! Belly rubs!

Roier: [Joins Jaiden in bopping Cucurucho, chuckling and laughs]

Jaiden: Yeah? He's comin' around!

[Jaiden and Roier both laugh]

[zxal]

[collophora]

haha I'll never finish this

but hewwo new followers <3

[vaggieslefteye]

CHARLIE MAGNE from HAZBIN HOTEL (2019): Pilot - "That's Entertainment" ↳ "So, I've been thinking: Isn't there a more humane way to hinder overpopulation here in Hell? Perhaps we can create an alternative way to change souls through... redemption?"

[silverwhittlingknife]

hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

[quietwingsinthesky]

i really do think the desire to paint ten as unambiguously The Worst™️ when it comes to his relationship with martha is out of this desire to uncomplicate their relationship. to decouple them as friends and people who profoundly impacted each other’s lives. it’s just an easier narrative to swallow: that ten was Awful to her and then martha kicked him to the curb when she realized she was too good for him. easier, maybe, then dealing with the troubles of unrequited affection don’t have to be anyone’s fault, or that ten shut martha out in a lot of ways but let her in in others that he wouldn’t let any other companion near, or that they were still friends, they still wanted to see each other and be around each other, even though it was messy and sometimes hurt. you know?

[ganondoodle]

i often really do feel like an .. unwanted part of the fandom, i dont draw beautiful landscapes, i have unpopular but strong opinions im constantly annoying about and rarely change, dont like/dont draw the pretty young popular twinks and hot gurls to fanboi over nor do i turn characters into one, the opposite moreso, draw only one ship no ones heard of really, got little energy to interact with the few people that are nice to me and send me asks so it probably looks like im ignoring everyone and unfortunately but still rarely get so stressed i get overwhelmed and emotional about pehaps seemingly minor things and spiral almost into a breakdown feeling super embarrassed about it afterwards but the damage is already done and i look like a freak or agressive weirdo

[silli-illi]

Oh ls!wemmbu...

There was this one part in wemmbu's orbital cannon video where he went afk and squiddo was talking to 4C about disliking working with wemmbu and for the longest time i thought he heard this conversation because you know he included it in the video but my friend told me today that he didnt and it was kinda for foreshadowing or something like that which i understand that it makes the story really interesting, knowing the downfall would come. But I thought wemmbu knew he just didnt say anything and i felt so bad for him. He was just waiting for the inevitable betrayal but he cant do anything cause there would be no one to go to, no one else to rely on. And when squiddo did betray him he just seemed so calm like he knew it was coming. But my friend told me he actually didnt hear it? And he is just calm like that which i guess is kinda true but i dont know. I viewed it as such a sad period for him which honestly without the conversation it's still sad but doesnt hit as hard. If he did overhear it, he knew his teammate was betraying yet didnt do anything, had so many problems and setbacks when building the cannon, and in the end didnt even get to do it, gets betrayed and banned but still doesnt succeed the second time, gets found and killed then i think he also got playerbanned(???? i could be wrong but i remember spoke said something about that once). 4C brought this up on stream once and i keep thinking about it. None of the other members knew his story other than 4C (and squiddo but she doesnt view it the way 4c does). Everyone hated him, only 4C felt bad and revived him, twice but he just killed himself again.

ls!wemmbu in during abyss arc was like so sad man. I'd still like to think he did hear that convo. Makes his story sadder hihi😈

[pa-pa-plasma]

you just made the scientific discovery of the century & you want to tell everyone & your kids are first on that list but you can't find them. you manage to get a hold of your daughter & she says everything is fine but her voice gets tight when you try to mention your work & she sucks in a breath & says she won't keep you from it any longer than she already has & doesn't say bye as she hangs up the phone. you have a sinking feeling in your gut & you really want to get back to what you were doing but. something's wrong. where are your kids. why was your daughter not surprised when you told her. why was she so quick to hang up on you. your husband has the same type of mind & that's probably why neither of you can ignore this odd turn of events & so you decide to track them down. the research can wait. after all, the spook got away somehow afterwards. it's not like you have anything to go through but data & recordings.

[frostbite-the-bat]

society if literally 80% of rw fandom and especially rw analysis youtubers (who are great, EXCEPT) stopped calling gourmand heckin' chonker chubby diabetic ginormous whatever and paid more mind to their whole character and not just the fact that they're fat

[sud-scribbles]

got some more randomized mlp expressions!!

[pmpwbrrs]

dark does NOT want to get its bag wet. beige helps to prevent that

im not sure if these two are capable of compassion tho. do not be fooled

also floewrs 💦💦🌷🌿🌷🌿🍃🌸🌿🪻🪻🌿🌼💦🌼

[fisherrprince]

oh so alisaie’s exaggerated bully behavior is 80% fanon. saying this she casually picks up a large rock