#ish... the timeline is weird tbh

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

Whumpay Day 15: self-hatred

late s3 (idk what the timeline is like tbh, but according to fandom wiki page on Holly, Pusher happened in November of 1995??) | tagging @today-in-fic and @whumpay2022, tysm! :D

Scully is alone in the office in late February, 1996, when there's a hesitant knock at the door. It's Saturday, she's already got plans for the weekend — she's meeting up with Mulder tonight to catch him up on the case she's been studying while he was out complainingly recovering from a sprained ankle, then dinner with her mother tomorrow, because it's her birthday and Maggie wanted to do something. She only came into the office to collect some of her things that she'd forgotten the evening before, then got distracted trying to organize the scattered papers across the desk.

(She would love to blame Mulder for that, but the fact is that she leaves things behind, often untidy, almost but not quite as much as he does. It's a gamble as to which of them will eventually tidy things, though, and to how they'll be organized.)

She looks up, surprised to see someone else down here on a weekend, with the beginnings of a reproach on her lips if Mulder has decided to come in when he'd been expressly told — ordered by Skinner, Scully, and another doctor who'd agreed with her — to stay out of the office at least until Monday. Instead, Scully is surprised to see another agent she recognizes standing in the doorway and looking like she was about to head home.

Holly Patton is willowy and dark-haired and gentle, and her unassuming nature and soft face would make her a good undercover agent if she weren't just as soft-spoken. Instead, she excels at the work she does in the Computer Records office. Scully has spoken with her a few times at mixers, or when relevant to a case; she interviewed the slightly younger woman when she was a victim of Robert Modell back in November. Now, prim skirt suit covered by a grey wool coat and a bag slung over her shoulder, Patton looks more casual than Scully has ever seen her, and distinctly out of place.

"Agent Patton," she says, surprised. "I didn't expect to see you here." She didn't expect to see much of anyone here, seeing as most people working today are tucked away in cubicles or haunting their bullpens.

Patton smiles and tentatively steps into the office. "You can call me Holly," she offers. "I'm not a field agent, after all."

"Alright." Scully smiles, ignoring her instinct to comment that field agents aren't any more important or respectable than those who spend their careers in the Hoover building.

Holly glances curiously around the office for a moment, then looks back at Scully. "It's your birthday tomorrow, right?"

Scully blinks. "Yes," she replies, and her quizzical look must give her away because Holly quickly shrugs and offers a sheepish smile.

"I work in records," she offers in explanation, and Scully nods, suddenly understanding a little bit. "Anyway, I um... I saw your car in the garage and wanted to come down and say happy birthday, and also thank you."

"Thank me?" Scully blinks, confused.

Holly adjusts the bag on her shoulder — fairly new, by the looks of it — and nods. "For being so compassionate after what happened with Robert Modell. I don't really understand what you and Agent Mulder do down here, but you stopped that man, and-" she hesitates. "And you were very kind to me."

Scully glances back down at the stack of unorganized papers she'd forgotten she's been holding, taps them on the desk to straighten them out, and sets them down. "Of course," she replies. "Nothing that happened was your fault, Holly."

"I know that," Holly says quickly, like she's still not sure of it. Scully suddenly thinks of Mulder flinching away from her touch after the events of that case like he thought he didn't deserve it. "But it felt like it was. I took a week off work just to try and deal with it because I felt so ashamed of what I did to A.D. Skinner." She hesitates to meet Scully's eyes, but eventually she does. "You told me several times when you questioned me that it was okay and I shouldn't hold any of it against myself, but I still did. I thought it was my fault for letting him control me. But then I thought, you know, if Agent Scully who doesn't even believe in mind control like that is believing and is telling me I'm not to blame for it..." She trails off with a shrug, and Scully stays quiet, listening. "I wanted to come talk to you before," she admits, "But I never had a good enough reason until now."

Scully bites her lip, thinking. "Thank you for that," she says quietly, because she's not sure what else to say.

She's never really considered her impact on others, only thinks of helping them; especially with others at the FBI, she mostly thinks of the too-common animosity toward Mulder. She thinks maybe she doesn't take into account enough those like Holly, or Agent Pendrell, or even Skinner. Their battle isn't meant to be against others; it's meant to be for others.

"You don't need a reason, though," she adds. Holly looks at her, confused. Scully smiles. "You're welcome to come down here anytime you want, even just to talk." She wants to remind her again that what Modell did to her wasn't her fault — she and Mulder had certainly been over that enough, and she has no taste for victim-blaming, even self-inflicted — but she doesn't; it's not the time, and she thinks, hopes, Holly already knows.

Holly returns her smile, brightening noticeably. "Okay," she says. "Maybe I will." She turns to leave. "Thank you again," she adds, pausing. "And I hope you have a really good birthday."

"Thank you," Scully says again, as she watches her leave as quietly as she came. Maybe that's all there really is to say.

[martlet-my-beloved]

I like the idea of Martlet staying with Toriel and help her protect Frisk, Not gonna lie, it would be really funny if Ceroba, Starlo and his gang also stay in the ruins to help Toriel watch out for humans, while Dalv is just living in Snowdin :3

the rest of the gang have their own place in this au :))) we'll see them wayyyy later, but it wont hurt to show yall what theyve been up to since uty!

dalv's still chilling in snowdin, though he visits starlo and the gang every once in a while for bar night and performs there! his new children books have been getting popular at snowdin's librarby :))

starlo and the feisty five are still up to their shenanigans in the wild east, putting up shows and bringing in plenty of tourists. they help out the farm when they have the time. ceroba's also working at the farm nowadays. the mansion feels way too big for just one monster so she moved into the farmhouse

they have a mail system to keep in touch ever since martlet ended up in the ruins :D usually dalv and sans meet once a week and they exchange letters. martlet likes hearing about whatever's going on outside the ruins and the others are just glad to know she's doing alright ever since uhhh....... the incident

also shitty bonus pic lol

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[copyspaghetti]

Tenegaru (twit), honeypotluck (ao3), an anonymous secret 3rd person and I talked about a Mob Psycho X Undertale AU and I made art for it

[ID: Pixel art of Reigen Arataka reimagined as an anthropomorphic foxlike monster in an undertale AU. He sits in a mostly barren office, with a table, a laptop, a printer, a potted plant in the corner, and a window with the blinds half drawn. The ambient light is red-ish. He is backlit by the yellow window. Reigen has one arm behind his head, is reclining in his chair, and has the other paw lifted up with the pointer finger and claw stretched out. The left text box reads "* Welcome to Spirits & Such * I'm Reigen Arataka * Greatest PSYCHIC of the 21st CENTURY" and the right text box reads "Buy", "Sell", "Talk", "Exit", "3G", "2/8". The talk-option is selected by the red heart. /End ID]

AU notes under the cut

Anon: Okay I haven’t left yet. But I would love to see an UT/DT style Spirits&Such shop for him.

Lucky: tbh him being some kind of trickster that follows frisk!Mob around in a UT au. literally everybody knows reigen is full of shit, but Mob is so trusting lmao. somehow all of the shitty things Reigen sells Mob along the way actually end up being useful in wacky ways.

Tenegaru: weird buffs, good heals.

Anon: That would be neat! I can see him as maybe a foxlike monster or even a Boss Monster w shit stats lmao. God what would his voice clip sound like??? 🤔

Tenegaru: aa aaa aaa aa a a a a a ae e e e e ee ee æ ee.

Anon: Just any clip of Sakurai screaming and just take a sample and repeat it.

Me: Shit stats yesss but he has his special moves and they're the stupidest ever but he keeps winning.

Anon: *This is one of Reigen’s signature moves.

Tenegaru: salt splash rains salt.

Me: A single flake of salt rains through the screen. He's like oops running out, anyway.

Lucky: "ask this magic 8 ball special questions and it will always show you the right path to take! and that'll be a gazillion gold, kid" *mob literally is never lost and thinks it's because the 8 ball has all the the right answers after all, but it's just that he's extraordinarily lucky*

Me: XD excellent choice, Mob.... The blue flowers all say stuff about how Reigen is a fraudster like negative reviews.

Lucky: "it's not nice to lie" - mob, defending reigen's honor. he refuses to listen to anybody about the fox lmao. 😭 imagine it actually makes reigen feel bad.

Me: I think Ekubo would be a monster he meets like the Mad Dummy.

Anon: He’s a ghost that takes the form of a ratted dummy and he’s just walking around, leaving fluff around everywhere lol.

Tenegaru: i dunno maybe he’d be like lancer and start out as an enemy but join the team like he does in canon lol.

Anon: Mixing both UT and DR together forgive me. [Referring to the party of Kris, Ralsei and Susie vs. Solo Frisk (with inner Chara)]

Lucky: eku joining the party and kind of quietly keeping mob out of trouble is sweet.

Anon: How would timelines be into play? That’s another question 🤔 Ekubo would show up from time to time on the title screen. He says you’re doing good in leading Mob in the right direction when you’re a Pacifist. But if you so wanted, you could reset everything….. or switch your current route up and start killing. Who knows.

Me: My vision: Mob runs into a weird dummy in the junkyard that is being worshipped by small random monsters and the dummy comes to life and it's Ekubo and then he follows Mob around. One of Ekubo's moves is making a little minion attack you.

Anon: Ohh please! That’s adorable. They try to make you laugh too.

Me: Do they tell horrible punny jokes in style with the original UT?

Anon: Oh god yes! We need that ROFL random humor in there too.

Me: Mezato, what would she be?

Anon: Honestly, I haven’t thought about it yet. I was mainly thinking about the main party like in DT and how they’d function. But I do know Mob would be the only human fs.

Me: I think maybe Mezato is a mini fox, same kind as Reigen, but Reigen insists that he's the only real fox around so clearly Mezato is something else XD you know how there are lots of dogs like lesser dog ? This time there's a lot of foxes.

Anon: Maybe a fennec fox?

[floralovebot]

What would you write if DC hired you to make a tempest/garth comic? What would be the genre, mood, setting, etc? Would it be plot focused or lore focused?

OH BUDDY

well personally i would end up ignoring n52 and rebirth so,, sorry to the like two rebirth garth stans i know but ajdgjlh

but anyway i've had this idea for a more tempest centric series that feels very like,, scooby doo ish? not full on detective series cause that's not his vibe, but like a mix of stumbling into different magical mysteries, fighting a monster of the week, and discovering different magic things! in my perfect aquafam world, koryak never died and garth got with letifos so both of them would accompany him!

in my head, this series would have to take place after the tempest series and vol 5,, tbh i'm not sure where exactly it would fall on the timeline!! all i know is that it would definitely happen after vol 5

but anyway, the series would start with garth mentally reeling from defeating slizzath, and in a "what the fuck is life about" kind of way, he decides to learn more about shayeris and his family history. at this point, he does know things, but he would want to know more about the day-to-day stuff and the culture, not just the all-powerful wizardy stuff. anyway, letifos wants to go with him <3 they aren't together at this point, but the series would provide a nice slow burn for them to be official by the end. i Know garth usually jumps headfirst into his relationships, but i would want this series to be more introspective so he would be thinking things through a lot more and have some hesitance. Anyway, once he gets to the ruins of the city, some weird ass monster jumps out and they have to fight it!! oh no!!!

i'm thinking that garth doing his little ritual thing either freed other bad guys from the fucking underwater prison dimension OR garth just,, doing magic awakens a bunch of shit cause they go "owo? someone is using powerful magics 👀 time to rise and grind!!" aldgh

so anyway, they just get pulled into fighting random monsters and protecting random people with magic. it would definitely have a silver age vibe with each issue being its own complete story (maybe occasionally spanning two or three). in regard to the overall vibe though,, yknow the vibe of the first live action scooby film? literally that! like it's grown up and there's a lot of dangerous shit going on and it goes into serious topics and has serious, darker moments, but it's also just a little silly goofy aldhg the series would start being dark and angsty then gradually get lighter as garth not only leans more into his magic abilities but also allows himself to be happy and help people the way he wants to.

it would definitely be more lore focused! i would really want to go in on insane atlantean history, magical worldbuilding, etcetc. the aquafam has a lot of good characters for the audience to learn things through, but garth will honestly always be #1 for me in that regard. that's why i would want this series to be a little more scooby doo-ish, so that garth is learning things/figuring shit out at the same pace as the readers!

[crepes-suzette-373]

@loopyarts replied to your post “This is a thought that has been making my brain...”:

They all Namisexual, she just that powerful. Also the flowers the boys are holding doe it any meaning or it just for fun? Also what are flowers they holding called? I know Sanji a rose and Ichiji is a lilly I think but I don’t what Niji and Yonji flowers are called.  Unless the Sanji brothers have better personalities in this timeline, it no contest who Nami would choose between them. Also if Sanji still was on Luffy crew, he and Nami would know each other and spent months, years together on Luffy crew. Honestly would Nami take advantage of her little harem of simp in their all kinda like Sanji in a timeline yes, yes she would.  

@loopyarts LOL, in my head I imagine it's SaNami forever, but I'm biased.

​It's an AU where Germa is not an insane kingdom and there's no mad scientist weirdness, so Sanji just lives with his family and they all are princes the whole time. Dunno how they would end up meeting Nami TBH. Maybe Germa travels around the world for research like Noland. Still science-y and the whole snail ships and everything, but not evil.

Man, I think this is just generally an "everything is fine" AU, no World Government, no evil conspiracy, no drama. Luffy and crew (minus Sanji) are just adventuring for fun. Maybe treasure hunting in a general sense, but no One Piece.

Personality-wise... Well, they're nice(ish). Don't get any worse than Sanji's usual tantrums. Sanji is slightly less rough than canon too. Think something like his first appearance back in Baratie when he's waiter-ing for Fullbody. Or, in chapter 1 of Shokugeki no Sanji spinoff LOL. Still cooks, still kicks, otherwise acts sort of polite, but would say very insulting things.

Niji is still a loud nuisance, picky eater, a snob, similar to canon but not cruel. Something like this (that's a modern AU, but you get the idea). Squabbles about eating with Sanji all the time because all he wants are snacks/desserts.

Ichiji is stereotypically super princely in public eye, but kind of thug-ish when nobody's looking. He just talks in formal language the whole time. I guess he has that "mafia with a clean front/disguise" vibes.

Yonji is exactly like Sanji but big, buff, and (slightly) dumb(er). Sanji's very unhelpful food tester because he eats everything.

Yonji's flower is Black-Eyed Susan, Niji's are (kind of oversized) forget-me-nots. No meaning, I just want them all to have different flowers.

(and then Reiju would find them and kick them all)

Ah man, I also do want to do an AU where Sanji's family is good but he still somehow ends up with the Straw Hat crew. Maybe next time.

[hychlorions]

If you had to rank each Apollo Justice case on a 10-point scale, what would your ratings be?

honestly i like them all so much and it's been a while since i've last played AA4 so it's hard to give an answer without having to sit down and think about it :"D but assuming you wanna sit down for something long-ish, i'll start them all off on a perfect 10 and here's what i'd give deductions for:

Turnabout Trump (4-1) - i'd leave it at a 10 tbh. absolutely banger case for setting the tone for the rest of the game. i don't recall anything i disliked about it atm so i'm assuming there's nothing at all :>

Turnabout Corner (4-2) - hickfield/hotti existence. get him outta here! but on the other hand there's an exchange about klavier pausing a world tour to see the little boy that bested his brother that can mean different things depending on if you're playing the game for the first time or if you're replaying it. on first playthrough i assumed the judge's shock at klavier returning meant he hasn't taken another case since kristoph's arrest in 4-1, which. fair i guess bc prosecutors probably take cases more regularly than the waa in-universe but it's nothing to blink twice about yknow. HOWEVER replaying it after having gone through 4-4 (esp given how he mentions the gavinners to the judge) it starts to seem as if klavier ran off with his band for seven years and didn't come back until after his brother was arrested. which. >:3 hehe

-3 points for creep factor. +1 however for the simple joy of making me tear my hair out over klavier's mystery hiatus length

Turnabout Serenade (4-3) - people give this case too much shit tbh. it's the funniest case in the game and you guys just have no sense of humor 😭 me, lover of comedy, however, can appreciate it for what it is, and it's that 4-3 is the best demonstration of aa's sense of humor. my only gripe with it is that daryan's mentioned to be the first detective klavier's ever worked with. however in turnabout succession the detective shown in the flashback for the gramarye trial (klavier's courtroom debut) isn't daryan, but gumshoe. this isn't elaborated upon any further, so i am sitting here. wondering what mystery case klavier worked on that got resolved without going to court wherein daryan is the detective AND happened before the gramarye trial. i understand prosecutors but WHY pray tell are they shoving 17 year-olds into a detective position on the police force. god.

-2 for in-universe labor laws implications. +2 for klavier's weird forehead obsession (he has about three lines about apollo's forehead) and also the fact that this case has the most canonical uses of herr forehead out of all the cases in the entire ace attorney series at ~61 uses out of the total 129 (including DD). +1 more for being so rife with lines you could use as basis for headcanons ("straight except when he's depressed" "i should've learned to play guitar" "her quiet, deep song glides through the air... lilting above a sparse, but elegant piano accompaniment" i'm so sorry as a klapollo enthusiast this is the case of all time to me)

Turnabout Succession (4-4) - gorl you know the last case of the series has to be the most nailbiting one. such is the case for turnabout succession... if only the mason system didn't royally succ. do you know how hard it is to piece together the timeline for post- and pre-gramarye trial for someone like me?!?! (is forgetful) not to mention the fact that kristoph has apparently only met vera once but already knew she bites her nails when she's nervous? did you put a camera in their house or something? weirdo. however only in burning piles of rubble will real gems reveal themselves. *holding up the scene where zak explains the gramarye powers to phoenix, subsequently revealing the trucy-apollo siblingisms all along* isn't she beautiful?

-4 for being an inconvenient pain in the ass and kristoph's nail polish murder plot that crumbles under a magnifying glass and kristoph's stalking extent implications. +1 for bracelet lore you know i love me some bracelet mechanics (taps my homemade "THE BRACELET DOESN'T TIGHTEN" sign like a proud father)

Final answer:

4-3: 11/10

4-1: 10/10

4-2: 8/10

4-4: 7/10

[bokatan]

4, 7, 14, and 18 for all

@fuzzydreamin [ edgy/misc OC ask meme ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ]

4: When scared, does your OC fight, flee, freeze or fawn?

Reed: it depends on the scenario, but typically fight- unless fighting is a very bad idea, which is where he’d be getting out of there.

Mercy: answered here!

Delta: There’s a 50/50 chance they’re either going to fight or freeze. They’re more likely to fight if it’s a person and more likely to freeze if it’s some sort of animal.

7: What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

Reed: answered here!

Mercy: Well for starters- she's a ghoul and my fnv courier now rather than a quick name drop + vague figure in Reed's backstory lmao. I was initially going to just have her be a prewar character and I was going to have Reed unintentionally dig up some of her work in a few of the labs in Boston, but her RDR2 version is too well suited for FNV to pass up- so she got a little revamp and now she's like this. I did tweak her initial backstory a bit though- I was going to have her prewar work be involved with the robobrain facility in the Automatron DLC, but I opted to go with FEV instead because that just vibes with her a bit better. Her whole post-Enclave to FNV timeline is a newer addition too, I've been throwing those ideas around for a bit but that was a lot of time that I needed to work through lmao.

Delta: They actually haven't changed much! I still need to actually dig into their intro story and everything, but tbh they had a pretty solid personality + backstory from the start and a lot of what has changed has just been little things here and there- like their interest in power armor and their cats. I do eventually want to play around with them and some of the more horror-ish aspects of the Institute and with how the Railroad handles synths(specifically memory wipes), but that's something way down the line since I've got so much else to work through first.

14: How does your OC want to be seen by other characters?

Reed: answered here!

Mercy: She either doesn't want to be perceived at all, or she wants to be seen as a potential threat. She's built up a bit of an aura that she happily wears like armor- she wants others to know that she's dangerous and that they need to respect her.

Delta: They want to be seen as a potential ally or friend; at the bare minimum they just don't want to be seen as a threat so they can avoid dealing with all of the synth hysteria and the harassment that typically goes along with it.

18: Is your OC more cold and detached or up close and personal?

I’m assuming this one means while fighting? That’s what I’m going with here.

Reed: He’s typically cold and detached; he’s good at emotionally removing himself from combat situations and he tends to keep that up, even when there’s a personal motive involved. There’s a lot going on mentally with this that I don’t feel like going really in-depth with, but it’s basically his way of justifying fights(especially while with the BOS) that he knows are wrong but he participates anyways

Mercy: It varies a ton by who she's fighting with, but in general she's either somewhere in-between the two or she's up close & personal. In regular combat she's typically more detatched, but the ones where it's personal and she's getting into her weird little justice complex? She's more than happy to switch to a bladed weapon and she's probably going to play around with them a bit if there's an opportunity.

Delta: I wouldn't necessarily say cold, but definitely detatched. Delta's not an inherently violent person, they just aren't the type to have any personal motive or desire to harm someone else. They'd rather not, but of course that's not always an option so they'd rather just get it over with as fast as possible.

[alivegirlmari]

sorry i keep bothering u BUT i have another question😭 i was wondering if you’d seen this interview of melanie (https://youtu.be/xhHDMOEnuB4 the first minute and a half) and what you think of that because i’m pretty sure shauna does NOT care but to me jeff very much went from a sympathetic guy who loves his wife to a sinister little man😭 i get making bad decisions when you’re young but man😭

you are NOT bothering me omggg you could neverrr. me when i wake up to an anticurses ask and get to chew on it at work for the next two days: ❣️ 💕 💞 💓 💗 💖 💘 💝

i've seen a few people analyze that specific interview and tbh i don't think i have anything groundbreaking to add but i wanna just ramble about shauna anyways asdjnjsdk so! putting this under a readmore bc it'll probs be long-ish and incoherent <3

ok so. shauna's relationship to motherhood has always fascinated me. when i first watched yj it was all in one night, in a haze, during a not-good-mentally period in my life. so it took me an embarrassing amount of episodes to go from 'oh she hates callie bc callie's wilderness baby and thus a reminder of everything that entails, both jackie-related and trauma-related' to 'OH callie can't be wilderness baby, timeline wise, which adds an even more insane level to shauna returning to jeff post-crash'. bc the decision to date him let alone marry him has always been sooo interesting to me!! like yeah we all knew why but like, how did it happen? how long after the crash? did he call her up once she got out of hospital? did she go back to school? was it another drunk grief hookup thing again, but one that spiraled into more? did they discuss jackie at all? iirc, when he reveals he's read the diaries, he implies they never talked about the 19 months which is why he read them. but did they ever discuss jackie, separate to what happened in the woods? or was she the eternal elephant in the room? i mean, yes it's canon that shauna marries him out of guilt and shame and obligation, but the CALLIE of it all is the wildest part to me. bc she's pregnant with his baby, and then jackie dies and the baby dies, and then she goes back and has anotherrr baby with him, in spite of everything!!!!

so melanie p much saying 'she can't keep justifying her decision to not have kids with him, so they have one'. is like. well she's right!!! i can 1000% see jeff pushing to have kids and shauna, unaware that he knows about wilderness baby and not wanting to tell him, agreeing to it bc a) she'd rather die than talk about it honestly, b) the guilt of it all, and c) well that's what normal suburban heterosexual couples do isn't it?? get married and have kids!! and to me jeff has always been that guy, which he even admits in canon! he was always gonna be the high-school boyfriend to jackie, but that's his life role, too: he stays in his home-town, he owns a business in his home-town, his only friend is his teen bestie, etc. he's the suburban straight guy who doesn't properly wash his underwear, whose wife cooks every meal (that he still complains about), who thinks flavored lube is too kinky and weird and gay for him.

and it annoys me that the show doesn't even lean into the horror of that, let alone like...the genuinely terrribleeee things he does. like if you're not gonna frame it as devastating, tragic, claustrophobic, and miserable that shauna marries jackie's very Normie boyfriend and has another baby with him, that her whole life has become a jackie altar and not what she herself wants, then at least frame it as awful that he blackmailed her and her friends using their trauma??? HELLO???and i hate that the adam thing kinda like. made them ~even~, narratively, or at least made people forget about jeff.

and if you're NOT going to make it a heterosexual horror story, AT LEAST make him the wifeguy people insist he is online!! what REAL self-respecting wifeguy would turn down strawberry lube or panic when their wife grabs the gun from the guy holding them at gunpoint!!! and i mean, his reactions (to the gun thing at least) are valid and normal, ofc he'd freak out, majority of us would too. but this IS a tv show, he's not real, and you can't have him be the freaked out, 'you're out of control' husband and the 'my wife can do no wrong' husband ykwim. (me & rose talked about that angle specifically here)

but also YES it's legitimately evil for jeff to not tell shauna he knows about wilderness baby and for him to just then. keep bringing up having another one. the most generous reading i can give him is that he also, of course, feels guilty about jackie, and his desire for marriage and children with shauna is driven by that, but again: he knew he was only ever the high-school boyfriend, so. and what melanie said in that interview IS right but it's not being said/implied/explored in canon, and i worry that if it was then again, it wouldn't be shown as the horror it is, so i'm almost glad?? bc i'm not sure the general audience would see through that and view it as evil either.

anyways, jeff n shauna to me is like. does she love him? probably, in some way, on some level. i think she enjoys his company sometimes, i'm sure they have happy memories together etc. but he will always be a reminder of #everything. and so will callie! and i think that's just a more interesting dynamic to explore!!! (though tbh. loveee the goat stuff, but shauna just kinda. saying everything so explictly to lottie did feel like a telling not showing, exposition moment. as did the fact that it was a KID like sometimes this show is so subtle and other times it's incredibly not ajdksjask.)

um anyways it's 4am. i need to go to sleep. i am probably forgetting something bc i have So many thoughts about shauna + motherhood ESPECIALLY in the teen timeline which i didn't even touch lol, and how it connects to adult timeline but i do wanna give the writers temporary benefit of doubt just bc we've still got 2 eps left. so who knows what'll happen. me personally i'm hoping jeff dies and/or goes to jail and we explore the complex web of feelings that shauna and callie have towards each other, and they change their names back to shipman. i think it's rly funny and sad and tragic that callie doesn't care that her mom's a killer (well, she does), she's just so happy her mother's being honest with her. </33 also just love women who aren't naturally maternal and aren't good mothers but they're not villainized for it, and it's also not a one-dimensional portrayal either.

(final note that i LOVE is that in the original pilot script, shauna has another kid!!! callie has an older sister!!! soo curious whether she was meant to be a surviving wilderness baby or if they had another kid post-crash...jeff im in ur walls regardless)

[shoshiwrites]

2022 Fanfic Year in Review: shoshiwrites on AO3

Thank you for the tag @tortoisesshells!

Total Completed Works: 4.

Word Count: 18,081 - strictly from completed works on Ao3; 51,511 including posted Tumblr fics and prompts. Not even trying to count unpublished/rewrite work because (a) that's not what this meme is about and (b) it's too hard to tally.

Fandoms I’ve Written In: What kind of a question is this.

Looking Back, Did You Write More Fic Than You Thought You Would This Year, Less, Or About What You’d Expected?: Less but also more? Life has been A Lot this year in several ways. I thought I'd make more linear progress on the rewrite, but what actually ended up happening was some writing for one timeline, deciding to start the story in a different place, and then through some thinking and convos with friends I ended up figuring out I needed to start the story in a different different place plot-wise. I'm really happy with this realization and this new starting point, even if it means scrapping what I have, at least for now. And in the meantime, I continued with my usual AU parade and lots of little prompts, which I'm pretty proud of all things considered.

What’s Your Own Favorite Story Of The Year?: Oh man. I have to say, for something that started as a joke, the baby AU might be it. The scene of them at the swimming hole might be one of my favorite scenes that I've ever written for them (or maybe I just listen to too much Dan Auerbach). I'm also proud of the Jo x The Darkening Sky crossover I wrote for @mercurygray, even if I'm still embarrassed that it will now show up at the bottom of TDS for all eternity.

Do You Have Any Fanfic Goals For The New Year?: Make progress with the new starting point with the rewrite, honestly. And just..keep writing and being creative in whatever forms that takes.

Most Popular Story Of The Year?: Hits alone, love in your eyes (the Jo x TDS crossover). But for the most part I keep my Ao3 stuff to registered users only which I imagine impacts things. Also, you know, I write mostly AUs concerning a very tiny fraction of 'canon' characters.

Story Of Mine Most Under-Appreciated By The Universe, In My Opinion: Honestly this is less of a case of under-appreciation, because my friends and mutuals and followers are more than amazing about my stuff on Tumblr, but I've been kind of mildly surprised that I haven't gotten one or two strangers wandering into my AUs on Ao3 and commenting. But again, I also don't make them very easy to find.

Most Fun Story To Write: The flower shop AU, which let me indulge all of my inner romcom tendencies (and I'm pretty proud of the texting skin I used on Ao3 tbh). Also honestly the ballerina/boxer AU, which let me indulge all of my I Watch Too Much Early Seasons of Law & Order For the Scenery tendencies.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: Probably all of them, but the AU where they're fixing up an old house and run into some Weird Sensations feels particularly on-brand.

Biggest Disappointment: Idk if it's a disappointment exactly but the list of prompts and scenarios I wanted to but didn't write this year is (unsurprisingly) of ...medium-ish... length.

Biggest Surprise: The flower shop AU again honestly. It was an idea I'd thought about briefly maybe a year ago, and I didn't think I could really do anything with it. Surprise!

Tagging: Anyone who'd like to do this! <3

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

to get right to the salt, do ya think P5 and the spinoffs lowkey ruined theorizing for ya? at least for atlus games?

Damn beat me to it! I was thinking of making a post bitching about how stupid it was to that we had to leave Sae's dungeon because of a "blockade" but like....that area is open to the public why is there a blockade???? TT0TT You just wanted a blockade for blockade's sake. Would've made more sense to have Mako do something at the house than the fucking court room you dinguses. orz*coughs* Moving on......

Anyway happy new year!

Yes and.....no. For both.

P5's made it hard to want to keep theorizing with P5 central games. P3R is in a spot of "why even bother, I'm setting myself up for more disappointment if I do." I had absolutely no want and desire to theorize P5T (even P5S I had SOME thoughts, but the Sophia char, you know being based off an aeon being, not getting the Aeon arcana.....kinda killed it for me. :'D PQ2 was a diff issue, tho it came out before P5S iirc so it was before P5 killed it, and P3/5D didn't have much to theorize over....P3D a bit more so but only by a bit, and P5R....well P5R gave me SOMETHING to work with at least). I think the most I wanted to do with P5T was figure out the place in the timeline exactly (which is something I love to do :3) and if it was going to have a memory wipe. Other than that nothing really.....stood out to me. TT0TT

I am interested in P5X and have a theory post buried somewhere (mostly it showing it's an alt reality, tho I subscribe to it REPLACING P5 rather than it being part of certain P5 endings). I'm just having a hard time keeping up with all the info atm so I don't talk about it.

Right now it's a waiting game for P5X to release and the announcements after P3R. (obvie excited for Refan but I'm talking about predictions and stuff and I'm not really doing that for Refan cause....I dunno what to expect TT0TT)

But as for P5(X) theories I have one now:

Timelines of P5. P5 has the original vanilla, the Kasumi version, and (Cognition?) Wonder ganking him. I'm thinking it's Cognition bc the one "Joker" That fought Wonder evaporates and it might mean it's a cognition of some sort (god I hope it is, I want P5X to have it's own timeline). But that's all I've got, I need to catch up on older stuff cause I'm not sure if this contradicts other existing info (then again info keeps changing atm, such as the 109 building TT0TT).

C!Joker I believe says "resist" to Wonder at the end of the new trailer (going off the chinese char, I don't think I'm hearing the Japanese correctly tbh). It makes me wonder (hehe) if Silly's about to get her 3rd star crossed lovers-ish/trans dimensional timeline pairing/duo (first Tats and Maya, then Hams and Mints/Kita, and now Joke and Wond 8U)

As for in general, not really, I've just been busy/needing to consume/refresh more of certain media before I find myself more comfortable to talk about it. But here's some theories I have that fit this description but I know the fandoms will kill me for reasons. (spoilers for Bleach, Naruto/Boruto, Frozen, Netflix's Wednesday 2022, Far Cry 5, Ju-On/The Grudge):

Bleach 1: I'm subscribed that the "happy ending" they got at the end isn't actually happy (despite the surface level). Because unlike Kishi, I think Kubo is a mean troll. TT0TT I don't think anyone won with him. Anyway, my theory is Ich*ka isn't R*nji's daughter because the ONLY aspect she has of him atm is his hair color and that's something that can be dyed. 030 And that Kaz*ui is some weird clone of Ichigo rather than a real son (the only thing of Oreo he has that Ichi doesn't, bc they both have orange hair and brown eyes......BUT Ichi had the same eye shape as a child so......even that can't be ONLY tied to Oreo TT0TT). Kaz*ui is a little monster I don't trust him. Plus that ominous opening in the Hell chapter w/the gold fish, him sending a soul to hell, and then stomping out Ya-badaba (Yawach? Idc.....)....I just don't trust him, and Kubo's a troll so :'D Whatever hurts the fandom the most I guess.

Bleach 2: I don't think Kubo has positive feelings the Tanabata, or at least it's mythos. I mean it's about two star crossed lovers who fail to do their job and that's why they are separated. TT0TT Between I*H receiving L after L in the series (like confirming Ichi didn't have feelings for Oreo until after the series was over, White attacking her and so on), both do fail to do their job (fighting off Yawach-ababa, both get stomped before someone else has to come in and help iirc, anyway a very twisted parallel off of Tanabata), but her also wanting to BE THE RAIN to connect heaven and earth. You know. Rain. The representation of Ichi (and Ruki's) depression. Rain. The thing that keeps the lovers apart in Tanabata.......WHY???? TT0TT (also the fact they end up together even tho it's a star crossed lovers story, and when that couple WAS together they were doing a bad job with their jobs which meant they NEEDED to be separated and...I dunno man I don't trust Kubo he's mean kfljaskfljsdl)

Naruto/Boruto 1: Sarada is actually Karin's daughter, but Kishi is too scared to go that route/not as mean of a troll as Kubo is....atm. (At least Kishi had the guts to admit he wanted a love triangle/considered N*S for a brief second, but just didn't have the chops to make the love/triangle aspects more focused in the story. Aka I don't blame N*S for being tricked by his red herrings). I dunno he keeps giving the S*S couple L after L after L I'm wondering if he's trying to ease more people into the idea of SK. TT0TT

Naruto/Boruto 2: this is what I think the Kaguya line looks like (aka where the Gold/Silver bros and Kimimaro's Kaguya clan fall, cause I haven't seen a tree like this, and The G/S bros could totes be from Indra's side tho. But I firmly believe the Kaguya clan is from Indra, since I think the madness they went through could be similar to the Curse of Hatred)

4. Naruto/Boruto 3 (I'm in the middle of a Naruto rewatch sue me TT0TT): What I think the eye evolution looks like (I don't think the Jogan's been explained yet? I still need to catch up, the byakugan doesn't evolve into a Rinnesharingan, it's that they obtain it later along with rinnegan's too in some of the designs, but I was mostly looking at Kaguya's since that's what most of these are derived from, Rinne can become Rinneshar aka you gotta activate it kinda like Sharingan to MS but it still requires you to evolve it):

5. Frozen theory 1: Ahtohallan is not a good place. It's constantly putting Elsa into danger (either Ahto it'self, or it's ways of making her look into the past). It's almost killed her twice: Once in F2 by going too deep and almost freezing, and once in the dubious canon sequel novel Polar Nights where she falls into a raging river and Anna has to jump in to save her TT0TT It also seems so good at driving a wedge between the sisters >_> Cause that's totally what they need >_>

6. Frozen theory 2: Partially related to the above, because of Ahto's influence, I think Elsa will slowly evolve into the Snow Queen from the original fairy tale. Unless Anna can rescue her that is. TT0TT

7. Frozen Theory 3: Oldie but a goodie, Anna has powers. It's super strength. Be it yeeting a bust, punching a grown man in the face w/o recoil, full swinging a bat lute into a wolf's face w/o recoil, easily tanking hits from a horse/falling down the stairs/falling off a cliff/Elsa's Ice magic, literally pulling her sister out of a RAGING RIVER (Polar Nights only, I'm pretty sure it was raging I don't care to look it up again). They need to play into this more as a running gag tbh. "Oh she's the normal sister *lifts up a insanely heavy object with ease* Yup totally super normal, so sad. :(" jkldjsfkajf

8. Wednesday 1: In the original comic stripped canon of Addams' Family, her brother (then unnammed) was titled a "Hyde" in his character description. I feel like that's going to come into play in the later seasons (esp with how much mystery is around the "hydes")

9. FC5 (I think this is confirmed in other entries, but it was my theory as I was playing): Faith is also a victim via drugging and brainwashing. They physically and chemically fucked with her head. Like the other cult members that are brainwashed similar to her, if they detox they'd realized how much of a fucked situation they are in. TT0TT I also like to think she's out there, alive. In some bunker. TT0TT

10. Ju-On/The Grudge: I prefer to think Takeo killed Toshio. I know the US ver made it more explicit that he did. But I also mean the OG Jpn vers (I know one of the novels might contradict this theory). It just makes more sense for Toshio to die at the same time/the same way as his cat (and we see what's implied to be the cat in the movie). I mean their souls are merged for crying out loud! And IF Kayako was involved, it was maybe to deliver a mercy kill for her son, after Takeo left him for dead (similar to Kayako). And maybe she didn't want him to experience the same slow death she did. I know it kinda implies all the evil is on Takeo and less on Kayako (oh no shocker I hate the guy who started it all, at least Kayako wasn't a killer until the curse was made u_u) in this case, but I just want the soul merging to make sense is all. TT0TT

Annnnnnd yeah I think those are all/most of the eh theories I have going on. Again I need to rewatch most of this stuff (well except Frozen/Wednesday/Juon klsjfdkljafjsa I'm good on those). My issue with Naruto and Bleach is how much of/what of the supplementary content is canon. TT0TT And if Anime original, what about if the creator approves of it *glares at Kubo* I've seen your likes and comments you little stinker. Let alone if it's crafted by the creator (RTN/The Last/Boruto Movie, tho RTN I've heard contradicts some of the manga's events TT0TT) Like I'm trying to fine tooth comb this stuff but lkdjflksjfja orz

[hebescus]

RATING LIGHT YAGAMI'S OUTFITS pt. 4

from the colored manga. pls don't get bored ny this series yet lmao. (part 1, part 2, part 3)

best friends forever outfit. nice, simple, and sweet. he looks cute in this. not the biggest fan of the color matching but i know i'd put on something worse. also he still looks nice. so. 7.4/10

surrounded by idiots outfit. This is like the zip shirt from last part but blue. Honestly I'm not as much as a fan for this version. He once again blends in a bit too much into the surroundings. But it's not *too* bad i guess. 5/10

kira? in higuchi? it's more likely than you think outfit. i like this one! little white shirt underneath and grey-ish collar. very basic but you know what i love everytime light wears black top (especially sweatshirts like this) + khaki? The colors inverted would be white top + blue pants. I just like L and light opposing each other in any way so much. 8/10

according to the keikaku outfit. first of all, mf seems to like this shirt sm. the jacket is a bit ??? bc it looks more like something soichiro would own instead of him but at the same time it's very fitting? maybe it's a hand me down aha. though we need to talk about his pants. i can't believe light yagami wears white pants 😔. i have a personal deep distate on them i'm sorry lol. you're lucky i like his top. 7.5/10

the gang is back outfit. feel the major "i'm back bitches" vibe from this outfit alone. it looks similar like the ones he has pre confinement/yotsuba. perhaps that's the intention. not much opinion abt this one tbh. 4.7/10

sexy nemesis murder outfit. ah yes, a nice outfit for your nemesis to die homerotically in your arms. honestly, i prefer the anime's white shirt + khaki take on this outfit way more. it feels more fitting. this one kinda feel dull and idk, he looks like he came from divergent's abnegation fraction 😭. 6.7/10

pro hacker outfit. i assume it's sweatshirt underneath bc we've seen him in that ribbed/striped pattern a lot before. not too bad i guess, simple and easy. Something about it just really pleasing to me but at the same time it's not? Weird. 7.8/10

new world outfit. aka the last outfit he wear for the first timeline of death note, before we jump to 5 years later. honestly, it's just pretty much dull. it's all grey and grey-ish. very much contrasting misa who has a bomb outfit here. but color aside, it looks fitting and nice on him. because what would be not? he's light. 6.7/10

okay this one doesn't have as many outfits as the previous parts but i want to divide it so next week we can cover the timeskip outfits, yay.

[rudystree]

Weird question but could u do a timeline of like Elaine and Rudy from them being just friends to now cause I’m thinking bout it and I feel like I’m missing parts

It’s quite hard to tell tbh! My understanding is their timeline was something like this:

April 2019 - November 2019: just friends & coworkers ✌️

November 2019 - March 2020: sparks flying ✨

this is when they wrapped up filming of season 1 and just after they both got out of previous relationships

some heavy flirting must’ve been going on on the iconic ski trip in december (maddie said this was when she really caught some feelings for chase so elaine and rudy probs had the same experience)

in the new year they went to las vegas together with the cast, filmed virgo, elaine started hanging with rudy’s old friends and they quarantined together as covid hit

April-ish 2020 - Present: all loved up 💞

pretty sure being quarantined with chaselyn really pushed them together too and they didn’t leave each other since hehe

in an interview in may rudy was asked if he’s single or taken and he said ‘umm…there’s someone in mind…let’s put it like that’ 😏

in may/june they went to rudy’s home in alaska together and imo that definitely made it official

also rudy’s public simp comments started in july and there was already heavy online speculation about them

they were privately official by summer time (lilah mentioned on instagram live that e has a bf, seen sharing clothes, crew members started following rulaine accounts, etc.)

in november 2020 they both made it instagram official but at that point everyone already knew 🥰

[bedlamsbard]

I am making the aggressive choice to be positive and optimistic about Hawkeye and other upcoming MCU stuff because guys, I just got out of Star Wars and I cannot deal with being negative about stuff again, I can’t go through that again.  So here is my first thought on the Hawkeye trailer, off some other thoughts I’ve had here and there --

I'm really intrigued about the fact it looks like they're going to deal with some of the things I've talked about in my Spider-Man threads on Twitter (I rambled a little bit about it over here on Tumblr too) -- the fact that masked vigilantes are NOT a thing in the MCU. I wonder how much timeline crossover this will have with Spider-Man: No Way Home?  (NWH seems to be Halloween-ish, or definitely autumnal; Hawkeye is aggressively Christmas.)   Because if NYC just went through All Of That with Peter Parker then that will obviously have some blowback on another masked vigilante running around, especially up against the fact that Clint Barton is or used to be a public figure, as well as a convicted criminal due to violating the Sokovia Accords back in Civil War.

Like I've been saying repeatedly, I think we as fen forget sometimes that in the MCU proper, we don't HAVE masked vigilantes without publicly-known identities as the baseline for supers -- this isn't the comics and this isn't DC.  Daredevil is an outlier, but he and the other Netflix shows are in the weird canon purgatory of “we don’t know, man” (though Disney gets the rights to use the characters again back from Netflix this year, I believe; I think it was two years after cancellation).   The superhero baseline is "here is a public figure with a public identity who punches aliens and/or robots in the face and is on magazine covers because of it."  It's not "the guy in the weird costume who stops liquor store robberies," which it is in most other comics/superhero 'verses.  There is no (or at minimum, very, very little) in-universe context for a low-level masked vigilante without a public identity and tbh, when the baseline is “public figure with public identity,” it should be weird and disconcerting!  It does make sense that that’s something that will get a massive amount of public blowback, both with Spider-Man and (possibly) here.

It’s interesting to see a potential slow shift into a more “normal” superhero universe where the big public heroes have given rise to a lot of lower-level heroes with a mixture of public and private identities -- because when the social context for superheroes (in the U.S.) is “major public figure who punches aliens” that’s a completely different mental calculus you have to do before you decide to put on a mask and punch muggers than if you live in a universe where the social context is “yeah, some of them are public figures who punch aliens but most are little known local nobodies who stop liquor store hold-ups and only punch the occasional aliens.”

Is the show going to deal with that?  Who knows!  But I think it’s interesting to see Marvel potentially making that slow genre shift.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

A chatty writing update | novels, short fiction, etc!

Hi folks!

It’s been a while since I last wrote an update on this blog! I thought it’d be fun to go back to basics, and just talk about writing. This post chats about: new plans for Feeding Habits, my newest novel, my short story goals & growing collection, along with process reflections.

(image description: a photo of green leaves with the text “writing update” in a white font written on top. /end image description)

Post starts under the cut!

General taglist (please ask to be added or removed)

@if-one-of-us-falls, @qatarcookie, @chloeswords, @alicewestwater, @laughtracksonata, @shylawrites, @ev–writes, @jaydewritesfiction, @jennawritesstories @eowynandfaramir, @august-iswriting, @aetherwrites, @avakrahn, @maisulli

What have I been up to?

For starters, I finished my second year of my Writing undergrad last week and got two of my final grades back today (A+ baby)! For anyone who has taken online university, y’all already KNOW, but this year was so difficult. Would not recommend! Really proud of myself to have gotten through this absolute rollercoaster of a school term and am excited to get into some writing. That leads us to:

What have I been up to (writing edition)?

2021 started off so fast. By the time January hit, I was so consumed in my new semester that I did not have time to write Feeding Habits (my novel). In the first few days of the term, I managed to write between class, until I could no longer keep up! Essentially, I did not write any of that novel until exam season (last week), where I did manage to get in about 3k words in ~4 days.

Feeding Habits

I’m currently drafting what I believe will be the last chapter of this book (chapter 10: Swan Song). This chapter is so bizarre for a few reasons. It begins the book’s third part and also marks the shift back into Lonan’s head from Harrison’s. I originally thought this part would be much, much longer, with at least another five chapters to go, but quickly realized the book’s content was nearly completed. In my 4 day 3k palooza, I hit 50k in the book (the word count goal), and couldn’t see myself extending past 60k. Since then, I’ve made the loose decision to write this final chapter as a ~novella. Here are a few reasons why:

1. This chapter is structurally very strange.

I unashamedly shift from present to past to present to past past, and so much more every 12 words. I mapped out the timeline on a sheet of paper, and there were over 20 shifts in scenes (the chapter is only about 4400 words at the moment). The fictive past is incredibly important to this chapter, more important than the present, and I thought it would make more sense to not break randomly for a chapter so I could upkeep the consistent inconsistency of the chapter.

2. The chapter is very abstract

This stems from the structural changes, but there are paragraphs in this chapter of the fictive present that are loosely based in reality. They’re more poems than they are factual paragraphs, and keeping them all contained in one place (so a mega chapter/ novella) would reduce the most confusion!

3. There’s not much left to cover

Like I said above, Feeding Habits is on its last leg, lol! I know exactly where the book needs to end up, which is very, very soon from where I’m currently at on the timeline. Swan Song should cover what 2-4 chapters would cover in terms of arcs.

Feeding Habits and I have a really weird relationship, tbh! When I realized a few weeks ago that it’d been over a year since I started the book, I realized I just needed to finish it. Not that I want to rush (because I’ve taken longer than a year to write a book in the past), but that in order to move onto another project, I’d like to put this one behind first. This book has been the hardest thing I’ve ever written, and has reminded me there’s always a time to let go. This sort of scrounges up a conversation about letting this entire series go, which is certainly something I’ve been contemplating doing soon(ish). If this spinoff series gets a third book, that may or may not be the last Fostered book for a very long time (or ever)! There are many complex reasons to move on, but the main one is that I have other projects I’d like to focus on. This is not a definitive decision, but something I’ve certainly been thinking about!

Here are a few excerpts I wrote recently:

(TW: death, gore)

Dying feels like being a trout dangled out of water. Clinging to a hook. Mouth open. Scales iridescent in a final death cry. It’s like blood spurting up the knuckles, drowning out the flesh. It’s that moment on the long fall down when the clouds cup the body. Easy drifting. The sound a skull makes when it cracks is really just the afterthought.

(TW: death, gore)

Kill shot. Death blow. Coup de grace. Right in the heart. He feels it. The blood swelling, slicking his palms. He can do it. Reach into the cavity. Feel for the ribs. Part each bone. Then cup the humming heart. Stay there. Right. It’s never been easier.

Look at this PURE moment of Lonan holding a baby I CANNOT:

The grocery store was a fifteen-minute walk away. With Olivia clinging to his shoulder, Lonan was acutely aware that she could feel his heartbeat. Open valve. Close. Repeat. Hers pulsed right above his, a miniature drumming. The sky had bruised purple, misted with clouds. The evening air nipped his cheeks, so he made sure Olivia was securely fastened between him and his jacket. With wide eyes, she absorbed the drowsy suburbia, all its family cars pulling into driveways, all its couples heading back home after a sunset walk. When Lonan passed a young boy walking two golden retrievers, Olivia giggled, and didn’t stop, even after he’d spent fifty dollars on groceries and nearly the rest on a red Corolla marked with a MUST GO NOW sign outside a convenience store.

Let’s move on!

Mandy and Cora

I said I wouldn’t talk too much about this project, but I just love it so much?? I wanted to share my SUPER early thoughts on drafting a novel, especially one that is SO different from what I’ve been writing recently. I talked about this before in THIS post, but the summary about this project is that it’s a YA contemporary novel! Can’t believe I’m writing YA again, it’s been so long, but I also think it’s going so well. Everything I’ve learned as a literary fiction writer has been a fantastic primer for transferring back to the genre. Admittedly, I have not written much, but I’m having a lot of fun diving back into a lighter project. This is the summary:

Cora and Mandy are identical twins who’ve always done everything together. But when Mandy decides to go to university out of province after graduation and Cora doesn’t, Cora takes this as an opportunity to “test run” life apart from her sister for the first time by spending the summer at her aunt’s house across the country.

I have come up with a few ~things since I last talked about this project, mostly how I’d like to structure it. As of now, I’d like the book to be structured super loosely. I’m really pulling on a lot of inspo from “We Are Okay” by Nina LaCour (which is SO good), particularly how “nothing happens-y” that book is. This project (which I still need a title for!!) will be structured in short chapters that cover something Cora does on her own for the first time (without Mandy). For example, a few ideas are “Flight”, “Lunch”, and “Groceries”. “Flight” is the first “chapter” (they’re really kind of vignettes) where Cora flies to her aunt’s house. I still can’t determine if this book will take place in Canada. On one hand, I feel like there will be a wider audience if it takes place in the US (is that just an assumption??? maybe?? someone let me know!), but also: don’t really care too much about an audience at the moment! It could also take place in Canada (So Ontario and British Columbia). But if it does take place in the US, I think it may take place in NYC and San Francisco. The problem is: I really don’t like researching lol, and while I’ve been to NYC many times, I will definitely write it wrong! Does this really matter on a first draft?? absolutely not lol, but of course I am already overthinking!

But back to structure: I am looking forward to seeing what this looser structure will do. This is a story that is solely around one half of a set of twins learning to be her own person (and ultimately that she doesn’t have to completely forget her sister in order to do that), and as a twin who KNOWS this feeling, I think this structure of her doing things for the first time is SUPER relatable.

I was worried it might sound silly/worrying to others who are not twins that Cora hadn’t done things like “lunch” or “groceries” on her own, but I feel this so much as an identical twin myself! Not that she hasn’t done anything at all by herself, but as a twin, when you do something without your twin for the first few times, at least in my experience, you notice. If any twins are reading this--weigh in!

This story is the most personal thing I’ve ever written. It definitely is an OwnVoices book! Usually, I avoid details that are remotely similar to me because they make me uncomfortable haha, but with this book, it’s all me, lol! The characters are all Guyanese, which is SO fun because I’ve been planning what they eat (my fellow Caribbean peeps know: the FOOD!), which is so fun (yes they have pumpkin and shrimp, yes they have roti, yes they have pera, yes they have mithai). Every time I’ve gone to dabble at this book, or even think about it, I get incredibly emotional for this reason? I don’t exactly know why. I think this is a story I just so want to tell, with the culture I love SO much that I definitely struggled to love as a child. This is reclamation bitchessss!

Not going to lie tho: the prospect of writing ~a book~ is kind of freaky! I’m going to make the minimum word count for this book pretty short (50k) and see where it goes from there. I think I will focus on this project this summer! Originally I was going to write a literary novel this summer, but I think this one’s calling my name!

Here’s a pretty rough excerpt:

Try. I remind myself that’s what I’m doing after the flight attendant fills me a disposable cup of Coca Cola and all I can think of is Mandy and I shoving Mentos into a bottle of the stuff when we were twelve. Just me, wedged in the middle seat between an exchange student heading out for summer break and a middle-aged woman sipping a cocktail, thinking of Mandy and I bursting whole oranges in a blender when we were bored one Winter break as the plane dips through a wave of turbulence. Mandy and I dying our hair neon green with highlighters (didn’t work—our hair is too dark) as the plane lands on the tarmac. Mandy and I arguing so loud last month, we both lost our voices as I lug my carry-on out of the overhead compartment and shuffle off the plane and through the airport, searching for Aunt Vel.

Short Fiction

I’ve written so much short fiction this year! I have a goal to write a short story a month (they can range in length, as long as 1 is “complete”), so my short story brain has seriously been soaking it all up lately. Let’s chat my month to month breakdown so far:

January:

I wrote four stories in January! The first is a flash fiction piece called “Shark Swimming” that follows a young woman who attends a shark swimming class after breaking up with her girlfriend. I wrote this story for a “test” workshop for my fiction class, and it was based off the prompt “think about something you’re afraid to do and make the character do that thing”. I’m not particularly afraid of sharks, but had been wanting to use the title “Shark Swimming” for AGES (literally since 2018).

This story is one of my favourites. It’s only about 900 words, but I think there’s something profound in how mundanely specific it is. The entire story doesn’t even see the narrator swim with sharks once; it actually takes place fully in the sanctuary’s lobby. But I really love this narrator. This is the first story I’ve written in second person in a while, though I felt really connected to the unnamed narrator. She struggles with accepting that she truly is a “boring” person, and there’s something about the final image that really gets me!

I’ve been submitting this around, though it’s been rejected a handful of times. Hoping I can secure it at a magazine one day because I really love it!

The second story is “Joanne, I’ll Pray for You” which is actually a rewrite of one of my very first short stories (the first story I did not write for a class haha), “NYC in Your Apartment”. I LOVE this rewrite a lot, and also learned the original is not a very good short story! Revising this story taught me just how much I’ve learned in the 2 years I’ve been writing short fiction. Seeing the 2019 version versus the 2021 version side by side is fascinating because I essentially “gutted’ the 2019 version of its beginning and end until all that was left was the middle of the story (aka the actual story). AKA: this is the only story I’ve ever written with a hopeful ending and I cut out all the happy bits lol I am SO sorry (that arc is more for a novel or novella). That’s how this went from a 5k word story to an 1800 word story (my Submittable thanks me for this lol). A lot of details and scenes I included were more pertinent to a 3 act structure/novel, which of course short stories don’t often have because of their brevity. I love rambling about writing theory, and seeing that actually pay off is so fascinating!

(TW: trauma)

Like the original, this story follows Joanne, a woman in her early twenties, who spontaneously breaks up with her boyfriend. She claims the poltergeist haunting her drove her to this decision. The original draft focused a lot more on the traumatic events Joanne survives, but this draft really loosens them up. It focuses less so on the events themselves, and more on how Joanne’s life is affected. I found the details of these events were less important, and even sort of contradicted Joanne’s insistence she is being haunted. Instead, the poltergeist really takes more precedence in the new draft as a force Joanne doesn’t understand. That ambiguity, I think, is what the story truly needed.

I also centralized Joanne’s relationship with her boyfriend, Julian, here. Now don’t get me wrong, I really didn’t add anything to this draft. It was a matter of trimming the fat around it to leave the lean “meat” in the centre. But by removing that fat, I was able to emphasize what was most important here, and that was her relationship. Julian always played a really big role in the original draft, but I feel like his role as both a friend and partner to Joanne is much more emphasized since this draft literally is only two scenes now. Because there is less, there is more room for Joanne to reflect, which I’m happy about!

A final change I made was the setting and therefore the title. The original, which was “NYC in Your Apartment,” I couldn’t keep because I shifted the setting to Toronto (this is how I originally saw it, but in 2019 I just?? couldn’t?? write?? canlit??), and “Toronto in Your Apartment” sounded sort of gross LOL. The new title comes from a line in the story which I think is more relevant to the themes!

The next short story I wrote in January was “How to Spell Alpaca.” This one is super fun because I wrote it SO fast (in about 15 minutes or so). THIS is the writing update if you’re interested in learning more. I talked extensively about this one in that update, but some developments are that I dove into an edit a few weeks ago to really understand the core of the story. I’m still not quite there (this is just an intuitive feeling; I know not everything has “clicked), but I am really intrigued by the two mothers in the story, the narrator, and her newfound acquaintance, Violet. Both really struggle to understand their place as mothers (the narrator even declares she isn’t a mother anymore). The narrator, who is in her 50s, sees herself in Violet, who is much younger (~20s), and so she views Violet’s relationship with her daughter in a cautionary, yet mournful way, like she can see it will end up like her own relationship with her daughter, despite wanting the opposite. This is a really subtle story. I feel like if you blink, you’ll miss the message. But I think it’s compelling for that reason. It’s really a portrait of parenting and how to grapple with mistakes you may make that inevitably affect your children. Wow just unlocked the theme writing this lol.

The final story I wrote in January is “The Party,” which may be in my top 3 faves I’ve ever written. This story follows Aida, a recent divorcee in her ~40s. The day her divorce turns official, she moves into a new house and receives a party invitation addressed to the previous homeowner, yet RSVP’s anyway. At this party, she’s hoping to find some sense of noticeability, having struggled with being nondescript her whole life. Things seem quite normal at the party, until it gets bizarre.

I LOVE this story, y’all. Like “How to Spell Alpaca” it really delves into motherhood. Aida, our narrator, is incredibly hurt after her divorce. She now lives farther from her children she struggled to feel connected to in the first place, and doesn’t really know how to reignite her life. This party is a means to do that. This is the first story I’ve written that contains a “twist” which is strange because I really prefer stories that give us as much info as possible upfront, but yes, this one sort of twists.

February

I wrote one story in February, and that was “Protect the Young.” This title is SO changing when I think of a new one because it’s thematically incorrect, haha, but this story follows a woman in her late 40s whose daughter, Lindy, announces she is married the same day all their backyard chickens turn up dead. The discovery of dead chickens prompts our narrator to recall her ex-husband’s murder and the role her daughter may have played in his death.

I love this story so much! I think this would make a great closing for my short story collection. It just has that vibe! I wrote this for my second fiction workshop. I thought I had to hand in the story a week earlier than I had to, so I panicked and wrote this in one sitting! Little did I know, I did not need to do that lol but I’m very happy because this story is so fun. We get to learn more about Arnold (her ex), his relationship with Lindy, and how that translates to Lindy’s relationship with her new husband, Malcolm. I LOVE true crime (I listen to about 3-4 hours of case coverage daily), and this is my first “true crime” story. Because of that, I’m very sus of a few details that probably wouldn’t slide in actual investigatory work, so I’ll also be working on that in a revision. My professor also gave me a great suggestion that may alter the story’s structure a bit, though I look forward to toggling with it in the future.

March

In March, I was really on a Criminal Minds kick lol. I’ve been watching this show since I was seven (oops), and dove into a rewatch since it hit Disney+! This story, “Where to Run When the Lamb Roars,” is very clearly Rachel watching 5 episodes of CM a day. Oops! We follow 14-year-old Astrid as she and her older half brother kidnap a young girl to sacrifice for their yearly ritual.

I knew a few things going into this story, but the main thing was that I did NOT want to show any details of a potential murder (if one even occurs). I really wanted to keep all of those elements off the page because this story is not about those events, but about Astrid’s relationship with her brother. They are a murderous duo, with Astrid actually being the dominant partner. I wanted to explore that. I knew her brother, Fox, was more of a submissive partner in their team, even when he used to do this same thing with his father when he was much younger (chilling!), and so it was a task to explore how this young girl’s desire for violence works. The end actually comes right before the story starts, one could say, but I like it for this reason. It really made me contemplate the story by the time I finished it, and helped me examine what it really was about versus what it appeared to be about.

April

(TW: sexual content, non explicit)

I was so busy this month! Who knows if I’ll write a story last minute, but I did write one story this month called “Five Times Fast.” I wrote this during a “writing sprint” that was being hosted at a flash fiction workshop I recently took with one of my favourite writers ever, K-Ming Chang. I learned so much from this class, and am so happy I came out of it with a draft! This story is just over 300 words, so the shortest flash I’ve ever written, but I’m really happy with it. It was based off the prompt “describe the last time you or your character was naked.” In this case, the narrator has a “friends with benefits” relationship with Ricky who works at a laundromat. This story highlights a moment in this relationship (and also Ricky’s goofy personality lol). I really like it! Hopefully I’ll submit it to some magazines soon.

My short story collection

Very briefly I wanted to touch on my short story collection which I’ve titled “She is Also Dead.” I’ve been meaning to make a blog post on this, so look out for that in the coming months, but this collection is already at around 35k words (about 14 stories so far). The collection also surprisingly has a solid amount of flash fiction which is kind of fun! There’s definitely a range here, which is what I personally love in short story collections.

I feel very professional now that I have a ~collection chart. This is her:

(image description: A chart with the title “She is Also Dead.” It is broken into four columns: Story, Status, Word Count, and Published. Entry 1 - Story: Slaughter the Animal. Status: Revisions, Word Count, 3982, Published: N/A. Entry 2 - Story: Joanne, I’ll Pray for You, Status: Polished, Word Count: 1809, Published: N/A. Entry 3 - Story: Primary Organs, Status: Published, Word Count: 2342, Published: The Malahat Review. Entry 4 - Story: Faberge, Status, Polished, Word Count: 619, Published: N/A. Entry 5 - Story: The Wolf-Antelope Will Not Come for Us, Status, Polished, Word Count: 1556, Published: filling Station (forthcoming). Entry 6 - Story: How to Spell Alpaca, Status: revisions, Word Count: 1327, Published: N/A. Entry 7 - Story: Blink Twice for Final Judgement, Status: Polished, Word Count: 6572, Published: N/A. Entry 8 - Story: The Species is Dead, Status: Published, Word Count: 1208, Published: Minola Review. Entry 9 - Story: Shark Swimming, Status: Polished, Word Count: 907, Published: N/A. Entry 10 - Story: The Party, Status, Polished, Word Count 2339, Published: N/A. Entry 11 - Story: Fig, Status: Polished, Word Counter: 947, Published: N/A. Entry 12 - Story: Protect the Young, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 4128, Published: N/A. Entry 13 - Story: Where to Run When the Lamb Roars, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 2174, Published: N/A. Entry 14 - Story: Phantom Limbs, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 4844, Published: N/A.) /end image description.

This order is DEFINITELY not permanent (at this point whenever I write a story, I just fit it randomly into this chart lol), and some of the info is outdated (for example, Slaughter the Animal is now polished!!! thank god!!!). But just an idea of what I’m thinking of including.

This is the summary so far:

In SHE IS ALSO DEAD, characters are pushed to act on their gravest impulses. A small town turns murderous when their local invasive species, the Janices, begin dying. A child struggles to understand her mother’s suicide. A college dropout who insists she’s being haunted by a poltergeist unexpectedly breaks up with her boyfriend. A mother acknowledges her daughter’s murderous tendencies after her backyard chickens mysteriously die. A young girl caters the funeral of a girl rumored to be killed by a wolf-antelope. A newly-divorced mother RSVP’s to a bizarre party she was not invited to, and a murderous brother and sister upkeep their yearly tradition of abducting a young girl. These stories follow characters who navigate death, violent desires, womanhood, and loss, both self-imposed and otherwise.

This is also so subject to change as I may pull and add stories to the collection!

I think I’m going to leave this update here for now! I’ve written TONS of poetry too, but I honestly ~hate my poetry right now lol, so! Hope you enjoyed this chill rambly update. Hope writing has going well for you all! All the best!

--Rachel

[transxiao]

I also find weird that they won't make child models for boys even though they exist in the world but we only get playable child girls, I get they think think they won't sell well but from a story world it makes it seem like boys arent vision holders until they reach their teens at least

tbh i think part of it is theres just more women and girls in the game than guys. im not sure how popular a young boy character would be (while i would like one im not sure if its something enough ppl would want to roll for) and if its something mihoyo wants to try. it is worth noting that body types like klee/qiqi/diona/sayu/yaoyao r different from kid npcs in the game, but i also thing they would only have to be slightly modified if mihoyo wanted to make playble boys that r younf

also for the boys in the game that r playable a lot of them theres no clear timeline for when they got their visions. its assumed characters like bennett and razor got theres probably when they were a bit younger because they have since trained with them, and we know diluc got his before his father died when he was 18. (kaeya got his that same year, and since hes diluc younger brother id say he was probably 16 ish) thoma got his vision 10 years ago, so probably in his preteens or teens.

[flashfuture]

Okay so I have a question. Is Oliver Queen a particularly shitty dad or something? Because I've seen him in a few comics, one of them with Connor, and honestly he seemed fine. Like I know him and Roy don't have a particularly great relationship, and Ollie kinda fucked up with him, but like is this just the case with Roy?

I'm asking this because people generally ignore this thing about Bruce, who has a been a mostly shitty dad for a while now, and generally make excuses for him, citing the fact that he wasn't always like this. Most fics featuring him show him as a good parent. But fanfic authors go out of their way to show Ollie as a terrible father, and an asshole in general, especially when pitted against Bruce? Why is it this way?

PS. I haven't read many Green Arrow comics.

Okay so this is gonna get long lol

Snowbirds Don’t Fly is where Roy is on heroin and there are many many misconceptions about this particular issue

#1 this was a PSA which means certain characters have to play a role even if it seems out of character 

#2 That is the only time ever that Ollie has hit Roy. And Roy hit him back later not that this excuses it but yeah nowhere near anything like Bruce

#3 The whole kicked out of the house thing. Roy was an adult. A full-grown adult who lived on his own. Roy only got into heroin because Ollie left on a road trip thinking his kid would be fine

#4 Ollie himself is an alcoholic so say what you will but personally, I know addicts in families can get pissed when other people also get addicted to things just based on personal experience 

#5 After fucking up Ollie went out of his way to learn everything he could about addiction and recovery. He went out of his way to earn Roy’s forgiveness and then a few years later Roy agreed to reconciliation. All this happened in the 70s and by the end of it Roy and Ollie were fine and firmly in the father-son category without much lingering animosity

But then the 90s and Chuck Dixon happened. Dixon hated Ollie. He wanted to kill Ollie. So he made Ollie as unbearable as possible. For example, Ollie who loves kids, always wanted kids pushed away Connor Hawke as soon as he learned it was his real son, ran off with eco-terrorists, and blew up in a plane crash. Really dumb story

Anyways after this Roy was heartbroken he’d lost his dad. Like they were really close and people really hang on to an argument/ fuck up that happened going on 50 years ago. While conversely as you said waving away arguments that have happened consistently and recently. And Bruce started being abusive in the 80s like full-on horrible dad after Jason died. 

Then in 2001 ish Ollie is brought back to life. And he’s handed off to Judd Winick. Winick is a racist, sexist, and all-around bad writer. He’s noted for creating a black love interest for Ollie just to kill her brutally because of an argument with a Black Lightning writer. 

The other thing is Winick played Ollie like a womanizer and a cheater. Birds of. Prey also ran with this because that series had a nasty habit of bashing men. 

So basically Ollie was called a cheater for that time he was drugged and assaulted, kissed against his will by a teenager who he pushed off, and slept with a woman while he and Dinah weren’t dating. Cheating.... I can’t even explain the level of devotion to Dinah that Ollie displays. She is it for him really he isn’t even a flirt. Hal is the flirt. 

Winick also whitewashed and sidelined Connor a bunch cause screw him right. 

So that series did not shed a good light on Ollie and it’s sort of done damage to his rep when we should be ignoring it like we do with King’s work because it was that bad and ooc. 

What was valid from that series was Ollie adopting Mia Dearden after seeing she could use a hand up from where was in life. What was valid was Ollie spending all the time he could with Connor because he missed out on his son's whole life. And spending time with Roy and his granddaughter Lian. Like Ollie loves kids he loves Dinah and he loves his family. 

That’s who he is. 

New52 is another reason. So Ollie got shafted and shafted hard. 

He and Dinah weren’t dating at the start? I don’t think they were

Roy was no longer Ollie’s son but his co-worker

Connor and Mia just didn’t exist. Mia showed up for 6 issues and hasn’t since. Connor has only recently re-appeared in the Robin comic. 

Ollie and Roy didn’t get along because Ollie fired Roy for drinking on the job and that was sort of it. They weren’t father and son here so it’s a weird idea to compare them to Jason and Bruce and if you look at canon Bruce is still the worse one

But Rebirth has reset Roy to being Ollie’s son and Ollie was crushed when Roy died. Is still crushed cause i don't think he knows Roy is alive. 

Also Ollie is just like a generally good dude. He’s a genuine socialist and environmentalist. He uses his money when he’s got it to promote these things and sometimes blackmails corrupt rich people into supporting social services. 

Like you know Dick saying he wants to be Blüdhaven’s safety net? That is a page right out of the Oliver Queen playbook. 

Ollie funds most of the justice league really always has since like Zero Hour. Bruce and him probably are the two who do but it’s remarked upon multiple times that Ollie was the first (in some timelines) and main benefactor. 

I’ve noticed what you have in fanfics too and it drives me crazy. With the addition or I should say lack of Dinah and Hal. Dinah was absolutely like a mother to Roy. She’s his mama. She got him through his detox. Hal was the one who brought Roy to her. 

(Most people gloss over that Hal was like an Uncle to both Roy and Wally)

So yeah whenever I see Ollie bashing plus no mention of Dinah I know that the writer knows next to nothing about Ollie. 

Also Bruce likes to say Ollie is just as bad as him when Ollie is categorically a better person in like every way lol. 

This isn’t to say there is anything wrong with fanon-ing Bruce. But I just don’t understand why Ollie is essentially fanon-ed in the opposite direction. 

Roy will always get along with Ollie better and be safer with him than Jason would be with Bruce. But fanon wants to play off like Roy hates Ollie and is terrified of him or whatever which even in the darkest New52 pits of hell that wasn’t even true. 

I’m not sure why it’s gotten to be this way tbh. Bruce, Dick, Ollie, and Roy are the golden ages boys who got to stay young and they’ve all been slandered by writers but fans seem really only capable of ignoring when Bruce is written badly which is so odd. Like Dick gets called out for things that are so wildly ooc it astounds me that Bruce out of all people is the one people want to ignore is just sort of the worst. 

Lol yeah I got ranty. As you can tell I am very passionate about this and I just wish more people would even try to find out about Ollie before assuming things that are not true. 

Hope this helped somewhat