#just a draft for now I'll fix it up for elsewhere later

[factorialsotherfandoms]

Okay so my chill evening is turning into 'write a bit of fic set in operation 40 or so in the XCOM AU'. Or well I've been writing it a while, so... Cellbit and Memory Egg time!!! If its a weird team that's because it was lategame and I needed stats and such >.<

TW: mentioned corpses, severely ill child, non-consensual soul bonding (its an emergency), assumed dead child (they're not)

After the mess of the Viper King fight, Cellbit was almost happy to be crawling knee deep in half-rotten kitchen waste. It hadn't managed to do that much damage, all in all, but there had been a flurry of swords and gunfire and Cellbit is reasonably certain that had Roier and Jaiden not managed to pull out their insane stunt, the entire squad would be dead right now.

He's almost made his way to a side entrance of the building they were here to sabotage when Fit finally gets bored and lobs a grenade at a wall.

It makes a tidy entrance.

It also alerts every remaining enemy in the facility to their presence.

Cellbit takes one look at the assembled MECs - the Sectopod is doing reasonably well at destroying the building without their help - then glances back at his husband. He sees Roier visually check over everyone else - hears the whistle of Missa's EMP flying towards the Federation robots - before being given a nod.

He hoists himself the last little way up, ducks through the window, and neatly rolls to the floor. Via his comm he can hear Luzu's constant updates on enemy positions, and uses it to his advantage to sneak around.

Their only task is to destroy this place, but Cellbit is nothing if not curious.

Under the cover of nearby gunfire he slips down another coridoor, and finds himself before the prison. He's still hacking it open when the sounds of gunfire quieten, and moments later his comm sounds again.

"Oi Cellbit, where are you? We're cleaned up and I've got bombs with this facility's name on them here."

Cellbit snorts a little at his tone, before flicking up to reply. "I'm just checking the cells. Will be out shortly."

"Right. I still need to find a good place to stick this anyway. You've a few minutes."

"Sim, I'll let you know when I'm out."

There's a chorus of acknowledgements, one 'te amo' from Roier, and Cellbit breaks the rest of the way in.

In the first cell is a corpse. There's no kind way to say it, only that there is a body there. It is half decayed and the maggots pick at it. For a moment Cellbit sees Mike overlaid with the corpse but no, no, they recovered him from a cell half the world asay and yet just the same.

Soon enough this place will go up in flames, cremating the body too. He sees nothing with it, just a prisoner's jumpsuit, and so he closes the door and leaves them be.

If one prisoner is dead, he has little hope for the rest. To his relief the next two cells are empty, and in the third…

His heart drops to his gut.

"I found another of the children," he whispers.

"What?! Are they okay?!" Jaiden is the first on the uptake.

"Where?" Roier cuts in seconds later. "I come."

"They're dead," he whispers. "Not by long, but… Fuck!"

He rips out his comm, turns, punches the wall and stamps. They were too fucking late, and now another of the children is dead. Richas, fuck, Richas-

Cellbit reaches out along his bond and clings to his son. Richarlyson, confused, clings back.

It takes a few seconds for Cellbit to calm himself, but eventually he does. He might be willing to leave the adult prisoner to burn, but the child… He refuses to leave them here. They can bury the little one somewhere beautiful, at least.

He steps into the room - far too cold for a child - and looks around. This hatchling is smaller even than Richarlyson, only a little older in appearance than Trump, and clearly starved to death. A leaking water pipe is likely how they survived the dehydration at least... Their hand rests on a few scraps of paper covered in childish scrawl, and Cellbit's heart breaks all over again.

"Little egg," he whispers to the still form. "I'm so sorry we took this long."

Gently he lifts their hand, intending to read the papers. As soon as skin touches skin, however, he feels something new take root in his mind.

He doubts anyone else would notice, the connection is so tenuous but it's there. And its not a sectoid; it feels just like a very weak Richarlyson, weaker even than when the boy sleeps.

The child? But…

Cellbit looks again at the still form, and reaches out. Gently he brushes white hair from their neck, and rests his fingers against their pulse point. It takes much longer than he is comfortable with to find their pulse, weak and unsteady as it is, but it is there.

"Wait, they're alive. Just," it's not a certain thing; Cellbit gently scoops the child into his arms as he communicates with the team. "Needs urgent medical attention. Can someone call evac?"

It will reveal their position, perhaps compromise their mission, but the child comes first - they have to - and Fit did say he was very nearly finished. He can already feel the bond tighten, growing weak as the desperate kid steals his energy to keep themself breathing.

"It's okay little one," he whispers, even as Missa gives him the coords for the evac and Fit curses out the explosives. "You'll be alright now."

Almost as a second thought he grabs the child's scraps of paper, stuffing them in a pocket as he cradles the child and walks. Evac isn't far - Missa has managed to call it right by the hole where they blew their way in. Cellbit doesn't run, because if he runs he might drop an already sick child, but he does walk as fast as he knows how.

When he gets to evac, Roier is guarding it. The two of them share a quick look, before Cellbit signals for a rope. It's awkward to rope up with a child in arm, but he's practiced this with Richas who is a much wrigglier person.

This child might be too, if they live. And Cellbit sees this child, and knows he will do anything to help them.

He ropes up, and grabs the medkit from under one of the seats. There's not a whole lot to be done for the child this far our - let them drain is energy is all cellbit can do, and while his psionics training means he has a lot, it will still kill him if it takes too long to get them stable.

Cellbit is also not a doctor, but its clear the little one hasn't had any food recently, and he would bet on water too. With water the more urgent he finds the daline solution - made more with blood loss in mind, but it will do - and slips the needle under the girl's skin. He tries to ask Roier what to do, but over the comm is thw sound of gunfire and so he is not heard.

Instead he tucks the child - the tiny, small child - into his lap. His fingers comb white hair, and he tries to feed the weak but desperate hand as much happiness as possible. He's never quite worked out if emotions can change how much the energy helps, but Richarlyson always says happiness tastes best. He cannot sing well, but he does his best to hum a little tune for the child.

They'll need so much medical attention if they are to make it, but given everything… Cellbit hopes they will survive.

It's only a few minutes later when the call of "charges set!" comes through the comms. For sake of protocol Cellbit calls back his clear, keeping his voice low for the toddler in his lap. Over the next thirty seconds or so he has to shush nearly the whole team, but they make it back. Missa's burns look irritated and Roier is favouring one shoulder, but there are no new injuries they can see.

As they fly away he shields the child's ears, while everyone else protects their own. The sharp explosion shakes the helicopter a little, but no more than they have come to expect.

Silence passes for a few moments, Jaiden helping Roier set his shoulder and Luzu cleaning up Missa's burns. Soon enough they start talking in quiet Spanish. Cellbit listens idly to what is no more than teasing and gossip, rather wanting to be absorbed into the wall.

"This the new kid, then?" Fit is the one to finally ask.

Cellbit keeps stroking their hair, and nods. "Can someone let medical know?"

"Already done."

"Thank you," Cellbit lifts one hand to pinch his nose, before looking over. "Roier, we have another kid now."

"Qué?!" Roier turns, jarring himself a little.

"Bonded to me as soon as I touched her," he frowns.

"They didn't ask?"

"I don't think they'd survive the journey without," he confesses.

"Shit."

Cellbit plays with the child's hair some more, runs his hand across their face and checks their breathing. Very still, but there.

"Must be one of the ones who vanished," Roier suggests. "Bobby said there were, what, twenty?"

"Ramon can't tell he difference between alive and dead. Dapper might, but she wouldn't tell us."

Cellbit doesn't really care; he leaves the group to their devices, and slips the papers that he grabbed. The handwriting is childish, in dirt and blood, but just about legible - they, too, must have learnt to write through the bond the eggs share.

It's not a long ride, but neither did the child have much paper. Still it is heartbreaking, looking as their handwriting gets better and then worse. He reads about a child told to wait and obediently doing so, waiting and watching out the window for days on end. Talking about feeling their siblings learning love, and wanting it for themself...

And then, describing starving - dying - in a way no child should ever know.

He turns over the last page, and sighs. Roier takes the papers, skims them, and leans against his side.

"They'll be okay, sí?" His husband promises. "Everyone will help."

If it's the bond or the stress or the pain he's receiving back, but Cellbit curls over the child. Roier frowns, and leaves his seat, moving to shield the two from other eyes. Cellbit barely notices as the rest of the helicopter turn away, too focused on the little one in his arms.

---

Cellbit is still holding the little one when they wake up, days later. Pac and Mike are doing something with Richars - presumably extremely dangerous - while Roier and Jaiden have taken Bobby to the training range. Cellbit has been stuck here for days, looking after the little one; at least he can hold them with one arm, and work on decoding reports with the other. He has no idea how Forever survived this long, but maybe that is why he had so few contacts early on.

He doesn't quite notice the child stir at first, mind busy trying to formulate the key. It is only when he feels the pull of surprise in the bond, quickly followed by a mind closing off, that he notices.

He looks down, and meets a pair of tiny grey eyes.

"Hello little one," he whispers to them. "You're safe now."

He isn't sure if they understand his words, or just what they mean. Either way, they turn around and burrow their face in Cellbit's chest. Protectively he tucks an arm around them, and waves the doctor over.

"This might be a bit scary," he soothes the child. "But I'll be right here, okay? You're not going to be alone."

Its terrifying how easily that calms the child, enough that they just let the doctor do whatever. Or, perhaps, they are just too weak to object. Either way he makes sure to hold their hand, keeping them calm. He doesn't look at how their doctor frowns; he'll be told later when he needs to know.

The doctor is barely finished when Richarlyson barges in, Chayanne and Dapper both peeking around the door behind him. Cellbit greets his son and shifts, helping him up onto the bed. Immediately the notepad comes out, the messy scrawl of questions constant. Cellbit's newest child looks at them, but shakes their head and curls up more.

"Gentle, Richas," he reminds. "They're still recovering."

Richarlyson does, bringing back the notebook and replacing the multitude of questions with a simple 'hello'.

The little one does manage a wave before hiding again, only peeking out again when Chayanne and Dapper finally decide to come in. The two seem a little better at calming them down, but they still remain listless in Cellbit's lap.

"You can leave them now," the doctor says as the children communicate in their own strange ways. "They're stable enough for you to wander the ship."

Cellbit looks down at the child in his lap, half asleep but still watching their siblings as they descend into their own little conversation.

"I'll stay a little longer," he says, and leaves the children be.

[tj-dragonblade]

Academic Conference au? 👀

Ah, Academic Conference AU my beloved. It's actual title is An Examination of the Benefits of Inter-Departmental Fraternization (by Hob Gadling, PhD) but that's kind of a mouthful so the old label still sticks. I have mentioned this one a lot in various places; it started from the smut prompts 'bed sharing' and '"Then do it already"' and has spawned multiple chapters with a thin semblance of plot by this point. The first chapter is fully drafted but needs a little revision to accommodate details I decided on later. Second chapter is maybe half to two-thirds drafted, and there are outline-y notes and small chunks of chapters three and four. None of it will be posted until the whole thing is done, because I will not finish it otherwise. And also those evolving details I mentioned.

There have been bits and pieces of this scattered in several places over the months I've poked at it and I kind of lose track of what's been shared where BUT. Here is the opening section of the fic, which I don't think has been shared before - at least not in its entirety:

~ "He can share with me."

The grateful look on the poor harried hotel clerk's face is gratifying, but Hob didn't speak up just for her.

Dr. Dream Murphy arches an eyebrow over the chunky black rim of his glasses at Hob, mildly suprised. "Dr. Gadling," he greets, considerably less agitated than just a second before.

"If you're amenable, of course," Hob adds, speaking directly to his colleague now. "It's a single, so we'd still need a rollaway bed—if there's one available?" He glances to the clerk.

"There is," she confirms, fingers flying over her keyboard.

"Perfect. Well?" He turns to Dr. Murphy. "Better than trying to find a room elsewhere? I'll even take the rollaway; you can have the room bed."

Dr. Murphy inclines his head like some kind of old-school royalty. "Very well."

"Brilliant." Hob flashes a smile, directs it back to the clerk. "I'm in 607, Robert Gadling. You can merge his reservation with mine and get him a key, and just send up the extra bed—thanks!"

"Of course." She finishes entering the changes, programs a key card, hands it to Dr. Murphy. "Here you go sir, and again, I'm so sorry for the mix-up—"

"No matter. Thank you," he says, already turning away, and Hob flashes the poor girl one last grateful smile and hurries to follow.

Dr. Murphy says nothing until they are closed in the elevator together, and then he fixes Hob with the crystal blue eyes that have wandered in and out of Hob's daydreams all year. "I. Appreciate your intercession on my behalf, Dr. Gadling."

"Think nothing of it," Hob demurs, shrugging. He catches himself fiddling with his earlobe and drops his hand. "Not like it's her fault they overbooked and gave your room to someone else. Not your fault either. Glad to be passing by with a solution. But." He straightens up, flashes his most winning smile. "If we're going to be rooming together for the whole of this conference, please—call me Hob."

Dr. Murphy does that regal head-incline thing again; his gaze, when it lifts to Hob's, is considering. "Hob," he repeats, like tasting it, and the familiarity stirs a wispy tendril of warmth in Hob’s gut. "Then you must call me Dream."

WIP List

[omegangrins]

A Rant on the End of Tremors 7: Shrieker Island

As the main man said,

Throwing caution to the wind because this blew up elsewhere.

If you can do it with Justice League, fuck it, let's do it for every shitty movie we've got.

While we're at it, can we change the ending of the 7th Tremors movie so *MAJOR FUCKING SPOILERS* Burt Gummer doesn't die or at least bring Jamie Kennedy back, or Marvel style recast Jon Heder, so he dies saving his son instead of a random-ass person who could have easily saved themselves. Or cut the forced montage of Burt clips at the end so his death is at least ambiguous. Seriously beyond pissed about that one. THAT is no way for him to go.

I would also like to point out that the next Tremors *HAS* to be titled Tremors 8: Ouroboros and bring everyone back for Burt's funeral . Otherwise, what's the fucking point?

I have feelings about it, people. *FEELINGS!!!*

One of my favourite childhood memories is picking out Tremors 2 from the local gas station's movie rentals and forcing my parents to watch it. I was probably 5-6 at the time.

Let's say that it's been a lifelong love affair ever since. It took me another 10 years before I even watched the 1st. Probably why I hold good sequels in such high regard.

I didn't even know about the 1st until it played as a trailer in front of 2 and never thought to watch until years later. That's a testament to its filmmaking if I ever knew one.

So seriously, that's how they chose to kill off one of the most well known and prolific characters in a movie/TV series known around the globe? With an unnecessaryily needed death and a montage of clips from all the other movies that are obviously better than this one.

And I'm saying that as someone who defends Chibnall/13th Doctor...

...and I'm fucking fuming because THIS is how you *actually* destroy something people love and hold dear to their hearts. It's like the ending of Game of Thrones. His shitty ass death has made it a loooooot harder to rewatch. And they are one of my favourite series!!! Not flawless but fun. But I will defend every other movie and all the episodes except this. Honestly I'll still defend 7/8ths of this one as well.

Like I said, it's easily fixed too. Fucking vice versa swap out Jon Heder for Jamie Kennedy, who the movies have been building up for the last two, and have Burt save his son in front of his old flame. Boom, you won't even need the montage of clips cause you can just have Travis and his mom reminisce about Burt instead. Show not tell. I don't even care he died by Graboid (although in all honesty, I've allways wanted El Blanco to take him down or Burt kills himself from the PTSD. It would have AT LEAST MADE SENSE. Hell, the best would be a heart attack to callback Val's "Yeah, Burt, the way you worry, you're gonna have a heart attack before you get a chance to survive World War Three.". But none of us ever get the best death.). And it's not even about Burt sacrificing himself to save a nobody. Cause that could work too. BUT YOU NEED TO BUILD THAT SHIT UP. Not just fucking drop it like it's hot.

Like I said too, the first 7/8ths ain't bad but it's an entirely different story than a swansong for a hero.

It's all about some billionaire scientist/cowboy hunter dude who likes to get his jollies off hunting the biggest and the baddest who ends up inviting people to this island so they can hunt down Super-Graboids he designed for shits and giggles. But then some Shrieker-fy....

And the pretentious douches come and die one by beautiful one while Burt tries to save them anyway and it's all spectacularly dumb fun until it comes crashing down in the final 10 minutes. Fuck, they should just cut the last 10 minutes. Then it's a perfect little Tremors ditty.

#RELEASETHE7THTREMORSWITH10MINUTESFROMTHEENDCUT

This isn't even about Jon Heder either. He's just doing his job. Hell, do what /u/VoiceofRonHoward pointed out.

"It is clear that Jon's character was just pasted in over Jamie's, the artifacts of the father-son relationship are all over it. They should have gone full Marvel and just replaced Jamie with Jon and acted like nothing happened."

CAUSE FUCK YES!! The only time a story sucks is when they don't commit. Commitment makes all the difference. Now, I'm pissed double-pissed they didn't do that instead since Heder and Kennedy are similar in terms of white-boy-ness.

Even Michael Gross agrees:

"Yes, yes. Now I can't presume to speak for Jamie [Kennedy]. My understanding was they asked him and he said no. And so that's why they went with somebody else. So I had nothing to do with that decision. I just heard the stories. I missed him for that reason. You begin a relationship with the character, and you want to continue it....

...As you build a relationship with this son, we had two, it would've been nice to have three, but that was the hand I was dealt."

One of my favourite bits of Tremors lore comes from the 5th too so it's not like I hate sequel changes out of hand:

"This is a warrior dance. Our ancestors hunting the lnkanyamba and the Impundulu.

"What's that?

"Impundulu. It's what you call the Ass Blaster.

"Ass Blaster.

"Yes.

"Yes.

"Hey, you know, you make Ass Blaster sound good.

Primitive cultures fighting Graboids, Shriekers and Assblasters. I just love that thought.

Hilariously, my meta opening to the 8th movie would be a flashback to 10,000 years ago and a Neanderthal-like Burt Gummer teaching others how to drive Graboids off cliffs like they did with mammoths.

Thank you for giving me the space to rant. Cause fuuuuuuhhhhhhhhuuccck!!!

Here's Michael Gross' own words from his AMA that prove the people making Shrieker Island didn't know their shit.

"The Tremors series is one very close to my heart and I want you to know how appreciated your continued effort is for your core fan base.

My only question would be were there ever any studio decisions made for Burt that you refused to comply with? Or was everybody pretty much always on the same page on what to do with the character?

Thanks again for your dedication.

- Josh"

"Thanks for the kind words, Josh. As regards the first four films, with Wilson and Maddock as the writers, we were very much on the same page. 5,6, and 7 were a bit different, because there was a 13-year hiatus between 4 and 5, and we had to refresh our memories while "reinventing" the franchise for a new audience. I will give you one example: in an early draft of Shrieker Island, a new writer wrote a draft where Burt threatened to shoot one of the bad dudes, and I had to tell him—this is true—"Burt never intentionally points his gun at another human being."

And his own thoughts on Burt's "death" and how to bring it all back together again.

Universal and the director [came] to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' And I said, 'But I thought this franchise was over after four. So I could certainly live with it being over after seven.'

"What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. >!Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains. Everybody assumes he's gone. Is he buried somewhere? Is he unconscious somewhere? We never see Burt dead. We see Burt gone. We see Burt not returning. What does that mean? Has he been knocked out? Does he have amnesia somewhere? Does he wander off? Is he in a kind of coma? So yes, the way it ends is pretty profound."

"As regards to the end of Tremors 7, let me just say that while people ASSUME Burt is gone, we never see his remains, do we? Just sayin.'

"The only reason he has become the main character is that everyone else in the original cast moved on to other things. I NEVER thought of him as the central figure, but it just worked out that Michael Gross, like Burt Gummer, was a "survivor." :0) "

"No one would like to see it more than I!!! One of my greatest regrets is that so many other cast members fell away over time. Reba was on to other things, Kevin said no to a second, Fred said no to a third. I would LOVE one last go with all of them, but it is not up to me. :0( "

"There are no guarantees, but for those who wonder aloud if this is the final film, I will say what I have said before: SALES drive sequels, Show biz is 5% show and 95% business, so if this latest addition to the Tremors franchise, sells well, [Universal] will follow the money, and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment may will be back for more."

/u/ActorMichaelGross, the bell has been rung and the song sung. Get the producers on this ASAP!!

I was also the first person to discover the symbolic foreshadowing of Stumpy's end with Earl's sleeping bag in the original movie.

Let's just say, I really *really* love these movies. So if anyone knows anyone, hook me up to the producers of this series and I'll Justin Lin in the Fast and Furious out of this shit.

Since I don't think it's good to critique without proposing either, I say we can make up for this fuck up with the next movie. We'll call it Tremors 8: Ouroboros. After the snake which eats its own tail.

We find out Burt faked his death to get the Proudfoot Corporation to let down their guard and when everyone from the previous series comes back for Burt's fake funeral they give him ever loving shit for being such a paranoid whack-job that he would fake his death to fool a government agency. Why would he do this? He found an old photo of Hiram Gummer with a Graboid warning on the back and asks himself why this valley, why these things, why allways me? And we find out, it's not Burt. It's that lifestyles of extremes will end up in places of extremes. Burt and the Graboids are survivors of different species. Sure the Proudfoot Corporation IS using Mixmaster to combine Graboids, Shriekers, and Ass-Blasters into one super creature for the military but it pales in comparison to Burt looking at his life and wondering in shame how many ancient giants like himself he has killed. And with that, he actually dies, and we keep the ball rolling with the rest of the characters trying to stop what they allways thought was just another one of Burt's crazy conspiracies.

That's why it's Ouroboros. Everything comes back around. We could end/start the movie with Grady, Earl, and Jodi opening a Monster World in Perfection Valley a la Desert Jack's Graboid Adventure. I don't know. I'm fucking trying harder than the people they paid to do this already.

It ain't perfect but I'm building on sand here so changes are gonna get made.

Like if the makers of Tremors notice this,

Then DM me because fucking A you guys need some help.

[wewindondowntheroad]

Writer asks: 1, 6, 10, 22, 29, 38

thanks! :D

1. When did you start writing?

I've got an awful memory for like placing that sort of thing but when I was pretty young, like third or fourth grade. I used to have this massive binder of DBZ fanfiction in my closet as a kid (since systematically destroyed) and I remember in fifth grade me and my best friend at the time just convinced we were going to become published authors and we both wrote really long stories and used to exchange them to read.

6. Do you write on your phone/laptop/paper/something else?

Mostly on my laptop, occasionally, like if i'm at work or on vacation or something I'll write down bits and pieces on paper or in a notebook, and i've got a tons of notes on my phone for when i'm on a walk and start thinking of good stuff. if i'm really desperate, like yesterday at work, i start drafting a story in like a tumblr draft so i can just copy and paste into my document when i get home

10. Origin of your username?

on here, wewindondowntheroad is from Stairway to Heaven because I started out as a classic rock blog and i'm never going to let it go because "we wind on down the road" is such a life mood

i'm radiantradish elsewhere because I can't remember why exactly but at some point when I started my current job I just really resonated with radishes (i was a cashier so like ringing up produce all the time) and there was this guy i liked and I used to tell my sister like well he's a babe and I'm just a radish. and that's sort of the origin? i vibe with root vegetables

22. Favourite part about writing fanfiction?

Hanging out with my favorite characters I guess? going on fun adventures and falling in love and working through problems.

Like in a technical way though, my favorite part is when I'm struggling with some part of the story like a plot hole or a missing scene and then the good feeling when I figure out how to fix it, like imagining the one detail about a character or a situation that just makes everything else fit just right

And also when I've got something finished being able to come back to it later to reread and enjoy in the same way that I did when I first wrote it

29. Where do you get your inspiration from?

life, music, thinking of silly conversations in my head

38. Something writing related you'd like to get better at?

smut. That's what i'm working on right now lol

[deorstitchery]

About requests, courtesy, and manners.

My Deor blogs are site blogs, they're a hobby, and I'm not paid for any of it. You would think that the last part is obvious, but it bears repeating. The fact that this is a hobby, also means that people visiting my blog or following it, do not get to make demands of how the blog is run. I'm not your employee, your commands mean jack shit to me.

You could make a request, politely, and I may consider it. But it is still my prerogative to do as I please.

Why am I bringing up such obvious things? Because someone has been extremely rude, and I'm annoyed.

I've been getting several anon asks, the first of which is this one

Now, that's a fair request. I would have replied to it with the following explanation of how I run my blog: I have limited time, so I collect the photos I want to upload in bulk. Then upload them as drafts, from which I fill my queue once a month. And then I reblog some things every now and then when I'm online on my phone. Currently, my drafts are still stocked fairly well.

I have my queue at 10 posts a day, so a queue of 300 posts last me a month, and my drafts will feed the blog for about 3 and a half months.

When I started this sideblog, I didn't think things fully through. I uploaded the photos but did not keep a catalogue of them elsewhere, meaning I now do not have the sources ready for the photos in my draft. I had already realised that this could give the wrong impression, and have therefore put up a disclaimer on my blog to let you know that the photos are not mine, and are sourced through the internet, to make sure I'm not claiming ownership. And to please contact me directly if you recognise someone's work, or your own, so I can add the sourcing. I have since changed my cataloguing, and for when I fill my drafts up again, I will be including the sources.

I will not, however, be changing my schedule, because 1; I'm a fairly small account, so the damage is limited at this point, 2: this is tumblr, people are well aware that unsourced posts from aesthetic blogs are not all, and usually not at all, created by the person running the blog. And 3; I have a life, I don't have the time to either find all the sources for those posts or delete them and refill the drafts early. This is a hobby, a past time, I can't use work hours to fix this.

I WOULD have explained that to the anon, if they had been decent about it. But apparently, I did not react as quickly to this person, and within a day I received

At which point, not only have you crossed the line of decent behaviour and become very rude, you're literally trying to threaten me over something entirely trivial, while hiding behind the grey face. And clearly, it's an empty threat, because what exactly can you do?So I had a good laugh about the pathetic nature of this, decided to not waste my time, and move on with my day. This pissed you off more, and 2 days later

Again, I'm not stealing anything, I'm not claiming ownership over anything. And you're just being a bastard, bitching about an issue that has no real-life effect, clearly isn't on your own honour, because again, if it were about you, you'd use your own account, not anon, to settle a dispute. The hiding behind anon reeks of harassing for the sake of harassing.

If you take such issue with it, unfollow my blog, use that neat little block button, get off my lawn and move on with your life.

tl;dr I know it's not nice to not source my posts, when I've run through the backlog I'll be adding sources to the new stock. This has been a decision I've made a while ago, and I'm now just working through the catalogue. As adding sources may not be hard, it is time-consuming, and I have a life and actual responsibilities. However, it's no excuse to act like a bastard to someone you don't know. And it's surely not going to make me change my behaviour in any way. It may have escaped you, but you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. You send me another vitriolic message, you will find yourself banned. I'm not your doormat, fuck off.

[runawayballista]

i think the reason that writing in a notebook has been really working out for me, other than it being a really useful tool for writing thru the bad brain fog, is that its kind of like laying down a sketch layer. it's the first draft "this won't be perfect" mentality with a more practical (for me) approach. i can't backspace or make things tidy, so instead i let my brain free range and write notes in the margins, cross things out, outline things in boxes and draw arrows to move them elsewhere or star a passage and then add something to it i forgot in another box on the next page. one of my problems with brain fog is that my working memory is really short. if i know what i want to write 3 paragraphs from now, i'm liable to forget in the time that it takes to write those 3 pargraphs, so i'm frequently sketching out reminders or snippets of dialogue in the middle of paragraphs so i can remember where i was going. (sometimes this means i forget what i'm in the middle of writing, but not usually.) writing by hand does mean the writing goes slower but it's good in a way, it means my hands can't get ahead of my brain and stall out on the next thought like sometimes happens while typing, at which point i have to try to remember where i was going, and then the time it takes to turn over the ignition in my brain makes me incredibly prone to doing things like, getting distracted by a funny tweet.

but i don't worry too much about sentence structure, or being concise, or whether or not the prose is elegant. my handwriting is messy and hard to scan, so it's not uncommon for me to lose track of a sentence structure or end up with an unintentional sentence fragment. i do a lot of stream-of-consciousness writing to get around the brain fog, because it's easier for me to write until i figure out what i want to say than think it out. and i wind up with some really great prose this way, too! i try to avoid ever putting things like [insert joke here] because it's just a blank space in my writing that will be harder to fill in later, but i will put a less funny joke there that's more or less to the effect i want. punching up a flat joke is, for me, way easier (or at least more reliable) than spinning a really funny one out of nothing later. i'll write some flat prose sketching out what i want to happen knowing i can reword it later instead of writing "and this is where they talk about the thing". i save typing up what i've written for when i'm more awake and edit as i write, fixing the glaring issues like sentence structure and omitted words and reworking it as ideas come to me, but i save the heavy lifting for actual editing because it's still a rough draft.

i don't really think writing two rough drafts is a universally useful approach, but a lot of what i do (in life in general, not just writing for fun) is basically focused on reducing the cognitive load for any given task. my fog-riddled brain can't juggle too many parallel lines of thought without losing track of them, so i try to frontload as much of my thinking as i can, so that i can think about as little else as possible than the words right in front of me. i don't trust my memory so i write out ideas for future scenes (or things later down the line in this scene) as they come and highlight those sections or pages in bright colors so it's easy to flip through and remind myself what i was going to include. it is a little labor intensive and i am limited by how long i can get my hand to cooperate, but i found a really comfortable to hold pen and as someone who has a hard time unplugging and unwinding it's really nice to just put on a ragtime piano album and write by hand for a few hours. it worked well enough to write a whole-ass romance novel last year during one of the most stressful work periods of my life and it's working out pretty dang well for fanfiction