#so long as you have the grit to

[feraldogteeth]

When I say feral I mean refusing to follow orders because how could I know what it means to be ordered around

When I say feral I mean disappearing for days on end because how was I supposed to know I’m supposed to stay in one place. Your only option is to lock me in a cage I guess :/

When I say feral I mean not asking permission for things because if I want it and it’s right there then what’s stopping me from taking what I want?

When I say feral I mean having instinctive physical responses that my mind has no control over.

When I say feral I mean I want to break things. I want to bite and thrash.

When I say feral I mean my behavior is both wild, and so, so predictable. I’m just an animal, my motivations are transparent yet my demeanor is volatile.

When I say feral I mean if you don’t put me in the dirt where I belong I’ll make you take my place.

[fictionadventurer]

There's something about reading really great writing that's so relaxing. You can just sit back and let the words wash over you, knowing that you can trust the writer.

[mariatesstruther]

happy mother’s day to maria miller

[alullinchaos]

wait off topic if I change Cinder's semblance for my rwby canon-adjacent au.... would this be controversial editing to warn people that the tags are novel length but that i love them and also @graythegreyt pls read them when u have a chance

[gailynovelry]

When you suddenly become aware of a plot hole that probably 90% of anyone who ever looks at your stuff will not notice, think, or care about, but now it's in your brain and you need to dig up an old story to edit it into submission again.

[mushroom-for-art]

I ran so fast lmao, reverse Pip belongs to @blues-sues once more!

Not so different

Mud and grit rubbed against his fur and skin uncomfortably in a way that made his skin crawl, the texture was unpleasant for him, though he was thankful he hadn't gotten too much of the mud in his wounds let alone his eyes. He felt his eyelid twitch in discomfort at the thought of it. A wet cloth didn't bring much comfort especially with the cold water it brought but it cleaned him off, slowly but surely.

Her aura flickered faintly in waves and rolls dancing and fading from his psychic sight, he didn't know the name of the color of her shape but it didn't look like the others, it felt fuzzy and softer making him feel a bit more safe and comfortable. The clean water splashed in its bucket as she dipped a new piece of fabric in, wringing it off and wiping away more of the mud he was coated in, the texture of grit on her own fingertips was unpleasant but she continues on, faintly they could hear others talking arguing about something that didn't concern them right now and he'd found he was getting a lot better at tuning out background noises even with his hearing being heightened.

Water droplets slid down his arm falling off of him into the sopping wet ground beneath, Muddy Water had certainly done its job. His head twitched and jerked as he felt a water droplet forming on his temple slowly sliding down to his eye sockets head twitching uncomfortably trying to shake it off, he wanted to paw at his face but his hands were still filthy and being cleaned off he could put grit in his sockets, the thought of a water droplet pooling in his eyes caused his twitching to increase.

He stilled feeling a hand move to his shoulder, water droplet still threateningly moving as his brow furrowed before a dry towel brushed past the side of his face slowly and gently up to his horn, and then it passed over his forehead collecting up the offending water droplet and any more moisture and then against the other side of his face to his horn on that side, his fur still felt moist but the thick droplets of water were gone and his anxiety began to lessen. It was a simple act but, used to having his discomforts being ignored it did bring a rush of relief.

He felt the wet cloth carefully return to cleaning off his arm of the persistent mud, cleaning the back of his hand and fingers. He swallowed quietly in thought, mouth opening and shutting again with barely a hum or croak.

".....tha….aank…" channeling his inner thoughts to be outer thoughts was harder than he had thought it would be, he could feel his temple already beginning to ache from the strain of projecting his speech, "yooouuu," it was something of a breathy exhale despite not being pushed through his lungs, he couldn't even recognise his own voice but it should have been enough. Judging by the stilling of her hand he must have heard her and it wasn't for naught.

Unfortunately he could not see the smile nor the mouthed "you're welcome," before she returned to cleaning off his hand cleaning grit from between his fingers gently. His mouth twitched awkwardly and he felt his eyebrows furrowing as he wondered why she wasn't responding to him, was he not really worth it?

As she cleaned his hand the frown on his face was noticed, as was the subtle attempt to pull his hand away from her wanting to pull away and just dunk the clean water over himself and hope that it got the dirt off and he could be alone. He felt her squeeze his digits gently and he stilled just a little as he frowned to himself before she moved his hand which was strange. He allowed it though. His damp digits made contact with skin. She was warm as she put his fingers carefully to her throat she could feel his knuckles under her chin, he wasn't sure what to make of it until he detected the texture difference.

Without her guide his finger tips traced up and down a small section of her throat feeling over the scarred tissue compared to the unscarred tissue, he stopped on the scar tissue slowly feeling across one way and then feeling across the other feeling the size of the scar. He pulled his hand away slowly and touched his fingertip to his own neck feeling the scarring there before moving to put his fingers back, attempting to find her scar again and with some guidance his fingers bumped against her scarred tissue once more.

She couldn't talk either, just like him except humans don't have telepathy. He tilted his head a bit as he stared forward without seeing as though looking at her, her hands took his and moved his touch away but he felt her softly pat the back of his hand and she squeezed his hand with hers once more and this time he didn't feel as though it was a weak attempt of crushing his hand bones. There was a quiet moment as she held his hand squeezing it softly with hers, the warmth seeming to travel up his arm through him before returning with a slosh of clean water and cloth to clean the mud from his person as it still uncomfortable caked his chest and other arm.

[pepsi-maxwell]

"you know, there's so much potential for gender angst in title belt sex swap fics going untapped" <= guy about to write something delusional

[kiddokori]

customer service is half reveling in the joy of humanity and the small connections we make every day with those around us and half holding myself back from calling people idiots to their faces

[kelev9]

i am having MANY DOG THOUGHTS TONIGHT AHHH ALL I KNOW IS I LOVE DUTCHIES SO MUCH

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I am a new reader of your blog, and that is something I want to know (but it's totally okay if you want to ignore this ask!) why you stopped liking [with you]? Is there something in particular that bothered you about this fic?

That... is a question with a loaded answer.

The quick answer is:

I put way too much pressure on myself with [with you] that caused terrible burnout and I couldn't do any creative writing for a long time after; a small portion of my readers were pretty hostile about slow updates; there were criticisms about the story that I had a hard time with; and there are a lot of story beats and writing decisions I made with it that I'm very critical of. All of those things combined, I now have a lot of negative feelings associated with [with you].

The not-so-quick answer involves a lot of self-criticism about my prose, poor choices, the criticisms by my readers, and some behind the scenes stuff. I'll put all that under a "keep reading" for anyone interested in more detail.

When I started [with you], it wasn't meant to be a 50k+ story, it was just going to be a simpler story told in a couple parts... that I then kept expanding. I'm pretty sure every note I have on the original version posted on here starts with, "hey y'all, this story is this many parts now whoops haha"

I had very little planned out, I was just discovery writing my way through everything. I wrote a chapter, read through it a couple times, said, "yeah that's good enough," then posted. Y'know, like what a lot of people who write fics do. "no beta, we die like Ben falling down the bell tower" and all that.

I had ideas of where I wanted to go, but I didn't start an outline until I was well into the story. It was bloated. I felt like I needed to add every single idea I had, and needed to expand on every character, even if it didn't do anything to advance or enhance the story... and that became overwhelming for me to keep track of since I wanted it to all tie together in the end and please my readers.

When I read through it now, there is so much that can be cut that no one would miss. It would flow better and be easier to read.

My prose [the actual writing style] is all over the place and reads like a first draft, especially in earlier chapters. Spelling errors, run-on sentences, whole paragraphs that I should've cut. While I feel better about my dialogue, there are some conversations that read as awkward.

Honestly, the best part of the entire fic is Clementine and Louis' story, which... yeah. I'm pretty happy with the way I portrayed their dynamic, dialogue, and romance. I just wish I hadn't bogged it all down with everything else, like... that's all it needed to be, it just needed to be about clouis.

Oh, and I still like the dream sequence. That's probably one of the better chapters, if not the best chapter.

Now, when I say I made bad choices with this story, one of those choices I'm referring to is my "big rewrite." This was incredibly stupid. Past CJ thought it was a good idea but she's a dumb ass. You can't listen to anything she says.

Basically, I got the brilliant idea that I would take [with you] down and rewrite the whole thing before I wrote the final chapters. I wasn't satisfied with how it was written. I felt I could do so much better. I was going to trim unnecessary fat, expand on important details, make some heavy changes, improve everything, and then repost it with the ending.... so I deleted it off AO3 and got to work.

Terrible idea. Don't ask me why. What I should've done was discontinued that version, made a note that it was old, and then published the new version separately. But I didn't. And a lot of people were pissed at me. Shocking.

I should've just finished it. I should've finished it, posted it, and then went from there. But I didn't. Ever since then I've gotten a lot of readers who would go on anon and send me messages about [with you] that are passive aggressive or guilt trippy. That soured my feelings about the story and myself as a writer tremendously.

Then there's Violet.

I wrote the first few chapters before Ep4 of TFS was released, meaning I wrote Violet before we found out that she's blinded in the explosion in her kidnapped route. I took the "Violet despises you" route, and a big plot point of the story is Violet dealing with all these conflicting feelings about Clementine, hating her but also not, distancing herself from the group, the strain it put on her and Louis' friendship, etc.

I don't like how I portrayed Violet for a number of reasons. I know what I was trying to do, and I knew I couldn't [or wouldn't] scrap everything I already wrote about her and rewrite in a blind Violet on friendly terms with Clementine... because sure, I wanted to do this grand rewrite that sounded easy enough on paper, but in practice that was so much work that intimidated me.

Because behind the scenes fun- for the rewrite, I wanted to do that. That was a major change that would've cut so much from the story I wasn't happy with, and would've been a more positive portrayal of the character. But then I saw just how much would be cut and how much I'd have to write and it scared me off from the idea... so I tried to work with what I had and I still hate it.

Violet's very antagonistic in the story. She attacked Clementine after the boat explosion. Everyone thinks she'll attack her again. Mitch calls her a traitorous bitch and doesn't trust her to not stab Clementine in a conversation. There's even a point where it's mentioned that in the past she slapped Louis during a conversation. She just has a pissy attitude throughout the story but then berates herself for it and I just... I was going for a slow burn recovery that explores her trauma and ends with her reconciling with Clementine... but it doesn't come off that way? Some parts I think I executed better than others but most of it I look back at and say, "...No, past CJ, that doesn't read like you think it does...."

But that wasn't my only criticism I got about the way I wrote Violet, and this one is... a little complicated? And something most probably wouldn't take issue with or even notice unless you're a major Violet stan... but I pretty much gave Mitch [a character I loved at the time] a lot of Violet's canon character points and explored them more positively, then turned around and made Violet more antagonistic, which......yeeeeeah.

The only defense I have for this is it wasn't intentional. It really wasn't, but I understand and think it's a valid complaint. Like... I used to get these anons who would tell me this and I'd quietly delete them because, "...nope, not touching that. If I don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist."

Lemme explain: In my fics, Mitch is gay. He had feelings for his best friend and roommate, Justin, before he died to walkers, and Mitch hasn't trusted "gross feelings" ever since... until James shows up and Mitch has to face the fact that he has romantic feelings for him while not being completely over Justin...

...y'know, totally different from Violet who is gay, had feelings for Minerva before she "died," and hasn't trusted mushy feelings ever since... until Clementine shows up and Violet has to face the fact that she has romantic feelings for her while not being completely over Minerva....

It's surface level stuff since they are written differently, and it's not like you're not allowed to have more than one character with character beats like that, but it's enough of a similarity that I get why it would rub Violet lovers the wrong way. Especially since nothing about that is canon with Mitch's character, y'know? It's the character I gave him.

I don't think it was coming from the Violet crowd [the aggressively obnoxious fans no one likes], I think it came from people who were genuinely bummed or put off by my more antagonistic portrayal of her, only to see similar traits portrayed positively with Mitch.

And that bothers me. I do like the way I wrote Mitch, but I hate the way I wrote Violet. It's made me step back and analyze why I wrote them the way I did, y'know?

But the BIGGEST criticism from readers I've gotten?

[with you] is unfinished.... valid, but there isn't anything I can add that. Sorry y'all, it's discontinued, I'm never going to finish it.

The best I can give you is what I planned: a big wedding scene where Clementine and Louis exchanged vows and kissed. Violet showed up and made amends with Clementine. Clementine talked Mitch into dancing with her even though he hates dancing. Aasim tried to ask Ruby to dance, panicked, and asked Mitch instead who was like "...Fuck no, RUBY COME DANCE WITH AASIM!" Louis and Clementine left early to head back to their room and it probably would've ended with some sappy line about being together to the end.

So... there ya go? It's not a final chapter but that's the gist of what would've happened.

But moving on, I was also going through a lot of things in my personal life that I won't get into. I was working on other writing projects that I had more interest in, so [with you] was put on the backburner. Then, over time I grew more sour about it the more pressure and guilt I put on myself, added with the pressure and guilt put on by my readers.

I do want to clarify that it's not like ALL of my readers were like this. Most of them were sweet, supportive followers who only had nice things to say. But you know how it is... you could get ten comments/asks, nine of them positive and one negative, and it's the negative one that's going to stick to you.

So, to my lovely readers, I am sorry that I let you down by not finishing it. To the rude readers, I'm less sorry because y'all were dicks.

Y'know... I can look at all of my other works and either be like "Yeah, I'm really proud of that story," or "Eh, it was one of my earlier works, so I can't be too hard on it."

But [with you] puts me in a crisis of "oh god I'm a fraud, I was never a good writer, what am I doing??? why?? why are you like this??"

and I have to snap myself out of it. That's why I'm so like this about it now.

There are other little things I could go into, but this answer is long enough. I figure if anyone has any further questions or criticisms, they'll send 'em in and I can answer them that way.

I've moved on from all my twdg writing, I'm writing dragon age stuff now, and it's finally working for me so it's not like [with you] has me all hung up still. Plus, I think it's good to go back and learn from mistakes made in old works, y'know?

[47-protons]

this is unrelated to literally everything but i am doing such a good job at. handling things rn. and i am proud of myself for it.

[astrohaterz]

hehe

[brown-little-robin]

!

[nazuna-tunnel-vision]

rest assured, even if i didnt liveblog it here, i spent about 45 mins freaking out about knights event

[andillbeancuteboyifiwantto]

best by dates featherless, full can in hand consumed by inner turmoil bare feet on kitchen tile yet it has slipped away, white noise thoughts of stupid human shit waste absurd etched scars of all the lies why are we this way is it really even your life to live? one accident could end it and others can debate pulling the plug keep you selfishly alive, despite organ failure the thought makes me tremble or that to barely scrape by- costs more than is possible healthcare, or bills box of pasta/can of sauce or toothpaste you can’t afford any of it even if you worked twenty jobs when am i allowed to pull the plug? i don’t want to be dead, not really don’t qualify for the circus of governmental bs can’t earn a single cent best by dates my expiration is long past years of mental illness, poverty this body is crumbling in prolonged agony heart in constant pain nothing fixes it 22 years at risk of heart failure from 22 far too long years on this rock hurtling through space this suffering is cruel, naught for any purpose yet it’d be oh such an waste in other eyes best by dates, stupid can in my hand abandoned

[thedreadvampy]

screeeeeeching bc the woman on my team who never does any of her own work bc she's So Busy Writing A Book (not for work) is taking a 4 week holiday to go to a writer's retreat at one of the busiest times of year. and I Know my work bestie (aka my line manager) will have been killing herself from sitting on this and would LOVE to bitch about it but us lowly peons have only been informed today, and she's on holiday until next week. so like. who do I look directly into the camera like I'm on The Office to? my other team mate refuses to bitch behind people's backs bc it's against his religion. but I gotta bitch or I'll explode.