#still very much a wip but its more coherent now. i think. also i get to edit stuff without having to edit the post itself a million times

[unplanned-parenthood]

finally organized this outside of my phone's notes so...here!

[topazadine]

Let's do another spicy writing take, one that is going to get a lot of people very mad. However, please note that I am saying this out of love and concern. This is not an attack on you personally or on your writing process.

Take a deep breath, prepare to listen with an open mind. Alright. Here goes:

Stop starting a million WIPs.

I am serious. Please. Do not do that. Do not start a million WIPs.

Why? Because then you won't get any of them done. And why is that? Because you'll lose motivation, get distracted, and hop on to the next thing, leaving a trail of heartbreak in your wake.

I have 131 stories on Archive of Our Own and have written over 2 million words of fiction. Two. Million. Words.

Don't believe me? Look.

And then there's more that is not accounted for here: a 110k novel, another 109k novel, and a 20k novelette, along with my current WIP which is currently around 10k. All told, I have written approximately 2,084,000 words.

Are they all perfect? No, of course not, especially the older stuff. But is it done? Yep.

And I did that by doing each project one at a time.

If I get another story idea while I'm in the middle of another story, I write a note in my WIP list, but I don't start it. Only when I'm letting a story "rest" before editing do I start outlining another book, but I still don't start. I wait until I've finished one entire project before I do another one.

Your brain does not actually multitask. Our brains aren't wired to do that. This article from Forbes explains:

You are highly unlikely to be part of that 2.5% even if you think you are. I'm not, and you're probably not either.

What you are really doing is task switching. Take it from the software management program Asana:

That article from Forbes elaborates:

And it is even worse when you are hopping from one WIP to another, essentially changing contexts.

Pleexy, another task automation company, continues by discussing 'context switching':

Every time you stop working on one WIP, you are switching contexts and pulling yourself out of the world you have created, jumping into another. Now your brain is struggling to reorient itself, and it's not going to do its best work.

"But I love writing different WIPs and I get some of them done!"

I am sure you do, but is it your best effort? Would you have been able to write faster, more coherently, better, if you had only worked on one? Probably. And don't you want to do your best?

"But I have ideas and if I don't do them right now I'll forget them!!!"

Then write them down. I have a whole WIP list of things I am intending to write later. Make a notepad document, a spreadsheet, whatever, for your different WIPs.

When you think of something interesting for that project, put down a small note underneath it, but don't start writing! Your brain will let it marinate and when you're done with your current project, you'll have a better idea of what to do with it.

I like to visualize things before bed, so a lot of the time, I will use that visualization for a different project as my way to calm down, but I'm not devoting too much attention to it before I'm ready to work. I've got some scenes and images that I have daydreamed about, but I haven't drawn attention away from my current WIP by actually beginning to write.

This way, I can devote all of my brainpower to my current project while reserving a little bit of attention and aspiration for the next one. I also avoid writer's block because I have my next WIP lined up, waiting for me, and I can transition to it almost immediately.

Generally, I don't go more than a few days without starting a new project (after completing one!!!!!) because I am prepared for it: I can give it my full attention. There's no sitting around and waiting for inspiration.

"But I have so much inspiration for this project and want to start right away!"

Something I am learning as a writer is delayed gratification. I am an impulsive person and I want to jump into things right away, but then I get disappointed with the results. For example, I released 9 Years Yearning before commissioning a really good cover. I regret that and I'm going to learn from that mistake with the next book in The Eirenic Verses.

By waiting, you get a better payoff.

I've got four different projects waiting to be released and one waiting for serious revisions. They are all finished, but they're not polished. It would be very easy for me to spend a few hours formatting them and then just throw them up, but I won't get the best payoff then.

Instead, I'll wait for a break between projects before turning back to them and fixing them up, giving them all my attention. Yes, it means I don't release a billion books a year, but it also means I release my best work.

Writing is not a sprint; it's a marathon. It's okay to give your projects a break.

By letting my stories rest, sometimes for entire months, I can come back to them with fresh eyes and make sure they're perfect. The same is true of your WIPs. Let them sit and marinate for a while.

How to avoid having a billion WIPs:

Make a list of future WIPs. Put it in one document. Add things as you think about them.

Put this list of WIPs away and ignore it.

Allow yourself to get some writer's block if you're struggling with your current project. Writer's block is okay sometimes. Don't use writer's block as permission to start something else.

Put reminders up that tell you not to start things. I like the phrase "bird by bird" which I got from the eponymous book by Anne Lamott (which is really good writing advice).

Read up on task switching and the myth of multitasking to show why having a million WIPs doesn't work.

Interrogate yourself. When you have a bunch of WIPs, do you actually get any of them done? Be realistic and ruthless with yourself.

Look back at how many WIPs you have in storage. Identify your WIP completion rate. It's probably lower than you think.

Read about the writing habits of other writers. You'll find most successful writers do not have a ton of different projects at once. They also go one at a time.

"No I'm going to write a million WIPs anyway! You don't know me!"

Okay, then go for it. You're not obligated to take my advice. I can only tell you that the science - and my personal experience - says that's not a good idea.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter to me if you continue to stop and start a gazillion different projects and get none of them done. That's your problem, not mine.

But I'd rather you be able to finish something you're proud of, because then you're growing as a writer, and I always encourage personal growth.

It honestly makes me sad when people go "teehee I have soooo many WIPs and I just started another one hehehe!" because I know, without a doubt, that almost none of them will see the light of day.

You deserve better than a bunch of unfinished projects. You can achieve more than that. Put down the WIP list, focus on your current story, and go for it.

[momolith]

lets see if i can cobble together something coherent about jiyong

completely unintentionally jiyong and his story has become a place where ive poured much of my traumas into... i realized the parallels of his story with MY traumas after the fact LOL if that makes sense?

for a long time i really struggled with him (and i still do, but now its mostly his design and not also his story and personality) but lately ive really managed to develop him well! im really happy about that because when i made him i knew he had potential but i just couldnt get there no matter how i tried.

anyway onto him and his story... (btw the worldbuilding is very much a wip and theres a lot i still need to work on and flesh out)

essentially his is a story of family trauma and revenge.

his father is Nikephoros, real name Min Jeongho. hes a dragon and celebrated knight from a House with very high standing in this world. he was the youngest of his siblings and thus is very much A Youngest Son. but unforeseen circumstances made it so he ended up the only one of his siblings alive to inherit his fathers seat as head of house.

now hes been head for a very long time already (dragons are very long lived so he's been alive long enough to show visible signs of aging) but all these years has refused to settle down to marry and have heirs. his adviors are SO stressed dealing with him.

which is then very ironic when he accidentally ends up fathering jiyong with a prostitute he spent the night with after celebrating some sort of feat (unsure, but definitely a battlefield victory or something of that note). unfortunately for jiyong and his mother, nikephoros' advisors learn of his existence before nikephoros does. and they can NOT accept a half-breed, most definitely infertile, peasant boy as their lords heir! they take matters into their own hands. their lord doesnt need to know.

hes in a dragons equivalent of his 50s-60s. fantasy korean (LOL) bisexual 9 ft / 275cm he/him characters that remind me of him: yan wushi, tianlang-jun

now jiyongs mom on the other hand i still dont know all that much about as shes the newest addition to this. nikephoros is so fleshed out because ive had him as an oc for years, i simply updated and upgraded him LOL. luckily these past few days ive been inspired to work on jiyong and his family so ive got more than i had for a long time

her name is Eirwen ir Heilyn and shes a unicorn. at the time of meeting nikephoros she was a prostitute but shes retired now (as either the madam of the brothel or simply a servant there). she was unprepared to have jiyong as conception between a dragon and unicorn is rare, but she did her best. thankfully she and her coworkers were close and they stepped in to help her with raising jiyong.

she gave jiyong a korean name (and his fathers surname) in the hopes of him being taken in by his father... in vain. because nikephoros couldnt give less of a fuck and his house wants jiyong dead. she had sent letters to nikephoros as well but none went answered (they were obviously intercepted by his advisors) and after the first assassination attempt on her son, she gave up on nikephoros. through luck or maybe even sheer coincidence she's managed to survive attempts on her own life as well as her sons.

at first i considered having her be killed by his fathers men but then i was like girl... not another dead mom trope lmfao fuck that

shes in a unicorns equivalent of her 40s i think fantasy welsh bisexual 5'10 / 178cm she/her

AND NOW... ONTO THE MAN OF THE HOUR...

Min Jiyong is a qilin/kirin, which are dragon/unicorn offspring (they are more often than not sterile). as both his parents have very little pigment (both their coloring is predominantly white) he has albinism. he grew up in the brothel, and spent much of his childhood working odd jobs such as fetching water, getting groceries, delivering messages and even mending clothes.

despite a difficult childhood his relationship with his mother is good and pretty stable. his father on the other hand... now his parents only did spend that one night together, so eirwen didnt actually know much about nikephoros except what she gleaned from that one night and what was public knowledge. she was honest and upfront with jiyong about his father although in the beginning she did have a naive hope that nikephoros would welcome his son into his house with open arms.

the first attempt on his life almost succeeded, and he still has the scar from that. its also the most visible. (he wears that shit like a necklace. he runs solely on spite and pettiness LMFAO)

as a child he taught himself how to speak as nobles do by eavesdropping on customers and imitating them.

as to not stand out too much he dyes all his hair black.

in his late teens and early 20s he met devora, who took jiyong under their wing as a bounty hunter. devora is a dragon, and a rare one at that, who used to have a high ranking position before they went their own way. so they had worked with nikephoros before, and knew him on an acquaintance level. when devora and jiyong parted ways, devora gifted him a pair of earrings similar to the ones they knew were nikephoros' signature pair.

devora had a profound effect on jiyong, more than they realized, as they were the closest to a proper father figure jiyong had ever had.

now he works as a bounty hunter. but his number one goal is revenge. on his father and his house. and he'll do whatever it takes.

jiyong is highly intelligent, adaptable and ruthless. hes patient when it matters, perceptive and analytical. hes resentful and cynical with an obsessive streak.

hes in his 30s half korean, half white bisexual 6'5 / 195cm (this might change? but as of now) he/him his insane character insp list, as seen by that little board i did: hua cheng, johan liebert, griffith, edmond (nu: carnival), alucard (specifically ayami kojimas), luo binghe, shen jiu/og! shen qingqiu, jin guangyao

there might be more to say about him but i ran out of steam LOL!!!!!!!! HELP this is the most ive written in months

[crossoverfamily]

There is nothing like trying to figure out what I want to put as "main verse" to realize how many details I don't want to "set in stone".

Like, I definitely have basic ideas that remain consistant, but I keep thinking of what will be put as that baseline, and think "okay but what if". And I did mean to have the main verse and then have a page or a tag or something about "parallel verses" that are this sort of what if, even "alternate verses" for wanting to play with ideas that have nothing to do with the main verse, but the issue?

The issue is that I keep sitting here not knowing what I want to be "main verse" and what I want to be "parallel verses". Like for example: the five muses meet when they land in Wild's world. But is it post-BotW and pre-TotK, or is it post-TotK? There were reasons that it was supposed to be post-TotK, but I also love the idea of the other boys seeing Wild's world just after the defeat of the Calamity, aka still pretty wild and beautiful yet full of hints that they lived through pretty much an apocalypse, and that they help Hyrule rebuild.

I could maybe figure out a way to have both ideas work together (time shenangians maybe?), but that'll require a bit more effort. And as far as I'm concerned, since I'm not trying to make a coherent story out of it, I can just mention both ideas, since the exact scenario won't always be relevant to a post. And when it is, its pretty evident which ideas I'm developing, or if its generic enough to work for both.

So yeah, the more I'm trying to work on the "main verse" page, the more I'm realizing that my "main verse" is more fluid than I first realized. Which mean that I might need to rework slightly how it's presented, and figure out what information I want in pages (the first thing someone new might want to check out, the thing that I hope gives a basic idea of what to expect), and what I want in tagged posts (the "details" and depth given to the ideas that someone might not see right away).

I'll get there sooner or later, but yeah that's why the blog still has WIP pages and its likely I might need to rework a bit some pages. I don't have too many posts yet either, so between the WIP pages and said posts, you can get a decent idea of some main aspect of the crossover. There hasn't been much yet about the individual stories though, so I'll just say a few words now~!

Peter: is set a few months post NWH, but my ideas for him include rewinding time, Tony and other characters recalling the old future, and forging a better future that what they had gotten the first time.

Allen: is based on my ideas from Meet me Halfway to the End, he's set while on the run, but before being found by anyone, and at the time of making this post, I haven't yet added a second bonus to MHE that details the ideas for Allen. The very short summary is that Allen is the Spirit of Creation of his world, Stuff Happened, he died and reformed as a mortal human, and will eventually awaken his spirit powers and form.

Wild: has a whole plotline for both games I had been playing with before I added him into the crossover, is canon divergent, and wakes up from the shrine with a connection to the land, the wilderness, nature. By the end of BotW, he's closer to a spirit than mortal, by the end of TotK, he's an immortal spirit. I also have ideas for my own personal spin on "multiple Link meets for a new quest"!

Ireth: that boy has had a journey, he was first a canon divergent lavellan (born from an OC clan but raised by Lavellan after the murder of his birth clan), then he got a crossover backstory (during the murder of his clan, something happen that send him into the DGM world and he grows there), and finally he's got the crossover family background (he's sent to Wild world with the other instead). I have zero idea how divergent the DAI events will be, there's so many ways it can go I'm likely not going to settle on anything specific. edit: i forgot to mention, he's also half-spirit, half-elf!

WWX: is set when he's dying during the first siege, and eventually he'll be called by MXY ritual. He might be able to stop the ritual and/or save MXY, or not, depends what I want to go with. I don't have much idea unfortunately, only a vague "might cause canon divergent events", or that some ideas from my fics can be used. Unlike the other characters whose personal fic/fic idea worked well into my crossover, I don't really want to use one or both of the two fics I have with WWX. One doesn't really work since its set before his death, and I really love the whole "the other boys help WWX heal from his death and everything that lead to it", the other is set post canon but has time travel in it. On one side, it might be fun as WWX and Peter might bond over this, on another, it's again that loss of "WWX healing from his death with the boys". And I could say that they meet at his death, then canon events happen (divergent or not) after MXY ritual, and then my fic idea happen (time travel), but I kind of don't want to?

So yeah, as you can see, I do have ideas for each muse, with different degree of how much I know and how much I'm still working out, and how much I don't want to "set in stone". Poor WWX really had the short straw in term of what I know I want to do, but then again, in my head, his part in the crossover was always about how he gains more family, and heal, and kind of have peace you know? And then he's drawn back into his world and he's lowkey panicking because I always planned for this to happen at a bad timing (other muse(s) are in trouble), so he's like. Concerned about the whole hand fiasco, happy to see LWJ again (note: thanks to the other boys, WWX is self aware of his feelings), but also pissed off and concerned and "let me return to my family damn it!!".

Then again, Ireth also has no specific details for the DAI events, so I guess WWX having so few details about his canon events post-resurection works, too.

That was a long post, but I wanted to share about the character specific ideas, plus how it's been going working on the blog, hope you enjoy it!

[hrokkall]

may we hear the general concepts of ur fics?

Absolutely!

In (rough) order of completion (though not necessarily in order of interest), we have:

Memento (Currently at around 14k; ≈3/5ths finished).

Five Leshy POV one-shots centering around the creation of the canon deathcards in the game.

I shared a WIP of this one a while back (which can be found here, though I think this segment has been edited a bit [x]) and more or less haven’t touched it since, whoops.

This is also the one where I’d have to either be really strategic or acknowledge the ARG because several of the Deathcards are ARG characters (though right now my plan for getting around that is via referencing the Inscryption beta instead… which doesn’t make sense out of context but it will if I can get the words down).

[Working title] Solitude (Currently ≈2k; I’d say it’s around 1/4 done, though in a really fragmented, workaround way)

The Scrybes contemplate their enmity.

Chances are this one will get done first just because there’s a lot of room for it to be extremely slapdash. As a result, it’s kind of rambly, so the majority of the work on it will probably be editing for coherence but hey—you win some you lose some.

Again, just a very rough character study to figure out how I want to write them in the future—but that also gives room to slot in fun headcanons (like the Scrybes being able to “feel” what goes on in their individual realms even if they can’t directly perceive it) which is the other reason I’m writing it.

[Working title] System Maintenance (at around 1k; pretty dialogue-heavy)

In which Rebecha learns new and awful interesting facts about the Scrybes every time she’s forced to pay them a visit.

Mostly written because I really like Rebecha and think she’s a fun way to show just how terrible the Scrybes blue-and-orange morality can be from an outside perspective (I.e. without their own obvious biases towards their own plans).

The segment I have written is Rebecha and P03 (hence the working title) but a “finished” version of this would probably have her interacting with the others too (as separate chapters). Might stop at just one though, who knows.

[Working title] Mustela erminea (<1k, probably going to get either overhauled or absorbed into something else).

The talking cards’ names and titles no longer bear any meaning to them; all that remains is the hate for their captor and the vehement notion that they used to be something else.

I cannot describe this any other way than it’s fun to write reverse uncanny valley effect with P03. It’s been a stoat for a while but still gets intuitively freaked out by its own heartbeat. Fun stuff.

The working title makes it obvious where I started with this one—again though I’m pretty sure this one will end up becoming something else (though I’m not sure what yet so it’s still being listed here as a standalone).

[Working title] Stalemate (<1k)

With his takeover of Inscryption complete, Leshy contemplates the role of his (begrudgingly accepted) collaborator.

For Co-Op and therefore very low priority (I like Co-Op, don’t get me wrong, I’m just in the mood to write more canon-compliant/sort of canon-compliant stuff most of the time).

Ridiculously bare-bones but is generally “Why did I choose to collaborate with this asshole” with the same sentiment in both directions. But per their general moral codes neither is going to go back on the deal so now they have to deal with each other and it’s Sucks for everyone involved. (Worth noting they still hate each other so it’s canon-compliant in that regard).

There’s technically a couple more but they don’t have much chance of being picked back up and/or had a couple of cool lines that have since been recycled into one of the above works so I’m not listing them.

[eriisaam]

WIP fic asks: 1, 12, & 15!

Oh! Thank you~ 😭💖

(for anyone who missed it this is in reference to this: https://www.tumblr.com/eriisaam/733396818115919873?source=share )

What are you most excited about when you start to write it/publish it?

That it gets done, at least in a stable/solid enough state to share. 😭

Granted it's also equally exciting and terrifying in hoping that what comes out is coherent and turns out at least decent, but it's new territory for me with the wip I was thinking about with that ask list in that not only is it an original work story, but an attempt to fulfill a lifelong dream of making a game of some kind (it's a script for a visual novel, just in its early state it's in fic form right now that I've been kinda haphazardly working on and off on).

It's not technically the first time I tried to make an original-work fic, but all my other works up to this point tend to be in scattered states of progress, disjointed on what I have to show for them or what's figured out for them due to varying constraints (same issue with current fandom stuff too even, my summoner/feh OCs lore and art are all over the place too), and a lot of past attempts at making something original either wound up shelved, scrapped, or lost in time due to various circumstances.

This project in particular is the first that got far enough to have a set plan (however roughly), a cast with consistent ideas of how they look and feel (not just a name and a vague yet-to-have-a-face concept), and I'm at a place now I feel like I can approach learning how to make it the way I wanted (the game side of it) when in the past I felt really easily confused and discouraged pretty much right at the start.

So even if it gets to a state I can actually share even the characters or snippets of their world, or the project in its completion, it already means a lot to me even at that state, and further than I got before. I've also got other projects cooking alongside of it too, but this project is the furthest out of them so far, and seeing even one of them see the light of day helps have faith in the others too later on.

How far have you planned ahead?

I feel like I have a definite start, and a definite conclusion point, but the problem I'm stuck at is the actual specifics of how we got from point A to B and the specific details throughout. (A problem that follows me a lot even in fanfics haha orz) On the bright side it has the most of itself figured out to see a rough roadmap of the story I wanted overall, rather than just a collection of fragmented ideas like a lot of my wips are/end up being, or a play-it-by-ear work until the "and then what?" wall like a lot of other fics otherwise. It's been very much like the Plankton meme from here on out of "Well I didn't think I'd get this far".

I also had rough concepts of a lot of factors determinant of the MC of the story and how the story shifts and where, though in its current state I'm trying to plan out at least one complete story start-to-finish first before getting too far ahead in those beyond concepts. (It's not necessarily a "canon" set of events, but just enough to cover the most ground in the first pass before the branch-offs happen.)

Do you have any unwritten scene that you think about a lot?

A lot, yeah. There's one that is in a place really late in I'm working up to that's very spoiler-heavy, but there's another early on that I'm still thinking about and keeping my fingers crossed whatever iteration of it that it settles on would carry the feelings across that I hoped it would.

One 'scene' that's early enough I think is safe to spoil a bit about might be a bit of a stretch cuz it's more of a theme and intent for multiple scenes than just one particular scene: How the MC meets the rest of the main reoccurring cast and gets his ducks in a row, and establishing early parts of them I hope carries through.

Specifically, the MC in question is named Enoli, and at the start, he was already recently living together with one of the reoccurring main cast, Hiroto. Eventually, there'll be others that appear and are recruited into the fold from varying backgrounds and happenstance (maybe it's safe to also reveal this is a BL magical boy series, for better context), and while I have set plans I want to start with for now in its fic form, in game form I was hoping they might vary in order and timing to an extent. I sorta get nervous of the first impressions they make and whether or not the intent I have with them carries across well enough. (Let alone later on when the order you get them has subtle differences later on.)

Enoli and Hiroto are set to be the first you start off with, and right from the start, I wanted and hoped they carry their hints across on the how-we-got-here's of the two. Hiroto is very frail, sickly and bedridden, and can't do much at first, and Enoli would risk everything, including his life, to try to get him medicine, and his cat some food and supplies, even if he has to defy his instinct (or rather, the player's input) to do it. They both newly moved in together, yet the only thing actually moved in proper is all the treats and toys and assorted other things for his beloved cat. Everything else are still in boxes. Hiroto's things in particular were haphazardly packed, and many possessions outright destroyed. Why?

I want to tell just enough that I hope I get some questions going, but I worry of crossing the fine line between being vague enough to either hint something more or spark answers, or become too vague as to be cryptic and confusing. And I want similar hints to tell something of the other eventual characters, but not enough to tell too much, too soon, all at once. For one later characer, I even wanted to challenge him with setting him up for a bad first impression, but I still feel equally curious of how well it'll go, but also scared of putting him OOCly in a bad light.

More specifically, there's one character later on who accidentally roughly bumps into Enoli. To Enoli, it was just an accident, both mean well, and there's no harm and no foul. But to the perspective of Enoli's beloved cat - ever the protector - he thinks that man actually did worse to Enoli than what happened actually, and ends up hostile and protective as a result of the misunderstanding, something that remains and shapes how he and Enoli's cat react to one another for quite a while. Maybe it's me being too tilted of extreme bad-faith reads on fandom getting to me, but it's details I think of constantly and worry and weigh if it's worth going into directions like that.

Either way, thanks for lending an ear~

[stridingseer]

For the WIP asks: 1. 8. 10. 11. 21 (25-50 words/ 2-3 sentences/however much you want!). 31. 32.

This got long so READ MORE GO BRRRR

How many WIPS do you have right now?

Funny thing is that I have over 30+ ideas on my excel sheet. 14 of them have outlines or have snippets which means I've actually started working on them.

8. What’s the fastest time you’ve finished a fic?

A single night I believe? Specifically it was the one Dieck/Klein fic where I wrote it in a haze where I wanted the fic so badly that I finished it at 2am and then promptly forgot about it until I got kudos on it.

10. Do you outline a fic before you write it?

Yes. They are very long and also include sections of a fic that I want to toss in. For larger AUs they might have multiple different notes/outlines focusing on different things because I am nothing if not overambitious.

11. How close has your WIP stayed to its outline/original vision?

For my current WIPs (Vampire AU and Unhinged Leon for RE), one of them is still following the outline, sorta. Vampire Leon, it turns out is really good at trying to get Krauser to kill him. MEANWHILE Unhinged Leon is attempting to get laid at 700 words in which was not planned and the cat is out of the bag SO that's fun. (Leon is the second Klein but I'm giving Klein way too much credit in the modern AU. He's already trying to fuck Dieck in one of my snips and again it is too late to try and shove the cat back in the bag)

21. Share [x] words from your WIP!

From the vampire AU :3

The figure gets up slowly, stumbling a few steps. And then he understands what it is. 

“Major-” the ghost greets. And he throws his knife at it- Fuck - only to graze it’s side.  Jack blinks and that thing is gone. Fucker.

31. Share a cursed fact you’ve learned while writing your WIP.

So vampires, vampire are funny things and this fact is absolutely batshit since it fits NOWHERE in the fic but apparently you gotta give permission for a vampire to enter the house/room. Which means, yes, you can stay no and leave them outside. I desparately want to add it into some part of this fic as a gag but I don't know where or how.

32. What’s the funniest/strangest way that inspiration has struck you when writing fic?

Okay okay I don't think I've told YOU this specifically but uh, there is a mod where Leon gets to dress up as Krauser w/ Krauser's outfit in RE4R. As seen here:

And this is why I have MULTIPLE AUs where Leon either 1) betrays his government or 2) ends up following Krauser. The mod does something to my brain and there is not a single coherent thought. This is why unhinged Leon is getting laid 700 words in, because I am busy staring at THIS fit than working on other stuff.

[jettiebettie]

confession: i think i have read that one erasermic fic you made like 3 years ago about 50 times and i’m 90% sure i could recite at least three scenes from memory alone. you just write them so Good and i am so tempted to get into the fandom you currently are in purely to enjoy more of your writing bc it is so. just. Nice. the dialogue is so fun and the characters feel so Genuine idk how else to explain it but i have been obsessed with it ever since. no other fic will live up to it, from plot to premise, its my favorite thing ever. tyvm for writing it. also this is a tumblr ask so i think i ought to? actually ask a question? ive never used tumblr before haha Okay question: are you still keeping up with mha? thoughts? if not uhhh whaatts your wriiitting process?

This is so incredibly sweet! I'm thrilled that something I've written is something you enjoy and remember fondly. This really made my day to hear, thank you so much!

I have not been keeping up with MHA, but not for any reason against it. I simply had a shift in hyperfixation and haven't rounded back just yet. I do intend to continue it at some point, maybe after the manga has finished. I have heard some interesting, nail-biting things about Aizawa, my beloved, that went down and I am Deeply Intrigued. I'll hop back in one day!

My writing process for the past few years has been something like this: I have one or more scenes in particular that I really want to write about. Unfortunately, it's difficult for me to write only those scenes on their own and present them as is, so I build a narrative around them in order to bridge the gap and form a full story. I call this the "connective tissue," it's all the stuff between the bits I really want to write.

Now, sometimes this works really well; Heroism and Other Infectious Diseases is actually mostly comprised of this connective tissue, but it still ended up being a pretty coherent and cohesive piece that I'm really proud of. Sometimes this doesn't work very well at all and the story can feel like it's a bit disjointed or leave some scenes feeling out of place or unnatural.

I'm a very hit or miss writer, I'm afraid! And the truth is, sometimes I just get so sick of looking at a piece that I tend to force a stopping point if I get tired of a project. And since I don't like leaving something in a wip folder for too long (since I'm worried it will be doomed to die there and all the work I put into it will go to waste), I'll post it even if I'm not very happy with it or confident in its current state. This has become a terrible habit that I need to stop doing lol!

But I hope that answered your questions! And thank you again for reaching out! <3 It was a wonderful birthday present~

[charlieslowartsies]

17, 22, 25, 29 for the Weird Questions for Writers

Thank you for asking these aaaa

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

We do not have time for the lore that is the FNAF timeline. I don’t even have time for it all in the KGA, hilariously enough. I’ve had to cherry pick and beat my sandcastles into a passable attempt at a coherent storyline and the sand gets wetter with each new FNAF related thing that is released. I hope its working. I don’t think my tower is up to code, but it’s a pretty tower.

However I am pretty proud of the upcoming plot stuff in terms of the characters getting either their comeuppance or much needed closure. I’ve set up almost all the hints by now for the major secret—well, I think it’s the most important one! It’s been my favorite to work on. There’s obviously other mysteries going on inside the Pizza Plex. I’ll try and answer them all, and hope the DLC doesn’t have to be entirely ignored if I want to write more KGA stuff. (It already looks like it will but…fuck it. This is why I call it an au. The second Mike stepped into Fazbear’s Fright with the Fazgang that storyline rocketed down its own path, and I’ve had to accept that.)

One thing I settled on early—I liked Vanessa’s character/presence. I like what she added to SB, although I wish we had better endings and perhaps more things to find that fleshed her out. She’s one of the few people Mike meets that he thinks Freddy Fazbear will approve of and even respect. That doesn’t happen often. I did not want her to be ‘the bitch’ and I did not want her to be a villain for evil’s sake either. I want her to be as complex as Max was when he first entered Last Shift. I mentioned before I’m mashing two or three endings of SB together for Lies Within. I still am, and she is included in the ending. I also did not want romance, either, between her and Mike. She needs help, yes, but help comes in a lot of different ways and I do not like ‘we spent 6 hours together and decided it was love.’ That’s not a message I think is realistic and I don’t want to focus on it, especially not when we have Mike’s previous relationships right behind him pretty constantly. *glances at a certain overprotective Puppet*

There’s a very jarring scene I’m trying to reconcile with. I want it to happen, it CAN work into the storyline, it DOES makes sense. But it hurts.  A lot. It depends on far I want to go when I reference Devil’s Spine. If it does end up happening, I promise I’ll do it justice.

Plenty of things aren’t making the final cut to Lies Within. I unfortunately had this brilliant idea for an opening plotline that came to me around chapter 5. 8T There’s no way to salvage the concept either, because it would have hit better as the opening ‘act’ for Lies Within. I had this idea that Marion erased Mike’s memories to protect them from Glitchtrap’s clutches and he sent them to the Pizza Plex to work while he and the gang tried to recover lost ground. Goldy had gotten so damaged during an unseen fight with Glitchtrap too, so Mike was powerless. Max had his memory, and was there to keep an eye on their reckless night guard. Sunny and Moon were also in on the trick, and they had taken a liking to Mike too.

Another thing was Springtrap was going to be in this fic. I decided that didn’t really match the whole “Spring/Afton are dead and gone” point I made in Last Shift. (After all, we were told he was gone in FF, and Afton got back into Springtrap. Why would now be any different? Nah. I don’t wanna contradict my writing if I can avoid it.) Even if the characters are assuming differently, which is part of the fun of a mystery. What’s real and what’s not? Especially when we know things the characters don’t ;)

AFN 2 is nearly ready for its release. Lies Within is getting dark fast, and back when I was writing Ghost Strings I came up with the idea to explore the world using those episodic adventures. I’m solving the whole ‘I miss Springtrap’ thing by giving him his missing scenes that never made into FF. (I like the time jump I did, but it def left me hanging in some parts.)

One of the main themes for Mari’s plotline was and still is: “Just because someone is different doesn’t make them bad” but he’s also getting some more development in answering for his own past transgressions, such as how hard he’s been on Michael Afton.

I’m still working on the details for Max’s ending in this series. I think I have a good idea, and while it will be a happy one, it will also be melancholy one too. I don’t like using Loss for unneeded drama, if I make a character suffer I want them to learn from it, teach another character, or work to get what they lost back. Sometimes they have to earn it; sometimes we do get what we want even when we think we won’t. and sometimes, like perhaps in this zombie’s case, he’s learned enough and just deserves Something Nice for once.

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

I started this process with London Bridge and kept it going until Lies Within. (As well as every other fic around that time in various fandoms, with a few exceptions. For example, my TF fic Resonance is written entirely in ONE document bc I wrote it in two weeks.)

I have a single word doc called ‘fic title NOTES.’ And in that doc is everything from the title ideas, there’s usually 5-6 of them until I pick one I like. There’s the summary, as well as all the necessary quotes.

Then I make a rough estimate of chapter titles. This is usually wrong, but I try. LB had 8 chapters and I actually kept the fic in that first guess. LS was supposed to be 12 and ended up being 24.

Then I name chapter titles that I think sound cool or interesting.

Then I just start writing in a new document. I don’t really plan. I go back and rewrite into the Notes Doc what happened after the chapter is finished and ready to be posted. Sometimes if I go ‘okay next chapter I need this scene to happen’ I will do that. But mostly I write down conflict to resolution across the chapter list. For ex:

LS chapter X: Freddy and the gang shut down by Henry/Marion. Resolves in chapter X because of: and a short note why/how so I don’t forget something.

Sometimes shit resolves in that same chapter, such as Max almost biting it in chapter 10 of LW. Sometimes it don’t, and sometimes, like in Finding Freddy, the conflict sets up for the following story, (Springtrap being Possessed again and escaping) so I make note of that.

I do work backwards. I don’t know why. I just write for fun but when working with a mystery/thriller, I recognize I need some level of organization to get my ducks in a row in time for curtain close.

 25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

Mike Schmidt is half Mexican. Mostly because I am too, so he’s got my skin tone (well the one I get in the summer.) Representation matters, kids. He also has the running joke as me, his wife and my girlfriend are pasty white and they learned Spanish better than he/I did lmao. Entirely immaterial but a fun detail!

A second, maybe not as useless to know but kind of: When Mike is bonded with Golden Freddy, he cannot swim. A computer’s response is to short circuit and turn off, so that’s what poor Fredbear does, and Mike sinks like a stone lmao. Obviously he avoids pools/lakes but he can still shower fine. Baths make him secondhand nervous though.

 29. Where do you draw your inspiration? What do you do when the inspiration well runs dry?

Music, and reading mostly. I can also keep my writing juju-bees going by drawing or illustration a scene I’m having trouble describing. It’s mostly why there’s so much art for Make Believe and the KGA! When the well runs dry, I usually just need to take a break and I switch to doodles or read a new book. Horror is preferred. Lately my favorite author is Riley Sager, The Last Time I Lied is def a recommend.

[mallowstep]

Question! How do you decide what projects will be posted as series on AO3, and what projects will be multi-chap? Exp., how did you decide that STOLG would not be a multi-chap?

kind of arbitrarily, but there is method to madness.

i think it's obvious when Some things should be one fic. for example, ashes would not work as one-shots.

after that, there's a kind of sliding scale. may there be no sadness of farewell is still very much not one-shots.

i'll come back to you someday soon myself COULD work as one-shots, but not very well.

you get the idea

stolag would b comparable to ibtwicm if i posted it as one fic: different pov every chapter, chapters cover overlapping events, etc., but...each segment of stolag is its own coherent narrative. there is a satisfying ending within them, and while reading others might b required to understand context (e.g., why cats are where they are), they're supposed to be coherent beginnings and endings.

so that's my ROUGH rule of thumb, "does each segment have its own ending?"

which is often rephrasable as, "could i post this out of order?"

that's why, for example, the first chapter of ibtwicm got moved off to be its own standalone piece. because "it's mere assignment" works by itself. i ALMOST moved the first chapter of icbtyssm off for a similar reason, but decided it wouldn't work.

and i kind of...went thru the same thought process w stolag? like i was like, "oh, yellow's piece works on its own; oh, spotted's piece works on its own," etc., and then it was like, "well, why should i post any of them as one fic, then?"

consistency matters to me lmao.

speaking of consistency,

it's also consistency of format. i try to keep chapters of relatively consistent lengths (major exception being icbtyssm), and there's obviously stylistic consistency required. fics in series tend to be a lot more variable. hell, here is the deepest secret is going to have a multi-chapter fic to end things off.

you can Feel that stolag "wants" to be one fic, in that sense, because the main fics (holy water doesn't count) are all of consistent length and style and tone. buuuut because the story Within each fic is stronger than the story across them, i published them seperately.

and last-and-least, there's a Small amount of consideration to my writing schedule. while i don't have a formal schedule now, i do Try not to have a lot of wips going. i already have too many, and i want to cut it down to only a few. finish some damn stories, so to speak. series can go on the back burner: they're always at nice resting spots.

so, uh, yeah, basically, if the parts of a story have stronger plots within them, than across them, i make it a series

[seaofthemind-art]

The “Abuse” Trope in MCU Spider-Man Fan Fiction: Part 1

[Edit Note: This first post completely missed my point, and as such is now being continued in "Part 2". I have made several edits and additions to this post for coherence between the two.]

I became interested in these tropes partly due to what seemed to be its abundance within the fandom. Re-reading several stories recently led me to consider how this trope has been handled in the fandom, its variations and ways that it has been turned on its head, as well as stories ideas that have not been explored yet to my knowledge.

Within the "Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)" category on AO3 there are several overarching areas that would come under the trope of abuse.

To put it in context, on the 26th October 2020 there was 28,637 works in the category; this included 626 stories tagged as "child abuse", a total of more than 2% of the stories. Of course, as we well know, tagging on AO3 is not consistent: there will be "abuse" stories which do not use this tag, whilst the tag may also be referring to a range of characters' situations (ie: Tony's childhood, Flash's backstory, OC characters). However, for these posts I'm going to look at stories related to Peter's experiences.

For all the "popularity" of these stories in the fandom, it is just an example of what are wide spread tropes across media. TV Tropes lists several related tropes including Abusive Parents and Foster Kid, showing that it is not only this fandom in which it is common.TV Tropes also makes a good point in its Sliding Scale of Parent-Shaming in Fiction, in that: what one person classes as abusive behavior may be perfectly acceptable to another.

Major Plot Categories

One of the common targets for this trope is "May's Abusive Boyfriend", which seems to have grown in popularity in the last year as Endgame has provided a convenient set-up for this trope:

the second law of thermodynamics by extraordinarythings

"It happens the same way it always does. (It's just discipline. It's not that bad. It's fine, Peter is fine, he'll be fine--). Except he really isn't fine, and Tony knows something's up, and Peter's house of cards is falling apart, and so the story goes."

Who Saves The Hero by CamelotQueen

“May brings home her new boyfriend. Something about him makes Peter feel nervous, but he makes May happy. And if May's happy, then Peter is happy. Then it escalates.”

Fear all else but never me. Please. by Webtrinsic

“May's new boyfriend proves himself to be a grade A-asshole when he decides to abuse Peter. And that doesn't sit well with Tony at all.”

i get by (but it’s eating me alive) by Livinei

““Do you not want to be home?” Tony starts. “No.” Tony considers for a moment. Peter’s never not wanted to be home. Not before… Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t know a lot about David. Peter doesn’t bring him up a lot, and when he does then he’s not very eager to discuss it for long. Tony hasn’t gotten an impression that Peter’s particularly fond of the guy, though.”

The Homes We Make by iamq

“Peter Parker isn't the type of boy to run crying to Tony Stark because he can't handle a punch. Michelle Jones and Ned Leeds aren't the type of friends to ignore Peter's rapidly declining health. Eugene "Flash" Thompson isn't an idiot.”

to this day by hopeless_hope

“It's months before anyone realizes May's boyfriend abuses Peter. The effects are lasting.”

Promotions Aren’t Always A Good Thing by Agib

“When May gets a new boyfriend, Peter's okay. When Carter moves in, he can deal. When May gets a promotion so she works days and Carter works nights, Peter finds it harder to deal. When Carter starts abusing him, he begins to feel crushed by the weight of it all.”

The Black And The Blue (All That It Takes Out of You) by Buckets_of_Stars

“David wasn't a person Peter would ever want to be around, but with him being May's new boyfriend and all, it makes it harder and harder to avoid him. But it was fine, May was happy and of course, Peter still has Tony. But that was before the hitting started. Before David spit neglectful words in his face and the spiderling begins to question his very worth.Tony, on the other hand, is not having it.”

Vertigo by GalaxyThreads

“Coming back from the dead wasn't nearly as awesome as TV made it out to be. Peter's learning this on the go. And it really doesn't help that May's new husband absolutely hates him. And that May is pretty ignorant of that and him now. But it's all fine. Really.”

Your Heart Changed (mine stayed the same) by @loboselinaistrash​ [WIP]

"Peter Parker is back but 5 years into the future and the world has changed. Peter goes home with May only to find she had moved on, with a husband and two kids. Peter struggles to find his place in this new family with a strict step uncle, the longer he's there the harder he finds it to stay on his good side, uncertain if May will believe him."

A Peter Parker Problem by @spagbol99​ [WIP]

"Peter comes back to find May has a husband and a kid. A new family he has to fit into. But he has done it before, he can do it again. The only thing that feels solid is Tony: the Blip and fatherhood have mellowed him and Peter loves the bond they have now. He knows Tony would be there for him through anything. But Tony needs to focus on his own recovery - not small time Peter Parker problems. When things at home take a turn for the worse, Peter decides that he'll handle it himself. He is Spider-man. He's been to space and fought aliens. He can get through anything. After all, if May is happy, he is happy, right? Right?"

--

This premise has been turned on it's head by a couple of authors with the straight opposite of this trope in "May has a new boyfriend who is decent (and confused)":

The Secrets We Keep by @euphoric-melancholyy​

"May has a really awesome, loving boyfriend who's just a little confused as to why she lets her teenage son stay out til 1 every night and sleep somewhere else every weekend. Also, he’s friends with Tony Stark? Chris - May’s new boyfriend - feels like he’s missing something here."

A Good Kid  by kuragay

"Ricky thinks that May's an exceptional woman, and he thinks that Peter's an exceptional kid. But there's no denying that the Parker household is full of mysteries, and most of them are centered around Peter and his supposed internship with Tony Stark."

--

Then there has also been several stories changing the abuser, such as in the concept of "What if May (or Ben) is the abusive carer?":

Brooklyn by @hailing-stars​ [part of a longer series]

"After leaving Peter with Tony and months of no contact, May shows up in Peter's life again, interrupting Tony's plans to adopt him. Peter has to decide who he wants to live with, but soon learns the decision may really not be his."

Parker Luck by CreepyLittleLullaby

"He never met one, he got left behind by the other, the next one died, and the only one he had left was pushing him away. And he doesn't know what to do. Peter really has rotten luck when it comes to parental figures. No matter how hard he tries. Parker luck will always prevail."

Please, Understand by jipseebree

"When Aunt May discovers that he's Spider-Man, something inside her snaps. She starts to abuse him and he deserves it, doesn't he? After all, people have died because of him. People who wouldn't have died if he was a better hero."

Spiders hunt alone, anyway by karma_is_a_turtle [WIP]

"Ben’s death hits the Parker family hard, May worst of all. May Parker struggles to cope with her husband’s death and her nine-year-old nephew grows up learning how to pick up her slack."

Always Silent, Peter Darling by LlibLo

“After a traumatic experience at age 6, Peter Parker hasn't spoken a word. Most blame it on the fact that he witnessed his Uncle die in a horrible fire, this is only partly true. Now, almost 10 years later Peter is given the chance to finally speak, but will he take it? Or is the fear of his Aunt to much for him to take that chance? Either way, Tony Stark can tell something's not quite right about the kind hearted May Parker.“

It’s All Just Static In My Head by Blue__Dreams

“And then May was shot. Foolishly, childishly, Peter hoped Iron Man would swoop in and save the day again. He hoped and hoped and hoped. And Ben drank and drank and drank. As Ben grew worse, and their fridge grew empty, as Peter’s face became more bruised, and his powers grew, Peter realized, you can’t depend on superheroes. So Peter created his own hero - Spiderman.“

 I told you I had issues by Bergen            

“Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and right now, a little exasperated. Because some guy is swinging around New York, shooting webs and making trouble, Fury is breathing down his neck, and his latest intern took off with his coupon for a free coffee.“

--

Another focus for the abuse trope are the "Skip Wescott" stories, which take their concept and the character from a one-shot from the comics. @irondadfics​ has a good rec list for this. Many of the stories take it further than the comic that inspired them, and within the fandom it has also become common to see it re-mixed in variations of “Abused by Other Person of Authority” AKA: Babysitter/Teacher/Foster Carer/etc.

Although Skip is a common character for authors to use when they need a character as the abuser who isn't a complete original character, both original characters do appear as well as other characters from within the MCU.

The Third Option by Uncertainty_Principle

“Ben and May divorced before Peter’s parents died, so when Ben is murdered Peter goes into foster care. It takes just a tiny taste of superpowers for Peter to decide he doesn’t want to put up with his horrible foster father anymore—the streets are infinitely more appealing. All he wants is to be Spider-Man anyway.“

take a look at me now, there's just an empty space by @lyssismagical

“As much as Peter does want to disappear to his bedroom and avoid the awkward attempts at a one-sided conversation or inquiries about the life Tony’s read about, he craves the closeness to another person. The last time he felt properly close to someone was May. Every home in between had people who tried or people who didn’t, either way, it never felt the same. He was just another mouth to feed, another set of house visits and questionnaires from Elaine, another troubled kid under their roof. He was never treated like a human being, like a kid.“

Like A Flame That Flickered Out Too Soon... by @mysterycheerio

““He did this to you?”. Peter nodded. “And this is why you haven’t been talking?”. Another nod. Tony left the room in a hurry. Peter didn’t know where he went. Pepper knew. Rhodey knew. The whole damn neighbourhood around Stark Mansion knew, his yells were so loud.”

The Education Complication by Buckets_Of_Stars

“When young Peter Stark was diagnosed with Asthma, he was given two very important rules to always follow: 1. No long distance running. 2. Always have your inhaler with you. But when a new Gym Teacher with a hatred toward Iron Man gets hired, the 13 year old is going to find that following these two simple steps has never been more difficult.”

--

This is just a selection of the stories which can be found on AO3, from which it should be already clear that these cover a wide range of treatments of the subject.

Across all the categories, the reactions of characters to the abuse is varied; as well as some notable omissions in the range of stories. 

This we will look at in Part 2.

[goldeneyedgirl]

JaliceWeek20: Canon Gapfillers

What You Say

JaliceWeek20 Day 3: Canon Gapfillers

Notes: It seemed unsporting for my version of Jess and Alice not to make at least one appearance in Jaliceweek, especially since everyone is so enthusiastic about the WIP! This is kind of a missing scene that comes before Jess’s temper tantrum scene posted here. I’m not big on canon gapfillers, really, so this was the most fun way to write it and even then, I probably took liberties. 

Only 2.5 to go! We’re getting close!

Takes place upon Alice’s return from Volterra in New Moon. 

Rating: M-ish, I guess? NSFW, but not super graphic. 

Word Count: 2,245

—

“I’m sorry.”

They’re the first words she says to Jessamine when she gets back from Volterra.

When they get off the plane, Bella is pale and twitchy, and everyone is fussing around her and Edward. Maybe Jess has already put them all off, pushing interest and focus off of her and onto the human girl. Or maybe they don’t see what Alice does.

The rigidness in her stance, the way she’s holding herself so tightly, so she takes up no more space than she needs to, the blank look on her face… Alice wants to run to her side, to wrap her arms around Jess and reassure her. Draw out every that is causing the pain, tension, the fear.

Except she knows exactly what - who - caused it, and more than that, Jess isn’t in that place. Not in such a public place; she won’t be able to touch her until she’s calmed, when her gift is not stretched to the very breaking point.

So she stands as close as to Jessamine as she dares, and she stares into those golden eyes that she loves so much that are so blank yet sharp, and knows that this is not yet over; Edward might have thought Aro was their reckoning, but Alice knows for her, it is Jessamine’s hurt.

—

The drive home with Carlisle and Esme is… taunt. She answers Carlisle’s questions honestly, and halfway home, Jess takes a quiet breath and that’s good. That’s a step closer to Jess purging all the toxic emotions she’s trapped inside herself, a step closer to talking and explaining and apologising a dozen times over.

The relief Alice feels when she sees the Forks house washes over her, and then she realises what she’s done, and she cannot even look back at Jess; she knows now. Knows how afraid Alice was, knows how close she was to never coming home again.

Esme smiles gently at both of them as they troop up the stairs; light and dark, tall and small, both looking like they’re off to their own executions.

She sees the confrontation in her mind; the words are changing and a little bit muffled because of it, but it happens like this - she sits cross legged on the bed with her head bowed and she apologies. Jess rages at her, properly destroys the rocking chair, two lamps, and her closet door before storming off into her study. Then Jess will come back and hold her so tight that not a single molecule can get between then, when they are just a single entity scented of roses and salt and rain and basil, and they will curl up together on the bed like that, pressed together until the fear and the grief and the guilt slowly ebbs.

That is how it happens until it does.

Her Jess does have such a bad temper. She just can’t remember the last time it was directed at her (yes she can - ’49, Toledo. That was an ugly argument and Alice is still properly ashamed of her part in it.)

So Alice goes to take her place on the bed, on the blue floral duvet that she bullied Jess into picking out that Jess decided Alice would like best even though Alice had given her two choices she already liked equally, because that’s just how they decided things. Except, she never gets to take a seat on the bed, because Jess has changed her mind and the future is scrambled, as Jess grabs her arm and spins her around.

The rage is second to only the fear in Jess’s eyes and Alice wants to cry, wants to weep out her apologies because it was always about protecting Jessamine, never about anything else. Not about trust, not about ability, not about anything more or anything less than the fact that of everything that Alice was prepared to hand to Aro, prepared to cut down and sacrifice, Jess was never on that list.

“I’m sorry,” she manages, in a small voice, unable to tear her gaze from Jess’s.

“Sorry for what?” Jess hisses back, her eyes hard. “Sorry for running away? Sorry for lying? Sorry for deciding some human girl is worth more than yourself?  Sorry for giving up the one thing that kept us safe? Should I keep going?”

Alice is shaking now, shaking with the weight of Jess’s disappointment and fear and hurt.

She grasps Alice by her shoulders and half shakes her. “Why did you do it? Why, Alice? Do you love Bella Swan that much? Edward? Are they worth that much to you? Because they sure as hell aren’t worth half as much to me as you are.

“You lied to me, Alice.”

All the fight seems to seep from Jess, and she jerks away, leaving Alice feeling like she’s been stripped bare, and quite ashamed.

“I didn’t want you to worry.” The words sound childish and feeble, not at all convincing.

“Not to worry?” Jess’s foot strikes out, and the rocking chair is kindling in the corner; at least her visions were right about one thing. “Do you know what it was like, the waiting? To know what you were walking in to? To not know if you’d ever walk out? If I’d ever see you again?”

Alice wants to crawl into her arms right now, to hide there and admit that she was terrified, terrified for Edward and Bella, and then terrified for herself and Jess. But she knew that Jessamine wasn’t in that place yet, was still letting out all her pain and fear, her gift still raw from waiting with the rest of the family, absorbing all of their pain on top of her own. The time will come when they wrap their arms around each other and Alice will murmur her fears into Jess’s ear and Jess will do everything she can to soothe them

But that will be later. For now, it is about Jess’s pain, Jess’s rage.

“You swore to me you would never lie to me, and you would never leave me. Remember?” Jess snaps, pacing the room like an agitated lioness. “Remember promising me that, Alice?”

“I do, of course,” Alice said softly.

“So why? Why did you do it?” Jess is suddenly towering over her. “Make me understand, Alice.”

“Because they’re family. Because I couldn’t stand back and let Edward die for such a stupid, senseless reason when Bella was always going to be one of us - the visions never changed. But then I thought Bella… I swear, I didn’t think I’d make it, I thought I’d just be there to help Charlie through it,” Alice whispered.

She swallowed hard. Jess was silent, watching her carefully, a judge, jury, and executioner all in one - and Alice will accept her judgement willingly.

“There was no way you could have been there. If Edward had seen any one of us, he would have revealed himself faster, and Aro would have punished all of all. If you had been there, Jess, there was no future that showed us walking away. The only chance for survival was if it was just me and Bella - even Carlisle would have died, Jess.”

“There were a million alternatives, Alice - I could have stayed in the goddamn car,” Jess said in that dangerous, low voice.

“You think there was ever a chance of you sitting in a car waiting whilst I faced the Volturi? Jess, that was never even a possibility. You couldn’t be there.” Alice was pleading now, and reached out to grab Jess’s hand.

Within a second, Jess has her pressed against the wall with her legs looped around her waist, Jess’s hand cradling the back of her head.

“Never again,” Jess says sternly.

“Never again, I promise,” Alice said breathlessly.

“Promises aren’t exactly your strongest argument right now, Miss Cullen,” Jess bites back, and then they are kissing, roughly - Jess’s kiss is harsh and unforgiving, and Alice melts into her arms, letting her love take what she needs to heal the hurt.

She lets Jess push her down onto the bed, her mouth hard and demanding as her hands dive under Alice’s clothing. For an empath, Jess has always been so physical, and it’s never been a bad thing, since she knows exactly what she’s doing. Her mouth is hot as it makes its way down Alice’s neck and when Alice gets her wits about her and reaches for Jess’s shirt, her hands are quickly pinned on either side of her head, Jess breathing, “don’t you dare move,” in her ear as her shirt and bra are torn away, Jess’s knee is between both of Alice’s legs and if this is her penance, Alice is going to go down willingly. She’s already got matching bite marks on the inside of both her thighs, overlapping from dozens of similar encounters over the years.

Jess has her stripped, except for her panties, and is staring at her with a dark but satisfied look, as her gift ripples through Alice, who arches slightly on the bed, grinding against Jess’s knee. She catches a glimpse of them in the mirror overhanging the dresser, a nearly obscene tableau of Jess hovering over her fully clothed, and her splayed across the bed in only her undergarments, grinding against Jess’s denim-clad leg.

Jess leans forward, cradling her head so gently, pulling her gift back enough for Alice to remember coherent thought, but instead of kissing her, Jess’s lips graze her ear as she whispers, firm and cold, “mine.”

And Alice is willing to agree to anything because that’s the moment that Jess strikes, her hand sliding into Alice’s panties and everyone is going to hear everything tonight, because she doesn’t even need to ask to know that Jessamine feels the same - like an exposed nerve, a cornered animal. The threat has passed, but it is also coming for them, in some kind of hazy future, and if incredibly loud sex is how they’re going to deal with that new knowledge, well, there are worse coping methods.

—

Jess lets them both leave the room when they are summoned to Bella’s meeting.

“Calling family meetings now,” she mutters, and Alice elbows her. Jessamine’s grudge holding is legendary - nothing Bella does between now and graduation will be immune to her judgement. Right now, though, with her legs feeling a little shaky and her own plans for her mate for the next day or two forming in her mind, Alice thinks the trait is cute.

Emmett starts to applaud when they both walk in, and for once Jess just rolls her eyes and high-fives him, whilst Alice primly takes a seat. Bella’s looking at the spot just beyond Alice’s left ear, her eyes quite red, so she must have been here for at least an hour, when Jess just wanted to see how loud Alice could get… Edward just looks like he’s living his worse possible day, and - already having seen why Bella has called the meeting - Alice thought it might definitely be in the top ten.

Jess sits beside her, resting her foot on the back of Alice’s chair, and Alice tries not to smirk when she feels the strands of love and lust and mischief twist their ways around her.

The vote for Bella joining the family goes just as she sees it, even ending with Edward shattering the television into three large pieces. As Bella departs and the rest of the family raise to disappear into the depths of the house, Alice leans over and rests her head against Jess’s arm.

“You know I’m going to kill Edward for putting you in danger,” Jess says conversationally.

“You have the right to be angry,” Alice agreed, nuzzling against her arm like a feline. “But you know murder would upset Esme, and wouldn’t really solve anything.”

Jess scowls, and in one motion, Alice has been lifted and settled into Jess’s lap. “A maiming then.”

Alice giggles, though she know that Jess has never made a hollow threat in her life. Her temper is legendary, and apparently Edward will be facing a reckoning with Jess as well.

“I love you,” Alice said, looking up at her love. “Never, ever doubt that every single thing I do, I do it for you. For us. Because I love you and I want to protect you, and there’s nothing that I can think of that I wouldn’t do to keep you safe and happy, Jessie.”

Jessamine closes her eyes and rests her chin on Alice’s head. “I don’t need protecting when it puts you in danger; that will never be okay with me,” Jess replies.

“And I will never be okay with you risk yourself to protect me, so I am afraid we are at an impasse,” Alice retorts cheerily, reminding them both of Maria’s visit to Calgary in ’76.

Jess rolls her eyes, but nods infinitesimally so she doesn’t have to move her head. She sighs, such a heavy sound and Alice aches to make this better, to erase the hurt completely. But she knows that will take time, and she’s never been known for her patience.

“I love you,” Alice says meekly, settling against Jess’s chest.

“I never doubted that,” Jess says mildly, and the future flutters and reforms, and Alice smiles, happy to sit quietly with Jess for awhile. Everything will be okay but, most importantly, Jess will be okay, and that’s all Alice ever wanted.

[goldrushzukka]

1, 2, 7, 8, 9. (Sorry, i know that's like...all of them)

1. what themes would you like to write about that you feel don’t get explored very often?

i love writing coming out storylines. it’s not really that they’re uncommon, i just find a lot of catharsis in them. 

2. what are some common elements of stories you are tired of seeing? what would you avoid writing about?

i tend to avoid writing sibling dynamics bc i’m an only child and therefore not really. qualified. i love reading it though!! 

7. favourite description in your WIP?

it was really hard to pick one so i have a few answers for this bc i love to talk about myself so. (under the cut bc JESUS this got long but spoilers for and i’ll do anything you say (read it here!) ahead!!!)

- from chapter 2:

Sokka looks at him, a fantasy come to life, and takes off his stupid sweatpants.

He throws them at Zuko’s head, and earns himself a short burst of that real laugh, shocked and unguarded.

“You asshole,” Zuko says. He sits up and grabs Sokka’s hand, pulling him down on top of him. Something comes alive under Sokka’s skin where Zuko’s fingers graze his wrist. He calls it lust and ignores the fact that it feels nothing like it.

Zuko kisses him, his mouth still in the shape of laughter, and the alive thing screams for his attention. Sokka buries it and hopes it won’t deafen him before they’re done.

im very fond of this whole chapter (i think it’s probably my favourite? it was definitely the easiest to write) but i really love looking back on this part particularly now that we’re in the angsty part of the story bc this is where it all started. yes technically it started in chapter 1 but this is when sokka starts to fall for zuko. this is the beginning of all those pesky non-casual feelings that he’s going to pretend don’t exist until someone else calls him out on them.

- also from chapter 2:

He’s forty-five minutes late already, and when he knocks, a woman made of pursed lips and sharp angles answers the door. She looks elegant and expensive the same way a skyscraper does. Or a cache of medieval weaponry.

“Oh,” Sokka says, digging into his pocket to find the map on his phone. “I must have the wrong place, sorry -”

She looks him up and down, her eyes narrowed in a way that feels violent and practiced, and her smirk turns distasteful. Sokka risks a glance down at himself, at his torn up jeans - not distressed, just torn - and the Madonna t-shirt he’s pretty sure actually belongs to Katara, and thinks she might have a point. The bag in his hand feels heavier when her eyes land on it.

“Zuzu,” the woman calls into the apartment, “your dinner’s here.”

“I didn’t order -” Zuko appears in the doorway, bitter frustration in his expression as he looks at the woman.

His eyes fall on Sokka, though, and his face clears into a light-pollution smile.

this is technically two so i will start with: i love azula. i haven’t found any room to bring her back yet but believe me i am LOOKING. she’s hot and mean and gay and i LOVE HER. oh also insider scoop but suki’s date from earlier in this chapter.......WAS azula. they probably won’t see each other again because once azula met sokka and connected his face to the Best Friends Forever picture frame on suki’s desk she stopped answering the phone.

pt 2: i’ve had a couple of comments mention the “light-pollution smile” line specifically and i am always so happy to read them bc yeah. YEAH. i’ll admit it. that line HITS. 

- from chapter 4:

He sets his phone down - only, he doesn’t. He misses the table by a mile, and in his scramble to catch his phone before it breaks on the hardwood floor and wakes Momo on the cushion beside him, his hand finds the lip of his cereal bowl, and then that’s falling, too. He manages to catch the phone, but something in his head gets lost in translation on its way down his arms, and he ends up with a boxers-only lap full of soggy Cheerios.

Momo gets a splash of milk on his back and hisses at Zuko for his crimes, and somehow that’s the worst part of it.

haley @fruitysokka said that this passage reads like an action movie and i think about it all the time. (thank u haley i love u)

- lastly this extended metaphor from chapter 6:

The soup is good, once the heat of it clears him up enough to taste it. It’s thick and warm and there’s enough pepper that Sokka gets a kick from it even in his condition. He feels it all the way down his throat and into his stomach, where it mixes with the prickly nervousness he’s feeling from Zuko’s attention.

He sets the bowl down on the table and asks, eyes stuck on his hands in Momo’s fur where he’s climbed into his lap, “How was the date?”

“It was good, actually,” Zuko says. “Jet seems like a nice guy. He’s very - uh - passionate, I guess you could call it? He’s a climate and human rights activist.”

The spines of Sokka’s nervousness turn to daggers.

...

“I said yes. We’re getting lunch on Sunday.”

The daggers are swords now, and Sokka’s heart sinks down, down, down, right to the hilt.

...

“I’ll text you when I’m home,” Zuko promises, and Sokka’s heart skewers itself on a second sword.

Zuko’s smile when Sokka says, “Thank you for the soup,” is a third.

The door closing behind him is a fourth.

The silence as Sokka shuffles back to bed is every single one that remains.

something something canon swordsmen something pride comes before the fall something chivalry fell on his sword from eden by hozier. you guys get it i dont have to explain myself

8. favourite dialogue in your WIP?

ok so i cant share my actual favourite dialogue bc it's a spoiler for chapter 8 and i technically haven't written it yet (it's in my brain just.....plaguing me) but it's GOOD i SWEAR so. once again i have more than one answer bc actually? i love this fic and im proud of it. deal with it.

- from chapter 1:

“Hey, stranger,” Sokka says, still watching him in the mirror. The corner of Zuko’s mouth ticks up.

“You’re not following me, are you?” Zuko’s tone is seductive, endlessly so, and Sokka wonders while he dries his hands if he has to put it on or if he just sounds like that.

“You give a guy one compliment and he thinks you’re stalking him,” Sokka mutters, and Zuko laughs, low and enticing. Not the genuine, endearing laugh of this morning, but one with an agenda.

Well. Sokka always likes a plan.

“Are you following me? ” Sokka asks. He spies a miraculous dry patch on the sink bank and tries to be casual about the way he hops up to sit on it.

“I might be,” Zuko says, and at Sokka’s raised eyebrow, he continues, “I saw you at the bar and I wanted to talk to you. Sue me.”

“You wanted to talk.”

“Amongst other things.”

as a chronically awkward person i am INSANELY proud of the flirting in this fic. no idea if it would work in a real life situation. excited to never find out bc im not about to use lines from my fanfiction on real women. 

- from chapter 2

“You must be Suki,” Zuko says. He meets her gaze, and his fingers go still under Momo’s chin.

“And you’re Zuko,” Suki replies, her smile all different shades of intimidating. “I’d shake your hand, but I know where it’s just been.”

i wrote this entire scene just so i could have suki say this. im not even joking. suki is my favourite part of this entire fic and its not even ABOUT her.

- from chapter 3:

When Sokka crosses the room and slips under the covers beside him, Zuko says, “I can leave, if you want. I can go home.”

...

He asks, still barely hovering over Zuko, “What if I don’t want that?”

Zuko swallows. “I can stay.”

“So stay,” Sokka says, and lays his head down on Zuko’s chest.

i just think it’s sweet. i like it a lot. makes my heart hurt a little when i think about it. 

- from chapter 4:

[Suki // 15:13] there is a LOT of chmpagrjn

[Suki // 15:13] cahpmhagne

[Suki // 15:13] chsanpghn

[Suki // 15:14] alcohol :)

once again: suki is the best part of this whole fic. i love her so much. she is the reason the word bestie exists. im really proud of the texting in this fic bc it’s my first time actually including it in fic and it’s turned out really well!!

- ok last one bc i just realised this is turning into a novel. from chapter 4:

“How’s my baby?”

Zuko glances down at Momo, batting at the untied laces of his shoes with one determined paw. “He’s doing just fine.”

“And how’s Momo?”

“He’s - what?”

are there better written, more narratively important and emotive lines in this fic? yes. is this the best part of the entire thing? also yes. i invented the jin/yue wedding because i needed a reason for zuko to have a key in what became chapter 6, but sometimes i think the entire fic exists just for this exchange. best dialogue i have ever written.

9. what scene was the hardest for you to write and why?

the start of chapter 6 of aidays was difficult. i kept wanting to skip ahead to the meaty parts - i.e, zuko and his soup - but i didn’t want to do sokka a disservice like that. it was also really hard to maintain the balance of accurately describing the delirium of illness while still being coherent for the reader? so that took me a couple of days to get right.

[snowbellewells]

Ok. For the end of year asks. Don’t shoot me, but I want them all. If you don’t want to answer them all, just pick the ones you do.

Oh boy, Krystal @kmomof4, are you sure I’m really that interesting?!?  Just for you though, I’ll answer them all. (Though, I skipped number one, because I had already answered it in a previous ask.)

2) What’s your least favourite thing you wrote this year?

Oh man, I don’t know quite how to answer this, because I don’t hate it or anything - in fact I got some really lovely and enthusastic feedback for the first chapter I posted. But picking a Music Man AU as one of my fics for the @captainswanmoviemarathon was something I should have given a bit more thought to....  It’s really daunting to write something that is it’s own unique thing and interesting in its own way, and yet still does justice to something you love that much and have seen so many times. The movie musical is perfection already and that makes it really hard for me to make much progress! ;p

3) Which of your fics was most different from what you usually write?

I mentioned this briefly in my answer to @captain-emmajones earlier for my favorite work this year, but my Sherlock Holmes Victorian-era AU “The Case of the Heart in Armor” would be up there as being pretty out of the norm for me. I think you even mentioned in your comments, Krystal that it was a darker venture for me. Other than that, your birthday one shot “Here in Our Time” would be the other really “different” one for me, because I made a genuine attempt at M-rated smut.

4) Which of your fics this year was most successful?

I should probably go back and double-check numbers to be completely sure, but I am pretty certain that my ghostly @cssns one shot “For Once, Don’t Let Go” was my most commented on, liked, reblogged fic this year.  I chalk much of that up @hollyethecurious‘s gorgeous illustration with it and it begin part of such an awesome event. Still, I’m going paste the illustration on here for folks to see if they missed it, just because I love it and want to see it and celebrate it again:

5) Which of your fics do you wish was more successful?

In general I feel like the writings I have done this year have been pretty kindly noticed and commented on. I’m always flattered when anyone reads and responds to my work. I did get a kick out of my other @csjanuaryjoy submission “Adorable Old Man” and it didn’t seem to be one as many people saw, so I guess I’ll say that one.

6) What’s your favourite piece of dialogue you wrote this year?

There could be others that I’m just not remembering at present, but what popped into my mind was this lighthearted little bit of conversation in the most recent chapter of my @captainswanmoviemarathon fic “Do as the Romans Do”. I was happy with how it echoed a bit of Roman Holiday’s dialogue, but did it’s own think and blended humor, exasperation, and affection too:

“Blearily she found his gaze across the room, blinking as though to force herself fully awake, before she murmured quietly, her voice a husky, groggy purr, “It’s the oddest thing. I’ve never been alone with a man, even in my dress. Without my dress, it’s m-most unusual…” The slurry quality of her still half-slumbered words made him smile inspite of his discomfort. “But I don’t seem to mind. Do you?”

Killian felt a certain part of himself very distinctly minding her state of undress, and he was intensely glad for the blanket he had wrapped around himself. Yet, despite his checkered pedigree and past, and the rakish rogue he sometimes played with colleagues and friends, he did pride himself and make the effort to be a gentleman. Giving a small dip of his chin in a nod to her, one side of his mouth quirked up into a half-smile as he sardonically replied, “Don’t mind me, Love. As long as you’re comfortable. I only live here.”

Completely missing the wry sarcasm in his words and tone in her somnabulent state, she bobbed her head smartly in agreement and happily plopped back down on the pillow, curled up once again, and returned to her slumber.“

7) What’s your favourite piece of description or narration?

“The moonlight glittered off the dark waters of Storybrooke harbor, where the Jolly Roger was now permanently berthed. Pausing on the wooden planks of the dock, Emma gazed up at the ship, seeing her sailor standing on board, bathed in the ethereal glow and staring up at the stars overhead. His magnificent old ship had come to seem like her home too; she practically lived there with him for all intents and purposes.

Something warm swelled within her chest as Killian turned at the sound of her approach and smiled down at her in welcome. ...Holding out his hand to help her aboard, Emma thrilled at the gentle pressure of her pirate’s fingers wrapped around her smaller ones. As she reached his side on deck, she leaned into Killian’s sturdy frame while his arms encircled her and his spicy scent enveloped her senses, the rightness of the moment and them together and their place in their world - home at long last - could not be any clearer. Their port was set, wherever they might sail.”

From the last chapter of my @cssns19 wereworlf sequel “Face to Face in the Broad Daylight”, which didn’t conclude until February of this year, so hopefully it counts! (Many thanks once more to @branlovestowrite who did the gorgeous cover art for that one!)

8) Which fic this year was most fun to write?

I think I probably had the most fun writing my Sherlock Holmesian, Victorian AU. I got such a kick out of posting the different plot twists and cliffhangers and waiting for @kmomof4‘s reactions alone! And I seemed to gain several readers that didn’t usually follow my works as well! :)

9) If you could go back and change something about one of the fics you wrote this year, what would it be?

I don’t know exactly what pieces I would change without going back over and giving it a re-read, but I worried that my ghost @cssns20 one shot felt a bit rushed because I wrote and typed and edited and changed almost right up to midnight on my designated posting date and still wasn’t satisfied with it.  I just felt like it could ahve been a little more coherent or fluid and I didn’t have time left to make it quite what I had envisioned. Other people didn’t seem to mind though. It’s always funny to me which stories seem to grab people’s interest or gain readers.  I’m always grateful, but sometimes (often it fact) it isn’t the one I think it will be...

10) What, if anything, are you going to try to do differently in your writing in the new year?

I’m going to try to finish the all of the WIPs I have in progress. I have NEVER BEFORE, since I first began posting my fiction online, had so many pieces in progress at the same time. It worries me that people are waiting and my loss interest or patience and stop reading them. So I want to get all of those moving along and completed.  I also just hope to produce more stories in general. So many ideas, and so little time! But if I would be less self-critical and really use my down time efficiently, I think I could get farther on my fic writing in 2021.

[faejilly]

tag game

Fic Writer Edition (tagged by @silver-latin-and-salt​, tagging, idk, whoever is writing atm? @twistedsinews​ @leahazel​ @junemermaid​, anyone who’d like, no one who doesn’t, etc.)

Fandoms: atm, primarily Shadowhunters. But also BioWare: Dragon Age and Mass Effect and maybe someday I’ll post some Jade Empire.

Also the occasional other game or TV show or Yuletide inspired one-shot. It’s a wide and ridiculous range of things, from a Georgette Heyer regency epilogue to Code: Realize and #7kpp to Firefly & even some Sleepy Hollow ficlets from back in s1 before we realized how terrible TPTB were going to be.

Number of fics: I have 158 works published on AO3.

This includes a couple of fanmixes that are linked on there to companion fics/series, two collaborative fics which are not just mine, even less so than most writing that is, and four WIPs: two of which I am still working on, one of which will absolutely 100% NEVER ever get more, and then that last one will probably not get more but who knows, maybe in ten years we’ll do a reunion and try again (it’s one of the collabs).

AS WELL AS: forty-seven different ficlet collections, sorted by fandom and pairing(s), because otherwise I would honestly have almost 1000 things and never be able to find a single damn one of them when I wanted to (and neither would anyone else). Like, ten of them are just for Shadowhunters because I split up the coda-fic by season and then also I put the porn in its own thing and Clizzy is kind of a post-canon AU so they’re on their own too and spin-offs of a particular fic setting get their own collection so they’re all together and etc. etc. etc.

Fic I spent a lot of time on: Do we count time actually writing? Or just the amount of time it hung out in my head before I finished it? Because I probably spent the most actual physical writing time on Lost For Words, which is a frothy cotton-candy experiment in long-fic for Mass Effect that I posted chapter by chapter as I wrote it and actually finished. (I have never successfully repeated the experience, tho I suppose a couple of my Shadowhunters fics will sort-of qualify in terms of length when they’re done, but they didn’t get posted semi-regularly and in progressive chapters in at all the same way.)

In terms of time between debut and completion, that would probably have to go to Cruel Intentions, which took over five years between initially going up on the Dragon Age Kink Meme and actually getting a conclusion.

i am for you and if broken hearts were whole have both been lingering WIPs for over two years at this point now, though, and a couple other DA2 fics were pretty close to that five year mark as well. 😅

Fic I didn’t spend a lot of time on: ashes of angels because I was coming up on my bingo deadline so I just pounded it out in a day. (It’s actually quite good tho! I think so, anyway! I am very proud of it! Read part one first, if you haven’t yet!)

also Impossible, (DA2, Bethany/Sebastian, confessional!porn) which mostly wrote itself in pretty short order, which was delightful. (Tho I also had a very astute beta for that one; don’t think he’s on tumblr anymore tho, or I’d yell at him in thanks again.) I told y’all I had a priest!kink problem. Not that you hadn’t all noticed on your own, anyways...

Longest fic: Finished? The aforementioned Lost for Words at just over 62k.

In limbo? Persephone Rising is literally three times longer than my next longest fic (and still not done!) but it is also a collab fic with three authors, so I suppose that sort of evens out?

Active WIP? i am for you at 59k. I’m not sure how much more is left of that one, tbqh... it will probably end up a bit longer than LfW, tho maybe not by much.

Shortest fic: I have no fucking clue, 47 ficlet collections, remember? In terms of a thing that I forgot to collect, apparently it is Consequences, which is my Brosca after the Landsmeet in DA:O.

Most hits/Most kudos/Most bookmarks: ALL THREE FOR i am for you! (Wonder how it’ll do when it’s no longer marked as a WIP?)

Total word count: On AO3: 1,137,609 !!!

(Sorry, you can see why I had to make that big tho, right?)

Fic I want to rewrite/expand: Except for the revisions to what is now Maleficar, I much prefer to leave fic as is, once it’s up there, so nothing on the re-write front. It was what it was when I did it, and it’s important to remember that, even when you move on to new stuff, imo.

But! I have potential/hopeful sequels in the WIP folder for and breathing is wishing, out of some dreaming tree, with an if in its soul, and several assorted ficlet collections & prompts I’ve sort of teased over the years. 

Favourite fic of mine: At the moment, they have hung the sky with arrows because it’s a thing I’m not sure I ever really thought I was going to write, and then I did and I surprised myself a little, but it was fun and it ties together a lot of my thoughts on the Shadowhunters finale in a way I really enjoyed. (Also it has an actual plot! I don’t do that terribly often, I’m usually very introspective in my fic.)

Sneak peek of a WIP/Share an idea? I started a Shadowhunter!Magnus fic for a bingo square, but then scope creep! so I made a moodboard, but there is maybe a fic on the way... eventually. After my Bangs. 🤞🏻

The first time Magnus Bane met the High Warlock of Manhattan it was during his "travels", the two years after graduating from the Academy when most Nephilim wandered from Institute to Institute, seeing how things were done differently around the world, how they were still so often the same, learning about all the things you couldn't see in a classroom.

He wasn't actually in New York City in order to meet the High Warlock, of course, not as a 17-year-old foot soldier, that was well above his pay grade, as the mundanes put it. But when all the full-fledged Shadowhunters had work to do, he was assigned escort duty when the High Warlock showed up to do his yearly wards inspection. 

Magnus met High Warlock Lightwood at the main entrance, and almost swallowed his own tongue at the sight of him, a broad shouldered, long-legged white man dressed in a conservative but very well-tailored suit, with heavy eyebrows, even heavier eyelashes, and a complete and utter lack of anything resembling an expression on his face. 

A shiver went down Magnus' spine as he met the High Warlock's gaze, and he refused to think too much about why.

Magnus managed to introduce himself reasonably coherently, he thought, offering a hand to shake, but the High Warlock just raised an eyebrow at him. "I thought I'd talked them out of this nonsense last year."

"Uh." Magnus swallowed. The man was both terrifying and ludicrously attractive, and Magnus resigned himself to being a slightly stuttering idiot for the next four-to-six hours. "Not my call, I'm sorry to say. Sir."

The High Warlock rolled his eyes, and stepped forward. Magnus barely managed to dodge out of his way, and followed along behind him as he stalked towards the Angelic Core, where all the Institute Wards were anchored.

He never once acknowledged Magnus' presence as he worked, never asked for directions, or needed any sort of assistance. Magnus followed him anyway, and couldn't even bring himself to be upset about the waste of his time because damn, that view. He could see the shift of Lightwood's shoulders beneath the line of his coat, the tension in the muscles in his arms as each tiny motion correlated to whatever he was doing with his magic. There was so much power there, constrained and under his complete control.

The High Warlock never took so much as a wasted step in his clearly perfectly planned spiral of a route through the Institute's halls, circling out from the Core, stopping at each node, hitting all four corners of the building, before reaching the main doors again several hours later. 

Once there he finally turned and looked at Magnus directly. He dipped his head in some slight acknowledgement, straightened his cuffs, and his face shifted into something that was merely neutral and professional rather than granite. "There were no concerns to note, Mr. Bane. The wards have been refreshed, and the contract terms have been met."

"Thank you," Magnus managed, though he had to cough to get his voice to cooperate. 

The High Warlock's face softened, a hint of something that wasn't quite surprise in his eyes, but Magnus wasn't sure what to call it instead. "You're very welcome."

He nodded again, slightly more sincerely, perhaps, though there still wasn't enough of an expression on his face to properly qualify, in Magnus' opinion, and then he turned and left. 

Magnus blinked at the doors as they shut behind him, and let out one long slow exhale. His shoulders relaxed, and it was only now that his posture sagged that he realized he'd been extra tense the entire time, as if waiting for an attack that had never come.

[queerofcups]

I'm curious, has your opinion about Check Please changed? I remember you mentioning that you don't like it in the past.

Hmmm. I think the short answer is still that no, I don’t like Check Please. Since it’s ended and I’ve dug around to find people engaging with it critically, I’ve enjoyed trying to shift my thinking of my own engagement. Initially I characterized my own reading as hate reading. Now I think of it more like...I’m engaging with a piece of media that I initially had really high hopes for but that was fundamentally unsuccessful at being satisfying (because like, the word good doesn’t really mean anything? So I’m questioning what I mean when I say that Check Please isn’t good). 

A lot of this has been helped along by listening to the folks over at @checkdispleased and examining when I agree or disagree with what they have to say and why. 

So there are some things about my experience that have been static:

Ultimately I’m rooting for Ngozi to get her money, because a Black woman getting money in a medium that’s been largely unfriendly to Black women is a cause for celebration.

I think Ngozi is an incredibly talented visual artist. Even when I was dead bored or actively offended by something happening in the comic, I would never say the art was ugly. I’m not a visual person and am really picky about animation styles and hers was always really pleasing to me (the first year stuff was a little touch and go but it grew into something really distinctive and pleasing to look at).

I think as good a visual artist Ngozi is, she’s a really poor writer. Like. Anyone who has stuck around reading my blog for a while knows that I have very mixed feelings about posting WIPs so I absolutely understand the weird bind that posting a WIP can put you in--you get really tied to narratives that you might have just nixed if you were in a drafting phase, you don’t have to retcon things, easier to keep track of all the bullshit you said and now you have to make good on. But Check Please’s actual narrative feels like someone’s first draft that they didn’t run by anyone, didn’t really go back and read closely to make sure things lined up, and then constantly made excuses about these things when people peeped it (the whole oooh the story happens outside of the comic ooooh is an excuse. I’ve read plenty of fic that questions and imagines telling untold stories or looking past traditional narratives or whatever. This ain’t that.) And I think that that’s...well, I don’t think its fine but I think my reaction wouldn’t be so strong if I didn’t encounter a) people raving about the writing and b) people insisting that anyone who dares to say aloud that the writing is poor is somehow committing treason or something

I have mixed feelings about applying ‘the author is dead’ to Check Please because the story is maybe not coherent without her Word of God’ing it up all over the place. And I want to be specific with this because...I don’t think that there’s a problem with someone writing characters with different identities than their own. And...Check Please is wild homophobic. It’s wild misogynistic & femmephobic. The hatred for the South is palpable. The fantastical romanticization of a sport that is deeply patriarchal + all the oppressions that go with that is hard for me. I don’t know Ngozi, I don’t know anything about how she identifies. But I know how it feels to read something that’s been written by someone who hasn’t investigated their own biases and isn’t creating work that investigates that either (people who say Check Please does any kind of investigating or subverting of toxic masculinity or homophobia just aren’t reading the same comic as me)

That was probably more than you asked for but since I haven’t been engaging with phandom as much, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Check Please (also I’m writing a fic in the fandom that’s forcing me to think harder about it)